#easily the longest fic on this account. please take it AWAY from my hands | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sanjisock · 6 years ago

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Fuck, Marry, Kill (or, how Usopp becomes the best matchmaker of the sea without really trying)

ao3

It’s a classic , Usopp said. Any pirate worth their salt would play this at least once , he said.

Sanji would say he’s around eighty-percent sure Usopp just made this game up, but Sanji is always eighty-percent sure Usopp made something up just by principle alone. It certainly doesn’t help Usopp’s case that Nami is grinning wide beside him, notepad and quill in hands.

“So,” Nami echoes Usopp’s earlier question cheerfully, and her smile is way too beautiful and magnificent for the words that come out of her mouth next: “fuck, marry, kill. Who’s your pick?”

There are rules to this stupid game. Actual fucking rules . Not even the world government kind, the ones they break on a daily basis anyways because, hey, pirates. These rules are the kind that forces you to pay Nami a hefty amount of Berries if you break them, which, on the deck of Sunny, means nothing short of Serious Business.

Nami had taken to the game with surprising interest as soon as Usopp told her about it, but then again, she talked about it with the same tone she uses when she’s going to swindle a lot of money from an unsuspecting poor fellow (read: Zoro), so maybe this isn’t much of a surprise at all.

The rules, pinned next to the spice cupboard and right under the dishwashing duty roster, are as follows:

A crew member must be picked whenever possible.

Only one name is to be given for each category.

If, and only if, one has come up with a legitimate reason not to pick a crew member, it has to be someone they’ve met, known, or at the very least, heard.

Choices are based on pure objective reasoning and any FUCK/MARRY shall not be interpreted as anything resembling interest or, worse, intention to pursue. This means you, Sanji.

The same applies to KILL. This means you, Zoro.

Individual answers are confidential and worth B500,000/answer, or 10% of your last loot, whichever is higher.*

*) Payments are to be made in cash to Nami.

Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. Sanji thinks he saw her eyes turn Berries-shaped. He personally thinks she still looks beautiful, and tells her as much.

She tells him this doesn’t excuse him from the game, and expects his answer by the end of the week.

Sanji is the first victim by elimination — Chopper is out of the game because he is young, innocent and, ultimately, not human, Zoro is sleeping like the oaf he is, Luffy doesn’t seem to have figured out that the thing below his belt is useful for something other than peeing, and the others have left the ship to explore the newest island they’ve just docked at.

Sanji silently wishes the marines would start attacking them just so they could distract Nami and Usopp from the shitty game.

It’s not that Sanji wants to ruin what is — Nami’s expensive fine notwithstanding — ultimately some harmless fun. Sanji has never had problems going along with the crew’s antics, and between declaring war on the World Government and punching a royalty so hard they call a marine admiral after you, this one is far from outrageous by any means. He doesn’t think it’s physically possible for him to give Nami a no for an answer, either.

It’s just that... he doesn’t actually have an answer.

He’s a romantic person by nature. He likes to make everyone happy, and when that doesn’t work out, he likes to make everyone he gives a shit about happy. He does preen from the more... feminine attention, but between the bustling customers of Baratie, entering and leaving as they please, he never learned how to pick favorites.

Nami points at rule number two.

Usopp suggests he should just pick Zoro for MARRY, because they already fight like an old married couple anyways.

Sanji threatens to put Usopp under KILL and break the fifth rule, exactly in that order. Usopp has enough self preservation instinct to shut up really fast after that.

Brook has never heard of the game, which gives more credibility to the Usopp-Made-This-Game-Up Theory, but it’s not like there’s stopping them at this point, so Sanji fumes and glares, but in silence. Usopp smartly stays quiet.

Brook asks if Nami would show him her panties if he puts her under MARRY. Nami clocks him in the skull.

He settles on Zoro for MARRY.

“What,” Sanji says, stunned.

“Well, Zoro-san is a disciplined, reputable swordsman,” Brook explains, “and any decent swordsman would make a responsible husband.”

That...probably makes sense in Swordsman-Speak, or whatever language people like Zoro, who substitutes normal greeting with stabbing and slashing, speak in. Whatever. Sanji is civilized , and will not bother to even try to understand.

Brook can’t name anyone under KILL. He is, however, curious if anyone wants to pick him, considering he’s already dead, yohoho, skull joke!

Nami groans and hits his skull, again.

Franky has heard of the game, but he can’t pinpoint where he’s exactly heard it from, and Sanji suspects it’s from Usopp.

Franky also puts Zoro under MARRY. Franky is so not on Sanji’s list of favorite people today.

“Not you too,” Sanji groans, scandalized, because Brook is approximately a billion years old and therefore would understandably consider Zoro’s neanderthal values desirable, but Franky is, like, the future . Cyborgs are essentially sentient robots.

Franky shrugs. “He’s a super dude, his fights make great shanties, he can help me carry the ship materials —”

“ I can help you carry the ship materials,” Sanji interrupts, and wonders how his life has gotten to a point where he’s trying to compete with Zoro for Franky’s hand in marriage.

“ And ,” Franky presses, “he won’t chew me out for burping on the table after dinner.”

Sanji’s eyes twitch at that. Well. In sickness and health, sure, but that? That’s just barbaric.

“He’s a great dude who breaks the Sunny’s railings once a week,” Sanji points out, switching his strategy. If he can’t win, at least Zoro should lose, too.

His strategy backfires as Franky raises his eyebrow at him and asks, “Speaking of, didn’t you break the front railing yesterday?”

Franky puts Sanji on KILL for that.

Sanji considers smashing his feet through the railing again, just because he can.

Robin immediately picks Zoro for MARRY, because blah yadda blah bushido code, something something gentlemanly, yeah, yeah. Sanji mentally apologizes for tuning her out, but if he has to listen to beautiful Robin-chan talking about Zoro being a good husband, Sanji won’t be able to resist arguing, and that just won’t do. He isn’t about to question a lady’s decision, however irrational. Nobody’s perfect after all — not even Robin.

She also puts Zoro under KILL for ruining her flower bed last week when he accidentally dropped his oversized training weight (which is unnecessarily huge and totally an overcompensation for something ), and he falls for her all over again. Robin really is perfect.

She then tries to clarify whether normal Franky and Cyborg Franky count as one.

“Uh,” Nami says, confused, “would it even make a difference?”

“Nami,” Robin says as she leans forward, chin in hand and a mysterious smile playing on her lips, “the hands make all the difference.”

Robin puts Cyborg Franky under FUCK. Sanji blinks.

Usopp grimaces.

Nami has a distant look on her face, the kind of expression that guys wear when they witness other guys get hit in the nuts.

They pointedly don’t ask , and back away from the room slowly.

The final tally is:

Sanji gets one flattering FUCK (he hasn’t found out from whom, and honestly, considering the available options of Usopp, Luffy and Nami, doesn’t want to take his chances), Robin gets two (Nami shiftily avoids everyone’s eyes for this one), Cyborg Franky gets one (Franky opens his mouth to question the specificity, turns beet red by his own realization, and promptly closes it), and Zoro gets one ( ew , is what Sanji would like to say, but Sanji is man enough to admit that Zoro can get it, considering those abs and deltoids he keeps flashing due to his unexplainable aversions to clothing. Fucking caveman).

Zoro gets a whopping five for MARRY.

That’s literally all the strawhats, minus Luffy (who probably doesn’t even know what marriage is), Chopper, Zoro himself, and Sanji.

What the actual fuck .

Sanji succumbs to curiosity and pays Nami his ten percent.

Zoro put Sanji under KILL, he finds out.

It’s not a surprise. Hell, it’s the most predictable thing coming out of this game—the sky is blue, water is wet, and Zoro puts Sanji under KILL. Whatever. Sanji still hasn’t decided on his list quite yet, but he is certain he’d put Zoro under KILL, too.

Nami asks him if he wants to know what Zoro’s FUCK and MARRY are, and Sanji politely declines because he just doesn’t care which random chick Zoro wants to do the deed with and not because the way his stomach clenches oddly at the thought, really . It’s probably that beautiful marine lady that always tags along with Smoker — Tashigi-chan or something. Zoro always acts funny around her, even when the others never noticed. He’s an open book to Sanji like that.

Sanji walks away and doesn’t give it a second thought.

Bastard.

He gave it a second thought.

And a third. And a fourth. And damn his shitty traitorous brain to hell, a fifth.

By the time lunch rolls around Zoro and Tashigi are married with a quaint little dojo at the foot of a mountain and blessed with three bespectacled, green-haired children Sanji can’t even bring himself to hate because they’d smile just so when their Uncle Sanji makes their favorite apple pie.

Not that there’s anything to hate. About Zoro and Tashigi-chan, that is. Well, there’s always something to hate about Zoro because he’s Zoro , and Sanji would probably nag him a little for receiving the affections from such a beautiful lady like Tashigi, but there’s absolutely nothing deplorable about the idea in general. They’d get along swimmingly anyways, probably spending hours and hours just talking about shitty swords and other sharp, pointy things as their three children play in their backyard overlooking a beautiful deep blue sea, the setting sun painting a warm backdrop on the wooden walls of their dojo.

He blinks as his train of thought crashes and derails into a nearby mental chasm.

He blinks again, just for good measure.

Holy fucking shit, he has a problem .

“Marines!” Usopp yells from the crow’s nest, and Sanji wakes up, eyes still bleary, to three marine ships surrounding Sunny, cannons loaded and aimed towards the deck.

Be careful what you wish for, he feels like telling his past self.

He rushes to the deck to get a clearer view on their enemies, and hell , he’s convinced the universe finds pleasure in finding new ways to fuck him over because he sees Smoker on the helm of the largest marine ship.

And if there’s Smoker, there’s —

“Shit,” Zoro mutters from beside him, and Sanji only needs to follow his gaze to see Tashigi walk up towards the helm to stand beside Smoker. Because of course Zoro would notice her immediately. There are roughly a thousand marines on three of these galleons and she’s the first person Zoro sees. Great. Awesome. That would make a romantic story to tell their three green-haired children.

God damn it. His brain really needs to stop with the children already. He considers going for a check up with Chopper just for this.

A thousand bloodthirsty marines prove to be a good enough distraction from Zoro and Tashigi’s imaginary children, and soon Sanji is lost in the rhythm of the fight, almost enjoying it. He kicks a marine on the back of the head, does a spinning kick to immobilize another ten, and jumps aside to avoid a gunshot —

Only to find himself face to face with Tashigi.

“Black Leg —” Tashigi says, immediately taking a fighting stance, but Sanji is faster.

Before he knows it, he finds himself kicking the two guys guarding her, lifts and drives his right leg on her sword and into the cabin wall right beside her head, effectively pinning her to the wall. Sanji doesn’t kick women, would never harm a woman, but anything around her is fair game and he feels almost guilty for trying to wrestle a loophole in his own principle.

He needs to do this, though. He has to. She’s a marine, his enemy, a threat. And… there’s something he needs to know.

He blurts without thinking, “fuck, marry, kill. Who would you pick?”

Tashigi starts. “What?”

He thinks he’s blushing, but he figures if he wants to avoid embarrassment the ship has sailed a long time ago so he says, “out of the strawhats. If you had to choose, who would you fuck, marry and kill?”

Tashigi narrows her eyes and pulls harder on her sword. “Are you joking, pirate?!”

Sanji is stronger, though. He pushes her sword deeper into the wall. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but I don’t joke about this.”

Tashigi wears the expression of someone who wonders what kind of life decisions she’s made that has led her into this situation, which is something Sanji can relate with. “Well, fuck you , pirate. I’d kill you .”

That’s fair, Sanji supposes. “And marry?”

She opens her mouth, stops herself from saying at least three other different curses before turning an interesting shade of red.

She mumbles her answer.

“Yes, Tashigi-chan?”

“Don’t call me Tashigi- chan ,” she snarls, much louder, before muttering again, though Sanji can hear it this time, a low, shy, “well, that swordsman of yours did save my life back in Punk Hazard.”

Tashigi blushes brighter, and Sanji knows a lost cause when he sees one.

Zoro and Tashigi have four children this time in his head, three girls and one boy, and it sucks, so fucking unfair that everyone wants to marry Zoro, with his stupid hair and stupid face and stupid everything. What’s so good about him anyways? The moron doesn’t even have depth perception . He doesn’t deserve all these beautiful girls, wouldn’t even be able to cherish them and treat them with love like Sanji would.

Who’s to say that they would know him either? Zoro’s a moron , after all, and he probably only has, like, three sets of expressions. Sure, Sanji can read his tics, knows the way Zoro clenches and unclenches his left hand when he sees a potentially strong opponents, the way Zoro would rub the back of his neck when he’s embarrassed — but these girls don’t know that. He doesn’t think anyone knows that, and without knowing the real Zoro, how could they make him happy? Would they know how to find him when he gets lost? Would they cook him his favorite food every day? Would they love him as much Sanji does —

Wait.

Sanji pauses.

And.

Breathes.

Tashigi has started protesting now, demanding her swords to be returned now that she’s gone along with his ridiculous demands, but it all sounds so distant now, because.

He loves. Zoro.

Sanji inhales. Then exhales.

He loves Zoro .

He sees it again, the dojo at the foot of a hill overlooking the beautiful blue sea, but this time the dojo belongs to Zoro and him , and two of the four children have blonde hair, and the sea outside is All Blue. The imagination seems so vivid because somewhere along the line that has become his dream , a future he envisioned as clearly as finding All Blue and witnessing Luffy become a Pirate King.

Fuck, he’s in love with Zoro.

“Shit,” he says heartily. “I’m in love with Zoro.”

“What?” Tashigi says, perplexed. Sanji hopes it’s because she can’t hear him amidst the cacophony of gunfire, swords, and bodies hitting the floor.

He lowers his leg and steps back, still in shock by the revelation.

Tashigi is looking at him in confusion, or at least he assumes she does, because he’s no longer paying much attention to his surroundings. How could he, when he’s just come to such a huge revelation about himself, holy fucking hell he’s in love with Zoro —

A passing marine takes the chance and stabs a sword through his lungs.

The last thing he remembers is choking on air, mentally laughing at the fucked up irony of living on a ship surrounded by endless seas just to meet his end by drowning on dry land. He thinks he saw flashes of metal, of Zoro’s stupid green hair and stupider face, torn apart between anger and concern, Sanji’s name for once stumbled out of his lips — but Sanji is pretty sure he imagined this last part up. He is a romantic fool like that.

He blinks himself awake to the familiar smell of Chopper’s infirmary, the oddly soothing mix of medicine and sweets. He tries to sit up as far as his bandaged torso would allow, and when he catches the orange of Nami’s hair his heart warms but doesn’t flutter. It hasn’t been, he realizes, for quite some time.

He really is in love with Zoro. God damn it.

“Sanji?” Nami says when their eyes finally meet, and she hurriedly stands up, “oh my god, you’re awake, I need to wake Chopper up, Chopper —”

“Don’t worry, Nami-san,” he says, catching her wrist just in time before she rushes out of his reach, “I’m fine. Let our doctor sleep for some time.”

“But,” she says, but it’s a token resistance at best, as she’s already sitting down again. She tugs his grip lightly at that — a small, playful movement — but he feels the pull reverberate through his arm and to his chest, jarring him into a coughing fit.

He thinks he’s coughed up both of his lungs before a glass of water touches his lips. It takes him a few gulps and a couple more deep breaths before he realizes Nami is rambling a guilty “oh my god, Sanji-kun, oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

He clears his throat and tries to give her his best smile, “please don’t apologize, Nami-san! A beautiful face like yours shall not be marred with unnecessary worries.”

Nami sighs, but it’s fond. “You were unconscious for a whole week,” she says, squeezing his shoulder, “let me fuss over you for a while.”

Sanji whips his head towards her in shock, mouth hanging open

“A week,” he echoes. No wonder he feels so sluggish. He thought it might have been the medicine, but apparently he danced far too near to the grim reaper than he was comfortable with.

His gaze drifts to take in more of the infirmary, afraid that he’s missed more important details like not remembering an entire week of his life . For the most part everything seems to be in place, large shelves filled with Chopper’s neatly-arranged medical books beside his work table, with complicated looking medical appliances situated more at the corner of the room, near the door. His gaze eventually falls on the small bedside table and he does a double take.

Zoro’s katanas — all three of them — are leaning against the foot of the table. Sanji frowns; it’s rare to see them without their owner, and rarer still to see them being parted with so voluntarily, away from the swordsman's sight.

“Yeah, Zoro was here,” Nami answers the unvoiced question as she notices what he’s been staring at, “been by your bedside all week, actually. We had a roster, just in case you —” Nami pauses at that, looks away and — did her voice waver at the end there? “You know. Anyway, didn’t even need the whole roster thing in the end because Zoro just wouldn’t leave. Stubborn man. Just his luck you woke up when he took a bathroom break; serves him right for growling at me when I offered him to switch on the first day. He looked like he was ready to gouge his remaining eye out and leave it in the infirmary if it meant keeping an eye on you, science be damned.”

Sanji blinks, again, at the story. There’s a weird tug at this chest. He lifts his hand up to touch it, and it feels warm, from the inside.

“It’s frankly kind of cute, how he’s been acting like a mother hen,” Nami continues, and her smile gains a mischievous edge as she adds, “or, you know, like a worried husband.”

Sanji wants to say something to that, but Chopper probably gave him some strong stuff because his tongue feels heavy and he can feel the strong pull of sleep dragging him back to unconsciousness.

He sees darkness at the edges of his vision, and doesn’t think at all as he says, “yeah, he would make a good husband,” and eyes already closed, he sees the house at the foot of the hill and mumbles, “I’d marry him.”

Chopper’s medicine really is strong.

The next time Sanji opens his eyes, there’s a cottony rasp on the inside of his mouth and dread looming at the back of his mind. It’s reminiscent of days when they partied too hard and he drank one too many glasses of liquor, but worse , because he remembers every single word he said to Nami.

He considers asking Chopper on his stance on euthanasia.

It doesn’t help that the person sitting beside his bed is not the ever-beautiful, ever-wonderful Nami, but the last person he’d rather see after his accidental confession. He has no doubt that Nami has told Zoro everything — has told everyone everything — and while his body has mostly recovered from the injuries, he’s pretty sure he could still die from embarrassment.

He sits up on the bed, scrambling for an excuse, “Zoro —”

“You almost died,” Zoro interrupts before Sanji could even finish his sentence, and takes Sanji’s hand in his. “Don’t you dare do that again, Shit Cook.”

Sanji stares at their hands, and wonders if Chopper’s medicine is even stronger than he thought. “What does it mean to you?”

Zoro shrugs. “You know what,” he answers vaguely.

Sanji doesn’t , though. Zoro shifts in his seat, looking away, seemingly embarrassed by his own words, and Sanji is left wondering what the fuck is happening. Zoro is the type of person who gives brutally honest and oftentimes insensitive answers. He doesn’t give cryptic, vague answers — that’s more of Sanji’s department. “What?”

Zoro pulls his hand away, and Sanji hates how his own hand feels very cold all of a sudden. “You know. Our answers for Usopp’s stupid game.”

Sanji would rather take another sword to the chest than to continue with this conversation, so he does the cowardly thing and practically leaps out of the bed. “I’m not in the mood to talk about that.”

Zoro is faster, though — Sanji is blaming all the medicines in his bloodstream for his slow reaction — and manages to catch Sanji by the wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Away. Out.” He pats his pockets with his free hand, but doesn’t find his cigarettes, unsurprisingly. Fuck, he needs a smoke. “In case you forgot, I haven’t been out for a week from this shitty room.”

“Seriously?” Zoro growls in reply, tightening his grip. “That’s all you got to say? Didn’t you pay for my answers? Nami told me you — if that sea witch is lying again —”

“I told you not to call Nami-san like that,” he replies, almost instinctively, feeling more and more agitated by the turn of the conversation. “What the fuck are you talking about, brainless mosshead.”

Zoro glowers at him, face oddly serious. “Did you or did you not get my answers for the stupid game?”

Sanji is going to lose it. Is Zoro seriously trying to rub this whole thing in his face? The fact that Sanji wants to marry him, even after knowing Zoro only puts him under kill? Knowing that Zoro doesn’t find him desirable in any way, that he’d prefer having three wonderful well-mannered kids with a beautiful marine lady?

“You put me under KILL!” He yells, unable to stop himself. “If this is your way of telling me you want to kill me, drop it. Way too roundabout for your style, Marimo. And just in case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t bother to find out who you want to fuck. Or marry.” He looks away, trying not to choke on his own heart. “Happy?”

Zoro’s eyes widen comically at that, and he loosens his grip on Sanj’s wrist in surprise; Sanji doesn’t miss the chance and kicks him on the chest.

Zoro flies out of the infirmary through the door with a satisfying bang , and Sanji relishes his victory for a moment before growing reluctantly concerned as Zoro doesn’t get up from that. Surely he didn’t kick him that hard, did he? He jogs towards the dust-covered body on the deck, and finds Zoro with his head in his hand, mouth twisting into a hysterical laughter.

“Stupid cook,” Zoro says as soon as Sanji’s close enough to hear him, “are you jealous?”

Sanji growls, and pointedly doesn’t blush. “I’m going to kill you.”

When Zoro drops his hand and looks up, he doesn’t look like he’s making fun of Sanji, though. He looks surprised, and even almost… hopeful? “You are jealous.”

Sanji has about a thousand retorts to that, but all of them die in his lips as Zoro tugs him down by the hand, pulling him to crouch right in front of Zoro. Their faces are really close like this, and Sanji can’t look away.

“Cook,” Zoro says when Sanji doesn’t say anything, “Nami said you put me under your MARRY. Is that true?”

Sanji refuses to answer, but the way he looks away and blushes like a fourteen-year-old is probably a good enough answer for Zoro. Zoro laughs, tightens his grip on Sanji’s wrist and pulls him into a kiss.

Sanji’s life needs to have fewer twists before he dies from heart attack at the tender age of twenty-one.

When they part, Zoro doesn’t lean away; presses their foreheads together instead, his hand large and warm on the nape of Sanji’s neck. There’s a big grin plastered across Zoro’s flushed face, the kind that Sanji only sees whenever the swordsman comes across an alcohol he likes, or wins a particularly hard fight, or — as Sanji begins to understand, heart hammering in his chest like it’s trying to escape — whenever Zoro is really, really happy, apparently. And to think that Sanji is the one who puts that smile on Zoro’s face —

“I put you under MARRY, you dumbass,” Zoro says, though his insult doesn’t carry much weight, considering the stupid grin still wouldn’t leave his face. “Put you under everything , Cook. Kill, fuck, marry — the whole deal. Because that’s how far you’ve messed me up — you idiot, stupid, annoying, oblivious Shit Cook,” he presses another kiss, chaste and light and all too quick, leaving tingling sensations on Sanji’s lips. “I am in love with you.”

The words rattle against Sanji’s ribcage, his heart threatening to burst from his chest. His face feels warm all over, and he’d look away, except for the fact that Zoro’s hands are gently cupping his face, thumb rubbing absentmindedly against Sanji’s cheek.

“You’d make the shittiest husband ever,” Sanji tells him, because Zoro might be the love of his life — and ain’t that a thought that could make his heart miss a couple of beats — but he still wouldn’t miss a chance to tease Zoro.

“Yeah.” Zoro simply agrees at that, laughing softly. “I’d be your shittiest husband, though.”

Sanji doesn’t find a reason to argue with that, heart jackrabbiting against his chest, and simply leans for another kiss.

10.

By unanimous decision, and with some heavy censorship by replacing FUCK with SLEEP, they decided that Chopper is at least old and human enough to know what’s going on with the game.

“I’m not happy at all that you decided to finally include me in the game, bastard!” Chopper said with a happy wiggle, his hooves clapping together excitedly.

He puts Zoro under SLEEP. Literally. Chopper thinks Zoro makes a great pillow, and a great sleeping partner because he doesn’t move around.

Chopper purses his lips at MARRY.

“The idea of human marriage is still foreign to me,” he says, explaining his silence, “there are too many factors involved in human marriage. For us reindeers, all we look for in a mate is one who can provide us food.”

As if on cue, Zoro throws a large fish onto the deck. There are three large slashes on its belly, crossing through its gills.

Chopper picks Zoro for MARRY.

Sanji resists the urge to bash his head repeatedly on the ship mast, and doesn’t go through with it only because Zoro leans in and steals a kiss from him, effectively blocking his path.

Bastard. Shittiest husband ever .

#opfanfic #zosan #roronoa zoro #sanji #one piece #easily the longest fic on this account. please take it AWAY from my hands

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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And Everyday: When Life Gives You Lemons, Put Some Vodka in Your Lemonade (Crystal Methyd/Gigi Goode, Jaida Essence Hall/Jan Sport) - Campvanjie

AN: This was originally written for a fic exchange, and posted to AO3 under my now deleted account there on May 1st, 2020. Reposting here, because I’m proud of it, and am clearing old S12 fics from my Google drive. I’m the original author of this work, and there’s absolutely no plagiarism going on!

Summary: Gigi needs a soft place to land after her quarter-life meltdown, and Crystal realizes the happily every after she gave up on, might not be totally out of reach. Meanwhile, Jaida and Jan work on restoring an old barnhouse; because marriage begets home improvement.Prompts: Parenthood AU, Enemies to Lovers, Idiots in Love, and Angst all used to varying degrees.

CW: conversations around divorce/child custody and (past) bullying behavior, character mentions (non-specific) mental health issues as the reason for a past breakup.

“- Ugh, anyway, it’s like 3:30, he’s almost an hour late and I don’t know why the fuck I even got all dressed up just to sit at court being looked at like I’m some cheap bitch-”, Gigi grumbled into her phone. It was pressed against her cheek as she tried her best to juggle her purse and a extra-large coffee held in her other hand, her livid glare captured perfectly in the harsh, white light of the bathroom mirror across from her.

“I dunno, maybe because you have to be there? Kind of the mom thing to do.”, Crystal told her, static edging into her voice.

It was a long-distance call after all, and Gigi had fought against her fingers dialing the number almost by muscle memory. She had only relented once she had gotten through the packed hallway of the courts complex, and almost collapsed into what seemed like the only empty bathroom.

Call Crystal, had been the only thing she could think of do, in between beating her palms against the cool, brick walls, and shaking with sobs she refused to shed for fear of ruining her makeup.

Without missing a beat; Crystal had picked up, her voice always high and slowed, syllables enunciated in a way that had trained Gigi into asking for coffee, like it was spelled with a K, calling her son’s name, with the E in the middle a sharp, upward spike.

Crystal, Gigi realized with a start; was who had taught her to gulp in her breaths to hide herself crying, and shove her fist into her front pocket, to keep herself from shaking so much.

“I know. I know you’re right. I just- God, I’m so sick of it. It just want this all to be over so I can go back to what’s important, and stop feeling like my entire world is crashing down around me."

Crystal laughed, a little too dry for it to be genuine. "Hey, Gigi?"

"Hm?"

"If you- if you wanted, maybe you and the little munchkin could visit? Come see me in Missouri, maybe it’ll get your mind off things."

Gigi’s hands stopped underneath the stream of lukewarm water flowing from the faucet, her eyes meeting her reflection in the mirror. She looked like shit, no matter how much her carefully applied façade remained in place, her gaze jittered around the small room and she had never felt so truly tired in her entire life.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I mean, me of all people should know something about everything falling apart."

Less than an hour later, Gigi found herself dialing Crystal’s number again. She stood outside the courthouse, her glasses misted from the early- evening rain shower as she waited for her car.

Relinquished. She didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or take her parents up on their offer to live in their Florida timeshare and disappear off the face of the planet, too.

"He’s not coming because he filed paperwork to relinquish parental rights two weeks ago. In the eyes of the law, it’s just the two of you.”, her lawyer had told her, after finding Gigi just outside the bathroom. Jackie Cox was always dressed in tweed, pastel, pantsuits, dark hair coiffed in buttery smooth curls at the top of her head, her lips pursed in a thin, straight line, as though she was perpetually exhausted.

Gigi supposed that, being one of the city’s longest-serving family court attorneys would do that to you.

“I don’t know how I missed it on the dockets, but I should have told you first.”, Jackie apologized; her hand warm and steady at the small of Gigi’s back as she walked her client back up the hallway.

Gigi grunted, shrugging her shoulders underneath her jacket. “It’s fin- It wouldn’t have changed anything, Jackie. Really, thanks for everything."

