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elliesbelle · 1 year ago

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nobody compares to you

chapter 4

pairing: ellie x reader

synopsis: you're in your junior year of college and at a party, you run into the girl who broke your heart: ellie williams. despite the time it took to reset your life, will you risk a broken heart again for her?

content warnings: modern college au, cursing, angst, dealer!ellie, also toxic!ellie kind of, mentions of marijuana, sexual speech and content, brief mention of straight girls experimenting with lesbianism, toxic family relationships, lesbian situationship, descriptions and mentions of death & grieving, depressive episodes, cheating if you squint but it's more betrayal than cheating really?, bad driving for like two seconds, description and mention of vomit, minors do not interact

word count: 7k

chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen

series masterlist

my masterlist

i have a ko-fi if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎

the "nobody compares to you" spotify playlist

Freshman Year, Early Spring

“Are you coming to Jess and Els’ later tonight?” Dina asked, snuggling your pink stuffed bear and laying upside down at the head of your bed with her legs outstretched to the ceiling.

“Hmm?” You said, distracted. You were rummaging in your messy drawers, trying to find the other pair of a sock you were currently holding in your hand.

“Ellie said she wants to do a post-midterm celebration with a movie night, which just means we’re gonna watch some lame old sci-fi movie that she and Jesse picked out.”

“Maybe,” You said, tossing the sock into the other contents of the drawer, giving up. “Can’t stay too late, though. Raf is picking me up really early in the morning tomorrow.”

“Ooh, can I finally meet The Hottie Cousin Rafael in person?” Dina said, dropping her legs and turning onto her belly to face you.

You rolled your eyes and said, “You have Jesse, Dina.”

She shrugged and said, “I bet Hottie Cousin Rafael wouldn’t make me watch lame movies all the time.”

“Raf is far nerdier than Jesse is, I promise.”

“If he’s as hot as he looks on FaceTime, his hotness will cancel out the nerdiness.”

You scrunched up your nose in disgust at Dina’s thirsting after your de facto older brother.

“I’m not the best judge, but Jesse’s not not hot.”

Dina laughed.

“I’m telling El you said that.”

Your cheeks flushed as you said, “She’ll just say the same thing!”

“All men are basically ugly in Ellie’s eyes. She’ll say, ‘Jesse’s the uglier version of a walker from The Walking Dead’ or some shit like that.”

You giggled, knowing that was probably true.

“Do you have to leave early for spring break?” Dina whined.

You gave her a sad smile.

“Sorry, D. You know how my mother is.”

Dina groaned and, pointing to the plushie she was holding, said, “Barbie Bear, when will you come to life at night Toy Story-style and finally horrifically murder this awful lady?”

“Dina!” You exclaimed, grabbing your pink bear from her. “Don’t you corrupt Barbie Bear! She is an innocent soul!”

“Oh, she’s been corrupted already,” Dina said, snatching Barbie Bear back. “I’m sure she’s been a witness to the deplorable things you and Ellie have gotten up to in here.”

“Dina!” You squealed once more, blushing furiously and hiding your face behind your hands. “She and I have not!”

“Oh please,” Dina rolled her eyes. “Ellie comes back to her and Jesse’s place the morning after spending the night here with the same cocky ass look that Jesse has after we fuck.”

“Oh my god—”

Dina cackled and you giggled nervously.

“So are you two officially together now or—?”

“Who, me and Ellie?” You asked.

“No, you and Jesse.” Dina said sarcastically, throwing Barbie Bear at you.

You caught the bear at the last second, laughing as you climbed onto your bed with her and handed the plushie back to her.

“Shut up!” You giggled. “But, umm. I’m not really sure what we are, if I’m being honest.”

Dina groaned and said, “Ugh, you’re both useless!”

“I’ve only had one real girlfriend before!”

“So has Ellie!”

“Then ask her instead!”

“Oh, I have.” Dina said, raising her eyebrows.

You perked up suddenly.

“Wait, what did she say?”

“Oh my god, can you two just have the talk already?!” Dina groaned, exasperated at her friends’ incompetence.

You blushed harder than ever.

“I just… I just don’t know if she feels the same way I do.”

Dina rolled her eyes.

“You’re the first person she texts every morning, and mind you, Ellie hates texting. She will spend an hour in that stupid Jeep of hers in the parking lot outside until you get home from class just to hang out with you. Three of her five hoodies are somewhere here in your room right now. Tara told me that you’ve sexiled her at least twice already.”

“We have not!”

“Honey, she literally spent two separate nights at mine and Astrid’s because you and Ellie were over here—”

Dina made a circle with her right thumb and pointer finger and repeatedly inserted her left pointer in it.

“OH MY GOD—” You screamed into a pillow.

Dina was over the moon teasing you as you grabbed your blanket and hid underneath it.

“I need to offer to do her laundry for two weeks or something,” You said, your voice muffled from beneath the covers. “I’m the worst roommate ever.”

Dina chuckled, saying, “Don’t worry, she likes you and Ellie together. Just maybe shoot her a warning text before you two wanna scissor, or whatever you lesbians do.”

“Oh please, like you and Ellie never did anything together.” You said, emerging from underneath your blanket.

“Okay, first of all,” Dina said, putting up one finger. “Ellie and I kissed once at our sophomore homecoming dance, and that was just to make Jesse jealous.”

You chuckled.

Dina put up a second finger.

“Two, it was like kissing a cousin, so that obviously resulted in zero sexual scenarios whatsoever from that point on. I have never once been compelled to call Ellie ‘daddy’ ever in my life.”

You screamed into your pillow once more at this.

Dina put both fingers down and put her middle finger up.

“And three, I have had gay sex with women before, but they were both also bisexual and there was no scissoring involved!”

You were laughing uncontrollably now with Dina attacking you with Barbie Bear.

“Okay, okay!” You giggled, attempting to shield yourself. “Why are we talking about scissoring again?”

“Because!”

One hit from Barbie Bear.

“You are avoiding!”

Another hit from Barbie Bear.

“My questions!”

A third hit from Barbie Bear.

“About you!”

An additional hit from Barbie Bear.

“And Ellie!”

A final hit from Barbie Bear that landed on your face.

You snatched your stuffed animal away from Dina before she could swing it once more, pulling it away from her reach.

“Okay, no more abusing me with Barbie Bear!” You said.

She chuckled.

“And…” You started, serious now. “I’ve never experienced this before. I’ve had one real girlfriend, which was a high school disaster.”

You sighed.

“I briefly saw that one girl Adriana at the beginning of the year before we both realized she was just a rebound to my ex. I’ve hooked up with a few other girls since, and I was even Rebecca’s first lesbian college experiment kiss before she realized she was just straight.”

Dina was sitting straight up now, staring at you intently and listening attentively. You pulled Barbie Bear into your chest.

“Ellie is… she feels different. Something in my heart just yearns for her. She makes me feel like I must have done something so great in a past life that her just being in my life is the reward. She makes me feel forgiven and understood and—”

You paused your Ellie sermon when you made eye contact with Dina, who was looking at you with a soft expression.

“Sorry!” You threw your hands up apologetically and proceeded to cover your face with them in embarrassment. “I sound like a 12-year-old experiencing their first real crush!”

Dina chuckled and pulled your hands away from your face.

“No, you don’t. You sound like someone who Ellie deserves to have in her life, someone who sees her fully and appreciates all the good and bad. She’s gone through her own fair share of romantic and sexual bullshit too, and knowing that she now has you?”

Dina placed an affectionate hand on your cheek.

“I know that I don’t have to worry anymore.”

“Dina, you’re gonna make me cry right now.”

Dina leaned back into your pillows, laughing.

“You started it!”

“You sounded like you were giving away a bride!”

“Wow, not even officially together yet, but somehow you’re already getting married.”

You groaned and flopped onto your back.

“I love her, Dina.”

“No shit, babe.”

After the talk you had with Dina, you both went over to Jesse and Ellie’s dorm room. Even though Jesse was a sophomore and Ellie a freshman, they were somehow able to convince the campus housing department to let them room together after both their roommates dropped out during the first month of classes.

The “lame old sci-fi movie” that they’d picked out turned out to be Jurassic Park, which you’d already seen several times, courtesy of your nerdy older cousin Rafael. Dina was playfully criticizing every little bit of the movie to tease Jesse, who was taking her critiques to heart. As the couple were lovingly bickering with each other on the floor, you and Ellie sat on her bed underneath a blanket.

You leaned against her shoulder while she was tracing patterns on the palm of your hand. Though she was concentrated on the movie, she would habitually give you a kiss on top of your head, sometimes following with her nose nuzzling your hair. She’d not said she loved you so far, but gestures like this felt like her way of saying it. You felt warm and content and the happiest you’ve ever been in your life.

