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wannabe-fic-writer · 3 years ago

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Moment In Time

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: Just when you've gotten out, you’re given a reason to come back.

Warnings: Might be some mild language.

Chapter 2

* * * * * * *

“Oh no one is judging you ya big doofus.” You trail a finger along the shiny metal surface, looking at your tinted and distorted reflection.“ Just think it’s a little unnecessary.” Looking up at Tony, you smile.

His brown eyes roll, a hand grabbing onto the roof of the sports car to assist in pulling himself out.“ There’s nothing unnecessary about having options.”

A snort of a laugh falls from your lips as you walk to the next car.“ Yeah sure. If that’s what you want to call this.”

“Half of these aren’t even mine.” He defends himself, hanging the keys up along with the other sets.

Pursing your lips you point to the car you’re in front of,“ who does this belong to then?”

“Natasha.” He answers, taking far too much delight in the way your challengingly cocky attitude drops.

So you decided to hang out for a while, see a couple floors and let Tony explain some things to you as he liked to do, then head home. But you’d found a reason to stick around. Or, better put, Tony found reasons for you to stick around.

You’d go to a floor, take in the sights, the tech, and listen to the man ramble on about the functionality of the floor. Around floor five you were ready to head out but Tony claimed you couldn’t see the medical floor and not go to the labs. And you couldn’t see the labs without seeing his workshop.

This reasoning went on and on until you found yourself in the garage. The sun had set a few hours ago, lights automatically flicked on inside the tower and the seemingly day to day sounds of the tower went away.

It’s quiet now, save for you and Tony talking and him occasionally starting up the cars.

You can’t lie and say you don’t enjoy hanging out with Tony. You’d always enjoyed your time with him, his actions and ideas unpredictable and so genius from the moment he learned to talk. But you also can’t lie and say you weren’t getting tired. A low, dull, rumbling started in your stomach not too long ago from the lack of food since this morning.

Making a bit of a show of looking at the last car, a sleep silver Audi that you know belongs to Tony, you check out the interior and make comments on the exterior. Then over exaggeratedly, you yawn and stretch your arms out.

“Alright T. It’s gettin late. Think it’s about time I head home.” You tell him, walking over and gently dropping your hand onto his shoulder.

He chuckles softly,“ Y/n, what kind of friend would I be if I let you go all the way back to Brooklyn while you’re tired and clearly hungry?” He pats your hand on his shoulder,“ you know Maria didn’t raise me that way.”

It takes every ounce of willpower to not toss him somewhere so you could leave. But you know it’s been some time since you and Tony actually hung out and while he definitely has some ulterior motive to this, his persistence gave it away, you oblige him. Your reasoning is that you know the food will be good.

What you aren’t expecting, however, is to find the entirety of the Avengers sitting around the living room on the main floor. Unlike the other floors that were quiet, a low chatter fills the space and a clanking of cutlery to ceramic plates.

With Tony’s arm around your shoulders, you’re guided to the tables lined with food that looks delicious. Tony obviously has some private chefs around here.

“Um, am I crashing some type of party or bonding time?” You ask him as he starts to pile food onto his plate.

“No,” he smacks his lips and waves you off,“ not really. We just eat together. Cap says it strengthens the team and all and I pay for the food so everyone comes. I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you.” With an almost devilish smile, he puts a bread roll on his plate and turns away.

Your narrowed eyes follow his retreating form. Sighing and shaking your head, you grab a plate, put a little of everything on it, then head over to the unoccupied bar.

Before you sit down to eat, you grab one of Tony’s expensive bottles of liquor off the top shelf. Pouring yourself a glass, you walk around the bar, catching the eyes of a couple members of the team before you sit down.

As you eat and drink, the laughter and banter of the team behind you erasing the silence of the room, you can’t help but remember the numerous times you’d had the privilege of being around your friends like that.

* * * * Flashback * * * *

With a friendly smile you push your chair out and stand up, walking over to the kitchen doorway. Reaching forward you grab the glass dish from the woman’s hands.

“Careful it’s-”

You nod and smile,“ I know. I’m fine.”

Marie’s eyes squint at you and she nods in understanding as she remembers. Patting your arm she turns back to the kitchen right before Jarvis comes out and follows you to the table.

Whispering a quiet ‘excuse me’ to Ana, you reach around her to place the dish on the table, then refind your seat across from her. The second your butt touches the seat two sets of eyes are on you.

“Y/n please tell this buffoon how ludicrous his invention sounds.” The angelically accented voice of your close friends says. You swear you can feel her gaze burning into your temple.

You look over at her, opening your mouth to speak when Howard cuts in.

“No Y/nn, tell Margaret that this is genius. It’s revolutionary!” He exclaims and your eyes widen a little.

Face morphing into an expression of offense, Peggy turns to look at Howard and they start bickering again.

Smiling amusedly, you lean back into the chair, making eye contact with Jarvis’ wife An from across the table.

Both of you shake your heads, An chuckling softly just before Jarvis comes to sit beside her.

“Howard,” the man looks up at the stern but sweet tone of his wife.“ That’s enough honey.” She gives a smile that matches the sweetness of her tone.

The Brit beside you snickers and you lightly smack the side of her leg with the bag of your hand, muttering a quiet,“ relax.” Which results in her huffing and crossing her arms, sending a glare at Howard that she fixes just as Marie sits down across from her.

Despite having been bickering since long before now, the Agent and Philanthropist waste no time in playing nice over dinner. Alongside them, Marie, An, Jarvis, and yourself have one of many very entertaining dinners. Laughs exchanged between all of you.

* * * * Flashback End * * * *

You’re yanked from the memory when a heavy weight lands on your shoulder.

Tensing up, you prepare yourself to fight whoever it is but you quickly remember that you’re in the Avengers tower with earth’s mightiest heroes. The chances of this being an attack are slim.

Still slightly tense, you look over your shoulder at the owner of the hand on your body. To find America’s golden boy looking down at you.

“Everything alright?” He asks, seemingly concerned. .

You give him a small smile and chuckle softly,“ all good Captain.” You give a playfully mocking salute and he sighs instantly afterwards.

Walking around the bar, he leans on top of it with his fingers laced in front of him.“ Listen I- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did on the jet earlier.”

“That’s one way to put it.” You take a bite of your food, staying silent until you swallow, then sipping your drink.“ We’re good. I know my unexpected bombing was, well, unexpected.” He chuckles lightly at your words and shakes his head.

When he reaches up to almost nervously rub the back of his neck, you know he isn’t completely sure that everything is good.

“Have a drink with me Cap.” You tell him, nodding to the shelf of alcohol behind him.

Looking from you to the drinks, he nods.“ You can call me Steve.” He tells you, putting some ice in his glass then pouring his drink.

“Well Steve,” you raise your glass to him and he gently taps his against yours.“ Feel free to call me Y/n.” You tell him, sipping your drink.

He smiles softly at you, your invitation seemingly having done the job of calming his nerves slightly. Light conversation flows between the two of you, a back and forth of questions that answers don’t hold much consequence but still shed some light on the types of people yourself and Steve are.

By the time the sun has disappeared beyond the horizon and the sky is littered with stars and the lights of every skyscraper you and Steve are well through one of Tony’s more expensive bottles of liquor. Loud laughs sound from the two of you as you joke with one another.

While the alcohol doesn’t affect either of your systems as it would someone else, the other occupants of the living space would assume you were drunk.

It intrigued more than a few of them how loose and easy going Steve is. It wasn’t as if he never had fun with them or drank, but there seemed to be something about you that brought an even lighter aura to the older man.

“It was incredible. I’m telling you,” you shake your head with a small smile of excitement.“ I wasn’t inclined to be excited about it since I was there to see the Yankees kick ass, but the Dodgers played exceptionally well.”

Steve has a small smirk on his face, nodding approvingly as he sips his drink.“ Well I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Once again you laugh, finishing your drink and leaning off of the bar top.“ Ever proud, Mister America.” You say teasingly, bringing yet another laugh from the tall blonde.

He finishes off his drink and you take a deep breath and release it.“ Welp Cap,” pushing up out of your chair, you smile at him,“ it was a pleasure chatting with you. Ever want to talk about the good ole days-”

“I’ll give you a ring.” He holds his hand out to you and you shake it firmly.

As you take up the glasses and your plate you nod a goodbye to Steve and go your separate ways, you to the kitchen and Steve to the elevators.

Setting the dishes in the sink, you turn the water on and lean against the counter as you wait for it to get hot. Just before your mind can begin to wander you catch sight of movement in your peripherals.

A smirk almost instantly pulls onto your face at the sight of the red head walking in. Her green eyes are already trained on you with a look in them that you can’t describe.

“Agent Romanoff,” you nod to her, smirk still in place.

She takes small purposeful steps closer, stopping a few feet away from you,“ you lied to us. Member of SHIELD for a while?” She raises her eyebrows and shakes her head with an overly sweet smirk,“ you founded SHIELD.”

You hiss in a breath of air through your teeth, turning to face away from her as you chuckle.“ I didn’t lie, actually. Withholding all of the truth is a different thing.” Drying the plates off, you set them on the rack to dry, the forks and cups following afterwards.“ And let’s make something very clear, I am not a founder of SHIELD.” You dry your hands and turn to her.

“Really? Cause SHIELD records say otherwise” She reasons, stepping closer.

Eyebrows raising at her further approach, you do the same. You smile softly at her and close the distance between you two, leaving just under a foot of space.“ I understand you aren’t happy with the redacted details of my history Agent Romanoff so let me clear it up for you.”

Natasha tilts her head at your words and listens intently as you continue.“ I didn’t found SHIELD. I was the first ever agent. Agent Carter and Howard Stark saved me and administered me an enhanced version of the same serum Steve took. I owed them my life and I made sure to protect them,” you falter at that, jaw clenching as a horrible memory flashes through your mind.

“That’s how you met Tony?” She asks. It wasn’t missed by Natasha. The ex-assassin could read anyone. The second she noticed the distant look in your eyes she knew something was wrong and while she was curious, something told her not to ask about that.

You shake your head to clear your thoughts and look at her.“ Was in the hospital the night he was born. Watched him grow up.” You smile fondly,“ he’s family.”

For a moment it’s quiet. Still you watch Natasha, unsure if she’s finished or not. Just when you think she’s done, you nod and head towards the door, only to stop when she speaks.

“Why did you come for us?”

Turning from the door, you look over your shoulder at her,“ I owed Nick a favor.”

Her eyes narrow at you and you give a small nod before leaving out.

Neither you or Natasha would’ve guessed that would be your last conversation for the span of the next week. While you were at the tower a few times, to drop off something you’d talked about with Steve or pick up Tony before the two of you went and hung out somewhere, you hadn’t gone inside.

She wouldn’t admit it to you but Natasha had started to wonder when you’d come back. Not only does your reputation precede itself, something about your personality intrigues her more than she’d ever been before. She wanted to see you again, talk to you again.

Green eyes look through the clear blue glass, brows slightly pinched together at the sight of you and Tony hugging. Natasha debated with herself whether or not she was going to go speak to you as Steve jogged out of the front doors and over to you, sharing a handshake and a hug.

The last thing the ex-assassin expects to feel is the little flutter in her stomach when you smile brightly.

She tears her gaze away from you, frown deeper than before. Her thoughts running a mile a minute.

When a weight drops onto her shoulder she almost flinches. Grabbing the hand on her, she twists it and forces the person to stand in front of her, slamming them into the window.

“Well damn.” You curse, using your hand on the window to push yourself off the window. A chuckle falls from your lips as Natasha let’s you go.“ Guess it wasn’t a good idea to approach a trained agent without speaking.” You say jokingly, green eyes snapping down to the smile on your lips and back up.

There’s an incredibly short pause from Natasha before she channels her usually straight expression.“ What’d you want Y/Ln?”

“How bout a smile Romanoff.” When a beat passes without her expression changing you sigh.“ I want a cup of coffee. And I want you to come get one with me.”

“Come again?” Her expression cracks slightly as her eyebrows raise slightly.

You tilt your head and smile softly at her.“ You were practically shooting lasers at me through the window. Figured either you wanted to get out of the tower or you were jealous Tony and Steve were taking up all my time.” A teasing tone wraps around all your words and Natasha instantly scoffs.

“I have no reason to be jealous of Stark or Rogers.” She says and you nod.

“I figured as much. Which means you want to get out of the tower.” You nod for her to follow you.“ Cup of coffee does everyone some good.”

Natasha watches the confident stride you make towards the door, not once looking back as you just know she’s going to follow. And she does, despite her pride telling her not to.

The coffee shop isn’t too far away from the tower so you walk. Unlike your walks with Steve, it’s silent. The redhead stays two steps behind you, not saying a word as she follows.

A burst of cool air rushes past the two of you with your first step into the coffee shop to the sound of the bell jingling above you. Smiling softly at the familiar building you walk further in.

Natasha takes into account that there are no more than ten customers inside. For a New York coffee shop it was incredibly quiet and quaint.

“Love it here,” she hears you mumble as you step up to the counter.“ Hi, can I get one medium black coffee and a large iced coffee with two creams and two sugars.” The woman rings you up and you pay. Pocketing your wallet as you turn to face Natasha.

You smile at her lack of emotion. There is no reason for you to be as grumpy and blank as she is.“ I’ve been to a lot of places but here, they have the best coffee.” You tell her.

Her head tilts slightly and you purse your lips and nod. Once again it’s silent as you wait, then you grab the coffees when your name is called, turning to hand the black coffee to Natasha.

With things going the way they are, you have an internal battle on staying here or just going back to the tower. Taking one last chance, you nod to an empty table and sit down. Natasha coming over and sitting as well.

“Look, Natasha, you can’t hate me so much that we can’t even have a coffee together.” Your tone of voice is one of confusion and slight sadness.

Frowning once again at the emotions in your voice, Natasha watches you. Green, calculating eyes and a blank expression are the only signs of how hard she’s thinking right now.

With a huff of a sigh she says,“ I don’t hate you.” She admits, face finally giving way to emotion.“ I- I barely know you.”

“Well maybe we should change that.” Holding up your cup of coffee you take a sip and tell her,“ I think if you give me a chance, I might not be as bad as you think.”

Her eyes narrow and for the first time ever, you see her crack the smallest of smiles.“ We’ll see about that.”

* * * * * * *

Taglist: @owloftheshadows @natasha-danvers @blackxwidowsxwife @yumusak-yastik

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #black widow #black widow x reader #black widow x you #moment in time #reader insert

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cipheress-to-k-pop · 4 years ago

Note

Hi hi! I was wondering if you could do a dick Grayson x Avatar like fem reader with either a jealous Babs or Zatanna I hope that made sense🥲

True Love’s Kiss

Pairing: Dick Grayson as Nightwing x Reader

Warnings: I don’t think so

Word Count: 4.1K

@writing2sirvive : Hi love, me again but with a request this time. If you have time of course. I was thinking true love’s kiss with Dick Grayson. You can go crazy with it because I know you love Dick Grayson as much as I do. Btw I love your writing so much.

A/N: I think I did it wrong...cuz even though this is a Dick Grayson x reader fic, it’s mostly centred around reader and Zatanna???? Sorry about that???

You were fine with knowing that Dick was still friends with most of his exes. You completely accepted that he was able to keep functional relationships with most of them. In fact, it showed you how amicable and neutral Dick was and how he never held any grudges against people.

Of course, you were surprised by the sheer number. And the fact that he seems to interact with them practically every day. But eventually you managed not to let yourself get too bothered by it.

I mean, how could you? Barbara was the smartest, funniest, most approachable person you had ever met. She always made sure not to overstep her boundaries and was unusually open with you, given that Dick was her ex-boyfriend.

Raquel was adventurous and fun and you always had a good time when you were around her. She was another one who was respectful of your relationship. She never brought up her past flings with Dick, nor did she ever try and put you down. In fact, she was one of the people who really shipped the two of you.

You liked most of his exes. To the point where it made Dick kind of uncomfortable.

You liked most of his exes.

Ever since you had joined the team, being introduced as Nightwing’s significant other, Zatanna had been a constant thorn in your side. She was nice and sweet but there was something about her that rubbed you the wrong way. You could tell almost immediately that she wasn’t quite over her relationship with Dick. Short as it was.

Or maybe she was just the type of person who didn’t want someone, but didn’t want others to have the same person either.

Nonetheless, being around her put you constantly on edge. You lost count of how many times she redirected a conversation to be about her previous relationship with your boyfriend. ‘Oh, Dick took you to a fancy restaurant for your birthday? Well, I remember back when we were dating, he threw a huge party for me on mine.’

‘Oh, you celebrated your one-year anniversary with Dick in Paris? Well during our 3-month-aversary he bought me an expensive necklace.’

It didn’t bother you in the slightest. At least, not in the way that she hoped. It didn’t make you insecure or doubt or feel intimidated by her. It was just an annoyance that you couldn’t shake off, like the teacher you didn’t like or your annoying neighbour.

Unfortunately, Zatanna couldn’t take a hint that it made you and your friends (Barbara and Raquel included) uncomfortable and slightly irritated. Yet, everyone was just waiting for you to express the slightest distaste, not wanting to step on your toes. However, they were quick to change the topic in case they thought she was going too far.

Dick had been blissfully unaware of everything and you wanted to keep it that way. The last thing you needed was this turning into some sort of issue, especially since Zatanna was still his teammate.

However today you had enough.

You could look past Zatanna’s petty jealousy but allowing the jealousy to come to the forefront during a mission was where you drew the line.

Dick, M’Gann and Conner had been on a covert mission for Batman and out of the country and under team vote decided that you should be made in charge until he returned, since you were the only other older member (other than Zatanna but you were voted leader unanimously. Something you were extremely proud about). That was well and good, until you had been given a mission.

Regardless of how much you did not want to work with Zatanna without the others there to wrangle her, you had to put your personal feelings aside when you had a mission to complete.

You thought you could both be professionals about it and act like mature adults.

You were dead wrong.

If it wasn’t disagreements, it was insubordination. If it wasn’t insubordination, it was blatant arrogance. She questioned your judgment in front of the other members and even had the nerve to argue with you about mission strategies. You were trying to look out for everyone and put yourself in the line of fire since the squad members were better at stealth.

Zatanna seemed to think you were trying to steal the show and insisted that she be partnered with you even though you wanted someone with the younger members to keep them safe.

When you relented and agreed to go stealth, she accused you of ducking out and intentionally trying to put her in danger. The others had to watch as steam practically came out of your ears when you relented once again and decided you’d be with her because you honestly couldn’t argue with her much longer.

As if that wasn’t infuriating enough.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when she refused to work as a team, putting the mission at risk and nearly getting the both of you hurt. She was fighting on her own, not bothering to have your back and going into it alone. Obviously, the two of you were overpowered quickly once they realized that you were pretty much behaving solo.

Luckily, the others pulled through and got you both out of there before anything horrible happened.

You sat in the ship, jaw clenched so tightly that they swore they could hear your teeth cracking, fists nearly white as you tried to control your anger and keep yourself from screaming at her while you were still in the air.

Once the ship landed in the docking bay and Zatanna was the first one to leave without saying another word, you snapped.

“What the hell did you think you were doing today!” You growled out, fisting her collar and stopping her in her tracks.

“What are you talking about?” She feigned innocence and you felt your skin burning. Everything around you faded out and all you could feel was fury. In hindsight, you would have liked to handle this issue in a more refined manner, but you honestly couldn’t care.

So, you didn’t notice the rest of the team, along with the a few members of the Justice League watching you chew Zatanna out.

Whatever would keep you from lighting her on fire was enough.

“I’m talking about putting the mission, not to mention ourselves in jeopardy, all because you can’t stop acting like a spoilt brat!” You hissed.

She rolled her eyes and you and the thought of strangling her briefly crossed your mind before she shoved your hands off her, dusting herself off like your fingerprints were dirt, “You need to stop blaming others for your inadequacy.”

She turned on her heel sharply and walked away. Blood pounded through your ears and your fingers twitched by their sides before you formed a whip of water from the bay and lashed it against her feet.

Zatanna, caught off guard, was thrown across the room before she caught herself with a muttered spell and turned around, glaring at you furiously.

“We’re going to settle things, right here, right now!”

“If you would stop being so insecure, then we could sort out our differences like mature adults!” She screamed back at you and before you could control it, flames erupted from beneath your feet and raced towards her, scorching the ground beneath it.

Each puff of breath you took released sparks. Zatanna immediately got into an offensive stance, levitating one of the weapons crates and chucking at you. You blocked it effortlessly using a wall of earth before throwing an inferno at her.

You kept fighting, flames and splashes of water going into the air every time you collided. The others watched in fear as you both raced towards each other, it looked like neither of you were holding back.

Before you could strike her again, you were being pulled away by Superman and as Zatanna was by Batman, they both pulled you yards apart. Even with his strong, authoritative grip on you, you couldn’t stop thrashing in his arms, throwing gusts of air at her.

“(Y/N). Enough.” Superman spoke in your ear and you calmed down, relaxing in his grip. He let you go after and you winced, feeling your skin bruise where he grabbed you. He gave you an apologetic glance at that.

“You both have to put your differences aside and work as a team or you won’t be allowed to go on any more missions.” Batman told you, voice firm but it didn’t shake you.

“No, Zatanna is going to have to put her issues with me aside and learn that when I have been elected as leader of the squad then you are supposed to put your petty jealousy aside and know your place.” You spat.

“You weren’t right for the position!”

“I did everything right! And if it hadn’t been for you, we wouldn’t have been under open fire tonight!”

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“When I am the leader of the squadron then I am! And you’re meant to listen and not question my judgement because you’re being blinded by your pathetic jealously!”

“I’m not jealous of you!”

“Oh, please! That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve heard from you and it was all proved today! Admit it! You were immature and fucking stupid because you can’t get over that fact that you dated Dick for what? 3 months?”

“That’s because he’s supposed to be with me!”

“LIKE HELL HE IS!” You roared.

Batman felt a little helpless watching the two of you scream at each other. All this fighting? Over a boy? His son, no less? He had other sons and you were free to have your pick. But at this point, he wasn’t even sure what to say.

“You just can’t seem to accept the fact that he doesn’t love you anymore! Get over it! Because he certainly has!” You shouted, spinning on your heel and stomping away from her, determined to have the last word. Superman sighed in relief. He thought another fight would break out.

“You’re just insecure because you know that if he had the chance, he would come crawling back to me!”

A chill went done your spine and you felt cold fury run through your veins, turning around to glare at her murderously and clenching your hands tightly. You were so angry your feet were rooted to the floor, body seizing up slightly.

The others looked anxiously between the two of you as you glared at each other for a minute before you spoke with the calmest, yet most terrifying voice they’ve ever heard from you.

“Zatanna, you can try your damn hardest to win him back. But I promise you, you’re never going to get what you want.” You told her darkly, before walking away.

As Zatanna glared at your receding figure she decided she was going to prove you wrong.

***

To keep you from fighting with Zatanna again, when Batman came to you with a solo mission you couldn’t agree fast enough. Even though you knew you’d miss Dick’s homecoming, you still wanted to get the hell away from here. Not like you’d be missing anything important, other than Zatanna fawning over him.

You’d get to tell him how much you missed him in private anyway.

As soon as you were out of the cave, you couldn’t help the relief that filled your bones. You had been so on edge the past few days, still furious with her so the distance between the two of you was appreciated.

When Dick got home, he was ecstatic to see you again. It had been nearly 3 weeks since he had last held you and his skin was practically buzzing with excitement when he reached a cave, desperate to hug you, kiss you, touch you.

He got to the mess hall quickly, running all the way there and when he opened the door, he was instantly disappointed. You weren’t there.

“Where’s (Y/N)?” He asked Beast Boy, hoping he would tell him that you were just back at your apartment or that you had gone out for a while and would be back soon but he felt his heart sink when Gar gave him a sympathetic smile.

“She’s on a mission for a week.”

“A mission? Who’s with her?”

“No one. It’s a solo mission.”

Now he was worried. You usually didn’t take solo missions, liking to work in a team, knowing that there would be people who would be watching your back was reassuring. He knew you were more than skilled to handle a solo mission but not being by your side made him nervous and slightly antsy.

He was also upset that you weren’t here. So, he decided to do the most adult thing. Go home and sulk in bed while holding your sweatshirt that smelt like you.

But apparently the world had something against him because when he was about to go through the Zeta tube he was intercepted. By non other than Zatanna.

Now, poor clueless Dick had no idea that you had thrown hands with Zatanna just a day ago and was the reason why you weren’t there to welcome him when he got back. If he had he would’ve sulked at her and whined loudly for her to hear while he dragged his feet.

But, poor clueless Dick had absolutely no idea Zatanna was the reason he was being deprived of your kisses. So, he just smiled brightly at her and asked her if she needed anything.

“As a matter of fact, I found an old spell and I need someone to test it out on!”

“I don’t know how I feel about being your non-scientific experiment, Z.”

“Come on, it’s totally harmless, I promise.”

“I don’t know...”

“Don’t you trust me?”