She let herself lean against Jackie, letting one of her oldest friends wrap her arms around her, breathing in the scent of Jackie’s honeysuckle perfume on the courthouse steps.

"I’m sorry this happened-”, Jackie started, and Gigi could feel her heart sink to her stomach.

She had never done well with pity, least of all when she truly deserved it.

“Don’t be. Please, just don’t.”

“What are you going to do now?”, Jackie asked, as Gigi stepped out of her embrace, surveying the street before them that was quickly filling with cars and bikes and buses as the work day finished and school let out for the day.

“Right now? Get in an Uber and hope they don’t charge me triple for being late at daycare again.”

Crystal picked up on the fourth ring, and Gigi could hear the sound of a sink running in the background. Water splashed against metal, and the distinct sound of another woman’s voice, screeching with laughter, buzzed through the speakers of Gigi’s phone.

“Whoo- chile, I’m telling you if you come any closer with that flour, I’m gonna-"

"Shit. Sorry.”, Crystal had muffled the phone against her chest, the static only cutting out when Gigi was sure she had ducked into another room.

“How quickly can you get that guest room set up? I’m pretty sure we can make it for tomorrow if I drive through the night.”

“Mom- Mom it’s twelve-thirty-five. It’s way, way, way past your bedtime!”, Destiny crowed from his carseat, kicking at Gigi’s back. His blonde curls were plastered to the side of his face, lips dusted with salt from the bag of chips that Gigi had let him pick out form himself at their last rest stop.

Their entire lives had fit neatly into the sickeningly suburban five-seater that his father had insisted on, the largest luggage case filled with her son’s clothes and bedsheets still having enough room to jostle under his bare feet.

She knew it was impulsive, and stupid, and half-expected the police to pull them over several states away, but as the highways emptied to nothing bur a ribbon of white lines that kept them on the right side of the road, Gigi became more and more convinced she was doing the right thing.

“My bedtime is five-thirty, kiddo. Yours is eight, so you get to stay up so much later.”, she joked easily, never having had Destiny for so many hours, all by herself in the years since he had started preschool.

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense! It’s eight at night and right now it’s morning! Nobody goes to sleep at five in the morning!”, he shrieked, and giggled at his own reflection in the rearview mirror.

“That’s when the garbage truck wakes up!”, he added. Gigi didn’t remember, if he had ever talked so much, his voice jarring and so different from the toddler babbles she had recorded, and kept on her phone to watch on her worst days.

Her textile studio had taken up her days, until her partners had grown tired of Gigi stumbling in at eleven in the morning, unable to force herself to care very much about their bottom line, and the grey, dull world outside until Destiny had come to kick her out of bed.

Afterwards, his father would take her nights, the pressure incessant that they be exactly what they looked like- a family that belonged in a catalog, with a perfectly dressed, perfectly quiet child, money to burn and success in spades; drinking from matching flutes of champagne while Destiny was left alone in his basement bedroom with a baby monitor and his collection of stuffed animals.

Gigi faltered in a sea of plastic smiles and shallow conversations, and at the end of the day, all of her friends who had warned her off marrying her senior-year rebound, giving her life over to the promise of a bright, empty future, had been right.

He wanted to live in a dream, where she was only ever a sidekick; their son nothing more to him than a prop to parade, an filled-in item on a checklist that he had given up without a second thought.

Gigi had named him Destiny, because she liked it first, but second, because it had sounded so good with his last name; that she had never even considered having to change it.

Destiny Goode was a name that sounded like a motivational quote from a caveman, and she briefly wondered, merging on to the next interstate her GPS system highlighted- if a six-year-old would remember his name if she changed it right now.

He could be a Garret, or a Jaden, just like every other boy at school.

A fresh slate with no more questions to be asked, and nothing left to tie her perfect boy to Gigi’s worst mistake.

“-So, she’ll be here at nine-thirty, and we’re all going to be nice as fuck and not make it weird, okay?"

Crystal smoothed down the pleats of her skirt with her palms, her legs crossed in front of her at the breakfast table, as her eyes flitted between Jaida and Jan, who both had forks in hand as they enjoyed the chilaquilles that Crystal had set out for their meal, knowing this was going to be a big conversation.

"Chile-”

“Okay, go back to the part where she broke up with you and then ended up married to darksided Warner-"

"Guys!”, Crystal protested, glaring down at her friends.

Jaida and Jan had bought the barn on her family’s property not even weeks after Crystal had agreed to put it on the market, the decrepit, white-washed wood tower an eyesore along the country highway.

They were the closest thing she had to neighbors, in the wide acres of rolling plains that separated everyone by miles along the road, and it hadn’t taken long for the three of them to grow close.

Together, they had carved a guest house out of the front entryway, laying water pipes and television cable; and were working on renovations to turn the barn’s hall into an event space, with glass lanterns hanging high along the rafters that Crystal remembered walking across like a tightrope when she was a child.

Jan drilled in heavy wood planks to form a catwalk that overlooked the barn floor, which you could reach from the outside fire escape, and Crystal had been thrilled to finally put her years of following behind her father to use, toolbox in hand as she sanded down the reinforced beams holding up the roof.

If Gigi hadn’t called her, Crystal and Jan had a day ahead of them of hauling the shingles from a pallet left by the side of the road, in Crystal’s truck up to the barn, while Jaida had her camera, and a full calendar of Senior Portraits to finish before the end of the school year.

“I know it sounds like a lot, but please, please, don’t make it weird. Gigi always…- She always needed everything to go perfectly, and I hate to say it but… I might be her only real friend. Like, ever.”, Crystal told them, biting down on the inside of her cheek.

Gigi, who for the past few years, had been nothing but a collection of memories that would fire in her brain occasionally, like a slight twinge from an old injury, would be back in the flesh at her doorstep, at any minute. Crystal barely had the time to recruit Jaida’s help in clearing out her guest rooms for Gigi and her son, much less process how she truly felt about offering up her home as their refuge.

Gigi had never responded to the birthday cards she sent for Destiny after his third birthday; barely ever logging into her Facebook page that had been filled with photos of the two of them through college; and seemed to abruptly be cut off after she had gotten married. Occasionally, something would trickle through, a vacation photo of her little family, and anniversary note, a first day at school and a post that asked everyone to go and follow her business page.

For all of the refreshing Crystal did, Gigi’s studio seemed to never upload anything beyond its logo and business hours.

“Nah, listen, I get it, babe.”, said Jaida, a tortilla chip hanging from the corner of her mouth. “People grow and change and we gotta meet them where they’re at."

She nodded towards Jan, who was gulping down her orange juice, with a fond grin. "If you would have told my queen bitch ass when I was in high school, that I would end up married to Miss Team Too Much, I would have stole your man and told the whole school some dirty secret.”, Jaida laughed. “Everybody’s dealing with something, and I was so closeted and angry I was acting a fool for free."

"You were never closeted.”, Jan piped up, her voice rising an octave from normal, making Crystal widen her eyes as she looked to her side.

“Glass closet, honey. Besides, my point is, it’s water under a bridge, whatever we do when we’re young. I love you now.”, she said, pressing a kiss to Jan’s temple as she rose to go take their dishes to the sink. “You ended up turning out to be an amazing woman. I’m sure Gigi’s just the same."

The sun was high over the horizon line when Gigi’s car rumbled up the range road, rocks spraying into the grass as her wheels skipped over the pockmarked dirt.

She had taken Destiny to a hotel waterpark with a free breakfast, the absolute joy and shock on his face more than worth being several hours off of the arrival time she had texted Crystal. He was asleep now, only dressed in a pair of shorts and his sneakers, the buckles of his carseat starting to chafe red against his skin.

Gigi turned left at the barn, towards the yellow-shuttered house she remembered visiting over so many spring breaks and reading weeks, surprised to see two workers, stacking pallets of shingles by the barn door. One was a gorgeous, darker-skinned woman, the sun glittering from the highlights in her hair as she waved over to Gigi, making her grin despite herself.

Crystal’s tiny town had always been welcoming, the huge open expanses of space seeming to make everyone all the more willing to seek a connection- though Gigi would have never guessed that Crystal and her family would ever do anything with the barn, which looked just a little less decrepit than she remembered, so many years later.

She parked by the balcony, just in front of Crystal’s truck, and shook Destiny awake, helping him into the first shirt which she could reach from his bag.

"C'mon, Des. We’re here. Are you excited to say hi to Mom’s friend? She stayed up all night to make you new room!”, she asked, watching as he took in the word around them.

“You have friends?”, he blurted out, so plainly that Gigi couldn’t keep a smile off her face, even if he had probably heard that from a TV show she probably shouldn’t have been letting him see.

“That’s not very nice."

Still, she kissed the top of his head, and helped him out of the car, his tiny hand feeling heavy in hers as they made their way up the stairs to Crystal’s door.

The balcony creaked under their feet, as Gigi raised her hand to press against the doorbell, Destiny tugging against her shirt, pointing up at the colorful strips of cut paper that still adorned the windows, the sun cutting what must have been a stained-glass glow inside the house.

"Snowflakes, like at school!”, he called to her, pressing his face against the windowsill before Gigi pulled him back.

“No, it’s called papel picado.”, Gigi corrected, remembering how Crystal had spent hours at her paper press in the basement of the art rooms in college, a mess of stencils spread across the desk, a chisel and mallet in hand as she studied the pictures her grandmother would send her.

Crystal’s tongue would poke out of her mouth, her pupils blown wide in concentration, oblivious to the darkening sky above her until Gigi would find her, at half-past midnight, standing still wide awake in the middle of confetti slices of cut paper piling around her.

They would kiss, exhilarated and young and alone together, and Gigi would never think anything was wrong until-

“Gigi! Geegs! Look who’s late to their own party!”, Crystal squealed, the door swinging wide open to reveal her; red-brown hair still as wild as ever, piled into a messy ponytail atop her head, and a smile so wide Gigi could see nearly all her teeth. Crystal sparkled with the same craft glitter that had always hung from her fingertips, her cheeks flush as though she’d run from one end of the house to the other.

Her eyes looked bright again, the memory of which was so foreign to Gigi that she took a moment to take it all in, Crystal’s bright skirt and her tight, sleeveless top looking all the more like relics of the summers they had spent together.

“Ahoy.”, she greeted, raising a hand to her forehead in a mock salute.

Crystal giggled.

Giggled, like she always had, and waved them inside with a flourish of her hand.

“Are you mad at me?”, Jaida asked, kicking open the toolbox that she and Jan shared.

They had watched Crystal let the storied Gigi into the house, and decided to occupy themselves with bolting down the side light fixtures in the barn, until whatever was probably going on between their neighbor and ex calmed down enough for Crystal to invite them in.

But, Jan’s temper had grown increasingly short through their day, her drill now clenched in a white-knuckled grip as Jaida held the ladder she was on steady below her, digging in the tool box for the next drill bit she would need.

“Why- the fuck- would I be mad at you?”, she said through gritted teeth, over the sound of the power tool in her hand.

“‘Cause you just said fuck, for one.”, Jaida muttered, her eyes rolling skyward. Her wife had always been a little dramatic, but there was nothing Jaida hated more than the silent treatment, far preferring a knock-down, drag-out, screaming fight to being frozen out for hours with little more than a sharp glance or a silent nodded sent her way.

Jan shrugged her shoulders, her favorite blue and red flannel shirt stretching deliciously tight across her back.

Was Jan teasing her? Was it all some kind of elaborate game that was intended to be finished in their bedroom?

“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s killing the mood, babe.”, Jaida teased, hoping that Jan would get the hint.

Instead, she dropped the drill from her grip, clattering down the ladder as it bounced on the hard-packed ground. The battery pack popped from the tool’s back, not that Jan could be bothered as she stalked away, ignoring Jaida’s raised eyebrows.

“Hey- hey- you can’t just wreck stuff because you’re having a bad day!”, Jaida called after her wife, looking down at the mess of wires at her feet. “And I don’t know how to fix this shit so-"

She fell silent, as Jan’s steps echoed up the outdoor fire escape, her body disappearing until Jaida could only see the outline of her long, blonde hair, blowing in the wind from the balcony.

"Jan?”, she shouted, following her up the steps. “Hey, I know I fucked up, but you gotta tell me how otherwise I’m not gonna know how to fix it."

"Right.”, Jan scoffed as Jaida rounded the corner, the two of them facing towards Crystal’s house, where a second-floor light flickered on and off several times. “I forgot that everything’s so easy for you, I just have to spell it all out."

"Okay, what does that even mean?"

Jan glowered at her wife, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Why did you tell Crystal the reason you were a bully in high school was because you weren’t out?"

"That’s what this about? Baby-”, Jaida reached forward, her hand only barely touching Jan’s shoulder before her wife flinched away. “I was just trying to make her feel a little better about the whole thing, everything going on with Gigi. I don’t even remember if I was a bully in high school."

"Maybe I do.”, Jan snapped, her eyes flashing up in anger for a split second.

Jaida sighed, looking back over the horizon; where the sun was starting to dip at the back of scattered farmhouses and cottage homes littered accross the plains. “Look- I- I’m sorry and I shouldn’t have brought it up-”

“You’ve never apologized."

"You want me to say sorry?"

It had been years since Jan and Jaida had reconnected, long separated from the people that they had been as children.

Jaida had remembered Jan as an easy target from their first day in kindergarten, a tiny, loud girl who fell into a pattern that followed until Jan had left for college on a musical theatre scholarship, and Jaida had gone to play basketball for a small, comfortable liberal arts college in the heartland. When she had met Jan again; she was another person who shared the same name, at an alumni event where both of them had been invited to promote their respective colleges.

Where Jan had always worn her heart on her sleeve, the woman Jaida had married was confident, and passionate, witty and driven beyond belief.

She hadn’t had a second thought proposing to her, in the middle of the butterfly sanctuary at the zoo in the springtime, kissing her passionately without question at their Central Park wedding, their families both swaying together underneath the canopy of a white tent, to the music of the very first DJ they had found on Google.

"I just want you to- admit that it happened.”

“You’re acting like this was a big deal.”, Jaida groaned. “Baby, we were kids."

"It was a big deal. I thought about the stupid shit you and your friends said, for years after- and you don’t know what that was like."

"Okay- I-”

Jaida sighed, laying her hands on the railing that rounded the balcony, squeezing the metal rung tightly against her palms, the fight seeping out of her as she studied her wife, who looked on the verge of tears.

“Jan- baby, hey, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

Silence fell between them, the sound of the crickets the only thing that cut in between their breaths. Jan buried her face in her hands, elbows resting against the railing beside her wife.

“I know. It’s just, that stuff adds up sometimes.”

She pressed herself into her wife’s shoulder, letting her head rest against Jaida’s arm.

“It adds up the other way around, too. Don’t think it doesn’t.”, Jan whispered, and Jaida finally let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding in, her arm snaking around to rest around her wife’s waist. “It’s just a lot of work.”

“Then I’ll work on it, baby. Just tell me what you need.”

Gigi was surprised, at how instantly familiar Crystals kitchen was, breakfast leftovers heaped on top of Destiny’s plate while she quietly accepted a Diet Coke, sipping at the flat beverage as she finally began to relax. Gigi could tell her son was starting to feel sleepy, his eyes losing focus even as he kept lifting his fork to his mouth.

“Cielito.”, Crystal cooed, as she ruffled his curls, passing by the two of them as she moved to shutter the blinds in the kitchen. Destiny clearly thrived under the attention, and Gigi wondered if he had always craved touch, or if he was only a child who was excited by all of the new things around him. The heat was sticky, and Crystal’s brightly painted walls made the whole house look even more like an eternal birthday party, the fridge covered with photos and magnets.

Crystal had never learned to speak Spanish, at least as far as Gigi knew, having begged Crystal to help her pass her class for months when they had been roommates, but she supposed, she must have picked up more of it, with all the time she must have spent with her family afterwards.

“Where are you Mom and Dad?”, Gigi asked, swirling her straw in her Diet Coke. “I should say hi, right?"

Crystal shrugged. "We could Facetime? They were back in Mexico for a while after my Dad got sick, but right now they’re travelling Europe, living the old people dream. I’m sure my Mom still misses you."

Gigi took a deeper breath, her lips pursed as she watched Crystal dump dirty dishes in the sink.

"Is um- are you getting the barn demolished? I saw a couple people working on it outside."

"Oh, that’s just Jan and Jaida. They live there. I sold it a few months ago, and they’re trying to turn it into, like, a wedding hall. You’d love them- they’re the gayes-”, she paused, looking down at Destiny as he tipped his glass of orange juice into his mouth. “They’re super, super in love, and so gross."

Gigi could feel herself start to blush, even though she had started having that conversation with her son almost as soon as he had started to learn to talk.

"I usually have them over for dinner, so you can say hi."

Gigi coughed, swallowing the question that had been at the tip of her tongue since she had spoken to Crystal the day before.

"So? are you seeing anyone?”, she asked.

Crystal shook her head. “I’m not really looking.”, she said. “Still putting the cry in Crystal!”, she laughed. “And you were right, I wouldn’t want to put that on anyone else."

"I- ”, Gigi bit back her reply, not quite knowing if this was a talk she wanted to have, with her son arranging chips on his plate not two feet in front of her.

“Hey- buddy”, Crystal tapped on Destiny’s shoulder, nudging him with her hip. “Go wash your hands in the bathroom. It’s the one with the fish on the door and Star Wars on the curtain."

He looked back up at his mother, Gigi giving him a curt nod of approval as he skittered up the hallway.

"He’s a cute kid, you know? You’re doing a good job.”, she told Gigi, pushing the boy’s chair back in.

“Yeah… mostly not my job, but I’ll pass it on to our last nanny."

Gigi had stood with their plates, following Crystal to the sink where she happily plunged her arms into the hot, soapy bubbles, not caring very much for how her shirtsleeves got soaked in the water, navy fabric clinging to her wrists.

"Seriously. Gigi- look at me.”, Crystal reached around her, shutting off the faucet with a decisive clicking noise. “I don’t blame you for being twenty-one and not sticking around after I flipped out because I didn’t know how to deal with college, and real life and everything. It’s a day by day thing.”, she shrugged, reaching to open a cabinet and put the glasses in the drying rack away.

Crystal’s body was almost uncomfortably close, pressing into Gigi’s side like she remembered them being like, when they had shared their first apartment, having barely enough room for two people in between the fridge and the stove.

“Some days are better than others. But it’s-”, she paused, and smirked, her lips curling into the same wicked grin that Gigi could never shake from her memories, no matter how hard she tried. “No offense, but you’re not important enough for it to have been your fault."

"Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?”, Gigi couldn’t help but laugh, shaking her head. “Kick a girl when she’s down?"

"Or, some people just have shitty brain chemistry, and other people are assholes. Stop thinking it’s all on you all the time, you absolute flaming fuck-up.”, Crystal told her, her words softening behind her smile.

“Maybe don’t say flaming, but I did fu-"

Destiny padded back into the room, rubbing at his eyes. "Is it adult time yet?”, he asked, his tiny mouth yawning open. “Everyone’s saying all the bad words."

Crystal snickered, turning her undivided attention back to rinsing out the sink, her back turned to the both of them as if to say Gigi was on her own with that one.

"Good night, I guess.”, she muttered, shuffling across the tile towards him.

“See you tomorrow, Geegs. Just don’t forget, there’s always that.”

Gigi laid in bed with Destiny resting half on her chest, her son not wanting to leave her side, once the novelty of their adventure had worn off, and he had started to realize that there was a certain kind of permanence, to Crystal’s rainbow-colored walls, to the laughter from the kitchen that came from Jan and Jaida, who had eyed Gigi with enough suspicion to let it be known to her that she was absolutely not welcome in whatever little world they had built.

Okay, maybe the last bit was just in her head, and she could just introduce herself properly at breakfast the next morning- but she had still jumped at the chance to lock herself in Destiny’s appointed bedroom, pretending that he would need her to fall asleep, even though he had only wanted to cuddle before passing out completely the second that she dimmed the lights.

She scrolled through her phone, mindlessly as her son shifted in her arms, the message bubble beside his father’s name still lit up red with unread texts, that she skipped through to flick past her Instagram feed, landing on Crystal’s profile at the very bottom of her following list. The very first account which she had followed, years ago, and the very last that she kept up with, the creeping intimacy of being under Crystal’s roof, trying to piece together the life she had dropped out of, thicker than the heat of the air around her.

Crystal’s photos were all filtered through something that made them look brighter, more vibrant than the rainy afternoons and damp wetlands that they featured in the background, the captions all long, effusive essays about the importance of showing up to vote, or the beauty of the creek behind her house in the summertime. The most recent photo, featured her lying in a bed of sunflowers, grinning up at the sky, eyes half-shut against the sunlight.

Don’t look right into a solar eclipse!, the caption started, followed by at least a dozen laughing emoji faces, alternating with bright pink flowers. Sometimes life just punches you in the face, dummy! And you just gotta deal with it anyway. Don’t waste a second!

Gigi chuckled, locking the phone and laying it back on the bedside table, trying to move as little as possible as she turned off what was left of the light in the bedroom, and drew herself closer to her son in her arms.

His breathing was steady, his hands reaching for her hair in his sleep.

“Okay, kiddo. I got you.”, she said to nobody in particular, sinking lower in the sheets so she could tuck them tighter around him.

There’s always tomorrow, she could hear Crystal telling her, her voice clear as the dream Gigi was starting to slip into.

The next morning, she would start putting everything back together again.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #crystal methyd #jaida essence hall #jan sport #crygi #jaida x jan #lesbian au #hurt/comfort #parenting au #s12 #angst #fluff #campvanjie #tw mentions of divorce #tw mention of mental illness

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sesamestreep · 4 years ago

Text

stack the deck with wild cards (chapter 1)

(read on AO3)

SUMMARY: The situation with Cassian is complicated even before Jyn finds out she's pregnant, but deciding to get an abortion should really be the last straw for him, right? If there was any chance he'd still want to date her, she thought it had to be long gone by now. And yet he always finds a way to surprise her. [AKA - The Obvious Child AU you didn't know you wanted]

A/N: I’m going to be posting chapters of this fic daily, since it’s already completed. I never write chapter fic, so I have no idea what I’m doing and please bear with me. Also, this fic (and the movie it gets its plot from) is about abortion, so if that’s not something you’re into reading about, you should really strongly consider not reading this. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings. For those interested, there’s additional notes if you follow the AO3 link above. If you want to blacklist any future updates of this fic on tumblr, I’ll tag it with [#stack the deck verse] for your convenience. Chapter 2 should be posted tomorrow. Stay golden.

The reality of the current situation doesn’t hit Jyn at the doctor’s office when she gets the news or even when she’s booking her follow-up appointment. It doesn’t sink in when they tell her how much it will cost or give her the information she’ll need or the prescriptions to fill. It doesn’t hit her when she’s on the subway, heading home and texting Bodhi with numb fingers to see if he wants to have a movie night, or even when his cheery reply—replete with emojis—comes through saying he can come over tonight.

No, the moment everything becomes real is when she’s standing in the wine aisle at Trader Joe’s, going back and forth on whether spending eight dollars on a bottle of wine so that she can drink all of it in one sitting is irresponsible when she’s pregnant but she’s also not keeping the baby. It’s only then that she starts crying.

She’ll blame it on the hormones if anyone asks, she decides, which might even be accurate. She’s not really a crier under normal circumstances, but even if she wasn’t pregnant, she’s pretty sure draining her savings account for a medical procedure that she wouldn’t need if she had just been a little more responsible with her body would make her cry no matter how tough she thinks she is. Lucky for her, though, she lives in New York City and no one bats an eye at a crying woman in the grocery store. An older woman with a toddler in the seat of her grocery cart passes by and nods in understanding without saying a word, which is oddly comforting.

It’s the reminder that she needs to be careful about her money that talks Jyn out of buying wine for this evening (Bodhi probably wouldn’t have any and she doesn’t need to drink an entire bottle by herself under any circumstances, let alone these, even if she really really wants to), but she goes on to throw whatever snacks she wants into the cart indiscriminately because it has been a spectacularly shitty day. She spends more than she should (what else is new?) and sweats profusely trying to drag all of it back to her sixth floor apartment. She slams cabinet doors in frustration as she puts everything away and then takes the longest, hottest shower her shitty pipes in her shitty apartment will allow. When she emerges, her skin is bright pink and she pokes her stomach viciously, somehow annoyed and confused and relieved all at the same time that it gives away nothing of her current condition.

She spends too long sitting in a towel on her bed, dicking around on her phone instead of getting ready and ultimately decides Bodhi doesn’t care what her hair looks like and so she runs a comb through it and calls it done. She puts on her softest, stretchiest leggings and an ugly sweater she raided from her dad’s closet when she was a teenager that she loves because it has been washed and worn so many times that the sleeves now have holes in them that she can stick her thumbs through. It’s easily the least glamorous look she could have come up with, but she’s pregnant and she’s mad about it, so she’s going for comfort over style.

By the time the buzzer goes off, signaling Bodhi’s arrival, Jyn has managed to light a few candles and put some of the snacks she bought into bowls, so at least it looks like she put effort into some part of the evening. She presses the button to let him up and fidgets as she waits to open the door. She has to tell Bodhi as a trial run for telling…well, everyone else, basically…but a part of her wants to tell no one, deal with it by herself and pretend nothing is wrong. Of course, that would be stupid—the doctor even told her not to try and handle this by herself—but it seems more appealing than the alternative at this particular moment. It’s not possible, though. She needs someone to come with her to the appointment, at the very least, and Bodhi will do it without hesitation, that much she’s sure of.

When she hears footsteps in the hallway, she undoes the locks and opens the door. She takes a deep breath that is immediately squeezed out of her when Bodhi wraps her in a big hug.

“It’s so good to see you,” he says, rocking her a little side to side as he embraces her. “I’m so glad you suggested this! I feel like I’ve barely seen you lately.”

“I know,” Jyn says, clinging a little. Her eyes feel misty again already and that is definitely the hormones’ fault.

Bodhi pulls back to smile at her and his eyes catch on the candles and food. He gives her a suspicious look. “Okay, if this is an intervention for spending too much time with my new boyfriend, I know I deserve it but also I would have expected a much better turn out. You couldn’t even get Cassian here?”

Jyn winces at the mention of Cassian’s name but she thinks she covers it quickly with a forced smile. “It’s not an intervention,” she says as she steps around him to close the door.

“So why all the fanfare for a regular movie night?”

“What fanfare? There’s no fanfare!”

“Jyn, you put cheese puffs in a bowl ,” Bodhi says, as if she’s being obtuse. “You’re gonna have to wash that later. You did not have to do that for me.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to make a joke— I’m nesting —but she refrains. “It’s no big deal,” she says, instead, and gestures to the couch for him to take a seat.

“If you say so,” he replies, still eyeing her warily and not taking the hint.

“Why don’t we sit down?” She finally asks, sounding strange and false even to her own ears. She leads the way over to the couch and Bodhi follows her, eventually lowering himself into the armchair with the same demeanor of someone approaching a wild animal.

“Jyn, seriously,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees once she’s curled up like a cat across from him, “is everything alright? You’re acting...odd.”

“Everything is fine,” she says, lightly, and hopes that saying so makes it true. “I just, uh, need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

Jyn twists her hands together nervously, not sure how to get started now that the moment is finally here. “I need you to promise you’re not going to freak out,” she says, stalling for time.

“Ah, yes, that thing everyone says when everything is, in fact, totally fine.”

“Bodhi…”

“You’re leaving New York, aren’t you?” He asks, worried. “To be closer to Saw?”

“What? No, I—”

“Oh my god, it’s not Saw, is it?! He didn’t die, did he?”

“No, Saw is fine,” Jyn says, resisting the urge to rub her temple in frustration. “I mean, he’s not fine , obviously, he’s still sick, but he’s not—”

“Tell me you’re not quitting the band,” Bodhi interrupts. “Listen, I know things have been crazy lately, but I think—”

“Bodhi, I’m pregnant,” Jyn shouts, and the silence that follows is overwhelming.

“You’re…?”

“Pregnant. With child. Expecting,” she says, bitterly. “Yes.”

He looks like he’s been hit over the head with a mallet, which is bizarrely satisfying. She handled the news better and it was actually happening to her.

“How long have you known?” He asks, after a long time and with apparent effort. It’s not the first question she expected, but it’s not totally surprising.

“Like, five hours.”

“Five—?” Bodhi shakes his head in what she thinks is disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jyn just blinks in response. What is he talking about? “Sorry?”