After Jesse convinced the rest of you to watch the movie’s sequel (as punishment to Dina for talking through the first), you’d made up your mind to change your spring break plans.

You were still planning on returning home for the break, but since Ellie, Dina, and Jesse were spending the weekend on campus and not returning to their hometown until Monday, you resolved to at least spend more time with them. You knew that two weeks of spring break didn’t seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things. But the thought of being away from your friends whom you loved so deeply, but especially from Ellie, hurt far more than it did when you left home for college in the first place.

And after your talk with Dina earlier that day, you’d also decided to be honest with Ellie about your feelings for her before you briefly went your separate ways. You knew that maybe it wasn’t the greatest timing to profess your love for the girl of your dreams right before zero physical contact for fourteen days. But Dina helped you further realize the affection you had for Ellie, and you knew you couldn’t go home without letting her know. You also figured that if all went wrong, you could always use the two weeks to save face before returning to campus.

During the scene with Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore’s characters are hiding in a trailer from the T-Rex parents, you texted your cousin Rafael.

A minute or two passed before he responded.

You reply immediately.

Three text bubbles loaded for a second before two texts appeared.

You felt your cheeks burn.

You could almost feel your cousin chuckling through text.

You breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude.

You smiled, your heart full and thankful for your favourite cousin.

Jesse whooped and Dina squealed as she pulled you into a tight hug when you told them you were leaving in two days instead of the next morning. Ellie didn’t say much in the moment, but you felt a glow of happiness radiating from her at the news. When your friends had settled down and continued the movie, Ellie pulled you closer to her and wrapped her arms around you. You leaned into her embrace as she silently decorated your neck with kisses, resolving to call your mother tomorrow morning to break the news.

You never made that call.

You awoke to your phone buzzing angrily underneath your pillow. Discombobulated, you didn’t fully perceive your surroundings. You’d fallen asleep on Ellie’s bed, still wrapped in her arms. Jesse and Dina had eventually migrated at some point in the night to Jesse’s bed and were sound asleep. You saw that Ellie had plugged your phone into her charger after you’d fallen asleep. Stroking her hair lightly as she slept, you looked at your phone to see it was your mother calling.

Before accepting the call, you’d seen that you had 7 missed calls and 4 voicemails. You groaned. Was your mother really that upset?

You didn’t seem that alarmed until you saw that only 6 of those calls and 3 of those voicemails were from your mother. One of each was from your uncle, Rafael’s father.

Why is Uncle calling me? Did she guilt him into guilting me to come home?

Sighing, you finally accepted your mother’s call.

Ellie, Jesse, and Dina all awoke to you screaming. All three were at different levels of disorientation at first, but upon seeing your shrieking figure having fallen to the floor, they all rushed to your side. No one seemed sure what to do at first, other than trying to stand you up (to no avail) and ask what was wrong. It was Dina who snapped into sense first, noticing that you were still on a call with your mother.

She picked up the phone, rushed through an introduction, and worryingly inquired what was happening. Ellie and Jesse watched as her mouth fell open and her eyes widened with shock. She listened to your mother for a minute or two before bringing the other two into the loop.

Your cousin Rafael was killed in a hit-and-run that morning. Since he was no longer tasked to bring you home that day, he made impromptu plans with old college friends to meet up for an early morning coffee. He was crossing an intersection on the way to the café when a car decided to run a red light. He died on impact.

Your spring break was consumed completely by black clothing, floral wreaths of white lilies and roses, and an overstocked fridge of homemade food that your family barely touched. You saw no happy faces, only red eyes and quivering lips. You were torn out of the blissful bubble of your college life into a waking, familial nightmare.

Rafael was your first cousin and not your brother. But it was as if at birth, he claimed you as his sister and the rest was history.

Everyone who knew either of you was aware of the sibling bond you’d shared. He was the most important person to you for the first 18 years of your life. More than your parents, more than any other family member, more than any of your friends. Saying that he was your best friend was an understatement.

The two weeks back home with your family were a black haze. You remained locked up in your room for the majority of the time, and when your presence was required, you spoke only when spoken to. You alternated between fits of sobbing and near-comatose states.

Your only comfort was your uncle, Rafael’s father. You never knew your parents to give genuine love and affection, so you grew up seeing your uncle as a parental figure. Even as he raised Rafael alone as a single father, he often took you under his wing and provided you with a place of home away from your parents’ house.

Your parents, especially your mother, were preoccupied with putting on the show of a broken family to sympathizers. It was your uncle who made sure you continued to eat and drink every day. He was the one to give you the gentle push to leave your room for the funeral, knowing that you’d one day regret not going. He even spoke to your friends on the phone when you’d stopped responding. By the end of your spring break, Dina had his personal phone number so she could call twice a day for daily updates, which she would promptly share with Jesse and Ellie.

Unlike your mother, your uncle placed no blame on you for his son’s death. He knew that the one true person to blame was the careless driver in the car that hit him. But your mother was a different story.

In those last few days before you needed to return to campus, your mother enlightened you with her true feelings.

She had decided your “selfishness” in inconveniencing your family was what decided Rafael’s fate. If he had been on his way to pick you up from college, he never would have been crossing that intersection. According to her, you’d placed insignificant people you’d known for less than a year over your own family.

If you were a weaker person, you’d have crumbled under her accusations. She was quite skilled in twisting the truth to her point of view, and she was skilled even more so in making people believe the worst of themselves. But Rafael and your uncle raised you better. You may not have been the most secure person growing up, but they made you feel loved.

Despite your mother’s malice, you were grateful for her outburst. It snapped you back into reality. Your fury at your mother reminded you that Rafael would not have wanted you to give in to her guilt.

You knew that his death was not your fault. Of course you were still grieving, but you loved Rafael so much that you would not allow your mother to force you back into a state of living death. Your uncle made sure of this when he drove you back to campus.

The few hours drive to your dorm, you and your uncle had the most intense and intimate conversation you’d ever had with him. You bawled, you even smiled and laughed a few times, and you talked about the future. It pained you to watch him drive away, the last real living connection you had left to Rafael.

You may not have been the depressive zombie you were at the news of Rafael’s death, but you no longer lived blissfully in your college bubble. Still, your friends remained sympathetic and loving as you dealt with your grief.

Ellie remained just as caring and affectionate, at least at first. She made sure to spend all her free time with you to make sure you weren’t left alone to spiral into your depressive thoughts. She didn’t try anything sexual with you and made sure to respect your mourning boundaries. She even set an alarm every week to make sure you were on time for your video therapy sessions (your uncle set you up with a therapist to make sure you remained stable).

To the outside observer, your grieving process was progressing naturally and healthily. You barely missed class, you still saw your friends on a regular basis, you weren’t bursting out in tears (or so most of your friends thought). No one else felt the need to worry about you more than they had to.

Except for Dina.

Having lost her parents at a young age, it was mostly her and her older sister taking care of each other. Part of why she grew to be so close to Jesse was because his parents were family friends who helped them out when their parents passed.

Dina has dealt with great familial loss before and she saw the signs of someone barely keeping it together.

That’s why before your freshman year ended, Dina invited you to stay with her and her sister for the summer.

Summer Before Sophomore Year: Jackson

Calling your parents to let them know that you weren’t coming back home for most of the summer was a difficult conversation. Your mother threw a fit and your father chastised you for upsetting your mother. But with encouragement of your friends and your uncle (who promised you that he’d ship essentials from your parents’ house to Dina’s as soon as he could), you eagerly accompanied Dina, Jesse, and Ellie to their hometown of Jackson.

After just a few days in the town, you understood why the trio have remained friends since childhood. The community in Jackson was small but very tight-knit. Everyone knew each other and it seemed unusual for people to leave. They treated each other like family, and you envied the comfy, homey feeling the town radiated.

Dina’s sister Talia wasn’t around very often, consumed by her full-time job. You didn’t fully understand what she did for work, only that it had something to do with computers. The few times you were actually able to spend time with her, you enjoyed seeing the repertoire between her and her younger sister. Though ten years older than Dina, they treated each other like peers. You saw how Dina grew to be such an emotionally mature person. Talia accepted you with open arms, fulfilling the role of big sister the entire time you were there.

On the third day of your stay, you finally met Joel. He was Ellie’s adoptive father who took in Ellie at a young age. Though they were not biologically related, you found yourself often chuckling over how similar the two were.

Ellie’s foul-mouthed behaviour mirrored that of Joel’s, which was a welcome contrast to your parent’s curt and strict speech. He told stories of his past, many of which involved him getting into all sorts of trouble. Though he seemed to have grown out of it, you saw that impulsivity and temperament in Ellie today.

