#except he couldn’t and it went like this

[beloveds-embrace]

Neglected omega reader who got taken care of by someone else. Nikolai or Konig. The drama ✨✨

I hope i did KorTac justice, I’ve never written them before except König lol @nightunite pspspsps i have nikto crumbs 🙏🏻

Neglected omega reader p1 + p2

KorTac had always liked you.

From the very first moment they’d met you, they’d been drawn in- pulled by the quiet gravity of your presence and the sharp edge of your competence. You were quick on your feet, sharp with a knife, steady under pressure. Smart and resourceful in a way that demanded respect.

But more than that?

You had heart.

You’d been assigned to their unit during a joint operation months ago. Just a temporary deployment, only meant to last a few weeks, but it had been long enough for them to notice things- little things they hadn’t been able to forget.

The way you’d patched König up without hesitation after a mission went sideways, hands steady even as blood slicked your fingers. The way you’d shared your rations with Horangi after a supply drop came in light, brushing off his protests with a stubborn glare. The way you’d sat quietly beside Nikto on watch, not asking questions when he didn’t feel like talking but always ready to listen when he did.

They noticed you, and they liked what they saw.

Liked the way you worked. Liked the way you took care of your team without ever expecting anything in return. Liked the way you carried yourself- confident but kind. Fierce but soft.

But you weren’t theirs. Couldn’t be.

You belonged to 141, and KorTac had backed off, unwilling to overstep boundaries when you already had a pack waiting for you at home. They’d told themselves it was fine- they were fine- watching from a distance.

But then you came back.

Alone.

Hollow-eyed and sharp-edged, moving like a ghost through the halls of the base, and suddenly?

All bets were off.

The first time König sees you in such a state, it’s in the corridor outside the mess hall.

You don’t look up when he walks by, don’t even seem to notice the sheer weight of his presence as he slows, lingering just long enough to let his shadow stretch over you. You’re leaning against the wall like you’re trying to hold yourself together, arms wrapped tight around your middle, shoulders curled inward. Small. Smaller than he’s ever seen you look before. Smaller than he’d ever thought he’d ever see you.

His instincts itch- Omega, alone, hurting- but you’re not his. And still…

His eyes track the tired slump of your shoulders, the way your clothes hang loose, like you’ve been skipping meals. He scents the air. Picks up the faded traces of peach and rose, but there’s something sour underneath- bitter and wrong, like spoiled fruit. König’s stomach twists.

It’s the scent of neglect.

You should never have looked like this. You should have never smelled like this.

Not you. Not the Omega who had once dragged him out of the line of fire without hesitation, barking orders and holding the line until reinforcements arrived. Not the Omega who had once laughed with him under a tin roof during a monsoon, eyes bright.

The smell lingers after he walks away, clinging to the back of his throat like smoke. But it’s the emptiness of it- the hollowness- that keeps him awake that night, staring at the ceiling and wondering which one of those 141 bastards let their Omega rot like this.

The next time König sees you, it’s in the armory.

You’re cataloging weapons, checking and re-checking the tags with mechanical precision, but your hands shake when you reach for the next one. Just a little. Just enough for him to notice.

König moves closer. Quiet, but not too quiet- he doesn’t want to startle you. You don’t look up until his shadow stretches over your workbench, and when you do, the look in your eyes hits him like a gut-punch.

Flat. Guarded. Resigned.

Like you’re expecting him to scold you.

König’s heart cracks wide open. He grips the edge of the table just to keep from reaching out.

“Doing good work.” He says softly, and you just blink.

It’s such a small thing- barely even a compliment- but your throat bobs like you’re swallowing something down. Then you duck your head and go back to your task, not looking at him again.

But you don’t flinch.

Not this time.

Nikto is next, and he doesn’t hesitate.

He remembers you. Remembers the way you’d stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the rain, eyes scanning the horizon with sharp focus as you both waited for the enemy to make their move.

You hadn’t been scared. Not even a little.

And now?

He catches you outside the rec room, sitting on the stairs with your knees drawn up to your chest. You don’t even react when he approaches, just keep staring at the floor like it might swallow you whole.

Now, you look like you’re drowning.

So Nikto doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t say anything. Just crouches down beside you and sets a cup of coffee at your feet before walking away.

You stare at it for almost five minutes before finally picking it up.

The next morning, he does it again. Same cup. Same coffee. Same wordless offering.

It becomes a routine- something quiet and steady, something you can rely on when everything else feels too heavy.

And then there’s Horangi, who pushes the hardest.

He pushes, because he knows you can take it.

You had before- back when you’d yelled at him for ignoring orders and running off alone, eyes blazing as you shoved him back toward the evac point. He’d liked your fire back then, liked the way you didn’t back down even when he towered over you.

But now?

Now your fire’s gone out, and there’s only one group to blame.

So Horangi pushes. Tests the waters, pokes at the edges, trying to find the spark he knows is still there. He is the loudest of the three, sharp and quick with his words, but he also knows when to keep them soft. He finds you cleaning your gear one night and sits down beside you without asking.

“You missed dinner.” He says casually, pulling out a protein bar and tossing it onto your lap. Pushing past the bubble you’ve wrapped around yourself, yet not being overbearing or too much.

You open your mouth to argue, but he cuts you off.

“I’m not your Alpha,” he says with a shrug. “You don’t have to listen to me.”

You close your mouth. Look down at the protein bar. Then, without a word, you tear it open and take a bite.

Horangi grins. And just like that, he’s in.

And when you finally- finally- smile at one of his jokes?

He knows he’s got you.

141 starts noticing the shift almost immediately. Soap catches König lingering near you in the gym, eyes following the curve of your spine as you stretch, and something inside him snaps.

Ghost sees Nikto brush his fingers against yours when he hands you something, and his jaw clenches so tight he can hear his teeth grind.

Price overhears Horangi making you laugh- a real, honest-to-God laugh, a sound he can’t hear any longer even in his dreams- and has to excuse himself before he says something he can’t take back.

It gets worse when your scent starts to change; the bitterness fades first, then the sourness.

The first time Price catches a hint of warmth blooming underneath, it stops him dead in his tracks.

Because it isn’t for him. It isn’t for them.

It’s even worse to know that they drove you to it, and have no one to blame but themselves.

They let you fall through the cracks. Let the weight of their own issues and distractions leave you stranded in the dark, too far away for them to pull you back when they finally noticed you were gone.

And now? Now KorTac is picking up the pieces, with no hesitation.

König steadies you. Makes sure you eat, makes sure you rest, makes sure you feel safe even when the world outside is crumbling. Doesn’t push you away when you, big hand lingering on the curve of your spine until his scent is left there.

Nikto grounds you. Offers quiet comfort without demands, without expectations. Makes sure you know he’s there, always there, steady and unshakable. A lighthouse in the stormy seas, the hand that pulls you out of the swirling ocean.

Horangi pushes and pushes. Draws out smiles and laughter, reminds you what it feels like to be wanted. Finds excuses to bump shoulders or brush against you when you pass, just to see if you’ll let him.

And you do. You let all of them, slowly greeting them with the quietest little purr (cat activation noise).

Because it’s easier to be wanted by them than it is to be unwanted by your own pack.

And slowly- so slowly it hurts- you start to come back to life; your scent changes. Softens. Warms. The bitterness fades and the sourness disappears.

And all they can do is only watch as König takes the space they abandoned. As Nikto feeds the hunger they ignored. As Horangi brings back the fire they let burn out.

And they can’t do a damn thing about it.

Because the truth is- KorTac wanted you from the start, and now that they’ve got you?

They’re never letting go.

[alexmasonistired]

Id like to start this off by saying that this is an absolutely lovely post; thank you OP for making it. Now I would like to share our own experience with the education system in general, and what our state called- “Critical minds classes”.

Now if you don’t know what that is- it’s a thing in our state where 30 kids are chosen by the state to go into these special critical minds classes. We in particular were put in critical minds math and let me tell ya- IT FUCKING SUCKED.

All the class was, was us sitting in a certain spot that we could not move from the ENTIRE OVER AN HOUR THAT WE WERE IN THERE in SILENCE while working on these list of MathXL links. And if you know how MathXL works- yeahhh it was absolutely awful. Some of the worst parts of that class though, was that we had to keep our bags up front the entire time and we wouldn’t get anything because we wasn’t allowed out of our seat, and worst of all- the teacher that lead the class, always seemed like she just didn’t wanna be there. She felt intimidating to us so we never were able to approach her with our getting insanely nervous. She reminded us of the bodies mother with the way she looked so that made it worse. (Also edit: I just remembered- I believe for a good chunk of the first half of the semester she was watching our computers??)

Btw- remeber those check lists of MathXL links that I mentioned earlier??? Yeah. There was like- 18-20 of those links on these checklists that we used to have a month to complete! But then it was shortened to only a WEEK because the semester was ending and she needed to get grades in ig.

We had a whole ass panic attack infront of our history teacher becuase we were on list SIX, and there was TEN of these things to do. And I swear it felt like each list just had more links- we fucking hated it. I believe we finally made it to list eight before we eventually gave up and let the burn out take us over and just wrote in our diary the entire period. Except for the days we had quizzes and did blookets, which was hardly ever. At that point we were just SO fucking done of just not being able to understand ANYTHING put in front of us no matter how hard we tried. We just barely passed that class with a D.

I also remeber that we went to summer school after seventh grade because our grades were so low our teachers didn’t know if they could pass us. It was the same with in fifth grade, the teachers were nervous to let us go into middle school because we were just barely passing. Our grades were that bad.

We got to this point(the whole critical minds math thing and giving up,) because ever since like- second grade, we had been having massive trouble with math and grades and over all just confidence in general. Especially in the math field.

I remember we began cheating on a lot of our assignments and tests in second grade because our confidence had been bumped down that badly, and we just couldn’t really understand it. Or at least I believe that we couldn’t understand it- I’ll get into second grade math in another post. Regardless, we ended up sizing cheating as a last ditch effort a lot in school because we got to a point where we felt like we didn’t have a choice.

We would try so hard at something in math, only for our brain not being able to remember it, how to do it, and for it to also not make sense in our brain. It absolutely crushed us one day when we ended up in an argument with the father one day over another bad math grade and we yelled: “Is my best not enough not for you!?” And he just yelled back: “NO!” That day crushed us. The father always says that we just weren’t applying ourselves enough, which hurt even MORE because we WERE applying ourselves more, we WERE trying, and as hard as we could too! But we can only do so much, but it honestly seems like the parents, especially the father, just cannot realize that. And it hurts us, so much.

We always saw our friends in school absolutely soar and it was fucking awful how they would be getting into honors classes, getting to go up a grade or even graduate early, and then we would be sitting here in what is supposed to be an “extra help” class when in reality it didn’t help us at all. Due to our mental disabilities/Illnesses, we weren’t able to learn like the other kids were able too. All we’ve ever wanted was to be smart enough to be able to fly through school like our friends, study efficiently, and get our diploma normally like any other kid, but no. We didn’t have that experience and we never will due to our life and the way that our brain works and we fucking hate it.

There was also of times where we felt stupid, useless, and pathetic for not being able to keep up with our allistic, and non-ADHD-having peers. It especially was rough considering that that was the standard our parents set us too all the time, and we just could not reach the standards that she and the father set for us.

We tried tutoring a few times, but it honestly didn’t help much either. We never ever got the help that we needed growing up and I know that we never will get the help we need. And I hate it. So many people failed us when it came to education and I look back and can’t help but feel bad for us. We were just a young, neurodivergent kid with a dissociative disorder along with many other disorders alone with it, and a complete mess too. A mess that no one really bothered to help with. It was awful.

What we needed back then was one-on-one assistance with someone who could understand us and what was going on with us, we never got that. And that was because everyone around us failed us. Either failing to recognize our needs, or just not thinking that we needed them because it wasn’t super duper obvious that we did.

Kinda fucked up that we all coo and sympathize with "former gifted kids" but never talk about the students who had to stay late after school or over the summer for remedial classes/clubs, who struggled to get above a C, who were given up on or punished. Who tried so hard to understand or just couldn't. Who were grouped with the "stupid kids" (a classmate called us that in remedial math btw)

Autistic kids and adhders who can't relate to their gifted peers and are constantly alienated by them. Kids who struggled in school due to dealing with a chronic or mental illness or physical/learning/developmental disability. Those of us who have had to drop out of highschool or college. Kids who worked so hard and wanted to be seen as smart, but never were. Who watched as their peers seem to fly by them in school, while they were left behind. Who were bullied and put down by those in the gifted and honors classes. Whose confidence was absolutely destroyed by education.

I love you all and I'm so sorry the school system failed you. I'm sorry you weren't properly accommodated and given the education you deserved. I'm sorry people put you down for something that they never had to fight for.

[cutielando]

my little engineer | o.p.

synopsis: in which Oscar falls in love with a McLaren engineer

a/n: based on this request! the timeline does not really follow the actual season, i just went along with what came to my head

my masterlist

The air buzzed with the energy of the Formula 1 paddock.

Even on a quiet Thursday afternoon, there was a constant undercurrent of urgency, the kind that kept everyone on their toes.

You were no exception to the rule.

As a McLaren engineer, your days were filled with analyzing data, fine-tuning setups, and making sure that the cars were in peak condition. The team’s fortunes often hinged on decisions made in rooms like the ones you were currently in, surrounded by monitors and endless cups of coffee.

You had been with McLaren for 2 years now, your main focus being on aerodynamics. The team had offered to hire you while you were still studying your degree, mainly because of how brilliant your mind was.

Your job was to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the car, translating theoretical possibilities and what-ifs into tangible speed and a sea of accomplishments.

Currently, you were busy reviewing wind tunnel data when a shadow fell across your desk.

Looking up, you saw Oscar standing there, a curious expression in his face. He was dressed casually, but the unmistakable sharpness of a driver’s focus radiated off of him.

“Hey” he said, his soft Australian accent cutting through the silence.

“Hi, Oscar” you greeted him, giving him a small smile.

“Do you have a moment? I wanted to ask you about the changes to the front wing design we made today” he asked, his eyes darting across your desk.

He could see that you were busy, but he couldn’t help himself. Ever since he had joined the team, he couldn't get you out of his head. He was impressed by your knowledge and experience at just 21, basically his age, and he found himself blushing and stuttering every time he would talk to you.

He was acting like a love-sick puppy.

"Of course, take a seat" you said as you gestured to the chair next to you, straightening up in your chair.

Despite only being in his rookie year, Oscar's performance had been nothing short of remarkable. And you also couldn't deny that you took a small, secret liking to the young Aussie driver.

"Can you explain to me, again, what changes we made exactly?" Oscar asked, having sat down next to you.

"Yeah, we've made some adjustments to the endplates in order to better improve airflow around the tires. It should help with high-speed cornering stability" you explained, pointing to the data on one of the monitors.

Oscar leaned in, his eyebrows furrowed as he took in what you were saying and what he was seeing on the screens.

"How does that affect the balance? Will it make the rear feel lighter?" he asked, scratching his chin.

"Slightly, yes. But we've made sure to compensate with some tweaks to the diffuser. It will feel different, but once you adjust, you should find it predictable and reliable" you explained.

He nodded, his expression thoughtful.

"I see. I get it now, thanks Y/N" he said, giving you a small smile.

You smiled back, patting him on the shoulder.

"Anytime, Oscar. Let me know how the car feels after FP1 and we can make some more tweaks if it's necessary" you said.

Oscar nodded and gave you one last smile before heading out. You watched him go, noticing the quiet confidence with which he held himself, even as he walked.

There was something about him that intrigued you, a mix of his determination to become the best and his calm, almost reserved personality and demeanor.

Something you definitely wanted to explore.

But for now, you shook the thoughts away, getting back to work before you could spiral into something else.

Into something more dangerous.

♡♡♡♡♡

Over the next few weeks, your interactions with Oscar became more and more frequent.

Whether it was in the garage, during debriefs, or even in the cafeteria, he often sought you out to discuss details about the car.

At first, everything was purely professional. Mostly technical questions, feedback on changes to the setup, and maybe the occasional joke to lighten up the mood.

But gradually, the conversations began to shift.

“So, how did you end up in F1?” he asked one evening, leaning against the workbench as you adjusted a model component.

You froze for a second but quickly regained your composure, a little surprised at the personal question.

“Well, I’ve always loved racing. My dad used to take me to local karting events when I was little. I wasn’t much of a driver, though, but I was really curious about the whole mechanism behind the cars. I got into university and McLaren hired me while I was still studying” you explained.

Oscar’s eyes lit up with interest as you spoke.

“Wow, you must have one hell of a brain, then” he said, making you laugh and blush.

You shrugged, not wanting to gloat.

“I guess they saw something in me, I don’t really know. I’m just grateful I have this opportunity” you said, giving him a smile.

He smiled back, his eyes twinkling.

“It’s good that we have you here with us. We wouldn’t get far without you” he said, his voice softer now.

“It’s a team effort, really, but thank you” you said, your cheeks now an angry shade of red.

Oscar smiled and nodded, and his eyes lingered on you for a second too long. You looked away, your eyes now focused on the task at hand, trying to hide the sudden flutter in your stomach and in your chest.

Damn you, Oscar.

♡♡♡♡♡

As the season progressed, the dynamic between you and Oscar continued to deepen.

He’d stop by your workstation far more often than was necessary, most of the times just to have a chat with you.

You found yourself looking forward to his visits, your butterflies being swarmed with butterflies whenever you would see him approach you. And even though you tried to keep things strictly professional, there were small, fleeting moments than hinted at just something more.

Like the time he brought you coffee during a particularly tough and difficult race weekend, completely taking you by surprise.

“Here, thought you might need this” he said, setting down the cup of coffee in front of you.

Startled, you raise your eyebrows, but smile nonetheless.

“Thanks” you said, looking down at the cup to notice that he had not only brought you coffee, but he brought your favorite type of coffee. “How did you know I like it black?”

Oscar smiled and shrugged.

“I pay attention” was the only thing that he said before he turned and walked away, leaving you staring after him.

Another instance was when he had caught you off guard with a genuine compliment after a tougher free practice session.

“You’re really good at what you do, you know. The car feels incredible because of you” he said, trying to comfort you after the tough debrief.

You’d brushed it off as you always did, trying to pass everything as team effort.

But the sincerity and gentleness of his voice stayed with you long after that.

Maybe a little too long.

♡♡♡♡♡

Monza.

It was during a rain-soaked qualifying session that the tension between the two of you reached an all-time high.

The team had completely gambled on a whole-new setup, a very risky one at that, and the stakes were higher than they ever were in the championship battle.

You were sitting in the garage with your headphones on, monitoring the data as Oscar ventured out on the slippery track.

“How’s the car, Oscar?” Tom, his race engineer, asked him over the radio.

“A bit twitchy, but it’s manageable” his voice crackled over the radio.

You leaned forward over the computer, your heart in your throat as you watched his sector times closely.

Even though the setup was still rocky, he was pushing hard, managing to find the limits and extract the most out of his lap times with every lap.

When the session finished and he crossed the line securing a spot on the second row, the whole garage erupted into loud cheers.

Everyone was hugging everyone, congratulating you on the proposed setup (a gamble, really) and how well it had played out in the end.

Oscar returned a few minutes later, drenched but grinning widely.

His eyes found yours almost instantly, and you couldn’t help but give him a wide smile back.

“Nice work out there” you said as he stopped in front of you.

“Couldn’t have done it without you” he replied, his voice warm and soft.

For a moment, the noise of the garage faded away into the distance, and it was just the two of you there, standing in the middle of the chaos.

Just the two of you.

Later that night, the team had decided to go out and celebrate the amazing qualifying session.

You found yourself sitting at the quieter end of the table with Oscar. The conversation between the two of you flowed effortlessly, moving from racing all the way to hobbies and childhood stories.

You learned that he loved cooking, had an embarrassingly extensive collection of movie soundtracks and missed the Australian benches.

“What about you? What do you do when you’re not making our cars faster?” he asked, resting his chin on his hand as he looked at you.

You laughed, taking a sip of your drink.

“Not much, to be honest. Work keeps me pretty busy. But I like hiking when I get the chance. It’s nice to unplug and just be with the nature for a little while, away from all the chaos and noise” you said.

He nodded thoughtfully, seemingly hanging onto your every word.

“Sounds peaceful. I haven’t hiked in a long time. Maybe I should start again” he said.

“You should. It’s a great way to clear your head” you said, your lips twitching into a small smile.

The evening stretched on, the line between you and Oscar becoming more blurred with each passing moment.

By the time you left the restaurant, walking side by side under the streetlights of Italy, you felt warmth in your chest at the feeling of him being next to you.

A warmth that had nothing to do with the wine you’d had.

♡♡♡♡♡

The slow burn continued as the season went on.

There were stolen moments in the garage, quiet conversations during long flights and shared smiles that spoke volumes. But neither of you made the step, neither crossed the line.

Not yet, anyways.

But the unspoken tension hung heavily in the air, growing stronger and stronger with each passing day.

And it all came to a head in Abu Dhabi, the final race of the season.

After a very hard-fought battle Oscar had managed to finish on the podium, his best result of the season yet. The team celebrated late into the night, the culmination of months of effort and sacrifice finally paying off.

You found yourself on the balcony of the hotel, the cool desert breeze brushing against your skin.

Oscar joined you a few minutes later, a drink in his hand and a soft smile on his face.

“Couldn’t handle the noise anymore?” he asked, leaning against the railing beside you.

“Something like that. It’s been a long season, I’m exhausted” you said, chuckling.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

“It has. But I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without you” he said.

You turned to him, your heart skipping a beat at the fire in his eyes as he looked at you.