“You and Reece broke up like six months ago, how did you not realize you were pregnant sooner?” He asks.

“I…Bodhi, I’m not six months pregnant,” Jyn sputters. She smacks her stomach to drive home the point, which in retrospect is a stupid move, but she’s not thinking straight. “I mean, do I look it?”

“No! No,” he says immediately. “That’s why I was so confused, but you…you haven’t been with anyone since the breakup. You would have told me.”

When Jyn says nothing in response, just bites her lip, Bodhi narrows his eyes at her. “You would have told me, right?” He asks.

Jyn takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “I’m eight weeks pregnant,” she says, feeling close to tears again. “I found out today, I have an appointment in a few weeks to—to terminate it. I just need someone to go with me, the nurse said I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Jyn,” he says, placing his hand over hers. “Of course, I’ll go with you. I just—I’m not upset with you, you know that, right?”

She nods, even though she doesn’t feel altogether certain of it. She loves Bodhi and trusts him, more than she trusts almost anyone else, but she’s not convinced she deserves to have him be nice to her after she’s fucked things up this badly. He ought to be upset with her.

“I know,” she says, anyway. A single tear escapes, which is just perfect. “I’m upset with myself.”

“Are you okay?” Bodhi asks, delicately. “Did this person hurt you or force you in some way?”

“No, no. God, no,” Jyn says, pulling her hands free with more aggression than the act required. She wipes the tears away in annoyance. “Nothing like that.”

“Thank God,” he says, looking heavenward and everything. “Then why all the secrecy? I texted you the minute I finished hooking up with Taidu for the first time.”

Jyn laughs even as she continues crying. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“No, but...not even a braggy ‘I just got laid!’ text? I thought we were best friends!”

“We are,” she replies hastily. “I was just embarrassed.”

“Why?” He asks, intrigued. “Is this person weird? Are they famous?”

She laughs again, feeling better in spite of the bomb she’s about to drop. “No, Bodhi…”

“They’re not married, are they? Because I promise not to judge you, but come on!”

“They’re not married.”

“Good, because for a second I was worried you slept with Baze and that would definitely break up the band,” he says, solemnly.

Jyn smacks his shoulder half-heartedly. “I would never sleep with Baze,” she says. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Fine,” Bodhi says. “So, it was Chirrut, then?”

“Bodhi!”

“Well, you’re being so cryptic,” he shoots back. “If you just told me—”

“I slept with Cassian.”

Bodhi just blinks at her for a long, torturous moment. She’s never actually seen Bodhi yell at anyone before, so she doesn’t know if that’s what is about to happen but she braces herself for it anyway.

“What,” he finally says, flat like a statement and not a question.

“I had sex with Cassian and now I’m pregnant,” she says firmly, as if just admitting it out loud isn’t making her heart hammer in her chest.

“You’re pregnant with Cassian’s baby,” Bodhi says, disbelieving and Jyn winces. She’s been trying not to think of it as an actual baby, because she’s not keeping it. But if she did nothing for seven more months, she would have a baby and it would be Cassian’s, in a purely biological sense. She doesn’t admit to that line of thinking to Bodhi, though.

“Yes,” she says, instead. “Technically,” she adds, because she can’t stop herself.

“Technically? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just—Getting someone pregnant doesn’t make a man a father,” she says, with more heat than she intended. “Raising a child does. And there’s not going to be a child, so…that’s all I meant.”

“Sorry,” Bodhi says, placing his hands over hers again. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just so surprised.”

“You didn’t upset me,” Jyn replies, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s these stupid hormones, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. He moves to sit next to her on the couch, and she folds her legs up to give him room. “How did he take it when you told him?”

Jyn winces again before she can stop herself and she knows she doesn’t hide her reaction quickly enough from the way Bodhi stands abruptly. He always paces when he’s freaked out.

“Jyn, please tell me Cassian knows,” he pleads as he makes a circuit around her coffee table.

“I’ve only known for half a day! I haven’t had a chance to tell him!”

“Why would you tell me and not him?”

“You’re my best friend!”

“It’s his baby!”

“I wanted to make sure you could come to my appointment with me,” she says, and hopes the reminder is enough to make him feel sorry for her. He only stops pacing, but that’s still an improvement. “I was hoping you’d tell me what to do,” she adds, since it’s the actual truth.

“Well, obviously, go to your appointment,” Bodhi says, sinking back onto the couch.

“No, I mean—what I should do about Cassian?”

Bodhi looks over at her, confused. “What do you mean, what should you do about him? Tell him what’s going on.”

“I know, but how?”

“Same way you told me. Use your words.”

“Can I text him?”

“Absolutely not,” he says, scandalized. “You can’t tell him you’re pregnant via text. Who raised you?!”

“Saw.”

He acknowledges that with a nod. “Fair point.”

“I bet you’re going to say I can’t leave him a voicemail either,” Jyn says.

“You’re right, but mostly because no one under the age of eighty checks their voicemail anymore,” he says, patting her knee absently.

“Really?”

“Really,” Bodhi replies. “Just...sit down with him and tell him what’s going on. Same as you did with me.”

“It’s different with you.”

“It’s not that different.”

“It’s not your baby I’m aborting,” Jyn says quietly. “And you love me.”

Bodhi looks over at her then, some strange mix of emotions playing out on his face. She half expects him to object and say something ridiculous like Cassian does love her, and the very idea stresses her out. When he doesn’t say that, though, she finds herself oddly disappointed.

“Cassian’s a good guy. He’ll understand,” he says, instead, as if she doesn’t know that somehow. As if that isn’t a huge part of why this situation sucks so bad. As if she isn’t mortified that she has to involve him in something like this. As if she isn’t furious with herself because this is going to blow any chance she ever had with him in the first place. As if she hadn’t already done that by hooking up with him and then never calling him afterwards.

“I know,” Jyn says, looking down at her hands. She doesn’t actually know that—that he’ll understand. She thinks she knows Cassian fairly well, in a casual way. They’re mostly friends through Bodhi but they see a lot of each other. She suspects, from things he’s said before about politics, that he’s probably okay with abortion in a general sense, but it’s different when it’s your potential kid. She can’t actually be certain he’ll be cool with it, but she’s also not asking his permission. She just thinks he deserves to know. Or maybe she just wants an excuse to call him, for all this is the worst possible one the universe could have handed her.

“It’s just weird,” she adds, after a minute lost in thought, “for this to be the thing I call him about, after we hooked up. It feels shitty.”

“Wait, hold on,” Bodhi says, waving his hand dramatically at her. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I don’t know what you think I’m saying.”

“Have you not talked to him since you slept with him?”

“I haven’t,” Jyn says, bracing herself. Bodhi opens his mouth to interject, so she continues quickly, stopping him. “But, in my defense, it was right before the holidays and then he was out of town for like a month, so it seemed weird to reach out, and—”

“Jyn,” he says, and his tone is so full of reproach, it shuts her up immediately. “None of those are good reasons and I think you know that.”

“It’s not like he and I talk a lot anyway,” she objects, but it’s futile, if Bodhi’s unimpressed look is any indication. “We mostly see each other at the shows and the band didn’t have any in December, so I just haven’t had the chance. That’s all.”

“Okay, so none of it had to do with your overwhelming fear of intimacy and vulnerability?”

“No…?”

“Very convincing,” Bodhi says, and Jyn shoves him.

“Shut up,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, if that’s not what happened,” he says reasonably, “you have to tell me what did.”

“What—you want details?!”

Bodhi shrugs. “You hooked up with my roommate and didn’t tell anyone about it for almost two months. There must be a reason.”

“Maybe it was bad,” she says, petulantly.

He just gives her an arch look in reply, which she deserves. “Was it bad?” He asks, bored.

Jyn bites her lip, hard. “No,” she admits. “It actually really wasn’t.”

“Well, then. Spill!”

She sighs dramatically—more dramatically than the situation deserves, honestly, and it’s already a pretty dramatic situation. “What do you want to know?

“When did this happen?”

“By my doctor’s estimate, eight weeks ago.”

“Jyn, for the love of—!”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood,” she says, for all she was actually just trying to stall. “It was that night we played at that terrible hipster bar in November.”

“Jyn, we exclusively play at terrible hipster bars. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“It’s the one with the arcade games in the back? It’s changed names like three times this year?”

“ Oh , that place. Yeah. What is that place’s name?”

“No clue,” Jyn says, with a shrug. “But it was at that bar.”

Bodhi’s eyes widen, though whether it’s with shock or delight or both, she’s not sure. “You hooked up with him at the bar ?”

“No, no. We went home together afterwards, once the rest of you had left.”

“I knew it,” he practically shouts. “I knew something was up that night!”

“You did not!”

“Yes, I did. You can ask Taidu, I definitely said something about it to him.”

Jyn waves him off, not because she’s convinced but because she’s not going to bother Taidu about something this stupid. “Whatever.”

“You still haven’t told me how it happened.”

“Do you need me to explain how sex works? Because I feel like you get the general idea.”

“No, smartass,” he says with an eye roll. “I mean, you and Cassian hang out at bars all the time together and you’ve never hooked up before. So, what happened this time?”

“Well,” Jyn says, taking a steadying breath, “you and Taidu left early for some reason and you said you were going to stay at his place. And Baze and Chirrut left right after that, because I think that’s when Baze had that terrible cold.”

“Jyn, no offense, but who cares?”

“You asked me what was different about that night! I’m explaining!”

“Okay, fine,” Bodhi allows. “It was different because we all callously abandoned you.”

“Yes, thank you! Anyway, it was just me and Cassian at the bar and I had just ordered another drink when Baze and Chirrut decided to leave and I was giving them a hard time about it and Cassian offered to stay with me for another round, so I wouldn’t have wasted my money or have to drink alone.”

“How gallant of him.”

“No editorializing,” she snaps, and Bodhi dutifully mimes locking his mouth and throwing away the key. “Anyway, we had a couple more drinks, we had sex, and now I’m pregnant. The end.”

“Fine,” he says, giving up. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. I was just interested because you’re both my friends and I love you. Also, I know how hard the break-up was on you, so I was excited that you felt comfortable enough to move on. But you clearly don’t want to talk about it, so forget it!” He pivots away from her on the couch and leans forward to grab some popcorn. “What movie are we watching, anyway?”

Jyn groans in frustration. He’s always been way too good at guilt-tripping her into anything she doesn’t want to do. “You’re such a brat!”

“What? I’m changing the subject, like you clearly want to!”

“I’m embarrassed, Bodhi!”

“I don’t see why,” he says, looking at her blankly. “Cassian is good looking and he’s not a creep. You could do way worse. You have, in fact.”

She punches him in the shoulder in retaliation. “Hey!”

“What? I mean, you dated Reece for two years and he wasn’t exactly a catch. Cassian is an improvement, in my opinion.”

“I see we’re not sparing my feelings anymore where Reece is concerned.”

Bodhi covers her hand with his own. “Jyn, that guy cheated on you for a long time, and then he broke up with you so he could be with the other woman—right before you went onstage to perform, I should mention—and he had the audacity to blame you for the cheating because you ‘didn’t give him enough attention,’” he says, with the most judgemental use of air quotes she’s ever seen. “I care about your feelings, truly I do. But I do not care about Reece and I will not pretend you aren’t way better off without him.”

“I’m not his biggest fan either,” she says, defensively. “But what does it say about me that I dated him for all that time without realizing what a dick he was?”

“That he was an even bigger scrub than we thought, because he managed to hide his true colors for so long,” Bodhi says, easily. “You’re not responsible for his actions.”

Jyn wants to believe him, and most days she already, mostly does. But sometimes she catches herself replaying the break-up in her head and the part where Reece said that if she’d really cared, if she’d really been in their relationship for the long haul, she’d have paid more attention to him and he would never have even thought about cheating. She’d left him no choice, with all her weird part-time jobs and her crazy schedule and her gigs with her silly little band all over the city in the middle of the night. If she were more together, if she knew what she wanted from her own life, she could have been there for her partner, but she was too much of a mess. Too much of a work-in-progress to be the sort of girlfriend someone wanted to be serious with.

“I know,” she says, half-heartedly. If Bodhi’s told her this once, he’s told her a thousand times. Maybe she’ll really believe it someday, but not quite yet. “It just gets in your head, when someone treats you like that. You start to wonder if you have a neon sign over your head that says you’re not really relationship material.”

“You do not have a neon sign over your head that says anything of the kind,” Bodhi reassures her, surprisingly earnestly. “If your relationship with Reece needed work, he could have brought those issues to you to resolve them. Instead, he cheated on you. He took the easy way out and then blamed you when it made him look like an asshole. That’s on him.”

Jyn sighs, hating how often she and Bodhi have to have this conversation or some variation of it. She wishes she could just magically not be upset about it anymore, but it’s not like she didn’t have trust issues before this. The situation with Reece just made them worse. That was part of the appeal of hooking up with Cassian; she wanted to get back out there and feel desirable again, but she couldn’t do it with just anybody. Cassian was safe because she knew him and trusted him, but they weren’t super close, so it’s not like hooking up with him would ruin their friendship. He knew enough of what happened with her breakup to know that it was just a rebound, but not enough about her mental state to worry about her when she initiated things between them. She didn’t need someone to worry about her; she just needed someone to take her home.

The bar had been surprisingly busy that night, probably because some local favorite band was on after their set and they had a weirdly devoted following. Even though the rest of their group had abandoned them, the spots around Jyn and Cassian at the bar quickly filled in with noisy patrons, which left them no choice but to lean close to each other when they talked. Cassian’s arm had been curled around the back of the barstool that she was perched on, not possessively but in a way that didn’t encourage anyone to interrupt them. Jyn didn’t object; she didn’t want to talk to anyone else anyway.

Something about having Cassian’s full attention, her elbow brushing his ribs anytime she reached for her drink and feeling the warmth radiating off him in the already overly warm bar, felt nice in a way that went right to her head. She was shamelessly leaning into it, both literally—if she had curled any further into him, she would be hugging him—and figuratively—asking him personal questions she’d never bothered with before and laughing a little too loudly at his answers in a way that would have probably made him suspicious if she hadn’t distracted him by constantly touching his arm. It was the oldest trick in the book, and he must have known that, but Jyn wasn’t really in the mood to be subtle anyway.

If he was wary of her motives in flirting with him so obviously, he hadn’t mentioned any of his concerns to her. Cassian tends to be wary as a rule, which is part of why Jyn trusts him. He’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop too, just like she is. There’s a subtle understanding between them as a result. Other than that, Jyn had never given him much thought. Sure, he’s good looking, even when he comes to their gigs still in his clothes from the office, which make him look like an accountant. He’s not actually an accountant, though; he works at some organization that works with kids in the foster system, which is the sort of job that immediately put Jyn on edge when she first heard about it after he’d moved in with Bodhi. She’s technically a freelance illustrator, but since that doesn’t pay the bills with any consistency, she also works all sorts of other odd jobs to make up the difference. She doesn’t have a 401K or a high yield savings account, but she’s pretty sure Cassian does, even if he’s also probably underpaid. But he’s underpaid in the good way, the what-a-Saint way, while Jyn is underpaid in the no-one-values-your-skills, get-a-real-job way. So, at first, she’d been a little suspicious of him.

But, back then, he was Bodhi’s new roommate who also took him up on the invitation to come see his band play during one of their glamorous midnight slots at some crummy dive bar, which earned him a little respect in Jyn’s mind. When he kept showing up, she was surprised. It didn’t seem like his scene at all, but when she said as much to him one night, he’d given her a self-conscious smile and said that coming to Bodhi’s shows gave him the pretense of a social life when his co-workers asked what he did with his free time. He had a tendency to look worried or miserable when left to his own devices, but self-deprecation was a good look on him and it was nice to know he wasn’t dead serious all the time. They never became close friends after that, but Jyn always liked talking to him after the shows.

Something changed when she was going through the break-up, though. Cassian knew what happened, of course, enough to tell her he was sorry to hear about it from Bodhi, but they didn’t exactly talk in depth about it or anything. He treated her the same as he always had. The change had come from her, honestly. She’d always thought he was attractive, in that split-second way you decide when you first see someone, but she’d never given it any thought beyond that, really. But once the initial fog of I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening lifted after the break-up, she started to notice Cassian more and think about him in a way she hadn’t before. She was disappointed if he couldn’t make it to one of their gigs. She started to appreciate the dorky work outfits he wore to the dive bar venues they played and she liked talking to him after the set, when he’d give her his full attention like she was the most fascinating person in the world.

She couldn’t tell, though, if he was genuinely interested in her or if he just thought she was hot and (now) single. If she’d been smart, she would have figured that out before hooking up with him. Instead, the universe handed her the perfect opportunity to be alone with him, without any of their friends to talk them out of it or ruin the mood and she’d taken full advantage of it. She had felt almost dizzy with the possibility of it, that she could ask him to leave with her and that he’d probably say yes. Next to her, some drunk guy stumbled up to the bar and, in his haste, accidentally and rather fortuitously shoved her even further into Cassian’s arms. He’d tightened his hold on her to catch her fall and when she’d looked up, he was glaring at the man, who was completely oblivious to having made an enemy. It was ridiculously charming, to think he was offended on her behalf, as if her honor had been threatened. Really, what was she supposed to do then, except kiss him?

He’d been surprised, at first, and who could blame him? Sure, she’d been giving the corniest, most textbook signals that she was into him all night, but she hadn’t even known she was going to actually make a move until she did it. He recovered quickly, though, which was nice, and reciprocated immediately. Jyn’s not sure what she would have done if he’d asked questions or tried to talk things through first, even though she kind of expected it from him. They’d both had a few drinks, not enough to impair them by any means but just enough to embolden them.

His hand had come to rest on her back when she got pushed into him and she felt it flex, as if he was trying to hold her even closer. The other moved to her face as soon as she kissed him, though it was really just his thumb grazing her jaw, like he was worried she might turn away and he wanted to offer a slight incentive to stay where she was. She probably would have kept making out with him at the bar like they were college students or something, but she didn’t actually want to spend another second with the drunk patrons or the shitty band that was onstage. She wanted to be someplace else—anywhere else, really, so long as it meant she and Cassian could be alone. She pulled back, with great effort, and the look on Cassian’s face made her think he expected to be let down easy.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked, instead.

His eyebrows went up, as if that was the last thing he expected her to say. He closed his eyes, like gathering his thoughts was difficult at that moment. “I, uh—what are you asking?”

Jyn bit her lip, which was a bad habit of hers when she was nervous, but if it also happened, by pure luck, to look flirtatious, that was fine too. “I’m asking if you want to go back to your place and have sex with me,” she said, because she wasn’t about to waste time and not get exactly what she wanted out of this.

“Do I want that?” He’d asked, dumbfounded, and if she hadn’t just been having a completely normal conversation with him, she’d have worried he was drunker than she thought. But this was entirely her effect on him and it was incredibly flattering. “Do you?”

“I think the fact that I suggested it makes it pretty obvious what I want.”

Cassian had run his hand through his hair, clearly a nervous tic. “Yeah, but—yes, I would like that.”

He said the last bit decisively, as though he realized he might be accidentally talking her out of it with his hesitation. He needn’t have worried—Jyn has her mind made up about this—but she thought it was better to keep him on his toes than reveal that. She gave him a bright smile before turning to get the bartender’s attention. They paid their tab and got the hell out of there in record time.

When they left the bar, it was raining lightly, barely a drizzle at this point, but there was evidence that it had stormed earlier in the evening. The small heel on Jyn’s boots brought her close enough to Cassian’s height that, even standing outside the bar, she didn’t have to strain to reach him and pull him down for another kiss. His hands came to her hips to steady her anyway and she’d have happily continued like this for a while if the bouncers by the front door didn’t wolf whistle at them and ruin the moment.

They started walking to Cassian’s apartment without discussing it, like they agreed via telepathy that no cab driver would tolerate them given their current amount of PDA. It wasn’t a far walk, though, and Jyn had internally thanked the forces of the universe for making this happen at the closest bar to Cassian’s place, because she’s sure they would have lost their nerve over the course of a lengthy subway or cab ride. Instead, they headed for his apartment in silence, more because they were focused than not having anything to say. He held her hand the whole way, as if he was afraid she’d disappear if he wasn’t touching her. While they waited for a crosswalk signal at one corner, he pulled her into his side and kissed her again, like she really needed the reminder that he was a good kisser. How could she forget?

“He’s a really good kisser,” she says, suddenly, to Bodhi, as they sit together on the couch.

Bodhi scrunches up his nose, looking disgusted. “Who? Reece?”

“No! I’m talking about Cassian!”

“Oh!” His eyes light up. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

Jyn shrugs, noncommittal. She wants Bodhi’s reassurance that she didn’t fuck things up beyond repair and this is probably the only way to get that. “I’m obviously not going to tell you everything . But we can talk about it, a little. I guess.”

“Okay, but how good is he?”

“Is there an accepted scale I should use?”

“One to ten would suffice, I think. Ten being the best kiss you’ve ever had and one being…well, you already said it was good, so we don’t need to worry about that.”

She exhales noisily, not sure how to describe it. “I don’t know. I can’t even think of the best kiss I ever had.”

“That’s kind of sad.”

She punches him on the shoulder. “I hate you,” she says, petulantly. “It was really, really good. Definitely an 8.5 or a 9. Maybe a 9.5.”

“Really?!”

Jyn nods, feeling awkward. “Yeah. We made out for a really long time before we…well, before anything else happened.”

She doesn’t mention that she’d almost lost her nerve, when they first got back to Cassian’s apartment. Being in his bedroom, the idea of sleeping together suddenly became real and all of her tipsy confidence evaporated. She’d been in a relationship for two years—she’d thought she and Reece would move in together whenever their leases were up, even though she hadn’t had the confidence to bring it up to him before he turned around and left her for another woman—and suddenly she wasn’t ready to be with someone else. Naturally, Cassian had picked up on her change in mood and asked her what was wrong. She lied and said it was nothing, though he hadn’t looked convinced. To prove her point, she’d kissed him again, hard, trying to psych herself up, but he’d eased back, turning their kiss into something easier and softer. He’d kissed her like that for a while, his hands in her hair and on her jaw, not reaching for her clothes or straying anywhere new. It was only after they’d continued like that for a long time that Jyn felt her nerves mellow into pleasure and then sharpen into desire again. Even though they’d kept things fairly chaste, all of that kissing had made her want more, and she clearly had to be the one to take the lead.

“And was he a gentleman with you?” Bodhi asks primly, interrupting Jyn’s thoughts.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” she says, with a frown.

“Did he…how do I put this…take care of your needs?”

“Oh. Uh, yes.”

“First?” He asks, clearly enjoying himself.

“Yes,” Jyn replies, through gritted teeth. She leaves out the fact that she’d not-so-subtly rushed them past the point of foreplay so Cassian wouldn’t get any ideas. Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, that he would have even tried something like that with her, that she got in the way of some grand plan of his to gallantly fulfill her needs before worrying about his own, but he had looked surprised when she took them straight from kissing to taking his clothes off to fucking him. Maybe it was a pleasant surprise, maybe he was relieved to find someone who didn’t expect so much effort from him. She didn’t ask. She just knew that she couldn’t handle the idea of it being unequal, of him being smug or, worse, expectant with her. She didn’t want to owe him anything, so they were going to have sex once and then she could move on. Naturally, she hadn’t counted on getting pregnant.

“I told him I was on the pill and I wasn’t,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

The way Bodhi swings around to stare at her would be funny, under any other circumstances. “Why would you lie about that?” He asks, unable to keep the judgement out of his tone.

“I didn’t lie ,” she says. “I thought I was on the pill! I’ve been taking it for years, so I didn’t think anything of it. I forgot to get my prescription refilled a few months ago and I was like, ‘who cares?’ because Reece and I had just broken up and I was convinced I was never going to have sex again.”

“But then you had sex with Cassian!”

“I know! And I forgot I wasn’t on the pill anymore.”

Bodhi covers his eyes with his hands. “Please tell me you used a condom.”

“Cassian definitely offered,” she says, trying to sound upbeat.

“And you said, ‘yes, of course, because you’re a man I’ve never slept with before and that’s the safest way for us to have sex!’”

“No. I said, ‘it’s fine, don’t worry about it, I’m on the pill.’”

“Jyn!”

“Before you yell at me, I would like to remind you I’m already pregnant, so the worst case scenario has already happened.”

“That’s not the only reason you should use a condom!”

“I know, but I got tested for STDs when I went in for my pregnancy test and nothing has come back positive yet, so hopefully I’m not that unlucky.”

“Listen, I know you’re going through some stuff right now and I don’t want to pile on, but that was really risky,” he says, looking more serious than she’s ever seen him. “You have to promise me that you’ll be more careful.”

“I promise,” she says, feeling like a teenager being chastised. “Believe me, paying out of pocket for an abortion is a pretty great way for me to learn my lesson.”

“God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s my fault. Like you said, I wasn’t being careful.”

“That wasn’t—I’m not trying to hit your nose with a rolled up newspaper, Jyn. I’m just worried about you.”

“I know. This is why I was embarrassed. I made a complete idiot out of myself. And now I get to explain all of this to Cassian, which won’t be humiliating at all.”

“He’ll understand,” Bodhi says, with enviable levels of confidence. “He’s good like that.”

“I said I’d call him and I didn’t,” she says, trying not to cringe as she remembers how quickly she’d left after they’d had sex, how she hadn’t even looked Cassian in the eye when she promised to call. “Even if he was fine with a one-night stand, I still lied to him. I doubt he’ll be happy to hear from me, especially under the circumstances.”

“If the alternative is not hearing from you at all, I think he’d rather hear from you. No matter what the circumstances are.”

“I don’t know.”

“Jyn, you and Cassian are friends, even if you don’t think you’re particularly close. And you’ve slept together, which involves a certain level of intimacy—”

“Not the way I do it,” she jokes. Although there’s some truth to it, she thinks.

Bodhi smacks her with a pillow, which she completely deserves. “Call him or I’ll kick your ass.”

“God, fine!” She slouches down in her seat on the couch. “Do I have to do it right now?”

“God, no. I don’t want to be here for that conversation,” he says, grabbing another handful of popcorn. “Besides, you promised me a movie night. What are we watching?”

“I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t involve babies or pregnancy.”

Bodhi’s scrolling through the titles on Netflix as she speaks, nodding absentmindedly. “‘Sleepless in Seattle’?” He asks, when he lands on it.

“That totally has a baby in it!”

“The kid is, like, eight,” he argues. “And it’s not about the process of having kids!”

Jyn sighs, defeated. “Do you want to watch ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ Bodhi?”

“Yes, but I’m mostly in it for Bill Pullman.”

“Fine,” she says, settling in next to him. “I’m probably going to fall asleep in twenty minutes, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bodhi says, and hits play.

#rogue one #rebelcaptain #jyn erso #cassian andor #bodhi rook #obvious child #obvious child au #baze malbus #chirrut imwe #star wars #abortion #abortion tw #my fic #my writing #stack the deck verse #otp: built on hope #otp: your mother and i have been together ever since #anyway here's wonderwall

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ilovereadingandilovebreathing · 5 years ago

Note

I wish you would write a fic where peter has some trouble sleeping and he goes to tony for help (irondad is best and I love how you write them)

A/N: I added a Read More break in this; I’m so sorry if it isn’t working on your Dash or in mobile.

---

((WOW as per usual this took forever; I’m so sorry, and thank you for your patience!!!))

I can do that. As many of my IronDad fics are these days, this is set in a Post-Endgame Universe that ends the way we deserved it to. (Also thank you?? So much????) As per usual, I don’t know if this is what you envisioned, but here it is anyway. I hope you like it!

—

A Week in the Life of an Overly Anxious Insomniac (a.k.a. Post-Finals Week)

Friday

Peter Parker crawls in through his bedroom window after the fullest week of his whole life. He’s just finished his Junior year of high school, meaning that his end-of-year finals are the roughest and toughest, and he’s barely made it through them unscathed. Peter’s an above average student for above average students, much less the general population, so he keeps up with his studies well, especially after Tony and May teamed up to implement some Big Brother-level safe guards to make sure he was held accountable for his allotted homework and Spider-Man hours.

The teenager pulls himself upright and runs a hand through his hair, a deep sigh emanating from his chest as he pulls off his Spider-Man suit. He glances at the clock; 1:30AM shines back silently at him, the one-time extended patrol hours Tony and May had allowed him in light of the end of the school year and successful exams.