He did. But there was just something about this situation that made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was because he missed you like crazy and just wanted to go home and sulk until you came back. Maybe it was because he felt uncomfortable to go somewhere private with his ex-girlfriend without telling you first. Or maybe it was because of the way Zatanna felt the need to guilt him into it.

Nevertheless, he agreed, albeit reluctantly and went to her room. Inside Zatanna had a bunch of ruins written on a paper and some weird poultices beside it.

“Now this isn’t going to work unless you give me your consent.” She informed, bustling about the room and Dick suddenly felt the air was a little stuffy.

“What do you mean by consent? Consent for what?”

“It’s a love spell.” She told him, smiling slyly but he couldn’t quite understand why. His hands got a little clammy at the announcement. What did she mean by love spell? Was she trying to get him to fall in love with her? Why would she be so open about it then? Especially when she knew he was in love with someone else?

“What do you mean?”

“Oh relax, stop being so tense. It’s just a love spell that proves who you truly love.” She said, immediately noticing how stiff his body was. Though she chalked it up to confusion. Dick was simply confused about who he loved, he was clouded by his attraction to you and he felt guilty about being unfaithful. But deep down, he really loved her. And this spell would prove it.

“In the olden ages, people would use it on their wedding to prove that their significant other truly loved them.”

He nodded, mouth falling open with realization. He already knew what the answer would be so why even bother? He assumed it was because Zatanna was curious to whether it actually worked.

“Too bad (Y/N) isn’t here, I mean I know who I love but I’d like to try it out on her. I mean, who takes a mission the day before their boyfriend comes back to town.” He complained, more to himself but Zatanna still heard it.

“Anyway, can I cast it on you?”

“Sure, couldn’t hurt.”

Oh, how he’d come to know just how wrong he was.

***

You raced through the halls, panicked, hearing your heart beat out of your chest as you sprinted to the Med Bay. Even though you were running as quick as possible you still pumped your legs to run faster, needing to get there quickly.

As soon as you saw Zatanna outside the Med Bay, you skidded to a stop in front of her and grabbing her collar, pinning her against the wall. She hit it with a thud and she saw white for a second when her head collided with the hard surface.

It was then you got a good look at her face. Her eyes were red and face wet. Her lips were bitten until they bled. You gritted your teeth, grip tightening around the collar as tears pricked your eyes.

“What the hell did you do!”

She whimpered, eyes getting glossy again before she started crying, incomprehensible words leaving her lips and you snarled before shaking her again, “You don’t get to cry! What the hell did you do to him!”

“It was a love spell!” She cried out, “It was supposed to reveal who he truly loves.”

“AND?!”

“It’s activated by a kiss.” She sniffled, “And I did.”

“Is it done?” Dick asked just as she finished casting the spell. His body was enveloped by a slight glow that was only visible to her and Zatanna’s lips curled when she realized it had worked. Now there was only one thing left to do.

“Yep.” She said, slinking over to his side and he pouted curiously.

“Are you sure? I don’t feel any different. You said it was supposed to reveal who I love. What happened?”

“We’re gonna find that out. Hold still.” She said, smiling and wrapping her arms around his neck to press a kiss to his lips. Dick froze, feeling her lips move against his and his mind went blank for a second before his chest contracted painfully.

He gasped against her mouth, before his legs buckled and he tumbled to the ground. Zatanna’s eyes widened when she saw the way his body twitched, pained gasps leaving his mouth and tears began falling from his eyes.

“Are you okay?!” She panicked, wrapping her arms around his thrashing figure but he couldn’t choke out an answer.

“Someone help! Anyone! Please!”

“A kiss doesn’t put people through cardiac arrest!” You screamed, feeling your chest tighten as you heard it out loud for the first time. Your eyes began burning and your throat contracted, feeling tears build. It was the first time you had admitted it to yourself.

You were scared. Emotions that you could barely process or understand swirled around you in a dark cloud and you were scared that Dick wouldn’t make it out of his critical state. If he was taken away from you because you hadn’t been there to stop it, you would never forgive yourself.

“I’m sorry.” She whimpered, sobbing and her body went limp in your fists. The urge to rip her head off her shoulders resurfaced. She didn’t get to be upset, not when this was all her fault.

“I don’t give a shit.” You hissed, “How do we save him?”

“A true love’s kiss should stop all the side effects.” She whispered, looking up at you with wide eyes, “If Dick truly loves you, then when you kiss him, it’ll reverse the spell.”

You needed to get in there.

You released your hold and Zatanna and she slid to the floor pathetically, holding her body as she cried. But even with her heartbroken sobs, you couldn’t feel any sort of remorse to her, glaring at her instead, “You better hope this works. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

And then you rushed in.

When you got to Dick’s side your breath stuttered when you noticed just how many things he was connected to and you felt your body shake. Batman was carefully watching him from his bedside.

You carefully walked to his side, gently brushing your fingers against his cheekbone. He looked like he was in so much pain. He looked so weak. You wanted to help him but a part of you was scared. For the first time in your life, you doubted Dick’s feelings for you.

The time you needed his love and devotion to be true the most, you were doubtful. A million thoughts rushed through your head and for a second you were tempted to just avoid doing this at all. But you knew that you had to at least try.

So, with trembling hands, you held the ventilator fastened to his mouth, taking a deep breath before tugging it off. Batman, already knowing what you were about to do, let you pull it off him before pressing a fluttering kiss to his lips. Tears gathered underneath your lashes when you didn’t feel anything happen.

Just when you were about to pull away, Dick took a deep breath through his nose and panted against your mouth, kissing you more firmly. You couldn’t help the sob that bubbled out of your throat and he swallowed it without any qualms.

Even through bleary vision, you were able to make out his blue eyes and the small smile on his face.

His hands came up to weakly cup for cheeks, gently wiping away the tears with his thumbs, “I missed you.”

You sniffled, letting more tears fall because you knew he’d be here to wipe them away, “I missed you too.”

***

Bonus:

You walked into the mess hall quietly. Dick had just fallen asleep in the Med Bay where he would be kept for a couple days under observation. It was past 1 in the night and you wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed but you had some unfinished business left to handle.

It was dark and it was hard to make out your surroundings until your eyes adjusted to the darkness. As you walked to the kitchen island, your eyes landed on the sorceress that had her head in her arms and wondered if she was asleep. Batman had said you were free to deal with her anyway you liked and that had been exactly your plan.

“He’s okay now, if you’re curious.” You told her. Her head shot up and she looked at you out of the corner of her eye before bowing it away shamefully. But you caught a glance at her face. She looked like she had been crying for hours, eyes bloodshot and face red and blotchy.

“Thank god.” She croaked out.

There was a beat of silence.

“I’m so so sorry, (Y/N).” Zatanna whimpered out before crying again, “You were right. I was jealous. And I did a crazy, wrong thing. And I’m so sorry.”

You sighed, nodding at her apology even though you knew she couldn’t see you. You weren’t sure if you accepted it, and you didn’t have to. For now, it could remain in the air.

“He really doesn’t love me....” She whispered out and you sighed once again, stepping up beside her and setting something on the table.

Zatanna glanced at the bottle of tequila and the two shot glasses you left. You didn’t look at her, instead choosing to stare straight ahead. You opened the bottle, pouring yourself a shot before tilting your head back and downing it, hissing at the burn.

“Obligatory break-up drink.” You mumbled, pouring her a shot and passing the glass to her.

She sniffled, looking at the glass in her hands before gulping it down. You took a deep breath, refilling the glasses. You still didn’t look at her, didn’t speak to her, just poured a refill when either of you finished and downed it in one gulp. The excitement from today and the tense feeling from sitting beside Zatanna kept you from getting drunk too early.

You two ended up finishing half the bottle, drinking in the dark until she passed out first and you followed soon after.

The others found you the next morning, passed out at the kitchen island, clutching empty shot glasses.

***

Bonus bonus:

Batman sighed, smelling the overwhelming scent of tequila as he came closer. None of them were able to wake either of you up. You were out cold, face scrunched up and head against the table in a position that would no doubt have your neck in a crick.

Zatanna was no better. Her hair was a mess, tequila spilt on her clothes and she was drooling all over the table, snoring unattractively.

“All this over a boy?”

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littlemisslipbalm · 4 years ago

Text

“Similar Tastes”

An enemies to lovers classic. You and Harry are too similar for you to ever get along...maybe

Hi hi! This is for @majorharry’s 20k celebration writing !!! Hope you all enjoy, I always love to hear from you :)))

The prompts I used: “How about you get off my dick” and “Sorry, I didn’t know”

This gif bc Harry “oh god that’s TEQUILA” Styles is king

Fluff? Smut? But definitely angst? Idk how to describe it bahaha a little bit of everything

Word Count: 4.0k | Warnings: language (there are actually two slurs in this - they’re bisexual slurs and they’re said by the bad guy so just take that into consideration), mature content (not quite smut but y’know), alcohol consumption, girl kissing girl at one point

Pt. 2 is up!

Saturday night. It was finally time to go out with your group of friends and you couldn’t be happier. Well, you could, but what would make you that happy wasn’t possible. If one of the people in your friend group wasn’t there. That would make you the happiest.

Almost everyone has that one person in your friend group who you can’t stand. Like, at first you don’t really know them and then as you get to know them more you just can’t stand them.

For you that was Harry.

While neither of you would admit why you hated each other, it was obviously about how everyone would always compare the two of you. You had practically identical personalities, and had similar fashion taste. At first, everyone else thought you would end up together because it seemed like you were perfectly matched. But the first time someone said, “Oh, Harry, your jacket looks just like the one Y/N wore last week.” Both of you had seethed in complete dissatisfaction.

Naturally, Harry took his jacket off early in that evening and you never wore yours again. You hated being compared to Harry, being told he had made a similar joke or said the same thing about something made you want to reevaluate your entire value system. Maybe it was because you both had such an individualistic mindset, but neither of you enjoyed being compared to anyone and that’s what made it all the worse when people chose to compare you to each other. It boiled down to both of you wanting to be the best at everything - the most unique, rather - that made you dislike the other so much.

So, tonight at the bar, as your group rattled in from the street, you stuck close to your pals at the front while Harry was chatting with someone near the back of the pack. Your eyes had met briefly when you’d seen each other’s outfits. Harry’s a half unbuttoned Gucci cream dress shirt, that was rolled to his elbows, tucked into high waisted navy trousers finished with cream boots and yours a navy bra top with a faux collar and a deep cut to show your cleavage paired with cream high waisted pleated pants and navy loafers. Not exactly the same, but if you had stood next to one another it would have looked planned. You rolled your eyes at him as he narrowed his towards you. You couldn’t wait to order a few drinks and let loose after a hard week at work.

As you all approached a booth, somehow the group shifted and Harry and you were suddenly side by side as everyone was getting in the booth. Then, you were sitting and Harry was right beside you. He tried to cover his groan of annoyance when he realized he’d have to be sitting next to you, once again regarding your outfit with disdain. Your only response was glaring at him. The friend who you had been talking to, Marie, placed her hand over your ring-clad one, that was now gripping the side of the table out of annoyance. “Play nice,” she said. You relaxed at her touch trying to refocus on the purpose of the night, fun.

Soon, a waitress made it to your table and smiled sweetly at all your bright faces. Harry and you were located to her left, and her eyes reached you last.

“Oh! You two are too cute! I love when couples coordinate their outfits!”

Harry’s eyes bulged out of his head and you gave a tight-lipped smile as you tried to keep yourself from having a blood vessel pop in your eye right then.

“We’re not” you began, Harry cut you off, “together, love.”

His expression changed as he smirked up at the waitress, trying to make it clear that he was very much single.

“Oh! My apologies...So what can I get everyone?”

As she began to take the orders, you shoved your elbow into Harry’s rib. You did it for two reasons, for him cutting you off when you were talking and for being so on top of you in the booth.

He turned to you, “The fuck was that for?”

“For being an asshole.”

“Excuse me?”

As you’re about to go off on him about being rude, Marie taps your hand and you realize it's your turn to order.

You clear your throat, trying to shake off your angry tone, “Tequila on the rocks, please.”

The waitress nods and then turns to smile at Harry, he gives you side eyes of disdain, “What’s your most expensive tequila?”

Her smile grew, “We’ve got Don Julio Real and Gran Patron for top shelf.”

“Don Julio on the rocks, please.” He winked.

She nods, scribbling something on her notepad, “Oh! Would you like Don Julio as well?” she returns to you.

You shook your head, “No. Jose Cuervo works just fine,” and glared at Harry once more.

Of course he would ask for top shelf, you thought. Harry couldn't have gotten through saying the exact same order as you, especially after the waitress had already pointed out the similarity in your clothes.

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Being in such close proximity to Harry made you incapable of leaving the bickering alone. Everyone else always ignored when the two of you really got into it, because it honestly wasn’t that interesting. Like an old married couple, though none of them would ever dare say it.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Y/N?”

You scoffed as he turned in his seat to look at you. “Oh, please, you just couldn’t handle ordering the same thing as me. You had to flex that you could order Don Julio!”

“You’re just upset because you can’t.”

“Come off it! I could, but I don’t feel the need to boost my ego by showing off to the waitress that I can afford the expensive stuff.” You laughed at his attempt at snubbing you about what you can and can’t afford.

His eyes darkened and flashed at you and you could see it even in the dim lighting off the bar. “I wasn’t trying to show off, it’s not my fault you don’t care to drink the good stuff.”

“Okay, Harry,” you say sarcastically, waving him off.

He huffed, annoyed that you were the only person he was sitting next to. He had to call across the table if he wanted to speak to anyone that wouldn’t involve you being completely in the way. As he was about to call out to Mitch who was directly across from him, the waitress returned with everyone’s drinks.

“Jose Cuervo on the rocks! And Don Julio on the rocks!” She beamed at the group after finishing handing them out.

Everyone thanked her and she disappeared. You and Harry simultaneously took sips of your drinks.

You wrinkled your nose, “This isn’t Jose Cuervo…”

Harry placed his drink on his coaster and swallowed, licking his lips he said, “I think mine is, tastes cheap.”

“You’re really an ass,” you say as you shove your misgiven drink to him and snatch his from the table instead.

Harry growing tired of your arguing already, “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he rolled his eyes and took a larger sip of the correct drink.

You take a sip of your own drink and sigh again, “This isn’t even tequila, what the fuck?”

“Ah, no wonder it tasted like shit. What do you think it is?”

“Well, considering there’s only, like, a handful of clear hard liquors besides silver tequila, probably vodka, idiot,” you breathed the last word under your breath, still Harry stared at you with daggers in his eyes. You weren’t actually sure how many other liquors it could be, but you were so pissed off by the whole situation you just wanted to make him shut up.

“Well that’s a bummer, kid. Maybe next time, order a better tequila and she’ll get it right.”

You shoved him, not wanting to wait for the waitress to come back to fix her mistake, “How about you get off my dick and then I can go get something worth drinking?”

Harry huffed as he slowly moved his body up from his seat, yet he stayed so close to the opening of the booth you were practically chest to chest when you slipped out. Due to that, and maybe a little bit on purpose, you knocked your drink forward to get a small amount on him. Not enough for him to be drenched, but enough to bug him for the rest of the night.

“Oops?” you tilted your head and held a sickeningly sweet smile on your face as you looked at his taken aback look. His prominent jaw had dropped as the cold liquid had pooled over his left breast pocket, some of his tattoos now much more visible. You quickly turned on your heel and bounced off to the bar. Harry grumbled and sat back down, Marie leaned over with a napkin, trying to dry him off a bit.

With a fresh drink in hand you weaved back to the table, all your friends were laughing together at something Harry had seemingly said. When you arrived everyone beamed up at you, far more jovial after a few sips of their drinks. Only Harry’s face was sour, but you chose to ignore it and smile at your friends, waiting for Harry to get up to let you into your seat that he had occupied in your absence. When he didn’t, your face began to fall from its smile.

“Are you going to get up?”

“No, just take that seat,” he waves his hand beside him, trying to go back to the conversation he was engaging in before you had arrived.

“But, you’re in my seat,” you pushed.

“You’re the one who decided to get up and leave it.”

“You cannot be serious, Harry.”

“As a heart attack,” he said flatly, and then turned his head to Sarah who was next to Marie.

You looked around the table for help, Mitch gave a slight sad smile like he felt bad, but everyone knew there was no changing Harry’s mind. You knew you didn’t have the strength to yank his large, muscled body out of the booth, so you resigned and took his old seat. There, you kicked Harry’s leg harshly and took a long sip of your alcohol, just wanting to get drunk enough to want to dance and then not be near Harry.

After a second round of drinks, this time the waitress getting your order right, you were feeling better. Harry and you were largely ignoring each other and laughing along with the rest of your friends to some story. Every so often his leg would open up and bump into yours and you’d hit back at it harder, his eyes sliding to your face for a moment and then looking away. He made you so hot with anger and the closeness of bodies in that bar already had the temperature way too high. You gulped at your drink, trying to cool down, but it only had the opposite effect, the alcohol mixing with your blood, heating up your insides, as well.

Then, once the third round of drinks were served, Marie suggested it was time to dance, commenting that some random song that was currently playing was ‘her favorite’. It wasn’t, but whenever she got drunk, every song was ‘her favorite’. However, you were all happy to oblige, feeling restless as the alcohol was buzzing in your systems.

Out on the dance floor, some of the couples in your friend group paired off to dance on each other while the rest of you spread out. You spotted a woman in the crowd wearing a sequin dress that looked absolutely gorgeous on her, her blonde hair reminding you of some rocker chick in the 70’s. While making your way towards her, Harry tried to get in front of you, obviously making his way to her as well.

Another thing Harry and you had in common, the people you typically went for - men and women. Shaking him off with a hand on his chest and a glare, you reached her first and she smiled at you as you complimented her outfit and began to dance with her. Harry resigned to staying with some of your other friend’s when he saw how the woman threw her head back at something you said to her. Soon, she was grinding herself against your front, your lips attached to her neck, hands on her hips.

Feeling particularly happy with yourself, your gaze flitted around the crowded dance floor. Eyes scanning those around you, you soon made eye contact with Harry, who actually wasn’t that far off. His eyes looked a more dull green in the light and he rolled them when he saw you looking up from your place against the beautiful woman. While he still looked on at your languid figures pressed together, you teased your tongue up her neck a bit, causing the woman to keen into your touch. As Harry was about to look away, shaking his head at your antics, he caught sight of a guy approaching you and the other woman.

He said something to the pair of you, but you couldn’t hear him. The woman had opened her eyes to look at the guy and you had removed your lips from her, shaking your head that you didn’t catch what he said.

He repeated himself, yelling this time, “Fauxbians out here trying to catch a real man! How ‘bout we make you total lugs!”

He was loud enough for your friends to hear, including Harry who had been watching the whole scene play out. He pushed through the crowd to get to your side, he might not like you, but he couldn’t stand someone who was homophobic, or biphobic, in this case. You pushed the woman off of you and to the side, she was clearly upset and you weren’t going to let what the guy said slide.

“What the fuck, man? You think it’s okay to say shit like that to people? What year are you living in, like for real?”

As you were about to start really ripping into him, you felt Harry’s presence beside you. You looked over and he looked angry, like really angry, not annoyed or exasperated as he usually did with you. Angry like he was about to grab this guy by the shirt and start pummeling him. Even with all the alcohol in your system, you knew that wouldn’t actually help the situation, even if you did want someone to wipe the smug look off this guy’s face, which had only grown worse since you’d started yelling at him. It was like this stranger was getting off on making these two women in front of him uncomfortable and upset.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Harry spat at the guy.

“Harry,” you turned your body towards him and put your hand on his chest, placing yourself between him and the rude guy, “I’m not letting you get into a fight over what he said. It’s not worth it.”

He had pushed himself almost against this guy, Harry easily hovering over him. Harry looked down at you and then back to the guy, who was chuckling to himself, stepping back from the scene.

He seethed, “You disgust me,” he looked at the man. “Just crawl back into whatever hole your sorry ass came out of.”

The guy just laughed and walked off. Harry looked down at you, his eyes softening instantly. You couldn’t exactly distinguish the look he gave you, you just knew it was something you’d never seen directed at you.

Your brow remained furrowed as you looked at him, then he said, “Let’s get some air.”

You looked around the room for your sequined dress woman, but she was nowhere to be found. So you let Harry take you by the hand out the side exit, to the bar’s alleyway.

Outside, you immediately brought your hands to rub over your exposed arms, the tiny sleeves of your shirt not being enough to brave the brisk night air. The altercation had shaken you up quite a bit and immediately sobered you. Harry stepped closer to you out of instinct, seeing you were shivering, but having nothing to offer warmth except himself. The two of you leaned against the bar’s outer wall and took a few deep breaths.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked, voice slightly hoarse from yelling in the loud bar.

“Fine. You?”

Why was he being so nice, you were surprised he had stepped in at all, but now he was checking in on you past that, it was confusing.

“Of course. You didn’t even let me get a single swing in.”

You scrunched your face at his comment regarding violence. “Why did you even come over? I can handle myself,” you asked, suddenly feeling the normalcy of bickering settle between the two of you.

Harry rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. His pectoral muscles slightly shifted and pushed around his cross pendant in the center of his chest.

“Because he was a dick,” he started, then sighed, “And because I can’t just let some homophobe say a bunch of slurs to my friend.”

Your eyes grew wide and shown in the street lamp, as they looked up into Harry’s green ones. He was slightly sweaty from the bar, but it was quickly drying and leaving a slight sparkle on his skin. His jaw was tensed, as he tried to maintain eye contact with you. You remained silent, unaware how to respond to his statement that he did, despite much evidence saying otherwise, care about you.

Harry decided to continue, “You might piss me off, like all the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for a random asshole to say that kind of shit to you.”

“I’m your friend?” you circled back to what he had said earlier. Your voice was small and also hoarse from yelling in the bar.

“Of course, Y/N, what the fuck?”

“I thought...I guess I never saw it that way.”

“Harsh.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know competing all the time and being annoyed with each other was friendship.” You shifted closer to Harry, your words dripping in sarcasm. Even now, as the two of you checked in on each other and talked about your friendship, you managed to fight.

“That’s just because you’re constantly infuriating me and getting us into fights,” Harry smirked, tapping a finger on your cold nose.

“I think you’ve got it backwards, there, Har,” you winked.

“No, I don’t think so,” he shrugged and pressed closer to you.

Neither of you were very clear on what your bodies were doing, slowly moving so that you had your back against the wall and Harry’s hips were pressed up against yours.

“It’s not my fault you’re always jealous of me,” you breathe, his face inches from yours.

Harry snorted a laugh out of his nose, his eyes slowly blinking and looking away from you, before staring directly at you. “Oh, please, now who has it backwards?” His right arm went up beside your head and his hand rested on the cold stone next to you. His breath, from his laughter and words, fanning over your face, made you close your eyes at the warmth.

You moved both of your hands up to his chest, and he looked down at the movement. One moved up to grip his shoulder and the other fiddled with the cross that had caught your attention when he had folded his arms.

After a beat, Harry said your name, barely above a whisper. Your head tilted up, looking up at him questioningly. You didn’t really understand the position the two of you had shifted yourselves into. “Can I kiss you?” Harry asked.

“Do you want to?”

“Kind of…” He ran a finger over your cheekbone.

Your eyes danced with mischief “Why?”

“Are you serious?” Harry asked in slight disbelief.

“As a heart attack,” you said gravely, throwing the words he had used earlier back at him. He sighed a slight laugh.

“Like I said, infuriating…”

Just as he was about to pull away, you reached up and connected your lips with his. Your hand cupped his strong jaw and brought him closer to you. His warm, wet lips pushed against yours with vigor. There was passion in the kiss. A constant push and pull for who got to be in control. You sucked on his lower lip, trying to get him to open up his mouth, but he declined.

He pressed you further onto the wall, while cradling your head to keep it from knocking against the concrete. His teeth nipped at your lip after a few more moments of fervent open mouth kisses without tongue. You resigned to not getting your way and let his tongue lick into you. Your tongue pressed against his as the two of you continued kissing. While his mouth was harsh, the rest of his touch was mostly soft. The hand that didn’t cradle your head was rubbing up and down your side, only venturing down to your bottom occasionally and squeezing quickly.

Finally, he pulled back, gasping slightly for air. He then rested his forehead against yours and you looked at him from beneath your lashes. One of your hands was now twisted in his curls, while the other was gripping his shirt, over the dried vodka spill from earlier. You smiled as you exhaled a big breath. Harry chuckled giddily.

“That was hot,” you said.

“Y’know, having similar tastes...might not be such a bad thing after all.”

“Knowing us we probably like all the same things…” you trailed off, blushing at the suggestion.

“Why don’t we find out sometime,” Harry winked before brushing his lips against yours once more.

Pecks weren’t possible for either of you though, both of you furiously pressing back together, hungry for more of the heat that came from you kissing.

“That’d be nice,” you whimpered against his lips.

“I think it’d be more than nice…” Harry brought his head down to suck on a part of your exposed cleavage, one of his legs pressed between yours, pushing slightly up into your heat. A strangled moan left your lips as you tried to stifle it. Harry chuckled, his face moved up to right beside your ear, “You’d probably love to have me take you right here, huh?”