“Oscar…”

“No, let me say this. You’ve been there for me through everything. You’ve pushed to be better weekend after weekend, supported me when things got tough and the car was shit. I don’t think I’d still be here if it weren’t for you” his voice was firm, like there was no room for you to contradict him.

“I was just doing my job” you said, your voice soft as your breath caught in your throat.

Oscar shook his head, determined to make you see exactly what he was feeling.

“It’s more than that. You mean more to me than just…this. I know we’ve got a million reasons why this wouldn’t work, but i can’t pretend I don’t feel this anymore” he said, his eyes boring into yours.

The vulnerability in his voice, the way he looked at you as if you were the only thing that mattered, all combined shattered every doubt you’d had.

Taking a deep breath, you stepped closer, your hand brushing against his softly.

“I’ve been trying to ignore it for months, but I don’t want to do it anymore” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper.

His lips curved into a soft smile, and before you could overthink anything, he leaned in, capturing your lips in a kiss that felt as natural as breathing.

The world faded away, leaving only the two of you under the starry Abu Dhabi sky. Months of pining and unspoken tension culminated in a simple kiss, fireworks erupting into every part of your body.

When you finally pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, a content sigh escaping his lips.

“So, where do we go from here?” you asked, your voice tinged with both excitement and uncertainty.

“One step at a time” he said, his fingers intertwining with yours. “As long as it’s with you, I’m happy”

And in that moment, you knew that whatever challenges lay ahead, you’d face them together.

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[noharaaa]

𝐌𝐚𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧 & 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐮𝐠 (𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐬 𝐱 !𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐫!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫) II

Author’s Note: Disclaimer! This plot is not to encourage drug usage! Don’t do drugs people!

• Reader has no specific gender.

• Parody fic! This is all for jokes.

Enjoy Reading!

╰᭡⿴༘͜─𖧷̷۪۪᪇ ༘᪇𖧷̷۪۪⃟ꦽ⃟:: ᰰ۪۪꧇⿴༘⃕▦᰷᰷ᰰ

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲:

Back in your more questionable days, Choi Su Bong was a frequent (and unforgettable) customer. He’d show up at the oddest hours, paying in cryptic compliments and half-finished rhymes while buying from your stash. You were just trying to make a living, but he treated every transaction like a chapter in some epic cosmic romance. He was the aspiring rapper who thought the universe revolved around him, and you were the unlucky drug dealer stuck listening to his "intergalactic" bars. You thought those days were behind you….until now, when fate (or bad karma) brought him crashing back into your life in the most ridiculous way possible.

prev

The next game, Six-Legged Pentathlon, everyone else seemed to be busy psyching themselves up or planning strategies. Forming alliances had been going well for you after the first game. You’d managed to team up with Se-mi and Min-su, both seemingly normal and mentally balanced individuals. But then, just as the timer for team formation neared its end, you caught a glimpse of something unsettling from the corner of your eye.

purple hair. Of course.

A tap on your shoulder followed, and you already knew who it was before you even turned around. Thanos stood there with Nam-gyu, a smug grin plastered across his face “Hey, dealer,” he drawled, his purple hair catching the harsh fluorescent light. “Miss me?”

Before you could say anything, the buzzer rang, locking you into a team with them.

“Great,” you muttered, already feeling a headache creeping up your brain.

As you sat in the circle waiting for the caterpillar race to begin, the five of you were herded to the starting area, each group bound together in teams. You knew a disaster was waiting to happen. You seated next to Se-mi, while the purple-haired headache was seated on your other side.

And just when you thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, out of the corner of your eye, you spotted it.

Thanos, slipping Nam-gyu a… pill?

Your eyes widened as Nam-gyu caught your gaze and nudged Thanos, who turned toward you with a grin. “Enjoying the show?” 

You sighed, trying to look anywhere but at the visible build of sweat collecting near his hairline. He was fidgeting like a kid who’d had too much sugar, his leg bouncing up and down like he was ready to launch into orbit.

Classic signs. Oh, great. He’s freaking high.

Nam-gyu leaned over, whispering  “Boss said you’re a drug dealer?”

“I was” you corrected sharply, shooting a glare his way. “Past tense.”

“Oh, right. Boss said you were the best.”

Thanos tapped his chest unfazed, “Still got it,” he murmured, shifting his shirt slightly to reveal a silver vintage cross necklace tucked inside. “You know….in case you’re interested.”

“I’m not a dealer anymore. I’m here to survive, not relive my ‘glory’ days with your… whatever that is.” You gestured vaguely at the pill situation.

“Aw, c’mon, Dealer! Not even a little for old times’ sake?” 

“Stop calling me Dealer.”

You crossed your arms, determined to ignore him. But then the game announcer’s voice blared out, and you watched as the first group of players was led to the starting line, their faces tense and pale. Your stomach twisted in a knot.

Okay. New rule, no panicking. you said to yourself.

Except your body didn’t get the memo. As you watched the first few teams fumble their way through the grueling physical challenges, the knot in your stomach tightened. Sweat beaded on your forehead, and your body went stiff..

Thanos noticed your unease because of course he did. He always had a knack for spotting weakness and exploiting it.

“Nervous?” he asked, leaning in just enough to make your skin crawl.

“I’m fine” 

You knew that was a damn lie. You scared as hell!.

“Just a thought, you know…” he whispered. “You never know when you might need a little… boost.”

Se-mi leaned into your side, mumbling, “Is he seriously trying to sell you drugs right now?”

“Apparently. This guy has no off switch.”

He gently nudged you with his elbow, trying to get your attention again. Holding the pill between his fingers, he turned it over like he was checking for imperfections. His lips curled into a sly grin as he cast a sideways glance your way, smugness radiating off him.

"Tempting," he whispered randomly in English

You shot him a glare, but your heart was pounding, and your hands were clammy. The anxiety was bubbling up, making it impossible to think straight. You hated that he was there, with that stupid pill and that stupid face offering an easy way out.

“Fine, dammit. Just give it to me” 

Welp! There goes your stubborn pride…..

His grin widened as he pretended to ponder for a moment longer, holding the pill up to the light like it was a precious gem before finally handing it over. “Your wish is my command,”

This guy needs a good punch in the face. Maybe after you make this round.

You snatched it from his hand, swallowing it down with a grimace. As the tension in your chest began to ease, a sliver of relief crept in, though it was quickly overshadowed by irritation. Maybe, just maybe, this oversized grapehead-looking guy wasn’t entirely useless. But admitting that? Never.

prev

╰᭡⿴༘͜─𖧷̷۪۪᪇ ༘᪇𖧷̷۪۪⃟ꦽ⃟:: ᰰ۪۪꧇⿴༘⃕▦᰷᰷ᰰ

Author’s Note: (Leave a like! Or reblog! I respond to anyone ❤️)

@nikoeatschemicals

@audrey8864

[starshideurfics]

A Mother’s Love - part 2

part one

omegaverse, pre-steddie, past mpreg, cw: child death

Marsha Harrington was proud of her work under Dr. Martin Brenner. They were doing cutting-edge research, pushing the boundaries of what the human mind could do, and ensuring the communists didn’t win.

At least, that’s what she told herself as she held a grieving mother whose baby they had stolen.

Then, she told herself she was doing it for the children, protecting them as best she could.

But she couldn’t protect them. Not really.

Two was angry, even as a little boy, and Four followed his example. Five was cold, easily molded by Brenner. Each of them did whatever Papa asked.

Except Seven.

Seven cried often, and he kept to himself. The older boys liked to make him cry. And he was afraid of the girls, like being near them would burn his skin.

He was always distressed during Brenner’s tests, so distressed that they never got good data. Brenner tried ignoring him, a “cooling off period” he called it, to see if Seven could calm down and regulate enough for testing. It didn’t work.

“He’s washing out,” Brenner said one day after a failed attempt to get Seven to guess at the pictures on the cards in Brenner’s hands. “Schedule him for tomorrow.”

One child had washed out before. Four had been a twin. 004A and 004B, but A never stood out, let B push him around. He’d hit his head, had a cranial hematoma. There was surgery, but he recovered… below Brenner’s standard. He washed out at six-years-old.

“Washed out.”

He was cremated.

And 004B became 004.

Marsha volunteered to handle 007’s procedure. She changed out the vials, gave him a mild sedative, and covered him with a sheet. A janitor helped her sneak him out a backdoor.

She brought him home, told her husband she’d leave him if he didn’t agree to adopt the boy. Richard simply smiled and nodded.

Marsha had had cancer in her early-20s, lost both ovaries in the course of her treatment. She’d gone to therapy, made her peace with it. Found a husband who didn’t care that she couldn’t have children, who liked being able to knot her without worrying about babies.

Richard did not care for babies. But Seven was already almost 5-years-old. Richard could handle that.

He was also a lawyer, so getting papers filed to adopt the boy were simple. They named him Steven, figuring it was close enough that if he remembered anything his brain could make sense of it.

Steven David Harrington.

Marsha and Richard were quiet about Steve, treating him like he’d always been around. They moved to Hawkins, closer to the lab, hiding Steve in plain sight. And Marsha kept her job.

If they ran, someone might ask questions, but Marsha wanted to save time on her commute. Who could question that?

Out of the lab, Steve calmed down. He enjoyed his routines, liked going to the park, liked swimming in their new pool with Mommy. For the first time, Marsha saw him laugh out loud, and she hoped the worst was behind them.

Then he started school.

The other children overwhelmed him, and his teacher called home 45 minutes after drop-off because Steve could not stop crying.

Marsha went to pick him up, promised they would work on emotional regulation and try again next Monday.

“Steve, can you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked on the way home.

“Hurts,” he said, sniffling and rubbing his chest. “Hurts inside. Everyone is scared and loud and it hurts.”

“Oh, my poor, sensitive boy!” Marsha pulled into the driveway, pulled Steve out of the backseat, and held him close. “Let’s see if we can figure out how to make it quieter for you, Stevie.”

When Steve went back for the second week of Kindergarten he still kept to himself, but he could manage the half day surrounded by his peers. By the end of the week, he had even made friends.

He got better control, grew up happy and healthy, and most importantly, safe.

Marsha continued to work for Brenner until one day, after nearly 20 years, she was reassigned as a specialist at the VA. Brenner said their funding was cut. That the program was finished.

Steve was almost 13 by then. Marsha was fairly certain he didn’t remember any of it. And he didn’t cry much. Not anymore. But when he came home to his mother crying in the kitchen, his eyes filled with tears. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, throwing his arms around her.

“I know, Honey. I know.”

🫂🫂🫂

Wayne leaves Steve dozing in his nest around 4:10, and goes to try calling the Harrington’s. Marsha picks up on the third ring, voice light and breathy. Wayne tries to be as cordial as possible, introducing himself and mentioning that he’s seen her at the VA when he goes in for his physical.

“But let’s get down to brass tacks, I’ve got your son, Steve, here, in my nest, sleeping through his presentation heat. My nephew’s a freshman, he found him, and you know how teens are, he brought him to the first safe omega he could think of—”

“Thank you!” she cuts him off, sounding a little hysterical. “Thank you, Wayne! I thought I had more time before it hit him. It’s been so long since I’ve worked with pups—with teens…” she trails off, suddenly quiet. “I should have been paying more attention.”

Wayne waits a long moment, then he asks, “D’you wanna come pick him up? Or should I…”

“Yes! What’s your address?”

Wayne’s ready to give directions, but he says Forest Hills and the lot number, and she thanks him again as she hangs up her end of the call. Shrugging, Wayne hangs up his own receiver, and gets a glass of orange juice from the fridge.

Steve’s still sleeping peacefully, his face tucked into the side of the nest, fingers curled in the blankets.

Wayne crosses over to him, strokes his hair and murmurs, “Hey, Kid. Your Mom is on her way over.” He feels Steve’s forehead, still burning with his heat. He holds up the orange juice. “Need to get some sugar into you, make up for everything your body’s burning through.” He helps Steve sit up, holds the glass for him as he drinks it all.

Finished, Steve turns to hide his face against Wayne’s shoulder and whines.

“I know, Kid. This is a rough one. The first of many.”

“Can I lay back down?”

“Sure, get comfy. I’ll bring your mother back as soon as she gets here.” Wayne watches Steve sink back down to the same spot, realizes then where Steve’s nose is, and holds back a keening cry of his own.

Benny deserves to know.

But Benny wants his pup safe before anything.

Marsha must have broken a few traffic laws with how quickly she arrives, and Wayne opens the door for her before she can knock. “Thank you!” she says again, following Wayne back to his nest and running over to Steve. She rubs his back, softly says, “Stevie, I’m here. It’s okay.”

Steve lifts his head, eyes unfocused as he turns to look at her. “Hi, Mom.”

“Are you ready to go home? We’ll get a nest started on your bed and you can sleep.”

“It’s nice here,” Steve mumbles, “Smells nice. Safe.”

She sniffs theatrically. “You’re right, it does.” Then she sniffs Steve’s hair. “But don’t you want a nest that smells like you?”

Steve shakes his head, fist clenching the white undershirt, pulling it to his nose.

Marsha strokes Steves hair, bends down to sniff quietly at the shirt, and goes stock still. As she recovers, she kisses Steve’s hair and gets back to her feet. Her eyes are watery, lips pursed as she approaches Wayne to ask, “You know Ben Hammond?”

“He’s my best friend. Don’t you know he lives in town?”

She shakes her head. “I try not to be involved, for-” She cuts herself off, pauses. “You know, don’t you.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Call him. Now.”

🫂🫂🫂

“Benny’s Burgers, how can I help you?” Benny drawls into the receiver, expecting a to-go order.

Instead, it’s Wayne. “Benny, you need to come over right now.”

“Wayne, no. Dinner rush is about to start, I’ve already got a few early birds, a couple te-”

“Benjamin Hammond, this is serious!”

That wasn’t Wayne, the voice too high-pitched. Feminine and familiar.

“Marsha?”

“Hi, honey. God, I owe you a million apologies. More even.”

“You do.”

“But Wayne said you know, and he needs you.”

Benny’s heart races. “Wayne needs me? Marsha, what the hell is going on? Is Br-”

“Wayne is fine. He needs you.” Marsha is being careful, keeping him from saying too much over the phone. “Please, can you come to Wayne’s? Now?”

“Yeah, just gotta close up.”

“I’m so sorry, Benny.”

“Save it for later, Marsha.” He hangs up, hurries the customers who have already been served. Orders everyone else out with a barked, “Emergency closure. Come back tomorrow.”

Benny hops into his pickup, drives to Wayne’s, confused for a moment by the BMW parked next to Wayne’s truck. But his brain catches back up, and he parks right beside it.

As soon as he’s through the door he can smell it: Peaches, light and sweet. He shouldn’t be able to, with the strength of Wayne’s cinnamon mixed with cigarette smoke, but he does. Peaches mixed with the fading milky scent of a pup.

Wayne and Marsha are in the kitchen, both staring at him.

“I’m so sorry, Benny,” Marsha says again. “What we did to you was unforgivable. What we did to the pups was worse. But I got Steve out. I kept him safe.” Her voice is shaky, but her eyes stay dry, never looking away.

“I wanted to name him David,” Benny says in little more than a whisper.

“I know. His middle name is David, but Steven was easier for him to adapt to.”

“Adapt?”

��Brenner gave them numbers.”

That doesn’t surprise Benny; Brenner was always so clinical. Methodical. But it clearly shocks Wayne. “Numbers. Y’all didn’t even give them names?”

“His name was Seven.”

Marsha glances at Wayne, sees the disgust there. “Brenner thought it would make it easier for us to see them as subjects than as children. But they were always children to me. And Steve was sensitive, stubborn and scared. I got him out, and Brenner thinks he’s dead. As long as he doesn’t call any attention to himself he should be safe.”

“Talking to me will call attention to him, won’t it?” Benny asks, heart and mind racing. For a moment he considers grabbing Steve and running god knows where, but he can’t do that to his pup.

“Not that much. Brenner shuttered the program. I don’t work for him anymore. I’m just a nurse at the VA. And all your files are secured and confidential. No one should be watching you.” Marsha takes two steps, crosses the tiny kitchen, and tentatively reaches for Benny’s shoulder. “And he needs you. His heart still knows you.”

“I think my heart would know him anywhere. No matter what.” Tears stream from his eyes, and Benny nods down the hallway towards Wayne’s room. “I have loved him every day—every minute—of his life, and if you let me in, I’m not leaving. Ever.”

“I know. We’ll figure it out. Keep him safe. Together.”

Marsha takes his hand in both of hers, squeezes once, and lets go. “He’s sleeping, but I think he’ll feel better if you’re nearby.”

Benny panics, suddenly struck with all his worst fears. “He’s not hurt, is he?”

“No more than any other omega on the day they present,” Wayne answers gently.

“Oh.” Right, the peach scent. Benny’s grandmother smelled like peaches. He misses her. She taught him how to bake.

“He found your scent token in my nest right away,” Wayne adds.

“Oh,” Benny says again, his legs beginning to shake. “Oh.”

Marsha guides him back to the nest. To his pup.

Steve is asleep, a plain, white shirt clutched in his fist, held by his nose. The exposed skin of his back is covered in a sheen of sweat, and his cheeks are pink. Too warm all over from his presentation.

Slowly, Benny sinks down to sit at the center of the nest, and he carefully places a hand on top of Steve’s, aims his wrist towards his boy’s nose.

Steve purrs and nuzzles towards it, and Benny purrs in response. His hand moves to grasp Benny’s forearm and he mumbles, “Good, safe.”

“Yeah, Baby, you’re safe.”

🫂🫂🫂

Steve wakes around 9 that night, his cramps intense. He lets out a whine that sounds pitiful, even to his heat-addled mind. “Mama?” he asks softly, even though he hasn’t called his mother that since he started grade school. “Mama?”

“It’s okay, Steve. It’s okay,” she soothes back, petting his cheek.

Her powdery scent fills his nose, mildly floral, and he whines again. His belly cramps harder, an ache that radiates through his pelvis. He turns, seeking out the comforting scents of Wayne’s nest, only to press his nose into the palm of a callused hand.

Steve breathes in deeply. Apples and warmth.

He whines again, wordless and high pitched, both hands reaching, grasping. Steve feels safe, feels loved. Desperately. Overwhelmingly.

He reaches for it with his heart, touches that love with his own, and cries out. A love so big it hurts.

His fingers catch on soft cotton, body-warm because it’s being worn. He clenches his fists, whines as he pulls himself closer.

Steve’s not sure if he imagines it when he hears his mother say, “See, he needs you,” so gentle. When he hears a shaky gasp in response.

Then big arms lift him up, holding him like a pup, cradled against a strong chest. A warm hand guides his head down, positions his nose so he’s hit with the most intense burst of apples and love. Of sweetness and safety.

He snuffles closer, wants only this. Feels himself relax.

He does not understand yet, but he knows. His feelings have always been too big, but here they can be. He can let them be big, because here they are only love. Only joy.

Steve drifts to sleep in his mama’s arms for the first time, and for that moment, all is right with the world.

[goddamnitmahtin]

“My fucking nose-”said the vigilante with surprise. He wasn’t used to civilians actually packing that much of a punch. He tensed up, watching the young man he had perched into the roof with just in case.

He watched as the sickly pale boy’s eyes went from a glowing Lazarus green to blue. …. Noted.

“What the fuck- you scared the shit out of me,” he said as he pointed a finger accusingly, “I almost pushed you off the roof!”

Red Hood didn’t respond as he got poked in the chest. He was busy. He took note of this man’s features. How his hair was blacker than night, almost as if it was all of space stored within it. It was short in the back, wildly sitting atop his head almost like a mop in the state it was in now. His skin was deadly pale. Paler than Tim’s even, if that was possible. Almost as if he was a walking corpse, the blood completely draining color from his complexion except the cheeks that were currently flushed from embarrassment. His features were sharp and sunken in, a sure sign of not treating himself very well. His eye bags were as dark as his own if wasn’t wearing his mask.

That lead him back to those eyes. Those huge bright blue eyes. They were like ice that had been put through an IV and straight into his own veins. Almost…. electrifying.

“Oh no…. Did I- hit you too hard? Fuck me-” said the man groaning.

“I mean…” he didn’t know what it was but this man…. This man was really something. He just couldn’t quite put a finger on what that something was.

Next thing Red Hood heard was on comms.

“Hood are you- fucking concussed right now? We are in the middle of something!” he heard Nightwing say followed by a stifled chuckle from Oracle.

The man looked at him with a surprised expression that quickly fell into a smirk, “Don’t fall in love with me Birdy. You’re not gonna like the results. Now, I hope I didn’t give you a concussion…”

Next thing Jason knew, he was in this guy’s apartment on the sofa while the man was asking him how many fingers he was holding up.

“Four, what’s your name anyways?” He may have a broken nose but like hell that was gonna stop him from shooting his shot.

The man’s pale thin lips curled into an amused smile, “Danny. And you are the Red Hood.”

Jason nodded, “I am. And you got me pretty good. Broke my nose even.”

Danny’s eyes got a bit wider in surprise. “Did I? Fuck man I’m sorry about that. Let me get you something for the pain. I would do more but you’ve got that mysterious mask look going on,” he said as he got up and began to search through his cabinets.

Red Hood immediately slipped his mask off. If this man was offering to touch his face he was gonna fucking let him.

Danny came back with some medical supplies that he nearly dropped upon seeing the mask on the coffee table, “Wait what about secret-” Danny looked up to see Hood’s domino mask, “Ah. Nevermind.”

Meanwhile on comms:

Robin: This is highly inappropriate!

Red Robin: Red Hood come on man, we are supposed to be on patrol!

Nightwing: This is honestly disturbing.

Oracle: Boys! Shut up! I’m listening!