Once he’s free of his enhanced spandex, Peter pulls on a t-shirt and sweatpants and collapses onto his bed, his nose buried in his covers, but his eyes remain open. He stares languidly at a spot on his wall, likely food from his and Ned’s last sleepover.

The seconds tick past, soon turning into minutes, and then an hour has gone by, and somehow he’s still wide awake. He’s tried to drop off multiple times, but a prickling sensation across his back, like’s he’s being watched, keeps him from relaxing into sleep.

Peter sighs in frustration and takes out his phone, scrolling through countless ridiculous news articles until his body shuts itself off around 5AM.

Saturday

Peter awakes at 9:30AM and groans. At least it’s Saturday, so he can sleep more. He rolls over just in time for his phone to go wild where he’d discarded it beneath his bed earlier that morning. He gropes blindly for the device and clicks it on, sleepily scrolling through the barrage of messages in his group chat with Ned and MJ.

Ned: Expo day!

MJ: Expo day.

Ned: Peter!! EXPO DAY!

Ned: P

Ned: E

Ned: T

Ned: E

Ned: R

Ned: WAKE UP

Peter rolls his eyes but can’t suppress a grin as he types out his response.

Peter: I’m awake geez

It’s not even until 4PM

Ned: Yeah, but still. We have to make sure we have our itinerary down and the layout of the place just in case something ya know crazy happens.

Peter: Right yeah sure

MJ: I’m not wearing the matching t-shirts

Ned: Pleeeeeaaassse MJ!!!!!!!!

MJ: …..without something else over it

Ned: *peace fingers emoji*

MJ: why didn’t you just send the actual emoji

Ned: You have an IPhone. The emojis always show up differently.

MJ: Not that one, idiot

Ned: Oh whatEVER

Peter nearly drops his phone on his face, so he rolls to his side and types out a final message.

Peter: I’m hitting snooze. See you guys this afternoon.

Peter switches his phone to silent mode and lays an arm over his face. After a week of multiple all-nighters on top of a full patrol and 4 ½ hours of sleep last night (this morning, he corrects himself with a grunt), he just wants to sleep until he absolutely has to be up. He sends a quick wake-up call request to May before pulling his covers back over his head.

Peter, Ned, and MJ crash at Ned’s apartment around 12:30AM. The Expo (an invitation courtesy of Tony Stark, of course) had been incredible, showcasing the latest and greatest technology on the market and coming to the market, from Stark Industries to OsCorp and everything in between.

The trio reclines on the Leeds’ comfy sectional, Ned passing out as soon as his body hits the cushions. MJ is curled in a half doze in the crook of the couch, and Peter spreads along the unoccupied middle section, propped sidelong against the back. He stares at his crossed ankles as the TV plays quietly in the background. His vision swims in and out of focus, trying to let him fall into sleep, but something keeps pulling him back just as he’s on the brink, like fingers trailing across his back.

Peter knows no one else is in the room with him. He hears Ned and MJ’s separate, steady breathing on either side of him, but something about their presences, how strongly he can sense them, keeps him from falling out of consciousness. Their presence should be a comforting tether, but he finds it more restrictive now. He shakes his head minutely at the thought.

After about fifteen minutes, Peter sighs in defeat and positions himself to watch Nickelodeon’s late night programming, finally dropping off around 4AM.

Sunday

Sadly for Peter, Ned and MJ are both early risers; they stir around 7:30 but lay poking at their phones until 8. Peter tries to fall back to sleep, but MJ’s accusatory “faker” has him popping his eyes open to defend himself.

“I think I deserve it.” Peter grumbles while rubbing an eye. “My longest night of sleep all week was like 5 ½ hours. Maybe.”

“That’s unhealthy.”

“That’s finals week.”

“I wish you’d told us, Peter.” Ned chimes in with a yawn. “We could have come home way earlier last night.”

“It’s fine.” Peter sighs and pushes himself up. “It was totally worth it. I’ll probably pass out tonight, so it’s fine.”

As if the universe loves proving him wrong, that evening once again finds Peter restless. He can’t seem to get comfortable in any position.

Left side.

Right side.

Back.

Stomach.

He even swaps his head to the foot of the bed and tries a diagonal position.

No dice.

He tenses up every muscle in his body and releases.

He keeps his eyes open for as long as he can without blinking.

He tries to force his breathing to become heavy and even.

Nothing.

His mind and body are exhausted, he can feel it, but they just refuse to shut off.

Peter pulls his pillow over his face and groans loudly.

Monday

Peter gets about 3 hours of sleep before May pokes her head in to ask for his help; she’s been on a minimalist kick lately and wants Peter to help her carry her donations to her car.

He smiles bitterly when he sees the black Sharpie scribbles on the outsides of the boxes:

Ben’s Clothes

Peter’s Toys

Wedding Pictures

Kitchen

Labels marked over and re-named Donations.

Peter’s eyes are suddenly watery, and he quickly deposits the boxes in May’s car before running a hand over his face.

May shoots him an inquisitive look but drops the issue, giving him a quick squeeze of a hug before thanking him and getting in her car. Peter waves as she leaves and sighs.

He could text Ned or MJ to go get coffee, but the walking distance just seems to far today.

He goes back upstairs and spends the day watching lame TV on the couch.

He doesn’t sleep at all that night.

Tuesday

Peter spends the whole day keeping busy. He organizes and cleans the apartment. He volunteers to walk his neighbors’ dogs. He goes for lunch with MJ and Ned and even sets out early as Spider-Man.

The evening hours come around, and he settles in with May on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. They keep score, Peter easily beating all of the contestants, and he begs May to stay with him and play with his hair as he puts on the most boring documentary he can find.

May acquiesces after studying him briefly, but she nods off after about half an hour, her hand resting in his hair.

Peter puts his hands over his face and swallows a sob, painfully, fully awake.

Wednesday

It’s starting to get to him, the lack of sleep.

He ignores May that morning when she calls to him to join her for french toast and fruit.

He tells Ned and MJ he can’t swing lunch that day though he has nothing planned.

He nearly cries when his phone lights up with his reminder that Tony Stark is back from his business trip, and again when said man sends him a message.

Tony: Hey, squirt. I’m back stateside. You free to come to the Lakehouse for a few days? Mo misses you.

Peter actually takes a few moments to consider before he catches himself. Not a good sign.

Peter: Yeah, I’m free. I’ll come tomorrow.

Thursday

Peter kisses May goodbye that morning with a promise of letting her know when he gets to the Cabin.

Happy comes for him around 10:30, and it’s after noon by the time they pull up to Tony Stark’s home away from home.

Morgan is on the porch the moment their car doors slam and is tackling Peter nearly to the ground before he can reach the trunk to get his bag. She squeezes the air from his lungs as she babbles excitedly about how they’re going to spend the next few days, her first days of summer vacation, together.

“Let him breathe, Monkey.”

Peter looks up to find Tony on the porch, metal arm on a post and flesh arm waving lightly. Peter ushers up a smile and a small wave in return before hoisting Morgan up into his arms. The teenager crosses to the porch stops before his mentor.

“Made it through another finals week, huh?”

“Barely.” Peter’s tone is more biting than he wants, and he hopes Tony didn’t notice. He’s definitely giving Peter a once-over now.

“Hap? Take Morgan inside, please?”

“Sure. Come here, Princess.”

“Uncle Happy, can I have cookies?”

“Don’t let her fool you, Hap; she’s already had her post-lunch snack.”

Morgan folds her arms and pouts as Happy chuckles and takes her inside.

“He didn’t say anything about juice pops-”

“Traitor.” Tony mumbles as Happy shuts the door behind them.

It’s quiet for a moment, the lake lapping at the shoreline barely audible as they look out and then at each other. Tony’s gaze stays on Peter, and the boy can’t help but look away.

“What’s up, kid?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your eyes are bloodshot. And last time I checked, Pep didn’t pop out a ten ton toddler, so Morgan shouldn’t be able to knock you over like that.”

“I was just playing with her.”

“Uh huh. Well,” Tony is clearly a bit peeved with Peter, but he drops the issue. “I assume you haven’t had lunch yet, so maybe some food in you will make you more talkative.”

“Thanks.”

“Turkey?”

“Perfect.”

Peter passes the afternoon between Tony and Morgan, the former occupying him with projects in his small workshop and the latter demanding to be occupied by him all over the property.

For all intents and purposes, he should be exhausted.

And yet 2:30AM finds him wide awake and near to breaking.

He’s laying on his side facing his clock, the red letters displaying “2:31AM.” He stares and stares and stares until he feels like the letters are bored into his brain. He closes his eyes, and they pop back open again like they’re on a spring.

Peter rolls into his back and stares at the dark patches on his ceiling, remnants of the knotholes that used to be, tensing and relaxing his gaze, squinting and releasing, rolling his eyes around in vain hopes of exhausting his eyes to closing with no luck.

He flips onto his left side with a huff and curls into the fetal position, hoping somehow he can trick his anxiety-ridden brain into believing he is safe and can sleep soundly. He’s in the middle of the woods of New York in what is likely the safest cabin in the entire world, and yet his body refuses to relax and let him sleep.

Peter slaps his comforter in frustration and bolts upright, his heartbeat drumming painfully in his chest and blood pumping in his ears. He swings his feet over the side of the bed, grabs his Midtown hoodie, and slides open the window; he sits on the edge for a moment or two before dropping silently to the ground. Slipping his hands into his hoodie pocket, Peter quietly follows the moonlit path to the dock; he stands there for a little while, tracing every shape and shadow the reflected glow will let him see, listening to every scuttle and shuffle in the trees and on the ground.

He wouldn’t pick out the light footsteps in any other circumstance, but their contrast to those he’s more familiar with sets him at ease.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.” Peter chokes out as Pepper comes to stand beside him.

The woman is hugging her bathrobe to herself despite the warmth of the season, but she doesn’t seem agitated from what Peter can tell.

“You didn’t.” There’s an undercurrent of a scoff in her tone. “Overseas conference call. We had to meet on their terms.”

“That’s not fair.”

“We trade off.”

“Oh.”

They stand in silence for a few beats before Pepper sighs.

“He struggles with insomnia, too, you know.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Afghanistan. His heart. New York. That crazy Russian. Hammer. Ultron. Thanos. St-….Everything. I’d be amazed if he went through everything he has while maintaining a decent sleep schedule.” Pepper’s tone is a little hard, but Peter knows she doesn’t mean ill will toward him. She’s been with Tony through far longer than he has. She’s quiet for a few seconds before quietly adding, her tone lighter, “He called an Iron Man suit on me once.”

Peter sucks in a breath.

“I don’t think he meant to, but he had so much going on that he wasn’t dealing with already, and…we were going through a rough patch…The anxiety was eating him alive. Don’t tell him I told you all of that.” Her tone is more conspiratorial than regretful. “He’s never forgiven himself for it, but you should know. He deals with it, too. The anxiety. Feeling unsettled all the time.”

“There’s just…always something. I feel like can’t really rest.”

Pepper nods. “I don’t know the full scope of your abilities, but May’s told me about your…Peter Tingle?”

Peter cringes. “Spider Sense is what I prefer, but yeah. Maybe that’s related to all of this.”

“Probably.” Pepper is quiet for a moment. “You know…he would do whatever he needs to help. All you have to do is ask.”

“Okay.” Peter turns just a bit and gives her a tired smile. “Thanks, Pepper.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Pepper holds out an arm for him, and he gladly steps in to it.

Peter will always be secretly, selfishly thankful for how Morgan softened the Starks while he was gone, allowing him to fall in their never-ending streams of comfort that didn’t exist before he disappeared.

Peter feels a pull where Pepper’s hand rests on his shoulder, and he allows her to guide them back inside. He falls asleep an hour later.

Tony has multiple business calls the next day, so it’s mid-afternoon when Peter finally gets some alone time with his mentor-turned-father-figure. They’re sitting on a small pier Tony built over the lake, swinging on a bench swing Morgan insisted they needed after Pepper had one installed on the front porch months earlier. They’re seated on opposite ends of the swing, Peter’s feet propped between them as they gaze out over the water, each lost in their respective thoughts.

Peter taps Tony’s arm with his toes after a while, and the man scrunches up his nose in false disgust.

“The last thing I want on my arm, even lower on the totem pole than Morgan’s boogers, is stinky teenager feet.”

“I will have you know that I clean my feet quite well and quite regularly, my good sir.” Peter falls into a vaguely British accent, accentuating each of the last three words with its own individual toe tap to Tony’s arm.

“Disgusting. I’m tainted.” Tony rests his arm over the back of the swing. “So, I hear you and Pepper had a little late night stroll to the dock.”

“She told you?”

“FRIDAY did. She’s a bit of a tattletale.”

“She really is.”

“Woke me up and everything, and I was finally getting a good night’s sleep.”

Peter feels heat rise to his cheeks. “Sorry. Uh, and sorry you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Tony shrugs. “It happens. Especially when I go from being in the city, as we were in Bangladesh, to being back out here in the quiet. Hard to adjust sometimes. To relax fully.”

“Yeah.” Peter stares resolutely out at the lake.

“So, what were you and my wife chatting about at such an hour?”

“Just…business?”

“So you got up and took Pepper out to the dock to ask her about her business call?”

“Not exactly. I mean, it came up, but…I was out there first.”

“Oh, really? So she came out as a recon. mission, then?”

“I guess so.”

“Why were you out there in the middle of the night, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“….I couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

Peter inhales through his nose. “Not sure. But it’s not a big deal.”

“If you say so.”

Peter looks through the corners of his eyes and finds Tony studying him before the man decides to stand, stretching and popping his back as he does so.

“Care for a walk around the lake?”

Peter collapses onto the couch when they return, staring through the windows to the side porch and watching Tony and Pepper prepare dinner together on the outside grill.

Morgan is hunched over at his feet, scribbling furiously in her current favorite coloring book.

“Whatchya doodling, Moomoo?”

“A cat.” Morgan holds up a good-sized image of what is now an orange tabby.

“Looks good.”

“Thanks.” The little one goes back to her coloring, more quietly this time, and Peter settles back against the arm of the couch. He stares at the ceiling, willing himself to relax if it means he can even get a nap in before dinner, but his body just won’t have it. He can hear his heartbeat. Morgan’s heartbeat. Every mechanical and electrical noise in the house goes in and out of focus as he just lays there, trying not to show his frustration and upset Morgan.

“Hey, Pete.” Tony pokes his head in and nearly makes the teen jump. “Can you grab the meat out of the fridge?”

“Yeah.” Peter sits up slowly and stands, feeling Tony’s eyes on him as he crosses to the kitchen. “Sh-oot.” Peter catches himself just in time after his toe has a gnarly collision with a dining table leg. “Missed that somehow…” He grumbles as he pulls the food out of the freezer and brings it back to Tony. Peter just catches the man’s critical gaze before it snaps into easy speculation.

“Thanks, bud.” Tony claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and they go out together, Peter’s hopes of relief forgotten as the afternoon melts into evening.

It’s the same old story, and one he is so tired of re-living.

Peter full on glares at the ceiling as his heart pounds in his chest, refusing to slow down no matter how he tries to force out slow, even breaths. He clenches his eyes shut but the frustrated tears have already bloomed there and spilled over his cheeks, drawing twin lines down over his temples and pooling on his pillow. He swipes a hand over his face and sniffs hard, rolling onto his side to glare at the clock now.

3:33am.

The witching hour. Or at least that’s what MJ calls it. It definitely feels like he’s being hexed right now as his eyes seem to remain open of their own accord, in spite of all of his efforts to get them to comply with the exhaustion in his limbs, his bones.

“Why the hell can’t I sleep?” He mouths silently at the glowing numbers, the frustration spilling over again, but he doesn’t bother to wipe them away this time. He doesn’t cry all that often, really, not when he’s mad, at least, but night after night of not sleeping enough, especially after exerting himself so much, has worn him thin, and crying is all he can do to keep from screaming, stomping, hurling and throwing things. He’s past the point of being upset with his insomnia and reached the point of searing anger, at himself for not being able to overcome this obstacle and whatever power has placed this plague on him. He grits his teeth until his jaw aches, and he nearly cracks a tooth when an owl sees fit to chime in on his thoughts from outside his window.

Peter pushes himself up and gazes toward his window, the scene from last night playing through his mind in a strange 3rd person point-of-view, as if he is FRIDAY watching him from the house instead of himself experiencing it. Something Pepper said pokes at his consciousness, and he frowns.

You know…he would do whatever he needs to help. All you have to do is ask.

All you have to do is ask.

Peter stares intently at the window for a moment, contemplating before he finally sighs deeply and throws his covers off. As much as he hates to put anything else on the man’s plate, Peter knows that Tony will understand his plight; plus, he’s been eyeing Peter ever since he arrived, so the teen figures it’s more merciful to put the man out of his miserable curiosity.

Peter stops outside of Tony and Pepper’s door, listening for a moment and frowning when he only hears one person breathing and snoring softly. Definitely not Tony. He quietly pads to Morgan’s door and listens, only hearing the even lighter breathing of the little girl, and his brows crease.

Peter heads toward the stairs and picks up the faint light shining from downstairs; he quietly mounts them and steps down to the ground floor, absorbing Tony sitting on the couch with a book in one hand, a cup of tea in the other. It’s so domestic that it brings the tears back to Peter’s eyes, the idea of Tony finally being this relaxed and at home somewhere pulling at something deep in Peter’s core.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Tony’s voice startles Peter, the silence Peter hadn’t realized he’d settled in to shattered, and now the air holds an expectation of being filled with vibrating waves that Peter isn’t sure he’s ready to relinquish. The idea of finally confiding in Tony had seemed palpable when he was upstairs, alone and breaking anyway, but now that he’s here and sees Tony, thinks back to everything he’s been through, Peter suddenly feels selfish and silly.

“Quit overthinking. Come sit with me.”

Peter’s gaze snaps from the window to which it’s wandered and back to his mentor. Tony has put down the book and tea by now and is watching him intently but not oppressively; there’s no scrutiny in his eyes or demand in his body language, just an open invitation.

Peter crosses the room stiffly and sits beside Tony, staring ahead and body refusing to relax right away.

“Geez, you’re wound up tight. Come here.” Tony beckons Peter toward him, and the teen stares.

“What?”

“I’m gonna rub your shoulders, kid. Don’t make it weird.” Tony rolls his eyes. “Unless you’re genuinely uncomfortable with it, then I won’t.”

“No, it’s okay….I’m just….getting used to it.”

“To what?”

“To you being all…”

“Domestic?”

“Exactly.”

Tony snorts.

“That’s like, the one benefit of disappearing for five years.”

Tony clenches his jaw, and Peter sighs through his nose. It’s always too soon for Tony.

“Sorry…I just mean…You had a kid while I was gone. You got all paternal and stuff, and now I get to reap the benefits of that, I guess.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely more touchy feely than before, huh?”

“I just figured that was because you missed me.” Peter smiles a bit, mischief tugging at the corners of his lips.

“I did, kid. So much.”

Peter’s smile falls to neutrality. “I know. I….I guess I missed you, too. I don’t remember much.”

“Hopefully we’ll keep it that way.” Tony mumbles. “So, shoulder rub?”

Peter considers for a moment. “Sure, why not.” He scoots closer to Tony, and the man’s warm hand on his tense neck and shoulder muscles immediately help him relax just a fraction.

“Geez, kid; you been working out these muscle groups or have you been that tense over finals?”

Peter blinks. “You know, now that you mention it, I guess I have been pretty tense over the last couple of weeks.”

“Yeah? You think that’s causing your sleeping problems?”

“How did you know about that?”

“This is the second night in a row that you’re awake with a Stark parent in the dead of night in one of the safest places in the world. Call it a hunch.”

Peter lets out an involuntary snort. “Yeah…It’s been a solid two weeks since I got a good night of sleep.”

“Two Fridays ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Did you procrastinate? Too many Spidey hours?”

“No, no, I was ready just…nervous I guess. Not sure why. I guess because I had a lot of tough academic classes this semester. There’s just kind of an air of tension, you know? Even if I feel okay, if everyone else is stressed out, I just kind of pick up on that. I guess it’s my senses.”

“That makes sense.”

“And sometimes I tend to just….hang on to that tension even after the school year is over, you know? After I took my first AP Exam, I had three separate dreams that I was taking the exam over again. It’s like a high that I can’t come down from or something.”

“Mmm.” Tony hums his attention while giving special care to a particularly tough knot near the base of Peter’s neck. “Geez, kid, we really have to work on your posture. No more studying in bed.”

“Oh, yeah, May told me not to do that.”

“Wait, did you actually study in bed?”

“…..Yeah.”

“Pete. Kid. You’re too smart for this. Seriously, you should only sleep in your bed. Anything else encourages you to be awake in that space.”

“When did you become an expert on this stuff?”

“When I became a workaholic and was doing work in the comfort of my bed that I couldn’t ever sleep in because my mind was always buzzing with work to be done.”

“Oh….ah!” Peter flinches as Tony pushes his metal thumb against the aforementioned knot.

“Sorry, bud. This one’s a booger.”

Peter squirms uncomfortably as Tony presses on the tough spot in his back, sucking in a harsh breath when the man ups the pressure but sagging in relief when he eases off.

“Anything else bothering you?” Tony prompts quietly as he places his flesh hand over the base of Peter’s neck to massage the top of his spine.

Peter nearly groans as Tony works at the new spot of tension he’s found. “….No, not really.”

“You hesitated.”

“So?” There’s more discomfort than bite in Peter’s tone.

“You’re not exactly one to choose your words carefully, Pete.” Tony’s lowers his voice and evens out his tone as much as he can. “You speed through every conversation like that ugly blue hedgehog thing.”

“Sonic.”

“Sure,” Tony shrugs. “But we were talking about you hesitating.”

“You were, really.”

“Sure, I was, but it really is one of your tells for when you’re not being totally honest with me.”

“Since when do you pay so much attention to me?” Peter’s nostrils flare just a bit after the fact.

“Ooo so that’s it, then? Feeling neglected by your mentor-slash-idol?” Tony has laced jest into his tone to compensate for the pinched brows Peter cannot see. He knows Peter looks up to him as a father figure, especially considering all they’ve been through together, and icy guilt stabs through him as he thinks of Peter missing him and longing for his re-assurance in these last days of the semester. “You know I’m always a video call away, buddy.”

“I know….” Peter winces, and Tony apologizes quietly. “…but you’re busy.”

“I’m retired, kid. Not a superhero anymore, remember? And Pepper and her people run Stark Industries.”

“You were just in Wakanda for two weeks.”

“That was…a friendly visit, we’ll call it.” Tony pats Peter’s back lightly and reclines against the couch cushions. “That’s all I can do for now, kiddo. Hand’s too tired.”

“Thanks.” Peter rolls his shoulders and settles back, too, distanced from Tony at the other end of the couch.

“Seriously, though.” Tony levels Peter with a gaze, and the teen can’t look away. “Anything you need, any time, Peter. I’m here for you. I didn’t invent time travel to get you back and pawn you off on May again.”

Peter nods, his face unreadable as he continues to stare at Tony like an animal deciding if he’s trustworthy or not.

“C’mere, squirt.” Tony holds out an arm and blinks when Peter hesitates before crawling into his partial embrace. The man sighs and leans his head back, tracing the barely visible grooves in the wood paneled ceiling. “Do you remember the last time we sat like this?”

“Yesterday?”

“Yes, smartass, but I was thinking more about the hour. The last time we were both up at 3am.”

Peter considers for a moment, following Tony’s gaze before realization seems to strike him; his eyes widen a fraction before falling to the coffee table.

“Oh, yeah.”

Tony squeezes Peter’s shoulder.

“We didn’t do a lot this year. We were both too busy on the day of to go to his grave.”

“Does that bother you?”

“A little…but it’s not like he knows. And…I don’t know if we really wanted to this year, you know? With everything that’s happened, death is just such a weird thing to think about right now.”

“That makes sense.”

Peter’s breath catches just a bit. “She gave some of his stuff away the other day. She asked me to help her carry it out to her car, and she didn’t even…acknowledge it or whatever.”

Tony is quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry, buddy.”

Peter is lost in thought for a few moments. “Well, I think so, anyway. She had donation boxes, and they were taped up, but the side was marked, ‘Ben’s Clothes’ and ‘Wedding Pictures.’ I never saw inside, so I don’t know for sure. And like I said, she didn’t say anything, which is weird for her, honestly, so maybe she was just using the boxes.”

“You could ask her.”

“I don’t think so. That would probably upset her…Besides, I doubt she actually did get rid of them, but something about loading all of that stuff into her car just…it felt like the day I first came to them, or when we moved after the blip. So much transition, and the thought of transitioning past Ben on top of how much I haven’t been sleeping was just…”

“The straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Exactly.” Peter’s voice is thin and quiet, wispy like a passing breeze, strained like a taut muscle, and weighted with meaning like a fierce whisper.

Tony is rubbing his hand over Peter’s shoulder and pretends not to notice when Peter rubs his hand over his eyes. He does notice the second time, though, and laughs a bit when Peter lets out a loud yawn. “You sleepy now?”

“Yeah. I could sleep for days.”

“Do that. I’ll keep Momo occupied tomorrow-” Tony snorts. “Today. Sleep as long as you need to.”

“Thanks, Tony.” Peter smiles tiredly and leans his head against Tony’s shoulder; he stares blankly at the fireplace until his eyelids begin to droop.

“Oh, no. I can’t sleep here tonight; my back is too bad for that.” Tony roughly rubs Peter’s shoulder before shifting to get up.

Peter grunts and pouts, slouching into the couch.

“You can’t, either. Morgan won’t let you sleep if you’re down here.”

“True…” Peter rises with him.

“Hey, if this sleepless stuff persists, I’ll get some of the stuff we gave Steve when he was fighting insomnia after-….some stuff happened.”

“Yeah, okay. Thank you.”

“No problem at all, bud.”

They climb the stairs in silence, pad down the hall and turn to face each other when they reach their respective doors.

“Night, Pete.” Tony whispers, hand on his doorknob.

“Night, Tony.” Peter lingers for just a moment as Tony goes into his room.

The man turns to close his door but stops when he catches Peter still waiting. His brows crease, and he moves to come back out, but Peter shakes his head and looks at the floor shyly, before waving for Tony to go. Tony considers Peter for a moment, squinting at the kid before he sighs silently and nods, closing the door all the way.

Peter sighs and goes into his own room, closing the door silently behind him before he crawls into bed and falls into a dead sleep until that afternoon.

(Tony only slightly regrets promising to entertain Morgan on 4 hours of sleep.)

#irondad #irondadfic #irondadfanfic #spiderson #spidersonfic #mine #spiderbabyfanfics #mcufic

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gideongrace · 5 years ago

Text

Talking amongst ourselves - fanfic writer interviews: @ihni

(Originally, these interviews were done more conversationally, but this interview is a LONG one! So I edited it down for tumblr. You can read the whole unedited, uncut interview over on a03! There are pictures involved. :)

Please say your first name, your age, your pronouns, the fandoms you write for and provide a link to your a03. You can also mention your sexual orientation or other details, if you'd like.

Ihni:

My real name is Moa, but I go by Ihni online. On AO3, I have an account under Ihni (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihni) but that's for rhymes (and doodles). I only wrote rhymes/poetry for a long time, and when I started writing fic, I wanted to put that under another pen name. I was NOT comfortable writing stories for YEARS. Now, though, I don't care. So, I write fics under the pen name Thei (https://archiveofourown.org/users/thei/).

It's all Stranger Things, these days. Harringrove (because I love the fandom and I like the two of them interacting) and Billy-centric (because I love his character, SO MUCH).

I am ace and aro, so my fics tend to not contain any sex (I have ALLUDED to it a couple of times, but that's basically as far as I go). I am also just as happy to write fics without any romantic or sexual relationships at all. Billy and Steve can be buddies only, as far as I'm concerned.

How do you feel about being aroace when so much of fanfic is all about romance and sex?

Ihni:

I live by the tried and tested rule of "don't like, don't read".