His leg pressed up into you and your body automatically grinded down on the pressure. The alcohol and sexual grinding from earlier had gotten you horny and the making out with Harry had definitely heightened your desire.

“But we both know you can’t,” you gained your strength and pressed a little on his shoulders.

As much as you desired Harry right now and he seemed to desire you, as well, he was right. You two were extremely similar and would never actually have sex in a bar alleyway, as much as you might want to in the moment. You both laughed, releasing the sexual tension that was surrounding you.

“I know, but it’s fun to pretend we could...How about we go to my place and see what other fantasies we share?” Harry twisted a strand of your hair in his large hand.

“For once, I’m happy to be on the same page as you, Harry,” you grinned. He picked you up and spun you around, making you shriek in laughter, before heading back into the bar to gather your stuff.

You were quick to scurry out of the bar after telling your friends you were both leaving, tired from everything that had happened. Everyone simply nodded, but the minute you were far enough away they all snickered about the lipstick smeared on the corners of Harry’s lips and your terribly mused hair. Mitch even placed a twenty in the palm of Sarah’s open hand, shaking his head in defeat.

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years ago

Text

Canary, Part 1

It was a good day. Why did stuff always have to go wrong on ‘good days’, Marinette thought bitterly as she rushed through the city, the rough edges of her phone digging into her palm. The message she’d been sent was burned into her eyelids.

She pushed the spiraling thoughts from her mind as she stared at the street sign nearest her. Only a minute and she’d be there and her fears would be either confirmed or denied.

She leaned against the wall to gather her thoughts. If she had messed up it had to have been today because, otherwise, he would have done something earlier. Did she mess up? She allowed her eyes to flutter closed as she thought back.

She’d woken up on an uncomfortable mattress on the floor and rolled off of it, the sheets sticking to her sweaty skin. It had been a particularly hot day for Gotham and she had been too concentrated on typing up a report for work to turn up the AC before her impromptu nap (translation: she’d passed out).

She rubbed her eyes until she managed to get her brown contacts out and set them in the weird not-quite-water that she had never bothered to learn the name for so her eyes could rest while she took a quick shower and changed.

Then, she’d waited. She sat in the window, eyes barely poking over the sill as she watched the building across the street. She didn’t feel like moving for a long while but, alas, the meeting was supposed to be that day and she was running out of time for that thing with Calendar Man and… yeah. Unfortunately, Marinette had to be productive that day unless she wanted more enemies.

She saw movement and her face lit up. She might get everything done soon, at least, and then she could pass out for a hundred years like she oh-so-desperately wanted to.

She checked that her gloves were firmly in place, pulled on the plague doctor (gas) mask that had accidentally become her trademark, and toed on her boots.

Then, she made her way up to the alleyway next to the building she had been watching. She’d been lucky enough to have a job right next to one of her safe houses and she kinda wished that it would happen again. It was nice to not have to travel a half-hour or more just to listen in on one boring conversation.

She pulled out her knives and, after testing to make sure they were still strong enough to hold her weight, began picking her way up to the roof.

She set everything up for the thing with Calendar Man. It took approximately five seconds. Yay her.

Alright, next thing: listening in on a boring conversation that, if she was lucky, would end in someone getting shot so it wouldn’t last too long. It was going to be even hotter inside the vent and she did not want to end up cooked. That would be embarrassing.

She crawled into the vents and dutifully wrote down everything they said on a notepad. They were negotiating a drug deal and her client wanted to intercept it to try and get both the money and the (… Big D? What the fuck is Big D?) drugs. From the sounds of it, it wasn’t possible but, hey, her job wasn’t anything more than gathering intel. If her clients wanted to die stupidly that was on them.

… maybe she’d kill her client herself, she thought angrily as she readjusted in the vent in hopes of not getting stuck to the metal. It was easy money but wow was it awful.

Or, at least, it was awful until a hand grabbed her by the hood of her leather jacket and started dragging her out. She tipped her head back, grin on her face in seconds.

“Signal. Hi.”

He sighed and pulled her the rest of the way out. She let herself hang from his grip like a reprimanded cat.

“So, what’s up?” She asked brightly, as if hadn’t just caught her listening in on a private conversation.

“Great, thanks for asking,” he said. “Even better now that I’m taking the famed Canary to Arkham.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen.”

He leveled her with a cold look for a few more seconds before splitting into a grin. “Yeah. Probably not. Got a backup plan?”

“Of course.”

“Is it even worth trying?”

“Probably not. But who knows? You could get lucky.”

She waited for a minute as he mulled over the idea in his head before he sighed. “I gotta ask: what’s with the egg?”

She swatted at his hand until he let her down and then led him over to her science experiment. “Know how there’s that expression that says ‘it’s so hot out you could make eggs on the sidewalk’ or something?”

“Yeah…?”

“Well, the pavement physically can’t get hot enough to do that and also we’re up north so: aluminum foil to try and get the process to work a little better.”

He stared at her for a while before snickering. “Need a magnifying glass? We can ‘kid with an anthill’ this.”

“Sure.”

He reached into his tool belt and started looking for his spare. Unfortunately for him, it seemed to be gone.

She could feel his sharp gaze turn on her even if she couldn’t see his eyes behind his helmet. He wasn’t stupid and magnifying glasses don’t usually just disappear into thin air unless they’re Plastic Man in disguise. She held up her hands for a quick search but, when he couldn’t find it on her, he just sighed and looked down at the science experiment. It didn’t seem to be going well. The egg was still distinctly not cooked.

Eventually, he groaned and sat down. The light around him flickered and started to move at his will. Marinette watched intently.

Ten minutes later, they had a cooked egg. They high-fived, delighted. They weren’t going to taste it, obviously, it had been out for a while without supervision and who knows what could have happened to it… but it was an egg! Yay them!

“My old science teacher would be so proud of me,” Marinette joked.

“My current science teacher would be proud of me.”

“Oooooh, going back to school?”

He smiled. “Yep! Robin is finally in college and Red Hood convinced me to go with him. You should, too, it’s actually not that bad.”

“Please. If I was going to do that I’d go back to my home country. American school is expensive and not all of us are sponsored by billionaires.”

“... aren’t you a millionaire?”

She grinned. “Of course. But why would I want to spend that much of my own money?”

He hummed his understanding. Then, she pushed herself up with a groan. “Right, we both have jobs. See you later.”

He hesitated and then held a hand out for her notepad. “Is it bad?”

She held it out of reach with ease. “Nah, just drugs. Unless someone got shot while I was gone but I doubt it. They’d been almost as bored as me last I heard.”

“If it’s nothing then let me see.”

“Ugh, do you really want to fight? It’s too hot for that,” Marinette complained. He started to square up and she, after a second’s thought, added a little something to convince him: “Also, there’s going to be a breakout today so you should really save your energy.”

“... really think I’m going to fall for that?”

There was an explosion in the distance.

“Yeah. I’d hurry. I’m pretty sure it’s Joker’s turn to get out.”

She waved him off with a smile… only for her smile to drop when she remembered her other job. She groaned again and stretched out while she still could.

Tikki floated over the side of the building, a magnifying glass as big as her head in her tiny paws.

Marinette rubbed the kwami’s head. “You’re the best.”

Her kwami sighed. “That I am,” she said.

Marinette grinned and sent the film of Signal using his powers to her computer so she could give it to Calendar Man when it was due.

People were always so predictable in Gotham.

She supposed she really had been tempting fate when she’d thought that. Still, that didn’t mean she liked it that Fate had called her bluff.

But, actually, it seemed that Fate was the one that was bluffing. That had been her entire day. She had finished up her work and then went to one of her more stocked safehouses for a nap. She’d woken up to the buzzing of her phone when she’d gotten the message. She didn’t think she had messed up anywhere…

Her shoulders relaxed. She was probably fine. Which meant it was just Oswald Cobblepot being annoying. As usual.

Marinette flung the doors to the Iceberg Lounge open. Every eye in the room fell on her, but she only cared about the eyes of one person.

She stalked through the lounge, pulling one of her twin karambits from its sheath and pointing the curved blade towards him.

“What the fuck do you want? You really think that, after almost seven whole years of rejecting your wrinkly ass, I’m suddenly going to say ‘oh, yeah, I guess I’ll work for him now’? Leave me alone!”

Cobblepot wasn’t concerned even as her knife came to rest under his chin.

“Canary,” he greeted, regarding her cooly through his monocle.

Guards surrounded them. Marinette somehow managed to look unimpressed without anyone being able to see her face.

Everyone present held their breath… except for the two with weapons pointed at themselves. They knew that they would never follow through with it, especially not in a place as public as this. It was little more than a warning, a reminder, that either of them could kill each other at any given moment and chose not to.

For now, at least.

Cobblepot dismissed the guards with a wave of a gloved hand and she, after a few seconds, lowered her knife.

“What do you want?”

“Currently? For you to get off my table,” said Cobblepot.

She snorted but hopped down with ease. “I meant: why did you call me here?”

“... we should go somewhere else to discuss this. I assume you don’t do all of your business meetings in public?”

“Only if I know ahead of time that I’m going to say no,” she said.

He motioned for her to walk with him to a private room and, reluctantly, she followed. He had to think he had something on her, otherwise he wouldn’t have tried calling her there. She was curious.

They came to a room with a metal door and she cringed a little. Fun.

She dropped eight knives down into a tray and Cobblepot put down a gun, a knife, and his umbrella. She let a female goon pat her down and then checked Cobblepot over herself. Nothing she could find, but she was sure he had found some way to hide one somewhere.

They stepped inside as a pair and each took a seat on opposing ends of the wooden table stationed awkwardly in the middle of the room. She leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up.

“So, what’s the job?”

“I’m surprised you’re even going to hear it.”

She shrugged. “I’m curious.”

He nodded slowly before leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

“Power poses don’t actually work, you know, that’s just lies so companies don’t actually have to deal with all the discrimination.”

“Is that true?” He asked.

She shrugged again. “Probably. I’ve never worked for anyone, so…”

He chuckled. She didn’t like that.

But he didn’t say anything on that subject. Instead, he just smiled a smile that looked weird on his face and gave her her mission briefing: “I want you to figure out the bats’ identities for me.”

Marinette stared at him for a minute before breaking out into laughter. She couldn’t seem to stop. She stood up to leave, still giggling. Really? Did he really think that would work? People had asked many times, of course, and the bats’ identities weren’t common knowledge so she had to have said no. Why would she suddenly do it for him? She didn’t even like him.

She rested her hand on the knob but held off on leaving for just a second. She flashed a grin at Cobblepot. “Interesting offer. Bold. But no. Couldn’t pay me enough to do that.”

“Good thing I have no intentions of paying you, Marinette.”

~~~

And behold a new section I call ‘Marinette is a menace to society why would anyone let her on twitter’

(… the name may need a little work)

OliverQueenOfficial: Why does that one Gotham villain go by Canary? Black Canary already exists.

TheBetterCanary: if youre gonna vague tweet maybe dont put my name in it

TheBetterCanary: but anyways someone else named me that and it stuck before i could think of something to change it to

ScareCrane:… @/RiddleMeThis she’s dissing you

RiddleMeThis: LISTEN UP. IT WAS THEMATIC. DON’T ANY OF YOU KNOW ANYTHING OF DRAMA? EVER HEAR ABOUT CANARIES IN COAL MINES? FUCK ALL OF YOU AND YOUR UNCULTURED, UNEDUCATED ASSES. NOT TO MENTION IT WAS MAKING FUN OF THE BIRD THEME ALL THE VIGILANTES HER AGE SEEM TO HAVE. (1/14)

TheBetterCanary: @/ScareCrane why would you do that you knew he was going to do this

ScareCrane: Joker just broke out so Arkham is boring… needed to entertain myself somehow

TheBetterCanary: fuck you im not visiting this weekend

OliverQueenOfficial: Wow do I regret asking. I didn’t need all this family drama in my comments.

~~~~~

Perma taglist: @nathleigh @peachmuses

#alright strap in babes it's another longfic #no one is surprised #why do i change my format with every fic?#no clue #im dumb #anyways ive finally started writing this #canary #maribat #timari #timmari #timinette #shutterbug #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #tim drake #red robin #i like timinette best as a ship name #idk why

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mha-platonic-yanderes · 4 years ago

Text

Settling In: Parentals

Inspired by @i-cant-sing and their Yandere Todoroki Clan AU

The room is pink. Well, it’s mostly pink. It’s pink with white furniture and embellishments. The closet doors are white and so is the windowsill. The floor is hardwood brown. But everything else is a bubblegum pink.

You’d prefer another color, one that wasn’t so bright and grating to the eyes. But you don’t say that. You just fiddle with your one dufflebag’s handle. This is all you have left, after bouncing around from group home to group home. A year ago—when your parents died—you had thrice as much. Now this and the backpack for schoolwork is all you have left.

“Do you like it?” The mother of this house and wife to the current number one hero, asks you a question. He’s not here; nobody’s here except you two. The house seems too big for three people, but there are pictures on the wall of others. It doesn’t look lived in; there is no semblance of a family. Though, the pictures on the wall show a six person family. It shows that there are four more people here and you get your own room. In a house with now seven people, you get your own room and you aren’t giving it up.

Despite the pink color and the vast emptiness, you answer honestly, “Yeah, I do.” You do like it, even if it's not for the right reasons

Her hands are on your shoulder. You can feel the increased pressure on one side lift up, almost as if she’d been purposefully holding onto you too tight.

“Good. Now, let’s unpack.” She gracefully takes the bag out of your hand, setting it atop the bed. You sit down alongside it, opening your backpack. A couple of notebooks, pencils, and two textbooks sit inside.

You start to stand, heading to take the materials to the desk they’ve provided. Though, whilst holding a pair of pajamas—slightly too little but in [y/f/c]—she takes the books out of your hand.

“Just relax, [Y/N].” Rei replies, “Let me handle it.”

You sit on the bed twiddling with your blouse’s edge. You wore your best outfit, even though it was just your school uniform, without the frumpy sweater.

The bed is insanely soft. With satin sheets, a thick, fluffy comforter, and a healthy amount of pillows, it's easily the softest place you’ve been.

“I’ll have a driver return your school books back to your former school.” Rei replies, on the other side of the room. You shift to look at her, but she has her back turned to you. “I’ll discuss with my husband what school to place you at.”

“Alright.” You’ve had to transfer schools about three times since last year. Moving again isn’t a hassle anymore. You know not to hope you won’t move again. Though. you know not to get attached to anything in case you have to—in case this doesn’t work out.

“We’ll get you a better education than the one you were definitely receiving.” You can hear the gentle thump of one of your textbooks. She heads back to your duffle bag; it’s now half empty. “My eldest three all went to Somei Private Academy for junior high. Two ended up continuing through highschool as well. My eldest went to Shiketsu and my youngest is in Yuuei now.”

You know those schools. They’re expensive, private academies. You’ve only ever been in public schools. The wealth was obvious when you were picked up in a blackened car with a driver. You just didn’t expect them to spend that money on you, a lowly orphan.

“Or we’ll just hire a set of tutors like we did for our youngest before he went to Yuuei.” She decides what to hang up or fold. You’ll have to go through it all later to find everything. Luckily, you don’t own much—or unluckily, depends on how you look at it. But you don’t dwell on the issue long, responding quickly to the lady, “Alright.”

She smiles at you. It’s sincere, motherly. It’s what your mother would’ve done, before the accident. It’s something you sorely missed since then.

“You’re extremely agreeable, aren’t you?” She finishes out the bag, pressing it into the top of your closet. Your backpack gets sat beside the desk. This room is large and your things are set in its appropriate places across from it.

“I guess.”

“That’s a good thing, darling.” She goes to mess with your hair, “Now, for dinner tonight, let's change you into something a bit nicer, yes?”

You pause, looking at your toes in their pristine white socks. You can see her legs as well, considering how close she is to you, “This is the nicest thing I own.”

“That’s fine. We’ll just have to go shopping for some new things.” Rei replies, taking her other hand to your chin, forcing you to look her in the eyes, “Enji and I know what we are getting ourselves into, buying you a whole new wardrobe will be nothing.”

She takes her hands from your head and into your hands, helping you up.

“Where are we going?” She leads you back from your room to the rest of the house.

“Shopping, darling.” Rei replies, “We have five hours to do so, before I must start dinner, that is. Is there anything you want?”

“No, not really.” She’s already planning to drop a substantial amount of money on you and she’s already being incredibly maternal. You aren’t going to stretch that patience thin and have her snap already. You aren’t going to ruin this for yourself.

She smiles at you, “I’ll figure out what you like soon enough.”

===

The shopping mall standing in front of you was not where you usually would’ve gone. A basic department store, maybe a strip mall if you’re lucky would be where you usually shopped. This place however, is at least four stories high standing stark white and black against the almost colorless blue-grey sky. Though, you don’t get to admire it long. Rei quickly pulls you out of the cold outdoors and into the perfectly heated building.

“Now, I say we head to clothing stores first and then to more home goods type stores, so we don’t have to pack the heavy stuff around. Though, if we get too much to carry, we can send it back to the car and then continue shopping.” Rei replies, “Is that alright?”

You nod, still reluctantly going along this whole situation. The car is actually a limo and you have your own room in a massive estate. You have an impossibly nice and maternal caretaker who’s insanely rich. This is your “Annie” moment; this is your fairytale scenario. The shoe has to drop at some point. You aren’t going to be blindsided when it does.

“Good.” She locks arms with you, holding you close. It’s weird, but not entirely uncomfortable. You want to trust her. Your sense of judgement is clouded, knowing that she can’t really be this nice, but you want her to be like this

She leads you into a clothing store, taking you to the brightly colored section. Rei silently holds a peach colored sweater up to you. She grabs an orange skirt, looking at them both together.

“What do you think of this?” She asks, holding them up together. The sweater is thick,

assumedly warm. The skirt however, isn’t,. You tell her that.

“That’s what some white stockings are for [y/n].” She laughs lightly, “and please call me Rei. You don’t have to be so formal.”

“Alright... Rei.” Acclimating to her is easy. At the moment, you don’t care what the rest of her family is like, she’s nice and maternal and everything you miss from your own mother.

She grabs multiple sweater and skirt combinations, not grabbing a single pair of pants for you. This store doesn’t sell tee shirts or blouses, sticking to a younger, but put together catalog. You briefly entertain the idea of them being traditionalists, but you don’t mind that. You’ve lived in worse houses than one with conservative ideals.

And besides, the outfits are cute. You hope you can keep them if everything goes south.

“Put these on.” She hands you the clothing, “and I want to see every outfit you try on. I want to see if it looks good.”

The fitting rooms are nicer than any you’ve ever been to. When checking the price of the items she’s handed to you, you can see why. The least expensive thing is a 10,000 yen skirt. It’s plain blue, just like the 1,500 yen one you have on now. It's obviously of higher quality, but guilt pangs in your chest at the thought of her spending so much money on you. This is at least a dozen items in here.

You slip it on, alongside the white sweater, filled with gold stars. You look at yourself in the mirror, before heading out the door. Rei sits in a chair, looking at you.

“You look absolutely adorable.” Rei comments, “We’re keeping it.”

She doesn’t let you put your input in. But she’s paying for it, so you don’t complain.

Five more times, you come out in sweater and skirt combinations. She has nothing but praise for each outfit. It’s refreshing. Your last home was less than pleasant.

Rei leaves you to change back into your uniform. All six outfits are bought and placed into two bags, both on her arm away from you. She wraps her other arm into the crook of your arm.

“Onto the next store we go.”

As you all head to a different floor of the mall, you voice concerns you originally had back in the dressing room, “You know… you don’t have to spend so much money on me.” You tell her, then backtrack, “Not that I’m not grateful! I am really! It’s just that I don’t need stuff this fancy, you know?”

“[Y/N], I am your mother now. It’s my duty to get you clothes and stuff.” She says it with a certainty that is oddly comforting. Everything about her is that way, from her soft, smooth skin to her warm, grey eyes to her bright, white smile. She’s intensely maternal, something that you didn’t realize you wanted anymore, until today, “and we must keep you up to the Todoroki standard. After all, you’re going to be one of us for now on.”

Being one of them. You don’t know of any Todorokis; you’ve never been a huge fan of heroes like some of your peers. But belonging, that’s something you’ve craved since it was ripped away from you. A family—that’s what you’ve always wanted.

“All right.”

“Chin up, shoulders back.” She tells you, “You’re new life begins tonight.”

===

Rei never let you carry a single bag throughout your trip. She also wouldn’t let you see any of the receipts or let you have a final word on anything you got. But, you got all nice things—all things you like. So, you don’t mind.

“Change into the white dress with the red and pink roses.” She instructs, “And redo your hair. First impressions are important, after all.”

You haven’t met her husband, nor any of her children. But, as the pictures on the wall show, her husband is Endeavor, the number one hero. Usually you’d meet the person fostering you beforehand, but with his affluence, there needed to be no meetings beforehand.

Following her instructions, you rifle through the bags, finding the dress she wanted you to wear. Slipping out of your old clothes and into the cold, expensive dress is a quick process. Doing your hair to a standard that would make her proud, is not. Eventually you get it right.

Unlike earlier, you take the time to unbag your stuff. You mimic what Rei did in your closet. Shirts, sweaters and dresses are hung up. Skirts, leggings, and stockings are folded in the dresser. The shoes are placed on the inside of your closet. The few decorations you got are placed so that they don’t move what Rei and her husband already got you. She’s extremely peculiar about order. You won’t break that order.

“[Y/N].” She knocks on the door that doesn’t lock, “What’s taking you so long. Do you need help?”

You open the door for her, “I was just putting everything away, Rei.”

She comes in, looking at the room. She pulls the draws out and reopens the closet door, looking inside them. It’s an inspection, to see if everything is up to code.

Rei pinches your cheek, “ It’s perfect, exactly how I imagined it.”

Perfect. She’s praising your work. The word warms your heart, bringing a smile to your face. You haven’t gotten enough praise in your life, clearly.

“Thank you.”

“Now come on.” She tugs at your wrist, “Enji will be here any moment and I need help plating the table. Usually Fuyumi would do it, but you’ll meet my other children at a later date. Tonight is just about you, me, and Enji.”

“Alright.” Relief settles from your scrunched up soldiers. You only have to meet one new person, not five like you assumed. One person is better than five people—even if he is the #1 Hero.

You’re led back through the sitting room and into the dining room. It’s nice, well lit. It’s low to the ground and cushioned. You’ve expected this from this house. Every room besides your own is extremely traditional. You expected the whole house to be like this, once you walked through the doors.

“The plates and cups are in the left cabinet, do be careful with them.” Rei points to a side room, at the back of the dining room, “I’ll bring in the cutlery. Enji should be here soon.”

As if on cue, you hear the front door being opened. A low voice calls out, “Rei, darling? [Y/N]?”

You freeze, plates and cups in hand. Something about the number one hero calling out of your name unsettles you. Though, somehow immediately aware of your apprehension, Rei places a cold hand against your back. You can feel it through the dress, which isn’t surprising, considering how thin it is.

“We’re in the dining room, honey.” Rei takes the plates and cups from your hands, placing them down and simultaneously leading you to your seat. You sit, legs together and bent to the side. You sit currently in the seat to the left of the table’s end.

The number one hero—Rei’s husband—kisses her cheek. He towers over her. She was waiting for him at the entrance. You try not to make any noise; you try not to interrupt them.

She heads to the seat across from you, leaving Endeavor to sit at the head of the table. You aren’t surprised; this family gives of very traditional vibes. He radiates heat to your right, still aflame, showing off his powerful quirk.

The food is already on the table. It’s more than enough for the three people here, possibly more than enough for the six people in the photos—plus yourself. You make your own plate, only getting what you know you’ll eat. You don’t want to take too much, you don’t want to be greedy.

“Make sure you actually get full, [Y/N].” Rei smiles at you. It’s warm and soft.

“I am, Miss.” You can feel Endeavor staring at you, but you don’t look at him. You shift your head down, looking at the plate in front of you. You don’t grab more; you don’t want to ruin their hospitality with your selfishness.

Rei and Endeavor talk to themselves, mostly about work. They occasionally talk about three other people—Shoto, Fuyumi, and Natsuo. There are four children in the photos on the wall; it’s a family of six. Though, you don’t ask about the unnamed child, it isn’t your place to do so.

You finish your food fairly quickly, but so do the other two. You look up at Endeavor for the first time tonight, asking, “Can I be excused, sir.”

“No.” He replies, “We have things to discuss.”

“Oh… alright.” You fiddle with the hem of your dress underneath the table, “What do you want to discuss, sir?”

“I’ll take the dirty dishes and excess food.” Rei smiles at you, “You’ll be fine, [Y/N]. Pass me your plate.”

Endeavor waits for Rei to leave to start talking. You are acutely aware of how hot it is now, without Rei’s cooling, calming effect.

“How was your day today?” He starts the conversation off decently well. You look him in the eye, “Good.” You were taught manners growing up; you know how to hold a conversation, no matter how intimidating the person you’re talking to is.