Robin, Red Robin and Nightwing: GROSS

The next day

Jason was lounging on the sofa dreamily when Bruce walked in. Seeing him like that was… unnerving.

“So Jason. I was told you abandoned patrol last night and spent it with a man,” he said.

Jason just looked back at him wistfully, “He broke my nose.”

Bruce nodded, “I see that.”

Jason sighed dreamily, “It was so hot.”

Bruce shouldn’t have been surprised but that didn’t stop him from wanting to die inside a little.

Bird Questions

Prompt idea

College student Danny Fenton is taking a much needed break from his studies, sitting on the roof of his apartment building. He’s sleep deprived and a little delirious, watching several of the Gotham vigilantes grappling between buildings in the distance.

“Do birds ever just fly for fun, or are they always on some kind of mission?”

Danny isn’t talking to anyone, he’s up on the roof on his own to de-stress. He was just thinking out loud.

So when he heard a snort and a chuckle from behind him, Danny felt like he was justified in his reaction of not only swearing, but also throwing a solid right hook at the same time that he spun around to see who the hell was there.

He didn’t mean to punch anyone in the face.

[ihfmseatsoch]

Happy new year!!!!! I hope your new year is good!!! To start the new year off, would it be okay to request something softer with Jimmy? Dubcon of course with the reader topping and giving Jimmy soft praise to where he starts crying? Like he has a mommy kink and he unravels when he gets gentle sex?

-🥩

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! 😁🎉 ermm i went a little crazy with this one. i love jimmy best when hes nice and pathetic

genre: smut, angst

word count: 3.6k

fem!reader

warnings/content: porn with a lot of feelings, heavy self deprecation, jimmy has mommy issues, mentions of parental abuse and drug addiction, mommy kink, sub jimmy, ooc maybe but IDC!!!!!

—

"Fuck are you doin'?"

Jimmy mutters, and you're unsure if he's confused, or upset. He makes the same expression for either emotion.

You're sat on his lap, straddling his hips while your fingers tenderly brush his hair back, raking them through the surprisingly soft strands. It's surprising, because he only uses that two-in-one shit from the dollar store.

"What do you mean?" You say, not really paying any attention to his usual snark.

He leans into your touch, almost like a cat; seeming to enjoy your attention, but there's a chance he may get sick of it in a split second and bite your hand. Still, he craves physical touch just as much as the next person, even if he'd never admit that to anyone, including himself. It's stupid, he thinks, to be that vulnerable. To crave something like a loving touch or a warm hug. It's corny.

He scoffs at your question, but it’s more lighthearted than anything. "I’m talking about you being all… lovey-dovey on me. You tryin' to butter me up for somethin'?"

You shake your head 'no', with a gentle smile. It's not like buttering him up would result in anything in the first place. Usually, if you really do want something, he'll complain and accuse you of being spoiled. Although, there's a 50% chance that if you give him a blowjob first, he'll be slightly more agreeable.

"Nope. Nothing like that. Am I not allowed to love you?" You press a kiss to his forehead, and you receive a quiet grumble from him in response. Jim's trying desperately to maintain his usual grumpy demeanor, but he's failing. He hates that you can get him like this, how you can make the all-consuming ache in his body dissipate with a squeeze of his hand or a kiss to his temple. Jimmy can never just accept that he wants your affection, but you can tell that he doesn't mind it one bit, even if he continuously acts like he wants you as far away from him as possible.

"Shut up…” He hesitates for a moment, clearly debating his next words. “I didn’t say you couldn’t… do that…” Jimmy mumbles, and his hand snakes around your waist, keeping you in place on his lap, giving your hip a tentative squeeze. "You don't have to be sappy about it."

"Being in love with you is sappy?"

You ask, holding both sides of his face in your hands, his coarse stubble scratching your thumbs as they caress his cheeks, feeling every groove of his protruding cheekbones. Every inch of him is sharp. Angular, and jagged. He tries his hardest to make his outward appearance match his heart. Unlucky for him, you're annoyingly determined to see him in a different light.

Jimmy's looking everywhere except your face, refusing to admit that he's quickly turning into a sniveling, needy boy who wants nothing more than to just be held. No one's ever loved him before. No one's ever said stuff like that to him, or ever made him as soft as he is now. He's not quite used to the idea of vulnerability yet. He can hear the voice in his head, telling him to pull back, to run and hide.

"Yeah," He reiterates, "It is."

You closely study the way his features soften. His brows, which have always seemed to be frozen in a permanent furrow, relax ever so subtly. Anyone would have to be as close as you are right now to notice the difference.

"Ah, I see." You nod in faux understanding. "My sincerest apologies."

He hates how much you know him. Hates how you pay attention to the smallest of details, to every bit of his body language. How you've cracked down his walls and managed to see him for the pathetic, touch-starved man he is right down to his very soul. It's embarrassing. Humiliating, even. But yet, he has no idea how to pull back. He's hooked. A nicotine addiction with even less ability to drop the habit.

"Don't be a smartass." He mutters in response to your sarcasm, looking like he's moments away from throwing you off his lap, but his hand on your waist hasn't moved since he absentmindedly placed it there.

You click your tongue at his ever present stubbornness. You'll have to take things a bit further to get him to quit being such an ass.

A subtle roll of your hips against his gets him to physically tense under you, his fingertips digging a little too painfully hard into your flesh, though it doesn't deter you. You trail a hand down his lean chest, purposefully tantalizing with how slow you move. "Don't be stubborn." You almost sound stern. Like you're scolding him.

Jimmy sucks in a breath at your obvious teasing, the sound devolving into a low, stifled noise. "I'm not being stubborn," His voice wavers embarrassingly, "And stop that."

"Stop what?" You bite back a grin at your feigned cluelessness, though it's not entirely meant to be all that convincing in the first place. You shift in his lap again. He's already getting worked up, and all you're doing is toying with him. Jimmy can't let you win that easily, right?

"Don't give me that shit, you know damn well what," He hisses, glaring at you with annoyance, "Stop... moving around like that." His voice betrays him a second time, cracking mid-sentence.

"Why?"

You tilt your head inquisitively, and before he can snap at you again, your palm presses down onto his groin, making all of his attitude fizzle out momentarily. Jimmy stiffens, his grip on you tightening. He doesn't respond to your question instantly, too distracted by how you're caressing his now apparent hard-on through his jeans, and a shaky exhale escapes him. The noise sounds so vulnerable, so uncharacteristic and unguarded for a man like him, and it takes him a couple moments before he's able to form a response.

"...You're a mean little brat, you know that?" He manages to get out through gritted teeth.

"Aww, don't be like that," You lean in to pepper a trail of sweet kisses starting at his cheek, down to his jaw, neck, and finally, at his collarbone. The way his breath hitches tells you everything you need to know. "Don't pretend like you hate this."

He makes a noise that rises from the back of his throat, between a whine and a growl, like a wounded animal in need of someone to soothe them Jimmy isn't used to having such a gentle and loving touch on his bruised, damaged body. You're treating him like he's something fragile, breakable, something to take care of.

He's not, he knows he's not.

Yet, he can't stop the way your kisses are burning his skin, heating him to the very core. Jimmy never thought he was someone worthy of being spoiled with soft, chaste kisses, being touched with gentle, adoring hands. And yet, here you are, doing that exact thing.

Jimmy tries to respond, he really does, but all he can do is let out a small, choked-up moan.

Noticing the way his adams apple bobs as he swallows down and contains his emotion, you pull back to look him directly in his eyes, pools of honey brown that only hold your reflection alone inside of them in this moment. "Hey," Your tone becomes more serious, less playful than before, "I love you, Jim. You never let me, but I still do."

That word. 'Love'. Jimmy hates it. Not because he's never heard it before, but because for some reason, it's never sounded real when directed towards him.

"Why?" Is all he manages to ask, not accustomed to this type of raw, vulnerable affection. Where's the screaming, the anger, the violence? Where's the toxicity?

"Why shouldn't I?"

You respond with a question of your own. There's a multitude of answers he could give you. He's been screwed up since birth, his own mom abandoning him at some junky trailer park with his father who found any reason to give him a black eye, or throw him out into the dirt. Quite literally, sometimes.

Or the fact that he's never made an effort to improve his own life, even after he made it out of that "home". Instead, he got addicted to heroin and sex and alcohol and destroyed himself for the thrill he got out of torturing himself.

Who would love someone like that?

Jimmy can't take your kind, loving gaze on him anymore, so he turns his head to the side, refusing to look at you. He wants to scream at you, to say something cruel and heartless, to tell you to knock off that 'doey-eyed' bullshit and give him the cold hard truth of the matter. That people like him aren't meant to be loved, that he's a disgusting, pathetic mess who doesn't deserve a single drop of your affection.

But all he can do is silently swallow down the lump in his throat, too emotional to muster up a reply.

You turn his head right back towards you, and kiss him on the corner of his mouth, right on an ugly scar that never fully healed properly. "Can I take care of you? Just once, will you let me?" You murmur against his skin, warm and flushed.

Jimmy's brain is wired to resist, to deny your advances and stubbornly hold onto any sort of 'authority' and masculinity he has left. To give in to you would be letting you win, surrendering to your kindness. That's what he keeps telling himself, anyway.

A long, shuddering exhale escapes his lungs.

"...Yeah," He whispers like it pains him to say it out loud, "Yeah, you can."

He's only semi-hard now, not exactly horny enough to get it up, but desperate enough for your attention in any form.

You take his cock out of his fly, holding him in your hand so delicately that he feels pitied. He doesn't want to feel so fragile. But, in your hands, it's not so terrible. His skin tingles with warmth, even deep inside of him burns with an aching desire to be wanted. Maybe that's why he agreed to this in the first place. Not because of sexual enticement, but instead, the intense yearning he's pushed down and ignored.

It's hard to wrap his mind around the fact that a woman like you actually seems to care about him at all. He's a parasite. He can't help but want more from you, to devour you whole and keep you in his clutches. Jimmy can't stand being touched like this, being treated like he's something valuable, something worthwhile. He wants to push you away and tell you to stop pampering him like he's a helpless baby, because he's not. He's a man, and men aren't supposed to melt and tremble at a loving touch.

But god, does it feel incredible when you begin to stroke him. Your hand is so soft, meticulously taken care of, while his are calloused, dry skin bitten and torn off, resulting in sore cuticles and rough palms. The rise and fall of Jimmy's chest gradually picks up speed, uncharacteristically subservient noises leaving his throat.

"I love you," You suckle a sensitive spot on his neck, mumbling praises between leaving a red hickey on his tanned skin, "I love you so much. I mean it."

Jimmy's mind is stuck in a haze of confusing emotions, every word you say goes straight to his head, fueling his self-destructive tendency to crave more, more, more. Why are you doing this? What do you gain from acting so sweet to him?

"You–" He shudders, "You're wasting your time with me."

Maybe he's right. You can't change him, not by a longshot. He'll never treat you the way you deserve, like a proper boyfriend. He'll always end up shouting at you out of frustration, he'll always break things and punch walls during arguments, he'll always slip horribly deep into his depression and self isolate, rotting alone in his room while you're worried sick about him.

But you're not trying to "fix" him. You're taking him as he is, flaws and all.

Jimmy's no longer sure if he can stomach the realization that maybe, just maybe, you genuinely love him.

The way you're pumping his cock, sending stinging jolts of burning hot pleasure that shoot straight through his abdomen, makes him react in a way neither of you expect.

He's crying.

It feels so good– you're so fucking infuriatingly good, all he can do is weep. Tears stream down his face as he whimpers, his breathing coming out as labored, choked gasps. A shaky breath comes from him, trying to compose himself before he speaks, "You should stop. Please. I don't deserve it."

You shake your head, persistent as ever when it comes to him. You wipe away a fresh tear as soon as it attempts to slip down his cheek.

"No," You say, "Don't push me away." The way you look at him, all love and tenderness; it makes him nauseous.

"Please..." He begs. He's not sure what for.

You shush him, a finger to his chapped lips, before you pull your pants down, underwear along with them. He's seen you bare more times than not, yet in this particular instance, it feels like your willingness to give yourself to him is an act of gracious mercy. He only takes, and yet, you give so freely.

"It's alright," You coo, melodic, "Just relax."

His heart is pounding in his chest as his eyes linger on your cunt, glistening and eager, just for him, and you can see the sheer need in his eyes. If he wasn't before, he's completely defenseless against you now, and it scares him how badly he loves and loathes it at the same time.

It takes everything inside him not to cry out as you guide him to your hole, sinking down slow so you don't overwhelm him all at once. Jimmy buries his face in your chest, his breathing labored and stuttering. "I'm right here, I've got you." You kiss the top of this head, petting his hair back, smoothing down every loose strand. Yhe way you're so gentle and attentive with him, handling him with care, it feels maternal. Motherly. Or, at least, what he imagines having a mother coddle you feels like.

You're warm. Comforting. Nurturing. Patient. All the adjectives that describe the parental figure he didn't have. You're what he's been missing, deprived of.

Jimmy holds onto you like a lifeline, helping you lift up, then sink back down onto him in a steady rhythm, your gummy insides pulsing to the beat of your heart around his aching cock. You're pulled flush against him, his lips lightly grazing the area around your collarbones, leaving an array of light hickeys.

"My perfect boy," You let out a satisfied sigh, lifting your bra up and over your body to reveal your chest to him, your tits bouncing at every movement, "Always so good to me."

Jimmy can't take it. The idea that he's perfect? It's so unbelievably rewarding to hear those words directed at him. He lets out a trembling whine at the sight of your newly exposed skin, before immediately burying his face into your tits, a hand moving to grope and squeeze one, his mouth latching onto the other, eagerly sucking and taking your piqued nipple between his teeth.

You let out a few moans of your own, gasping every time he nips you a little too hard. "F– Fuck, that's good, Jim." Your fingers grip the hair on the back of his head, tugging lightly, the way it makes his scalp sting slightly causing him to groan against you, the sound low and gutteral.

He can't think straight anymore, every single one of his senses completely overwhelmed. In the heat of the moment, he finds himself involuntarily crying out something that immediately makes him want to jump into a vat of acid.

"M– Mommy–"

You freeze for a moment, not from disgust or discomfort, just... surprise. Jimmy? Your Jimmy, calling you mommy of all things? You thought you'd entered another plane of existence. After forcing a quick recovery, you notice his own mortification.

"...What'd you say?" You ask, not intentionally trying to embarrass him further, you just wanted to double check that you actually heard what you thought you heard.

Jimmy is currently in a full blown panicked frenzy. He's never called anyone that in his life. Literally, he didn't even have a mother figure to give that title to. Trying to regain his bearings through the hot wash of shame coarsing through his body, his head feeling full of cotton, he stammers, "Fuck, I– I don't know where that came from, I–" he should just get up and go hang himself, he thinks.

"Hey, no, it's fine," You reassure him, even though it does nothing to alleviate his humiliation, "I don't mind, really."

He's expected you to call him disgusting, berate and mock him for being a creep; Anything but being so understanding and patient. "W– Why... Why are you so... you?" He asks, unable to wrap his head around how you haven't broken into a fit of laughter yet.

You shrug, chuckling a little at his impossible question, "Well, I don't exactly have the answer to that," Your hand moves to knead his shoulder, easing the tension away, "But... I do know that I wouldn't mind being your mommy. Not at all."

Jimmy hated how his cock twitched inside of you when you said that, the realization that he actually liked what he's hearing, that he wanted to call you mommy of all things, made him want to bang his head against the wall until it splits.

"...Just, don't– don't fuckin' make fun of me for this." He grumbles, burying his face back in between your soft tits to hide himself. He couldn't possibly maintain eye contact right now.

"Never." You shake your head, returning to riding his dick, slower and softer than you've both ever been in bed. It felt nice, to give up control. To let you take your time with him, whispering praises into his ear, leaving sugary sweet love bites on his neck.

This, he believes, is true bliss.

Being pampered like this... It's addictive, and he's not letting go of it now that he finally has a taste.

"Th– Thank you," He whines, low and needy, sounding choked up again, "Thank you."

It's rare to hear him show gratitude for something, especially in a way that's so deep, so genuine. "Thank you... what?" You decide to indulge yourself in this side of him while you have the chance.

Jimmy groans, knowing where you're going with this. He's too pathetic to deny himself what he wants at this point, and he whimpers pleadingly, "...Thank you..." He chokes the words out as if he's being forced against his will, but you can practically hear how eager he is to say the next word on his tongue, "...Mommy."

"There you go," You croon, "That's a good boy. You're mommy's good little boy, aren't you?"

He doesn't know why he feels like sobbing.

Everything you're saying is seared directly into his brain, scolding hot, like a brand. "Yeah," He breathes, "Yeah, I'm... I'm your good boy." Jimmy nestles his face into the side of your neck. He's a dog, rubbing against their owner, begging for attention.

As he nears his release, he gradually turns into even more of a mess, his salty tears falling onto your shoulder, arms wrapped so tight around your torso that you fear he'll snap your ribcage in two, babbling a broken, trembling string of "mommy, mommy, mommy–"

"Mommy's right here." You breathe, his cock hitting all the right angles deep inside you, and for once, you're setting the pace, which only enhances the experience for you.

Jimmy knows he'll regret this later. This entire experience will probably turn into something else his brain tortures him with at night, but, at the moment, he's too drunk off your cunt to care. His head is empty for once, fuzzy and blissfully silent. He can't even form a proper sentence anymore, the only words able to make it past his lips are desperate pleads.

"Are you close, honey?" You ask, and you receive a frantic nod from him in response, along with a strangled whimper. "I know, I know," You murmur with audible compassion, "You want to cum so bad, don't you?"

He's sure that this is his new form of worship, his religion. Not that he ever had one to begin with. "Y– Yeah," He whines, breathless, "Please... Please–"

"You don't have to beg," You tell him, even though, truthfully, you were getting off on his begging this entire time, "Go ahead and cum for mommy. Cum deep in mama's pussy, baby."

Jimmy throws his head back, jaw clenched, eyes screwed shut, and as if by your command, he releases inside of you with a drawn out, quivering mewl, hot spurts of his release coating your insides. You can feel him throb, twitch, and tremor, coming undone, all because of you.

He looks more beautiful to you than he ever has, with a tear stained face and red rimmed eyes.

You comfort him as he comes down from his high, leaving a trail of kisses down the slope of his neck, from his adams apple to the area between his collarbones. You're like a soothing balm to an old and rotten wound he's long since tried to forget.

For better or for worse, he's never letting you go.

—

[airybcby]

જ⁀♡⊹｡° might not be the golden one

( yukimiya kenyu x reader )

♡ a/n — for my new series :)

♡ content — yukimiya kenyu x gn! reader, gn! reader, childhood best friends, no established relationship but reader and yukimiya are close, set in (maybe) future :) ( i have it where he's playing pro soccer, but still with Bastard München) , mention of yukimiya's condition, pushy! reader, mutual apologizes, idk if the team canonically knows abt yuki's condition so there's this

♡ synopsis — you'd sat beside yukimiya kenyu when he first got his diagnosis, too strong to cry in front of his mom, but not in front of you. maybe you'd never understand how it felt for him.

Yukimiya Kenyu had always been good at smiling. The kind of smile that could charm anyone, make people forget their worries for just a moment. You’d seen it countless times, growing up by his side—the way he’d laugh and joke with you, even when life wasn’t kind to him.

But you’d also seen through it.

You saw it in the way his fingers trembled when he thought no one was looking. The way his jaw tightened when the world’s weight felt too heavy.

You were waiting for him just outside the locker rooms when the Bastard München team filtered out. They were all smiles after a hard-earned victory, and Yukimiya was no exception, his charm cranked up to the usual setting for his teammates and fans. But you saw it—the stiffness in his shoulders, the faint tremor in his hand as he waved to the crowd.

He was smiling, as always. But this smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yuki,” you called softly when he spotted you.

His smile brightened, but it felt rehearsed, practiced. “Hey. You didn’t have to wait so long.”

You ignored the pleasantries, giving him a once-over before saying, “How are you?”

He paused, then chuckled. “I’m good. Another win in the books, right?”

“Are you okay?” you asked, stepping closer.

“What? Why wouldn't I be-”

“You know you can't pretend everything’s fine when it’s not,” you cut in, crossing your arms. “I know you’re struggling, Yuki. You don’t have to keep this bottled up, especially not with me. And your teammates—”

“They don’t need to know,” he interrupted, his tone sharper than you’d expected.

“Why not? They care about you.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said, his voice strained.

“It could be if you’d just let them in,” you argued. “You’re making this harder on yourself.”

His jaw clenched, and when he turned to you, there was a flicker of frustration in his eyes. “You wouldn’t get it.”

The words stung, even though you knew he didn’t mean them. You'd been there for everything. You'd sat beside him when he first got his diagnosis, too strong to cry in front of his mom, but not in front of you.

But before you could respond, he shook his head and said, “This doesn’t involve you, alright? It’s my problem.”

Your lips parted to say something, but you bit back the words. Instead, you exhaled slowly and nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Maybe you'd never understand how it felt for him.

The drive back to his place was silent, the tension between you palpable. The only sound was the hum of the engine and the occasional shuffle of Yukimiya shifting in his seat. You gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary, your mind racing.

The last time you’d fought like this, you were fifteen. Back then, it had been about something trivial—Yukimiya refusing to help you study for a math test because he was too focused on soccer. You’d stormed off, he’d sulked, and it had all blown over with an apology and a shared snack.

But this was different. This was heavier.

When you pulled into the driveway, Yukimiya lingered in the car for a moment before stepping out. Neither of you said a word as you entered his apartment. He went straight to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water, while you hovered near the couch, unsure of how to break the silence.

Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore. “Yuki,” you began, your voice softer now. He turned, glass in hand, and you continued, “You’re right. I don’t get it. I can’t possibly understand what it’s like for you. And I’m sorry if I pushed too hard.”

His expression softened instantly, the frustration from earlier replaced by something gentler—regret, maybe. He set the glass down on the counter and walked over to you.

“No,” he said quietly. “You were right. Hiding it isn’t helping anyone. Least of all me.”

The admission surprised you, and a small laugh escaped before you could stop it. “Well, this is different,” you said, a faint smile tugging at your lips.

“What is?” he asked, his own lips quirking upward.

“Fighting with you,” you said, recalling the argument from years ago. “Last time, it was over math homework. Now it’s… this.”

Yukimiya laughed, a quiet, warm sound that eased the tension lingering between you. “Yeah, a bit of an upgrade, huh?”

You shook your head, stepping closer. “It’s not an upgrade. It’s just… life.”

He nodded, his smile fading into something more serious. “Thanks. For not giving up on me. Even when I’m an idiot.”

“Always,” you said softly, echoing the promise you’d made to him so many times before.

And for the first time that night, his smile—the real one—lit up his face.

Weeks later, you watched from the side as Yukimiya sat with his teammates in a press conference. His expression was calm, but you noticed the way his hands gripped the edge of the table, as if grounding himself.

When one of the reporters asked him about his condition, something he publicly announced a week after the two of you had that conversation, you held your breath. Yukimiya glanced your way, just for a moment, and you gave him the smallest nod of encouragement.

“I wasn’t sure if I should talk about this,” he began, his voice steady despite the nervousness you knew he felt. “But I realized that hiding it wasn’t helping anyone—not me, not my team, and not the people out there who might be struggling with this, too. I want to show everyone that, no matter what, you can achieve your dream.”

He took a deep breath, then shared his story with a grace and honesty that left you in awe. The boy you grew up with, the one who always tried to smile through the pain, was finally allowing himself to be vulnerable.

And as the reporters clapped, as his teammates clapped, you felt your heart swell with pride.

marry me yuki im begging

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

[its-your-mind]

Something something timkon and hair and how lex lichrally programmed Kon to shave his head before he went all luthor and was forced to attack his team, his best friends, his family. and then how most of the hair on the back of Tim’s head got burned off when he got blowed up (thx Steph) and he had to cut or shave the rest of it off so it could grow back semi-evenly. and how kon was a #rebel esp compared to all-American Boy Scout Superman; Kon’s rockin around with the side cut and the leather jacket and the buckles and the spikes or the (ill-advised and made me sad) black t-shirt and jeans but even the “I am a totally normal bro” getup made him distinct and different from Kal and that is really important to Kon because he wants to be his own person, not a Superman-stand-in. and THEN fucking LEX made it so Kon would look more like Lex! his other DNA donor!!! And Tim!! He kept his hair short — just long enough to spike it up as Robin — until both of his parents were gone. which suggests to me that he kinda always wanted it long (hello Tim Drake, #1 Dick Grayson stan) but that just wasn’t an option allowed to him (not uncommon for parents who care Very Much about Appearances — my own parents were the same about my brothers’ hair growing up, not least because the private all-boys school they went to dictated that their hair couldn’t be long enough to touch the collar of their shirt (with exceptions for [insert kinda racist and vaguely xenophobic language here] hair styles). As soon as he turned 18 my baby brother got a rocker-style mane. But I digress. Anyway). Then, post-tragedy, Tim’s hair got long enough to flip down over his forehead and stream behind him when he swung through the city (perhaps one of his ways of clinging to control and his sense of self in the whole awful situation). But then… Tim got fucking exploded, betrayed by his ex-girlfriend who had only just returned after letting him grieve her death for a year, and now she’s following Tim’s dead father mentor’s instructions to challenge him or whatever the fuck bullshit Batman told her, (a young girl whose own father was an asshole criminal, who so desperately wanted Bruce to be proud of her) and now Tim has to cut his hair all the way down to the scalp again and listen. I’m sorry dc tim looks fucking amazing in adventure comics and I’m in love with how he is arted but hair cannot and does not grow back that quick!! Mf had to wait!! I bet it grew in fucking patchy!! I bet kon’s did too!! (prolly not as bad as Tim’s cuz Tim’s got scar tissue and shit.)

but I just think tim and kon deserve a chance to sit down and just commiserate with each other about growing their hair back out (growing back out a sidecut is a BITCH I speak from experience) and Tim’s prolly having to trim his own hair super often to keep it nice-ish while it comes back in, and Kon’s curls are just a fucking MESS until they grow out enough to like. Curl. (Again, speaking from experience) And they’re just shooting the shit (“well MINE was worse bc I looked like fucking LEX. LUTHOR.” / “well you didn’t have to wait to figure out which parts of your scalp we actually gonna bother growing hair again”) until it gets quiet for a minute. And then one of them asks if the hair also reminds the other one of The Shitty Thing That Happened. And then they fucking talk about it. About how they can’t look in the mirror without having a flashback of pain or rage. How it makes them feel like they don’t even get to control their own bodies, their own appearances, and how much that fucking sucks. How they go to run their hand through their hair and there’s just. Not enough of it to do that. How Kon is terrified that somehow looking like Lex means Lex will use him to hurt the people he loves again. How every time Tim sees another Bat or Bird looking at the back of his head, all he can think about is how they might be planning to lure him into another Bat-mandated trap test. How both Tim and Kon kinda really miss the feeling of people playing with their hair. How they miss playing with each others’ hair.

And maybe then one of them extends an offer and the other does the same and they agree to do each others’ hair. Maybe it’ll help paint a new layer over those awful memories.

So Kon finds Tim once a week (he’s never in the same place, he’s rarely even in the same country) and he trims the hair until it looks even, gives Tim the #sitch on how much hair is growing back in. After the second or third week he realizes that Tim’s not keeping up with his burn-care routine, so he starts bringing burn and scar cream with him too. Then he remembers Tim’s lack of a hair care routine and starts trying out different products on Tim’s hair to see what works best. Tim doesn’t say anything, but he thinks all of this feels even better than when Kon and Cassie used to twist little braids into his hair.

Kon insists that Tim doesn’t have to help until his hair’s grown out more, (that he doesn’t want Tim nearby and distracted while Kon still looks like Lex) but Tim outright refuses to let Kon push him away and he will NOT be outdone in the caretaking game. He waits until Kon’s busy fighting some giant alien robot in metropolis and sneaks in to the Kents’ house to scope out what products Kon uses. When he leaves the bathroom, Ma Kent is there, eyebrow raised. She tells him he “could have just knocked on the front door, sweetheart, we know how’ta keep secrets in this house. Now, let’s get some food in you before Conner comes home. You’re all skin and bones, hun.” So Tim goes downstairs and takes some mini meat pies for the road, and then researches the products Kon uses, what they do, what the ingredients do, if there are other (more expensive) options that people have sworn up and down are better. He amasses a collection, and the next time Kon shows up with clippers and healing creams and a new shampoo to try, Tim’s already got ten different products lined up on the sink — everything from shampoos and conditioners to serums and masks. Kon asks if these are things Tim wants Kon to use in Tim’s hair. Tim tells him that no, all of these are for Tim to try on Kon. Kon almost cries. (He does cry, he just doesn’t let the tears fall until Tim isn’t looking.) (Tim notices anyway ofc.) And Tim’s made a spreadsheet to track the effectiveness of different products, different ingredients, different combinations, so he tells Kon to start coming every 2-3 days instead, so he can establish results using a realistic timeframe. Sometimes, if Tim’s gonna be in one place for a few days, Kon just crashes with him. (Neither of them say it, but they both fucking CRAVE the old Core Four cuddle piles.) Eventually, when Kon’s hair is long enough that he’s ready to switch back to his side-cut again, Tim surprises him by not only shaving the hair down, but shaving a few racing stripes (“they’re flight patterns!” / “rob, I dunno what to tell you. everyone’s gonna think they’re racing stripes. doesn’t mean they aren’t dope as fuck, though.”) into Kon’s hair. Every time Kon’s hair grows out enough, Tim shaves it back and stencils in a new design. Kon starts making requests (“gimme the Super ‘S’!” / “It’s the House of El crest, Kon. You know that. Also, you have a secret identity to maintain.” / “C’mon, I’ll just say I’m a fan!” / “With the same El family crest shaved onto your scalp as Superboy?” / “No one’s noticed the identical head decor yet!”) but it’s the day Kon asks (with the same confident and mischievous tone as always) for Tim to shave in the Red Robin crest that something in Tim’s chest, something formless and warm that he hadn’t really paid attention to before, seers a burning path through his heart, takes root, and solidifies.

“Kon. I love you.”

Kon’s distracted, rifling through their hair-care bags for Tim’s razors. “Love you too, Robbie. Duh. That’s why I’m askin’ you to shave your cre–”

“No,” Tim shakes his head, mildly frustrated with himself for the lack of clarity. “I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a while.”

Kon is seated in the chair they’d pulled into the bathroom from the hotel room’s desk, so he has to look up to meet Tim’s eyes. The hand digging beneath sample bottles of leave-in conditioner freezes, still wrist-deep in hair products. Kon’s expression looks to Tim like one of his video games’ character builders froze between the settings for ‘bright smile’ and ‘shock and awe.’

So Tim just looks down at him. Waits. If this was anyone else, Tim would probably be losing his mind right now, but… it’s Kon. Tim’s safe. Kon would never do anything to hurt him.

Kon unfreezes, blinks a few times. “Could you–” he coughs. “Could you say that again? I think my brain maybe like, malfunctioned for a second.”

Tim takes a step closer, reaches out one hand to cup Kon’s cheek, scratches his fingertips through the stubble on the side of Kon’s head. “I’m in love with you, Conner Kent.”

Tears fill Kon’s eyes, and he blinks them away. “That’s– that’s what I thought you said.” His hand (the one not trapped beneath a sea of shampoos, some detached and unhelpful part of Tim’s mind remarks) comes up to gently rest on Tim’s hip. “Robbie, Tim, I– of course I’m in love with you. You– you’re– you’re amazing, you know that? You’re so kind and strong and you’re a genius and you’re a gift to everyone around you; I dunno how everyone else doesn’t see you like I do.”

Tim can’t help but reach out his other hand to wrap around the back of Kon’s head, to feel where the curls carve a path down through the shorter hair and come to a sharp point.

“I mean, damn Wonder Boy,” Kon tries to muster up his Superboy smirk, but the look in his eyes is full of too much genuine affection for him to pull it off. “I think I’ve been in love with you since Kauai, since you grabbed me outta free-fall and swung me to safety. You caught me. No one’d ever done that before. And then you just… kept doing it. You’re still saving me, still taking care of me.”

Kon reaches his other hand (no eruption of hairspray, thank you TTK, that same unhelpful part of Tim’s mind comments. Read the room! the rest of Tim yells at it.) around the back of Tim’s neck, avoiding the tender and scarred areas with practiced ease, and pulls Tim down until their foreheads touch.

“I love you, Wonder. I love you, Robbie.” Kon tilts his head up, waits until their eyes meet. He’s got the biggest smile on his face that Tim’s ever seen.

Tim smiles back, and Kon’s eyes soften. “I love you, Tim.”

Tim leans down and uses his hands on either side of Kon’s head to guide Kon’s lips up to his own.

This is what I want to remember, Tim thinks as he feels Kon’s fingers gliding softly against the sensitive skin of his burn, feels Kon’s TTK covering and protecting the parts still too tender to touch. Tim runs his own fingertips back and forth over the stubble on the sides of Kon’s head, before pushing them up until they’re tangled in Kon’s curls.

I don’t want to care anymore whether or not the people around me look at the back of my head and see weakness or failure. They don’t get to decide whether this mark on my body matters or what it means. I do. And I decide that these scars are important because they brought me here, to this moment. They brought me to Kon.

Kon tilts his head down to break the kiss. He stands up, and before Tim gets a chance to move away and give him space, Kon wraps his arms and TTK around him. He plants a kiss in Tim’s hair. “Damn, Wonder Boy. Having to grow all my hair back almost feels worth it if it got me here.”

Tim smiles and wraps his arms around Kon’s waist, nestles into Kon’s chest. “You know what, Clone Boy? I was just thinking the same thing.”

[crazyvik97rpg]

„Right…“, Sebastian hummed, agreeing to what William was saying, more or less. Sleep on it? That meant William set this invisible timer to make a decision already tomorrow? Honestly, this wasn’t helping Sebastian much at all. He couldn’t imagine himself ever saying yes to this, it distressed him and his head was already hurting when he started thinking about this further. His fear and hesitance were completely irrational – and yet it was Sebastian’s reality, something that scared him, made him anxious with real consequences. Everything was tied to his hair – his beauty, his appearance, his confidence, his love. Whether all of that was true didn’t matter right now – it mattered in his head.

They wrapped up their visit though, got up and shook Dr Chalman‘s hand before they left her office. This was it for now. Honestly, except for the good news at the start, Sebastian didn’t feel much better than when he walked in. One good thing to focus on was, that indeed he was cancer free and the surgery had been a success. But also nothing more.

It probably looked off, when they got back in the car to drive back home – the situation was looking really positive, actually. The treatment in form of chemo or radiation was the last step to take and if everything went well, Sebastian would be back on his journey to full health. So why was Sebastian so distraught about it? Why so pouty and unhappy? This appointment was truly something to celebrate – a small success so far.

„Ugh I don’t like this at all…“, he sighed as they both sat in the car, William now starting the engine to drive off.

For I have sinned...

The principal cleared his throat, eyes scanning the notes that he had wrote down before this meeting. It already lasted an hour, and the teachers gathered in the faculty room were becoming restless and bored. But indeed there were some things to discuss, with the concert that the senior class was supposed to perform at the end of the semester, and with recent staff changes. 

William glanced down at his watch, sighing softly. His class was starting in 15 minutes, so at least, whether the meeting will be done soon or not, he will get to excuse himself. He looked out of the window, his mind wandering. Principal’s voice turned into white noise in the background. It was a pleasant day, late summer. But William was looking forward to a slightly cooler weather. Wearing all black could really be bothersome at times. 

“And lastly, I am pleased to announce that we have finally found replacement for the violin teacher. Dear Mr Tanaka, may he rest in peace, was with us for so many years that I’ve been concerned we won’t be able to find someone as good as to fill this position.” the principal spoke. “But Mr… Michaelis, was highly recommended to me, and he indeed has impressive references. He will be starting this week, so please welcome him warmly once he will arrive. Ah yes… about that. He will arrive today at noon, I need someone to pick him up from the train station and bring over for the tour around the school. Any volunteers?” 

William was barely listening, and definitely not paying much attention. He glanced at his watch again, and saw that it was time to leave, as his class was about to start. He raised his hand to excuse himself, and little did he know, he just volunteered.

“Father William! Excellent!” the principal exclaimed. “Just don’t be late, the train arrives at noon.”

“Train…?” William questioned, raising his brow. He had a feeling he was missing something…

***

Right after the meeting, William had to run for the class, so he had little time to clarify what exactly he had volunteered for. He was a piano teacher in this Music Academy, but also he served as a priest in local church. Well respected, and rather liked. So when he later found out it was about the new violin teacher, he didn’t refuse. Who, other than himself, would be a better choice to introduce a newcome to their community?

So even though he raised his hand by accident, he accepted this fate.

After classes, at noon, William took a taxi and drove to the train station, to pick up their new teacher. Wearing black trousers, and a black shirt with a thin tie, was absolutely dreadful in this weather, so William quickly found shelter under the roof of the station platform, that provided some shade.

The train had just arrived. William had no idea how Mr Michaelis looked like, but he figured he will just look for someone carrying a violin case with them. 

He was in for a bit surprise.

@crazyvik97

[soopcak3]

I’m Sorry..

Kang Dae-Ho/Angst🌧️

Summary: right before the revolt, Gi-Hun asks if the other players are willing to join the fight. It doesn’t end well for Y/N..

Warnings: blood/gore, gun violence, overall sad vibes.

This was it. The revolt against the people who had put everyone here. Justice for those who died, and those who were willing do risk their lives to end the games for good.

Gi-Hun and several others, including your best friend Dae-ho had gathered guns and ammo from the guards they had killed moments before. Dae-ho’s oldest sister had babysat Y/N as a kid so she and Dae-ho had spent a lot of time together, and practically grew up together. Playing lots of Gonggi and cooking and having lots of fun, but now none of that mattered. What mattered was getting out of here and ending the games.

Gi-Hun asked if anyone would join them in their fight against the guards. Y/N stepped up, “I… I will.”

“Y/N no!” Dae-ho interrupted, “you can’t! It’s too dangerous!” She waved him off.

“Don’t try telling me what’s dangerous now! I’ve made my choice. I’d rather die in a fight than die helplessly in one of those games!!” Y/N shouted back. Dae-ho stood there helplessly as Gi-hun nodded. Hyun-ju quickly taught everyone how to use the guns, it was amazing how she had the whole rooms attention, except for Dae-ho. He was focused entirely on y/n.

As they exited the room, Dae-ho quickly walked in front of y/n as though he was blocking her. She glared at him but didn’t say anything, she had to focus on the task at hand.

As they went up the stairs, the first wave of attack started. Y/N fired her gun as best as she could, and although she wasn’t skilled she managed to shoot a few guards and even take one down. She looked over at Dae-ho who was trembling from the gun fire, she knew about his PTSD and her eyes softened. They continued up the stairs once the fight was over.

Dae-ho, still trembling, felt a hand on his shoulder causing him to flinch. He turned quickly and saw Y/N, “are you okay, Dae-ho? Do you.. need to go back?” She asked, her eyes gentle and caring. He shook his head, his hands trembling slightly. Y/N nodded, trusting his judgment, but still slightly worried.

Then the next attack started. Everyone was doing so well at first, then Gi-hun and Jung-bae split off to go find the control room. They were holding their own at first then Y/N turned to see Dae-ho behind a pillar, firing his gun over his head. She quickly crawled over, “Dae-ho, it’s okay, you need to get up though.. we can do this! We’re doing so well!” Y/N said, her voice gentle yet shaky. He nodded but as Y/N began to stand— BOOM.

She fell to the floor, blood gushing from her chest. Dae-ho quickly crawled over, hands shaking and breathe hitching. “Oh my— Y/N!! SOMEONE HELP HER!!” He cried, looking around at everybody and realizing he’d lose her today.

She weakly looked up at him and took his face in her hands, “Dae.. ho… I’ll be okay… I.. love you…” Y/N mumbled as blood gushed from her mouth, and the life drained from her eyes.

Dae-ho cradled her in his arms and cried out loudly, it all happened so fast, it was like he couldn’t hear anything, not even the gun fire anymore. Everything he fought for was gone in seconds.

“I’m sorry..”

[naughtyneganjdm]

Threads of Desire: A Christmas to Remember - Chapter 5

Summary: Upset about the conversation that he had with Maggie, Negan shows up at Y/N's house hoping to convince her to quit her job and a lot of their feelings come to light.

Characters: Negan Smith, the reader (OC), Daryl Dixon, etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61111030/chapters/158656765

Warnings: Swearing, Cheating, Angst, Smut, Heavy Touching, Unprotected P in V, etc.

Notes: Real sorry about taking a break on this. The holiday season is nuts, but I'll do my best to put up the rest of the story as soon as I can.

It had been a long time since Y/N had been this exhausted. Sure, it had been a rough few days, but this was not what she was accustomed to. Maybe it was from all the stress of everything going on. Stress was something she had grown used to, but never at these levels. When she got home today, she just crashed. She laid down on the couch and that was it. She didn’t even eat. All she remembered was walking in the door, tossing her stuff aside and falling onto the couch. Next thing she knew, she was out cold and didn’t even wake up until she heard what she thought to be the sound of someone knocking on her door.

Groaning out, she lifted her head and looked back over her shoulder at the door. Whoever was there was impatient. Laid out on her stomach, she realized that she had been sleeping face first with her head buried into the throw pillow that was at the end of the couch. All around her, the apartment was pitch black except for the small glow of the automatic light that turned on in the dark in her kitchen and the light coming from her clock.

More than anything, her body wanted to go back to bed. It needed the rest and it longed for it. Everything had been brutal on her body lately. From the lack of sleep to the destruction of her mental health. It wasn’t doing her any favors.

That wasn’t going to happen with the continued knocking though. It wasn’t just a light knock, it was an emotional knock. Which told her whoever was at the other side of the door thought they had some important reason to be there.

Pulling herself up into a seated position on the couch had an involuntary groan escaping her. Sleeping on the couch was not the best of ideas. Everything hurt. Curling her fingers around the edge of the cushion, she tried to coach herself into standing up. Sighing, she managed to gather enough strength to stand. A rushing sensation went to her head and she needed to take a minute until she was steady on her feet. Moving across the apartment, she turned on the light switch and winced at the bright lights flooding her vision.

Hearing another loud sequence of knocks had her looking to the time again. It was two in the morning. What the hell was so important that someone had to be here? And who the fuck was it?

A sense of anger was flooding her veins. It was probably over the fact that she was tired and that she had been woken up from her deep sleep, but she couldn’t control that tired rage. Heading for the door, she unlocked it and then irately pulled it open, “What the hell do you want?”

Exhaling loudly, she felt her throat tensing up with the familiar hazel eyes locking with hers. That was a time where she should have held in her emotions again. Clasping tightly to the door, she gazed over Negan. He was completely disheveled wearing his pajama pants, a bulky winter coat and a pair of boots. What he was wearing was completely mismatched and it looked like he had thrown it on quickly. His hair was messy and he looked extremely fatigued himself.