There is a lot of romance in our fandom, for sure. But it's not like it's lovey-dovey IN OUR FACE romance, you know? 97% of Harringrove fics are two dumb boys who are bad at communication and who can't deal with Feelings. And I fucking live for that! Also, even the lovey-dovey fluffy romance stuff is cute, when it's them. I may not want a relationship for myself, but I don't mind at all if the boys are in one! (If they want it, they deserve it <3)

And as for sex ... well. I can read about sex, if it's well written or if it furthers the plot. If it's too graphic, I tend to scroll past it though, or just skim through it. It doesn't... give me a lot? I guess. Like, it's not like I read "smut" in the tags and go "oooh I have to read this!" - rather the opposite, in fact. I can read it, but it's not something I actively look for, and when I stumble upon it, I don't always read all of it. If I know the writer, I'll probably read through it to honor their work, though.

I just won't ever leave a "omg that was so hot!" comment! XD If someone expects that from me, they'll be disappointed (and I'm constantly terrified of disappointing or offending people for NOT commenting on their smut).

Basically, I am the master of my own fandom experience, and if something makes me uncomfortable I will keep away from it. Simple as that.

More people should live by that rule.

What's your writing process like?

Ihni:

Uuuuuuuugh.

That's an interpretation of my writing process.

No, but.

I usually get SUPER INSPIRED to write a specific scene, or concept... and THAT part goes well, but then I have to build a STORY around it, and that takes SUCH A LONG TIME and SO MUCH EFFORT!

And also, usually, it gets out of hand.

I usually have to force myself to get the words in, honestly. And also, I get real tired of what I'm writing, real fast. So I have to force myself to finish (I have a few WIPs that are more than a year in the making...) before moving on to other things. (And I usually write the other things inbetween, anyway.)

I get easily distracted, when I write. Like, actually sitting down and writing takes an hour and a half. Then I MIGHT write for like twenty minutes, lol.

Cold Turkey Writer was a godsend XD.

If I have internet on while I'm writing, not a lot will be written, let's just ... let's just say that.

How do you edit?

Ihni:

HAHAHAHAHAHAA

Erm.

Well.

Sometimes, I read through it once, and change a few things, and let that be it.

In a couple of cases, for the longer ones, I have actually made an effort to read through it more than once. (The problem being that by then, I'm so sick of it that I will skim through it just to get it over with.)

A couple of times, a friend has read through it for me, and given me pointers. Which is VERY HELPFUL! But they've offered to do it for me, I would never ask it of someone.

And about the editing process ... I check for spelling mistakes, or when something sounds wrong, or looks wrong ... and then I fix it, so it looks and sounds better in my head. I don't know. That's editing, right?

What fanfic authors do you admire?

Ihni:

In the Harringrove fandom, I have to mention LEMONLOVELY, because I'm in love with the way she writes Billy, and the way she's shaping her fics as she goes, and the way her attention to detail brings a whole mood (I am OBSESSED with her "Words Left Unsaid" fic, and am probably that fic's biggest fan).

LYMRICKS, because fucking hell, they sure can write a fic that draws you in. There's something about long sentences in combination with short sentences that really makes them easy to read, and the language is like a punch to the gut, at times.

CALLIEB, because I love their stories and I'm currently following "Second Thoughts" and I love how they write everyone like ... like they're holding their breath, waiting for something.

And I'm not even gonna mention any others by name because I'm terrible with names and I'm bound to forget someone and I'm just, I don't want to do that. Our fandom is full of talented writers, and I just. If I've commented on your fic, I read through all of it and I liked it. If I haven't - well, I HAVE been writing more lately = less time to read, and I have like 100 fic tabs open on all of my devices ... I hope to get there, some time!

In other fandoms, let me mention PeaceHeather (for how they write Loki and that world), aloneintherain (such good whump!), isaDanCurtisproduction (the absolute best Spideypool!) and gaelicspirit (who writes lovely angsty whumpy Musketeers fics). Like. Just to mention 0.01%, or something.

I don't think any of them, particularly, have impacted my style - because I don't HAVE a style - but I soak up every word of every fanfic I ever read, and if one sentence is a particularly pretty string of words, I will copy & paste it into a word document that is now 170 pages long, or screenshot it to keep it forever. ❤️

Words. <3

What's your favorite story of yours?

What's your least favorite story of yours?

What's your favorite line you've ever written?

Ihni:

Like, in what SENSE? Even though I know my writing isn't up to par, they're still my babies. Still my creations. I love them in different ways! Like. I love "Coming Back" because it was the longest I had written back then, and it's probably the one I am most pleased about, writing-wise, and it's also the one I went through and edited the most. So it feels like the one I worked the most on.

I love "Toy Soldiers" because it was a totally self-indulgent piece of writing that I wrote for the joy of it, and because I wanted to read it and no one else was about to write it for me.

I love "About Apologies" because something about it pleases me, it was an experiment that didn't fail, and I like it more and more with time.

I love "Less of a mistake, more of a miscalculation" because I had fun while writing it, and it turned out kind of like I wanted it to, plot-wise.

I love "Actions and reactions", because I had no idea what I was doing back then, but I still did it, and somehow it got long and I still don't know how that happened.

And I realise that this makes me sound a little self-centered, but I worked hard on them. I love them, even if they're my ugly and imperfect babies. And even if I cringe if I re-read certain parts XD

I guess my least favorite story of mine (and I'm guessing we're talking Stranger Things things here?) is "Not unusual" because a) I never re-read it and b) it was the start of something that I have to actually FINISH at some point and ugh, that was not the original plan. If we're talking least favorite stories in all fandoms, then definitely "In which there are mistakes made", which was a Teen Wolf fic, and the reason why I don't do WIPs anymore. The last chapter was written simply to fucking END it, and ugh, I hate it.

The favorite line I've ever written ...? I don't know. Are we talking in fic? Because I write my best stuff in comments, honestly. :p I don't think I have an answer for that one, actually. Sorry :S

What part of writing is easiest for you?

What part of writing is hardest for you?

Ihni:

Easiest? Dialogue. I like dialogue. Like, as a non-English speaker I can at least imagine a plausible exchange of words, and banter, and make it sound somewhat realistic, I imagine.

Hardest? The rest. Like, some people are just fucking WIZARDS with words, can write these long descriptive sentences that perfectly sets the mood for when a character gracefully moves across the room ... whereas I am just, "He stood up and walked over. End of fucking story."

What do you do when you're struggling for inspiration?

Ihni:

Give up?

Or do something else.

Or go and read. (That's basically the same as giving up.)

Or, if I'm still writing, I go to another part of the story and write THAT, and hope that I'll feel like connecting the two pieces, later.

Inspiration is a bitch.

Who introduced you to fandom and when?

Ihni:

Oh god. I am old. I don't remember.

I started writing stories when I was real young, and I was always reading something. I started writing stories with my friends when I was a teenager. Then we discovered the internet (yes, this was around the time when we got internet access in school and at home, told you I was old!) and when doing that, I guess we found more like-minded people.

Fanfics ... weren't an organized thing, back then. But I've been reading them, and been in fandoms, ever since I discovered that there were people online who liked the same things that I liked.

I would say, actively, from maybe around 19-20 years old? Like, that was ACTIVE fandom-ing.

What is your advice to fellow writers?

How often do you jump between fandoms?

How long have you been writing?

Ihni:

As a WRITER, I am not the best person to give advice to writers, I think. I'd rather TAKE advice than give it, at this point.

As a READER, my advice is to WRITE, WRITE, WRITE, because you are doing a good thing and you are creating a version of a world that is yours, versions of characters that you can shape into anything, and SOMEONE out there will love you for it (probably me).

I jump between fandoms ... hmm, as a WRITER? Seldom. Billy's my jam and I'm not moving.

As a READER? All the time. I mean, I'm pretty deep into Harringrove and Billy and Stranger Things, but sometimes I need something light-hearted, and then I go back to some of my basic fandoms, and read something else. I will never run out of things to read.

❤️

And how long have I been writing? FOREVER. I wrote when I was young, and thought I was going to be an author (wrote in Swedish, back then). Then I wrote when I was a teen, for fun. Then I stopped writing. Then I started writing rhymes, in English, because it was a craft I could do and train in, and it was short pieces. And only in recent years (very recent), have I started writing fics. And now, I write long-ass fics in English, so I guess I have at least come a long way!

Why do you write?

Ihni:

...

I just sat and stared at the screen for a good ten seconds.

I'd say that it differs.

Sometimes, I write because I want to READ something and no one has written it (or is going to).

Sometimes, I write because I want a very specific thing or feeling, and it doesn't exist yet.

Sometimes, I write because I am inspired.

Sometimes, I write because I want to.

Sometimes, I write because of a deadline.

Sometimes, I write because there's something in my head that Won't Leave Me The Fuck Alone until I get it out.

Sometimes, I write for fun.

Sometimes, I write because I want to hurt.

Sometimes, I write because I need to.

Sometimes, I write because I want to become better at it; learn; reach towards the writers whose work I love.

And sometimes, I just sit and stare at a document, don't write a single fucking word, and go watch a movie instead.

#talkingamongstourselves #ihni

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p-artsypants · 5 years ago

Text

Longest Night (16) Struggling

Marinette had thought Highschool had been hard. Right now, in this moment, she'd give anything to go back to those petty arguments and gossip fueled drama. But she couldn't. Instead, she and Adrien were trapped here, being punished, humiliated, tortured, for being heroes, all broadcasted for the world to see. At least she and her kitty were in this together. For now. Whump!Fic

Ao3 | FF.net

Note: This chapter has brief mentions of the previous two chapters. We are in the viewer’s perspective.

—

Hawkmoth. We need to talk. —Salo.

Alya stared at the sentence over and over, her breath hitching in her throat. How could this happen? It couldn’t! It just couldn’t!

“I have to remove this link!” Alya stated. “Max, can I get on your computer?”

“Of course,” he stated, taking out his laptop. “It’s pretty obvious how she posted that. You are using a public server through blogspot, after all.”

“Can you prevent her from doing it again?” She asked, logging into her account.

“Of course. No problem.”

Incorrect username.

Alya clenched her fists. “That bitch kicked me out!”

“Now now, hold on.” Max assured, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Let Markov try.”

“Of course, this will be easy. One moment please.” Markov plugged into the computer, and in a few seconds, the Ladyblog’s dashboard appeared.

“Wonderful! I’ll change my email and password too. After I delete this post!”

It was right up top, in the most plain and boring formatting. Just a white box with black text.

“Huh.” Alya said aloud, staring at it.

“What’s wrong, Al?” Asked Nino.

“There’s no trash icon. No comment section, no share icon, nothing. I can’t edit it or delete it.”

“Allow me,” stated Markov again.

A red triangle with an exclamation point came up on his face. “Whoopsies, we don’t have access to the post.”

“Whaddya mean we don’t have access!? This is my blog, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no.” Said Max. “Everything around this post is your blog. But this box itself is not.”

“Huh?”

“Think of it…as Salo cut a hole in your website and has this in the background, showing through.”

“You can do that?” Asked Nino.

“Not easily, by any means. It’s extremely complicated. I’ve never tried it myself. No need to.”

“So…what do we do?” Alya crossed her arms, looking anxious.

Max screwed up his lip in thought, turning the laptop towards himself. He typed away, a next window coming up. In a flash of textual garbage, too complexed for anyone else to understand, he had a diagnosis. “Okay…well, the post has a slightly different URL, that’s associated with the blog. But it’s being hosted on a private server, which I can’t access. At least not yet. I can try to take it down, but it will take me a few hours, at least.”

“But we don’t have a few hours! Hawkmoth could see this post at any second!”

“I understand. The other thing we could do, is delete the blog in its entirety. Then the post won’t have a URL to associate with and will be unviewable.”

Delete the Ladyblog.

Alya felt sick.

What was two years of hard work in exchange for her friend’s safety? She still had all the videos, all the pictures, she could make a new website, right? One that got Marinette’s approval before every posting.

“Okay—“

“Wait,” said Nino. “Shouldn’t we see where the link goes first? What if it helps the police find them?”

Alya gasped slightly. “I’m glad you thought of that!”

“Markov, initiate Backdraft operations.” Max said.

“Backdraft initiated.”

“What’s backdraft?” Asked Alya.

“It’s simply a protocol I use if I think my presence is being tracked, or I may be counter hacked. It’s basically a fancy firewall.”

“Oh, I see.”

With the class gathered around, Max clicked on the link.

Another window popped up, with a loading wheel. It spun for a moment, then a big red ‘X’ covered the screen and the window closed.

“Hmm…how very interesting.”

“What the heck was that?” Asked Kim, resting his chin on Max’s head like a pest.

“Believe it or not, that was a video chat. But it uses facial recognition to get in.”

“So it’s not going to be helpful to us at all. Huh?”

“I can try to track it. Though it may be difficult since the page closes so quickly.”

Nino whispered as quietly as possible. “Didn’t the detective say he wanted to use your blog to help with the investigation?”

Alya scrunched up her face. Now she had to make two decisions. Stop Hawkmoth, or take the chance and maybe get a lead on Salo.

Any normal person would have gone with the absolute, but Alya was desperate.

“Leave the blog up. Do you think you can track the link?”

“I’ll give it my best shot.” Said Max, honestly.

Alya gave a twitch of a smile.

Something about her conversation with Hawkmoth earlier niggled in her brain. He had addressed her by her name, not as an Akuma. And when she asked him to leave, he left.

Of course, there was no trusting the man, that was obvious, but as far as villains go, she was much more willing to deal with him than Salo.

Alya shook her head. That was an insane thought.

Then the bell rang, and lunch was officially over. Alya and Nino found their seats, now feeling keenly aware that Adrien and Marinette were both absent from class.

“Oh,” said Nino, holding up a pink backpack. “She left it here. Adrien’s is here too.”

Alya smiled fondly. “We’ll carry them back with us.”

—

Miss Bustier was nothing if not understanding. None of the students had their homework done from yesterday, so she just cancelled the assignment. Alya and Nino weren’t given the missed work from this morning either.

She had a feeling they probably wouldn’t be doing it anyways.

Alya had her phone out all day, plugged into a portable charger.

She constantly refreshed the page, hoping for something different.

But no. For hours now, Adrien and Marinette has been hanging by the wrists from chains.

Near the end of the day, Alya looked over to see Marinette speaking to the camera.

She rewound, found the time stamp and raised her hand.

“Yes Alya?”

“Marinette’s saying something! She’s speaking to us!”

“Are you sure?” Miss Bustier asked.

Nino was already next to her, looking at the screen.

“She’s looking right at the camera. I don’t think she’s talking to Adrien.”

“Can I turn on the projector?” Asked Max.

“Well…” Miss Bustier saw the first broadcast. She had turned away the moment Marinette was demanded to strip. She hadn’t watched anything since, and didn’t know if it was safe to show the students.

But looking around, she saw that they were all worried, and eager to see what Marinette had to say.

And so she nodded at Max.

In a matter of seconds, the website was up, and Adrien and Marinette’s states were now visible to the room.

There was a round of gasps.

No one had watched the stream this morning.

“Is that…is that Adrien?” Chloe asked, with choking breath.

Regardless of the state of room, Alya hit play.

Marinette looked around, and then looked directly at the camera. She gave a tired little smile.

“Hey,” she spoke in an absolutely broken voice. “If you’re watching this, you…you’re probably feeling a little hopeless. I don’t blame you. I feel…pretty hopeless too. I mean, I’m…I’m stuck. I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of this. But…but Ladybug always saves the day, right?” She glanced away, choosing her words. “My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m 17 years old, and my favorite color is pink. I’m the daughter of the best bakers in Paris, though I might be a little bias.” She smiled slightly. “Before I became Ladybug, I was a normal girl, with a normal life. What made me extraordinary, was my willingness to help others, and my kindness. So Paris, I have a favor to ask:

“Be helpful and kind. Go out of your way do something nice for someone once a day. If you can do this for me, then I know Paris will be safe until we return.”

“I promise.” Alya heard Chloe whisper.

She glanced over to Adrien, then off screen, and then back at the camera. “Maman, Papa...I’m really really sorry I had to hide this from you. I didn’t want to, and some days I thought about how much easer it would be if I just told you. How I could explain the lateness and absences, and my bad grades. But I just had to let you think I was a bad kid. It was for your safety, after all...but despite my best efforts, this still happened, and now you’re in danger. Please get somewhere safe. Leave Paris if you have to. I love you so much. I promise I’ll be out soon.”

Her brow crinkled, as she hesitated. Then, “Alya, I’m sorry too. You…you probably feel kinda betrayed right now. But, like I said, it was for your own safety. You were put in peril so many times because of me. How many more would that have been if Hawkmoth thought you knew my identity? After everything, I hope you finally believe me now...sorry, that was harsh. I...I’ll forgive you, if you forgive me. Deal?”

Alya broke down sobbing. If there was anything else to be heard, she missed it. Of course she forgave Marinette! How could she not? Marinette picked her as Rena Rouge, time and time again!

And what did she do in return?

Stab her in the back.

Some best friend she was.

“Al…” Nino comforted. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not alright!” Alya shouted, startling everyone. She hated how much of a mess she was. She was supposed to be a superhero, damnit! But at this rate, Hawkmoth would try to akumatize her again.

“She’s right, you know.” Said Miss Bustier, rubbing a hand under her eye. “It’s not alright.” She cleared her throat and spoke to the class. “I know things seem bleak right now. And it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to grieve and to hurt. But it’s never okay to hurt others to make yourself feel better. That’s exactly what Salo is doing. That’s what Hawkmoth has done for years. I know it hurts, and things seem hopeless. But we need to listen to Marinette, to Ladybug. Go out of your way to be kind to someone.”

Alya breathed a sigh. Miss Bustier always knew what to say to make things better.

“Alya, can you come stand with me please?”

She nodded, getting to her feet. Up front, Miss Bustier hugged her, and held her around the waist, as she beckoned each one of her students forward.

“Alya, you’re so smart.”

“You’ve got a wicked sense of humor!”

“You’re really perceptive, and notice things that others don’t!”

“You always put in that extra bit of work to make a project look amazing!”

On and on, each student complimented her, as was custom in Miss Bustier’s class. But all of them were genuine, not just going through the motions.

Except maybe Lila, but still, it was hard to tell. “You are really dedicated to your blog, and put everything on it, to make it just right.”

Alya swallowed. That comment fell flat in comparison to the others.

Chloe came up, a scowl directed in Lila’s direction, then she grabbed Alya by the upper arms. “You are fiercely protective to your friends. No matter who they are. If you feel friendly towards them, you protect them. And that’s something I’ve always admired about you.”

Alya wanted to cry again, but she spared Chloe the satisfaction. “You’re just trying to be nice.”

“Me? Nice? As if!” She scoffed, but they both knew it was true.

“The reason we do these activities,” explained Miss Bustier, “is so that when you see someone having hard time, you take the time to cheer them up. It should be an automatic response.”

“For Marinette and Adrien!” Cheered Kim in the back.

“For Marinette and Adrien!”

—

After school, Alya and Nino gathered their stuff from their lockers. It was time to head back to the Agreste Mansion, for their own safety. Though, the temptation to go out and patrol was strong. Yet the heat was still on, and it wasn’t smart to risk it just quite yet.

“Alya?” A soft voice asked.

It was Choe. And she looked shy. Sabrina was no where to be seen.

“Hey Chloe,” Alya said pleasantly. It felt better to just be nice, like Miss Bustier suggested.

“I…” Chloe started, then she turned away. It took a few tries, each time she started differently. Then, she finally managed out. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What?”

“I…I don’t know what to do. Normally, when I want something, daddy just buys it for me. He takes care of everything. I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t have what I wanted. But…but I can’t do that with this. I begged daddy to save them. Both of them. And he tried! He talked to the chief of police and they got in contact with Europol…but basically…there’s nothing they can do. So…I have to do it myself. I have to save them.”

Alya scoffed slightly. “You can’t save them yourself.”

“I have too.” Chloe said right back, her daily stubbornness shining through. “You don’t understand!”

“Chloe…”

“I found the Bee Miraculous. Marinette dropped it, and I found it. Despite all my mistakes, all my insults and my cruelty, Marinette…Marinette let me become Queen Bee. Several times. She threw a party for me, when I felt like no one liked me. She went out of her way to help me reconnect with my mother. And…” She started to sob.

Chloe, it’s me, Ladybug. You can trust me, you can tell me the truth.

You have a purpose.

“She spoke to me in a way no one else had before. She was so…so nice! And she meant it! Only Adrien ever treated me like that! But I was never mean to him!” She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “That’s why I have to save them! She has to know how sorry I am! How much I appreciate her! And how much Ladybug still means to me!”

Alya was touched. “Why you telling me this?”

“Because you’re the Ladyblogger, duh! You’ve got to know something! Don’t you have a hint to who Rena Rouge are Carapace are? Any way to contact them? I want to help them! As Queen Bee!”

Alya screwed up her lip. “And you don’t care about the attention of being a superhero in the limelight again?”

“Puh-lease, if I cared about attention, I wouldn’t look like this!” She gestured to herself.

Nino snickered. “I didn’t even think you owned a track suit.”

“How do you think I stay in peak physical form? By Instagraming all day?!”

“Still…”

“Fine! It’s Givenchy! Give me a break!”

Alya and Nino shared a look of understanding. Now was the time to use all the help they could get. Alya reached into her bag and pulled out a little black box. “Chloe Bourgeois. This is the Miraculous of the Bee. You will use it for good. Until such a time that Ladybug and Chat Noir are safe, you will keep it safe and protect it.”

“And you won’t put it on your snap story!” Nino added, harshly.

Chloe took the box, reverently. “Are…are you sure?”

“The guardian gave it to us, and told us to give it to you when we felt it was safe.”

Chloe, smiling, opened the lid, and a glittering yellow light appeared.

“Hello my queen!” Pollen sang.

“Pollen!” She scooped her up and held her to her cheek. Then she looked back to Alya and Nino. “When do we start our patrol?”

Alya laughed, happy to see Chloe so eager. “Soon. But we have some catch up to play.”

—

It had never been this hard to akumatize someone.

Granted, Chloe Bourgeois had put up a great fight. But it was nothing like this.

Hawkmoth had assumed Alya would be the perfect candidate to become an Akuma. In all the times he had been around her, granted it was only a handful, she had been absolutely devastated.

Lady WiFi had been amazing, and given her powers of pausing, she would have been great.

But, she was not cooperative. Sure, maybe he could have pushed her a little more, put on the pressure. But it didn’t feel right.

Nothing about this felt right.

And that’s what made him so conflicted.

Because we was willing to do whatever it took to get Emilie back. Exploiting people who were having the worst day, who were in unbearable pain.

So why the hesitation now? This was Adrien, the light of his life. The only family he had left. He loved his son, although he often had a hard time showing it.

He reached out to Nino Lahiffe, who, admittedly, was not as visibly upset as Alya had been, but his hurt was still present. Nino was unbearably calm as he asked Hawkmoth to ‘kindly f—- off.’

Next was Chloe Bourgeois. Surely she would agree, right? She loved Adrien!

Oh but she was nearly feral trying to get rid of him. She yanked on her hair and screamed and cried.

He left quickly, feeling her pain as his own.

He looked at Tom and Sabine, but didn’t have the heart to even try. Ladybug’s parents, now that was cruel.

He was beginning to run out of victims. Gorilla? Nathalie? Himself?

Lila Rossi! She was always ready and willing to be akumatized!

But then, he remembered with growing horror that she hated Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She may try to save Adrien, but she’d leave Marinette all alone to suffer. And that was almost worse.

He dropped his transformation, a dropped to his knees.

“Master? Please don’t cry.”

“I disgust myself.” He whined in the back of his throat. “Why…why can’t I do it? What makes this so different? Am I not desperate enough? Do I not love Adrien enough?!"

Noroo swooped in and nuzzled against Gabriel’s cheek. “You love Adrien plenty. Don’t beat yourself up over having sympathy for others in pain.”

Gabriel swallowed, digesting the kwami’s words. “I suppose...that means there’s hope for me yet.”

The elevator rose, bringing Nathalie into the room. “Sir, Madame Cheng has something to show you on the stream.”

“She found something?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we’ll continue this later Noroo, let’s go.”

—

Sabine stood in the lobby, her phone in hand. Thankfully, the stream could be rewound to repeat anything that had happened. And so when Gabriel finally emerged from his office, she went to him, thrust the phone in his face, and pressed play.

“Notausgang.”

“Pardon?”

“Notausgang. Does that word sound familiar?”

“No...it sounds German though. Why?”

“It’s written on the wall behind you.”

“Like Graffiti?”

“No...it looks like it’s supposed to be there. Like a sign.”

“A German sign on the wall? You don’t think...we’re in Germany, do you?”

“I have no clue where we are, but...why else would there be German on the wall?”

“Well, maybe we’re still in France. Maybe not Paris, but Alsace-Lorraine or...”

“Notausgang is German for ‘Emergency Exit’. It’s everywhere in Germany.” Gabriel responded. “Not so much in Alsace-Lorraine. If there’s no French by it, it’s safe to assume they are in Germany.”

Sabine choked. “Oh no…no no no…”

Gabriel rested a calm hand on her arm. “Sabine, it’s alright. This is good. We know we’re looking in the wrong place, and we can tell the detective what we learned. Okay?”

She nodded, wiping her cheeks. “I just…they’re so far…I feel so helpless!”

“I feel the same.” He assured.

And he did. Not only did he have no clue where they were in Germany, but his akumas couldn’t reach farther than Paris. Even if he were to go to Germany, he’d have to spend days hopping around from city to city. And that wasn’t suspicious at all.

Still…if that’s what it took.

First, they’d talk to the detective. Then they’d plan the next move.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #fanfiction #chloe bourgeois #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #hawkmoth #ladybug #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #adrinette #adrienette #longest night

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blurhawaii · 5 years ago

Text

Yuletide 2019

dear yuletide writer,

hello and happy yuletide! this is my fifth year taking part and my longest letter yet so i’m just going to jump right in. the suggestions are guidelines. if you’ve got a great idea, go for it. i only ask that you steer clear of my dislikes.

feel free to go through my tumblr for each of these fandoms. i should have tags for them, tho your mileage may vary. i might even have more stuff on my side blog: here. likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

found family

big loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink

vulnerability in men

open and honest communication between partners

i love ot3s. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that interests me the most. or how an established pair goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle.

i’m fine with anything from gen to porn but would be happiest with something in the middle. i love first times.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from some of my choices of fandoms.

detective stories/film noir

magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe

redemption arcs

characters and relationships are more important than plot for me

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. coffee shop AUs.

established relationships

crossovers

genderbending

feminisation of male characters

fics that are entirely fluff

A/B/O fics

PWP

mpreg

scat/watersports

first person fics (i have no problem with second person fics tho if you think that could work. they really wow me when done well.)

The Departed (2006) *Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

one of my favourite films ever. i request it every year so you can't really go wrong with this as i am thirsty for anything. most of my love is for dignam and his tough love attitude towards his job and the undercovers he's responsible for. it's obvious he cares, i don't think you could do a job like that and not care, but those rare and few moments when he softens around billy --we need you, pal-- that's what i would like to see more of. i have written a couple of departed fics myself, centred around costigan/dignam, but in all honesty, i would be happy with anything involving them both. shipping is preferred but whatever you are comfortable with is fine. due to the nature of the film, i am perfectly comfortable with violence and the screwed up relationship they are bound to have. the friction born of the situation vs the fact that they need each other to get through this is what i am all about.

codependency, power imbalances and enemies to lovers tropes are abound here.

fics where billy lives are my usual go-to. the survivability of being shot in the head, that kind of stuff can be hand waved away in fic, and i'd love something that explores the angst of billy's ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction towards dignam following that ending.

or a canon divergence fic with their totally antagonistic relationship being front and centre. i just ask that there be an underlying level of affection, no matter how buried. when billy is undercover, there’s a special kind of relationship that comes with dignam and queenan being the only people he can talk to.

something i’ve never seen for this but would actually love: a time loop/groundhog day fic

Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)

*Sarah Harding *Ian Malcolm *Nick Van Owen

i originally wasn’t going to ask for this again this year (i was lucky enough to get treated with a fic a couple of years ago) but then someone other than myself nominated nick van owen which surprised and delighted me and i figured why the hell not.

my passion here is the ot3 potential. i view these three in the same way i view the trio in the first film, meaning i see them as three people who have bonded over a traumatic experience and come out of it forever linked in some way. they spend the entire film looking out for each other and keeping each other safe, and they all separately take care of ian’s daughter at one point and i am fascinated by this and how that could continue in the future. (in fact, i love stories where adults treat kids like adults, not talking down to them–see any shane black film.) i’m looking for an actual relationship between them but would be happy with anything that showcased a connection with every side of this triangle.

anything post-film with them dealing or not dealing with what happened would be amazing. there are quite a few fics based around this idea for the first film’s trio, i’d love to see something like that for these three. (i’ve always been kind of bitter about the way nick just disappears for the last act but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that’s what fics are for, i guess.)

i don’t like the jurassic world films but i’m fine with fics that take that future into account. a lot of the trauma for these characters comes from the idea that the parks still exist and continue to fuck people up.