“That is a pretty dress on you, [Y/N].”

“Thank you.”

“Now then. While you are here, there shall be rules you will follow. Rei and I have devised a fair list and she’ll go over them with you extensively in the morning.” He tells you, “Though, the ones concerning you tonight are: no technology post-dinner and that you shall be in bed by ten o’clock. Rei shall wake you up at seven am tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Those aren’t too harsh rules; other homes have had worst lists. Though, you won’t make a final decision on that until tomorrow. You tentatively ask another question, “Uhhh, sir. Rei mentioned other children. If you don’t mind me asking, where are they?”

“Shoto goes to U.A. They have dorms now and are forced to stay there. Fuyumi and Natsuo have since moved out, but visit occasionally. You’ll meet them when it is appropriate.” Endeavor tells you, “And [Y/N], call me Enji. You are now dismissed.”

“Alright, Enji.” As you stand to leave, you use his name, “Thank you.”

#yandere todoroki clan #yandere todoroki family #yandere mha #yandere bnha #yandere #mha #bnha #platonic yandere #yandere enji todoroki #yandere rei todoroki #enji todoroki #rei todoroki #canon? what canon?#who was going to tell me that my line breaks dont transfer over to tumblr like they do to ao3

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enhyupn · 4 years ago

Text

enhypen’s reaction to when their s/o is clingy because they’re jealous! <3

requested by anon

pairing: ot7!enhypen x gn!reader

fluff, established relationship!au, warnings: slight swearing, jealousy, word count: 1.4k

a/n i hope this is up to ur standards anon i’m so sorry this took a little while 😩😩 also i feel like it’s kinda repetitive throughout the members im so sorry also i made the ni-ki part a little longer for you @rheyom

ʚ heeseung

the two of you are in a practice room and someone comes up to the two of you

they talk to heeseung for so long and ask him if he could help them with a dance move

at the same they’re sending you literal Daggers while fluttering their eyes at him

you didn’t really think much about it because he was just helping someone out... right?

wrong. they were so obviously flirting with him that you just felt like a third wheel

WITH YOUR OWN BOYFRIEND!!!

out of instinct you wrap your arms around his torso

he would probably be really flustered at first and ask you what you were doing

he’d stare at you for a while before everything processed in his head

“why are you— oh.”

he would tease about it non stop for a while

he’d ask you why you were doing it just so you can tell him you were jealous

“what was it again? i don’t think i heard it the first time” “shut up.”

you would end up regretting getting jealous but it’s okay because heeseung thinks it’s cute

after that moment, he asks you if you’re jealous every time he teaches people dance moves because he wants you to hug him again

“are you jeal—” “no, you did a good job teaching sunghoon that move”

ʚ jay

you two are at some really popular café

you’re literally just sipping your expensive iced tea jay eagerly bought for you when someone comes up to the two of you and asks jay for his number

you would of been fine with it if they had just simply walked off after jay told them that the two of you were actually dating

but they were being very persistent about the whole thing

jay tried to keep politely declining

you sort of had enough at their stubbornness so you decided to move your seat closer to him

before you knew it your head was on his shoulder, clinging onto his arm

within all of this, the person had already left

probably because it was kinda awkward watching you cling onto him as they tried to get his number

when he finally realised the situation he was really cocky about it

like heeseung i think he’d really tease you over it for a bit

but he would then feel really bad about it

he’d probably stop and remind you that you’re the only person for him

and would try and make it up to you

“they don’t mean anything to me” “i know—” “i only think of you i promise!”

he’d try and order you more food out of guilt

you two finally agree to sharing a drink with two straws instead of ordering the whole dessert menu

ʚ jake

the two of you are at a dog park walking layla around at jake’s request

it’s fun and calm... y’know the usual

well all until someone with a similar looking dog comes up to you two and starts blatantly flirting with jake!!!

jake obviously tells them he’s uncomfortable but they don’t budge at all

“sorry but we’re dating” “oh! but you’re so cute... and they’re...”

your eye literally starts twitching

everything went blank and now your chin’s on jake’s shoulder and your arms are affectionately wrapped around his waist

it’s kinda awkward for the other person so they just... Leave

jake probably would laugh his head off because he just can’t believe the situation

would ask you over and over again if you were jealous

“are you jealous?” “yes. i am. how many times do i have to tell you this?”

he finds it really cute though because he likes it when you’re clingy

i feel like he likes it a lot because it reassures him that you really like him <3

ʚ sunghoon

the two of you are walking around and it’s probably like the evening

you’re just distracted by all the bright lamp posts that you didn’t even realise he was stopped by someone

it was an old friend that looked... close to sunghoon

maybe it was the way they lightly touched sunghoon’s arm

or maybe it was the fact they were getting very close to sunghoon... almost touching each other’s hands

you didn’t know but you definitely were bothered by it

you thought hey, maybe i’ll try and get his attention!

so you tap his shoulders lightly with your finger anddd... no response.

you try and grab his hand... still all attention on his old friend

that’s when you took his arm and placed it around your shoulders!

finally... you got his attention (as well as a huge smile on his face)

“what are you doing?” “i don’t know.”

he teases you playfully and it looks so sickly sweet that his friend just walks off

you two might of kissed a few times as you continued walking down the street

ʚ sunoo

you two are simply just spending time with the rest of enhypen

you and sunoo end up conversating with ni-ki about shoes

sunoo is so deeply immersed in talking to ni-ki while you just sit there listening

you would of been fine (this always seems to happen anyways) but the fact every time you had tried to add something in you were ignored

by your own boyfriend!!!

his whole focus was on ni-ki and you weren’t exactly happy about it

“sunoo they’re—” “ni-ki what about these?”

that was the last straw.

you decide to scoot closer towards him

clinging onto his arm with your cheek slightly rubbing on his shoulder

it got his attention for sure and ni-ki’s too

he just sort of laughed and poked your cheek in endearment

you pout and hide your face in his arms because... you were kinda embarrassed

he finds it so endearing that he just pats your head blissfully

ni-ki’s just sitting beside you two, still talking to sunoo as he watches the two of you flirt

i mean it’s awkward but he doesn’t really care cause he’s happy you didn’t end up fighting

and also the fact you two are cute and he’s jealous

ʚ jungwon

you’re on a picnic with jungwon because you saw those picnic tiktoks and also wanted to eat cake and strawberries in the wind

you felt like it was worth shivering in the wind for a few pictures on instagram </3

it was fun until someone with their phone held out came up to jungwon

you didn’t know what was going on until you saw their phone was opened on the phone app

jungwon (being straightforward) pointed over to you and told them you two were dating

they just scoffed and told him that the number was for their friend

you’re very confused but also A Little Mad

because why wouldn’t they leave after his first reply???

jungwon Straight up says no and they FINALLY!!!! leave

but you’re still bothered by it because they sent you a glare

like of course you were jealous!!!!!! you (secretly) wanted jungwon all to yourself

you just pout and scoot over to him and give him a back hug

he’s just confused because he thinks you already know that he has eyes for only you???

you do but you’re still jealous

he just keeps reassuring you and tries to feed you strawberries himself

he doesn’t tease you because he understands why you would be upset and jealous about that </3

he tells you that the next time that happens he’ll just leave

ʚ ni-ki

the two of you are at the library reading random children’s books to keep you two entertained

you’re in the middle of laughing at a badly illustrated children’s book when someone comes up to you two

it’s his classmate that is staring a little too intensely at ni-ki

you sit in silence as you watch them force conversation on ni-ki

you were about to save him when all of a sudden they sat down beside him

and they were basically clinging onto him!! like their hands on his shoulder

before you knew it your eyebrow was raised and you stood up from your seat

you sat down in the middle of them, making sure there was distance among them

you them bring your hand to ni-ki’s to hold it as you stared at his classmate

ni-ki just stares at you with his mouth open while you lay your head on his shoulders

he’s a little shocked that you did that but he doesn’t hate it

honestly he just wants to coo at you for being jealous

he tries to make up for his classmate interrupting the two of you by bringing you more children’s books

he silently wishes to himself that you would be a little more clingy when you’re jealous

#hybenet #prism.nw #lsn.works #enhypen scenarios #enhypen imagines #enhypen fluff #enhypen x reader #enhypen drabbles #enhypen timestamps #enhypen reactions #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff

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ncssian · 3 years ago

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A Favor: Part Twenty

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: sorry for the wait yall this month really kicked my ass,, but also we reached part 20!!

tw infertility discussion

***

Gwyn: isn’t he beautiful <3

In the freezing February air outside the tea house, Nesta clicks on the picture attached to Gwyn’s text. It’s a distant shot of a man in his mid-thirties hunched over a library desk while working, unaware that there’s a camera on him. She’ll give it to Gwyn, though—he is a little handsome.

Emerie: the stalker levels are through the roof, gwyneth. seek help.

Gwyn: no i’m gonna marry him

Nesta doesn’t know whether to laugh or be concerned, but she types out a brief response before her thumbs fall off from the cold: Will give my opinion on him later. Got to go.

Gwyn’s crush will have to wait, Nesta thinks as she finally puts her phone away and pushes her way inside the exquisite tea house. Immediately, blasting heat thaws her frozen fingers and toes, and farther inside she spots the table she reserved for three. Right now, only one person sits at it.

Nesta grits her teeth and approaches the round table, heels clicking softly on the parquet floors. Elain doesn’t look up from the menu she’s reading. “This place would be nicer to visit in the spring,” is her only acknowledgment of Nesta.

“I like the winter,” Nesta answers simply, taking her seat across from Elain. She likes how the ice creeps over the garden outside until everything looks frozen in time, and she likes how the colorful flowers and trees become dulled by white snow. Not that her sister would understand or care.

“Of course you do,” Elain mutters, setting down the menu with all the careful elegance of a debutante. “I’m only here for Feyre, anyway.”

It almost saddens Nesta that she doesn’t feel hurt or offense at the words. She thought she would care more about Elain’s opinion than she actually does. “Where is Feyre, then?” she says, looking pointedly at the empty seat between them. “I thought she was coming with you.”

“I’m right here,” a breathless voice says, accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps. Feyre appears, looking flushed from exertion and the cold. She sets her bag down and joins them at the table, scooting her seat all the way in. “Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Nesta bites. “I was just about to order.”

“So was I.” Elain smiles breezily.

Feyre glances between the two of them, clear concern on her face, but she covers it up and says, “I’m so glad we’re doing this.”

It was Feyre’s idea, of course. After Nesta told her off for never being interested in what she wanted to do, Feyre actually listened. She asked if Nesta wanted to hang out, and then let Nesta fill in the rest of the details on her own terms.

Which brings them to the tea house. Unfortunately for her sisters, however, Nesta doesn’t really know where to go from ordering tea and biscuits.

“How is school going?” Feyre asks her after their drinks arrive.

Nesta sips from her tea, already bored. “It’s been fifteen minutes and you have yet to say anything of substance, Feyre. It makes me miss being alone with Elain and her mood.”

Feyre looks taken aback, and Elain levels a glare at Nesta. An unsurprised, of course you have to ruin everything like this glare.

So Nesta clarifies, “That wasn’t an attack. I just hoped that after driving out here, I would get something better than shallow small talk.”

“And how do you know it was shallow?” Elain steps in harshly. “How do you know she isn’t actually interested in how you’re doing at school?”

Nesta slides blunt blue eyes to Feyre. “If that’s the case, then I commend you. Personally, I wouldn’t give a shit if I was in your position.”

To her surprise, Feyre snorts. She looks resigned when she says, “No, you’re right. I don’t care about what’s going on at school, not if you don’t. What would you rather we talk about then, Nesta?”

Without hesitation, Nesta says, “Ask me something you really care to hear the answer to.”

Elain shuts her mouth and sits back at that. Feyre twists her lips, thinking her next words over carefully. “How is your therapy going?” she finally asks in a cautious tone. “What do you talk about there?”

Remembering that she’s in a formal setting, Nesta stops herself from crossing her arms. She settles on wrapping her fingers delicately around her teacup instead. “We talk about whatever I feel like talking about,” she answers honestly. Although lately her conversations with Lana feel more restrained than usual.

“And what’s that?” Feyre urges.

Nesta shrugs, fitting apathy onto her face like an old mask. “Recently? Childbearing.” But it isn’t her favorite topic of discussion, not at all.

“You’re pregnant?” Elain jumps in, leading Nesta to throw her an unamused look.

“No, idiot,” she says. “My therapist just has the idea that if I end up being infertile it’ll screw me up, mentally and emotionally and whatever. She thinks I should deal with that baggage now instead of saving it for later.” She rolls her eyes thinking about it. How many times does she have to repeat that she doesn’t care about her body’s reproductive abilities until Lana gets it?

Feyre chuckles, confused. “Why would you be infertile?”

Nesta forgot—she didn’t want her sisters knowing anything that has to do with her health. She even made Cassian keep her doctor visits secret from Feyre. But that was months ago, and the sisters are… not exactly in a better place now, but looking for the way there. Nesta thinks she can tell them without any severe regrets. “I have endometriosis.”

When she’s met with silence, she adds, “You know, with the tissue growing on my ovaries and stuff. It might affect all the babies I don’t care to have in the future.”

Elain is the first to speak. “You always wanted to be a mother.” Her voice is soft, almost mourning. It irritates the hell out of Nesta.

“No, I didn’t,” she snaps back.

“You did,” Elain insists. Feyre still hasn’t said anything. “You took care of our cat, Mittens, until the day she died. You taught Feyre her alphabet. You raised me when Mama and Papa were too busy to do it. You never carried dolls around in strollers or anything, but you loved being a mother.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Feyre says, blinking. “I’m sorry, can we go back to the endometriosis part?”

Nesta sips from her tea, the bitter taste a welcome distraction from Elain’s words. “What about it?”

“How long have you known?” Feyre demands.

“It isn’t cancer. And I’m getting treated, obviously. I’m fine.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Nesta sighs, setting her cup down. “October. Cassian made me go to the doctor because he was worried about my periods, we had a big fight about health insurance, and now I use my salary from your boyfriend to afford medication so I don’t feel like dying every month. Is that everything you wanted to hear?”

Feyre only stares at her, for once revealing no emotion. “I keep forgetting,” she says finally, “that we’re not at a place to share things like that with each other. I keep being surprised every time I realize how much of your life you keep from us.”

“I don’t,” Elain huffs under her breath while she tears a croissant in half.

Nesta is still watching Feyre. “You remember how bad my cycles were? I would cry loud enough at night to wake the house.”

Feyre flinches at the memory, and Elain goes still.

“But no one ever woke up,” Nesta says. They never talked about it before, and she has no desire to keep speaking about it now. If they start to tally all the hurts they’ve dealt to each other, Nesta fears they’ll be here for hours. Worse, she fears she will lose.

She reaches for a lavender macaron and delicately pulls it apart, studying the cream filling inside. “Did you know they make these using the lavender flowers from the garden outside?”

“I hate lavender,” Elain says.

Spying her chance to shift the subject off herself, Nesta goes for it. “Because Azriel smells like lavender?” She pushes one half of the dainty cookie past her lips, chewing. “It’s an interesting cologne choice, I agree.”

“Wait, what are we talking about now?” Feyre looks around, unaware that they’ve moved onto another topic.

Elain’s innocent brown eyes turn into daggers pointed at Nesta, betrayal written across her face. Nesta feels no pity for her—especially not if they’re going to sit around judging each other for keeping secrets.

Feyre’s eyes widen and she turns to Elain. “Is it about your,” she lowers her voice and whispers, “crush?”

Nesta raises a skeptical brow. She doubts whatever Az and Elain have stops at just a crush.

“No, it’s not,” Elain answers determinedly. “God, do you have to bring men into everything, Nesta?”

“I think you’re projecting.”

“Quit it,” Feyre snaps at the both of them. “Or I’ll grab my things and leave.”

Do it, Nesta almost dares. But she has a feeling that Feyre means it, that she won’t submit to being taunted, so Nesta reins the words back from the tip of her tongue. After all, this tea is expensive.

The sisters take a moment to settle, and Feyre is the one to restart the conversation. “Either way,” she tells Nesta, “it looks like counseling is going really well for you. I’m glad.”

“Yeah, it really gives your skin a certain glow,” Elain drawls.

Nesta doesn’t rise to meet her sarcasm. In all seriousness, Elain and Feyre could probably use a therapist themselves. It might make Nesta’s interactions with them less headache-inducing.

“You should visit one day,” she throws the suggestion out without thinking.

“What, like a therapy session?” Feyre says.

Realizing the implications of her terrible idea, Nesta forces herself not to backpedal. “Yes,” she makes herself grit out. “If you’re interested, that is.”

Elain and Feyre share a glance of hesitation and concern. It’s a glance that grates on Nesta’s nerves, but she keeps her mouth shut and waits for a response.

Feyre answers first: “We’ll do it.”

Elain looks more doubtful, but seems to realize that refusing to go would paint her in a negative light. We can’t have that, can we? Nesta thinks wryly. She reaches for some macarons and starts stuffing them into her purse. “Sounds good. Great.” It is not at all great. Having her sisters in the same room as her and Lana might just be terrible enough to ruin Nesta’s next month or two.

“I’ll text you the details whenever I feel like it,” she tells Feyre and Elain as she rises out of her seat. Likely not for as long as possible.

“Where are you going?” Elain demands.

“I’m leaving.” Nesta pointedly drapes her coat over her shoulders, picking up her purse. “I have plans for the rest of the day, sorry.” Plans to get home and rate Gwyn’s work crush on a scale of one to ten. Maybe she’ll rewatch a sitcom if she has time.

“But it’s only been an hour,” Feyre protests.

Did Feyre think they would be spending the whole day together? Nesta wants to shudder at the mere idea of it, but she somehow… feels bad for her sister. “Maybe another time,” she promises vaguely. To provide some sort of reassurance, she adds, “I had fun today. Thanks for pulling this together.” The words are hollow, fake, and she’s probably a hypocrite for not being able to return the same sincerity she demanded from Feyre. But honesty isn’t going to get Nesta very far today, so this false politeness is the best she can manage.

Elain looks somewhat relieved, and Feyre looks disappointed but unsurprised. “Alright.” The girls nod at her. “Get home safe.”

She turns and leaves as soon as she’s given the green light.

A stale scent greets Nesta when she enters her apartment, reminding her that she hasn’t been around in days. In her defense, the winter months are easier to bear in Cassian’s heated cabin than in a poorly insulated basement.

Flicking the lights on, Nesta books it to the thermostat, her teeth nearly chattering out of her body. After turning the heat as high as it can go, she climbs beneath the covers of her bed without bothering to take her coat off. She doesn’t take out her phone to text the groupchat like she promised she would. She doesn’t even get her laptop to turn Netflix on. Rather, her focus is caught on the framed picture of her and Cassian sitting atop the dresser.

Everything was okay as she stepped out of the tea house. It wasn’t until she was inside her car that it came upon her: the whirlwind of emotions that had stayed so carefully hidden while she chatted with her sisters. All throughout the drive home, her mind kept returning to that one topic. Children.

Elain said that Nesta used to genuinely enjoy playing substitute mother when they were children, and she was right. But that was all fun and games, like playing teacher. What Elain left out was what happened after their actual mother died and their father went into debt, leaving all three girls in need of a parent figure. Nesta wasn’t a mother then—or at least, not a good one.

Now, she stares at the picture full of smiley cheeks and windblown hair, remembering the night that she realized she wanted to hold Cassian’s hand in hers.

She can’t imagine Cassian not wanting kids. They’ve never discussed it, but it’s so obvious to anyone who’s ever met him: he has too much love to give away to not one day end up with a whole brood of children. The thought makes Nesta’s stomach churn.

***

“Thanks again, guys.” Cassian shakes hands with his team as they file out of the conference room, all of them dressed professionally while he lingers in his hoodie. As soon as the last worker is out the door, he pulls out his phone, ready to shoot Nesta a message. She met up with her sisters alone today for the first time in a year, and he can’t wait any longer to find out if their brunch ended in a fight or not.

He clicks on his phone to find two texts from his brother, sent not too long ago.

Rhys: You’re in the office today for the monthly check-in, right?

Rhys: Don’t leave after the meeting is over. I’ll be there in an hour to introduce you to the new guy heading the Milan project.

Cassian frowns, confused. Rhys and the new guy are coming all the way up here to meet him? He didn’t know he was that important to the project.

While he waits for his unexpected guests, Cassian texts Nesta twice, and only receives a single short response saying she got home safe. Resolving to call and have a real conversation with her later, he gets up to change into the spare buttondown and pressed slacks he keeps in a locker in his office. If Rhys wants him to play the part of company boss, then he might as well look the part.

He’s adjusting the cuffs of his dark-colored shirt when the door to his office opens without warning, and Rhysand strides in followed by a stiff-looking young man.

Cassian eyes the stranger up and down first, trying to get a read on him the way he’s seen Nesta and Rhys read others. He doesn’t come up with a single thing, as usual, but he hopes he achieved his goal of looking intimidating.

“Cass,” Rhys greets him with a subdued nod, in full CEO mode. “This is our new hire, Keith O’Connell. I snagged him from right under Vanserra & Co.’s noses.” His near-violet eyes gleam with pride. “He’s going to be working out of Milan for us starting this summer.”

“Sounds good to me.” Cassian smiles lazily, and this is something he doesn’t need to fake—confidence. He reaches out to shake Keith’s hand. “Hi. I’m Cassian Madani.”

“Good to meet you.” The other man shakes back, but his grip is too tight, like he’s trying to break Cassian’s hand. Try-hard, a voice that sounds like Nesta tells him. Uses arrogance to cover up his insecurity.

Cassian takes it all into account as he pulls his hand away, seeing Keith through clearer eyes. His dark brown hair is slicked back with copious amounts of hair product, and a shrewd black gaze takes in every detail of the office. He stands like he’s attempting to seem taller than he actually is.

A typical white-collar worker looking for a way up the corporate ladder, Cassian concludes. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, but there must be a reason Rhys is so excited about him.

“Keith is starting here at your branch next week,” Rhys is saying when Cassian refocuses.

He blinks, unsure if he heard correctly. “What, all the way out here?” Away from Velaris in this modest mountain town?

“We agreed it was best if you two work together as closely as possible while preparing for the summer launch. Since you can’t come to Velaris, that means Keith comes here.”

Cassian looks at Rhys in astonishment. He thought that once he rejected the Milan position, he’d cleaned his hands of the job for good. Clearly he was wrong. “Just how involved am I going to be on this project?”

Rhys grins back at him. “You’ll lead from home base, of course.”

Cassian glares. Rhys responds with a look that says they’ll talk about this later.

Keith seems to find the idea of working alongside another person as distasteful as Cassian finds it unexpected, but he says anyway, “I can’t wait to start working together. I have a lot of ideas for the Italian outpost that I think you’ll appreciate.”

“I’m sure I will,” Cassian hums. “When do you start again?”

“Next Monday.”

“Then we should talk then.” Cassian gestures out the door. Keith looks taken aback, likely having expected more out of this meeting. But Cassian can’t meet with this guy until he gets a hold of what the fuck is going on. After shepherding Keith out of the office and shutting the door after him, he turns to Rhys with a raised brow.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Rhys warns. “Your role in this project is serious.”

“This project isn’t even part of my job description. What am I supposed to know about international business conductions?”

“You know enough to keep an eye on that O’Connell kid for me.” Rhys leans against Cassian’s desk as if it’s his own and crosses his feet. “He’s an asset to the company, but he also worked for our competitors up to a couple of months ago. I can’t trust him to manage this thing on his own, and I don’t have the time or resources right now to watch over him myself. That’s why the duty falls to you.”

“I manage security,” Cassian states, in case it wasn’t obvious. “What about Az?”

“Az has his own things to handle.” Rhys waves him off. “Just do what I tell you to, will you? Pay attention to O’Connell for the duration of the Italy venture and make sure he doesn’t steer our ship off course. You’ll get paid triple for the extra hours.”

“I don’t need triple,” Cassian grumbles, but Rhys is no longer listening. He’s typing on his phone and already heading for the door.

“Feyre and I are having dinner here before heading back home,” he calls over his shoulder. “See you later; I believe in you!” The door shuts after him, leaving Cassian alone.

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies to the empty room.

Cassian leaves not long after Rhysand does, having no excuse to linger. Outside, he’s greeted with a surprise leaning against the hood of his truck.

Nesta pushes off the hood as soon as he catches notice of her. “Long day?” she asks.

He laughs for the first time all afternoon, the sound surprised and genuine. “I was just thinking about you.”

“That’s why I’m here. I heard your thoughts.” There’s a light in her pale eyes that only burns whenever she looks at him. It’s the same light that powers her ability to make jokes and let her guard down around him in a way she can’t with most others, and Cassian is especially grateful for it today.

Nesta reaches out and takes his hand into hers. He watches the way their palms fit together in endless fascination, his brown fingers a stark contrast against her white ones. He squeezes once and looks back up at her. “How did meeting your sisters go? You never told me.”