He was a kind, old man, and you saw why Ellie admired him so. You also noticed just how much he loved Ellie as if he’d birthed her himself. You found yourself desiring the kind of parent Joel was. You had your uncle throughout your childhood, of course, but you still had to go home to the cruelty of your parents at the end of the day.

Joel seemed to be aware that Ellie dealt back at your university. It was through him that Ellie actually knew her plug. This old pal of Joel’s, Eugene, was originally her (and Dina’s and Jesse’s) dealer back in high school. When they’d graduated and started attending university, Eugene introduced Ellie to an old contact who grew not far from campus once she started dealing. Joel would roll his eyes and scoff any time the topic of Ellie being a dealer came up, but he genuinely didn’t seem to mind as long as she was smart about it.

On nights when Dina and Jesse were both busy, you found yourself spending the evening at Joel’s house. He was very keen on having you over for dinner often, complaining that Ellie was a very boring conversation partner. You bonded quickly over a number of things, such as your mutual love of coffee (to which Ellie rolled her eyes, claiming that a simple hot chocolate was far superior to that “burnt shit”) and being Ellie’s impulse control.

About nearly a month into your stay, Dina was picking you up from another dinner at Joel’s and Ellie’s place to walk you back to her house. Both waved you goodbye at the front door (not before you gave Ellie a peck on the cheek) and watched as you and Dina linked arms and walked into the streetlight-lit darkness.

Once you and Dina were out of their sight, Joel put his hand on Ellie’s shoulder.

“Come on, kiddo. We need to talk.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, old man,” Ellie exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air and leaning into the living room couch.

“Ellie.”

“Joel.” Ellie said, mocking his serious tone.

“That girl is so in love with you, and it’s plain to anyone who sees y’all together.”

Ellie crossed her arms, saying nothing.

“And it’s as clear as day that you’re head over heels for her too.”

Ellie scoffed and said, “Don’t assume shit, old timer.”

“I ain’t assuming anythin’. I know you, and so do Dina and Jesse.”

“You’ve been talking to Dina and Jesse behind my back?”

“Now, hold on there,” Joel said, taking a seat at the lounge chair next to the couch Ellie sat on. “They were just tellin’ me about what y’all get up to at that big university, and we just got to talkin’ about you. There weren’t no secret meetings or anythin’ conspirin’ like that.”

“And what did those two have to say?”

“That y’all have been basically joined to the hip since y’all met.” Joel said, leaning back.

“That’s not true—” Ellie began angrily.

“Look, kid, no need to be pitchin’ a hissy fit. I’m just relayin’ what those two have been observin’. But since y’all took her home, apparently you’ve been actin’ a tad different towards her.”

“What does that mean?”

Joel sighed.

“Ellie, this girl was all you talked about nonstop that whole year you were up at that school. I already know the girl’s favourite colour and coffee order just from the phone calls we had.”

“I did not talk about her that much.”

“Yes, you did. There’s no point in denyin’ it.”

Ellie glared.

“Now, I wanna know why it seems like you’ve changed your tune on her.”

“Really, ‘changed my tune?’ Man, you’re getting too old.”

“Don’t go changin’ the subject. Now, I can see how you’re still clearly sweet on her, but there’s somethin’ a little off. Like you’re holdin’ back from her, or somethin’ like that.”

“I’m just not a people person, Joel, and you know that.”

“Doesn’t matter. Ellie,” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and looked directly at her. “Do you love her?”

“Come on, man—”

“Ellie.”

Ellie met Joel’s eyes and saw that he was waiting for a truthful answer. She exhaled, took a beat, and responded.

“I don’t love her.”

Joel sighed sadly.

“Thought I taught you better than that, kiddo.”

She looked away, saying, “We’re not even dating.”

“Does she know that?

“She’s not stupid.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Ellie stood up, exasperated.

“Why does any of this matter, Joel!”

“Because that poor darlin’ just lost her own kin, so if you’re fixin’ to break her heart, you need to stop stringin’ her along.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“I like this girl for you, Ellie. She’s got a kind soul that somehow blossomed past her upbringin’. She brings out the best in you, even if you try to hide it. She thinks the world of you, kid, bless her heart. Don’t do somethin’ you’ll regret.”

“I haven’t done shit!” Ellie yelled, standing up from the couch.

“Daggum it, stop actin’ childish and listen to what I’m sayin’ here, Ellie.”

Ellie stormed out of the room without another word.

After the conversation she had with Joel, Ellie began acting distant towards you. It started with the little things: keeping her hands in her pockets while you walked around town to avoid holding your outstretched hand, no longer inviting you over to dinner at Joel’s unless Dina or Jesse planned on coming along, no more public displays of affection and very limited tenderness in private.

Dina was right in her assumption that you were barely holding it together. The anxiety as a result of Ellie’s behaviour, on top of your grief over your cousin’s death, began unraveling you.

Your late-night talks with Dina became less and less. You began sitting next to her or Jesse more often than you did Ellie. Dina would walk in on you completely spaced out and it took several minutes to get a verbal response out of you.

Dina and Jesse were sure that if you came back with them to Jackson, being around the presence of those who loved you as opposed to people who resented you would ease your grieving process. They didn’t, however, predict that Ellie become a hurdle to your progress. And they certainly did not predict Ellie’s idiotic actions that followed.

“I thought we were having a movie night,” Jesse said, eyebrows furrowed. “I brought DVDs.”

Ellie chuckled, saying, “You know there are these things called ‘streaming services’ now, Jess.”

“Hypocrite. You and Joel have stacks of DVDs of every action and sci-fi movie ever made in your living room.”

“What can I say, I’ve gotten with the times.”

“Like hell you have.”

You, Dina, and Jesse were all bunched up on the pull-out couch in Dina’s basement (where you were residing for the summer). Jesse was messing with the TV’s remote to find the right input while you and Dina were snuggled up underneath the same blanket. Your tired eyes watched as Ellie pulled her flannel on and rolled her sleeves up, revealing that fern tattoo you loved so much on her right forearm.

“Who the fuck is more important than us, anyway?” Dina said, frowning.

Ellie chuckled again, saying, “We hang out almost every day, D. You’ll survive the night.”

“You’re not coming back after dinner?”

“We’ll see, but don’t wait up.”

Your eyes then fell down to your fingers, fiddling with a loose thread on the blanket. You haven’t spoken out loud once tonight since Ellie’d walked in.

“You’re banned from our friend group now. You may reapply in 3-6 months.” Dina said, flipping Ellie off.

“Literally one dinner, drama queen.”

“Where are you even going?”

“Rivers Café.”

You didn’t notice how Jesse’s and Dina’s faces fell.

“Gonna be late, so see you guys later.” Ellie said, walking up the stairs without a second glance.

After a beat or two, Jesse spoke.

“What the actual fuck.”

“Jesse—“ Dina began.

“I love her, but god damn it.” Jesse got up and started shuffling through the DVDs he brought.

There was a palpable tension in the air for the rest of the night. An old martial arts movie was playing, but none of you were paying much attention. Nobody said anything, besides a comment every now and again from Dina noting how unrealistic some fighting move was.

Ellie didn’t come back to Dina’s that night.

Two weeks before classes started, your things were packed to return to your parents’ house. You didn’t want to leave, but you needed to properly prepare for the start of your junior year.

Dina was watchful and clingy before you left, constantly letting you know that the first thing she was going to do when you all returned to campus was hunt you down for a coffee date. Jesse would chuckle at this, saying that he’d probably see you when she dragged him along to it.

Dina’s sister Talia said goodbye to you three days before your departure, needing to leave for a brief business trip the day before. She pulled you into a very tight hug, telling you that you were always welcome in their home and to feel free to tag along with Dina during any school breaks.

You had a last dinner at Joel’s the night before you left. He made you and Ellie a simple pasta dish, which you learned was his late daughter Sarah’s favourite meal. He and you shared a sweet and intimate conversation where you both opened up about your shared familial losses. He told you about Sarah and you talked about Rafael. You understood why Joel was so protective over Ellie, having lost Sarah when she was only 12. You were happy that Ellie had someone like that in her life.

Surprisingly, Ellie had offered to drive you home. You were starved for her attention, so you happily accepted. You offered for her to stay in your parents’ guest room for a night so she wouldn’t have to do so much driving in one day, but she said she didn’t mind. You felt disappointed, but you also didn’t want to subject her to your parents more than you had to.

Dina and Jesse were the ones who waved you off (Joel sent his regards with Ellie when she came to Dina’s place to pick you up). You reassured them both that two weeks was not a very long time, though you were partly saying it out loud to convince yourself of it too. Your hand was the last thing they saw, waving from the passenger’s window of Ellie’s car.

As you drove away from the gates of Jackson, there was not much noise except an Aminé song playing in the background and the occasional bird call heard outside from the rolled-down windows.