Godless (TV 2017)

*Roy Goode *Bill McNue *Alice Fletcher

i’m a massive fan of westerns. the harsh way of life, the violence, the isolation, drawn out revenge plots, the murkiness of good vs evil or sheriff vs anti-hero, the importance of honour and heroism and how that differs for men and women, especially in this universe with its town full of widows. having said all that, i’m still very much a sucker for cool cowboys in a shallow female way.

as you’ve probably already gathered my favourite thing is turning every love triangle into an ot3. so i’d love a fic post canon where roy comes back after realising found family is just as important as real family despite frank’s influence. i imagine bill would try to do the gentlemanly/self depreciating thing of bowing out and letting roy and alice be together but i’d love for alice to actually get a say in this where she wasn’t allowed in the show. however you jigsaw them together my main thing is that bill doesn’t get left out.

i feel the roy/bill aspect in particular could be explored a lot more. i love that they don’t hate each on sight. they learn mutual respect and then smoothly move around each other during the gunfight at the end. (bill’s deteriorating eyesight side plot also fascinates me, how it goes with his loss of purpose -”losing his shadow”- and comes back when teaming up with roy to defend the town. maybe there’s a fic possibility where it flares up again due to his insecurity of roy coming between him and alice. either way, the hints of magical realism here and with frank’s repeated insistence that he’s seen his death and this ain’t it are great and i wouldn’t mind seeing more of that.)

the usual ideas of western masculinity get all twisted around when roy and bill are in the presence of alice and they both seem kind of subby towards her, which yes please. the way alice kisses the scar she gave roy and the fact that he simply lets her is *chef kiss* because i also love the parallel that bill got shot in the hip trying to get revenge for alice. they all have scars that tie them together.

i’m actually very okay with letting them be soft with each other after all of their tragedy.

honest communication between partners could work wonders here.

Barry (TV 2018)

*Barry Berkman *Monroe Fuches

i expected to like this show. dark comedy, depressed hitman, henry winkler, it’s a perfect combination of things. i didn’t expect to get obsessed with barry’s obvious fucked up father-figure hangups. but hey ho, i was pleasantly surprised.

pretty much every one of barry’s relationships in this show has an element of fucked-upness but the barry/fuches one is by far the worst. it’s codependent, it’s manipulative, it’s a little abusive, the power is constantly flip-flopping and most importantly there’s the father/son dynamic that could so easily tip over into something sexual. it’s everything i love. any time fuches calls barry “his boy” it kills me. and i am fascinated by the way barry can go from needy and touch starved to a rampaging killer hunting fuches down by the end and still have that dynamic going strong.

the parallels between them and the barry/gene cousineau relationship, which is fucked up too just in a very different way, are great. love the jealousy it brings and i would even be into a fic set post the season 2 ending, if you could find a way to swing that. though, while i like a little darkness, i would still rather see them fall back into old unhealthy habits than kill each other.

any kind of prequel fic would be amazing too.

and just to be clear i’m more than okay with a sexual relationship between these two but if you don’t want to write it that’s fine. I’d just like all the other aspects of their shitty relationship delved into.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

*Bud White *Ed Exley

pretty much all of my bullet pointed likes come into play here. i’ve nominated two characters but i’d be happy with almost any combination of the characters available in the tagset as long as exley is involved in some way.

ships i like: bud/exley, exley/vincennes, bud/exley/lynn

but if we matched purely on both bud and exley then:

i love the opposites attract partnership bud and exley have and i like that they both seem angry at their attraction to each other. hate-sex with reluctant feelings? always good. i'd love anything that deals with their perceived difference in intellect and/or education. bud being turned-on by exley's smarts, exley realizing how much he's underestimated bud, them being mutually impressed by each other.

if you choose to go down the ot3 route then:

i love fics where exley shows up in arizona and they fall into weird domesticity. i love seeing how three people--especially three people who aren't used to the idea of poly relationships--work their way towards realizing and accepting what they want.

and while i’m not sure what you could do with this knowledge, i’d just like to add that i’ve read the book and i’m somewhat obsessed with the existence of dream-a-dreamland in general. if you could incorporate that in any way i’d be hugely impressed.

POKEMON Detective Pikachu (2019)

*Harry Goodman *Hide Yoshida

this is totally a last minute request that i’ve edited in but is by no means less wanted than the others. i watched this film back when it came out and was honestly surprised by how much i enjoyed it. i’m a massive pokemon fan and have been since i got my pokemon red when i was seven years old and, let me tell you, getting to see all those growlithes waddling about the real world was like a childhood dream come true.

i had a good time and i moved on.

a few days ago i stumbled on a piece of art : here : and it was like the little goblin that is my brain just sat up straight. the very concept of these characters together had never crossed my mind before that but then suddenly the desire for this just casually strolled through my entire headspace, turning on every light as it went.

i love detective stories, i love cop partnerships, i love hot single dads who happen to be cops with cute little pokemon cop partners. i love that harry is kind of a shitty father but he’s now trying his best. i love that hide had nothing but praise and respect for harry when he meets with tim and that he knew things like tim wanting to be a pokemon trainer when he was younger (meaning he and harry had talked about stuff like this.) i love that hide inexplicably has a spare key to harry’s apartment in his desk drawer. i love how absolutely certain hide was in saying harry loved his son more than anything in the world.

there’s history there is what i’m saying, and i’d love to know more about it.

anything set pre-film would be cool. loose cannon harry throwing his whole being into his job to deal with the loss of his wife and his fractured relationship with his son. hide the tired lieutenant trying to rein him in, quietly talking about tim together, keeping him grounded and safe. all up until he can’t, that is. (great angst potential with hide genuinely believing harry is dead.)

anything set post-film would be even better. harry struggling to find balance between being a father and a cop. probably doing a shitty job at it in the beginning. hide trying to help. would love for tim to be an actual presence (outsider POV could be amazing here.)

may sound strange but my favourite thing that used to happen in digimon a lot is when characters would interact with each other digimon partner. i would be massively into a fic about the two of them growing closer through each other’s pokemon partner.

thank you writer and best of luck.

#yuletide #yuletide 2019

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reeleev · 7 years ago

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Happy Anniverthary - KiHo

Summary: Kihyun’s always wanted a dog, Hoseok knows that. However, Kihyun’s always said they just don’t have the resources to take care of another living thing. So, when Hoseok gets an unexpected raise at work, there’s only one thing he can think of to spend it on.

Word Ct: 3047

AO3 Link

Done to fulfill a request on the MX Fic Req Forum~!

Kihyun practically jumps in between the different groups of puppies yapping in the noisy pet store. He coos at all the different canines looking to them with bright, hopeful gazes, keeping his hands out of the bins with obvious effort. Hoseok smiles adoringly at his fiancé, following at his heel. Frankly, Hoseok couldn’t care less about dogs, as he’s always been more of a cat person, but Kihyun absolutely loves dogs. So, here they are, window-shopping for that perfect pup yet again.

It’s one of their favorite things to do on their rare days off, to go look at puppies. Kihyun’s always wanted a dog. Or, at least, he’s wanted one for as long as Hoseok has known him. Sadly, though, they’ve never had the funds or time to get one. Kihyun always says that he’d much rather just wait till they’re old and retired to have one, as then he’d definitely have the time to care for it. Besides, he always likes to add teasingly, Hoseok is enough of a handful as is, so there really isn’t room for a puppy.

After going through the entire store three times over, Kihyun heaves a long sigh and allows himself to be led from the cheerful yips. His bright smile falters, and Hoseok can’t help but feel guilty. Even if it isn’t his fault that they can’t get a dog, he feels somewhat responsible. After all, isn’t it his job to make Kihyun happy? If so, he feels he’s doing a pretty bad job…

“What do you want for dinner tonight, hyung?” Kihyun asks, his tone sweet and renewed as he snuggles close to Hoseok’s side. Despite the nearness of springtime, there’s still a chill in the air that nips at the tips of their noses and ears. Hoseok hums, slipping an arm around Kihyun’s waist to keep him near.

“I’d love some ramyeon,” Hoseok answers honestly, unable to keep from chuckling at Kihyun’s disapproving sigh.

“You’ve already eaten that three times this week,” Kihyun argues, shaking his head. “You need real food, hyung.” He pauses then, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “How about chicken? I can grill it with some teriyaki sauce, and we can have rice, soup, carrots, and asparagus with it.” Hoseok hums, leaning to kiss the top of Kihyun’s ashy brown hair.

“Sounds delicious~” he relents easily, eager to eat anything Kihyun cooks. Kihyun hums as well, glancing around at their surroundings. He notes how far they are from their apartment and decides it isn’t too far of a walk with groceries, and he steers them in the direction of the nearest store. There, Hoseok does his best to sneak in a value pack of ramyeons and instant udons, but Kihyun catches him every time and tells him to put it back.

Despite his disappointment for his failed attempts, he wonders just what he’s done in his life to be so lucky with Kihyun. Any of his exes would’ve left him behind in the store already for being so childish, but not Kihyun. As he lugs the groceries home all on his own—even though Kihyun protests that he can help carry some—he can’t help but smile.

The next day at work, Hoseok finds something else to smile about.

He’s sitting at his computer, staring at the string of customer complaints on his screen and pondering just what he could get the love of his life for their anniversary. It’s been three years since they’ve begun going out, so he needs it to be special. After all, this is the longest relationship he’s had since… well, ever. Only, he has no idea how he’s gonna afford getting Kihyun anything more than simple flowers and a card with how empty his bank account is…

“Hoseok-ssi!” a voice comes from a corner of the room. Hoseok immediately bolts up, recognizing the voice to be of his superior, Hyunwoo. He looks around to find the tan, muscular man sticking his head out of his private office, raising a brow for Hoseok to follow him. Hoseok does so immediately, scrambling to leave his cubicle and answer his boss.

“Yes, sajangnim?” Hoseok asks as he enters the office, straightening his tie nervously. Hyunwoo sits at his stained mahogany desk, going back to clacking away at his computer.

“Relax, Hoseok-ssi,” he comments, chuckling warmly. “I’m not calling you in here to chastise you. In fact, quite the opposite.” He gestures for Hoseok to take a seat, and the man does so, perching himself on the edge of the leather chair. “I’m giving you a promotion. You’ve a great tract record with the company, Hoseok-ssi, and you’ve excelled at literally every department we’ve assigned you to. I’ve been moved up to be the regional head for our branch, so I’d like you to take my place here, as customer service department head.”

Hoseok’s jaw drops to the floor, utterly shocked at the words leaving his superior’s lips. An amused grin pulls at Hyunwoo’s lips, but he doesn’t say anything about Hoseok’s expression.

“It’ll mean better work hours,” he continues, “and of course a pay raise. You’ll be able to pick your vacation times, for the most part.” He opens the drawer to his right, pulling out a packet and handing it over. “Here’s the details of all that you’d be doing. I understand it’s a lot to take in, but please make your decision as soon as possible. I’d like to train you myself, and—”

“I don’t need time,” Hoseok interrupts without meaning to, shaking his head. “I’ll take the job!” He stands, setting down the thick file to grasp Hyunwoo’s hand in a firm shake as he bows. “Thank you so much, sajangnim! I can’t tell you how much this means to me! Really, I won’t let you down, I swear! I’ll—”

“Okay, okay,” Hyunwoo chuckles, patting Hoseok’s hand once before pulling away. “If you’re sure, go on down to HR and show them the third page in that file. They’ll begin the process of changing your credentials and give you your bonus.” Hoseok nods adamantly, bowing so low his back becomes parallel with the floor before he hurries from the room.

“Kihyunnie!” Hoseok calls as soon as he gets home. He’s a bit earlier than he usually is, as he’s just in the process now of finishing up his work. He hurriedly takes off his shoes, not bothering to put them into the shoe rack as he slides on socked-feet into the kitchen, where Kihyun is blinking surprisedly at him beside the stove, a pair of metal chopsticks in his hand. Hoseok plucks up the smaller man and swings him around, elated.

“Hyung??” Kihyun questions, chuckling despite his own confusion. “What’s going on? What happened?”

“I got a promotion!” Hoseok cries, setting the man down to only press a sweltering kiss against his mouth. “I’ve been moved to head of the department! Can you believe it??”

“Aigooooo,” Kihyun says, beaming proudly from ear to ear, “it’s about time they recognized how much work you put into that damn company.” He leans up on his tiptoes, kissing the corner of Hoseok’s mouth. “Congratulations, aga~! You deserve it.” Hoseok hums, returning the kiss and pulling Kihyun into a crushing embrace. He hears Kihyun push an amused breath through his lips, and Hoseok can’t help but tighten his grip around the younger. His heart swells with gratitude, as he’s certain he wouldn’t have been able to earn this reward with Kihyun’s support.

He just knows he has to get the perfect gift for Kihyun, and now he has the means to do just that.

Kihyun purses his lips as casts a glance over to the clock on the wall just above the small television, tapping his knee impatiently. Hoseok should’ve been here fifteen minutes ago, for crying out loud. It’s their anniversary, and they had planned a special dinner to celebrate the milestone. Kihyun had cooked their favorite foods in preparation, and he swears if all that food gets cold before they can eat, Hoseok will never hear the end of it. They’ll be on their damn deathbeds, and Kihyun will still be nagging him for being late to their three-year-anniversary-dinner.

“… Kihyunnie?” Hoseok’s voice comes hesitantly from the front door, and Kihyun bolts up to bitch at hi—I mean, greet his love after a long day.

All words die down in his throat, though, at seeing what Hoseok is holding in his arms. His fiancé is smiling sheepishly, the right corner of his mouth pulling back to reveal his canine. A fluffy, miniature heap of fur sits atop his forearm, a little pink tongue hanging out its mouth and its puffball of a tail wagging excitedly. Kihyun’s mouth drops open, forming a small ‘oh’.

“H-Happy anniverthary, Kihyunnie~” Hoseok chuckles, a full smiling pulling at his lips now at Kihyun’s expression. A small coo escapes the younger, and Hoseok only laughs once more as he hands over the shih tzu. “I… I know you always say how much you want a dog, and I know last time we were at the store you kept looking at the Pomeranians there… But, when I went to the shelter, she was about to be euthanized, and—”

Kihyun reaches forward, taking the dog into his own arms. The small thing yips happily and licks at his face, causing him to smile so widely his dimples show. Hoseok breathes a sigh of relief, having been genuinely worried Kihyun wouldn’t be happy with this breed.

“When I got my promotion,” Hoseok says, slipping out of his shoes and moving into the apartment to set down his bag of dog paraphernalia, “I knew I had to get you what you’ve always wanted. So, I used it to get food, treats, a bed, and pay the pet fee…” Kihyun chuckles airily, stepping close to kiss the corner of Hoseok’s mouth.

“Thank you, jagiya,” Kihyun says, his voice more air than sound. He hugs the pup close, a short giggle escaping him. “Really, I… I never thought you’d do this.” Hoseok beams, wrapping an arm around Kihyun’s waist to steer them towards the kitchen.

Kihyun doesn’t let go of that pup for at least a couple hours, saying he’s more content to watch Hoseok eat and holding his new, precious little girl than to eat himself. Of course, eventually he puts the dog down to let her explore her new home to partake of his own delicious food.

After a romantic night, the two tuck into bed with the newest addition to their home snuggled between them. Hoseok cradles Kihyun close to his chest, petting his hair as Kihyun continuously scratches behind Mina’s ears. They’d decided on such a name as it means ‘Love’, which both men thought absolutely perfect for her.

The next morning, Kihyun awakens with a smile on his face. His love is lying beside him, sleeping with his mouth slightly agape and his expression otherwise calm. His sweet, precious, perfect little gift of a shih tzu is barking softly, not loud enough to awaken Hoseok by any means, and playing around in the blankets. Kihyun chuckles affectionately at the adorable sight and reaches down to pluck her up, kissing the top of her head in greeting. She licks at his cheek in reply, her nub of a tail wagging excitedly.

Kihyun kisses her again before setting her down, reaching towards the bedside table to grab his engagement ring. However, he draws back his hand completely empty. Kihyun glances over, his brow furrowing in confusion as he’s sure he’d put it there last night… He stands and goes to the bathroom, wondering if maybe he’d taken it off in there as he does every once in a blue moon.

But, it isn’t there either. Panic begins to rise in his throat as he scurries from the bathroom and to the kitchen, hoping he’d taken it off before doing the dishes last night and had just forgotten to put it back on. Mina follows at his heel, yapping delightedly at the sudden movement.

Kihyun tears apart the kitchen and living room trying to find the damn ring, but he comes up empty. He hurries back to the bedroom, thinking perhaps he’d overlooked it somehow. When he enters, Mina jumps right up on the bed and barks in Hoseok’s face, licking at his cheek. Hoseok awakens with a start, blearily looking around at the noise. Upon sighting Mina, he chuckles airily and pats her head, telling her good morning. He looks over to Kihyun, and his smile immediately falls.

“Kihyunnie?” he asks, moving to get up at seeing his fiancé so obviously distressed. His face is drawn tight in a look of worry, his hair a bit messy and his eyes darting frantically this way and that. Kihyun’s gaze flicks over to him, and guilt immediately fills it.

“Hyung…” Kihyun begins, chewing on his bottom lip. “I can’t find it. My ring. I… I put it on the bedside table last night, I know I did, but it’s not—” He stops, watching as Mina jumps easily onto the table from the bed and licks at the wood, whining at the lack of food there. Kihyun purses his lips, stepping closer to Mina with an apprehensive look.

“I-It’s okay, Kihyunnie,” Hoseok says confusedly, watching as his fiancé moves. “We can spend today looking for it. I’m sure with both of us looking we’ll—”

“We’re taking Mina to the vet,” Kihyun interrupts, turning and moving towards the dresser. “Get dressed, we can get breakfast on the way back.” Hoseok frowns, confused, as his head tilts to the side.

“You don’t want to look for your ring?” he asks, doing his best not to sound hurt but not doing a very good job.

“I think I found it,” is all Kihyun says in reply. He then pulls out some of Hoseok’s clothes and tosses them to him, going back into the dresser to find an outfit for himself. Hoseok only grows more confused at this, but he says nothing. He knows better than to argue with Kihyun when he gets that look in his eye. It’s the look he has when they’re at the store and he sees an old housewife going for the last value pack of meat, the look that says ‘One way or another, this will end my way’.

At the vet, Hoseok understands wholeheartedly just what Kihyun must’ve been thinking. After getting them to give Mina an x-ray, they find that the pup had swallowed Kihyun’s ring while they were asleep. They’re told all they can do is wait, and an hour later they’re driving back home, Hoseok at the wheel with Kihyun clutching Mina in the passenger seat. Hoseok grips the steering wheel nervously, his throat dry.

“I… I’m thorry, Kihyunnie,” Hoseok says finally, voicing his incredible guilt at the whole situation. He sees Kihyun glance at him from his peripheral, and he feels compelled to continue. “I guess I should’ve run the dog idea by you. I just wanted it to be a surprise, you know? But, I guess that’s backfired now. We can go home and get all her stuff, then take her to a shelter…”

“What?” Kihyun asks, utterly perplexed. “Hyung, no. I don’t want to give Mina back.” He chuckles, clicking his tongue. “I mean, I’m not exactly looking forward to having to bag up all her poop to take back to the vet in three days, but this doesn’t make me hate her or anything… Or you, for that matter. You getting me her was probably the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Hoseok visibly heaves a sigh of relief, chuckling nervously.

“We’re a growing family, hyung, so of course we’d have some growing pains,” Kihyun continues, shifting his hold on Mina to reach over and grasp Hoseok’s knee. He squeezes it gently, and Hoseok beams as his heart swells at the word ‘family’. “Don’t worry, in a few days this’ll all be over and we won’t think anything more about it.”

Hoseok hums, nodding and focusing his attention back on the road. Kihyun retracts his hand to turn the volume dial on the radio, turning up the pop song and beginning to sing along. Mina joins him, howling with her high little voice along with the song. Hoseok just feels his own smile grow, his love for his family growing immensely.

Three days later, the couple finds themselves back at the vet with a large brown bag containing some very… questionable contents. Two vet assistants take the bag, tell the men to wait, and disappear into the back. They return about two hours later, smiling widely as they hand over a very familiar silver band. After having to ensure Kihyun just how many times they’ve sanitized the band, the man gingerly puts it on his finger, where it belongs. He looks over to Hoseok with a smile so bright the older swears he’s staring at the sun itself.

“I’m gonna soak it in ethanol overnight,” Kihyun mutters as he pushes open their door with his shoulder, staring down at his ring with a look of dismay. “I don’t know if I really trust them…” Hoseok chuckles affectionately, shaking his head at the typical statement. His love can be so particular, but he doesn’t mind. It’s just one of his many quirks to love.

He’s just about to say so, too, but the words die in his throat at the sight awaiting them just inside their apartment.

Mina, sitting on the couch, her tiny tail wagging so fast Hoseok is surprised it doesn’t lift her up in the air, her tongue lulled out in excited pants as she stares at them from the couch, fluff from the couch cushions falling around her like a light snow. She seems to have gotten bored awaiting their return, and had retaliated by tearing into the couch, pillows, blankets, curtains… literally any fabric she could reach.

Kihyun purses his lips, his small body beginning to vibrate with anger as he’s just cleaned the apartment… Hoseok steps forward, hugging the younger from behind and kissing his temple to try and calm him. After all, it’s just another growing pain for their small but beautiful family~

#kiho #monsta x #monsta x fanfiction #kpop fanfiction #one shot #complete #new fic #shin hoseok #wonho #yoo kihyun #requested #domestic au #fluff #cute #fluffy and cute #domestic #non idol au #raising a puppy #anniversary

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magic-magpie · 7 years ago

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It’s Always Been You

Yoooo, I wrote another fic! I’ve been hampered down lately by college and crap, so I haven’t been able to write as much because I’m constantly hella tired. But I saw the sappy prompts list I just reblogged, and I got an idea that I actually managed to see through to the end! Whaddaya know... Anyway, it’s UsUk as always (UsUkUs, really... there’s rarely a seme/uke dynamic in my fics - I don’t tend to like it), and around 3,728 words, give or take a couple. Also, please keep in mind that I have never been to one of these kind of parties. And I know that plenty of popular people don’t get wasted at every party. To be honest, I’m just using Mean Girls as my referencing point, and other accounts of parties I’ve found on the internet. And Mean Girls was fine to use in terms of age, because can you believe that Regina George was sixteen?! THAT’S MY AGE. ...Pfft, I’m a loser. Like I didn’t already know that.

Alfred Foster Jones was popular.

All throughout his life he’d been one of the popular kids. Friendly, optimistic, good-looking, smart, sporty, rich, American – he was the literal formula for universal popularity. When he’d started college he’d managed to form a plethora of friends on just the first day. A week later, everybody knew of Alfred F. Jones. Even if you weren’t in a single one of his classes, you still knew who he was. Boys wanted to be him, girls wanted to be with him – from day one he’d been the very definition of popular.

That’s why Arthur Kirkland simply couldn’t fathom why he’d never dated a soul.

Arthur and Alfred had met when they were seven, on the first day of junior school. Arthur had been reserved and introverted, but Alfred had managed to worm his way through his shyness, and they’d quickly become friends. All throughout primary and secondary school they’d remained best friends, and now that they were in college they were still that close.

However, although they were best friends, they still had their popularity differences. It was almost laughable – Alfred the Popularity King was best friends with Arthur the Social Reject. Alfred was the one who people wanted at their parties, who people wanted to be friends with; Arthur just got the token invite because everyone knew that excluding him would lead to Alfred refusing to associate with you.

As a result of Alfred’s popularity, he’d been asked out multiple times. Sometimes he’d get asked out thrice in a single day. Plenty of the time it was by people who just couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

But in spite of all these offerings, Alfred had never dated anyone. He’d never accepted a dating proposal, never kissed anybody (even in games of Spin the Bottle he point-blank refused), never done anything romantic or sexual in the slightest. It baffled Arthur, quite honestly. Even Arthur had had his first kiss (just in a game of Spin the Bottle he’d been token-invited to; it was slimy and awful – the feeling was only exacerbated by the fact that Alfred was right there watching him make out with someone. That wouldn’t be a problem if Arthur wasn’t head-over-heels in love with him.), yet Alfred had yet to be kissed. For the longest time he’d thought that popularity went hand-in-hand with an active sexual life, but Alfred was living proof of the contrary.

He’d asked Alfred about it, a few times. It wasn’t that he had a problem with Alfred being single (hell, his chest hurt every single time someone asked Alfred out, and there was always that sick feeling of what if he says yes), he was just curious as to why Alfred always rejected them. The answers he’d received had been rather wishy-washy; things like ‘I don’t know them well enough’, or ‘They’re not the type of person I want’. He’d never elaborate, because he always changed the subject to something much more mundane and trivial. And Arthur never pushed him.

“I’ll be seeing you there, Al!”

The pretty brunette sent Alfred a wave and a flirty smile before walking off to go find her friends. She’d left an invite to her Halloween party in his hands, and a token-invite in Arthur’s. He couldn’t help but scoff at it. Already, people know how to get Alfred at their functions.

“You gonna go?” Alfred asked, popping a piece of gum in his mouth and offering one to Arthur across the table, who took one and shrugged.

“I don’t go to these things without you. Besides, it’s you they want, not me.”

“I want you there,” Alfred insisted, blue eyes wide in that sincere way that made Arthur fall deeper in love. “Hell, if I’m going to a party I want a friend. Who else would I talk to about physics and shit?”

“Somehow,” Arthur said with a laugh, “I don’t think you go to parties to discuss physics.”

“So are you going?” That was the thing about Alfred. He’d never go unless Arthur said he was going. And Arthur knew that Alfred did truly like these parties and enjoyed revelling in his position as Popularity King, so it was that Arthur agreed to attend.

“Cool!” Alfred said, then he started bouncing up and down excitedly. “Oh oh oh, what should I dress up as? What about Superman? Or Captain America? No wait wait wait – we should totally go as Batman and Robin! Dude, this idea is priceless! You be Robin, and I’ll be Batman!”

“I am at least ninety-percent certain that you’re supposed to dress up sexily, if the movies are true in what they portray,” Arthur said. Although you look sexy any way you dress. Alfred drooped, until he seemed to think of another thing that brightened him up.

“But Batman is sexy! I mean, have you seen his abs? Defined, or what!”

“Batman is not sexy!”

Alfred scoffed. “Yeah, tell that to Selina Kyle.”

“Anyway,” Arthur made to steer the topic away from Batman’s abs, “we’ve got the rest of the month to think about it. Right now, we’ve got to focus on this Chemistry shit.”

On the gloomy night of October 31st, Arthur and Alfred approached the door of the girl’s house (her name was Courtney, they’d checked). They were still dressed as Batman and Robin, but it was more of a casual cosplay. As in, they had asked others who were attending, and just came in regular shirts and jeans, except Alfred’s shirt had the Batman logo, and Arthur’s had Robin’s. Alfred had been decidedly miffed by this turn of events, but what could they do?

Already Arthur could hear loud, thumping music from behind the door. He cringed – unbearably loud volumes were never fun for him. It sounded as if this was going to be the largest party they’d ever attended.

“Ready?” Alfred asked. Arthur grit his teeth and nodded. With a smile, Alfred pushed down on the handle and opened the door to what could only be described as mass chaos.

Loud music pulsed through the lobby, making the whole building vibrate in time with the song. The house was packed with bodies writhing and grinding against one another, drinks in hand, drinks spilling to the floor. The pungent smell of sweat permeated the air, and Arthur immediately wished he hadn’t said yes to this party. None of the others he’d attended had been this charged.

“Al, you made it!”

Courtney made her way over to them (dressed in a skin-tight catsuit), smiling that flirty smile that made Arthur’s skin crawl. He knew exactly what smile that was – he’d seen it countless times. It meant she was trying to charm Alfred into being hers.

Arthur hated it so because he was scared that, one day, it would work.