The light flickers so briefly Cassian wonders if it’s a trick of his eyes. But then Nesta is there again, at full brightness. She squeezes his hand back. “Take me home. I’ll tell you all about it.”

***

a/n: i love writing stuff related to cassian’s job i’ll just be throwing random words in there and calling it business jargon

tagging: @hellasblessed @sjm-things @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @valkyriewarriors @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @cupcakey00 @sayosdreams @rainbowcheetah512 @claralady @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @everything-that-i-love @cassianscool @swankii-art-teacher @wannawriteyouabook @awesomelena555 @julemmaes @wickedqueenoffantasy @poisonous-bloom @observationanxioustheorist @gisellefigue08 @courtofjurdan @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @wolfiixxx @cass-nes @seashade @royaltykxx @illyrianundercover @queenestarcheron @monstrousloves-explodinggalaxies @humanexile @that-golden-lyre @agentsofsheilds @mercy-is-alive @cassiansbigwingspan @laylaameer01 @verypaleninja @maastrash @bow-dawn @perseusannabeth @dead-on-the-inside666 @jlinez @hungryreadingaddict @anidealiveson @planet-faerie @shallowhighwaters @ghostlyrose2 @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @rarephloxes @readiajin @nessiantrashh @live-the-fangirl-life @ifinallygavein @xoblivisci @sjmships @jungtaekwoonie-is-life @lysandra-tiara @lanyjoy-13 @frosted-crackers @post-it-notes33 @loosingdreams @fromthelibraryofemilyj @18moneytoad @dontgetsalmonella @champanheandluxxury @togreblog

#a favor #ncssianwrites #nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #nessian fic #nessian au

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the-bjd-community-confess · 2 years ago

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bear with me here. lately, well, for the past 6 months we’ve been trying to buy a house. rent in my area is terrible and moving out of my area isn’t an option, so in theory it’s literally cheaper to buy a house. plus my bf and i have good (for our area) jobs. however we wanted to only put down 15%, so we need this thing called mortgage insurance. which also goes through a credit check, like the mortgage would. we’re on the mortgage together. somehow i was approved for the mortgage but denied for the insurance, because them checking my credit lowered my score to one fucking point below what’s needed. i don’t have a bad score, or a terrible debt to income ratio, my score is literally only “fair” because i bought a car 3 years ago and that vs my student loans that i’ve had for ages lowered my credit age, and therefore my score. bc. i don’t fucking know. capitalism™️. so we have to put down 20% of a down payment which we didn’t budget for because we were fine if it weren’t for, y’know fucking credit bureaus. it’s an extra 10k we don’t have because we didn’t expect to need.

so anyway i’m taking it hard. real hard. because along with my house savings i obviously also have a doll savings (it’s much lower though) for, you know, my expensive hobby that i finally started to being able to like actually buy for around 4 years ago. and i feel guilty because it’s like, if it wasn’t for my score and if i wasn’t indulging on things that make me happy, i’d be able to save more for “””adult things””” like buying a house. i almost in a panic started calculating and figuring out how i could sell my collection and all my doll stuff because i’m sure if i sold literally everything i have related to the hobby i would be able to cover the extra 10k. i was like packing shit up and taking pics in a fugue state before my bf stopped me and was like it’s not your fault?? but anxiety and growing up poor af until this job i got after college says otherwise. as a kid and even in college i did not buy anything that wasn’t necessary or if i did it was a long time saving for like a 60$ video game, so having this much fucking money (comparatively) is so wild to me and i was so excited to finally collect and sew and create for these beautiful dolls i’ve always admire. my collection is mostly the “”cheaper dolls”” with some expensiver dolls (resinsoul is great though i legitimately love them for more than $ reasons),

i buy a lot of second hand because i love restoring things, i don’t even buy the big fancy full sets (i shell ocs mainly), and tend to use layaways to assuage my anxiety about paying sums of money over 3 digits. somewhere inside me my brain says “you brought this on yourself, you knew this was a waste of money”. it’s not i know logically, especially if all my other needs and debts are taken care of, but like. h

tl;dr so anyway this is a fucking weird ass confession. i feel sick for even indulging in this hobby and spending money on things i like instead of only paying my bills and food and taking care of my cats bc i could have used that money to add to my house savings to offset my apparently shitty credit score. i’m contemplating a second job and selling every doll thing i have because i don’t feel like i’m pulling my weight even though i am according to my bf. we’re not going to be homeless, we’ll just sign another year where we are, but it’s crushing to know that i clawed my way to stable income and doing something that makes me happy and i still can’t even be good enough for a house that’s only about 130k . that’s so so fucking cheap in this state it’s insane. i hate everything and feel so fucking guilty.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Confessions #Finances

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hurdenbeavy · 2 years ago

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Aaaaaaand we’re back! Gotta admit I diverted from writing for a bit to catch up on Lore Olympus cause I was wayyyy behind. But! Let’s get going shall we?

————————————————————————

Legacy of Spring

Part 2

Tilting his head, Ethan cheered as he won yet another round of his new favorite card game. “I win! That means you get to show me your home.” Getting up, the boy sprinted to go share the news with his mother, his father chuckling at his uncle’s expense.

“Shut up, Castellan. Like you could do any better.” An annoyed glare was shot to the blond as he went about picking up his cards and figurines, sending them back to his desk in his room.

The older man shrugged nonchalantly, a teasing smile on his face. “I’m not saying I could. But Ethan obviously got his skill from someone in the family.” Watching as both wife and son walked from the screen door, bulging backpack on the boy’s shoulders, he sighed. “Watch over him, will you? He’s never left home except to go visit his grandparents.”

A huff escaped the demigod. “Of course I will. He’s my nephew. Besides, if he can handle the Underworld, he can handle a couple days at camp. But I do want to be included in the next one’s life more.” With a teasing smirk, he met the rest of the family. “Ready?”

“I swear to Hades, Nico. If you let a single thing happen to my boy. You won’t even have to worry about my mother.” There was a protective look blazing in her glare as her pride and joy bounced around in anticipation. “Nothing too dangerous, okay? He’s only ten. I don’t care how good the healers are, I don’t want him to have to see them. But if something does happen, I want to be there. Okay? Okay?” Now addressing her son as well, her expression softened when she took in his joy.

“Don’t worry mom, I got this! And if it’s really as cool as Uncle Nic says it is, then maybe maybe I’ll go this summer. But it’s just this weekend. And I’ve got my gift in case anything happens.” Adjusting his backpack, he ran and gave her a hug before doing the same for his dad. “I love you guys!” With a final wave, he and his uncle disappeared into the shadows.

“He’ll be fine.” Pressing a reassuring kiss to her neck, he hummed. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

Sighing one last time, the woman fiddled with her bracelet, an old nervous tic she had returning once more. “You’re right. He’s a fighter.” Resting her head on his shoulder she followed him into their house, it feeling quiet for the first time in years.

“Okay kid, here we are. Camp Half Blood. The place your parents met. Remember though, don’t go mentioning it. And if someone asks who your parents are, just come find me.” Looking down to make sure he was understood, he started down the path.

Slowly as to give time for his nephew to take everything in, he showed him around. “Down that way are the strawberry fields and the Big House. But you don’t need to worry about going there, just come to me if anything happens.”

When a horn sounded, the boy looked excited. “What’s that mean, Nic?” In his state, he didn’t notice the wings from his shoes start up and help him hover until he reached his uncle’s line of sight.

Sighing, the man shook his head. “That means it’s dinner time. You’ll sit with me. Ignore anyone else, alright?”

Drooping just a bit, the kid nodded and trailed after his uncle, spending the trek asking him questions. Reaching the mess hall once more, he scanned over the crowds of people, curiosity filling him as he took in all the different people and beings.

Sitting down, the boy grinned as all of his favorite foods appeared on the table. Serving a little more than he usually would for himself, he nearly vibrated in his seat. Looking at his cup and whispering, “pink lemonade.” Seeing it was indeed his favorite drink, he beamed brightly. “Awesome.”

Hearing the soft clop of incoming steps, Ethan sipped from his drink, eyes trailing to his uncle. “When’s it our turn to go?”

“Now. Come on.” Smiling down at him, he shot a sharp look at the intruder before leading him to the hearth. “Hades.”

Balancing his plate carefully, the blond whispered as he poured the best parts of his food into the fire. “Gran and gramps. Cerby too.” Smiling, he followed his uncle back to their table much like a duckling. Sitting down, he dug in, a warmth filling him as his prayers were heard.

“Nico. If you could bring your… guest to the Big House after dinner we can go about determining how to confirm his parentage. Until then, he really should be seated at the Hermes table like all new campers.” Chiron stood tall over the table and held a commanding presence. “Perhaps then you could tell us how you came across an unknown demigod before us.”

Much like his unbothered nephew, Nico barely drew his attention away from his food. “I don’t see why that’s needed. This is Ethan, he’s ten. I met his parents during my travels and they agreed to let him come with me to see if he would be claimed since he’s a legacy.”

Almost as if taunting them all, a pair of wings glowed dimly over the boy's head only to be outshone by a skull which was outdone by the light of a pomegranate. The silence in the hall was deafening. And to think it was broken by the child looking up and grinning, a soft “Cool.” leaving his lips.

Quickly taking this into account, Chiron cleared his throat and kneeled, speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. “Hail, Legacy of Persephone, Kore, Goddess of Spring Destroyer of Light and Men. Queen of the Underworld.” Rising he looked between Nico and the boy, a familiar feeling tugging at his gut. “Do meet me after dinner, Nico.” Turning, he left as murmurs broke out amongst the campers.

Almost as if summoned, a group of three different people came to their table and sat down. “So, Nico… Didn’t realize you were one for kids. What’s the story behind that?”

A snort left Ethan as he came to finish his meal. Feeling eyes prodding at him, he glanced at his uncle. “You were right. They are all nosy.”

A smirk tugged at the man’s lips. “You can’t say things like that without pissing people off, brat.” Looking up, he studied the people before shrugging. “He’s not mine if that’s what you’re implying. But he’s family. My nephew, actually.”

Having caught their attention, sea green eyes studied the young boy, trying to piece which children of Persephone he knew that had a thing for a Hermes kid years back because obviously this one had been around for a while. “You’re ten? That’d put you being born… maybe a year after the war with the titans.”

Here is where the kid laughed to himself. “You all are weird.” Glancing at his uncle for permission, he dropped the ball on them. “I was born two months after the final battle. We had to wait until the fall until we could go visit my grandpa.”

Seeing as that was enough to distract them for the night, Nico rose, causing Ethan to do the same. “Come on, brat. Your mom would murder me if I let you stay up too late.” Ruffling his hair, he led the kid away. Once back in their cabin, he watched the kid get ready before going to bed. “Now to deal with the idiots.”

#percy jackon and the olympians #luke castellan #luke pjo #percy jackson #percy pjo #annabeth chase #annabeth pjo #pjo au #legacy of spring

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years ago

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That One Fucked-Up Rexwalker AU

OKAY so people showed interest in this! Cool! This is... actually you know what, yeah, this falls into dead dove territory. It's kind of angst with a happy ending? At the very least it's hurt/comfort.

Warnings: rape as psychological torture by an enemy party, later dubious consent by parties that are at least trying to make it consensual but the situation makes it difficult to navigate

This was inspired partially by the first chapter of this collection by @the-writing-mill, which features Obi-Wan getting absolutely railed by a fucking machine set up by droids who don't understand consent. I got to thinking about the set-up and slid sideways into a slightly different context.

So Anakin, in all his shitty luck, gets captured, as one does. Whoever captures him has strict instructions to avoid physically damaging him or permanently fucking up his connection to the Force, because they'd like to use him as a weapon eventually, but to play around with his psychological damage in whatever way suits.

We'll say it's Ventress, who vastly prefers horrifying physical damage for torture, or killing/hurting people's loved ones in front of them, and now has to get creative to deal with Skywalker, because for whatever reason, she only managed to get Anakin and not any of his friends.

Obviously, Palpatine is the one saying 'don't damage the good.' She doesn't know that, though, just that Dooku said His Sith Master said to leave Skywalker intact for later.

So the easy route to psychological damage is, well, rape. But she's not into him, and there aren't really any other sentients in her little torture castle, but last she checked Skywalker is really needy? She's picked up on the fact that this guy really loves Having people.

She handles it: strip him down, strap him down, and get a fucking machine involved. Naked and cold and with a pipe leaking from the ceiling. Let a protocol droid keep an eye on things so he doesn't have some kind of permanent physical damage, but basically just have him unceasingly fucked for like a week, sometimes edging and sometimes forcing and sometimes just really digging into the oversensitivity, whether he's awake or asleep or what. Nothing but air and metal, and sometimes Ventress when she comes by to taunt him. There's magic involved to up his sexual craving without making it any easier on him.

It's fucked up but he does get saved! Eventually!

Ventress did her job, didn't enjoy it, and doesn't care that he's gone. She has people to kill, okay, she's bored.

So, you know, Anakin needs time to recover. He doesn't try to argue that he doesn't, at least partly because he's having trouble standing. He'll be fine! Stop worrying, guys! It's fine!

It's not fine, everyone tells him, because that was fucked!

It takes a while to get back to Coruscant. It's normally a few days, but there's a disruption on the hyperlane they'd use, sooooooo they're stuck.

Anakin tries to make some calls to Padme. When the calls connect, she helps. Obi-Wan was part of the rescue team, so he's there to do what he can, but Anakin keeps flinching away. Ahsoka is helpful because Anakin's hindbrain reads her as Not A Threat, but nobody's telling her what kind of torture Anakin was dealing with, because she's Designated Baby.

Anakin is alternately overwhelmed by physical touch and craving it, and the fact that he just got the Force back isn't helping.

(It later comes to light that the reason he flinches from Obi-Wan and Ahsoka is because they've got the Force and a person with the Force approaching for that week meant Ventress, and that's--not great. And it's just a LOT and REALLY BRIGHT after his time in the Force-nullifying cuffs.)

So Anakin spends a lot of time alone, craving people while being deeply unnerved by the ones he's most able to ask for that sort of thing (his master and padawan). Rex is one of a handful of clones that volunteer to check in on Anakin until they get to Coruscant. He's not the only one who walks in on Anakin shifting uncomfortably and looking red in the face, but he's the one that actually asks about it.

Anakin, with some prodding, does not admit to the problem. He does, however, admit to a different problem, and asks if Rex would be okay with a hug, or maybe putting an arm around Anakin's shoulder, or--actually, no, this is stupid, forget he said anythi-- Rex sits down next to him and pulls Anakin into his side and just lets Anakin relax into him.

Anakin starts shivering. Shuddering. Crying, after a while. Rex lets it happen and tries not to panic, just rubs an hand up and down Anakin's arm.

They don't really talk about it, but Anakin does end up cuddling with Rex for a few hours a day while they try to get everyone home, and Anakin's kind of on enforced medical leave, so he can't really help until Obi-Wan comes up with a solution that gives Anakin a job directly.

Rex finally gets an answer to why Anakin keeps looking uncomfortable and close to tears but embarrassed about it. He doesn't, for the record, press for that answer. Instead, he accidentally walks in on Anakin three fingers deep in his own ass and whining into his pillow.

Which is. Awkward.

Obviously.

Turns out whatever Ventress did to him has him feeling incredibly empty without something to plug him up! It sucks! He hates it! He's been trying very hard not to submit to this need, but it's still there and he needs to be filled up and just snapped and had to do something about it!

This is, as you can imagine, not a comfortable conversation for anyone, but Rex tries to cheer him up with "Well, Jedi have stipends, right? You can probably find, uh, a toy, right? Once we're back on Coruscant? Or the Senator...?"

Anakin doesn't want Padme to know.

Anakin is also near tears but that's. Well. Rex is used to that by now.

(Anakin isn't using shipboard fabricators to make a dildo or plug because have fun explaining that on the expense report!)

So Rex is in this awkward position of having to comfort his recently-more-traumatized-than-before superior officer, whom he just walked in on furiously and tearfully masturbating due to said trauma...

And Rex is pretty much just like "Dude, please call your wife and have her talk you through the... whole... thing... I'm just, I think you'd probably feel less upset about having to fill yourself or whatever if she was talking you through it?"

They drop the subject for a bit, but Anakin is still Fucked Up in many ways, including new and exciting ones, and it turns out he hasn't been sleeping! And only sleeps if there's someone he trusts nearby!

So obviously Rex volunteers because fuck it, it's not like there's anything about his General he hasn't seen yet, right? So, yeah! Sleepy cuddles! Intended to be platonic!

Rex wakes up hard and flushed and with a very much still asleep Anakin grinding his ass against Rex's crotch.

Which, under significantly different circumstances, he'd not be upset by... But given literally everything going on, um. No?

Rex has no idea what to do, so he just kind of lays there and tries to shift away so his back is pressed to the wall and Anakin isn't accidentally trying to fuck himself in his sleep. Which works.

For about fifteen minutes.

And then Anakin is whining and shuffling back and Rex just tries to wake him up like Dude, You Don't Actually Want This, You Told Me You Don't Want This

And they separate and avoid each other and shower, and Rex leaves to go do Things while Anakin continues to try to meditate away what trauma he can before they get back to Coruscant for extremely long mandated therapy.

Rex shows up that evening to cuddle again, but Anakin tries to turn him away because He Can't Be Sexually Assualting His Friends In His Sleep, so he should honestly just sleep alone, right? Right, okay, bye Rex, Anakin is so sorry about this morning--

And Rex interrupts that he's not actually upset about it, he's just upset about Anakin being in this position, and Anakin doesn't actually want Rex so that's kind of upsetting, and Rex would be very open to this later after the war when they're not in a position to fuck up their entire legion with a change in dynamics--

And this goes back and forth for a bit before Rex realizes that Anakin does actually want him, and did before this whole Situation happened, and Anakin realizes that Rex is interested in him and NOT just trying to 'do his duty for his Jedi' or whatever.

And anyway, it turns into some very sweet lovemaking every night where Anakin gets to fall asleep with a cock in his ass, filled with cum, with Padme's blessing, until they get to Coruscant and he can find a plug for the nights they're not together (and also some therapy).

When Obi-Wan finds out they're fucking, he's actually furious and ALSO unsure of which one's taking advantage of the other.

Initially assumes Rex is taking advantage of Anakin's recent emotional traumas. Anakin protests that he asked Rex for this, and Obi-Wan is asking in horror if Anakin ordered one of the soldier under his command to do this, and it all just kind of goes very poorly.

Everyone means well. Nobody really succeeds at it.

#Rexwalker #Captain Rex #Anakin Skywalker #asajj ventress #Obi Wan Kenobi #star wars #the clone wars #torture tw #psychological torture tw #rape tw #phoenix posts #dead dove do not read #dead dove

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jesusology · 3 years ago

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Haruka theory and thoughts under the read more! just me going through the MV and voicing aloud some thoughts, let me know what you guys think too!

（*´▽｀*）also this is super long i

opening scene! the necklace is obviously important to him. also it’s very cute. nothing to say abt this in particular but i just think it’s really cute

love the background choice and how the room looks in general. gives me a big liminal space vibe. i promise i’m getting to actual theorizing in a second here just

love how the scenery from the window changes when it switches back and forth between him and his younger self (?). i’ve tried searching what the symbolism is of a red sky (if there is any) and i did see that it could mean “the end” or it could be symbolic of danger and what’s to come.

ugh i love the water thing going on. first off, i’m a huge sucker for water imagery and the like and so you KNOW i go gaga for this. it has to be because haruka feels like he’s constantly drowning, like he’s suffocating on his emotions.

i’ve watched this MV at least fifty times and this still gets me upset. pretty obvious that what’s going on here is some form of emotional abuse as well as a co-dependence on Haruka’s part. Haruka clearly has a learning disability and it’s nothing he can control but the people in his life are blaming him for it and so he blames himself, too.

evidence of emotional abuse, being told things like how he’s pitiful or not smart, etc and of course Haruka is going to believe that hence why he’s always calling himself dumb and feeling like when he’s around others he’ll only make them sad because that’s exactly how it was for him at home.

also like how the background is all gray and gloomy and there’s his childish scribbling of a monster (?) hovering over. could be symbolic of a threat to what’s his normal life, like it could end so suddenly

the world around Haruka is changing. his parents are changing (i’m assuming they’re divorced but i don’t think that’s ever made explicitly clear), he’s growing up, but he also feels exactly the same maturity wise. he may be increasing in age but he still is exactly the same and the change is unnerving to Haruka and it’s become noticeable to his parents that he’s not “growing up” and doing “normal” things. his learning disability is holding him back from becoming what’s so normal for society, what’s accepted in society.

so he’s viewed as “weak”, it’s his ‘weakness’. and society eats the weak.

i feel like Haruka’s parents (perhaps namely his mom)(or maybe it was both his mom and his dad but Haruka’s thinking more about his mom because he was closer to her) were becoming fed up with Haruka’s inability to learn what is supposed to be ~oh so natural~ and ~normal~ so they quickly began to get frustrated. also, that drawing behind Haruka appears later i think....

Haruka realizes and recognizes what’s going on and this, in turn, makes him have feelings of self-loathing. why can’t he do what anyone else can? why is everything around him so different but he’s the same? why is he getting taller, having more expectation placed upon him when it’s just too hard for him? Haruka is grappling with these thoughts constantly and it’s making him feel like he’s drowning and no one cares to pull him up out of the water.

i’m gonna be honest, i have no clue what to make of the girl with him at the fireworks but i DO know that the fireworks are really important to him because i recall him answering that it was his cherished memory and he goes on to say the most expensive thing he’s bought was cotton candy and i’ll venture to say that it was at this fireworks festival.

i got nothing to add to this but i just love that line and it is important for you all to know this

are those yellow roses or marigolds? i’m thinking maybe they’re yellow roses which can mean either “jealousy” or “thinking of you”

i could be going off a wrong assumption here, but hey this is all just guess-work anyway... did he accidentally push the girl? and it somehow led to her death or at the very least a severe injury? i’m willing to bet it was more of an injury than death, but even so.

and if he DID push her, now it’s coming to light? like he did that, it was his fault (even if it was an accident, he would no doubt blame himself), and he’s a bad person who is only good for causing harm to others.

as someone who also sleeps with like five stuffed bunny animals, solidarity between me and Haruka. i want that rabbit it looks so cute

YAA there it is again! i don’t know what the heck it means but there it is!

the dog gives me pause because i’m not entirely sure what to make of it but i DO think this is where it’s important to remind people that the MV’s are based upon the prisoner’s own perception (i think. if i’m wrong, please correct me) and so we’re getting a lot of this from a biased standpoint.

again, emotional abuse that might seem “”””Harmless””””” to others but it’s anything EXCEPT.

did the dog run away? was he given the dog and Haruka now blames himself for letting the dog run off and perhaps the dog got hit by a car? (;﹏;) i feel like something that’s important is just how much self-hatred Haruka has and his tendency to blame himself for outside factors. i don’t think he LITERALLY killed the dog, but he feels as though he did so it’s become figurative.

also as far as his dislikes being “children” and “animals”, i think he’s jealous of them, maybe? like that could tie into the yellow roses and their symbolism signifying jealousy and envy. he’s jealous of the inherent “innocence” associated with them. he’s getting older, so that “innocence” that’s accepted with THEM is no longer being used with HIM. Haruka has what’s deemed as “childish” interests and i get the feeling he’s made to feel badly about it. no doubt his disability is tied in with this.

there’s those flowers again. and Haruka tries to drown his wants/needs in order to try and “repent” for being the way he is. it’s HIS fault, so he has to think everything is fine even though he’s NOT fine and he’s going to break at some point under the pressure of society/his parents/everything.

Haruka makes an effort to try to understand things in the beginning, but everytime he questions something that’s really ~obvious~ to everyone else he’s met with disappointed gazes and harsh critiques. so he stops trying to understand what he’s apparently ~lacking~ and he stops asking questions because that’s it! he’s dumb! he doesn’t get it so why bother!

i feel like by this point any praise to Haruka is better than nothing. rather than indifference or being ignored, he’d even rather be called “crazy”. i think Haruka just wants ANY attention be it good or bad - what he hates the most is feeling invisible or as if he could disappear and it wouldn’t matter to anyone.

i still feel like the blood on his hands is more figurative than literal and for reasons i’ve already explained so there’s no need to rehash it like i’m trying to meet an essay word count requirement

me too Haruka （；へ：）

his feelings of sadness and being unwanted turn to anger onto HIMSELF and it is what snaps the very thin thread he’s been living on

choking himself ties into the water motif we’ve got going on here. the drowning, the suffocation - no longer being able to breathe because everything is broken and it’s unfixable. and he’s the reason why.

i feel like his crime is somehow suicide/attempted suicide but if it IS suicide then i really don’t know how he could be with the other prisoners? unless they’re all dead and this is some form of purgatory or something but otherwise? i don’t know. i just feel like it could be suicide

now i will also say this. the puddle of blue surrounding “him” has to be blood and that kind of makes me wonder if i’ve been barking up the wrong tree here but. idk any ideas anyone else has on this would be appreciated and also please talk to me about MILGRAM because i’ve got a badddd obsession

what Haruka wants more than anything is attention and love. he wants love and yet it’s difficult for him to accept love because he doesn’t seem to have any “experience” with love. in the questions asked to him, he doesn’t even seem to really know what “love” actually is. he considers “liking” and “loving” to be the same thing, there’s no difference to him. if he’s getting attention it might not even matter to him because at this point something is better than nothing.

so yes! this is messy. and it’s perhaps even incoherent. if you read this thanks for coming to my TED talk i love Haruka so much. it’s probably become obvious that i’m a little biased bc i relate to him a lot. let me know your own theories too or thoughts on this, i’d like to know hehe （*´▽｀*）

#MILGRAM #haruka sakurai #milgram theories #i mention suicide in this as a heads up!#i cant believe i just spent like an hour writing this. hm. i am in deep #i relate to He.... and i love him #i wrote all of this at 3 AM bc i am off my rocker

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mrsalwayswrite · 3 years ago

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To Call Forth Love - Chapter 10

I’m sorry its taken me so long to update. I haven't had much time to write lately due to....well, life. But here we are and its long, so hopefully that makes up for the length.