There was a heaviness in your heart that weighed more and more the further from Jackson you were. Though you didn’t grow up there, the locals were so naturally welcoming. Being there felt like coming home every day. It was a safe and healthy place for you to process your grief. You wished summer went on forever.

After a little while of silence between you and Ellie during which you lamented on your departure, you began to feel the awkwardness between you two. She hadn’t said anything and it didn’t seem like she had any intention to. You shrunk in your seat and began fidgeting and braced yourself to say something.

“Um,” You started. “Thanks for offering to drive me back.”

“No big deal,” Ellie replied. “Happy to do it.”

You could feel your heart beating in your ears.

“Why’d you decide to?”

Ellie shrugged. “Just wanted to be a good friend.”

You winced.

“Is… is that what we are, El? Just friends?” You asked meekly.

“I mean, yeah. Of course.”

You felt your heart drop to your stomach.

Is this how she really feels? Has this how she’s felt the whole year we’ve been doing all this? Have I just been reading into all this wrong?

You attempted to suppress a bubbling anxiety attack, trying not to hyperventilate. Ellie seemed to be content with the silence and said nothing.

Trying to distract yourself, you whipped out your phone to text Dina.

She replied almost immediately.

After a few seconds, another text from her popped up.

You chuckled silently, replying:

Ellie noticed the sudden sound, saying, “What are you laughing about?”

“Just Jesse.” You said.

“Ahh” was all she said in reply.

You refused to look her way, feeling like seeing her disinterested face would make you feel worse than you already were.

You texted Dina, saying:

Three text bubbles appeared before her texts popped up.

You gulped, even more anxious than before.

You tried to ignore the nagging feeling that there was something else going on, something you weren’t privy to. You and Ellie were inseparable most of freshman year, even before you were explicitly doing things that regular friends didn’t do.

What’s changed?

Sometime during your internal struggle, you’d drifted off to sleep. You woke up groggy and disoriented, taking a moment to realize you were still in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Jeep. The sun was further west than before. You glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

“How much further do we have?” You asked, voice raspy.

“About an hour or so.”

“Oh.”

You’d been asleep for longer than you thought. Feeling guilty, you wiped some drool off your chin and yawned quietly.

“I’m sorry for passing out on you.”

“All good.” Ellie said.

“Did I snore?”

Ellie shrugged and you stopped yourself from letting out an incredibly audible and frustrated sigh.

Five or ten minutes passed during which you were wrestling with yourself on making use of the rest of the time to confront Ellie. In the end, you decided that two weeks of this anxiety eating at you was not worth it.

“Els?”

She didn’t seem to hear you.

You cleared your throat and said a little louder, “Ellie.”

“What’s up?” She said, dryly.

You took a deep breath.

“What’s been going on?” You asked.

“What do you mean?”

You bit the inside of your lip.

“I mean…” You began. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“Ellie, come on. You’ve been… different.”

She didn’t answer.

“Jesse and Dina both agree with me.”

Her eyebrows furrowed.

“I don’t really appreciate people talking about me behind my back.”

“We’re not!” You exclaimed. “We’ve just been wondering why you’re so distant lately.”

“Just cause I’m not much of a talker doesn’t mean I’ve been distant.”

You used to talk all the time with me.

“That’s not what I’m saying, Ellie. You don’t seem to like hanging out with us, and you cancel on us half the time. You don’t tell us what you’ve been up to or where you’ve been.”

You gulped.

“Like that movie night at Dina’s place. You agreed to come over for a sleepover, and you came for five minutes then bailed on us and didn’t even tell us where you were going.”

“Yes, I did!”

“Not ‘til the very end! You didn’t even tell us who you were seeing!”

“Why does that even matter?”

“It’s not that, Ellie! It’s just that you’ve been elusive and secretive, and I don’t like it!”

“Well, that’s not really my problem, is it?”

Her words pierced your heart and it took everything you had to keep going and not break down.

Is that what I’ve become now? Your problem, Ellie?

“I guess not.” You said quietly.

A few minutes of silence passed. You were fidgeting in your seat once more while Ellie seemed completely disinterested in further conversation.

But you refused to go back with all this unresolved.

“Who did you see?” You asked suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“At that café. Who did you go see?”

“Why do you care?” Ellie scoffed.

“Why won’t you answer?”

Ellie rolled her eyes.

“It was just an old friend, okay? Jesus,” She said, irritated. “I have other friends besides Jesse and Dina.”

“Who was it, Ellie?”

“Her name is Cat! God, enough with the questions.”

You froze for a moment until you finally murmured, “Cat, your ex-girlfriend?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, dude?” Ellie cried, coming to a stop at a red light a little rougher than needed.

You blinked.

“What?” You asked quietly.

“What?” Ellie repeated, angrily.

“Why did you call me that? You never… You always—”

You always call me “babe.” Or “baby.” I thought I was your baby.

“Whatever,” You said, shaking your head. “I just don’t know why you’d see her. I thought you hadn’t kept in contact with her since high school.”

“We reconnected over the summer,” Ellie huffed, slowly putting her foot down on the accelerator. “Didn’t realize that was a fucking crime.”

Your mouth quivered as silent, betraying tears began to fall.

“Am I a joke to you, Ellie?” You whispered.

“What?”

“Am I a FUCKING joke to you?” You shouted.

Ellie froze, almost swerving. She’d never heard you raise your voice this way.

“I thought… I thought I meant more to you. I thought that we had something. What the fuck did I do wrong? What did I do?”

Your right hand was wiping tears away while your left was clutching your stomach tightly. You felt like you needed to hurl.

“You don’t look at me anymore. You don’t touch me. Why did you start talking to her again? Why wouldn’t you talk to me? Was I not fucking enough?”

There was a pause before Ellie spoke.

“You’re not my girlfriend. I have no obligation to you.”

You felt as if the world disappeared from underneath you and you were falling. You were no longer in the passenger seat of Ellie’s car. No, you were plunging into a dark abyss, the same one that your friends had saved you from falling into when Rafael died. But here you were anyway. And it was Ellie who pushed you in.

Before you knew it, Ellie had pulled up to the curb of your house. The sound of her engine turning off snapped you back into reality briefly. As you unbuckled yourself, you realized that on top of a plain black tank, you were wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt that Ellie’d lent you. You tore it off and threw it to the floor.

Before Ellie could even move, you were out of the car and pulling your bags out of Ellie’s backseat. By the time Ellie unbuckled herself and got out of the driver seat, you had all your bags in hand and ready to trudge up your parents’ driveway.

You felt you probably looked ridiculous: tears and snot running down your face while you struggled with several heavy bags. But you didn’t care. You needed a wall between you and Ellie immediately.

“Look—” Ellie started, taking a few steps.

You dropped your bags and started towards her.

“Fuck you, Ellie Williams.” You spat.

“Fuck you for lying to me. Fuck you for leading me on. Fuck you for letting me fall in love with you. Fuck you for breaking my heart.”

Ellie stopped in her tracks.

“You... you—” She began, but her voice caught.

By the time she found her voice again, you had already picked your bags up and hauled them to the front porch, keys already in your hand to unlock the door. She almost called your name out and yelled for you to wait, but you had thrown your bags through the threshold so quickly and disappeared almost immediately after them.

Ellie jumped at the sound of the front door slamming.

The second you had closed the door behind you, you leaned into one of your mother’s decorative urns and vomited.

author's notes:

is barbie bear based on an actual stuffed bear i own and is named barbie and is that a picture of her in the icon at the beginning of the fic? no

i was SO so nervous to post this omg, cause not only is this a long ass chapter, but i wanted to make sure to give proper explanation to present day events. i hope i did it justice! lmk what y'all think!!

writing a flashback chapter was so fun?? might do at least another one at some point

also i meant to mention this in a previous chapter, but reader's cousin rafael is actually based on an older cousin of mine (who has the same name but we all call him by a nickname) who actually has a similar-ish relationship with me as reader does with her cousin (he and i are only a year apart tho and reader & her rafael are several years apart), but dw my cousin is still alive sdklfjslsldkfj

btw pls notice that rivers cafe is an actual place in the games hehe (so was ruston coffee in the last chapter)

oh also if you have ever been sexiled before, i am so sorry and you will see heaven as reparations (i on the other hand will not as i have been a sexiler myself oops)

taglist: @lonelyfooryouonly, @elliesinterlude, @sawaagyapong, @peppesgirl, @iconsoft, @maybeidohaveadhd, @ellieswifee, @valiantllamapersonpony-blog, @nil-eena, @echostinn, @uraesthete, @softbunlvr, @cherriessxinthespring, @amitycat, @chrissyfishywissy, @yevheniiaaa

#nobody compares to you series #ellie williams #dealer!ellie #ellie x reader #ellie x you #ellie x y/n #the last of us #tlou #the last of us part 2 #tlou2 #ellie fanfiction #belle speaks #belle writes

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justmystical · 8 months ago

Text

The Forgotten-3

Pairing: Lucifer x Butterfly!Fem!reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel x Stsr vs the forces of evil

Warnings: takes place before Hazbin Hotel, Alternative Universe

One | Two| Navigation | four

You and Lucifer were Currently hanging out in your usually spot below an apple tree, Lucifer was reading a book and petting Keekee. Something he does so often when you guys hang together.