“Oh, hey!” Alfred greeted cheerfully, although Arthur could tell even he was having to strain his voice to be heard. “Nice party you’ve got here!”

“Want a drink?” She offered him, completely ignoring Arthur. “Or a dance?”

Now was the time for Arthur to slink away. Alfred had never done anything sexual before, but that was when there hadn’t been any alcohol. Now that drinks were added into the mix... he shuddered to think of what possibilities were open to the Popularity King.

Arthur didn’t want to be there to see them.

He left Alfred to party with Courtney and the rest of the popular crew, and weaved his way through hordes of writhing teenagers until he arrived at the drinks table with a relieved sigh. Partying was something he’d never be comfortable with, but drinking? He had three alcoholics for older brothers - becoming used to drink was something that had just happened down the line. And anyway, the alcohol didn’t seem to be anywhere near as strong as the stuff his brothers had given him – it was just spiked punch. He could handle that easily. So he poured himself out a glass and downed it, enjoying the warm, fuzzy feeling that spread all over his body.

Wonder what Alfred’s doing, he mused. Probably finally getting some popularity action, he thought glumly. Although Arthur hated it, he’d understand. The house was filled with pretty girls and handsome boys, and Alfred had the pick of the litter. Why wouldn’t he go and kiss the living daylights out of someone?

The image of Alfred grinding up against people that weren’t Arthur had him downing another glass of drink.

Honestly, Arthur thought crossly, get it together. You’re sixteen, he’s sixteen, everyone in this house is sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen. Sooner or later he’s going to find someone pretty to screw – he may very well be that one kid who loses their virginity at a party. Just because you like him doesn’t mean that you can get nauseated by the thought of him fucking someone who isn’t you. It’s going to happen one day. Get over it.

Arthur dreaded the moment when Alfred stopped refusing kisses in Spin the Bottle, when Alfred started dating people, when Alfred started taking full advantage of his prerogative as Popularity King.

With nothing else better to do, he filled up his glass again and decided to wander around. Of course, this proved incredibly difficult; all around him people were unable to keep their hands off one another, people were dancing like the house was a nightclub, people were forming mass crowds around doorways and such. It was at times like this where Arthur was grateful for his Social Reject status – not a single person called after him, allowing him to slip out of crowds undetected. He searched for a relatively-empty room to sit down in and take a breather from the chaotic energy of the party, but his quest came to no fruition. The lobby was packed, the living room was, the kitchen was - hell, even the stairs were. It was with great difficulty that Arthur managed to squeeze up the stairs, only to be met with more people.

And this scene was dirtier.

Guys and girls all making out with one another, loud moans coming from the bathroom and bedrooms, articles of clothing strewn about everywhere, the musky scent of sweat and sex heavy in the air. He sighed, stepping over shirts and stumbling over shoes until he reached a door. With the din of the party quickly becoming unbearable he slipped into the room without a moment’s hesitation.

“Hey – look – stop, dude – please -”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun.”

Arthur froze.

He knew that voice.

He whirled round to see Alfred beneath Courtney on the bed, her hand underneath his ruffled shirt and an almost predatory smirk on her lips. At just that moment the two of them noticed him in the room, for their heads simultaneously snapped to him.

“Oh, it’s you,” Courtney said dismissively, looking irritated. From the looks of it, she’d been drinking far too much of the punch. Arthur, rooted to the spot, dared not look at Alfred, terrified of what he’d find. Did Alfred have that red flush of someone intoxicated like Courtney did? Was Alfred’s hair all tousled and messed up in that way that indicated an intense make-out session? Would his big blue eyes be lidded with desire for someone who wasn’t him?

The thought of it made him want to vomit.

“Would you leave already?” Courtney hissed impatiently, not a trace of the girl who’d given them invitations a month ago. Pointedly not looking at Alfred, Arthur nodded wordlessly. Still stunned by what he’d just seen, Arthur turned round and made to open the door again, but stopped when Alfred called out to him.

“Artie!”

His tone wasn’t normal. It wasn’t cheery, happy, sunny. It was... panicked.

Arthur spun round to look at Alfred, and he did not see someone thoroughly enjoying being underneath a girl. He was red, but it wasn’t the warm flush of alcohol. Alfred’s golden hair was messed up, but in the way that indicated a struggle, not a make-out. His blue eyes were wide and seemed to be almost pleading Arthur to help him.

Incensed, Arthur strode up to Alfred and forcefully pulled him up and off the bed. “Sorry,” he spat at Courtney, who was scowling herself, “Alfred’s got somewhere to go.”

And with that he marched out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the house. It had been surprisingly easy, as if the partygoers had sensed that Arthur was, at that point, a seething mass of rage, and had parted like the sea had for Moses. Except Moses hadn’t been possessed by barely-suppressed anger.

“HOW DARE SHE!” Arthur exploded once they were out. “SHE FUCKING ALMOST USED YOU FOR SEX!”

“You can chill, dude! We’re out now,” Alfred said. Arthur would have ‘chilled’, except the little laugh Alfred gave was shaky and his smile didn’t fully reach his eyes.

“I’m going to fucking kill her on Monday,” he spat, balling his hands into fists. “She’s in my English class, isn’t she? I’ll fucking murder her.”

“She was drunk, she didn’t know what she was doing! She’s actually nice, y’know.”

Arthur stared at Alfred, perplexed. “How and why are you defending her?! She doesn’t even like you properly, she’s just another one of those fucking jerks who want to shag the Popularity King!”

“I know, okay?” Alfred’s voice was rising too. “Look, it’s freakin’ hard being popular! It practically forces you into being cool with all this crap!”

“But you’re not cool with it!”

“If it wasn’t for you I would be!”

Silence.

The wind blew the light drizzle of rain in haphazard directions, and the sound of blaring music could still be heard faintly, but the two of them were oblivious to it all. Alfred’s eyes widened, stance defensive, a deer caught in the headlights.

“...And what does that mean?” Arthur ground out. He went on the offensive, but inside he was preparing himself for the worst – Alfred’s realised that you’re holding him back from being part of the popular crowd and he’s finally decided to do away with the Social Reject.

“It’s you, okay? It’s always been you!” His arms were out to the sides, palms exposed, looking incredibly vulnerable and open. “I’ve never dated anyone because I want to date you! I don’t want to freakin’ go around making out with whoever wants me because it won’t feel right because it’s not you!”

Alfred breathed heavily, eyes wide and shining. He was staring imploringly at Arthur who stared right back, stunned.

Alfred liked him.

It had to be a joke.

But it couldn’t be a joke, not when he was looking like that.

“W-what?” He managed to stammer. From the light of the streetlamp he could see a flush on Alfred’s face, and somehow he knew it wasn’t because it was chilly.

“I’ve – I’ve liked you since Year Seven. I always rejected everyone because, well, I was stupidly waiting around for you to – to ask me out,” Alfred gave a little scoff, “even if there’s no chances of that happening.”

Arthur was still struck dumb, so Alfred continued. “Why d’you think I didn’t answer any of your calls or texts after you made out with that girl in that Spin the Bottle game last year?”

“Y-you told me you’d lost your phone!” Arthur said, managing to find his voice again.

“I did... Kinda. I don’t know, I just-” he sighed, and finished in a quiet voice, “seeing you kiss her like that was bad enough, but the thought of talking to you properly, I – I really did try, but I just kept remembering how you kissed her, and I – I broke my phone. So I did lose it. Kinda.”

“That’s...”

“Dramatic?” Alfred smiled ruefully. “Yeah. I didn’t mean to break it, I just chucked it against the wall and it shattered... Remember how I was grounded for a month? Yep. It wasn’t ‘cause I snuck out to that party. Y’know, I actually didn’t sneak out. So that lecture you gave me back then? Totally wrong.”

“Well,” he quickly searched for something normal to say, “you still deserved a lecture.”

“Yeah, I guess. But hey, I got my cool new phone afterwards! I think Mom took pity on me... she hates unrequited love and all that crap.”

Alfred heaved a sigh, then lifted his head to look Arthur in the eye. With a jolt, he realised that Alfred’s eyes were sparkling with something that looked dangerously like tears.

“So, there. I tried to stop liking you, I really did. But at the same time, I... I didn’t want to stop. It’s like –“

“Both a blessing and a curse,” Arthur finished. “Trust me, I know.”

Alfred’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you like someone?! Is it that girl you made out with? You told me it wasn’t her, but still-“

“It’s you, idiot.”

God, the expression Alfred made was just adorable. His big blue eyes became as wide as saucers, practically sparkling, and his mouth formed a perfect ‘o’.

“Wait, you’re serious?!” His utter disbelief was evident, making Arthur chuckle slightly, even if he felt himself heating up.

“There is absolutely no need to lie in this situation, so of course. For quite the while, actually,” Arthur said, smiling slightly. Surprisingly, it had felt good to get it off his chest, even more so because his feelings were reciprocated. Honestly, he was still trying to get his head round it... Alfred reciprocated his feelings. Alfred liked him back.

“Okay okay, so,” Alfred said, “you like me, and I like you.”

“That would, er, be correct,” Arthur replied. A wide grin stretched across Alfred’s face, making Arthur’s heart skip a beat.

“Then, well, why aren’t we dating?!”

Arthur locked eyes with Alfred, and suddenly he felt his own lips stretch into a gloriously elated grin. He had the wonderful sensation of floating on Cloud Nine, all the negativity from the party destroyed by the pure positivity in the form of Alfred’s love.

“Would you like to start?”

Next thing he knew, Alfred had tackled him into a gleeful hug, arms tightly wrapped around him. As a result Arthur stumbled backwards and was just saved from crashing down by Alfred’s impressive strength, and he just suddenly started laughing because all of this was just too perfect. He still had the feeling that he’d wake up in bed and this would have all been a wonderfully vivid dream, but he hoped to God it wasn’t.

“Holy shit you’re my boyfriend, Artie! Boyfriend!” Alfred squealed excitedly. “That means we can go on dates and hold hands and wear each other’s clothes and spend Valentine’s as lovers and kiss and-“

“And share a blanket and watch movies and sit in front of the fireplace and roll around on the snow and I-“ Arthur’s smile turned softer, “I’ve dreamt about this for so long.”

Arthur held onto his boyfriend tighter, and they swayed on the spot under the sky full of stars. He rested his head on Alfred’s shoulder, revelling in the intimacy he’d desired for years.

“Do you want to come to mine for our first, well, date, if you will? I’m sure my mother won’t object to a sleepover, and we can watch movies,” Arthur suggested, then hastily added, “But if you want to return to the party, we can! I know you like them and all.”

Alfred laughed. “What, and risk you smashing Courtney’s head in with a chair? These guys at college might not know it, but you’re freakin’ dangerous when you’re angry!”

“That was one time, Alfred!” Arthur huffed. “And the fucker deserved being hit in the face for what he said about my brothers.” He’d received a three-day suspension for breaking the boy’s nose. Honestly, Arthur was lucky he was one of the most intelligent students in the year (the other being Alfred) – any less intelligent, and he would’ve been expelled. The school had been desperate to get rid of him, but desperate to have him at the same time. Truth be told, he had fun exploiting the system every so often.

“Yeah, he was acting shitty. I gave you a cookie for beating him up, d’ya remember?” Alfred said with a grin.

“Of course I remember – it was one of your father’s cookies. His are brilliant.”

“I’ll tell him that. Dad gets super-happy whenever anyone compliments his cookies. Like, you wouldn’t believe how happy he gets! I remember, once his boss ate one and said it tasted hella good, and he wouldn’t stop talking about it for days! And Valentine’s Day at mine is always cool, ‘cause he makes cookies for Mom and I eat half of them ‘cause why not?”

“I believe they’re for your mother only, idiot,” Arthur mock-chided with a roll of his eyes and a reluctant smile. “Anyway, putting the topic of cookies aside, would you like to return to the party?”

“Nah,” Alfred immediately said, “I mean, I like parties and crap, but hanging out at yours sounds like more fun. Oh oh oh, can we watch a horror? It’s Halloween, we have to!”

Feeling rather elated with the fact that Alfred had chosen him, Arthur replied, “Of course! Although, it has to be British.”

“Nah, dude! American horror films are the best!” Alfred objected, and they argued over which country’s horrors were better in that wonderful bickering for bickering’s sake way that Arthur loved.

“How about we decide when we go home?” Arthur suggested. “It’s starting to rain again.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Alfred replied, and they set off. Out of nowhere, he squealed, “I’m just so excited! We’re gonna have a sleepover and watch horrors and-”

“We always do that, anyway,” Arthur pointed out with a laugh.

“Yeah, but now we’re dating, and so we can cuddle up and hug and kiss and do all those things that I’ve wanted to do for ages!”

“Fair point,” Arthur said, barely containing his own excitement. “Please tell me we’ll be sharing a blanket.”

“Holy crap yes!” He turned to Arthur, and even in the rain Arthur could see that his eyes were almost twinkling and sparkling, like they held all the stars in the universe. “This is going to be the best first date ever.”

Smiling warmly, Arthur slid his hand into Alfred’s, and together they walked back to Arthur’s house – not as friends, but as lovers.

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notgonnarememberthis · 7 years ago

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Beautiful- Chapter 3

Mentions of anxiety attacks are included in this chapter, please be wary if this could be potentially harmful to you

Okay so I have 2 sets of news, one personal and one fandom-ish related.

Personal: Please be patient with my updating schedule from this week on cause I’m about to move out of state in order to go to college which is a pretty huge move for a girl that hasn’t spent more than a weekend away from her parents so I’m begging you have some patience with me for the next 2 ish weeks I will try my hardest to work out some updates for you guys.

Fandom-ish: I’ve made a Pinterest account (which is weird cause just last year I vowed to never use Pinterest...) Anyways there I will post aesthetics for my fics that I’ve made so if you want to check those out in order to take a peek at my looks into the stories I write I’m “lgbtliu”.

Do you guys like the layout of the story so far? 2 stories per chapter in order to build up to future narritive?

February 5, 2015 - February 19, 2015

Joan Watson is the epitome of secrecy. Not to say that she has a lot of secrets to keep but rather she keeps to herself. She’d quicker comfort others than allow others to comfort her much less even know anything is wrong at all. She talks to others in the precinct, sure, she even goes out of her way to talk to Not Marcus and Not Gregson. Joan has been lecturing Sherlock for weeks to at least learn the names of the other officers but he just can’t see the purpose when they seem to have a revolving door of them. The blonde with green eyes that’d joined just a month ago was transferred to the ninety-ninth precinct and his partner left shortly after finding out she was pregnant with her first child. Really there are a lot more things that deserve his attention. That’s not to say he doesn’t notice when Watson doesn’t throw her normal smile towards Glasses or when she denies the raspberry muffin Pink Tie offers her when they’d got his order wrong. Strange in itself because that is her favorite flavor.

He’s carefully studying a case when he hears the shattering of a glass echo through the nearly quiet Brownstone. The only other sound being Clyde’s quiet munching on lettuce. Watson had gone to bed nearly an hour ago. Judging by recent patterns she should be sleeping by now. It can’t hurt to check though. He softly pads up the stairs pushing open her door softly. The window is open, curtains billowing in the cool wind of the night.

In the gleam of the hallway light he spies Watson sitting up in her bed, one hand curled up in the sheets the other clutching her chest. She doesn’t look towards him but rather towards an invisible entity. It takes mere seconds to recognize that her body is trembling and she isn’t breathing. A glass lies shattered, likely knocked off her table in a fit.

He springs into action placing himself in front of her. Sherlock flicks on the lamp beside her bed showering the room in a yellow light. Her eyes are glassy and she still doesn’t seem to see him. He goes through a list in his mind of all the people who’d want to hurt her, hurt him… Memories of Watson coming home after Andrew had been killed flood through his mind.

He places a hand on her throat taking her heart rate without potentially startling her or hurting her more. Curiously her heart rate is rapid against his fingertips. At this stage her heartbeat would be slow and weak if it was Hemlock. Now he recognizes the panic reflecting in her eyes. Woken by night terrors Watson is having an anxiety attack.

He switches his tactics rushing downstairs to fetch a bottle of water. He’s back up in seconds, his mind rushing to calculate the longest amount of time a woman of Watson’s physique could hold her breath before passing out. When he reaches her once more she’s taking shuddering breaths but she’s no more aware of her surroundings than she was before. He takes her hand gently placing the water in her fingers and guiding it to her lips.

She drinks greedily as if she’s been parched for days. Her body settles from uncontrollable trembling to the occasional jerk of limbs in shock. He holds her settling for talking about a case until she stops shaking. She’s not cognizant throughout the ordeal but she seems to be soothed by his voice. The jerking would start up once more as soon as he fell silent. Steadily into the night her body relaxes and she falls into a fitless sleep once more. Carefully he extracts himself from her bed and cleans up the glass. By morning she’s her old self once more and shows no signs of remembering any of the incident.

It becomes a habit now. He leaves something on her nightstand that she could easily knock over without damaging in order to alert him of another fit. He finds new methods to calm her every once in awhile. Once he takes Clyde with him and intertwines her fingers in his in order to trace the patterns of the tough shell. Another time he plays the violin for her. Those two are the more effective of methods. He tries incense, sensory isolation, calming sounds but nothing compares to her relaxation at the sound of his voice. She falls back asleep within fifteen minutes of listening to him ramble on about cases, Clyde’s antics, the whereabouts of Alfredo and Mrs. Hudson. It doesn’t matter what he speaks of as long as he speaks.

When her scream tears through the walls of the Brownstone he’s pretty sure his heart stops. It’s the kind of fear that has his heart sinking to his stomach as he scales the stairs two steps at a time abandoning the evidence lying in his lap. He forces the door open and surely enough Watson is sitting in the middle of her bed, eyes shut tightly screaming as loudly as she can. He leaps in settling his hands next to her in fear of startling her further. That’s the last thing he wants right now.

“No!” Her voice breaks as she sobs, shoulders wracking with pain. He assesses her body for injury and is relieved to find no obvious signs of worry. Of course other than the normally calm and collected woman to be curled so tightly into a ball he’s sure she’ll leave marks on her own legs.

“Easy Watson. It’s me.”

“Please.” She cries. He’s careful to have her meet his eyes. He takes her chin softly into his fingers coaxing her head up to look at him. “Make it stop.” She pleads. He winds his free hand into her hair pulling her close. She goes willingly clutching to the back of his t-shirt wrinkling the material in her fists. He pulls her until she’s practically settled into his lap, pressing a kiss to her hair he lays them both down.

He begins his rambling once more eventually landing on the tale of the one time he’d been with his father on a business trip to America. He’d met a woman with the hair the color of a raven’s wing and skin that was painted with stars dotting her skin. He brushes it off but at one point he swears he feels her spine shake a bit and a chuckle bubble against the skin of his chest where her face lies. He continues because she’s never remembered any of these talks anyways. He’s told her stories once more when she was more aware of her surroundings and no recognition flashed in her eyes. He tells her about the odd habits the woman had regarding the programs she watched. Eating habits that were certainly that of an American college student. He still shivers a little at the idea of kool aid and pickles combined like some Frankenstein concoction.

Suddenly she picks her head up and he swears for a moment he sees clarity flash in her eyes. “Sean?” She asks. His heart skips several beats as his eyes search his. He runs his options through his mind: take a gamble and confess, pretend he never knew her name, soothe her back to sleep and hope she doesn’t remember any of this in the morning like always.

“Sh go back to sleep now Watson.” He whispers pressing a soft kiss to the top of her hair. She doesn’t even protest her hair tickling his chest as she burrows deeper. Funny, he’d never taken Watson for the cuddling type. His eyes feel heavier as he tracks her breathing. So long that it’s even she will be fine he will be able to slip out safely.

In, two three four. Out, two three four. The pattern lulls him pulling him tighter into the sweet serenity. To the smell of lavender and sandalwood that is Watson. The light scrape of nails as she clutches to him as he shifts to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep.

He can’t help it as his eyes fall shut.

When he wakes Watson is sitting up clutching the blanket to her chest. Her hair is disheveled and her clothes likewise. She can feel his eyes on her back. “How long?” Her voice breaks the silence. The question holds so many implications in it only furthered by the silence. There is a lump in his throat and he wonders how much she’s remembered.

“How long?” He questions.

“How long have I been having anxiety attacks?” She clarifies looking back at him now. Her eyes are red rimmed and her face a tad puffy. She’d been crying. “Answer me honestly.”

“Two weeks.” He confesses.

“Two weeks?” She spins around glaring at him accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me? You mean to say that you’ve spent two weeks in my bed without my knowledge?” She snaps.

“No.” He rubs his face trying to gain some of the clarity that was just dangling right in front of his face but at the same time just out of reach. “I’ve come in here every night since the first incident. You couldn’t breathe. I’d assumed…”

“March.” She sighs.

“You never know with her minions. Dead or not.” He frowns. “I got you a water and stayed with you until you settled then left. Last night was the first time the screaming started. I stayed with you until you fell back asleep like normal but it took longer than the others. I suppose I fell asleep in the meantime. I apologize.”

“Don’t.” Joan’s eyes fall to the bed sheets picking at a tear. “About seventeen years ago I got into a car crash with my roommate’s brother. He’d been asking me out for months and insisted. He was in and out of the hospital for a really long time. One day they just found him collapsed in the living room. He died hours later of an aneurysm. Sixteen years ago today. They said it was directly caused by the crash.” She lets out a long sigh and tips her head back to ward off the tears. “I was supposed to drive that night but he insisted. I walked out of it with nothing more than a few bruises and a broken toe. Michael had lasting brain damaged and died because I didn’t take the damn keys.” She turns from him now. He understands that she doesn’t want him to see her cry.

“I’m so sorry Watson.” He whispers placing his hand on top of hers. The tender moment is gone as soon as her phone rings. She picks it up quickly trying to expel herself from the conversation.

“Gregson needs us at a crime scene. Says it’s urgent.”

With a nod they separate once more from each other.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

December 2, 2015

“Truly you’re making a bad habit of lingering in doorways almost saying what you wish to say.” Sherlock turns over his newest project to find Watson standing in the door frame unbothered by the fact that he’d just caught her in the act of spectating him. He leans over his tattoo gun inspecting it thoroughly. They are currently working on a case that involved poison being laced in the ink.

The victim, Lily Morgan was a twenty one year old female who’d just desired getting a tattoo of her fiance’s name across the base of her spine. Of course that didn’t end well for Miss Morgan. Suspicions bounce between several suspects and they’ve no clue who to pin it on just yet.

“Are you going to say what’s on your mind or am I going to guess.”

“You know I always thought of getting a tattoo.” The statement nearly made him drop his pen in shock. “I never found something with enough meaning I guess.” She shrugs.

“Do you trust me?” The question slips past his lips before his filter even has time to process it much less stop the words from spilling out. Her eyes flash between her own stage of shock then to playfulness. In the look he can see the younger Joan once more. Heat flashes across his body and before he can register she’s shrugging off that red cardigan she holds so dear along with the tank top. She remains standing in nothing but a sports bra and shorts. It’s a challenge, he registers.

“For my eyes only. I don’t want anyone else to be able to see it.” She says with a pointed look and a smirk. It’s as if she’s teasing him. Trying to see if he’ll go through with it. He lays a towel down on the sofa with a small smile.

“Very well.” He gestures to the couch. “Lie down on your left side won’t you?” She does as he says. He knows she commonly sleeps on her left side in order to turn herself away from the door when he suddenly barges in without question. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you trust me?” He pulls on a pair of gloves fiddling with the machine.

“With my life.” His hands stall for a second but he nods it off.

“Good. Now try to relax as best as you can.” He brushes his thumb over a pattern of freckles he could use as inspiration. Yes this will do quite nicely. He grabs a razor just to be safe carefully going over the area of question. He gets to work making sure at all times he isn’t causing her too much pain. Watson isn’t the first person he’s tattooed other than himself but he’s not willing to purposely cause her any sort of harm.

She’s grabbed a pillow hiding her face in it to muffle the quiet whimpers she can’t help from escaping her lips. He smiles softly once he finishes pulling away to gaze at his handiwork. She moves slightly in a move that he believes she intends to look at what he’s tattooed into her skin. He places a hand on her shoulder stilling her. Rather than having her move and cause potential discomfort to herself he snaps a picture of it using his phone and passes it to her.

“Sagittarius?” She questions. He’d used a pattern of her freckles to create a constellation of her zodiac sign just below her breast and on her side. “I thought you didn’t believe in horoscopes?” She teases with a small smirk.

“I don’t believe in them I believe in coincidences. A sagittarius is naturally curious, a clear thinker and tends to look at the bigger picture. Playful by nature they wish to experience life to the absolute fullest whether that be in learning to hone into a new skill or learning the truth. They are optimistic and inspiring in every single way.” Her eyes have not left his and suddenly he realizes the affection of which he was speaking.

“Sherlock…” A sharp knock cuts off what Watson was going to say next breaking the tense moment between the two of them.

“Ah that must be Marcus with the materials I need. I just can’t seem to synthesize the ink that was used in the parlor on Ms. Morgan. Stay put I’ll bandage you up once I get the things I need.”

“Wait are you saying that you used experimental ink on me?” She moves to sit up but the pain shooting through her side keeps her down.

“Of course not. Don’t you trust me?” He asks with a teasing grin before prancing off to answer the door.

“Sherlock!”

#joanlock #joan watson x sherlock holmes #joan watson #Sherlock Holmes #elementary #elementary cbs #elementary AU #One Night Stand

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civilorange · 7 years ago

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Ooh have you written some swan queen fics? If so, could you share them with us? Pretty please

I have, though I’ve neverposted any of them—I stopped watching OUAT right after season 3, I think?Whenever Emma went back in time and brought Marian back. I stopped after that.I did start writing something for themost recent season—when Regina split in halves—but I never really did anythingwith it. I love Regina, she is like one of my favorite characters—and I mightactually watch the upcoming season with the whole shake up plot.

But, for anyoneinterested, I’ll post some of my Split-Queen story—would this be something ya’ll’dlike to see actually done?

It starts on a Tuesday.

A Tuesday that she wentthrough believing was a Monday.

Now, it isn’t impossiblefor the days to get away from her—no, not impossible, but unlikely. Almost no one notices the fumble half-way through ameeting, but that could be drawn down to the fact that the meeting consists ofimbeciles and ingrates—and Emma Swan. Who is sometimes one, sometimes theother—but usually neither, despite what Regina likes to say with an exasperatedeye roll.

“Since the weekly meetingis in two days,” she begins, already dismissing them in her mind—letting Jacobfrom human resources, and Charles from accounting drift away, “We’ll look overthe budget then.”

“Tomorrow,” Emma pipesup, though Regina can tell she isn’treally listening.

“Excuse me?”

“The weekly meeting istomorrow,” now green eyes havelifted, crinkling slightly with the half-grin given to accompany them, andRegina feels—something—as idiotic asthe vagueness is, it doesn’t seem to matter because there’s no way in hellit’ll trip past her lips.

“It’s on Wednesday,” thebrunette doesn’t hedge, but her browshave drawn down.

“And today is Tuesday.”

She doesn’t like how concerned Emma looks now, nothingserious or too noticeable, but it’s in the way her chin tips and her handsspread out on the table. Jacob and Charles have already left—having taken theirdismissal to heart—and everyone else has filed out behind them, not really tooconcerned with discrepancies of what day of the week it is.

“Of course,” she says,smiling slightly, because of courseit’s Tuesday; after all, she picked Henry up for school yesterday, and makepaella for dinner—hadn’t she? Any attempt at recalling the events of the priorday leave her with a fluttering haze of static, like they’d simply vanished. “Of course it’s Tuesday; my mistake.”

The admission of beingwrong doesn’t startle Emma like it might’ve a year or two ago, because Reginaisn’t afraid to be wrong, not around family. Not around Emma.

“Everything alright?”Emma’s stepping around the table, fingers pressing against the wood, otherhovering almost awkwardly like she wants to reach out, but is stopping herself.

She always stops herselfnow, like touching is some taboo that had wormed its way into their lives.

“Everything’s fine,” saidwith a smile that’s all white teeth and red lips, but Emma nods, and returns itwith a smile that’s a little more genuine. They stay there, existing in thesame room for a little while longer, before they part—Emma drifting away, andRegina pulling inward.

Everything’s fine—right?

Right.

Crash.The windows shatter inward, the shards of glass suspended in the air, twistingand spinning until they fall like dangerous raindrops to the ground. Clink, clink.