Side note- the Norwegian used is from Google translate so....

Warnings: swearing, mild sexual content, Lothbrok family dynamics (yes, its a warning), threats of violence

Words: 15,700 (yep, my longest chapter yet. I packed ALOT into this beast)

Tag List: @youbloodymadgenius @evelynshelby @pomegranates-and-blood @heavenly1927 @zuxiezendler @punkrocknpearls @love-all-things-writing @southernbe @ecarroll1978 @breezykpop @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie

Series Masterlist

"Where are we going? I thought we were going to your flat?"

Gyda slyly smiled at Kari, sitting in the passenger seat of her bright yellow Porsche. "Change of plans."

Kari stared at her friend. "I'm scared to ask."

"Torvi asked for female reinforcement. So, we are going to keep her company."

"Ok…. But where is that?"

"At the brothers' house." The blonde answered nonchalantly as she made a quick right-hand turn. "It's tradition. Kind of a last family summer party before it's too cold to swim anymore. They have a pool in their backyard."

Kari felt her stomach drop. Ivar had told her he lived with his three other brothers. Gyda had her own flat while Bjorn and Torvi owned a house nearby. Whenever she tried to ask Ivar about his home, he would shrug off the question or ignore it completely. Eventually she just stopped asking. Curiosity certainly reared its head when she wondered what his home was like. For how much money meant nothing to him, she guessed it was massive and expensive. Maybe he knew she would not fit in and that was why he never brought her? Even through his speeches of wanting her to be his girlfriend, he knew she would not fit into his lifestyle. Why else would he keep her away? It was a valid truth that she had come to terms with. Even if she found herself secretly desperate to ease into his life, she never would.

"Of course, they do…." Kari rolled her eyes at the notion that obviously, there was a pool in their backyard. It fit the stereotype in her mind. Then she thought about what Gyda just said. "Wait. Do you have a swimsuit with you?"

Gyda raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at her while keeping her eyes on the road. "Don't worry, I've got you covered. Torvi brought an extra of hers for you."

"You had this planned, didn't you? We never were going to your flat, were we?"

"I don't kiss and tell."

"Yes, you do. There was that guy you hooked up with two weeks ago that kept sending you dick pics after."

"That guy was way too proud of his dick. I mean it wasn't even that big."

"I don't want to hear this again." Kari groaned, tugging on her diamond earring. She enjoyed Gyda but she had learned far more about the woman's sex life than she had any desire to know.

"Okay, fine. And yes, Torvi and I planned this. Ivar doesn't know you're coming."

"Why?"

Gyda smirked. "Because he's been so secretive and only Hvitserk has seen you two together. Besides, the rest of the brothers want to meet you. We may be at each other's throats most of the time but we do care for one another."

The brunette let her friend's words sink in. Hvitserk had mentioned the others wanting to meet her, but she had not fully believed it. Sure, she wanted to meet them and was curious after hearing Ivar talk about them, but why would they be interested in her? She glanced down at her clothes, the capri leggings and tank top that were practically a signature look for her. For once, she wished she dressed nicer regularly. "I wish you had said something before."

"You wouldn't have come then. You'd have created some excuse why you couldn't come." Gyda pointed out the obviously painful truth without remorse.

Kari slouched in the passenger seat, butterflies doing somersaults in her belly. Slowly, she pulled her ponytail down, letting her hair hang loose past her shoulders, running her hand through it absent-mindedly in hopes it looked decent.

At a red light, Gyda looked over at her with a bright smile. "It'll be fun."

"I don't know…. isn’t it supposed to be just family?"

"Ubbe sometimes brings his girlfriend but yeah, it's usually just family."

There was another long silence before Kari spoke again, unable to fully conceal her nerves. "You should drop me off and just go. I don't want to intrude."

"You're not. I'm bringing you because there is always way too much testosterone." Gyda groaned, then reached over and swatted Kari's leg. "What are you so worried about?"

"What if they don't like me?" She whispered. The weight of her confession hung over her like a dark cloud.

"What?"

She kept her gaze out the window. "The…. the others. What if they don't like me?"

Gyda laughed. "Kari, don't worry. They will love you. I promise. And if they say anything fucking stupid, I'll slap them or Ivar will stab them. See? Simple."

A smile grew on Kari's face. "That shouldn't make me feel better…. but for some reason it does." Maybe she had already spent too much time with various Lothbroks if the idea of people resorting to violence made her feel better.

"You aren't alone, if anything we'll steal Torvi and Asa away and have a girls' party."

"Asa? That's her daughter, right?"

"Right, and Hali is her son. I swear that boy is going to be a miniature version of Bjorn."

"I've never been around kids much."

Gyda chuckled, waving a hand dismissively. "They are great, Asa is a sweetie who prefers to cuddle in someone's lap. It's Hali who is a bit wild but all his uncles love to play with him. He'll probably be swimming in the pool the whole time anyway."

Still staring out the window, Kari thought about everything Gyda had said. Of course, she was still nervous about just showing up to a family event unannounced, even if she was sort of being kidnapped by Gyda. Some of her nerves faded away with the knowledge that Gyda and Torvi both wanted her there. She really would not be alone. She had friends. She had people that wanted to spend time with her. Hopefully Ivar would be pleased to see her. His potential reaction was the only real wrinkle in her fluctuating confidence.

"Okay. I can do this." She said aloud, wondering if she was trying to fully convince herself.

"Good, cause we're almost there."

Kari stared out the window as they approached a gated community. Gyda showed her ID to a guard who chatted with her like they were old friends. As the yellow Porsche drove by the houses in the community, Kari just stared in awe. She had seen houses, mansions was a better term, like these before but it always amazed her that people lived in them. What did they do with all that space? All of the homes were set back from the road so Kari only caught glimpses of them but it was enough to remind her how out of her element she was.

Finally, they pulled up a long driveway to a massive two-story house. It was white with an insane number of windows, and a huge garage attached on the left side. On the right side looked like an expansive addition that made Kari wonder why they needed more space. The roof was made of some slate gray tiles, with a balcony above the front door and ivy draping elegantly over the corners. There were various sized potted plants and shrubbery around the front of the house and leading down the sides. Several European beech trees were strategically placed in the front yard to block most of the view from the road in an attempt at privacy. Whoever the grounds keeper was, for surely they had one, needed a raise.

Kari could only gape for a long moment, unable to move as she took in the immaculate, beautiful house. To think this was where Ivar lived and he always came over to her tiny townhouse. It was a struggle to tamper down the post embarrassment.

Gyda started talking as she parked in front of the house. The only other vehicle in sight was a silver four-door Audi, that Kari recognized as Torvi's. "Aslaug chose the house for them. When she isn't traveling for work or staying at their family home in Norway, this is where she stays. So, she insisted on this place. Something about the natural sunlight and old aesthetic blending with the new vibe. Or some other shit. I can't remember."

"Huh." Kari said as she followed the blonde out of the car. She noticed there was no mention of the father, Ragnar, and wondered where he stayed but knew it was none of her business so she kept her question to herself. Maybe Ivar would explain it to her.

Gyda opened the solid, wood front door, waltzing in like she had done this a million times. Kari took two steps in and froze. The vaulted ceiling in the foyer was enough to stare at but it was the large chandelier that caused her to stare. The way it caught the afternoon light through the many windows and gently cast it about was truly gorgeous. This view was worth owning the house for itself, in her opinion.

A tugging on her arm made Kari squeak as she found herself suddenly being dragged along like a ragdoll.

"You can stare later, Torvi is waiting for us." Gyda stated, a large purse over her shoulder and her heeled boots clicking on the shiny, wood floor with each step.

Kari caught glimpses of other rooms as they passed down the long, straight hallway. A living room with a TV that took up most of the wall it was on. A kitchen that would make any celebrity chef drool. Pictures and awards displayed along the walls in the hallway that were obviously put up by their mother.

The two finally stepped out into a room with glass walls, where the pool and expansive backyard lay before them. Most likely what used to be a porch before being enclosed. Still being pulled along, Kari followed Gyda through a side door onto the stamped concrete that surrounded the pool and lounge area. A pool in a rectangle shape dominated the area, a diving board on the far end. A quick glance around showed a jacuzzi on the other side, closer to the house, the water bubbling like a cauldron. There was a large grill, several short tables and lounge chairs spread over the stamped concrete. At the far end was an adult size statue of the Buddha with two flowering pots on either side of him and some kind of cheap, plastic crown on his head.

The backyard was several acres wide and at least that many in length. Trees and large shrubs blocked the views of the neighbor's properties and made the place feel almost like a hidden oasis. Further down in a corner was a lovely gazebo with a cobbled stone path leading to it and gardens decorating the way.

"Gyda! What took you so long?!" A distinctly male voice called out.

"I had to pick up a package." She called back, pulling Kari into full view of the others.

The brunette gave a small, self-conscious smile at the many pairs of eyes that she could feel land on her. Before she could really get a good look at who was around, a shout of her name startled her.

"Kari!" Hvitserk jumped up from his lounge chair, wearing only dark green swim trunks, and walked over to her with a beaming smile.

"Hey…. OH!" She started to greet him only to be swallowed into a hug and spun in a circle. Unable to deny him, she hugged him back and laughed. It was funny since last time she saw him, he was in business attire, coming to check on her per Ivar's instructions. Now she could not help but notice his toned body. His form reminded her more of a runner, while she was used to seeing Ivar's muscular torso. A couple tattoos on Hvitserk caught her eye and she wondered if all the brothers had them.

When he finally set her back on her feet, he kept his hands on her shoulders, green eyes twinkling with a mischievous glint. "I didn't know you were coming here."

"Yeah, I didn't know either until Gyda told me on the way."

He chuckled, glancing over her head to his half-sister. "Yeah, not surprising."

"Uh huh. Watch yourself, boy. I could still beat your ass if I wanted too." Gyda quipped.

"Maybe fifteen years ago. You don't have a chance now."

"Keep telling yourself that, Hvitty." She teased, then yelled at Torvi. "You got it?"

As soon as Kari was released by Hvitserk, she could sense a pair of sharp, blue eyes boring into her. Skin prickling under the sensation, she hesitantly looked up and immediately met Ivar's intense gaze right away, as if subconsciously her mind already knew where he was without having to search for him.

Reclined back on a cushioned, lounge beach chair, he wore loose black sweatpants, instead of swim trunks, under his leg braces, but without a shirt. His tattoos were a stark contrast on his skin and shamelessly on full display. Her fingers twitched with the urge to trace them again. It was his penetrating gaze though, the lack of emotion on his handsome face, that made her wonder if being here was a bad idea.

Before she could make a run for it, Gyda grabbed her arm as if sensing her desire to flee. "C'mon, let's get changed."

With one last glance at Ivar, she followed behind Gyda and Torvi, who had joined them, back into the massive house. They headed to the kitchen and Gyda pointed out a bathroom across the way.

Placing the beach bag on the kitchen counter, Torvi dug in it for a moment before murmuring a quiet "here it is" and handed Kari something. "Here. I bought this forever ago but never wore it. Bjorn said he didn't like the colors."

Kari took it, guessing it was the promised swimsuit, and peeked down at the two pieces of clothing in her hands. "Um…. where’s the rest of it?"

Laughing, Gyda rolled her eyes. "Get in there and change or I'll do it for you."

With a concerned look between the swimsuit in her hands and the two blondes staring at her expectantly, Kari finally conceded defeat and stepped into the bathroom. It was only a half bath, with a toilet and sink, but it was still roomy and felt fancy somehow. The mirror above the sink was large and there was a small, pretty flowering plant on the counter that upon inspection, turned out to be real.

Quickly, she changed out of her leggings and tank top and into the swimsuit, figuring it was best that way, like ripping off a band-aid. Plus, if she stopped moving, her nerves would get the better of her and she would somehow find a way to sneak home. Even if she had to crawl through a window. A smile grew on her face remembering Hvitserk's enthusiasm to see her. That had honestly surprised her but she found she did not mind. Hvitserk seemed like a good guy and the little bit of time they had spent together, she felt comfortable with him. He was funny and caring.

Then Ivar's blank face came to mind and all of her excitement slipped away like water down a drain. There had been no acknowledgement, not even the hint of a smile, only a hard stare that made her anxious and self-conscious.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to remind herself what Gyda said. At least the two Lothbrok women wanted her here, and apparently Hvitserk was happy to see her. That was what she needed to focus on and not Ivar's reaction.

Once done changing, she finally took stock of what Torvi had leant her and gasped.

"Oh no. No, no, no. Hell no."

She stared down at the wide-band bikini. The top and bottom both had alternating white and light pink stripes, strangely reminding her of cotton candy. The design was certainly something she would never pick out for herself but she did not hate it. The real problem was the way half her ass cheeks hung out of the bottoms and more of her breasts saw the light of day than they ever had before. Never had she been so exposed. Even swimsuits she bought in the past were never this revealing. Her gaze immediately zeroed in on her fuller hips and thighs, fully exposed. Faint whispers that sounded like her mother's taunts echoed in the recesses of her mind as she stared at herself. There was no way she could go out in this. She would rather wear her leggings and tank top than have anyone see her wearing this. They would all laugh at her.

"Kari? You done yet?" Torvi called through the door.

"I'm…. I’m not coming out in this!"

"Let us see it first!" Gyda shot back.

"But…." Kari tried once again, unsuccessfully, to tuck her breasts into the bikini top. "It's padded!"

"Open this door, Kari." Gyda demanded, suddenly sounding closer.

She took one more look at herself, feeling the embarrassed tears welling in her eyes. With a deep breath, knowing she could not escape Gyda just yet, she opened the door. Immediately her blue-green eyes scanned to make sure it was only Gyda and Torvi in the kitchen before she further opened the door so they could see.

"Shit, Kari, you look great." Gyda said after giving a wolf whistle.

"Half of my butt is hanging out and most of my boobs. I can't wear this out there." She said, almost panicking now.

"No, they aren't, you're overexaggerating."

"Kari," Torvi said kindly, drawing the brunette's frenzied attention, "you're more curvy than I am and let's be honest, your ass and tits are bigger than mine. I'd kill to have a body like yours. You look beautiful. But if you're uncomfortable, I think I have a cover you can wear over it."

"Please." She replied softly, hating how she sounded like a fearful child.

Torvi smiled at her. "I'll be right back."

Swiftly, Kari stepped back into the bathroom before Gyda could say anything. Her nerves felt alight and not in a good way. Grabbing her phone, she scrolled through her Pinterest, anything to distract herself from this nightmare. If it was just Gyda and Torvi seeing her in this, she might have been uncomfortable but she could tolerate it. Even with Ivar she might have shied away some but he always made her feel so desirable that she doubted her nerves would have lasted long. It was the thought of prancing around in this in front of the other brothers, men she had never met, that made her stomach twist into knots and her breathing quicken painfully.

Finally, a gentle knock on the door and a quiet, "It's me," had Kari open it to take the cover from Torvi. It was a solid white oversized V-neck cover with a simple pattern around the neckline. Without wasting a moment, she slipped it on over the bikini, immediately feeling better. The hem of the cover touched the tops of her thighs, higher than she would have liked, but it was better than before.

She looked up, running her hands over the cover. "Thank you."

Torvi smiled softly with understanding. "I understand. I don't wear swimsuits that show my stomach anymore. Stretch marks." She shrugged casually, moving back to slip onto an island stool.

Kari trailed behind her with her bundle of clothes and purse. Without a word, Gyda slipped into the bathroom to change, leaving the other two waiting for her. It was now that Kari really took note of Torvi's swimsuit; it was a classy black and white one piece with thin crisscross straps across the back. The blonde could easily wear a bikini and look amazing in it, but it made Kari feel marginally better that she was not the only one self-conscious about her body. Perhaps that was why Torvi shared about her stretch marks?

"Is it…." Kari started then stopped, leaning against the black marble countertop. Surveying the grand kitchen for a second, hoping to gather her thoughts, she took a deep breath before continuing. "Is it okay that I'm here? Gyda said this is a family event and I don't want to intrude."

Torvi turned to face her fully, green eyes gazing at her before she shrugged again. "Normally we try to keep it just family, Ubbe sometimes brings Margrethe, but I doubt anyone will be upset you're here. Honestly, the brothers keep asking about you, so now maybe they will finally shut up and stop teasing Ivar."

Kari fiddled with the hem of the swimsuit cover. "He didn't seem happy to see me."

"Ivar?" At Kari's nod, Torvi snorted. "I don't think it's you he's upset with. He's a very private person, as I'm sure you know. If I took a guess, I'd say he was keeping you hidden."

"But why?"

"Look, I've known the Lothbroks for about ten years and during that time, I've seen Ivar go through some ups and downs…. well, as much as he lets anyone see. I mostly heard it from Bjorn. Point is, he's allowing you into his inner circle. Hell, you're probably at the center of his inner circle. I saw how he acted with you at the yoga studio. You mean something to him. It's no secret he wants you to be his girlfriend. Maybe he is worried that you'll meet his family and decide we're too much or that you find one of his brothers more attractive or easier to deal with? He pretends to be super confident but it wouldn't be the first time that a woman chose one of the others over him."

Every time Kari heard that, her heart broke once again for Ivar. How many times had he been overlooked because of his legs? Or his harsh demeanor? Something that she was beginning to realize was just to protect himself, to keep others at arm's length. It made her want to hug him and never let him go, to remind him he was more than just his disability. That he was worth being cared about by more than just family.

Kari must have been lost in her thoughts for longer than she realized. Suddenly she was drawn out of her inner musings by Gyda coming out of the bathroom, having changed into a plant print cutout tankini. Of course, looking like she just stepped out of a magazine cover. There had to be something in the Lothbrok blood for everyone to be this damn attractive.

"Are we ready?" She asked, her large bag in hand, presumably with her clothes in it. "Kari, you can put your stuff in here for now."

Torvi touched Kari's shoulder. "Don't worry. If anything, you are here to keep me and Gyda company, okay?"

Kari smiled, finding herself reassured and grateful for the two women. "Thanks." She slipped her clothes and shoes into Gyda's bottomless bag. They stashed their bags in the glass room and then headed back out into the backyard.

Soon as they stepped out, a little girl came running over. Torvi swept her up into her arms gracefully. She turned to Kari with the little blonde girl on her hip. "This is Asa. How old are you, Asa?"

The little girl stared at her mom before shyly tucking her face into the crook of Torvi's neck, while her blue eyes stayed on Kari. After a moment, she held up two fingers.

"You're two?" Kari asked. When the little girl shyly nodded, Kari's smile widened. "I wish I was that old. It's nice to meet you, Asa. I'm Kari."

Torvi pressed a quick kiss to the top of her daughter's head. "Did daddy let you play in the pool yet?"

Asa shook her head.

"Alright, let's go kick his butt. He did promise, didn't he?"

That made the little girl giggle and Kari could feel her heart melting slightly. She was just too cute and most likely spoiled by all her uncles. Even her swimsuit was a purple halter top and green bottom with a little skirt that was very The Little Mermaid-esque.

A happy scream followed by a splash drew Kari's gaze to the pool. A young boy resurfaced laughing loudly. Bjorn, she recognized, was in the pool also, but turned to look up at Torvi as she approached with Asa on her hip.

"Let's go sit down." Gyda slipped her arm through Kari's and pulled her along to where there was a grouping of lounge chairs. Ivar, Hvitserk and a curly-haired blond reclined with beers in hand.

Kari could feel Ivar's gaze tracing over her form as she approached, like fingers trailing over her skin leaving a fire in its wake. She sneaked a peek at him, only to find his ardent gaze on her. She blushed and kept her eyes downward. At least he did not look impassive anymore, but she still felt hesitant.

"Hey boys. What are we drinking this time?" Gyda questioned.

Hvitserk turned the beer bottle to show the label.

"Ew. I don't why you drink that shit. I'm going to get some wine. Kari, you want some?"

"Ah, sure." She murmured.

"Good. You boys be nice to my friend, especially you Ivar." With that Gyda walked back towards the house but not before giving Kari a subtle wink.

"Take a seat, Kari." Hvitserk gestured to an open chair next to him.

For a split second she considered slinking into the seat, anything for the attention to be taken off her, but realized that was not what she actually wanted. It had been two days since she had seen Ivar and the last time they hung out, it was when he returned from his trip to Italy. He had picked her up the next day to take her out to eat but he ended up spending the majority of the time on his phone, yelling into it in a foreign language and seeming on the verge of throwing his phone or punching a wall. She ended up ordering take-out for them that they ate at her townhouse but he was too wired to really relax and left soon after. The next two days he had been busy with work so they could only text. The one time they managed to Face-Time, she could not help but notice his bruised knuckles and when she asked him about them, he said he did some boxing to release stress.

With butterflies doing somersaults in her belly, she took a step closer to stand near Ivar's lounge chair. Tugging on the hem of her cover as she quietly spoke. "Hey, Ivar. Can I sit with you?"

"Oh, you're acknowledging me now?" He snapped, never removing his severe blue eyes off of her.

She blinked owlishly, surprised by his sharp tone. Her stomach dropped to her feet and she could feel an embarrassed flush rising on her cheeks. "Yeah, I'm sorry." She whispered, dropping her chin, unable to meet his eyes anymore. This was all a mistake, she knew it. This only sealed her poor decision.

Shifting to look back at the house, she wondered if she should find Gyda and beg to drive her back home, or if she should find the closest bus stop. Before she could take a step away, a calloused hand snatched hers in a firm grip. Startled, she looked down to see Ivar holding her hand. Her eyes jumped up to stare at him in shock, confused by his conflicting actions. In those vivid, expressive eyes she could easily read the regret in them. Without her conscious decision, her heart softened.

"Sit." He said quietly, what most likely meant to come out commanding but sounded more as a plea. She nodded and allowed him to guide her onto the wide lounge chair next to him.

A furious blush warmed her cheeks when Ivar wrapped an arm around her waist, tucking her into his side and pressing a quick kiss to her temple. What she assumed was his nonverbal apology.

"Hey, this is Sigurd." Hvitserk said, gesturing to the unknown blond sitting with them. "I don't think you've met him yet. Ubbe had to take a call, so you'll meet him later."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you." She said, looking at the other Lothbrok. He had light blond, curly hair in frazzled braids and brown eyes. At first glance she would not have guessed he was one of the brothers, but she figured genetics were always weird. He had a lean body similar to Hvitserk with a tribal tattoo sleeve and a Thor's hammer necklace laying on his bare chest like the other brothers wore.

He silently raised his beer bottle at her, still stretched out in his chair like a lazy cat in the sun.

Thoughtfully she peered up at Ivar, keeping her voice low. "I'm sorry, I didn't know Gyda was bringing me here otherwise I'd have told you. She literally didn't tell me until we were pulling up."

"It's fine." He murmured evenly, but Kari got the feeling that was not how he truly felt.

"Do….do you want me to leave?"

He sighed, his grip around her tightening for a moment, before he seemed to relax. "No. I'm glad you're here. It won't be boring…." a wolfish grin grew as he slid his hand up her exposed thigh sensually, ".... especially if you take off this cover and let me see what's underneath."

"No!" She squeaked, grabbing his roving hand before it could migrate further.

He chuckled. "Come on, kitten…. just a peek?"

"Ivar, no."

"Why not?"

"Its…. it’s scandalous."

Hvitserk raised his hand, a devious smirk on his face. "I want to see."

She covered her face with her hands, embarrassment flooding her. "Oh gods, this was such a bad idea." Then she had to rapidly grasp Ivar's hand as it slipped under the swimsuit cover to caress her hip and trace her bikini bottom. "Ivar…."

"Fine." He slipped his hand back out but splayed it over her exposed thigh. "You can show me later."

Thankfully, Gyda reappeared with a glass of white wine in each hand and another blond male in tow who carried the wine bottle. He had short, cropped hair and a muscular body that spoke of many hours in the gym. Kari wondered if this was the brother that Ivar regularly worked out with.

"Why are you sitting with Ivar? I brought you here! I'm even bringing you wine!" Gyda teased, handing a glass to Kari.