As for you, you were currently hanging upside from the apple tree and thinking was a good thing to do on this fine afternoon. Not gonna lie you were bored, to the point you would learn more spells from the family spell book.

Then you remembered

You were currently getting snacks for both of you and Lucifer, come on apple all the time and your craving some chocolate. Do they have Snookers on earth? No they don't,

maybe a Mewni thing? But SNOOKERS!

You then read about festival that's gonna be held at night in a poster outside of a shop...

You suddenly jumped out from the tree,which nearly gave poor Lucifer and Keekee a heart attack,you gave them a nervous smile.

"i just remembered there's a festival in this Village later , we should go" you suggested, while Keekee looked intrigued, Lucifer froze and debated to join.

"I don't know..."

You noticed this and nudge Lucifer shoulders" hey come on it will be fun...and it's my first festival ever!"you said and he looked at you with a raised eyebrow.

"first?"

"yeah,i never been to festival before" it's true though you been to one,you were always cooped up inside the Castle for protection, monsters roam around a lot so as a Princess of Mewni you and Eclipsa need to protected.

"aren't you like in your early 20s, and you still couldn't go?" He pointed out .

"I'm a busy lady"Busy as in studying magic with Glossaryck , because you late be taught, unlike Eclipsa,she was taught when she was Fourteen until she became Queen. You were taught later on...

"please Luci"Lucifer wanted to agree,but some of people here have Guardian angels and he was doomed if he was caught, you see he was forbidden to even go to earth. He only break those rules for you...

"come on Luci"you gave him puppy dog eyes he couldn't resist.

Ugh the things you do to me

He finally agreed, you jump up and down not notice the root Of the tree and you stumbled on it , falling on top of Lucifer.

Oof

You felt his chest under you and his hot breath on your face ,you looked at his eyes.You two looked at each other as if time stopped and nothing was around you two .

You felt fireworks as held you...

Then the moment was suddenly interrupted by a Meow and saw your Beloved companion in her little earth form.

You the realized you were on top of Lucifer,you stood up quickly , feeling the heat of your face spread .

"c-c-come o-on we s-should go!"you stuttered and ran away quickly as Keekee followed.

Lucifer stood there stunned... also blushing

You walked through the sea people with Lucifer in the festival. You were having the best night of your life trying different foods from different stalls. Keekee was also happy being fed .

As for Lucifer he looked like he was hiding for someone ? He wore a cloak and the hood was on, he was being cautious around other people...

Does he not like going outside in the crowd?

Maybe you should have listened to him not go to the Festival?

Maybe the he didn't agreed at first is because he's not good with crowds?

Then suddenly you got an idea.

"Keekee, can you watch Lucifer for a while?i gonna do something okay?"Keekee was hesitant at first. She was made to protect you at all cost,that why she neve leaves your side...

"oh come on Keekee it'll be quick,and if anything happens I'll shout" Keekee still feels the need to go with you,but she sense a bound between you and the King of Hell. Ofcourse Keekee knew...

She felt the energy radiating from him since day one.But some reason she didn't find him a danger to her wielder....

At the end she agreed...

Lucifer knows he fucked, Ultimately fucked,he sense angelic auras everywhere. He may have hid his demonic aura but he knew one slip up they'd find him and report back to heaven.

But he couldn't say no to you...

He saw how your eye's sparkle at every stall and every games in the festival.

He suddenly froze, a old man walks pass by him and he saw a guardian angel floating by his side.

He screwed...

But some reason he wasn't seen...

He felt something soft brush his legs and looked down to see a cat with cat with a scar on the left eye...

Keekee...

Speaking of Keekee...

Where's n/n?

He looked around and started to panic , until Keekee nudge his leg. She pointed with her paw to a direction and he followed.

She began to guide Lucifer to your whereabouts.

Until they saw you talking to a vendor of...

Lanterns?

He walked up to you ,you smile when you saw him.

"surprise!" You hand him a lantern.

"what this?"he asked

"a lantern"

"yeah,but?"

"just follow me " you suddenly grabbed his hand and walked to a cliff in a fast pace.

Your long red hair flowed through the air as your Turquoise eyes sparkle.

"let's lit this Lanterns up" you told him and he only nodded.

"i saw you feeling uncomfortable earlier so hopefully this lantern can help?it always makes me feel better. My father always make me and my sister these when i was little..."you explained only looking at the Lanterns float away.

Lucifer looked at the beautiful Lanterns float away but nothing can compare to your smile...

"thanks n/n"

"huh?oh... You're welcome Luci!"

You just got back from earth and fell down to your bed with a groan, you enjoyed the festival with Lucifer...

But you remembered what happened earlier before that..

You felt his chest under you and his hot breath on your face ,you looked at his eyes.You two looked at each other as if time stopped and nothing was around you two

You felt fireworks as held you...

Keekee looked at you out of her Earth disguise.

"come you saw that,it was embarrassing but..."it was still in your mind

"you what time for bed!"

You got ready for bed and tomorrow is another day.

You were currently practicing some magic with Glossaryck.

"why are my ancestors spells so hard ?!"

"well how about you try out some of your spells?"he suggested and you nodded.

"Dreamer's Hallucinations"

"our of all the spell-"it hit a mirror and suddenly Glossaryck got cut off when the beam hit him.

"IT'S A POOL OF CHOCOLATE PUDDING!"

"WAIT GLOSSARYCK THAT'S NO-"he already jumped into dirty fountain in the garden.

"Magica Reverso!"you conjure another spell.

The spell before got reverse and now Glossaryck jump away from the murky fountain,he almost ate moss..

"let's not talk about that.."

"aye aye !"

"try another spell that's not included hallucinations..."

You though for a moment...then realized...

"oh i have spell that I've been working on!"it was a spell that can defend your whole entire family and everyone in mewni.

"it's a defense spell"you mentioned and Glossaryck conjured up a puppet.

You concentrate and said the spell in your head multiple times to be ready to say it , Glossaryck waited until you were ready.

"Wither and Decay Let Rose Decompose..." A dark violet beam shot out of the wand as your cheek marks looked like it was blossoming like a rose ?

Glossaryck saw this and was shocked your marks are like roses ?

The beam shot through the poor Puppets chest , roses exploded from it's chest and loud boom echoed through the whole Palace.

You marks were still glowing and now fully blossom to be a dark rose.

You watched at horror as the roses slowly consumed the poor puppet.

"n/n!" You heard sister call out in concern,she heard the loud boom from the garden,she quickly ran out of the throne room because she knows you were having magic lessons with Glossaryck.

She saw you marks,she was shocked. They were not red circles anymore but dark Roses. She also noticed a puppet?

It was slowly getting consumed by what it looked decaying roses?

The Magical High Commission also join in and saw what happened.

"WHAT HAPPENED?!?"A girl with flame ontop of her head yelled out

"what did you do?!"Romulus exclaimed.

Uh oh

Glossaryck has seen this type of spell before...

Eclipsa's

He warned her not to use that spell before,she listened ofcourse... because she was starting to grow black veins in her arms , that's why she now wears gloves...

You felt guilty as you made your sister concerned...

Everyone watched as the puppet exploded into white petals. Now your cheeks where back to a red round shape marks.

"I'm sorry..."