Straightening up her posture, she noticed that Negan was breathing heavily as he stood before her. His shoulders were slouched and he looked incredibly upset. Stepping into the hallway, she looked both ways realizing that he was alone.

“Negan?” she breathed out, her eyes locking with his in a state of panic. It struck her in that moment what it could have been. Coming to her home, dressed like this? Emotionally banging at her door like he had been. “What are you doing here? Is Jordyn okay? Is something wrong?”

“Jordyn is fine. She’s alright!” Negan was quick to calm her, holding his hands up in the air. By the expression over her tired features, Negan could tell that he had her worried over his daughter and that was the last thing he wanted. Fear obviously ate away at her because she had no idea why he would show up at her apartment at this time of night. “She’s back at the house sleeping in her bed. I checked on her before I came over here.”

“You left her alone?” she wondered, her fingers curling around the handle of the doorknob. She was perplexed why he was there so late. “She’s still a baby Negan. She shouldn’t be left alone. What were you thinking?”

“She’s not alone,” Negan assured her trying to ease her worries. Reconsidering it, Negan tipped his head to the side and huffed. “Maggie is there. I mean they are both sleeping, but I’ll be back before anyone can get in trouble. You know that I have the security cameras in my home linked to my phone. If anyone gets up and starts moving around, I’ll know.”

“Leaving her with Maggie is pretty much the same thing as leaving her alone,” she frowned, hating the idea that Jordyn was at home alone with Maggie. Leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, she knew she just wanted to get to the point. There was a tension in her head that likely came from the lack of sleep. “What are you doing here Negan?”

“I uh…” Negan paused, looking down the hallway of her apartment building. His face scrunched up and he shrugged his shoulders. “We really need to fucking talk. I want to talk to you.”

“And this couldn’t wait until tomorrow? Or you couldn’t just call me?” she wondered, her hand sliding down the length of the door. In the past? She was desperate for Negan’s attention. Now that she had it, she wasn’t so sure that she wanted it. It was only making things more complicated.

“Would you have answered?” Negan asked, a muscle in his jaw flexing expressing to her that he was stressed. After all the years she had spent around Negan? She easily learned what he was thinking or feeling by his expressions. Taking a moment to consider things, she stepped aside and motioned him into her apartment. Giving her a weak smile, Negan entered and started to pull off his jacket once he did. Under the jacket he was wearing an old rock band t-shirt. Holding out her hand, she requested him to give her his jacket so she could hang it for him. Turning toward him, she saw that he was taking off his boots so he didn’t get her apartment messy. After he finished, she realized that he was gazing over her body. By the way his thick eyebrows furrowed, she knew that he was perplexed. “When did you get home?”

“Hours ago. I was just exhausted,” she admitted knowing that he was referring to the fact she was still wearing the dress that Guy had requested her to wear earlier. “I just laid down and I crashed.”

Nervously flattening out the material of the dress against her body, she pointed toward her bedroom and yawned again, “Can you wait here so I can go change? Unless this is urgent.”

“No, I can wait,” Negan responded with a quick nod, pushing his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants. Standing before him a moment longer, she didn’t even know what this was about. Part of her wished that she did so it didn’t make her feel so awkward being around him. 

“Can you?” she turned away from Negan, pointing toward the zipper for help. Hearing him moving behind her, she knew she could have managed to get it down herself, but having Negan’s help was just easier. Closing her eyes, she felt the warmth of Negan’s fingers dragging across her shoulder. Tugging at the zipper had the material parting with her looking over her shoulder. Giving her a small nod, Negan backstepped trying to give her some space. “Thank you.”

Heading toward her bedroom, she pushed the door open when she entered. Working the material of the dress down her body, she knew that she wanted to be careful with this. Earlier she had caught a glimpse at how much this dress cost and she didn’t want to ruin it. Especially since Guy Vixen himself had bought it for her as a gift of some kind.  

Walking toward her closet, she glanced over at the partially opened bedroom door to see Negan standing at the back of the couch. The way that he was standing was in such a fashion that he could watch her change. His weight was balanced on his hand that was braced on the couch. When their eyes locked, he let out a panicked sound. Pulling his hand away from the couch had him falling forward to the point she no longer saw him but heard the sound of him hitting the ground.

“Jesus!” she moved out of her room, holding the dress to her chest in attempts to cover up in some way. Not that it mattered considering he had already seen her naked earlier. When she got into the room, Negan was already pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. Immediately nodding, Negan scrambled to his feet and brushed his fingers nervously through his messy hair. Already he was incredibly red from being embarrassed. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yeah. I’m perfect. Fucking great,” Negan assured her, his voice raspier than it normally was. Forcing himself to look away from her, Negan growled under his breath and a slew of curse words followed. “Totally meant to do that.”

“Right,” she couldn’t help but laugh with the prominent vein at the side of his neck bulging. This was a time where she could have teased him that she caught him watching her change, but he was already upset enough as it was. She didn’t want to push her luck. “I’m going to finish changing. And then I’ll be back. Try not to knock anything over this time, okay?”

A fake laugh was forced from Negan’s throat with him moving around the couch to sit down. Burying his head in his hands, she could tell that Negan was talking to himself but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Shaking her head, she moved back to her bedroom and was quick to hang up the dress. Throwing on a quick pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt, she knew that she wasn’t out to impress. It was two in the morning. He would be fine if she was in pajamas since he was in his too. When she was done, she headed back into the living room to join Negan.

“Can I get you anything?” she offered, moving around to her Christmas tree to turn the lights on. The living room area lit up with all the things she had decorated making a weak smile tug at Negan’s features when he was surrounded by the glow. Preferring that to the actual lights, she moved over toward the switch to turn the main light off. There were enough decorations for them to be able to see one another underneath the glow of them. “Water? Hot chocolate? Some ice for that fall?”

“Fuck me, you’re not gonna let that go are you?” Negan scoffed, his nose wrinkling in frustration when she started to laugh. “It was a miscalculation of where to balance my body weight. I’m tired. I’m fucking sorry.”

“Yeah, okay,” she made it obvious that she didn’t believe him. And he knew that his lie was a shitty one. Really, she didn’t want to make things weird. Pointing out that she caught him staring at her changing was not going to enhance their friendship. Moving around the coffee table that was in front of the couch, she took a seat at the opposite end of it. Getting comfortable, she tucked her leg underneath her so she could face him. “So, what are you doing here at two in the morning? What couldn’t wait?”

“Did you have sex with Guy?” Negan stammered causing her to choke at the immediate question he so simply blurt out. That was not a question that he was embarrassed of. It was one that he was obviously worried about because his eyes seemed upset. “Tonight, when Maggie came over, we were talking about you. This whole job thing. She also stressed to me that she thinks Guy is only doing what he is because he wants to have sex with you.”

“I didn’t realize my sex life was so important to yours and Maggie’s relationship,” she chimed in, smirking at her smartass remark. Negan however was not impressed with what she had just said. Rolling her eyes, she tipped her head to the side and knew that Negan wanted a genuine answer from her. “I did not have sex with Guy. If you would have asked Maggie that question, you would have known that I left before Maggie and Guy did today. He dismissed me when they were still finishing something.”

Relief flooded throughout Negan’s body and it blew her away how easily she could tell that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, “That’s why you came all the way out here in your pajamas? To ask me if I had sex with Guy Vixen?”

“No. Well, yes. But…no?” even Negan didn’t seem to know the answer to that question. His face twisted with frustration, his fingers sinking nervously into his messy hair while he tried to slick it back. Gathering his thoughts, Negan swallowed down hard and considered what the best thing to say next was. Shaking his head, he inhaled loudly with his back becoming straighter with the way he was sitting. “I think you should quit your job.”

“And why is that?” she breathed out, biting down at her bottom lip as Negan turned his body to now face her at the opposite end of the couch. This was something that seemed to be weighing heavy on him and she didn’t know how to approach the conversation. “I thought you said this was a good thing. That I should take advantage of what was happening.”

“Well I changed my mind,” Negan asserted, holding his hand up to silence her from reminding him of what he had said to her earlier. “I don’t think Guy is doing this out of purity. I don’t think he cares to see your talents. He just wants to fuck you. And I think him taking advantage of you while holding the promise of the job you want over your head…”

“Do you think I would sleep with someone in order to get the job that I wanted?” she wondered, reaching for the throw pillow that was between the two of them to hold it in her arms.

“I don’t know,” Negan was honest with her, his jaw flexing. There was a sense of worry that flooded his veins that she would get mad at him for saying that. “You are really depressed and upset. If someone offered you everything you wanted just by asking for sex from you…I think most people would take that deal. Don’t you?”

“I think that’s a very debatable topic,” she suggested, throwing one of her hands up in the air and it had Negan shifting uncomfortably. “I can handle Guy Vixen, Negan. You don’t have to worry about me. I know he wants to have sex with me, but I won’t act on it. I’m not someone who will have sex with my boss to get the job that I want.”

“Okay,” Negan sucked in a sharp breath of air, his thick eyebrows furrowed. A nervous expression flooded his features before he licked his lips nervously again. “It’s really not that simple though. I just…I don’t think you should be working for Maggie anymore.”

“Oh?” that one was a surprise to her. Truthfully? She didn’t know what to say to that. “And why is that?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Negan thought back to the conversation that he had earlier with Maggie. Ever since they had it, he wasn’t able to put his brain to rest. There were some things he didn’t feel like he had to tell Y/N in order to get her away from that job. “I’ve been thinking about things with my career. And there is this person that has been coming to me a lot about a job. I kept telling him that I had to think about it. I didn’t know if I wanted to get back into the movies. But, I was thinking that if you want, I can take the job under the stipulation that if I sign on they have to hire you as the lead in the costume department. Or whatever job you want. I don’t even know if you want to focus on costuming. Whatever you want though, we can be a packaged deal.”

“Wait,” she waved her hands about to get him to stop rambling on about things. “You’re offering me a job now working in the film business?”

“I’m offering you a job in the film business if I’m able to sign onto something with the stipulation I bring you with me,” Negan stated, giving her a firm nod that had her muttering something under her breath. “It’s what you were asking me for the other day. A way into the film industry. So you can get away from Maggie and Vixen. A new chance at a life you always wanted.”

“You can offer me that today, but you couldn’t do that the other day?” she spoke up, her chest aching hearing what Negan was attempting to offer her. The other night at the event the college was holding he was pretty insistent that it was impossible for him to get her a job. “What changed in two days Negan?”

“I was looking at my options and I decided I agreed with you. You deserve to have a life doing something that you love,” Negan responded, his hand lifting to press in over the center of his chest. There was a sincerity in his eyes where she knew he was being honest with his answer, but she was still confused as to where this sudden job had come up now, but not before. “I care about you and I don’t want you suffering over something that you hate.”

“I thought you hadn’t worked with me in over four years. You had no idea what my work ethics were like,” she reminded him of the things that he had said to her and it made him cringe. Since she was so drunk that night he was kind of hoping that she didn’t remember the things that he had said to her when they were bickering. “What’s changed?”

“Me,” Negan blurt out, the lines in his forehead growing with him throwing his hands up in the air. How could he explain to her that he learned so much in the last few days? Things that she never needed to hear. Things that he felt horrible about himself for. Being in love with someone blinded him to the way things really were. At least someone he thought he loved. “I’ve changed. I’ve had time to think about things since the other night. And I’m willing to throw myself out there if it gives you a chance at happiness. I really don’t fucking like what Guy is doing to you. You’re being sexually harassed and with Maggie? I realize the things you were saying to me are true. I think she’s really fucking awful for you.”

Hearing that made a nervous smile tug at her lips, “What’s with the sudden negativity about Maggie? If I remember correctly, you were stressing to me that I should open up to her about things. You thought she would be a good friend and help me.”

“Well it finds out I’m an asshole,” he reasoned with her and it had her adjusting on the couch, lowering down the pillow that she was holding onto. That was a strange thing for him to say. “Maggie’s a terrible friend. And so am I. So I’m trying to make things right.”

“Where is this coming from?” her heart was pounding away inside of her chest as Negan forced himself to look away from her. Again his Adam’s apple bounced in his throat and he sighed loudly.

“You opened my eyes to a lot of things. And I started talking to Maggie and I realized…a lot,” Negan huffed, lifting his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose again. Squeezing his eyes shut, Negan didn’t know what he should and should not say. Right now he was incredibly disappointed in himself. How he had grown so blind to things was awful and he didn’t understand it. “I don’t want you hurt by Guy and I don’t want you hurt by Maggie. You deserve better than that. And I’ve let it go on for far too fucking long.”

“And you don’t care to elaborate?” she pushed for details, and it looked like he wanted to tell her. But he paused, his lips parting and he shook his head.

“I just want to take care of you the way you took care of me,” Negan admitted, reaching out to grab a firm hold of her knee to give it a squeeze. “You made my life better and you didn’t need to. I want to make your life better and I owe it to you. We share a daughter together. I don’t care if you’re not the person that gave birth to her. You’re the only mother Jordyn has ever known. And I want fucking better for you.”

“That’s very nice of you,” she started, her hand lowering to place it in over Negan’s. Giving it a tiny squeeze, she considered what he was offering her and she shook her head. “Right now? I want to give this a shot and see what happens with Guy. If I feel uncomfortable, I’ll let you know.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Negan exclaimed, his hand becoming tense beneath hers. “I don’t think Maggie is ever gonna let you come out on top. And I realize now that sounds fucking sexual, but you get what I’m saying.”

That was the Negan that she was used to. It felt like in the last few years Maggie had neutered the naughty, cheesy side of Negan that he once was. So to hear him talking like that again made her smirk. That was the kind of guy he was. Always turning everything sexual even if it was unintentional.

“I know that,” she agreed with Negan, her eyes locked on his when she gave him a weak smile. Even though things seemed more relaxed between them, she didn’t see this as a time to completely unleash her feelings about Maggie. “Did the two of you fight?”

“We…” Negan paused, clicking his tongue at the top of his mouth. This was where he could have lied to her, but there was no reason to. She was his friend. She was honest with him, so he should have been honest with her. “Yes. We fought. And I didn’t like the things she was saying and insinuating about me nor you.”

“Ah, so you finally discovered the side of Maggie you turned a blind eye to,” she mused sighing loudly. There was a time when she thought Maggie was a good person to and it hurt like hell when she realized she was wrong. Especially since she considered Maggie part of her family growing up. When she said that, Negan seemed extremely upset. His whole body language showed it and so did his big eyes. “I was wondering how long she could keep you blind to it.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” Negan admitted, taking his time to consider everything that happened during his talk with Maggie. “She’s not the woman I convinced myself that I was in love with. Because I was dating her, I applied certain qualities to her that other people I loved had. And I’m not sure she has those qualities at all. Which fucking sucks.”  

“Yeah, it hurts when you realize the people that you love aren’t who you thought they were,” she pulled her hand away and slid back further into the corner of the couch.

A loud exhale escaped Negan’s throat with his eyebrows scrunching up, “Fuck that surprisingly hurt. That was directed at me.”

“Was it?” she watched him slouch forward on the couch and he let out a tense breath. There was that chance it was directed at Maggie. Considering Maggie was her best friend. Someone that Y/N had grown up believing cared about her. But she knew better than that now. In reality though, it was directed at Negan. He was someone that she saw as perfect. Someone she admired and was head over heels in love with. How easily Negan picked up on the fact it was directed at him surprised her since he had been blind to things so long. “Who said I loved you?”

“You love me,” he spoke up, still keeping his head down. A chill flooded down her spine and she stayed silent. “And I love you. It’s a very pure love between us. I just never realized you were in love with me and that makes me a fucking moron.”

“So now I’m in love with you?” she realized that she sounded like a bitch right now, but she wasn’t denying it. What was the point in lying? She never did that with Negan. Sometimes she just didn’t tell him everything. And that made things easier. It helped her avoid lying to him about things.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Negan spoke faintly, his breathing growing louder when he finally gathered enough strength to look to her again. “I wish you would have told me.”

“Negan, I tried every way possible to let you know how I felt. I don’t know what else you expected me to do,” she cussed to herself realizing that she did just admit to him that she did indeed love him. Obviously, the first two years it was just a crush and a friendship. Something that she would never act upon since he was married. But after that? She couldn’t imagine that she didn’t do everything possible to let him know how she felt. She just never straight out said the words. “You just didn’t feel it back.”

“But that’s not true,” Negan corrected her with a firm shake of his head. “You were my favorite person to be around. Even before Lucille died. I looked forward to every fucking moment we spent together because I loved talking to you. There was no one I felt like I could completely be myself with when it came to you.”

“I would love to think all of that was true, but your actions and your words don’t coincide,” she declared, having a hard time not focusing on everything that went wrong in the last four years. “I thought you loved me, but you didn’t. There was something in the way you looked at me that last year when I was your student teacher and I think it’s like what you said. I was attributing certain factors to you because I loved you so much that I just wanted to believe you.”

“I’m not lying to you,” Negan seemed frustrated that she wasn’t listening to him in the way he wanted her to. “I loved spending time with you. Even before I lost Lucille. Think of all the hours outside of class we spent talking. It was inappropriate then, especially with the age gap between us. And I knew it, but I liked you so much.”

“You liked your ego being stroked,” she recalled what it was like in the time that they were talking back then. “Anyone with half a brain could see I had the biggest crush on you. And the fact you were giving me attention? I was so immature. I loved it.”

“Come on,” Negan grumbled under his breath, holding his hand out to try to get her to stare out at him. “You’re selling our relationship short. Even Lucille knew that we were close. And Lucille loved you. You know that. We both did.”

“Now that’s a different kind of love. Lucille looked at me like I was a kid and I feel like she latched onto me because she knew I had no one. The woman wanted to take me under her wing and it didn’t hurt that your daughter always had a comfort with me,” she thought back to the way things were with Lucille when she had been around her. “You’re talking about a love that is completely different than the one that we are talking about here.”

“I’ve always been very open with you about things,” Negan started, the lines in his forehead growing deeper as he spoke, “you know that I cheated on Lucille when we were together. It was so fucked up that I did. It’s not like I didn’t love her because I did. She was everything to me. But I was so arrogant and stupid…”

Negan had to take a moment to pause and he let out a scoff, “I hated the man that I was when I did that to Lucille. You know how hard we tried to have Jordyn. For so fucking long. She was our little miracle baby and once we had her? I felt like the luckiest man in the world. She was everything we fought so hard to have. I promised to never be that man again that hurt her.”

“Which is amazing. I know Lucille was the love of your life and I think she deserved that,” she didn’t understand where this was headed, but she could tell that talking about his late wife had Negan emotional. “Where is this going?”

“I’m trying to prove a point here,” Negan stressed to her, his body tensing up. “I never thought of cheating on my wife again. Because my life was perfect. But you? You’re the only person that made me consider it again. Maybe I did like the way you inflated my ego. And yeah, maybe I did know you had a crush on me back then.”

“Oh fuck off,” she laughed at what he just told her, standing up from the couch in disgust moving across the room to pace.

“Why do you never believe the shit that I say?” Negan snapped at her, a deep rumble of a growl escaping his throat. “You don’t remember that time that the two of us were sitting in the front row of my class with me sitting beside you?”

“We did that all the time,” she chuckled with him trying to draw forth some kind of memory between them that she didn’t think existed.

“You touched my hand and it was just innocent, but the way you touched me? It made me feel things that I shouldn’t have. I asked you that night if you had a boyfriend while stroking the back of your fucking hand because I was considering fucking you right then and there. Because you touching me made me…hard,” Negan continued on, finding his heart hammering inside of his chest with the way she stopped to stare down at him. “You made me feel good about myself with the way that you liked me and looked up to me. I loved spending time with you. But then I realized what an asshole I was and I left immediately. The next day I brought Lucille and Jordyn around so I could remind myself that things were perfect.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned away from him and couldn’t contain the amused sound that she made, “If that were fucking true, it’s been six years since Lucille died. You didn’t try to kiss me once. You never tried to have sex with me. You never even spoke of feeling that way toward me.”

“I’ve been thinking about that and maybe I shut that feeling down because of how I felt about you in that moment when Lucille was alive,” Negan reasoned, but sounded like he was trying to make sense of things himself. “You were the only person that ever made me think like that and…”

“I don’t…I don’t want to hear any more of it,” she cut him off from even going any further in that direction. “So having a relationship with me was bad because I gave you a boner by touching your hand when you were married?”

“Well now that you say it like that, yeah of fucking course it sounds stupid,” Negan stood up from the couch himself trying to appeal to her, but she held her hand out to stop him. “I don’t understand why you find that so fucking hard to believe.”

“Because it was Maggie your hard cock found its way into, not me!” she snapped at him causing him to swallow down hard with his expressive eyebrows furrowing. “It was Maggie you were showing up at my apartment for with my favorite fucking flowers. You shattered my fucking heart that day Negan. How do you not fucking see that? And then you kept fucking hurting me. Fucking Maggie with me in the apartment consistently forcing me to hear that shit? And then walking around naked all the time. How do you not realize that was you fucking tormenting me?”

A broken breath escaped Negan’s throat and he threw his hands up in the air trying to come up with something to say, but he was falling short, “You can say whatever you want, but your actions speak louder than your words. I would have done anything for you. And when you showed up at that fucking apartment that day, I thought it was me you were there for. I thought it was me you were coming to admit your feelings for and you were there for fucking Maggie. So feed me all the bullshit you want, but I know it’s not true.”

“I’m sorry,” Negan apologized, his voice broken with him shaking his head.