The old woman who livesnot in a shoe—not in this land without magic—but a small one room cabinstartles from where she had fallen asleep in her armchair.

The old leather creaks.

The wind outside howlsand screams and tears at the curtains to her suddenly glassless window.

“Oh dear,” a voicedrawls, curling like a grin at the edge of every silken word.

If a tree falls in thewood and no one’s around to hear it—does it make a sound?

Of course it does.

If an old woman who livesnot in a shoe, but a cottage, is torn to pieces—does she make a sound?

Oh, absolutely.

The sun’s particularlyinsistent when her alarm blares—bright, and cheerful, and all manner ofannoying.

Regina’s usually already awakeby the time her alarm sounds at five thirty—one part insomnia and two parts aninternal clock. Occasionally, there’s the irrational worry at the edges of hermind that she isn’t quite sure where she is—sometimes when she leaves thewindow open in winter it feels like the bitter drafts of an empty stone castle.

Sometimes in the summerthe freshly cut grass smells like the field just outside a stable.

Exhaling long enough thatshe can physically feel the pressure on her lungs she throws back the coversand makes her way to the en suite. The water takes too long to warm, the mirrorfogs too quickly, and there’s a haziness that lives just inside her skull—awarbling discomfort that pulses and threads through her nerve endings.

Henry’s at Emma’s butthere’s an almost ingrained need to scramble eggs in a pan that she’ll neveractually eat herself. It’s the tick whirrof the pilot flame, the close hum of the refrigerator.

Her mobile buzzes and sheclicks on the screen to see a text from Henry—up on time, ma made omelets. Love u xo xo

It makes her smile, makesher forget the weariness she’d been feeling since she woke up—and almost makes her miss the muddy footprints in the foyer.

They’re small, andalready dry, and Regina tries to remember when she’d made them—it had been raining yesterday, and lastnight, but she swore she’d cleaned up the floor when she’d gotten home.

Nearly late already, shesteps over the two prints and out the door.

Emma’s acting strange.

She’d brought Regina theusual fare for lunch—a salad and a ginger ale—and had sat in silence for thelongest time. Usually the mayor had to actively encourage Emma to breathebetween thoughts—as she skittered from topic to topic.

It was an unusual kind offondness that had crept up on Regina at first—how easily annoyance melded andmolded into something like tolerance, and then affection.

Regina watches how greeneyes flick to her, and then down to the chicken sandwich that she knew grannyhad probably fostered upon the sheriff. The battle axe had fallen head firstinto health foods the last week or so—even Regina was hesitant to try some ofher healthier dishes.

Regina opened her mouthto ask what was wrong—

“There was a murder lastnight.”

Oh.

“Oh,” brilliant,succinct—Emma looks up at Regina’s lackluster response. The mayor delicatelyclears her throat. “Who?”

“Old woman who lives in ashoe, if you’ll believe it,” pause—one moment, two moments, “Of course youbelieve it—why wouldn’t you?” Rushing out words before filling her mouth withmore chicken sandwich than necessary.

“Caroline Cudharlow,”Regina says, tapping her fork once before putting it down. “Cause of death?”

“You know how theseinvestigations are,” Emma tries for casual, but ends up with that nervous rushof explanation that just invites more questions. “Don’t want to rule anythingout too soon, you know?”

One moment, two moments.

“Emma.”

Green eyes blink, brow tucking,before she relents. Fingernail scratching absent patterns into the Styrofoam ofher take away container. “Her heart’s missing.”

Regina feels the itch atthe back of her throat that just invites agitation—a shiver up the spine, auneasy pressure in her chest. She doesn’t like feeling like she had once—likeevery conversation was an accusation in disguise, but Emma has been acting cagey, and this is the only explanation Regina canthink of. “Do you think that I—.”

Emma interrupts quickly,“No, no—God, of course not, Regina.”

Running hands throughblonde hair, Emma looks more tired than Regina realized—it wasn’t bags underthe eyes, or anything adamantly physical, but it was just the air about her.

“Missing like—actuallymissing.” Emma tries again, but scowls and picks at her French fries. “SomeoneTemple of Doomed her.”

Frown, the mayor exhalesloudly, “Is that a sex thing?”

“A sex thin—no,” shakingher head, and popping a fry in her mouth. Emma chews thoughtfully, making sureto point out how well she’s waiting to talk—until her mouth isn’t full.“Someone literally took her heart—like, the old fashioned way. With a bone saw,or whatever.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Regina murmurswhile imagining it—she doesn’t have to pretend very hard to get the visual.Bloody fingers plucking and digging, tearing at floater ribs and throughmuscle. The hah-hew of a saw chewingthrough bone, little flesh of marrow coughed up into the air. Itching at herpalms, she can’t help the phantom feeling of blood under her nails.

#civilorange answers #swan queen #regina mills #emma swan #split queen #Anonymous

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wendynerdwrites · 8 years ago

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Recovered Jonsa Fic #9: How Can Anyone Blame Him?

Fic repost

It starts with what could easily be read as the instincts of a protective older brother. Or a man beset by nerves. He reaches for her hand almost on instinct at council meetings, in court, at meals.

How can anyone blame him, really? They all say to one another. They’ve lost their father, their elder brother, their youngest brother. They may never get their other siblings back. They were separated for so long. The man was literally killed by his own men, his supposed “brothers”. And everyone knows that Princess Sansa has spent the last several years being tormented by one awful tyrant or another. First the Lannisters, then that disgusting monster Ramsay Bolton had her locked away and did the Gods-knew-what to her. They almost lost one another in the battle against him. And his little brother died in his arms.

No wonder that the man is anxious to keep perhaps his only surviving kin so close at hand. Especially when that kin has been through what she has. And the presence of a woman is comforting thing. He has no wife yet. Of course he needs his sister.

The revelation regarding his parentage comes about, and people start seeing it a bit differently. Prince Brandon and Princess Arya are back, so Princess Sansa is neither his only surviving kin nor the only woman in his life. And Winterfell’s household claims His Grace was always closer to Princess Arya. But he doesn’t take and hold her hand whenever she’s near. He musses her hair and calls her “Little Sister”, yes, but he does not hold her hand for long periods.

And he’s not their brother.

Sure, Princess Sansa is the eldest of the Starks and his Chief Councillor. The one who went to battle with him, who has been by his side the longest. But that doesn’t require him to hold her hand beneath the council table. If it did, he’d be grabbing onto Ser Davos as well.

At this point, it’s not kingly, not manly.

The whispers start up. It’s noticed now how the King’s thumb often finds its way to the inside of her wrist and strokes it. How he squeezes her hand at various moments. How they often depart from meetings, court sessions, and meals together, hand in hand. The lingering looks between them. The ones that look like silent conversations. The way she can make that sullen face light up.

Sansa makes sure she knows every single thing that is said within her home. And all she can do is laugh. They don’t know the half of it.

Jon has a Northern soldier’s composure. They both have the manner of Eddard Stark of keeping their impulses and feelings tightly controlled… At least, in public.

Holding her hand was the height of control, given his actions behind closed doors. It actually started before they knew the truth of his heritage, though it manifested differently altogether. But he did, so very often, draw her into his arms and press tender kisses to her cheek or forehead. It had struck her as a bit odd at the time. Beyond standard brotherly rough-housing with Robb and his habit of mussing Arya’s hair (something which got them into a couple of arguments as children. Sansa could recall multiple separate occasions when she’s forced her little sister to sit still long enough to do her hair only to find it mussed ten minutes after she finished thanks to Jon’s affectionate hands), Jon had never been much for physical affection. But she attributed much of it to their separation, loneliness, and his death. Both of them, it seemed, wanted to make up for lost time.

After Bran and Lord Reed made their revelations about Jon’s parentage, she was the one to make the first confession of how she felt about him. She hadn’t taken his new predilection into account except as a wish for him to know what his embraces might summon in her. He should know that when he embraced his sister, not only was he the only man whose touch she felt comfortable with, but it made her heart flutter in a very unsisterly way. He deserved to know.

After that confession, he made his. And his kisses began to find her lips and neck as well. It went slowly, but always, when they were alone, he’d grab her, kiss her.

Once he was assured that she was ready for… further intimacies, he enthusiastically charged forward with them, seizing each new permitted liberty with a great zeal.

He always asks, of course. Always. But he also always feels a need to take her in his arms when they are alone.

Over the last fortnight, she’s had to start drinking moon tea every morning.

Not that she minds.

The thought of a man who couldn’t keep his hands to himself terrified her, normally. She’d been dealt the worst abuses by men like that. But with Jon. His hands on her were revelatory, almost. Almost healing in a way. She could be held and loved properly. She could be held and loved without being scared. Every embrace, caress, touch, even coupling, was an exquisite reminder that Ramsay hadn’t taken away her ability to be loved.

Indeed, she finds she lives for moments like this one. It’s around midday, they have snatched some time for a “private lunch” and she finds herself in a state she never would have imagined for herself at midday. She is reclining back atop the soft, silvery furs of her bed, naked as her name day, as Jon begins crawling onto the bed, naked as she is. He takes her right ankle and kisses it, even running his tongue over the protruding bone of her joint. “I love your skin,” he whispers to her.

“I know,” she replies, smirking, “You’re mad, though.”

“It’s just so smooth and soft and sweet-smelling,” Jon says, pausing at every third word to plant a kiss a little further up her leg.

He does have a particular, almost canine appreciation for her scent. And her taste.

Jon moves up her legs to her thighs, pressing little kisses back and forth between each until she’s quivering. She squirms and cries out when he’s finally tasting her, and her release is sublime. Still she has little time to revel in it, pulling him up to face her and whispering, “Hurry!”

He enters her with a moan and they move together, desperate and needy. She flexes her muscles, sucks on that area on his neck where he’s sensitive, whispers in his ear to bring him to his peak as quickly as possible. They will be expected back in less than an hour, and they do need to actually eat.

They dress quickly and call for lunch. Once the table is brought and the food is served, Jon orders the servants away, scoots his chair back, meets her eyes across the table with an arched brow, and pats his lap. She smiles, rolls her eyes, but goes to sit in it.

They’re playful, feeding one another like newlyweds.

They return to their duties after: council meetings, court session, drafting state papers, overseeing accounts, dinner… When they can finally retire, they depart, and, once alone, Jon grabs her by the waist before they even reach the door. He pulls her back to him, lifts a lock of her hair, and kisses it.

“Again, My King?” She asks, laughing.

“Aye, again, if it please you, Princess.”

Sansa gives a little nod and squeals as Jon literally lifts her into his arms and hurries for her chambers. He makes it to her solar, but not her chamber door, instead carrying over to the fur rug by the fire and laying her down on it. He descends upon her, stroking, caressing, groping, kissing. She giggles at the sensation of his mouth at her neck, at how his hands scramble to open her bodice so her breasts spill out.

She begins eagerly hiking up her skirts as Jon latches his lips to her left nipple and his hands scurry down to his breeches.

“We have all night, My King,” she reminds him breathlessly. They’d taken time to undress completely when they had less than two hours earlier. But he seemed content to just rush into coupling at once now, with far more time.

“Aye, enough time to have you in several different ways,” he growls, her breast falling from his smiling mouth. He kisses her lips, deeply, as if trying to devour her. His hand finds her smallclothes and she hears the fabric tear. It makes a whole new tremor of heat and nerves run through her. She feels the tip of his cock brush her lower lips as he gets into position and gasps. She’s slicker than oil and pulled taut as he parts her lips and slowly penetrates her opening.

This time, she does not rush him. Instead, it’s a bit more collaborative, for they both haven’t had their release yet in this encounter. Their hands joins and their eyes meet. When his lips leave hers to caress her neck and shoulders, she cries out for him.

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” he gasps as their hips quicken their pace, “I need you. I’m desperate for you.”

He continues to speak between growns. “Gods! Sansa… Never… Enough of you… Gods… Perfect… Beautiful… Need you… Love you...”

She finds her pleasure just before he does. But even after his seed is released, they cling to one another. They revel in feeling filled.

They rest together for a while, until Sansa grows uncomfortable. She pulls away slightly, prompting a grunt of frustration from her lover. But she ignores him and gets to her feet. But only to remove the rest of her clothing altogether. When he sees this, his annoyance turns to delight.

She smiles at him, looking at her like that as he lies on his back. Sansa kneels down then, her fingers going to waistband of his open breeches. She helps him undress with a direct and purposeful manner.

When he’s bare before her, she drinks in his smooth, pale skin and the contours of his muscles. She bends over to kiss the scars that mark his chest and stomach. He begins to harden again once more and once he does, he pulls at her hips to get her to straddle him and get into position.

She lives for times like these. Being wanted this way, and wanting back. He says it’s her skin, her scent, her beauty, but...

They don’t say it aloud, but their seeming addiction to one another is motivated by both past and future. There was all their time apart before. There is another (possible permanent) separation and an uncertain fate ahead. After finally having one another, knowing what they know, feeling what they feel, being in their home, that time is slipping away. Jon can not, will not, waste a moment.

Neither can she.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #fic repost project #long post

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olderjustneverwiser · 8 years ago

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Can't Deny My Love (Sonny Carisi)

Masterlist

Hurray for collaboration fics! If you like this one, please head over to @lordhyorke and give her some love! Half the credit goes to her, (probably more than half, really, ‘cause this all stemmed from this post.) You can also read this on her Ao3 account here.

NSFW and enjoy!

Word Count: 3,345 (it’s a long one, my friends)

Warnings: D/s relationship, the word ‘slut,’ spankings, rough-ish sex?

‘Hey babe, I’m about 5 minutes away. See you soon!’

You shot that text off to Sonny as you got out of the subway. You two were finally going to go out with some friends tonight. Sonny had to cancel the last few times, and though you completely understood why, you had to admit it hurt a little every time he did. Still, you wouldn’t love him as much as you did if he wasn’t as dedicated to his job. It meant keeping people safe, and he wouldn’t be your Sonny if he wasn’t doing that.

“Hey! What’re you doing here?” Detective Rollins came over and gave you a hug.

“Hey Amanda! I’m just waiting for Sonny. Do you know where he is?” She frowned.

“Yeah, he’s in an interrogation. Should finish up soon, though.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll wait right here for him, then.” You took a seat at his desk, hoping he could leave soon. Sonny was only running a few minutes behind so far, and that wasn’t bad. Your friends weren’t the most punctual people themselves, so there was no reason to worry. You pulled out your compact and touched up your makeup. You were putting away your lipstick when Sonny was walking towards you. You caught a whiff of him —the unmistakable scent of bergamot and cedar wood that reminded you of home.

You stood up, smoothing down your skirt and smiled, despite having a feeling about what news was coming your way. Sonny leaned in and kissed you gently. The look on his face spoke volumes.

“You look gorgeous, Doll…”

Your smile weakened. “…but?” Sonny slumped his shoulders and sighed. You knew he hated disappointing you, but it’s not as if you enjoyed being disappointed yourself.

“But, I have to stick around here for a while.”

“Do you really have to? Tonight?” You couldn’t help the note of hurt in your voice. Even though you quickly regained your composure, it was just long enough for Sonny to catch it. Hazards of dating a detective, you supposed.

“I know, we had plans, but this damn guy keeps changin’ his story.” He pulled you into a hug. “I’m so sorry. You know I’d rather be with you. I really thought I’d be done by now.”

You nodded, not moving away from his chest, you wanted to be as close to him as you could, especially since he wasn’t coming with you tonight.

He kissed the top of your head, “But don’t let me stop you from goin’ out. Go and have fun with your friends, okay?”

“Maybe I’ll find someone who doesn’t cancel on me so much,” You smirked at the look of panic on his face. “But I don’t think I’ll find anyone half as good as you.” You winked and kissed his cheek. “It’s honestly okay. I understand. You go and lock up the bad guy, I’ll see you at home.”

Sonny bent down and kissed you. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” You smacked his arm lightly.

“Just go and do your job before you’re stuck here all night!”

“Copy that, beautiful.” He kissed you one more time before heading back to the interrogation room.

Only fifteen minutes late, that wasn’t bad considering your wasted pit stop at the precinct. Your friends were already seated, and were waving you over. You smiled and sat down; noting a judgmental look on both of their faces.

“Alone again, I see?”

“Yeah, but he has a good reason.” You sighed, picking up the drink menu pretending to peruse it.

“Just like last time?”

“I think working to keep rapists and pedophiles off our streets is always a good reason. If he has to cancel a few dates to keep us safe, so be it!“

One of them raised their hands in defeat, “Fine, fine! You’re right.“

You smiled, “Good. Now can we please order some drinks?” As if on cue, your waiter made his way to your table and, damn, he was cute.

“Hey, ladies. What can I get you to drink?” He was smiling at all of you, but his eyes seemed to linger on you the longest. You smiled, and placed your order.

“I’ll take a gin and tonic, please.” Your friends followed suit. The server-come-bartender gave you a final look before heading off to make your drinks. It was probably a good thing Sonny had to work, since he wouldn’t have liked the way the bartender was staring at you.

The night went well, you and your friends had a great time catching up. You made sure not to have too many drinks, you didn’t want to be too incapacitated on your way home. Soon enough it was time for the bill, and one of your friends piped up. “You know that bartender’s been eyeing you all night…”

“Shut up. He has not.” You argued, giving her a light shove.

That wasn’t enough to stop her though. “I bet he’d lower our bill if you went up and talked to him.”

You raised your eyebrow at her. “Really? I highly doubt it.” It was your turn to be shoved.

“Yes, really. Just go up there and see what happens! What do you have to lose?” You thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t wrong. Sonny wasn’t here, and you did love a good challenge. Fuck it. What’s the harm?

“Fine! I’ll go, but I’m telling you it won’t work.” After making sure you looked okay—and unbuttoning a button on your top—you went up to the bar and flagged down the bartender. He flashed you a grin and headed your way. Alright. You can do this.

“Hi there, was there anything else I could get you ladies?” You finally believed your friends since the man in front of you was eyeing your chest. You thought they just may have a point. You decided to give it your best shot, so you straightened up your back and batted your eyes at the waiter, whom you had learned was named ‘Jake,’ but maybe if you were paying attention, you would have noticed the pair of ice blue eyes belonging to your boyfriend staring at you from the doorway. You would have noticed how he watched you lightly graze Jake’s arm and bite your lip as you asked for the bill and laughed at one of his stupid jokes. How his blood was boiling as he watched Jake stare unabashedly at your chest, and how you gave him a flirty smile when you noticed. Jake was printing up the bill, and had you looked just a little to your right, you would have seen those blue eyes storm out of the bar, hands balled into fists as he headed home. Jake slid the bill across the counter to you. You picked it up without looking at it.

“Thanks so much!” You smiled and tried to walk back to the table as fast as you could without sprinting. You turned the bill over and saw that a round of drinks was knocked off…and that Jake had left you his number.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes as you returned to your friends. “You were right, it worked. Look!” They looked at the bill and laughed.

“Told you! Here, we got your drinks.”

You shook your head. “Nah, you don’t need to do that!”

“Yeah we do, for putting you through that!” She pointed towards the bar. “Now go home to Sonny!” You grinned. “Thanks guys, you’re the best.” Gathering your things, you made your goodbyes—remembering to re-button your top—and left the bar.

Whatever buzz you may have had disappeared on your way home. You spent the ride to your apartment hoping Sonny would be home from work; after the night you had, you wanted nothing more than to curl up next to him in bed and watch Netflix.

When you got home you were glad to find Sonny sitting at the dining table, still in his work clothes, but he had a scowl on his face. Why hadn’t he changed? And why did he look so pissed off?

“Hey, baby, when’d you get off?” Sonny was silent as you kicked off your boots and walked to the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of water. “Did you have a good day at work?”

“Yeah, work was okay.” Alright, so work wasn’t what was getting him down. Was he upset with you? You decided to push; wanting some kind of reaction out of him. “I don’t know why you’re being short with me. If anything I should be mad at you for leaving me alone tonight.”

“Well, you seemed to be doin’ just fine with that waiter.”

Shit. Surely Sonny couldn’t think you were really flirting with him? Part of you wanted to explain why you were being overly friendly in the bar, however, another part of you was angry at Sonny for not coming out with you when he got off. You weren’t going to give in easily.

“You were at the bar? It was pretty rude of you to not even say ‘hi’ to us.”

That made Sonny finally look up at you, a devilish smile adorning his face. He leaned back in his chair, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. Your heart felt like it was going to burst out of your chest; you knew what he was thinking, what was coming next.

“Really? I was bein’ rude, huh?” He pursed his lips together, seemingly contemplating your comment. He nodded your way, “Take off your clothes.”

You immediately fell into your submissive persona. With shaky hands you pushed your skirt over your hips, letting it fall to the floor, followed by your tights and underwear. Soon you were completely naked, a blush spreading across your face. You knew you shouldn’t enjoy this this much, being talked to in such a way, but you couldn’t help the growing wetness between your legs as his hungry eyes looked over your body.

Spreading his legs, he motioned for you to walk to him. He pointed to one of his knees and you laid across it, pointing your ass in the air as your hair fell around you. He rubbed your back, his voice now softer than before.

“Do you remember your word?”

“Yes.”

“And you remember my rule?”

You nodded, “I can’t come until you say I can.”

Just like that, the kindness in his voice vanished, replaced by mischief. He leaned back in his chair again, moving his hand to rub your ass. “Doll, you’ve been cruel tonight. Flirtin’ with that guy, thinkin’ I wasn’t gonna find out.” You stayed silent, not knowing if Sonny wanted a response or not.

“You’re lucky it’s the beginnin’ of the month. I think you deserve eleven spankin’s, hmm? For the eleventh day?” Not caring about your answer, he delivered the first smack to your ass, causing you to yelp in surprise. You raised your ass in the air, preparing for the next one, numbers two and three came in quick succession, each one harder than the last.

The force of his fourth slap made your eyes water. That didn’t stop Sonny as he administered numbers five, six, and seven. He seemed to have stopped, and for just a moment you thought he might take pity on you, but then came number eight; you were sure it would leave a mark on your skin. It was the hardest yet.

“Ugh!” you exclaimed involuntarily, raising your ass in the air again. Who was Sonny to turn down this opportunity? Nine and ten came after shortly, tears now falling from your eyes. You braced yourself for eleven, the wetness between your legs growing, meanwhile Sonny rubbed your ass leisurely. The anticipation was killing you. Sonny was taking his sweet time. The soreness was starting to ebb, he could feel you starting to relax—that’s when you got number eleven. Hard, swift, and exquisite. He started rubbing your ass again, the soreness setting in.

“You took that well, doll,” he was massaging you. “Now get on your knees.” You heard the sound of him unbuckling his pants.

You fell to the floor and got on your knees in front of him, looking up at his face expectantly. He leaned back in his chair again, springing his cock free from his pants before standing up from his seat, his crotch merely inches in front of your face. One of his hands found the back of your head as he guided your mouth to him. You swirled your tongue around his head, but he wanted more. Tangling his hands in your hair, he pushed into your mouth, the force of his thrusts bringing new tears to your eyes.

You made yourself look into his eyes; you knew he loved when you met his gaze while you went down on him, even though you were sure you looked like a wreck; a mix of tears and mascara streaming down your face. You didn’t care, though, Sonny was enjoying the scene. He pushed into your mouth one final time, hitting the back of your throat. Instead of moving, however, he stayed like that for a few moments, holding your head in its position. He swiftly pulled out when you began to gag, causing spittle to leak down your chin.

Sonny helped you stand, wiping the tears from your face with him thumb. “You’re such a good little slut, aren’t you? Suckin’ my cock so well? Mmm, yeah, you are. Go get on the bed.”

Your legs felt like lead on the short walk to your bedroom; you could feel his eyes on your back the entire way.

You crawled into you and Sonny’s bed and laid in the middle, awaiting his next instruction. Sonny began untying his tie; he had a completely bored look on his face; like he couldn’t care less what he was doing to you. Once his tie was off, Sonny grabbed both of your wrists and tied them to your bed frame, leaving barely an inch for you to move your arms. His hands started to slowly trek down your body, stroking your cheek, pinching your nipple, before finally reaching where you wanted him most, plunging a single finger into your wetness.

“Mmm, already so wet. Is that for me? Or for someone else?”

“You! I promise it’s always for you!” Your statement ended with a whimper as he added another finger. Sonny wasted no time with you, slowly rubbing your clit with his thumb as he twisted and curled his fingers inside of you. You were already so close to the edge; it only took a few rubs of him thumb before your hips bucked against his hand. Sonny knew your body well, and he immediately withdrew his fingers, making you whine with need.

“I don’t think so, doll.” With that he wiped his fingers on your stomach and turned his back to you, continuing to undress himself. You desperately wanted to rub your thighs together, do anything to bring yourself some relief, but you knew that wasn’t allowed. You watched him as he took off his vest, then his button-down. He was moving painfully slowly; spending longer on each button than necessary. Once he was completely undressed he returned to bed, feeling your wetness once again, and just as quickly removed his fingers and crawled up your body. He entered you fully with one smooth motion, his head tipping back as he felt you for the first time all night. Any inclination of the angry, dominant Sonny was long gone as he began rocking his hips into yours, soft grunts escaping his mouth as he placed open-mouth kisses on your neck and collarbone. His pace was hasty, needy after holding off for so long.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Sonny, I want you, only you.” You ached to touch him; to feel his skin against yours, to show him how much you wanted him. You strained against the tie holding your arms in place, whispering to Sonny that you loved him, that you knew you’d never find someone better or someone who could make you feel as good as he was in that moment. He quickened his pace now and reached to untie your hands, spurred on by your words and kissed you for the first time that night; teeth clacking together, full of tongue and desire. Your hands, numb and tingling from being restrained, found Sonny’s damp hair and tugged, trying to suppress your impending orgasm. You broke the kiss to beg him to let you come; begged for him to push you over the edge you had been on for so long.

Sonny nodded against you, “Come. Fuckin’ come for me.” It was barely a mumble but it pushed you over with a scream that you were sure the neighbors heard. Sonny’s thrusts grew erratic and soon after he followed, growling into your neck as he emptied himself into you. When he was thoroughly spent, Sonny got up to grab a towel from the bathroom, helping you wipe off. He crawled back into bed and pulled you into him, both of you laying on your sides as you caught your breath.

You curled yourself into him, wanting to be as close to him as possible. The both of you stayed like that, silent, you pressed up against him, him tracing patterns over your back. After a few minutes, Sonny got up and lifted you into his arms.

“C’mon doll, let me run you a bath.” You nodded, still wiped. You were sore all over and you knew this was exactly what you needed; your Sonny to take care of you. He set you down on the counter as he drew you a bath.

He got in first, holding his hand out for you as you stepped into the hot water, and helped the two of you get situated. You leaned back against Sonny, finding the comfort you needed in his arms as he kissed the top of your head. You buried your head in the crook of his neck.

“Sonny,” you started, “Were you really that upset?”

He sighed, “Yeah…I know I overreacted, but it drove me crazy, you bein’ all flirty with that guy. Especially after…” He stopped himself.

You shifted a little in the water so you could look up at him. “After what, babe?“

“You know, after what you said. About findin’ someone who doesn’t cancel all the time.”

“Babe that was a joke! I didn’t mean anything by it…”

“Yeah, I know…it still just stung.“ His voice thick with that Staten Island accent you loved.

“Don’t you know how happy you make me?”

“You make me so happy, too! So happy!” He held you tighter. “I’m constantly wonderin’ why you’re with me.”

You felt like you may cry, “Sonny—“

“No doll, let me say this.” He was looking into your eyes this time. “When you said what you said…I know I have to cancel dates a lot, and I work weird hours, and I bring my work home sometimes, and then I was goin’ to night classes for a while, I don’t know, it stuck with me. I got Amanda to cover for me, so I went to the bar but then, I saw you talkin’ with him, usin’ all your moves. It sucked.”

You laid a hand on his chest and kissed him, slowly and sweetly, hoping you could tell him everything he needed to know through the kiss. He tightened his arm around you, but you could feel his body relax against yours as he breathed into you.

“I promise to only use my moves on you, from now on.” You said, smirking up at him. That did it, he flashed you that grin you loved so much.

And you couldn’t help but think to yourself, even though he canceled dates, worked the craziest hours, and was unpredictable, impulsive; he was your Sonny, and you wouldn’t have him any other way.

Tagging: @do-me-carisi, @ventixx

#sonny carisi #imagine sonny carisi #sonny carisi imagine #law and order svu #law and order imagine #svu imagine #svu #lordhyorke

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