#hazbin hotel keekee #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel lucifer x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #eclipsa butterfly #x reader #star vs the forces of evil #lucifer morningstar

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scarlet-witchery · 7 months ago

Text

so I know I'm in the no galladads side of the fandom but hear me out on this one—

so it's maybe five years after the end of the show, Ian and Mickey are still going with their security business, maybe they've even branched out and hired some extra help, making good money, swapped out the stolen ambulance for actual SUVs that Debbie has fixed up for them, and they've maybe even bought a house back on the South Side with a dog and a cat and they're close to all of Ian's siblings (Debbie and Carl and Liam all still live in the old Gallagher house, Lip and Tammi are a few blocks over)

and one day they're on a lunch break together, leaving some diner when some rando kid bumps into Ian, turns out it was a pickpocket, and Mickey takes off after the jerk who tried to steal from his husband (he may not be a South Side thug anymore but like hell is he gonna let that shit slide)

he knocks the pickpocket over and it's some kid, like thirteen or fourteen with bright pink streaks in her dark hair and fierce brown eyes, and Mickey is like wtf kid do you wanna die

and the kid is like oh fuck you, very much an angry kitten type because she's definitely a scrawny thing—by this time Ian's caught up to them and his bleeding heart is like look if you give me my wallet back I'll buy you lunch (Mickey complains that "we just ate, Gallagher" but Ian insists)

so they either go back to the diner or find some McDonald's and this kid practically inhales some burgers and fries, and both Mickey and Ian know the look of a kid on the streets, but she's giving off those vibes that say don't touch me don't talk to me don't fucking perceive me

but Ian probably sees something like Mickey, and Mandy, in this girl and we all know he wants to help people, so he asks her if she's okay or if she needs anything, and even though he can feel Mickey starting to grumble next to him Ian still offers her their couch to crash on after she mentions getting kicked out of a salvation army shelter because they found out she was trans

and after some very intense eye to eye communication between the husband Mickey's like okay yeah fine but if one thing is outta place in the house then we're gonna have words

and the girl—they find out her name is Starr, or something like that—is like wtf why are you people being nice (they understand the suspicion, obvs, they aren't stupid), and Ian's like uhhhh we're gay and we've gone through some shit of our own so maybe we just wanna help?? (although he does notice she relaxes a little bit when he tells her that they're gay)

so they drive back home and Starr is absolutely enamored by the gallapets (a beautiful fluffy black cat and a big pittie mix, both of these animals are Ian and Mickey's baby girls), while Ian fixes up the spare bedroom with fresh sheets—usually it's where Franny or Fred stay when they come for weekend visits

and at first Starr is like okay yeah I'll stay one night but then I gotta go, and somehow it ends up that one night turns into two, then Ian and Mickey come home one afternoon and the house looks amazing because Starr is like "yeah your place was a fucking mess so I figured I'd clean" because she's not a freeloader gdi

and before they know it she's been there for a few weeks and Ian's trying to help get her back in school, because one night they were sitting around and talking and she offhandedly said that she does kinda miss school but the last place she went they were assholes about her transition, and Mickey is like just do that homeschooling course thing that maybe Tammi talked about one of her bougie friends doing for their kids

and then it's been a month or two and they bring Starr to a Gallagher family get together—Debbie hosts the family at the house at least twice a month, but everyone's been super busy lately so it's been a while since the last family dinner—and Debs gives Starr a hug and is like "oh so you're the kid my brothers adopted" (she and Sandy worked things out btw and have been back together for a while now, they've even maybe talked about getting married)

and Starr is like oh no I'm just crashing for a bit but by this point Ian has already got her the homeschooling correspondence courses, and Mickey's taken her to find a doctor who can prescribe her HRT ("it was on our route anyway, fuck off, Gallagher") and their pets adore her—Ian jokes that their cat is the one who actually adopted Starr, they just went along with it

and basically I just love the idea of them taking care of a young queer girl, and being like the cool gay uncles, and yeah :')

#gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #shameless #maybe I'll put this on a to write list <3 #galladads #starr verse

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luminousbeings-crudematter · 1 year ago

Note

My dearest Lumi,

Firstly, I want to congratulate you on your follower milestone. You exude talent and grace and I am beyond grateful that you’ve chosen to share your gift of writing with the world. You deserve every ounce of praise.

Secondly, I’d like to put in a request for said follower milestone. I would love if you’d write something for my favorite little lovable pot wash. His presence in Alford Plea makes me smile in abundance and he fills me with immeasurable joy. I have wracked my brain for like three days and just can’t come up with a solid premise so I’m leaving this one up to dealers choice.

You’re the best 💕

No solid premise? No problem! Here’s some softness for our little lovable pot wash 🤍🤍🤍

(Written for the follower milestone!)

He works in one of the best restaurants in the city, which is as fantastic as it is annoying, because it means that you hardly ever see Johnny at normal hours. His shifts can start at half seven in the morning or two in the afternoon, and they’ve easily gone on for fourteen hours some days. It’s not entirely unusual for you to be pulled out of deep sleep for a minute or two almost every other night—you’ll hear him try his best to be quiet sneak into your shared flat at and you’ll sleepily wonder if he’ll stick around the next morning long enough for you to make him some coffee or have breakfast together.

And, of course, when he’s not working or sleeping, he’s studying.

Your flatmate’s biggest and most well-kept secret is his university degree, one he’s determined to see through while he continues to work. You wonder how he isn’t closer to burn-out, but you know him. You’ve known him for a long time.

He’s one of the hardest working people you know, the most cheerful, the life of the party, radiant and glowing, both inside and out, and you love him you love him you love him—

The front door clicks quietly shut and then—“Bonnie?”— and you smile.

“In here,” you call out, and hop off the couch to grab him a beer. He meets you halfway—when you close the fridge door, his goofy smile greets you—and oh. The man makes your heart flutter, even after all this time. Especially after all this time. “Hi,” you whisper, not wanting to break the spell of the moment. “Alright?”

“Better now,” he says, smiling. In a few fluid moments, he’s taken the bottle of beer in his hands, used his teeth to open it like the complete savage that he is, lifted you up and set you on the counter. “So much better now.” The words are muffled on account of his face being buried in your neck, arms naturally going around you.

The actual time Johnny can spend with you feels like it comes in peaks and troughs, but never his affection—you’re always spoiled in that regard.

You’ve never bothered labelling this thing you have with him because you don’t need to. You share the lease of your flat, just as much as you share the good and the bad of your lives. He’s your best friend, your flatmate, your confidant, your pillar of support, just as much as you’re his bonnie, his emergency contact, his mother’s favourite, his his his.

“Mmpf—smell nice,” he murmurs (the words muffled against your skin make you shudder and you feel goosebumps along the length of your arms, but Johnny never notices). Only when he pushes away from you do you get your first proper look at him.

He looks tired, so so exhausted, but even then, nothing can hide the fact that he glows. His eyes are melted lazulite under the dim kitchen lights, all the colours of the bright blue sea melted into one. They hold you captive, and you almost miss his tired babbling.

“...knew it was gonna happen, but right now? Been just months, wasnae expectin’ it, hen!”

“Wait, what?”

“What?”

You roll your eyes and try to get him to repeat himself. “What weren’t you expecting, what happened?”

Your words make him roll his eyes mockingly, and he boops your nose lightly. “You weren’t listenin,’ bonnie? Simon. The mad lad’s only gone and married his lass!”

“WHAT?” Your brows kiss your hairline in shock, and you’re left gaping at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously! Saw her rock on her finger today, massive thing!” He shakes his head with a smile, and you know it’s in fondness for Simon and his new wife. “Said Simon wasnae havin’ her hide it anymore.”

“God! Married! It’s so…grown up?”

“Suppose so, bonnie. Nice, though.” He pushes himself away from you and chugs half the bottle of beer you’d given him. “Debrief on the couch?”

“Yes, please,” you groan and jump off the counter, massaging your buttocks.

You follow him outside and he plops on to the couch, but there’s no sign of his usual routine of turning the telly on for some football. You watch as he puts his beer on the coffee table (completely ignoring the coaster, of course) and leans his head back against the couch, looking deep in thought.

Johnny looks beautiful in that angle, you think—broad shoulders leaning all the way back, his neck exposed and looking ripe for your mouth, your tongue on his skin. You watch in a daze as he brings his hands up to rub his eyes with his palms, then stretches lightly and relaxes. “Come sit wi’ me, bonnie,” he says, without opening his eyes, and you’re walking towards him without even registering the fact.

He draws you in effortlessly, and each time, you fall into his orbit without even the pretence of resistance.

“It…bothers you? The fact that Simon’s married now, like a real adult?” You busy yourself, looking anywhere but him, mindlessly moving his beer onto the coaster.

“Naw, bonnie…no, it doesnae bother me. I just…dunno, just bein’ a twat.”

“Maybe,” you say without preamble. “You’re not…jealous?”

“Shit. Maybe ah am,” he concedes. “Dunno, it’s never bothered me like so before.” He turns to you with a sceptical look in his eyes. “Ye don’t want it?”

“Marriage?”

“Aye. That and…to fall in love.”

Ah. Your mind thumbs through the collection of moments you’ve felt over the years—moments where you’d been so sure that you’d crumble before him, beg him to feel about you the way you felt about him. The memories flip in your consciousness painfully until you have a measured response for him. One that doesn’t give you away.

“Doesn’t everyone?” you whisper.

“Aye, of course. But it’s different. Girls are supposed to want it more?” He says the words with a mischievous grin, and you have to scoff at the obvious attempt to rile you up.

“That’s very feminist of you.”

“Just saying’ what ah’ve heard!”