“For what? Liking someone else? Do you know how fucking pathetic I would have to be to expect you to apologize to me for loving Maggie?” she shook her head refusing to accept that apology. “You didn’t want me. And I wasn’t the person you liked spending the most time with because if I was? You wouldn’t have stopped doing it after you got with Maggie. We would have still been spending time together. Instead? We acted like divorced parents that hated each other only seeing each other here and there when I came to pick up Jordyn.”

Swallowing down hard, Negan lowered his head and it looked like there was a massive amount of guilt that was eating away at him, “I am the luckiest girl in the world because you allowed me to be in Jordyn’s life and I love that little girl like she is my own. And I will always treat her like she is because she means everything to me. Even when I feel like allowing this world to swallow me whole, I remember that I’m still here because I love her. She’s the thing that keeps me going every day. But I’m also the dumbest woman in the world because I’ve been in love with a man for eight years and he never felt the same way about me. Now he’s feeding me some kind of bullshit because he feels guilty about the way he treated me.”

“I wasn’t thinking right, okay?” Negan finally spoke, his eyes damp and his voice rasp when he dropped his hands down at his hips. “I had lost Lucille and I was a fucking mess. I hadn’t been with anyone since Lucille and when Maggie started throwing herself at me…”

Dramatically dropping her head back, she released an amused laugh. It seemed to infuriate Negan when she headed over back to her side of the couch to drop down on top of it, “If you would have made your move, it would have been you that I fell for. But it was Maggie that was laying it on thick. It was Maggie that kissed me first. It was Maggie that…”

“Fucked you purposely on the couch in our living room knowing that I would be coming home? Yeah. You’re right,” she blurt out, frustration flooding her veins when she just let that information drop. “You know she promised me that night when you came here with the flowers that she wouldn’t let it go any further. When I walked in on the two of you having sex, it was a real fucking shock.”

“Then why remain loyal to her this whole fucking time?” Negan hissed, throwing his hand up in the air with the vein at the side of his neck bulging. “You should have fucking told me the kind of person that she was! I didn’t know who she was.”

“You know what the better question is?” she stood up from the couch, stepping before him to shove into the center of his chest to get him to stumble back giving her a shocked expression. “Why the fuck did I put up with you the whole time? Maggie, I have an excuse. Maggie’s father asked me to watch over her and keep her safe because he was worried his daughter would fail at life. But you? You’re the one that fucked Maggie. It wasn’t my responsibility to let you know the person she was.”

“No, you just waited four years to tell me,” Negan scoffed in response, his nose wrinkling with a firm shake of his head.

“You know what? I’ll give you the floor,” she dramatically waved her hands about, drawing his breathing to grow louder. “Why don’t you tell me what it is that Maggie did to have you be a pathetic fucking puppy dog toward her with those flowers. What was it Maggie did that had you fucking her in my apartment? And what made you think it wouldn’t hurt me? Because if I had a crush on you and you knew it in those first two years, why wouldn’t I have it when you fucked Maggie?”

“There was nothing to love with me. I was a mess. You saw me at my absolute worst. You had to take care of my daughter when I couldn’t. I was a fucking mess, why would you ever want to love someone like me when you had to endure the kind of person I was?” Negan countered visibly upset, but she uncomfortably scoffed under her breath.

“Because I loved you,” she sighed, her chest aching at the thought. “You made a promise to Lucille that you would live life for her because she couldn’t and you had a beautiful daughter. I wasn’t going to allow you to break that promise and I wasn’t going to let something happen to you or Jordyn because you lost the person you loved more than anything. It wasn’t fair that the world took Lucille away from you, so I understood why you were the way you were. Which is obviously me answering my own question as to why I put up with you for so long. That and because I love your daughter.”

“You love her, but not me?” Negan didn’t like what he was hearing causing her to shake her head again in frustration.

“You want to hear that I love you for what reason Negan? So it makes you feel better again and I’ll be that one person that makes you consider cheating again? Yeah Negan, I love you too because I’m a very pathetic girl,” she confessed placing her hand in over the center of her chest. “So why don’t you tell me what it was that Maggie did to make you want her and not me? When did she kiss you and you realized that you wanted to be with her? What did she do to make you have sex with her in the home she shared with me? Maybe I can take some pointers for the next man I fall in love with. That way I don’t lose out and make the same mistake I made last time.”

“Stop,” Negan requested, his jaw flexing with them obviously emotional from this discussion. “You can’t be mad at me for not making the first move. I didn’t make the first move with Maggie either. I didn’t do anything wrong. You’re acting like you were honest with me about things and you weren’t. If you would have said something…”

“I know men are stupid Negan, but come on…” she frowned, giving a glare before moving back to drop down on the couch again finding herself exhausted with this conversation. “This whole I never made the first move thing is bullshit.”

“I feel like I owe you this massive apology, but…” Negan’s hand was shaking when he pointed toward himself, but she held her hand up to silence him. An apology was not something that she wanted from Negan.

Unhurriedly Negan moved back to his spot on the couch and dropped down. Sliding down on the couch, the two of them sat there together in silence for a while. It took a while for her heart to calm down with how hard it was pounding with the adrenaline rush this whole thing gave her.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Negan finally broke the silence, his breathing growing louder. After their fight, his chest hurt fucking bad and he knew that was the guilt of everything. “Ever since we talked the night at the event, I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re all I think about.”

“It was the tits,” she spoke quietly making Negan snort and then start to laugh. Looking to her, they both laughed at how bluntly she said it. He thought she was joking, but she was being serious in a cheeky way. “I promise you Negan, it was nothing more than that. I cover them up most of the time, I finally let them out and it has both you and Guy Vixen foaming at the mouth.”

“It’s not your tits,” Negan forced his laugh down, trying to look away from her since this was a serious moment that he was trying to approach. “Yes, you have nice breasts, but what happened earlier at the store…”

“Was a mistake,” she finished his sentence, reaching out to grab at Negan’s arm to get him to look at her. “You were emotional, you were trying to make me feel better. I was at that event. Everyone that came up to you stressed to me how much you loved Maggie. I never heard the end of it. If I was Maggie? I would have fallen in love with you so much more hearing how much you loved me. Unfortunately, I’m me. And it was her these things were about. Not me.”

“Yeah, but I’m starting to think that I don’t even know the real Maggie,” Negan declared, visible confusion flooding into his features with his admission. “And I’m not even sure I fucking know who I am. So there is that.”

“I don’t know what to say to that Negan,” she professed, her heart sinking at what he said knowing that a while ago she would have loved to hear that. “Nothing I say to that is going to make this situation any better.”

“Why…” Negan began, scoffing to himself knowing that this would likely go nowhere. “Why didn’t you try to kiss me though? If you would have kissed me before Maggie did, I know things would have worked themselves out between us.”

“Because I was worried that after Lucille passed away it would have been wrong for me to kiss you because it would have been me putting a nail in the friendship I had with her,” she had thought for a moment what to say, but when she did say this it was so emotionless that it had Negan looking her with an arch of his eyebrow.

“You’re mocking me,” Negan recognized that she was using the thing he said earlier against him.

“Little bit,” she tipped her head to the side understanding that it wasn’t the nicest of things to do in the moment. Even with her smart ass attitude, he was still waiting for an answer. “I don’t know Negan. Why didn’t you just kiss me?”

“In my mind I had to be thinking I was your professor,” Negan kept up with that defense provoking her to groan loudly. “It would have been a conflict of interests and I could have gotten in trouble.”

“Maybe I just wanted to know that I was worth the risk,” she suggested, rubbing her hands out over her thighs hating that they were bickering about the past again. “It’s nice to play a game of what if Negan, but you really fell in love with Maggie. She was what you wanted.”

“I think I fell in love with Maggie’s version of you,” Negan countered, drawing her to give him a look that showed she had no idea what he was saying. “Maggie listened to you talk about me for four years. She knew what you told her about me. She knew what I liked. She listened to someone who loved me talk about me. And she kissed me first. Like a typical fucking male, I thought with my dick. And I continued to let my dick think things out for way too long.”

“What does it matter now?” she truly wondered, a tense laugh escaping her throat. This was all nice to hear, but it didn’t change shit and it sure as hell didn’t make things better. “It doesn’t change what happened.”

“What we did together in that dressing room…” Negan focused on what happened earlier at the store with her trying on the dress. It was something she wanted to avoid talking about, but he was still locked in on it.

“We didn’t even kiss Negan. It was a moment of tension that will never happen again,” she promised him, swallowing down hard. Truthfully? When she closed her eyes she could still picture the way everything felt. “If we kissed, then maybe, but we didn’t.”

Thinking about what she said, Negan slid in toward the middle couch cushion and bit down on his bottom lip, “Then maybe we should kiss once. We never kissed. I don’t know how I would feel if I kissed you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she alerted him with a long exhale realizing that she was already hooked on Negan. The last thing she needed right now was something else like that. Something that would pull her further into him. Especially when he could never be hers. “It’s only going to complicate things more.”

“But maybe when we kiss we will realize that there is nothing there,” Negan thought aloud, shrugging his shoulders simply. “It could be for the best. That way we really know and don’t have to lay awake at night wondering about the what ifs.”

“Negan…” she whispered his name, her throat going dry with him pressing in closer to her. After the way they had been bickering, she couldn’t see this working itself out.

“Please?” Negan begged of her, his hand lifting to sweep his fingers in over the side of her face. For so long this was the kind of attention she wanted from Negan, but in the moment she knew that it felt wrong. Yet she didn’t push him away. Just his touch alone had her eyes fluttering to a close. Having the roughness of his fingertips caressing at her skin had her breath hitching in her throat. Palming down over the side of her face, Negan allowed his thumb to drag faintly across her bottom lip. The slightest of whimpers escaped her throat eliciting a chill to flood his body. It was so quiet, but since the room was too it was easy to hear. He hadn’t even kissed her yet and he had her trembling before him. It took his breath away. Pressing in closer, Negan closed the distance between them. The warmth of his breath lingered over her and he was keen to pay attention to her reactions. Considering what he was putting on the line, he wanted to pay special attention in the moment. Sweeping his fingers down over her jawline toward her neck, Negan captured her jaw between his thumb and index finger. It had her lips parting with her breathing growing broken. Part of him wondered if she would stop him from doing this, but she hadn’t. And he was thankful for that. Faintly brushing his lips over hers, he took his time to allow her the chance to refuse. Their lips barely touched. It was when his eyes closed that he finally brought their lips together in a passionate sweep. It was one that lingered, innocent at first. Her hand settled at the center of his chest with her fingers stretching upward. Gradually the kiss grew stronger. It was just supposed to be one simple kiss, but with her lips parting he took advantage by brushing his tongue delicately against hers. One kiss turned to many with her fingers curling loosely around the back of his neck. Pressing a final kiss at her bottom lip left them both breathless. Lazily, his eyes fluttered to an open with them still so close to one another. “How do you feel?”

His eyes were locked on her, enamored with the way she responded to him kissing her. Slowly her eyes opened, her pupils dilated showing that the kiss had undoubtedly had its effects on her, “I don’t know,” she knew she couldn’t say what she truly felt. With him still touching her face, it wasn’t helping. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Then maybe we should do it again,” Negan commented with his thumb stroking down over the soft fleshy part of her throat. Stealing another fervent kiss from her lips, Negan brought them close together. One kiss turned to another with their breathing growing broken and labored. This time when Negan’s tongue swept against hers, she eagerly returned the gesture. Everything about this was intoxicating having her desperately wanting more from him.

“Shit,” she stood up from the couch, panting when she pulled away from Negan’s kisses. Moving toward the corner of the room gave her that chance to put some distance between them. It felt like everything was spinning with how intense things started to get between them. Finally looking to him again, she gave him a nod, but it was hard looking him in the eye. “Well we kissed and I think we can both agree that you should probably be headed home.”

Taking a moment to think about what she was saying, Negan gave her a single nod. Getting up from the couch, he approached her and felt his heartbeat leaping in his chest, “I guess we’ll talk again soon?”

“Sure,” she realized that he was going to hug her goodbye and she allowed him that. Squeezing her firmly in his arms, Negan buried his head against the side of her neck and sighed loudly. Chills flooded down her spine and she tried to keep her head on straight.

“I’ll just go then…” Negan spoke, leaning back ever so slightly to look down upon her. “If that’s what you want from me.”

Staying silent, she knew it was for the best. Kissing him was addicting and she didn’t want to stop. With a wicked smirk, Negan stepped back acting as if he was going to leave. Reaching for his wrist had him chuckling. Cupping his face in her hands, she hungrily pulled him back to her having his lips crashing down upon hers. The force of him stepping forward had her back pressing against the wall. Dropping his hands, he caressed them in over her hips giving them a firm squeeze. Kiss after kiss took her breath away, her body growing limp with her falling in against his chest.

Gasping out, she felt Negan’s hands palming down over the backs of her thighs. Hooking his arms under her knees, he lifted her up from the ground and braced her weight against the wall. Closing the distance between them had her heart hammering inside of her chest. Every part of her felt like it was on fire with Negan’s lips upon hers once more. Kissing her with all the passion and desire that had been building up between them over the last few days.

Wincing, she tipped her head back when Negan’s kisses tampered off down over her chin and across her jawline. Sinking her fingers into his messy, dark hair she knew that she should have let him leave but this all felt way too good to let go of. For years she longed for this kind of interaction and now that she was getting it she felt like she was drunk off his kisses.

His mouth left a hot, wet trail against the side of her neck when he eagerly returned to meet her lips in a fiery kiss. What started off innocent was growing into something hungry and passionate. Something that she never thought existed between the two of them. How easily Negan took her breath away was scary. Negan held her in the palm of his hand and she knew it. An involuntary moan escaped her lips with the sensation of Negan’s hips lightly bucking up against hers. In return he rewarded her with a throaty moan. Tipping his head back, his eyelids were heavy as he tried to make sure that she was comfortable with where this was going. Another roll of his hips had her head tipping back. Repeatedly, his hips bucked up against hers with his mouth stealing kiss after kiss from her lips.

“Fuck,” Negan hissed at the liquid warmth that was flooding his body. Sucking at her bottom lip had her mewling out and he pressed his forehead to hers. Every part of him felt like it was on fire. The way she caressed at the back of his neck had chills running down his spine. Carefully bringing her in against his chest, Negan turned on his heel taking his time to carry her over toward the couch. Dropping down on top of it, Negan fell in over her but made sure to brace his weight so he didn’t hurt her. Hovering his lips in over hers had her caressing down over the side of his neck toward the center of his chest. A smile tugged at his lips hearing the anxious sound that she made with him over her. “Don’t be nervous.”

Lowering himself between her thighs, Negan kept his weight braced on his right arm while his left caressed down over the side of her body and up again. Teasing his lips just over hers, Negan’s eyelids grew heavy when the warmth of her mouth radiated against his. It had her purring out and it sent a chill right through his body. There was a rush flooding his veins. This wasn’t where he expected the kiss to go, but here they were.

Feather like kisses pressed over her lips with him taking his time to get comfortable with her. With each kiss, the passion and hunger grew with them exploring each other. Making out with Negan on the couch was not something she expected and she was surprised they let it get this far. But right now she was feeling butterflies in her stomach. Having him pampering her with kisses was addictive and it was hard to pull herself away from it. There was an electricity between them that both of them could feel the longer they kissed.

Grunting, Negan lowered his head to look down with him hooking his arm underneath her knee. Getting her to loosely wrap her leg around his waist drew out the most delicious moan from his lips and it had her panting. Palming down over the side of his face had Negan leaning into her touch, his lips parting and his eyes coming to a tight close.

By the time his long eyelashes fluttered to an open, she felt lost in him. The way he stared down at her showed a sense of affection. Licking his lips, Negan dragged his thumb across her bottom lip and sighed. Kissing at the pad of his thumb had a tiny smile tugging at his handsome features, “You are so beautiful.”

Nuzzling his nose in against hers showed tenderness in the way he was desperate to be near. Stroking down over the side of his neck, she liked listening to the way that he was breathing. At this moment? They were just taking the time to cherish the warmth of their bodies near. Hooking her fingers into his messy hair, she caressed at his scalp and liked the tiny kisses that he was pressing at the side of her face. A lump grew in her throat with the feeling of Negan caressing down in over her thigh and then up over her side. Having her arch up into him like she did only made him smile further.  

“Do you trust me?” Negan slurred, kissing softly at her bottom lip allowing it to linger in that moment.

Maybe she should have said no, but instead she just nodded. Adjusting his weight made her panic when he got on his knees above her. Reaching for the bottom of his shirt, Negan took his time pulling it up the lengths of his abdomen. Getting it over his head, he dropped it beside the couch on the floor. How she looked at him fueled him. Maggie had never looked at him like that. Reaching for her hands, Negan brought them toward his torso urging her to touch him. Tension was evident in her body, but it was from her being nervous. Flattening her palms against the center of Negan’s abdomen, she did as he wanted. Sliding her hands up his slender torso toward his chest and then down again. Just touching him had Negan sucking in a sharp breath of air, tipping his head back and pressing in closer to her. Teasing her fingers through the dark curls of hair that covered his flesh had a thick rumble of a sound falling from his throat. Forcing himself to watch her, Negan could see the awe in her eyes. Instead of rushing things, she learned the lines of his body. Learning what he liked while also enjoying the moment herself.  

Lifting up, her eyes stayed locked with his at first when she started to pepper affectionate kisses at the center of his torso. Every caress of her lips over his flesh was delicate with her still touching him. His heartrate was undoubtedly high with him curling his fingers around the back of her neck. Lowering her stare, she kissed at the lines over his hips following the v-line toward the top of his pants. Biting down on his bottom lip, Negan sighed loudly. It felt good having someone pampering him and admiring him like this.

Dropping his hands down, his fingers tugged at the material of her shirt getting it partially up her body. Stopping at the area right under her arms, he gave her a tip of his head when she looked up at him. Lifting her arms allowed him to pull it from her body and drop her shirt along with his. Underneath she was not wearing a bra and he knew that. Hell, he watched her change. The way her breasts bounced with the movement made him groan.

Motioning her to lay back again, Negan laid in over her permitting the warmth of their bodies to press together. That alone felt better than he could have ever imagined. It had her frozen beneath him with him dragging his bottom lip over hers. Lazily dragging his lips over her top lip had her purring out and he loved it. They should have said more, but they didn’t. The roughness of Negan’s fingertips caressed down over her side and it felt like her heart was going to pound out of her chest. After a while Negan’s fingers dragged down further, teasing in over the waistband of her pajama pants. Locking his eyes with hers, Negan pushed at the material having her a tremoring mess beneath him.

“It’s okay,” he hushed her, lifting his hips enough to get the material of her pajama pants tugged down to her thighs. With them getting locked up there, he balanced his weight enough for him to use one of his hands to get them pushed even further down her legs. Laying back in over her, Negan reached behind him to push at his pajama pants getting them down over his ass toward his thighs. Swallowing down hard, Negan’s muscles tensed with the sensation of their bodies pressed together. The way she shuddered had him breathless with his fingers tracing down over the side of her face. “You take my breath away.”

Attempting to look between them, Negan stopped her by curling his finger in underneath her chin. Hushing her, he urged her to tip her head back against the pillow, “Keep your eyes on mine. I don’t want you looking anywhere else.”

Every part of her felt like it was on fire with the warmth of his naked body lying in over her. This felt more passionate and sincere in the moment. Less sexual even though the two of them were both naked. There was a vulnerability between the both of them that Negan was enchanted by.

“No one looks at me the way you do,” Negan whispered, starting to pepper kisses against her bottom lip. How he had been blind to it this whole time was something he couldn’t wrap his mind around. “I should have seen it all along.”

Closing her eyes when Negan’s kisses tampered off over the side of her neck had it feeling like the room was spinning around them. Quiet whispers surrounded her with Negan praising her, saying all the things that someone would want to hear. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she buried her nose against the side of his neck.

Turning his head, Negan brought their lips back together. Reaching for one of her arms, he lowered it down on the couch with his fingers hooking firmly with hers. Truthfully they could have spent an eternity like that, just kissing with them pressed up against one another.

“Do you still want me?” Negan wondered, his words vibrating against her flesh having her whimper at the feeling of it. His fingers squeezed firmly with hers and he wanted her to answer honestly. “After everything, is there a chance that you still want to be with me?”

“I don’t know,” she spoke quietly, unsure of how she was feeling or how things were. More than anything she wanted Negan, but she didn’t know how it would work. “I know how you make me feel.”

“How do I make you feel?” Negan wanted to hear her answer, wetting his lips. There was desperation in her eyes with his mouth hanging just in over hers.

“Like my heart is beating wildly yet capable of stopping at the same time,” she stammered drawing him to smile with a tiny nod. That probably sounded stupid and she knew it. “No one makes me feel like you do.”

“Okay,” Negan licked his lips adjusting his body over hers and releasing her hand. “That’s all I need to know.”

Wiggling his hips a bit more got the material of his pants down to the bottom of his thighs. Dragging his hand down over her side toward her ribcage and then over her breast had her panting. Circling her nipple with his thumb, he worked to bring it to a hard bud and growled.

“Do you have any condoms?” Negan questioned and it had her shaking beneath him. There was a sense of shock in her eyes with his eyebrows bouncing up.

“I…I don’t,” she responded, her head tipping back with Negan’s thumb tracing over her jawline, down over the length of her neck and toward her collarbone. “I don’t really have time to bring men back here for sex.”

“We can work with that,” Negan slurred, reaching down between them, his raspy moan following when she assumed that he was touching himself. Nuzzling his nose in against hers, he adjusted himself over her. Curling his arm around her waist, he brought her closer to him and it had the warmth of his body near hers. Licking his lips, he reached between them again to curl his fingers around the base of his cock. Teasing the swollen tip over the length of her sex had her cooing out. Dragging a line down her body with the tip and then up toward her clit had her bouncing up toward him. “You are so fucking perfect.”