"You also dragged me here unknowingly. Wine is the least you could do." Kari said without thinking, making the others laugh.

"You know damn well you're happy to be here." Gyda winked then took the open lounge chair next to her. "Right, I'm guessing you've been introduced to Sigurd." She flicked a hand in the curly-haired Lothbrok's direction followed by vaguely gesturing to the last unknown brother. "Now this pain in my ass, over here, is Ubbe. Ubbe, this is Kari."

Sitting between Hvitserk and Gyda, Ubbe rolled his blue eyes but leaned forward to shake Kari's hand. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Yeah, likewise."

Ubbe sat back with an impish glint in his eyes. "So, you're Ivar's girl?"

"Um…. we’re just..." She started, unsure what to say to his family.

Ivar broke in, his single word answer almost coming out in a growl. "Yes."

She whipped her head to look at him, only for him to stare her down as if waiting to see if she could refute his claim. Logically, she knew she should say something, argue that they were only friends. Yet any rebuttal died on her tongue under his fierce gaze. Instead she chose to sip on her wine generously.

"Right." Ubbe finally said, watching the two with an amused look.

Sigurd scoffed loudly before taking a swig of his beer.

"Something you want to say, Sig?" Ivar turned narrowed eyes at his brother.

The curly-haired brother smirked, seeming to debate saying anything. Finally, he sat up and his gaze zeroed in on Kari. "How much does he pay you to fuck him?"

The reaction from those around was instantaneous. Next to her, Ivar tensed, ready to spring up and fight his brother. A sharp reprimand of "Sigurd!" came from both Gyda and Ubbe while Hvitserk pinched the bridge of his nose.

Something rose up inside Kari though. She understood enough to know about the animosity between Sigurd and Ivar. His comment felt more like a cruel jab at Ivar than her. She was just the pathway to try and cause torment between the brothers. But if no one else was going to stand up and defend the dark-haired Lothbrok, she would.

So instead of taking his words personally, she just smiled sweetly at Sigurd, placing a hand on Ivar's thigh as she responded. "He doesn't. I'm happy to do it for free. Besides, he has something you never will."

"And what's that?"

"A cock big enough to pleasure someone….is that why you go through girlfriends so quickly?"

The rising tension evaporated in a flash. Gyda snorted so hard she almost dropped her wine glass. Hvitserk threw his head back laughing while Ubbe tried to cover his smile with his hand. Kari was sure her eyes were comically wide as what she said without thinking sunk in. Her face flushed and she pressed her face against Ivar's shoulder. Sure, she had meant to defend Ivar but she had not meant to be so crass. The statement seemed to fly out of her mouth before her brain could catch up.

Next to her, Ivar laughed as he nuzzled her. She squirmed under his onslaught but also at realizing she just insulted one of Ivar's brothers. Even if it was the one he liked least of all. For a fleeting moment, the idea she had just made herself an enemy crossed her mind.

When she sneaked a peek, Sigurd quickly drained the rest of his beer and walked away murmuring something about getting another one.

"I think you'll fit in, Kari." Ubbe stated, still trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement.

Kari was unsure of that. She quickly took a large sip of the wine to settle her fraying nerves. What had she been thinking? It hurt to hear Ivar's brother being so blatantly cruel to him and if this was a regular occurrence, no wonder Ivar wanted to spend most of their time at her place.

"I didn't realize you liked my cock so much, kattungen." Ivar whispered salaciously into her ear, drawing her back to the present. His tongue flicked her earlobe, making her jolt. "I think I'll have to give you a reward later."

She shivered at his tone, her core clenching without resistance. It was unfair how just at his husky tone alone, her body betrayed her desire. But they were in public though, in front of his family no less, so she willfully attempted to cool the heat warming her veins. With a smile, she tried to nudge him away from her but he was too strong, only tightening his grip on her and laying a quick kiss to her neck.

"I can't believe I said that." She whispered, hoping only he heard her.

He smirked, an unmistakable fire in his eyes. "It was sexy as fuck."

Thankfully, Torvi came over to join the group, a welcome distraction for Kari as she was sure the fire in Ivar's gaze was enough to set her ablaze and further stoke her own heat.

Torvi settled into Sigurd's now absent spot. "What did I miss?"

"Kari said Ivar's cock is bigger than Sigurd's." Hvitserk stated smugly.

Torvi stared at Kari with a tilt of her head and an amused grin. "Really? And how did we get on the subject of dicks already?"

Some of the group laughed as Kari covered her face once again, mortified that she was the center of attention because of what she thoughtlessly said. She had the sneaking suspicion none of them would ever let her live this down.

"Alright, enough. Come on, it's girl time now." Gyda grabbed Kari's hand and dragged her to her feet, much to Ivar's obvious chagrin. She scoffed, meeting her half-brother's gaze. "I'll give her back later."

The three women wandered over to some open chairs further down from the guys and closer to the Buddha statue. Gyda carried the wine bottle and her glass while Kari carefully held her own glass. Torvi snatched a beer from a nearby cooler as they meandered over. Gyda settled on a single, lounge chair adjacent to a cushioned two-person seat which the other two sat on.

"Alright, we have a very serious matter to discuss. Your answer may or may not break our friendship." Gyda started, leaning forward as she pointed a single finger at the brunette.

Kari found herself straightening in her seat, hand clutching her wine glass tighter.

Eyes intent, Gyda's voice dropped conspiringly. "Who is sexier: Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes?"

Shock rendered Kari momentarily speechless. At Gyda's serious tone, she had imagined a topic that would involve confessing a secret, not…. not a movie franchise. "Um…. Bucky." She hesitantly answered.

"Yes!!" Gyda shouted, throwing her arms up and almost spilling her wine. "I knew I liked you! Ivar, she is mine now!"

Kari laughed at her enthusiasm; all concern having vanished instantly. "I take it you like him too?"

"Hell yeah. I would willingly choke on his cock or he could pound my pussy to pulp and I wouldn't complain either way."

Torvi shook her head, a hint of a smile tilting the corners of her lips up. "Something's wrong with you."

"You prefer Steve?" Kari inquired, once she recovered from choking on air at Gyda's blunt statement. Her friend always had a way of surprising her, and giving her second-hand embarrassment.

Torvi shrugged. "A tall, handsome blond. That's my kind of man."

Peeking over at Bjorn who was still playing in the pool with both kids, Kari hummed thoughtfully. "Huh. Makes sense."

"No wonder you are with Ivar if you prefer Bucky Barnes."

"But we aren't…. together." Kari fixed her eyes on her wine, knowing her answer sounded lame even to her own ears.

Gyda patted her leg. "You keep telling yourself that."

"We're just friends."

"No, you aren't."

"Kari, it's fine." Torvi shot Gyda a look. "It's between you two, it's not really our business."

"She's our friend!" Gyda whined, throwing herself back in her seat dramatically.

"And she will let us know if something changes. Including telling us if Ivar does something stupid and we need to kick his ass."

Kari giggled as Torvi tapped her beer bottle against her wine glass. "I promise. Hvitserk already made me swear too."

"Good. So is Ivar really that good in bed?"

"Gyda!" Kari exclaimed but laughed at how shameless her friend was.

Torvi thankfully changed the topic of conversation to Ubbe's birthday coming up next month. Asa wandered over, wrapped in a green and brown towel with long ears sticking out that made her look like baby Yoda. When Sigurd eventually appeared, Hali dragged him to the pool where they jumped in together. Not long after, Hvitserk joined them, doing a cannon-ball with the splash almost hitting the ladies.

Kari chatted with Torvi and Gyda for some time, enjoying herself immensely. The topics varied, but she never felt unincluded. More than once, she glanced over, only to find Ivar's gaze already on her. After the third time, he tipped his head to the side and patted the spot next to him. A not-so subtle invitation or demand, depending on how you looked at it.

A smile teased her lips and she nodded. She started to rise, with her second glass of wine in hand, when the sound of a loud "shit" from Gyda distracted her.

"What is she doing here?" Torvi quietly asked with an undertone of frustration.

Curious, Kari followed their gazes towards the door leading into the glassed-in porch. She was met with the sight of two blondes emerging in matching, white swimsuits that barely seemed to cover anything. Both strutted as if they were on a runway, while chatting with one another.

"Kari, go sit with Ivar." Gyda encouraged, snatching her hand and leading her back without a moment's hesitation towards where Ivar and Ubbe were still sitting. The wine was left forgotten on the side table.

"What's going on?" Kari asked in a hushed tone.

"Drama. I can't believe that bitch brought her. What was she thinking?"

"Gyda?"

She clicked her tongue but hurriedly whispered back. "That's Ivar's ex."

Surprise made Kari almost stumble but she managed to catch herself at the last second. Further explanations had to wait because they came upon the brothers at the same time the two blondes did. Soon as Kari was close enough, Ivar held out his hand, a sweet gesture, but she could see the tension and anger in the set of his shoulders and the thin line of his lips. Silently, he guided her to sit between his spread legs, arms banding around her waist and pulling her indecently close. For once though, she did not complain.

"Hey, baby." One of the blondes said in a sickly-sweet voice as she pressed a kiss to Ubbe's cheek. "Sorry we're late."

"It's fine." Ubbe slowly answered as he shifted his gaze to the other blonde. "I didn't know you were bringing someone."

"This is supposed to be family only." Gyda snapped, having dropped into her seat next to Ivar and Kari.

The blonde, who stood next to Ubbe still, narrowed her eyes at Kari. "Then why is she here?"

"That's Ivar's girlfriend." Ubbe answered.

"Uh, hi, I'm Kari." She decided to speak up, hoping introductions would somehow break the rising tension. At her words, Ivar momentarily dropped his head to kiss her shoulder. Unsure if his actions were encouraging or reprimanding, she laid her hands over his, which were still wrapped around her.

"Hmmm…. Margrethe." She replied flatly, with a pinched look, as if talking to Kari was beneath her. "I'm Ubbe's fiancé."

The other blonde smiled pleasantly as she looked Kari in the eye. "I'm Freydis. It's lovely to meet you."

"Yeah, nice to meet you too." Kari managed to say around the suddenly tightened grip around her waist. She would be a liar if she said she was not intimidated by Freydis. While both women were beautiful, something that seemed required to be in the presence of the Lothbrok family, Freydis was a step beyond that. With her doll-like features, lovely blue eyes and flawless skin, she was gorgeous. Kari could feel all her own insecurities screaming at her in the presence of Ivar's ex. How the youngest Lothbrok went from someone as stunning as Freydis to as girl-next-door as Kari, she had no idea….and it made her uncomfortable.

"What the fuck is she doing here?" Ivar demanded, ignoring Freydis' presence completely.

Margrethe rolled her eyes as her hand slowly stroked across Ubbe's shoulders. "I get bored and wanted to spend time with my best friend, so fuck off." She turned her head to look at Freydis beside her. "Come on, let's get something to drink."

After a quick kiss to Ubbe, the two headed back towards the house but not before Freydis glanced back at Ivar and Kari one last time.

Once they were far enough away, Gyda rounded on Ubbe, not even bothering to contain her ire. "Fiancé? Really, Ubbe?" She sneered.

"Hell no. I haven't proposed. I damn well don't plan to and she knows it."

"Why are you still with her? She's a greedy bitch."

"Gyda, I know you don't like her but she's still my girlfriend."

"Who the fuck knows why."

Ubbe turned his attention to Ivar. "I swear I didn't know she was bringing Freydis. I'd have told her not to come then."

"As long as she stays the fuck away from me, I don't give a shit." The dark-haired Lothbrok growled at his older brother.

The residual tension in the air was painful to abide in. It felt like a caged animal, pacing, waiting, ready for the moment to unleash a terrorizing attack.

"Hey, I have a question." Kari blurted out, unable to take the way the tension made her skin feel like it was being sunburned. Once Gyda and Ubbe shifted to watch her, she posed her question. "Ah, well, I've been wondering for a while but why don't you guys have bodyguards or something?"

Ivar snorted, brushing her hair over her shoulder to press his face into the crook of her neck, making her squirm although he did not relent his position.

It was Ubbe that answered with a wide grin. "Eh, we don't need them. We can handle ourselves."

"But you guys have drivers, isn't the next step to have bodyguards?"

"You worried for us?" Ivar whispered, nipping at her skin, only to soothe the spot with his tongue.

"I'm serious."

"Let's just say we know how to protect ourselves. Besides, no one is stupid enough to come after us." Ubbe concluded, raising his beer in a mock salute.

Gyda snickered. "This is why I stay out of the family business."

"You've no issue spending Father's money though." Ubbe retorted in a jovial way.

She shrugged and sent Kari a playful wink.

A minute later, Bjorn, Torvi and Asa came over, taking open seats with Asa sitting in Torvi's lap. Even though Kari had met Bjorn before, it still shocked her to see how much larger he was compared to the other brothers, both in size and physique. Now sitting next to Torvi, he appeared larger. With his long, braided ponytail and shaved sides, a short beard and sharp, blue eyes, he seemed quite formidable. Kari wondered briefly if that helped with the family business.

"See Kari there, she is the one who teaches yoga." Torvi softly said to Asa.

Asa peeked over at Kari, shyly smiling, still wrapped in her towel but with a juice box in hand.

"I bet if you ask nicely, she might show you something." Torvi said then looked up at Kari. "Lately she loves watching me do yoga at home. It's cute when she tries to do it with me."

Bjorn chuckled, slinging an arm over the back of his wife's chair. "And usually falls down onto her face."

"Hey, she's trying!" Torvi defended, elbowing Bjorn in the side.

Looking at the little girl across the circle of seats, Kari smiled. "Want me to show you something I've been working on? I'm not very good at it though, so if I fall over, you can laugh at me. I'll be laughing at myself too."

Asa nodded fervently, eyes wide in anticipation.

"What do you say?" Torvi tapped her daughter's nose.

Asa looked up at her mom then back to Kari. "Please." Even though it came out sounding more like "peas".

"Sure. I need to stretch some first." Kari stood up and immediately had to slap Ivar's hand away that prowled down the curve of her ass. She tried to glare at him over her shoulder, only to be met with a mock innocence. Overly aware of the eyes on her, she chose a spot nearby in the plush, green grass, trying to keep her nerves to a minimum. Carefully, she warmed up her muscles, doing a few simple stretches so as not to hurt herself. Honestly, she was nervous since she never did advanced poses in front of others. It was not that she was unable to, for she did them frequently at home on her own time. It just felt like she was vying for attention or trying to show off when she did advanced poses in view of others. Conflicting memories of her grandmother's encouraging voice fought with her mother's reprimand in her mind as she stretched.

"What are you going to do?" Gyda called over, returning from retrieving her wine glass and bottle.

The question pulled her from her mind's internal war, bringing her back to the present. "Um, it's called the super soldier."

"Oooo, I like it already."

Once stretched, Kari stood frozen for a moment realizing she was going to need to take her cover off to do the pose.

"Kari, you look sexy as hell, now take the damn cover off." Gyda called out.

Kari hesitated, fears and insecurities rising afresh within her.

"Do it or Ivar will get his ass up and help you. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"I hate you." She mumbled but gave in. Slowly, she walked back over to the circle of chairs, pulling the white cover off and dropped it on the lounge chair Ivar still sat on. Her eyes briefly flickered up only to meet Ivar's smoldering gaze. Instantly, she could feel herself flush. Hoping no one noticed, she moved back to her grassy spot. A loud wolf-whistle came from the direction of the pool, most likely from Hvitserk but Kari ignored it, knowing if she thought about it too much, she would make a run for it. Mentally preparing herself, she pulled her hair back into a bun on the nape of her neck, then faced the group but kept her gaze downward, too scared to look at them.

After taking a deep breath, she bent over to lay her hands flat on the grass without bending her knees. Next, she hooked her right shoulder behind her knee and extended her left arm for balance. She took a long, deep breath before continuing onward. Then she lifted her left foot and grabbed it with her right hand, still tucked behind her right leg. After another deep breath, she pulled her left leg up until her knee was pointed towards the sky. She held it there for three breaths before slowly releasing her leg back down and carefully straightening back up.

A small round of applause greeted her when she straightened.

"Another!"

"You go, Kari!"

"Do another one!"

Blushing furiously at the cheers, she leaned forward into downward facing dog. Carefully, she slid her hands forward until her elbows touched the grass with her ass still in the air. Taking a deep breath and hoping she did not make a fool of herself, she engaged her core and kicked her legs up so she was doing a handstand but still on her elbows. Once she felt stable, she pressed her legs together and slowly bent her knees until they were almost parallel with her forearms on the ground. Feeling the burn in her core and arms, she hoped she could finish the pose without falling on her face. Next, she lowered her legs, knees apart now and big toes touching until her feet touched the top of her head. She could not help the smile that stretched across her face as she held the pose for a couple seconds, making sure to breathe slow. Scorpion pose was one she was still trying to master on her own, let alone in front of others. If anything, this felt like a victory for her. Methodically she unfurled, bringing her legs up and then back to the ground.

When she finally stood up, brushing the grass off her forearms, it was to another round of applause.

"That was amazing!" Torvi said.

"I was thinking sexy as fuck!" Hvitserk exclaimed, a smile on his face from where he now stood, leaning against Ubbe's chair.

Self-consciously, Kari tugged on her swimsuit, making sure everything was tucked into place, as much as it could be, before pulling her hair out of the bun. She walked back over to the lounge chair quickly and yanked the cover back over her body.

"I'm going to wash my hands." She said without meeting anyone's eyes, skirting around the group and heading towards the glassed-in porch.

Laughter erupted behind her as she approached the door but she ignored it as she walked inside. She padded through the porch, stomach twisting in knots, and turned into the kitchen. Her feet stuttered to a halt as she noticed Margrethe and Freydis standing there with bottles of something in hand. For a split second she thought about turning and heading to the bathroom but it was too late as the two blondes noticed her intrusion.

"Hi, I just need to wash my hands." Kari explained. After a moment's hesitation, she walked around the opposite side of the massive island from them and towards the kitchen sink.

"So, you're Ivar's girlfriend?" Margrethe stated with a mocking undertone. "I didn't think someone like you was his…. type."

"Margrethe…." Freydis chided.

"What? Look at her. I mean she's got tits and an ass, and I guess she could be pretty but that's it."

"I'm sorry." Freydis apologized kindly. After a long, awkward pause where the kitchen was silent besides Kari washing her hands, she asked, "How long have you and Ivar been together?"

"Um, we aren't…. we’re just friends." Kari found herself admitting, as she finished drying her hands and turned around to see them both staring at her. Though Freydis had a gentle smile on her face, Margrethe looked nothing less than the cat that caught the canary and planned on lording it over everyone.

"Oh?"

"See. Told you, Dis. He is still single." Margrethe smugly said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "He's just playing the game."

"Game?" Kari muttered aloud.

Freydis set her glass down and came around the island to stand in front of Kari. Her blue eyes were bright as they met Kari's. "You seem like a nice girl and clearly the others like you too. So, I'll be honest because I don't want you to get caught up in the Lothbrok drama and get hurt. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Ivar and I are getting back together. We're just taking a break right now. Truly, I know we are destined for each other and he agrees. We had a bad fight and needed some space but he loves me just as much as I love him. So, I know he will come back to me when he is ready. I'm so sorry to tell you that you're just the rebound girl. I'm sure he likes you but that's as far as it will ever go. Gyda likes to try and mess with the brothers' love lives so I am sorry if she dragged you into this without telling you the whole truth. It's not your fault. I am sure Gyda lied to you and probably Ivar too. But it's good for you to know now. I don't hold it against you if you've have had sex with him but just know your time with him is limited, okay? How long have you two been 'friends'?"

"We met last month." Kari whispered, dread and despair a writhing mess of snakes churning in her stomach. Air refused to fill her lungs, leaving her struggling for breath.

Freydis sighed. "It probably will be soon then. Just take advantage of the things he purchases for you, so when he leaves, you can have something to sell if you're in a pinch. Yeah?"

"Ah…. sure."

"Good. You seem like a nice girl. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this."

"It's…." Kari choked back a sudden sob. "It's alright. Thank you."

"Of course, we girls need to look out for each other. Is there anything I can do for you?" She inquired, sounding so genuine in her desire to help, her gaze imploring and lips in a faint, comforting smile.

"No…. no. I just need to check my phone. Have you seen Gyda's bag?"

"I think she left it on the porch." Margrethe helpfully added, never having lost the smug grin on her face as she watched Kari with a hawk-like intensity.

"Oh, right. Thank you." Kari shifted back and forth on her feet, body primed to run, to flee before anyone could see the tears that welled pathetically in her eyes.

Freydis reached out and squeezed her arm, a brief exchange of understanding, then strutted back around to grab her drink and follow Margrethe to the porch and outside.

Once alone, Kari pressed a hand over her mouth to try and stifle the sob that lodged itself in her throat. She knew it. Everything Freydis said made sense.

Without a second thought, she rushed around the island and onto the porch, quickly locating Gyda's bag. She scooped her purse and clothes out only to hurry back inside. A quick check of the time and she figured she might be able to catch a bus, but in this gated community, there was no way buses came through so she would end up walking somewhere. Feeling the sting of tears in her eyes, she sniffled, trying desperately to hold them back. She looked up the nearest bus stop on her phone, pleased it was only a few blocks away from the gated community.

Once positive she knew where she was going, she stared down at her clothes on the counter, wondering if she should change before leaving. It would certainly look odd for her to be walking down the street in the swimsuit cover and sandals in such an upscale neighborhood. Then she thought about any of the Lothbroks finding her trying to leave and pushed the potential oddity of her attire from her mind. It appeared there was a gas station nearby when she found the bus stop, it would be simple to change there quickly. Somehow she could give the swimsuit and cover back to Torvi…. but not today. Right now, she needed to leave.

She tried to shove her clothes into her purse, only succeeding by making it look like an over-inflated balloon but it worked. Lastly, she reached to grab her phone off the kitchen counter but froze. Ivar bought it for her. Freydis' words came back to her about taking advantage of the things he bought for her. Bile burned the back of her throat at the idea. She promised herself she would not be one of those girls to him. Slowly, she retracted her hand, forming it into a fist by her side. Ivar could give the phone to Freydis or throw it in the trash for all she cared. Even with the feeling of her heart being ripped in two, she refused to take advantage of him or his money. She was a better person than that. Or so she hoped.

Worried someone would come in soon, she tossed her purse over her shoulder and swiftly headed towards the front door. She passed through the hallway she entered in, but the pictures and awards blurred before her eyes as the repressed tears threatened to make an appearance. Hastily, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand but knew it was ultimately futile.

"Kari?"

Her stride never faltered towards her escape, even after hearing Hvitserk call her name from what sounded like the porch.

"Kari? Where are you going?" His voice came from behind her, probably standing at the entrance of the hallway now.

"I have to go." Kari said, not bothering to turn around, unsure if he could even hear her. She could barely hear footsteps behind her over the sound of her sniffles and ragged breathing. It did not matter since she was close to her escape, just a couple more moments. Her hand touched the handle, just beginning to pull the door open when Hvitserk's hand appeared in her direct line of vision and slammed it closed. Although the sound was muffled, it echoed in her mind like a gunshot.

"What's going on?" Hvitserk stood directly behind her, his hand still firmly planted on the door as if to prevent her from even considering leaving without permission again.

"It's nothing." She murmured, staring down at her feet.

"I seriously doubt that if you are trying to sneak away while crying…. what happened?"

"Nothing. I just…. I just want to go home."

"Okay." He shifted to lean his shoulder against the door, ducking his head to try and catch her eyes. "Does this have to do with the yoga stuff?"

"No. Just…. please, Hvitserk."

"You need to tell me something. Look, I'll give you a ride, we can leave right now but you have to tell me what happened."

She swallowed thickly, still refusing to look at him. It was taking all of her willpower to keep the tears at bay. At any moment she felt the tears would come forth with all the power of a hurricane, reducing her to a sniveling mess on the floor, nursing a broken heart. It was all her fault though. How could she have believed someone like Ivar Lothbrok would actually be interested in her for more than just a one-night stand. She was just a challenge for him, someone to pass the time. Then once she gave in, once they finally had sex, he would walk out of her life and back into Freydis' arms and bed…. where he apparently belonged.

"Kari?" Hvitserk softly prompted.

"It's…. I just have a better understanding now…. of where I stand…. of my purpose here."

"Your purpose?"

She sniffed, wiping her wet eyes once again before the tears fell. "I'm just a rebound girl….and that's alright. I get it. But I just want to go home now."

"Fuck. Freydis said that, didn't she?"

"It doesn't matter. Can you please just take me to the bus stop, I can get home from there." She knew she was begging but she did not care anymore.

"Kari, give me that." He grabbed her purse from her and tossed it onto a wooden side table. His hands held hers in a manner that was comforting verse restraining. His thumbs rubbed along the back of her hands as he softly spoke. "Look at me, you know it's not like that."

"It doesn't matter." She shook her head, even as her hands gripped his tighter, the feeling being the only thing keeping her from falling apart at the front door. "I shouldn't have let Gyda bring me here. I should have made her drop me off."

"Kari…." He began but was interrupted.