“And yet, you’re the one bitching about it, John.”

“John?! Ach, bonnie, you cannae call me that!” he says in mock-horror, hand reaching up to grasp at his chest. And then he smiles at you again, sincere and full of light and so, so him, that you return in, almost involuntarily. “Ah’m happy for him, of course. He’s happy. In love. Happy.”

You laugh out loud before you can help it and take a second to notice his glare. “Sorry, sorry!” you wheeze, sounding decidedly not sorry. “You sounded like you wanted to fuck him there, for a second, I’m sorry!”

“Aye well, he’s handsome, no? I’d go fo’ him!”

“...yeah.” You sigh dreamily as you think about Johnny’s boss—tall and handsome, with arms the size of trucks—and the appeal is obvious. You’ve met Simon several times over the years, and he’s only ever shown you respect and polite interest. He’s not exactly your type, but even you can’t turn your nose up at a man that looks like Simon does.

“Okay, that’s enough daydreamin,’ brat!” Johnny laughs, knocking into your shoulder with his own. “Lustin’ after a married man.” He shakes his head dramatically. “Yer shameful.”

“Nah. I’m happy for him too! And…you needn’t be upset about this, Johnny—”

“I’m no’ upset at all—”

“I know.” You put your hands up in surrender. “You can be happy for your friend, and for Simon, and you can want it for yourself too. Nothing wrong with that.” You try to keep your voice calm, but understanding. After all, you know all too well the feelings of both, coveting and being happy for your friend.

“Guess not. N’ these things take time, do they not? It’ll happen?”

“It’ll happen,” you confirm. “Just need to find the right person and feel the right feelings for them.”

“Gosh, this conversation’s makin’ me miserable! Hate bein’ single, y’know? S’not good for me.” He leans against the backrest again, and turns his head just so he can look at you. “We’re both single at the same time in a long time, bonnie. Ye realised that yet?”

“Shit. Yeah, you’re right! Wow. I hadn’t realised that!” In fact, you hadn’t stopped thinking about it.

“We oughta do somethin’ abou’ it?”

You hope to god your laugh only sounds nervous to your own ears, and that you don’t like a character in a Sunday morning cartoon with your shifty eyes that don’t dare stray in the direction of Johnny’s face. “How about, tomorrow, I pick you up after your shift and buy you a drink? We’ll even stop at that nasty chicken shop you like after. So you can’t complain that I don’t do anything nice for you!”

His eyes melt, and you along with them. “Thank ye, bonnie.”

“Always.”

You can’t help but smile when his eyes radiate pure happiness at your words. It takes so little to make Johnny happy and you want to spend a lifetime doing it. So lost are you in the thought, that you don’t notice the twitch in the muscles of his forearm at the look on your face, how his fingers tremble as they cup your cheek. When he kisses your forehead gratefully and leans away from you, you don’t hear his heart speed up or his shaky exhale, don’t feel his clammy palms.

“And you’ve ne’er felt it, eh? The right feelin’ for the right person?” he quotes you.

“No,” you lie. I love you. “You?”

“No,” he lies. “But…maybe someday, eh?”

“Maybe someday,” you agree, easily.

#soap x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #ask #xintothewoodswegox #lumi's follower milestone #super soap sunday #request #lumi writes #love you woodsy #no one talk about how old these requests are #or the fact that I'm quickly reaching another milestone lmaooo #shush shh sh I dont want to hear it

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sunnysidevans · 2 years ago

Text

Part Of Me - J.Seresin

Synopsis: Continuing to build your family after the Uranium mission, jake continues to realize the best part of him was your family, through everything.

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Pilot!Reader + Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Pilot!Reader - Callsign: Joker.

Warnings: 18+, language, mentions of injury, mentions of blood, mentions of cheating (its so tiny), angsty. lots of angst. dad!jake and dad!bradley.

This is part II to this fic which can be read here -> nothing else matters

a/n: so uh as I was editing this guy I realized i hit 1k? whaaaat? I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and for that I present you this lil gem. I can't belive that many people like me enough to follow me. thank you thank you thank you <3

i do not own the gif used below. full credit to owner.

Jake Seresin was a man who lived his life on the edge, lived life by the edge of his sleeve.

Until now, the baby staring up at him with her soft brown puppy dog eyes.

He smiled at the little girl, holding her into his chest. He looked back at you laid soundly in the bed. He knew the amount of painkillers you were on, an almost fourteen hour labor. Sitting in his arms was the result of that labor, the one thing changing his world.

"Hi sweet Eve” he smiled as she babbled slightly, her small hand reaching out to him. “I’m never gonna let anything happen to you okay?” he whispered to her, lifting his pinky for her to hold onto. His Naval academy ring shined under the fluorescent lights as he smiled at the small pink bundle.

You smile, watching the moment from the bed. “I think she knows” you mumble as he turns around to face you. His smile grows at the sight of your own eyes staring back at him. “Hey you” he walks towards the bed and sits on the edge beside you.

“Look what you made,” he whispers, holding the little girl towards your chest. Sitting up, you take the bundle into your own arms and against your chest.

“God” you whisper more to yourself than him, he smiles. “I mean it” he whispers, looking at you. You hum in response, looking back up at him with a dazed smile. “Nothing is gonna happen to her if I have anything to say about it, either of you” he reaches out, pushing the sweat dried pieces of hair out of your face, pulling you forward to kiss your sweat dried forehead.

“You are my girls” he whispers against your skin as you smile. “I know” you look up at him with the dazzling smile he’s always loved. “Never thought Hangman and Joker would be sitting here with a baby” you smile as he chuckles, nodding.

He moves to sit beside you, letting your body fall into his side. He smiles down at the babygirl in your arms. “Jake?” you whisper, eyes focused on the baby as he hums in response. “Please don’t leave us” his heart breaks at the sound of your voice, he leans forward, kissing your hairline.

“I’m never leaving either of you” nodding, you both fall silent and listen to the babbling of your baby.

As you laid beside him, he watched the rise and fall of your chest. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him. Maybe he could be the man the two of you deserved. He could fly home to Texas and gain the courage to ask his Mom for her wedding band that she saved just for him. The band that would look perfect sitting on your left hand.

He had all he needed laid beside him, you and Evelyn.

He kissed the top of your head, letting his nose rest on the crown of your head. HIs thoughts continued in waves, interrupted by his phone.

He pulls his phone from his pocket as slowly as possible, looking down at the text in front of him.

Phoenix: Drinks tonight? ;)

His stomach plummeted at the text as he sighed. He moves you to gently lay back in the bed and climbs out. He takes one look back at you as he stands in the door, tapping his phone in his hand. It wasn’t too late for him.

“Hey you” Phoenix's voice is sultry, flirty on the other end of the phone. “This stops now” he says, looking back at the door as he stands in the hallway. She scoffs softly on the other end. “And why is that? There’s no way someone tied down the Jake Seresin'' he sighs, pushing his hair out of his face. “She did and you know that'' he says, hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you fell in love with Joker of all people'' she seeths as he bites his tongue.

“You know how I feel about her Phoenix '' he can hear the hurt she tried so hard to hide from him. “She’s gonna backstab you Bagman” he shakes his head, knowing she couldn’t see him. “It’s my decision to make and I am making it” he hangs the phone up then, not continuing to listen to her arguments.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he continues to let the thoughts flow through his brain like waves. Jake was going to keep his promise, he was going to stay. It wasn’t too late for the two of you and the family you were building.

The two of you were home from the hospital finally. His girls under the same roof. You fall onto the couch beside him with a heavy sigh. “You okay?” he asks, looking down at your tired eyes.

You’ve only been home for two days.

Home.

Jake’s home that he helped make yours. Together. You nod, moving under his awaiting arm, “I need to ask you something”. Your voice is soft as he nods, kissing the top of your head. “Anything you want” he whispers, running a soothing hand through the strands of tangled hair. “We tell everyone we don’t know who her father is okay?” you ask, looking up at him through your lashes.

Jake’s heart stops. The two of you knew exactly who her father was and chose to keep it between the two of you. “If anyone asks, we don’t know, '' he nods, watching your face closely. “I-I love her and I don’t want anything to happen to her, the world does not need to know she belongs to Chicken'' he chuckles softly at the nickname you've picked up for the man in question.

“What if I say she’s mine?” he whispers, making your heart stop. “I’ve been here the whole time, I mean we can certainly make it work” he cups your cheeks. “Are you sure you would want that? This?” you ask sitting up. You knew Jake and his reputation.

“Jake, you don’t do long-term” you whisper, his heart clenching one word at a time. “I don’t but I want long term with you. It's not too late for us Jokes'' you nod slowly.