Repeatedly he teased her with the same motion, until he brought his fingertips up toward his lips. Licking at them, he lowered them down again touching himself. By the time a bit of pressure was being pushed at her entrance, she heard the sound of what she thought was another knock at her door. Closing her eyes, she assumed that it was just her mind letting things stir with the thick tip of Negan’s cock prodding at her warmth.

“Look at me,” he demanded and she obeyed. His lips hovered over hers with him working just the tip through the tight ring of muscle having the both of them moan in unison. Pulling out had her whimpering before he repeated the same movement causing them both to be a panting mess. Another knock at the door drew both of their attention this time with Negan looking to the door. “Just ignore it. It’s late.”

Nodding her head, she winced when he got just a bit more inside of her this time. He was starting off small, getting her used to him. Pressing her hand against his lower abdomen had him swallowing down hard. Even though he knew better, there was a sense of innocence to her. Lifting, she watched him pull his hips back letting her gaze upon his rigid manhood that took her breath away. Again, the way she looked at him turned him on more than he could have ever imagined. She did stare at him with awe and affection. In her eyes? He was perfection and he could see that. Cuddling in close to her, Negan got comfortable between her thighs and helped lead the tip back to her ready opening. Pushing forward had her crying out and he nipped at her chin. At this point it was only the tip that had entered her a few times but knowing that it was Negan had her body craving so much more.

“You feel so good,” Negan slurred, doing his best to brace himself pushing his hips just a bit more forward. This time allowing his body to enter hers further. Dropping her head back, she cried out with Negan kissing down over the side of her neck. There was a stretching sensation with her body parting to his girthy length. “So wet and tight…”

And there it was again, the returning knock, “I’m going to kill myself if that’s Maggie.”

“It can’t be Maggie, the alert didn’t go off on my phone,” Negan breathed against the side of her neck having a sense of realization flood through her mind. Firmly bracing her hand over the center of Negan’s abdomen, she pulled her hips up and away from him having him moaning out. “Did I hurt you? We didn’t even get half of it in yet.”

“You’re still with Maggie,” she reminded him having a flood of guilt rushing through her veins. By his expression, she could tell in that moment the only person that mattered to was her. Working her pants back up over her body, she knew that every part of her was screaming at her to continue, but she couldn’t let that go. “You’re still with Maggie and we just started to have sex.”

“Barely,” Negan stammered, his chest rising and falling heavily with his unsteady breathing. Grunting, Negan looked down to see his cock twitch with the ache that it had with not being allowed to continue. “I think I want to leave Maggie. I want to be with you…”

“You don’t know that,” she frowned, standing up from the couch leaving him to fall back against it. Dragging his hands down over the front of his face, Negan groaned and she wished he would have pulled his pants back up. Seeing him laid stretched out on her couch almost completely naked with a raging hard on was not helping the situation. “I should have never let things get that far. It makes me just as bad as her if not worse. You’re hers. And I would have had sex with you, I started to…”

Wincing, Negan reached down to squeeze at his rigid length and lifted his head to look at it. Growling, he reached for his pants and arched his hips to pull them up over his body which she was thankful for, “Maggie is in your home right now. Sleeping in your bed and I’m here with you…”

“I don’t like the way I feel when I’m with Maggie,” Negan explained to her, the muscle in his jaw flexing when he brushed his fingers throughout his hair shakily. “I like the way I feel when I’m with you. The way you look at me, the way you touch me…the electricity between us…”

“The other day people were coming up to me talking about how much you loved Maggie. How can you change your opinion of her in two days?” she had a hard time believing that with her reaching down to grab her shirt to pull it back on.

“Because my eyes were opened to how things really are. I was blind to things,” Negan stood up from the couch, attempting to approach her, but she held up her hands to stop him from coming near. With how her body felt? She knew that she needed to keep some distance between the two of them. “Please, okay? All I think about is you.”

“You’re still with Maggie,” she stressed to Negan the words that hurt, but were still so undeniably true. Right now that didn’t seem to bother Negan, but she knew eventually it would. “You’re hers. And she is yours. This? What we’re doing. It’s wrong.”

“How could it be fucking wrong when we both want it?” Negan wondered, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat. “Isn’t this what you want? What you’ve always wanted?”

“To have an affair with you while you’re still with Maggie?” she snorted, causing Negan to frown and fold his arms out in front of his chest. “There are some things that need to be worked out before we could ever be something. You were very anti cheating and now…”

“I just…” Negan started only to hear the knocking turn to rapid, continuous hits that was having the door shaking. “What the fuck?”

Heading for the door, Negan reached for the knob and pulled it open angrily, “Whatever the fuck you want I promise we don’t want it…”

It was in that moment Negan came face to face with Daryl who was holding a few bags in his hands staring out at Negan with his cold, blue eyed stare. They both knew each other and they knew each other well. Especially since they were both a big part of Y/N’s life. And neither one liked each other all that much.

“Daryl,” she breathed out his name with a shirtless Negan standing before him at the door. Looking to the clock on the wall, she shook her head and sighed. Why was everyone suddenly showing up so damn late? “What are you doing here?”

“I figured you didn’t eat since you weren’t texting me back,” Daryl lifted the bags that he was holding giving them a small wiggle. “Since neither of us sleep much, I figured I would stop by like you did the other night and bring you something to eat.”

“At three in the morning?” Negan scoffed with Daryl pushing through into the apartment toward the kitchen area. There wasn’t a care in the world that Daryl had right now interrupting the two of them. And he was making that clear. Which infuriated Negan who stood at the door tense as can be. “Excuse me, we were in the middle of something here.”

“Were you?” Daryl simply asked looking between the two of them. Setting some of the things out on her counter, Daryl brought his fingers up to his lips to suck at them. Shrugging his shoulders, he took note of the fact that Negan was half naked. But he didn’t say anything. Just acted like everything was completely normal. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have a child at home? Jordyn is too young to be left alone.”

“Maggie is there,” Negan answered with Daryl smirking and moving back around the counter toward them in the living room.

“Like I said, leaving her alone isn’t smart,” Daryl gazed upon Negan who was still breathing loudly, his eyes locking with Y/N who was standing a good distance away from the both of them trying to catch her breath. Bringing his attention back to Negan, Daryl circled his finger around Negan’s torso area. “What happened to your shirt?”

“I lost it,” Negan snorted with a roll of his eyes heading over toward his shirt that was still on the floor. Snatching it, Negan haphazardly tugged it back on. Displeasure flooded Negan’s features with his hands settling in at his hips. By his body language, he was angry and he wasn’t hiding it.

“Do you need something cold for that?” Daryl slurred getting Negan’s eyebrows to furrow and his head to tip to the side. Pointing toward the evident tent in Negan’s pajama pants had red flooding into Negan’s face. Reaching for the pillow that was on the couch, Negan placed it in front of himself. “Don’t you have to leave?”

“Daryl,” she snapped at her friend causing him to dramatically shrug and move back toward the kitchen. Daryl was going out of his way to be a shit to get Negan even more upset about things.

“He’s right,” Negan swallowed down hard looking upon her with a saddened expression. “I shouldn’t have left Jordyn alone. But the two of us need to talk. About…us…”

“Sounds serious,” Daryl spoke up with a mouthful of something getting an immediate glare from Negan having Negan’s dimples becoming extremely prominent. It looked like Negan wanted to kill Daryl in that moment. Daryl was playing oblivious to things, but she knew he was just doing it to be an ass to get under Negan’s skin.

“Daryl!” she repeated his name with Daryl throwing his hands up in the air again.

“We’ll talk later,” Negan stepped forward, lowering down to press a quick kiss against the side of her face. Even him doing that felt wrong. There was a sense of affection in the way that he kissed her face that shouldn’t have been there if he was with Maggie. “I’m sorry.”

“It was nice seeing you,” Daryl called out, wiggling his fingers about. It had Negan stopping and looking back over his shoulder at Daryl with his cold hazel eyed stare. By now? She was surprised Daryl hadn’t started a fight. Tossing the pillow back onto the couch, Negan reached for his boots and stumbled to pull them back on. By the time he got his jacket on, Negan headed for the door, but stopped. It looked like he was considering saying something else, but he just shook his head and left, leaving her alone with Daryl. Once she knew they were finally alone, she looked to Daryl shooting him a glare herself with the way he acted. “What?! I was being nice!”

Heading over toward the couch, she dropped down on top of it and buried her head into her hand, “Personally? I think you should be thanking me. Cus I stopped whatever sex the two of you were about to have. And you would have regretted it if I didn’t.”

“I know,” she agreed with Daryl who looked surprised when he dropped down on the couch beside her. “You’re absolutely right.”

“I am?” Daryl replied showing her that he didn’t even think she would agree with his comment. “You’re not angry?”

“At myself. Not you,” she confessed, her breathing still uneven with her body aching in the worst of ways. Huffing out, she felt Daryl’s hand placing in over her head and she gave him an awkward glance. “What the hell?”

“Just making sure you don’t have a fever or nothin’,” Daryl explained, pulling his hand back and rubbing at his thighs. “Since I just stopped you from having sex with the man of your dreams. He was walking around with a raging boner. I thought you’d be furious.”

“I’m not,” there was a warmth that flooded into her face with how embarrassed she was over this whole thing. Right now she was upset and it was probably a good thing that Daryl showed up, but she didn’t really want to admit what happened or talk to Daryl about it. “It shouldn’t have happened anyways.”

“You okay?” Daryl’s nose wrinkled, scoffing in the process. “I really thought you’d be throwing things at me.”

“Daryl…” she repeated his name, forcing herself to look away from him. Truthfully? Her body was screaming. More than anything it wanted Negan, it wanted to keep having sex with Negan. But her mind kept thinking about Maggie. Maggie went after Negan knowing that she was head over heels in love with him, but Negan wasn’t dating her. She started having sex with Negan knowing that he was dating Maggie. And she was furious with Maggie for cheating on Negan with Guy. “I don’t know why I let things get that far.”

“Cus you were always obsessed with that asshole,” Daryl scoffed, getting comfortable and stretching out his legs while he sat beside her on the couch. “The guy smiles and he just has you in the palm of his hand.”

“It’s a little more than that,” she reasoned with her friend, standing up from the couch and feeling her legs tremoring beneath her. Moving over toward the kitchen area, she grabbed herself a water. Looking out, she could see that Daryl’s head was turned watching her.

“Was it everything you ever hoped for?” Daryl felt like he was mocking her in that moment, but she couldn’t blame him. “Was his cock glorious and the moment you knew that he wanted to fuck you, you just creamed your panties.”

“Christ,” she muttered after taking a long sip of the water that she grabbed herself. Looking at the bags, she tipped her head to the side when she saw one of the things that was in them. Pulling out the box, she lifted it and saw Daryl grimace once he realized she grabbed the box of condoms that were there. “What were you planning?”

“I was horny and thought you might be again,” Daryl got up from the couch, shoving his hands into his pockets. Giving her a shrug, he bit down on his bottom lip and moved closer to the kitchen area of her apartment. After she tossed the box on the counter, he assumed that she wouldn’t be interested in that at all tonight. “Guess I was right.”

Bracing his hand on the counter, Daryl noticed the silence that was between them and cleared his throat. Heading over toward the corner of the kitchen, she rest herself back against it and she looked disappointed in herself.

“I really wanted him to have a small penis,” Daryl blurt out provoking her to spit out her water after she had taken another sip of it. Involuntarily she laughed with how dramatically Daryl said that. “All that arrogance and being blessed with a big dick. It’s not right.”

“What are you complaining about? It’s not like you are a lacking. At all,” she reminded Daryl who simply tipped his head from side to side. “And it’s not about dick size with Negan. I wouldn’t have cared what size it was.”

“You’d be disappointed if he had a baby penis,” Daryl insisted, leaning forward eliciting another laugh from her again. “I’m right. You know that.”

“Can we talk about something other than Negan and his penis?” she asked of Daryl having him shrug dramatically and then reach for the bag of food that he brought for them to start opening it up. “Thank you for coming over with food.”

“Well, someone has to feed you,” Daryl pointed out, dropping what looked to be noodles into his mouth and chewing loudly. Gazing around her apartment, Daryl grunted noticing that she had gone a bit overboard with the decorations. “You’re barely home. Why do you have so many lights?”

“It helps relax me,” she suggested, liking the setting that it gave her apartment. It felt more magical than just being the bare, plain apartment that she was used to.

“Being here reminds me we don’t spend a lotta time at your apartment,” Daryl swallowed down what he had in his mouth and turned to face her again. Through the years they knew each other, it was mostly his place that they were always at. Unless she had Jordyn, then it would be occasionally spent at her place. “Why is that?”

“Because I want to escape my life most of the time,” she noted, setting her water bottle down and moving across the room to the side of the counter opposite of him. “Being at your apartment gives me a different environment.”

“So…” Daryl went to reach for more of the noodles and she swatted at his hand. Grabbing a fork, she handed it over to him making him roll his eyes. Using the fork like she wanted of him, he tipped his head back and dramatically ate the mouthful of food that he grabbed. “Do you wanna go back to my apartment and have sex?”

“Daryl!” she raised her voice with his blue eyes getting big like he didn’t understand where all the excitement was coming from. “I don’t think I should be having sex right now. My body needs to chill out. And I would love to relax instead with you. We can eat, sit down and watch some movies.”

“Boring,” Daryl frowned with her reaching out to shove into his shoulder. A muted laugh escaped him as he moved around the counter to get himself a plate from her cabinets and one for her as well. “I can do that. As long as I get to pick the movie. I ain’t watching no romance films. Or any of those cheesy Christmas movies.”

“Deal,” she agreed, thankful that Daryl was there, but was still ill at ease.

Part of her wondered if Daryl was more upset with her than he was allowing her to see. Truthfully? She told him about what happened at work and how she was tired, but she left out the Negan parts. And she felt like there was a reason for that. Now he knew something was going on between her and Negan.  Yet he was more so joking about it. Daryl and her had always been friends. Well, a little bit more than friends, but nothing beyond that.

Right now she didn’t want to overthink things though. Daryl seemed fine and after all the stress she had been dealing with over the last few days, she just wanted to relax. Spending the rest of her night hanging out with Daryl watching movies sounded better than anything else she could have considered. And that was the honest truth. Really she just needed time to let her emotions die down so she could think clearly. Before she fucked her life up completely and became someone she hardly even knew.

----

Tags: @slutlanna976​ @fuckthis-and-fuckthat @jennydehavilland @pixelb4rbie @ibelongtonegan

@smallsadjellyfish @labyrinthofheartagrams @msjamesmarch @thebeautysurrounds @hotfornegan

@redmercysugar @caprithebunny @tuttifuckinfruitty @emoryhemsworth @a-girl-interupted

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@sanctuaryforthelost @burningredaffair @killaweiser @dead-of-niight @ayumi-wolf

@promiscuousbarnes @lanadelnegan @peachihellcat @dilfsandmartinis

[erisenyo]

Anon do I ever remember. A follow up to Part 1, here. I recommend viewing the St. Sebastian Sculpture here for the full Vibe lol

NSFW ahead - Zutara, bloodbending, D/s vibes, consensual but not sane or safe, I think we can see where this is going, handwaving anatomy and why Katara would know the latin names for things

The next time it happens, it’s not Katara who puts him on his knees.

She’s already hot with annoyance as she tromps through the forest, irritated to even be chasing after Zuko in the first place when he was just supposed to be foraging, irritated that no one else seems particularly concerned with his whereabouts, irritated that she couldn’t even lose herself in the familiar motions of laundry, the rhythms of pressure and rushing water and pulsing agitation abruptly no longer soothing to sink herself into when all she can seem to think about is—

“Fuck!” A man—broad but lean, clothes rough except for a very fine vest, mismatched swords at his waist, definitely a bandit then—shouts as he and Katara burst into a clearing at the same time.

“Another one?” another man grunts as he steps out of the tree line, eyes assessing as he unloops a coil of rope from his shoulder.

“We don’t have time for this,” a third bandit scowls, a familiar sack in her hand. “Let’s make quick work of this one, too.”

“I’ll show you quick,” Katara growls, staring at the bag she would know backward and forward with how many times she’s mended it, her waterbending surging out as her anger suddenly finds a target.

She rips water from the nearby stream, from the inexplicably soaked clothing all bandits are wearing. She barely touches what’s contained in her waterskin, and it’s only after all three of them are unconscious, her bag back in hand, that Katara considers that ‘another one’ means she wasn’t the first.

Katara hesitates, eyeing the rope still tangled in a lasso in the second bandit’s grip. Her adrenaline is still roiling through her, her bending pulsing water-ice-water-ice as she tries to regain her composure. This bag unquestionably went out with Zuko. She could go back to get the others, Toph’s seismic sense would be helpful.

But she’s been watching Sokka narrate his tracking for years. And Zuko probably just followed the shoreline. She doesn’t need Toph. Besides, what if the bandits wake up and go back for Zuko? What if he’s unconscious, or hurt? Or tied up somewhere, awake and waiting and—

When Katara finds him, he isn’t unconscious. She hears his tight, harsh grunt before she sees him. 

But he is undeniably roughed up, already-worn clothing ripped and even more wet than the bandits were, like maybe he got jumped in the stream, which maybe he did if he couldn’t bend his way out of the fight. Maybe he even was unconscious at some point, to end up tied up like that. She doesn’t know how else they would have gotten him on his knees with the broad tree flush against his back like that, the trunk between his shins and rope looped around his waist and the strain of his shoulders and arch of his back saying his hands are tied behind the tree, too.

He probably can’t bend without burning himself, she contemplates as she watches, feeling oddly, clinically abstracted. But he’s clearly trying to change that fact with the way he’s squirming, coming up off his knees as he strains forward, cords of muscle and tendon stark—triceps brachii, her mind helpfully supplies, brachioradialis, extensor carpi radialis longus, and the rotator cuff must be screaming—his body suspended against the rope with effort and face twisted into a furious scowl that spasms as he collapses heavily to his knees again.

“You’re hurt?” Katara doesn’t think as she steps out of the tree line, Zuko’s head jerking up in alarm.

“Katara! There are bandi—”

“I took care of them,” she interrupts, her chi feeling oddly shivery with readiness as she reaches for the flow of the stream, just in case.

Zuko stares, chest heaving. “All of them?” he finally asks, the words hoarser than usual as his gaze hunts between her and the trees.

She dangles the bag in demonstration, like it was easy. “Three? I took care of it.”

Another beat of staring. Then Zuko exhales, sharp and unsteady, and slowly leans back again. Not settling, though, she notes in that distant way. Not with the way his body stays tight and coiled, his chest still fast as if with urgency.

Katara can hear her heartbeat in her ears, pounding with adrenaline, the tugging awareness of her own blood.

“You’re hurt?” she asks again, glancing over him for injury. It’s easy enough to look for. His tunic has been ripped through to the collar on one side, falling half off his chest and barely hanging on the other. His pants are in equally rough shape, like someone grabbed fistfuls of them to try to contain him, or maybe to drag him to this tree.

That would have been humiliating for someone to put him on his knees that way, she considers as something not-at-all-abstractly lurches inside her, in her bending.

“Katar—”

“What happened,” she interrupts, coming to a stop standing over him. He likes to be there, she remembers like it’s something she needs to recall. He likes to be put there.

“It’s not—”

“Tell me.”

Zuko cuts his eyes away, panting harshly, swallowing hard. Then he licks his lips—stress response, that voice like Yugoda’s whispers, which can presage fear, fight, or arou—and glances up at her from beneath his lashes, lips pressed together and the air suddenly thick with awareness, thick enough that she can barely breathe it, that she almost feels like she could bend it as a single shiver runs through him before he tightly controls it.

“You’re covered in water, Zuko,” she says low, like it’s an observation, and Zuko makes a tight, thin noise in the back of his throat and tells her.

She imagines it, how it must have unfolded. The three bandits seeing Zuko vulnerable and exposed that way, knee-deep in the river and poking at the reeds. The coordinated rush to take him down. The struggle and strain for mastery, the water suffocating and impeding them all so that it took three of them to pin him down and contain him, apparently.

Her bending slides syrupy and thick through her veins, her chi, with the memory of having done that to him, too. He’d folded at the first press. Gone limp. Gave in to whatever she wanted to do to him. “You fought it.”

Zuko swallows hard and tilts his chin. Defiance, or brazening through the obvious blush of embarrassment. “Yeah.” He likes that, too, and Katara can’t even pretend at having to remember that. Not when the knowledge has had her off-kilter and sharp-tongued with him ever since she realized.

She can see the pulse in the hollow of his neck, like this. And the way his lips part, his eyes dark. He knows that she knows, and neither of them can pretend otherwise, even if she hasn’t wanted to admit it, acknowledge it, look at it in anything other than the thick, sticky dark of night.

Katara wants to wrap her bending into the stream, wants to make it a raging rush to match the feeling inside her, wants to feel the pressure of it rising to match— “You’re injured?” she asks thickly.

Zuko’s eyes immediately cut away. “It’s fine.”

“Where.” He can’t hunch forward over himself or pull his knees up, this time, even if she let him.

“It’s nothing.”

“Where.” Not with the rope around him.

“It doesn’t matt—”

“You think I can’t find out myself?” she snaps, her bending rolling out to cling to the water still in his clothes, pressing, making him feel the pressure of the water on him, all around him.

She breathes hard as he gasps and sags, squeezing until the droplets are on the verge of snapping to ice and her waterbending to something sharp and jagged and tight, squeezing until a familiar whine chokes out of him. Then sucks in air and forces her chi to ebb, waiting with a throbbing kind of adrenaline-anticipation—the adrenaline of the stress response, which can presage—for Zuko to pry his eyes back open.