"Hvitty?" Ivar's loud voice boomed from the kitchen. "You better not be trying to fuck Kari!"

Kari flinched at the sound. The facade of strength she fought to maintain evaporated like smoke. The tears she had been trying so desperately to withhold slipped free, rolling down her cheeks like a cleansing rain.

"Over here!" Hvitserk called back, releasing her hands but not moving away.

Ivar's measured gait could be heard coming down the hallway like the footsteps of doom.

"What the fuck is going on? You disappear to find Kari and then…." His voice trailed off as he entered the foyer, piercing gaze zeroing in on her tear-stained face. What sense of jovial teasing transformed into enraged fury. When he spoke next, it came out in an animalistic growl that bespoke impending violence. "Who fucking hurt you?"

"I'm fine." She mumbled, wrapping her arms around herself. Her chin rested on her chest, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "I just want to go home."

"Freydis….and I'm betting Margrethe also said something to her." Hvitserk snitched, leaning fully against the door. He watched both Kari and his brother as if ready to intervene at a moment's notice.

Ivar snapped, stepping closer. "What did they say?"

She was unsure who he directed his question to but she still shook her head, refusing to look at either brother. Hearing his wrath, it only made her heart ache more. All of this was a show, it had to be. Why would he truly care? The sound of his heavy gait coming closer brought a fresh wave of silent tears.

Moving to her other side, he cupped her cheek. When she resisted looking at him, he shifted his hand to grab the back of her neck, forcing her gaze to meet his. A tempest swirled in his icy blue eyes. "What. Did. They. Say?"

"Why does it matter?" She questioned, bottom lip trembling as a sob rose from her chest.

"Because they hurt you."

"But I'm no one. I don't matter." She shook her head, pressing a hand over her mouth to contain the cries bound to escape at any moment. "You're just going to get back together with Freydis when you get bored with me."

His eyes widened as if she had sucker-punched him. His mouth dropped open for a moment before he collected himself, the maelstrom rippling under his skin on the verge of breaking free. "Did they say that?"

"Freydis said…. she said you two were just taking a break….and I'm the rebound girl."

"Fuck. Fuck!" Ivar stepped away, running his hands through his loose hair. In an instant, he grabbed the decorative bowl off the entrance table and threw it. The shattering against the wall reverberated in the foyer followed by Ivar's guttural shout. "FUCK!"

"Ivar." Hvitserk softly said, warily watching his younger brother.

"I'm going to kill her. Fuck! I can't believe she would fucking say that!" Ivar ran his hands through his hair again, looking on the verge of ripping the strands out. The ferocity in his eyes was unmatched as he glanced down the hallway, clearly wanting to go after his ex, then shifted back to Kari, who remained silent and unmoving. "What else did she say?" He barked at her.

"You're destined for each other." She confessed after a moment's hesitation.

Ivar stormed over to her, devouring the ground beneath his feet as he invaded her space. Standing before her, he cupped her face, eyes imploring her to believe him. "Freydis is a crazy, jealous bitch. She manipulates to get what she wants. Don't believe a word out of her fucking mouth. Fuck! Please, Kari, don't cry. I'm right here, kitten."

His words seeped into her mind, slipping in through the cracks and delving deep into her soul. His words alone should not have reassured her like they did. Between his pleading eyes and his gentle touch, her few walls surrounding her heart crumbled, unable to fight him. She believed him, even before her mind fully recognized it.

She lightly placed her hands on his bare chest, one directly over his heart, feeling the rapid tempo under her fingers. "Promise?" She whispered wetly. "You're not just…. I’m not just a rebound girl?"

Ivar groaned, pressing his forehead to Kari's. "I swear. I never thought that about you."

And she believed him again. The truth falling from his lips resounded in the very core of her being. It made no sense how she knew, but somehow, she did.

After a long second, Hvitserk pushed off the door from next to them. "I'm going to head back and keep an eye on them. Kari, if you still want a ride just text me, alright?"

"Thank you, Hvitty." She reached out and snagged his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. With a smile, he responded in kind before heading down the hallway towards the backyard.

Soon as Hvitserk started walking away, Ivar grabbed her hand and led her in the opposite direction. They hurried through a short hallway to arrive at a closed door. Impatiently, Ivar thrust the door open and pulled her into a room, slamming the door shut behind them. She had a brief moment to scan the new room and notice the two walls with floor to ceiling bookshelves packed full and the couple couches near a large window.

Before she could do anything, she shrieked as she found herself suddenly yanked back, her body colliding with the closed door. Immediately Ivar's mouth claimed hers in a hungry, feverish kiss. His body pinned her to the door, hands kneading her hips. It was all she could do to just breathe. Her hands clung to his broad shoulders, desperate to stay above the waves of passion-fueled desire that surged unchecked within her.

Ivar withdrew his mouth from hers, but only to place kisses over her cheeks, washing away her tears with his affections. "Don't listen to her. Her and I. We are through. I will never go back to her. She has been sniffing around but that ends tonight. I won't fucking let her talk to you again. I fucking swear it."

"Ivar…." She whined, tilting her head. An open invitation which he took.

He swooped in, continuing to speak between leaving open-mouth kisses on her neck. "It's you. It's you I want. It's you I think about all the time. Fuck, kitten, you have no idea how much I want you. And seeing you do those yoga poses in that swimsuit…. fuck! You looked so goddamn sexy; I got a hard-on just watching." He grabbed her thigh, lifting it up and curling it behind him, pressing himself against her core. At the touch of his hardened length against her, she whimpered. "Do you feel that? That's for you, søte Kari."

She could not help but roll her hips, grinding against his erection, body automatically seeking friction.

"Yes! Fuck." He growled against her neck. "Come here."

She whined when he released her leg, letting it fall down to the floor. Her breathing was unsteady already, heart hammering away in her chest. A part of her knew she should stop this, open the door behind her and walk out to avoid the temptation. Yet when his hand latched onto hers once again, tugging her towards one of the couches, she followed willingly, unable to deny the sweet sin that was Ivar.

He dropped onto the couch and settled her into his lap to straddle him. As she settled, he grabbed a handful of the cover over her and yanked it off, tossing it haphazardly onto the floor. Her first instinct was to cover her chest, but as her arms moved to do that, Ivar guided them behind his head. His gaze drunk in the curves of her body, an unashamed starved look in his eyes that made her shudder as it further ignited the fire in her belly.

"Kattungen min." He whispered reverently. "Fucking hell, so gorgeous. No one else gets to touch you like I do. Got it? You're mine." He started lavishing her chest and neck with his mouth, alternating between his lips and tongue.

She knew she should feel more self-conscious straddling Ivar's lap in only the swimsuit that barely covered all of her assets; but it was as if his touch banished the thoughts away. Instead she felt beautiful and cherished.

He palmed one of her breasts and the moan that escaped her was pure wanton. Hands tangled in his long locks as her hips ground harder against his erection in response. His leg braces were only an afterthought that did not impede her actions.

"Ivar, please."

"That's it. Fuck, you're so beautiful. I can't wait to fuck you senseless."

Suddenly he shifted under her, his hand fumbling between them. Her mind barely took notice as he sucked the skin between her breasts, something that would definitely leave a mark. Next thing she knew, his cock was freed, standing at attention between them.

Before she could protest, he spoke up. "I know you're not ready." He slid it under her, pulling her hips back down. At the sensation of his cock rubbing her slit with only the thin barrier of the bikini bottom between them, she threw her head back with a whine. Desire roared through her like a freight train as his cock rubbed against her soaking core.

"You like that, kitten?"

"Yes." She sighed out, head tilted back as she rolled her hips.

"Good, my turn." He reached behind her and promptly untied the straps of the bikini top behind her back.

"Ivar!" She tried to cover herself but he swatted her hands away.

"Trust me."

Once she relented, he laid a hard kiss to her lips then tugged the top over her head, the band behind her neck without a tie. She desperately wanted to cover herself, now before him feeling on full display. But it was the look on his face that stilled her movements.

"Guder. Du er utsøkt. Faen. Den vakreste kvinnen." He murmured with adoration and awe dripping off each word.

"What did you say?"

Instead of answering her, he lowered his face to her chest and captured one of her perky nipples in his mouth. His other hand moved to grab one of her ass cheeks, encouraging her to keep riding him.

All breath vanished from her lungs. All thoughts and insecurities fled under his touch. Her hands tangled in his hair, keeping his mouth on her. All she could feel was him. All she wanted to feel was him. Gasps and moans slipped from her as she allowed herself to be overtaken and drawn into an ocean of pleasure.

She could feel herself rising higher and higher, riding the wave. Her mind was becoming delirious from fire in her veins and the motion of her hips rocking over his exposed cock.

To her surprise, Ivar grabbed a handful of hair at the back of her neck. "That's it, beautiful. Fuck. Let's see what that bendy spine can do." Carefully, he pulled on her hair, not in a painful way but as if to guide her. Willingly submitting herself, she bent her back, following his lead. When her chest was parallel to the ceiling, he stopped pulling, keeping her suspended with her back arched.

Ivar groaned loudly, thrusting against her. She met his action, too absorbed in the bliss to care about decency.

"All the dirty, fucking things this makes me want to do to you." He licked a scalding line up her sternum, only to swirl his tongue around one of her nipples, making her mewl as she continued to move her hips faster. "Come for me."

"Yes, yes." She chanted. "Ivar, please."

"Keep begging, kitten. Let me know how much you want my cock."

As her climax hit, the tightening coil in her core sprung loose, her mouth dropped open in a silent scream. Wave after wave rolled over her. She could feel Ivar grunt and thrust a few more times beneath her before retracing his cock and spurting onto her exposed stomach. After he released her hair, letting her rise back up to face him. Their eyes fixated on one another, chests heaving as they struggled for breath.

Gently, she reached out and touched his cheek, a shy smile on her face. Then, when he made no move to pull away, she leaned forward, uncaring of his cum slipping down her stomach, and drew him into a lazy, slow kiss. He responded, lips melding to hers in a way that was full of softness and contentment. After a moment, she felt him reach behind him for the blanket laying on the back of the couch and wipe her stomach off, all the while never abandoning their kiss.

Once she was clean, he dropped the blanket to the floor and somehow managed to keep their lips locked as he guided them to lay down on the couch, their bare chests pressed together and his arm under her head, legs tangled.

"Do you believe me now?" He eventually asked, leaning back but only far enough so the tips of their noses almost touched.

"Mmmm?"

"That it's you I want. Freydis and anyone else can go fuck themselves for all I care."

She bit her bottom lip and dropped her gaze. "I don't understand why."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean…. Margrethe said I'm not your…. type."

He snorted and muttered under his breath, "fucking bitch".

"But she's right." Kari pressed onward, her hand running up and down his side as if to ground herself. "I mean, I could never compare to Freydis…. or Torvi or Gyda or any of them. They are all beautiful and….and in perfect shape. I'm not. My thighs and butt are too big and I'm maybe pretty but that's it."

"You're right. You're not my usual type. But those girls, I'd fuck them and then never look their way again. You though, fuck, I can barely take my eyes off you when you're around. And these," he reached down and grabbed a handful of one of her ass cheeks, making her squeak. "I love them. And these thighs, fucking hell, kitten, I want you to suffocate me with them when I finally eat you out."

She gasped, a bolt of electricity shooting through her at the image.

A devilish grin grew on his face, his hand stroking her ass cheek. "You like that idea? My tongue teasing your folds before slipping inside of you. Your thighs wrapped around my head as I feast on your pussy."

"Ivar." She whined, unable to stop the sudden roll of her hips.

"Soon, sweet Kari." He chuckled darkly, ceasing her movement by melding their hips together. "And your tits, gods, they are perfect. I could stare at them all day."

She giggled even as she flushed under his praise. "I'm sorry for doubting you. I guess, I'm still just surprised you'd…. well, that you want me."

"You are mine. You're my woman." He stated resolutely, gazing directly into her eyes so she could see how serious he was.

"But we aren't dating…."

"Doesn't fucking matter. You're mine. And one of these days you'll change your mind and stop playing this game of trying to keep me away."

She sighed, wishing it would be that easy. Before he could continue with that argument, she changed the subject. "You know, I think we exceeded our kiss quota for the day."

He snorted. "I didn't see you complaining earlier."

"That's true. Do you think we should head back out?"

"If I see Freydis or Margrethe right now…." His voice trailed off, but the fury from earlier lingered in the unspoken threat.

"I know. We don't have too. I'm okay right here."

A grateful smile on his lips, he kissed her quickly then rolled her onto her back and laid his head on her chest. They relaxed like that for several minutes in silence, her hand running through his hair, just enjoying the feeling of complacency and peace between them now after their fight. If you could even call it that.

Finally, she spoke up in a hushed tone, a random question coming to mind. "Do you ever get in the pool?"

"No."

"Oh." Was all she could say after his sharp, barbed answer. Clearly it was a subject that was not open for discussion. Her mind wandered, wondering what happened to cause such a response from him. An uncomfortable tension hung over them after his response. Something she was not sure if she should try and dissipate or ignore for now.

After a minute of continued silence, he kissed her chest, letting his lips linger there as if using the extra time to mentally prepare himself. Before she could tell him it was none of her business, he spoke. His tone was quiet and, in anyone else, almost shaky.

"I…. I used to try when I was younger. They'd put me on one of those stupid floating things and pull me around or someone would hold me. Then, when I was about seven…. Sigurd and I got in a big fight earlier that day. He claimed I broke one of his toys. Fucking asshole. I was sitting by the pool, this in our childhood home in Kattegat, I liked to watch things float on the water. Sigurd walked by me and….and pushed me over the edge."

She gasped. "Oh Ivar…."

"Ubbe jumped in and pulled my half-drown ass out." He nuzzled against her skin; his tone having lost the insecurity as he reassured her. "I'm alright, Kari."

She drew his face up and gave him a long kiss, their mouth connecting with a deeper need and alleviation. "Remind me to thank Ubbe when I see him next."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't. He's never let me forget the fact."

"Still."

They laid there for some more time, wrapped up in one another and content in the peaceful stillness. She could not help but think about the memory Ivar shared with her. How far back did that resentment go between the brothers? Had there ever been a time where they cared for one another? And how bad was the animosity between them if one was willing to kill the other, even as children? If her arms tightened around him, neither one mentioned it as they continued to lay there.

A loud knock on the door followed by a yell through the door of "are you two done yet?" disturbed their peace.

"Hvits, fuck off!" Ivar called back, burrowing his face between her breasts.

"Do you have clothes on at least?!"

"I do!"

Kari swatted the back of Ivar's head at his admission. Leaning up slightly, he gave her a cheeky wink before laying his head back down.

"Well cover up, I'm coming in!" Hvitserk yelled through the door.

"Ivar, get up." Kari softly said, a panic setting in at the brother coming in and seeing them in this suggestive position and her topless.

"No." He mumbled.

Before she could shove him off, he snatched the throw blanket off the floor and threw it over his head to cover her chest. As she began to protest, the door cautiously opened. In an instant, she tried to spread out the blanket over them as best as she could, keeping the blanket over her chest and spread it somewhat over their torsos. Although how much good it did was questionable. She peered over to see Hvitserk standing in the doorway with an amused look before shaking his head and stepping in, closing the door behind him.

"What the fuck do you want?" Ivar asked, muffled by the blanket and his face still pressed against her skin.

Kari raised her gaze to the ceiling for a moment then mouthed to Hvitserk, "I'm sorry."

Hvitserk winked at her before answering. "Bjorn and Torvi want everyone together before they leave. Sounds like they have an announcement or something."

"Are the bitches still here?"

"Yeah." Hvitserk sighed.

"Then no."

"I'll go." Kari softly said. "It must be important."

"No, you aren't." Ivar nipped at the side of her breast, making her squirm.

"Well everyone is waiting on you two." Hvitserk pointed out as he watched, clearly entertained if his broad grin said anything.

"I'm coming."

Ivar pulled the blanket back slightly to stare up at her. "Why the fuck do you want to see them?"

"Is it….is it terrible I want to show Frey…. her that I'm still here. That no matter what they said, that I'm not going anywhere."

A positively, feral grin spread over his face. He swooped in and pressed a devastating kiss to her mouth, not letting up until she thought she would suffocate from the intensity of it. "Let's go."

He started to rise up but when she squeaked and tried to clutch the blanket to her, he froze.

"Hvits, leave."

"You sure I can't stay?" His smirk grew as he caught Kari's eye and watched her flush deepen.

"GO!" Ivar bellowed, glaring at his older brother.

"Fine. I'll wait out here for you. If you're not out in three minutes, I'm coming back in." Hvitserk stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Ivar carefully slid off of her, standing up beside the couch, the blanket in hand. His predatory, blue eyes remained trained on her form, raking over her body like a sweet he wanted to devour completely. A familiar warmth awakened in her core, even as she shyly glanced away, covering her naked breasts with her hands.

"Fuck, you're gorgeous. On second thought, I think we should stay. I need another taste of you and to hear you moaning my name for everyone to fucking hear."

She squealed, quickly skirting away from him before he could pounce on her. "Ivar, no!" Yet, miraculously, he managed to snag an arm around her waist and drag her back against his chest.

"Should we make an announcement of our own?" He asked, running his nose along the shell of her ear, chuckling under his breath when she shivered against him.

"What do you mean?"

"That you're my girlfriend. That this just-friends is shit."

"I…." She balked, eyes wide and heart beating a painful staccato in her chest. “We…. we can't."

"Why the fuck not?" He grasped her breasts, rolling her peaked nipples between his fingers.

She practically swallowed her tongue, biting back the moan lodged in her throat. When she was positive she could control her voice, she replied. "We've talked about this. I'm just…. I’m not ready."

"But you'll practically let me fuck you?"

At his harsh snap, she tried to push out of his embrace, unwilling to have this conversation in their current predicament or maybe have the conversation at all. The innate desire to flee rose up in her but she tried to force it down as she squirmed in his arms. He held her firm, not giving up an inch, her body flush against his own.

"Ivar!"

"What aren't you telling me?"

She hated both herself and him in the moment as she ceased her escape attempts. She hated him for continuously pushing her, for ignoring her words and trying to force her where he wanted her to be. Even more though, she hated herself. If she had kept away from him, however unlikely that was, if she did not have to hide, then none of this would matter. If she could be honest, truly honest, he would most likely reject her. And that was why she hated herself most. Because she was selfish and wanted his attention and affection, even knowing if he knew who she truly was, he would walk away.

Carefully, she turned her head to meet his stormy eyes. "I promise one day I will. I just…. can we please just enjoy this? What we have? I just need…. time."

He stared down at her for a long time. She wondered what he read in her face when he finally gave a resigned sigh. "Fine. I'm telling people you are my girlfriend though."

"You're unbelievable."

"I think you like that about me." He matched her smile with his own before letting her go.

She quickly found her bikini top, noticing Ivar not-so-subtly adjusting his sweatpants. She slipped it over her head but when she went to tie the straps, a pair of calloused hands covered hers. Without a word, he tied it behind her back. Once done, his hand slowly prowled down her back to lightly smack her ass.

"Hey!" She whipped around, only to see a Cheshire grin on his face.

"That's my sexy ass."

"Oh my god. Unbelievable." She muttered to herself as she snatched up the cover and pulled it over. She looked down at the blanket piled on the floor.

"Leave it. I'll deal with it later." He took her hand and walked with her towards the door. When they opened it, a still-shirtless Hvitserk stood leaning against the wall across from them.

"Took you two long enough. Damn. Almost came in and threw Kari over my shoulder to get you out."

Ivar spat something out in their language that made Hvitserk roll his eyes. Before they could move further down the hallway, Hvitserk reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, freezing her in place.

"Hey, whatever they said. Just try to ignore it. We all want you here. Hell, all of us would kick them to the damn curb if Ubbe would let us. But Ubbe and Bjorn have already approved of you."

Ivar scoffed but Hvitserk kept his gaze on hers, letting her know he was serious.

"Just know, we're on your side."

"Thank you, Hvitty." She squeezed his hand, warmth blooming in her chest at his words.

"Either one of them tries to talk to her, I'll strangle them." Ivar growled, starting down the hallway, towing Kari behind him.

"You can't kill them, Ivar. Mother said murder is wrong."

Ivar laughed, looking over his shoulder at his brother. "Mother still loves me."

"Yeah, yeah, we all know you're her favorite."

"Can you blame her? Look at me. I'm far superior and more interesting than the rest of you."

"Keep telling yourself that."

Kari could not help but smile at their teasing, a mock argument that sounded like it had been executed many times before until now it was said out of fondness and mock sibling rivalry.

The three walked back outside through the glassed-in porch. On the way, she noticed her purse back next to Gyda's bag and wondered if Hvitserk moved it there for her. Outside, everyone else sat on chairs or lounge chairs that were grouped in a haphazard circle, obviously waiting for the remainder of the group to join.

"What took you so long? Thought we'd have to send a search party to find you." Bjorn called out as the three approached.

"I got 'em. The library reeks of sex though." Hvitserk said, dodging Kari's swing.

Ivar guided her back to the lounge chair they had been sitting in earlier, tucking her into his side with a hand laying possessively on her hip. Hvitserk sat on her other side instead of pulling a new chair over. She tried to ignore Margrethe and Freydis who sat across from them, keeping her eyes trained on her lap, fiddling with the hem of her cover.

"Ok, now that we're finally all here." Bjorn said, standing up with Asa in his arms. "We just wanted to tell our family the good news in person."

"Torvi is pregnant!" Gyda blurted, staring at her sister-in-law in shock.

"Fuck! Gyda!" Bjorn groaned.

"Daddy said a bad word." Hali looked over at his mother from his spot next to Sigurd.

"Yes, he did, thank you, Hali." Torvi replied smiling then addressed the group. "I'm about two months along. So right now, we are only telling family, so please don't share this with anyone else yet."

"Wow! A third! Congrats!" Ubbe started, others immediately echoing their own congratulations and well-wishes.��

Kari jumped up and moved to give Torvi a hug after Gyda. "I know we haven't known each other long but I'm so excited for you. You're an amazing mother."

"Thank you, Kari. Maybe your own time will come soon." She shooting her eyes over to Ivar for a second then meeting Kari's again.

"Oh, I don't know." She blushed at the thought. After another brief hug, Kari returned to her seat.

"How old are you?" Hvitserk asked suddenly.

"Um, I turned twenty-five this summer."

"Ha! Still the baby of the group." Sigurd laughed, pointing his beer bottle at Ivar.

"Hey, nothing is wrong with an older woman. We're in our sexual prime." Gyda defended.

"She's not that much older." Ivar retorted, his hand skimming up and down Kari's thigh. "Just a year."

"And a few months. You're turning twenty-four after the new year." Ubbe helpfully added with a grin.

"Fuck off."

"Mommy, Uncle Ivar said a bad word now."

"Yes, he did, Hali. I think it's time for us to go. Say goodbye to everyone." Torvi said. After a round of goodbyes and hugs to all the uncles and aunt, the small family headed back through the house to head to their own home.

"Did you know Ivar is younger than you?" Hvitserk asked conspiringly, once conversation started around them again.

She tilted her head as she looked at him, slowly answering his question. “Yeah…. we talked about this a while ago."

"Good. Do you want kids?"

"Hvits, what is this?" Ivar butted in.

"Just testing the waters to see how she feels about having my babies. You know they'd be beautiful." Hvitserk chuckled when Ivar glared at him.

"Be nice you two or I'm moving." Kari chided.

"Yes, mom." Hvitserk said, sneaking a kiss to her cheek before jumping away. He turned around and pointed at her as he walked backwards. "One day you'll have my babies!"

She laughed, shaking her head. She could practically feel the smoke coming from Ivar's ears. Before he could burst a vein, she leaned closer to him and laid her head against his shoulder. "He knows I'm yours."

"He fucking better or I'll beat his ass to remind him." Ivar murmured, nuzzling her temple.

She relaxed against him, looking around the backyard. Hvitserk and Ubbe had started some kind of wrestling competition in the pool, both looking like they were trying to drown each other. Gyda and Ivar called insults from their seats. Sigurd was texting on his phone but occasionally looking up and making a comment. At one point he caught her eye and gave her a brief nod, which she smiled back, hoping any animosity between the two of them from her earlier comment was gone. She purposefully ignored the whispering between Margrethe and Freydis, taking a note from Ivar's book and acting as if they did not exist.

Looking at the Lothbrok family around her, she smiled at the group, still amazed she found herself in their midst and how welcoming most of them were. For almost two years she had been alone in a new country, thinking that was what she wanted. Now though, she wondered if she had just been missing a group that accepted her without question.

She peered up at Ivar, heart swelling with gratitude and affection. Without second guessing herself, she kissed his cheek and leaned back against his shoulder. He hummed, placing his own kiss to the top of her head.

She wondered if she should just give up fighting this, whatever this was between them. Maybe it would work out. Maybe everything would not fall apart as soon as the truth fell from her lips. Maybe he could accept her past and who she was.

Silently, she shook the thoughts away. It was still too soon to tell and if she was honest, she did not want to lose this.

Or lose him.

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