“Do you think you can?” he rasps, body tight again, and Katara doesn’t need the memory of his tone from to hear the invitation in it now.

She curls her hands into fists, looking at the way his tunic is barely clinging to his shoulder. And looking at the taut way he’s holding himself, watching her sidelong, the shiver of his stomach entirely visible.

Then she grips the water in his tunic again and jerks it to her, sharp. Zuko lets out a ragged noise as the last seams rip from the force, Katara watching the now-dry fabric slithering down to catch on the rope. She reflexively forms the water into a small ball, slowly pressing her bending into that instead, distantly aware as her chi flexes and throbs that she can only build the pressure for so long before it needs release.

“Your back?” she asks, trying to focus on the rhythm of her waterbending and not the sharp-edged pulse calling to her.

Zuko’s shoulders flex like he’s twisting his hands against their bindings, his bare stomach pressing against the rope with the force of his breaths, over and over. “You can’t find out yourself?”

Katara feels heady from the beat of her own pulse. Then she exhales hard and swirls the globe of water into a ribbon over his arms, feeling the smooth slide of water over skin skin skin rope there and slicing it up frozen and serrated through the ropes binding his wrists.

She throws the still pressure-tight water aside as Zuko falls forward with a surprised cry, his weight catching on the rope still around his waist—and the bare line of his back exposed to show bark-scuffed skin and a few bruises, but nothing more than what they’ve all had from training.

Katara flexes thighs, her stomach, feels how strongly she’s braced as she looks down at him half-bent over before her. “I can find out whatever I want.”

Zuko breathes heavily a moment, sagged forward, his scapula shifting as he tests the movement of his shoulders. “Yeah?” he finally says, leaning back against the tree again, still kneeling up as if he has to. It’s not much of a response. But he’s bared to the waist now, no real injuries to be seen, and Katara feels like she’s looking down over the edge of a cliff as he licks his lips again, watching her back, feels like she’s jumping and momentarily weightless above the water as she lets her bending surge out for those droplets of water again and yanks.

The sound of cloth and seams tearing is loud, but not as loud as Zuko. A raw noise chokes in his throat ass his pants flutter down to leave him in just the rope around his waist and a wet, transparent fundoshi that does nothing to hide the shape of him—ateriolar dilation and increased blood flow to the erectile tissue—or the puncture wounds sluggishly bleeding down his thigh.

“Rocks?” Katara says unevenly as the sharp claws of her bloodbending twist through her chi. There was an earthbender in that bunch, nothing compared to sparring with Toph. The punctures are on the front of his thigh like he got hit with projectiles, a few inches below where his—his penis is tangled in the wet fabric, halfway erect and twisted to the side.

It looks uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” Zuko says thickly.

She doesn’t think he cares.

“I’m going to need to flush out any debris, before healing.” She barely recognizes her own voice, or the heavy throb of her bending as she forcefully pushes back the hungry tug of bloodbending.

“Yeah,” Zuko says unsteadily, swallowing hard, his bare body betraying the flush working down his chest, the flex of his hips—abductor muscles contracting, she forces herself to note, and—and—and the twitch of his penis. “For healing.”

Katara doesn’t say it back again, isn’t sure she could. She just takes a moment to try to control her own wild pulse, crouching down and separating the strands of water and healing and blood that have never been so tangled before. 

Then she flushes the first wound with water.  A careful, controlled stream rather than a fast, hard rush. Feeling the pressure as the water slips into him, just a bit, the wounds aren’t that deep really.

Seeing his reflexive jerk against the intrusion and pain, and she can fix her gaze on the first puncture, can assess it and let her bending stream out again, just to be thorough. But it’s impossible not to also see the shove of his hips into it, with the wounds so close to his groin. Impossible not to also note the pull of wet fabric, the further displacement, the cloth tugged even more off-center. Sliding half-off the scrotum, the twisted fabric still pressing the hardening shaft downward but if he squirms enough then maybe it will drag entirely—

“Be still,” Katara warns as she pulls her water abruptly back, breathing far harder than the bending warrants.

Zuko makes a high, tight noise and slumps back, eyes closed, gasping and nodding even as his hips continue to work against the air.

Spinal reflex in response to stimuli, she thinks even as she orders, “Still.”

She doesn’t wait for an invitation this time, knows she already has one as she lashes out with bloodbending this time, seizing veins and arteries and pressing him motionless. Zuko moans, head kicking back, and she can feel the way his hips try to buck and then again when he realizes he can’t. Another of those moans slips out, loud like he’s taking advantage of having his mouth free, or maybe is trying to goad her, but she’s too focused on following the rush of his blood, celiac trunk to internal and external iliac, tibial to femoral, feeling where the blood is slipping out of him but also where it’s flushing the surface of his skin, filling his penis, pathways dilating and pulse throbbing and she can feel the beat in her own veins, too.

Katara jerks her bloodbending back into her own skin and calls up the torrent of her waterbending. She breathes hard from the effort of fighting the hungry tug, gasping at the dizzying feel of that clawing edge along her water, like its trying to sink into that, too. Tui and La, to use both at the same time—to feel him from the inside out as his body does that—her chi throbs, fingertips tingling like maybe if she just tried…

Katara shoves that away. “Like that,” she snaps, apprehension shivering through her. Would she ever be able to get the bloodbending out, if it breached into her water that way? She scowls when Zuko just gasps at her, eyes hazy and mouth slack like he has no idea what she’s saying. “Still.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Zuko rasps after a moment, sucking in air and then bracing himself, basically naked so see the tightening of chest—of pectoralis major and rectus abdominus and—the inguinal ligament taut and flexed--

She flushes the second wound hard and fast and Zuko barely lasts a second before a high noise chokes out of him, his teeth sinking into his lips and his hips rising up and it’s not from the pain, not at all.

Katra pulls the water back. “I can hold you still, or I can clean out the last one.” Her chi lurches with the temptation to try both even though she’s never—even though she can’t, the pathways of chi are so—and if they go tangled, if she couldn’t separate them—

Zuko looks back at her flushed and embarrassed and so openly aroused that it doesn’t feel real. She’s never felt more aware of her own skin and blood than the moment when he nods unsteadily and reaches up above himself to grab onto the tree. To anchor himself, obviously, the motion canting his hips forward as if offering his injured thigh, his dark-flushed glans, the fundoshi fabric slid down to the place where his engorged shaft meets—

“Is that it?” Katara asks when she’s done. Zuko just pants up at her, ragged, flushed. Erection is a reflex response to visual, olfactory, physical, or imaginative stimuli, she wildly remembers Yugoda lecturing. She wonders which this qualifies as, her bloodbending throbbing in answer. “Should I check for more?”

“If you want to be sure,” Zuko says raggedly, re-gripping to the tree, and Katara presses her tongue to the dry roof of her mouth and fills him with her bending.

Bloodbending bursts through her chi, bursts through him, and she clenches her own body against it as Zuko moans and arches like he never even dreamed of fighting it. She sets a hand against the ground to steady herself, staring hypnotized at the way he moves between the restraints and the tree, the way he bucks, the way he shudders even as she freezes parts of him with her bending one by one.

Lips, which she knows he likes, can feel in the leap of his blood. Shoulders back to the tree, so he can’t cover himself, a whimper choking past his frozen tongue. Arching his back until it’s the rope fighting her. Pressing his arms into place, so the rest of him can squirm and betray every bit of his reaction, the tiny jerks of his muscles like he can’t stop himself from trying to feel her grip in his veins.

She leaves his hips for last so that he can feel it, really feel it, when she forces them to freeze just as the reflexive to buck rolls them him. And she can feel that ripple through him, testing muscle and rushing blood and surging pulse, the fruitless strain against her hold that matches the gasping, moaning sounds he makes.

She same wild pulse is in her bending, too, a throbbing rhythm that lurches through her chi, tugs her forward until she’s feeling it in every part of him trying to find more, pushing into every capillary and venule until he’s crying out, muffled, from the sensitivity, and the way he’s looking at her down the spread-out expanse of his body—

Katara shoves to her feet, forces Zuko’s head to tilt to follow her, forces his eyes to stay open, and locks every muscle except the ones he needs to thrust his hips. She releases him when she needs to gasp in her own air, watches him sag between his outstretched arms, locks him again, again, rhythmic, Zuko groaning as he realizes. There’s no way for him to hide like this, knees wide, gripping the tree and still tied so that even if she did release him, he’d be exposed, that scrap of barely-there cloth doing nothing. It barely coverst he curve of his testicle—he cries out as her bloodbending rushes down to feel it drawn up tight—the line of his erection fully free as he rocks against the air, desperate, and the fact that she can do that just by standing, just by making him look up at her—

She steps forward until her boots are just inches from his knees, feeling heady with the way he cranes even more up at her without even needing to be forces, his eyes blown wide. And then the rush as his gaze skips down over her breasts, her stomach, her hands, lower, his mouth parting and his tongue sliding out to lick his lips, and if she leaned him forward like she can feel him straining to do then he’d be pressing his face to—

Katara shoves her healing into him with a gasp. She slices through the last rope with a blade of ice, gouging wood and whirling around ass Zuko cries, suddenly unbalanced without the restraining tension. The suddenly-free trust of his hips is burning into her mind’s eye, blazing over the back of her eyelids as she squeezes them shut and forces the flood of her bending into the clean flow of the stream, letting the current pull it away and trying not to hear the thump of his fists hitting the earth, or the strained grunt he lets out, then another.

“We should head back,” Katara finally says, chest aching with the force of keep her breathing even. “Warn the others. About the bandits.”

A heavy, panting silence, then, “Yeah. Yeah,” he says, ragged and breathless and wanting in a way that she doesn’t want to feel in her blood. She knows without needing to check that he’s still on his knees behind her.

“There’s needle and thread in the bag.” She can’t make herself say why he’d need them. “Don’t take too long.” She strides away before she can let herself think too much about it, or wonder if firebenders can feel the heat in someone’s veins, before notice that she didn’t hear him rise to his feet until she told him too. 

[beloveds-embrace]

Price hadn’t been looking for anything special when he’d visited the blood bank- just enough to take the edge off after a particularly grueling mission. Preservation methods had improved over the years, and while bottled blood was no substitute for the warmth of a fresh vein, it did the job.

Usually.

But then he tasted yours.

The moment the first drop hit his tongue, he froze. He wasn’t sure if it was the way it seemed to burned through him like wildfire, but his vision blurred at the edges, and his fangs ached as if he hadn’t fed in weeks. It was intoxicating- dangerously so- and he drained the bag before he even realized what he was doing.

It should have ended there. But it didn’t.

Ghost noticed first, of course. “You’ve been different,” he said, voice low as Price finished another ration. “Restless.”

Price didn’t answer, not until Ghost sampled the next shipment and he, too, understood.

The air shifted the second he tasted it. His shoulders went rigid, and his stoic face, under his mask, melted into something darker, something needy.

“Fuck.” His voice came out rough, guttural. “Who the hell is this?” But the bags hold no names, no nothing, except for the blood type and age.

Neither of them could stop after that.

Soap and Gaz were quick to catch on, though they never said it outright- not when they started requesting the same lot number from the blood bank, not when they began hoarding the bags like addicts hiding a stash.

They didn’t even know your name, but it didn’t matter. It was your blood, and it was ruining them.

The hunger was worse now- constant, gnawing- and no matter how much they drank, they couldn’t chase the ghost of your taste from their veins.

They started talking about you, then. Obsessing. Late at nights and early into the mornings, both when missions dragged too long or there was nothing to do at the base.

Were you stationed nearby? Were you even military? Did you know what you’d done to them?

Price found himself combing through donor logs late at night, tracing shipment routes like he was planning a mission. Ghost stared at the empty bags long after they’d been drained, jaw clenched tight as if the craving might eat him alive.

And when Soap suggested tracking you down- just to see- no one told him no.

Per @nightunite’s suggestion because yes:

Soap found you by scent first, to no one’s surprise.

It clung to the edges of the city- faint but unmistakable, carried on the night breeze like a siren’s call. He followed it in his other form, leathery wings slicing through the dark, silent and unseen as he traced the invisible thread that led him closer.

Perched high on a lamppost, his beady eyes locked onto your apartment window.

You were there.

Warm. Alive. Unaware of the predator watching from the shadows.

Soap’s claws flexed against the metal as hunger thrummed through him, sharper than it had ever been before. He shouldn’t be here- he knew that- but the scent of your blood lingered in the air, sweet and maddening and beckoning, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

Not yet.

I alr have another vampire au in my drafts but also. We should consider vampire 141 growing obsessed with the taste of your blood- donated to one of the many vampire blood banks reserved for the military

[passionwillow]

Reader secretly takes up their SOs hobby and SO finds them (making a gift possibly?) and absolutely loves it wanting to show appreciation 😉 (had Gibbs in mind but can be anyone you find fit)

THIS IS ADORABLE UGH ♥️

Warnings: fluff and smut, age gap!

You’d always been fascinated by Gibbs boat. The way he did everything by hand, the skill it took as he was carving and molding the pieces. You couldn’t count how many hours you’d sat there with him, watching him work and chatting about cases he was working on.

It wasn’t until a few years into your relationship with him you considered trying it out yourself. His birthday was coming up, and you couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect it would be to make a little model of a boat.

Only problem was, you had no clue where to start.

That’s when you went to DiNozzo. You’d visited enough over the years that they practically considered you part of the team. And any who kept Gibbs in a good mood was a friend to them.

Tony helped you find books, tools, anything you needed for your little surprise. He even offered up his apartment to make it, but with the hours Gibbs worked compared to your job, you’d have time.

So you went to town on it. While Gibbs was still at work and you had a few hours at home alone, you whittled away at the piece of wood. Your hands were quickly becoming sore, little splinters embedded in your fingers, and you smelled just like Gibbs now, like wood shavings.

So far, he hasn’t suspected anything. You hid your tools and the slowly developing hunk of wood, fleshing out the image of it day by day. It helped that you wore his hoodies so much, so he wouldn’t be surprised if you smelled of shavings.

The day before his birthday, you were adding the finishing touches. You figured you had plenty of time, Gibbs shouldn’t be home for another hour and it was just some fine detailing you wanted to add.

Except Gibbs had gotten off early, and wanted to surprise you with take out. Tony had tried texting you, calling you, but your phone was on silent somewhere upstairs. You didn’t hear Gibbs calling out for you, didn’t hear him enter the basement, didn’t notice him come up behind you and watch in surprise as you worked on this little boat.

You were wearing his USMC hoodie and gray sweats, your hair piled into a bun on your head, and you were totally caught up in your project. It wasn’t until Gibbs laid a hand on your back you jumped, turning in the chair and freezing when you saw your boyfriend.

“What are you doing?” he asked softly. He was surprised and amused, his lips slowly moving into a smile as he took in your shocked expression.

“I uhm.. I didn’t- think you’d be home.”

He hummed and stepped closer, a hand on the back of your chair and the other on his workbench, studying the little figure. “That didn’t answer the question,” he teased. You blushed and looked down at the table, biting your lip.

“Tony helped me learn how to-.. Y’know. Wood carving. I wanted to make it for you for your birthday. Surprise you.”

“You learned how to do all this for me? For my birthday?” his voice was soft and amused, his eyes taking in your reaction as you slowly nodded, cheeks hot and lip caught between your teeth.

He broke into a grin and cupped your cheek, thumb stroking your soft skin briefly before he took the boat, his large hands dwarfing it as he slowly turned it around, admiring the detail you’d spent hours carving out.

“Sweetheart, this.. it’s beautiful. You really did this for me?” he asked. He sounded almost surprised. Your eager nod and growing smile had him chuckling, but he was so caught up in that little figure. You’d done this for him. Picked up his hobby, his interest, learned it for him. It was the kindest thing.

He gently set it down and took your hand, guiding you to stand and wrapping his arms around your middle. You happily hugged around his neck, body pressed to his as he gently kissed your forehead.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, voice almost inaudible. “I love it.”

“I’m glad,” you said with a soft laugh, playing with the strands of his silver hair. “It took me awhile.”

He grinned and leaned down, his lips capturing yours in a soft kiss. He always tasted of coffee, it was one of your favorite things about. His hands slid up over your back, drawing you in closer as your mouth opened up to his, happy to let his tongue explore your mouth.

The kiss turned heated within minutes, his hands moving to your hips and easily lifting you, setting you on the bench and taking his place between your legs. Your knees locked on to his hips as you broke the kiss, lifting your arms for him as he removed his hoodie, a giant growl rumbling in his throat as he saw you were completely bare underneath.

“You’re a tease,” he mumbled. You simply grinned and grabbed him by his coat, tugging him back in and pressing your lips back to his. You could feel his smile as he kissed back, the rustling of fabric hinting that he was undressing as well.

He took you right there on the workbench, the smell of sawdust filling your nose as clothing tumbled to the floor, your moans and grunts mixing with Gibbs as he thrust hard and slow. His mouth attached to your neck and marked you religiously, fingers sure to leave bruises on your hips.

[ginger-commander-is-tired]

Here goes Alex timeline! He's a fractal clone of Michael, who became "real" just like the other people from Skywatch Archipelago. He was a part of a fractal simulating Commander's permanent death against Balthazar and its results for the world.

Below I elaborate on each stage/period if you're curious!

1. A little before SotO - this is when Alex "awoke". When he looked around he saw his siblings - dead. Since he still thought of himself as Michael and had all his memories until that point, this view broke him. Then he heard some people from Astral Ward, approaching him. They intended to simply rescue him like any other people in Skywatch fractals but Alex saw them as a threat. Deeply heartbroken but also scared for his life, the strong emotions caused a rift to open. Without thinking he ran into it, hoping to find safety and plan his actions. He thought the world was still in danger from Balthazar and Elder Dragons.

2. SotO's Nayos arc - a result of several months spent in the Mists. That's where the rift took him. His presence attracted a lot of demons, who were drawn by his strong negative emotions. Demons wanted to possess him but instead he began absorbing them. That quickly scared them away. Alex also started to undergo visual changes and obviously growing more powerful. Eventually another rift made him end up in Nayos. When stationing Astral Ward spotted him, at first they thought he was one of the unfriendly demons but then realized he was the fractal survivor, who went missing. They wanted to capture him and take him to the Wizard's Tower - just like the first time - but this time Alex was outright killing anyone approaching him. The demonic power gave him the ability to telepathically speak to anyone just like Kryptis demons do. Alex was "nicely" warning Astral Ward to leave him alone.

He was aware of real Michael's presence and grew bitter over him, as Alex believed he ended up in alternative universe of the future in which he was successful. Alex was avoiding Michael and also disguising himself to avoid being recognized by anyone. He decided to secretly join forces against Eparch.

After that he infiltrated Wizard's Tower but soon after his presence was discovered by Isgarren. The Wizard was tired of Alex killing Astral Ward people and making things difficult for them, so his delivery of the truth on Alex true identity wasn't the best. At first Alex thought it had to be a lie but then his rage truly ignited. He was capable of impressive damage to Wizard's Tower and could be stopped by all Wizards.

Then he was put to jail. Isgarren wanted him to be killed but other Wizards - Dagda and Lyhr specifically - argued that what happened was entirely their fault and Alex, just like other fractal survivors, was in huge distress and scared. But the Mists? The demonic magic? What if Alex was irreversibly changed and acted from malice and need for destruction? That's what old man Isgarren would say. So there was a plan - to observe Alex - but the past memories had to be suppressed, so he wouldn't be distressed by them. But Isgarren felt uncertain still and additionally wanted Alex memories to reset everyday - in case he was capable of relearning abilities or skills which could cause harm.

Right before being released, that's when Alex decided to call himself "Alex" and was angry to hear himself refered to as "Michael" ever since.

3. After SotO - Alex after being released from prison. His magic toned down to minimum to function. No memories of the past but also forced to live in the present as he forgot what had happened yesterday. He only remembered Wizards and what they tell him. He also deeply remembered his new name as well. Aside from these exceptions, Alex couldn’t read nor write. Comparably to what he was before, Alex was quite docile and calm... but also sad. He was seen gardening on his own, mesmerized by the flowers as if he saw them for the first time (technically... yes), he tried painting or crafting some simple toys. But he always forgot his projects. Sometimes he saw his unfinished paintings and despite not remembering anything he either bursted into rage or began to cry - not really knowing why.

Alex was frustrated to see other people recognize him but he was not recognizing them. He was angry he couldn’t really make friends. Eventually he started to be rather aloof, rude and cutting off any friendly contacts.

At some point Michael spotted him, seeing that this man looks quite similar to him. But he was quickly concerned for Alex condition - no memories, almost no basic knowledge. Initially Alex seemed excited to meet someone looking just like him but quickly began distancing himself and telling Michael to leave him - knowing he would forget him too.

Michael wasn’t too quick to give up and convinced Alex to go with him by promising to help him fix his mind. Although despite saying Michael is a mesmer... Alex didn't know what mesmer is.

4. During JW - Alex, whose mind got repaired enough to not reset everyday. That way Alex has memories since the moment he started living in Homestead with Michael but also Zeegix and Viex - Astral Ward members. Twin asuras didn't really agree with Isgarren on such a harsh approach to Alex - that was why they were eager to lie to Isgarren and the rest of Wizards about Alex. But it didn't change the fact they were still cautious about him and watching him carefully.

During that time he also gets to be "fed" magic as Michael learns that Alex doesn't need food to live but needs magic instead. Just like Skyscales... so that's why he eats Skyscale food funny enough. A bit more magic in his body is noticeable as his ears got a little longer and Alex also feels physically stronger as well compared to how he was under strict watch in Wizard's Tower.