“I want you and Evelyn beside me in this life, you two are the best parts of me” he admits. “Okay” you whisper, smiling. “You are her father, it’s the three of us” he nods, pulling you in to connect his lips to your own, kissing you as if the world was crumbling.

“I promised, remember?” you nod with a chuckle, “you did”.

Jake was fully intent on keeping that promise.

present day.

The waves crashed against the sand as your breaths followed the crash. Taking a deep breath as one made its way in, exhaling at the crash. “It’s gonna be okay” Jake whispers beside you, kissing your temple. “I promised him and I can’t take that back” you mumble, looking over at Jake. He nods, looking at you with a smile. “She’s our little girl okay?” nodding, you sigh.

The sound of gravel pulls you from the bubble you tried to hide in, looking back at the blue Bronco. “I’ll go” he mumbles, moving from your side.

With a shake of your head, you reach out taking his hand to stop him. “Please don’t, if this goes south, I want you here for her” he nods slowly, lacing your fingers together.

“Hi guys” Rooster makes himself known then, looking at the two of you with a shy smile. You smile, looking back at him behind your own aviators. “Hi Chicken” he sighs, Jake stands with a proud smile.

“Evelyn! C’mere sweetheart” you yell to the toddler, she sat making a sand castle a few feet ahead. “Comin Momma” she yells back, standing and running towards the three of you. You and Bradley crouch down to meet her at eye-level.

“I have someone I want you to meet” she wraps an arm around your neck as she buries her head in your shoulder at the sight of Rooster. Pulling her into your chest, you hold her closer, sending rooster a sheepish smile.

He nods, watching the scene unfold. “Evelyn” you whisper as she pulls her head from your shoulder, looking at the man who made her, she didn’t know it yet.

“This is Bradley,” he smiles, waving at her gently. “He’s your dad sweetheart” you whisper, rubbing her sides soothingly. She looks back at you, then back at Bradley and lastly, she looks up at Jake. He stands beside the three of you.

The four year old was smart she looked between the three of you then between Jake and Bradley. “Then he’s not my dad” she points to Jake as he crouches down to be eye level. “Of course I am sweetheart, you have two” he smiles at her, as she nods slowly. “Bradley and I are both your dad okay?” she nods, looking at the other man beside her.

Bradley smiles at her, waving again. She walks over to him, looking him over. “I’m Evelyn” she mumbles, looking up at him through her lashes.

He smiles, “hi Evelyn, I’m Bradley” he whispers, “but you can call me Rooster” she thinks, nodding slowly. “Chicken!” He closes his eyes behind his aviators as Jake tries to hide his laugh.

“Rooster, do you wanna go make a sand castle?” she asks, looking at him as he nods slowly, standing to take her awaiting hand. “Thank you” he mouths to you and Jake as he follows her down the beach to her station of building a sand castle.

You watch as he sits down beside her, helping her build the sand castle she was building moments before. “Do you fly planes like my dad?” she asks as they pile sand into the bucket. “I do,” he nods, looking over at her. She nods, looking at him. “Why do they call you chicken?” she asks, he chuckles at her bluntness.

“Your mom and dad gave me that nickname a little while ago” she nods slowly, watching his face. He takes the aviators off his eyes, hooking them to the white tank top he wore under the Hawaiian shirt.

She looks him over, taking in the features that were so close to her own then looks away. “There's a picture of you in our house” she mumbles, continuing to dump sand into little blue bucket. “Oh?” he asks, as she nods, “you, my mom and dad”. He knows what photo hung there it was from after the Uranium mission, the three of you.

“I think it’s going well” Jake mumbles, wrapping an arm around your shoulders, you sigh. “I hope it is, looks like she is giving him the third degree” you can see the discomfort on Bradley's face as they continue to talk. “Eh, gets it from her momma” he says as you slap his chest, “ow” he chuckles.

Evelyn moves to sit between Bradleys legs as he laughs, helping her dump the bucket. “Okay, now what do you want to use to decorate?” he asks her as she taps her chin in concentration. “Shells!” she yells, standing as he stands after her. He takes her awaiting hand and walks to the edge of the sand. “I hope she still loves me” Jake mumbles, whipping your head around, looking at him with furrowed brows.

“She’s gonna still love you as much as she has before, I promise you” he nods, kissing your temple. He hoped that you were right and that she would still look at him as he held the world and stars.

Rooster made his way beside the two of you, sitting down on the sand to the left of you. “She is just like you” he mumbles, looking over at you. Chuckling, Jake nods, “yes she is''.

You shake your head, looking between the two of them, “she gets a lot of qualities from you as well Rooster. Don’t give me all the credit” he nods slowly, looking at you with a smile. “I have to give you most of the credit, you’ve raised her to be the wonderful girl she is” you smile, bumping his shoulder gently. “You too Hangman” He mumbles, looking back out at the young girl who ran through the waves, looking back at the three of you with a bright smile.

Her smile is almost as wide as the sun. “Daddy!” Evelyn squeals from the shoreline, Jake kisses the top of your head, standing from the sand. “Where are you goin?” you ask, he smiles as he nods toward the four year old, “i’ve been summoned” he laughs at the shake of your head. “I’m comin Eve!” he puts the aviators back over his eyes as he jogs down to the shoreline. “It’s weird, seeing such a different side of him” Bradley says as you smile.

“This is Jake Seresin'' turning your gaze from the sight in front of you over to Bradley, “this is not Hangman” he nods as you continue.

“He may be a cocky aviator in the skies and that's fine, his ego is huge but here” your smile grows as Jake holds evelyn on his shoulders, “He’s just dad”.

The sun setting pulls the three of you back to the parking lot, Bradley crouches down to Evelyn’s level. “Bye Roo” she whispers, wrapping her small arms around his neck as she yawns. “Bye Eve” he whispers back, rubbing her back. “Make sure you are good okay?” he asks as she shrugs, looking up at him. “I make no promise” she grins at the growing smile on his lips. “I’ll see you later okay?” he asks as she nods, looking between you and Jake.

“Of course” Jake nods, picking her up to set her on his hip, she nuzzles her nose into his neck. “See you tomorrow Rooster” he nods in goodbye and makes his way past him and to the truck a few feet away. “Thank you,” Rooster says, looking at you with a smile. You smile up at him nodding, “I think she enjoyed your company” he nods with a chuckle. “It’s nice to see you again, it's like Top Gun all over again” he winks, nudging you gently.

“In the best parts of Top Gun” you defend, following him to his Bronco. He nods, pulling you into a hug with a chuckle, “I know and listen, motherhood fits you so well” he whispers, giving you an extra squeeze. “Bye Bradley, see you tomorrow” he nods, watching as you walk back to Jake and Evelyn.

The alarm beside the two of you rang, blared into the emptiness of the bedroom. Reaching over, you slam a hand down to shut off the screeching.

In seconds another much more muscular arm does the same beside you. Rolling over, you nuzzle into his back, arms wrapping around his waist.

Jake’s hand reaches down, taking hold of the hand you had on his boxers. “One of us has to take Eve to school” he grumbles, voice full of sleep. “When do you have to be on base?” you ask, kissing his shoulder blade. “0600” he mumbles, looking at the red numbers on the bedside table beside him.

“I’ll take her” you mumble as you roll away from his body, sitting up. He reaches out running his fingers along your back soothingly. The cold of his hands on your back makes you shiver. “Sorry” he chuckles, his eyes still full of sleep.

“I’ll pick her up” he mumbles as you nod. “Okay handsome” you lean back, kissing his chest as you stand. Stripping the shirt and panties you wore to bed, his snores were soft but you knew he had fallen back to sleep.

You toss the shirt at him with a smirk as he jumps, sitting up. “I’m up” he sighs. Jake Seresin never thought this would be his life, the love of his life waking up beside him and the daughter you two shared slept down the hall. “Love you” your soft whisper doesn't register with him at first.

It makes him smile in his daze, “love you more” he mumbles back.

The door is peaking open as the bathroom door closes. “Daddy?” her voice is hoarse as it comes out in almost a whimper. “Hey baby girl” he’s sitting up immediately at the sound of her voice, he notices it then. She’s holding the stuffed shark that Bob got her for her birthday tight to her chest as she sniffles.

He invites her onto the bed as she climbs beside him, holding onto his arms as she goes. “C’mere” he pulls her into his chest, cradling her head as he did the day she was born. “What’s goin on?” he asks, looking down at her. She sniffles into his chest, nuzzling deeper to hide her face from him. “Honey” he whispers, running his fingers through her hair, he can feel the small tears falling onto his pec.

“I-I had a bad dream..” she finally whispers, voice cracking softly. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks as she shakes her head, moving deeper into his arms. He smiled slightly, pulling her closer to his chest. “Eve?” he whispers, looking down at her. She nods in response as he kisses the top of her head, “no matter what, I won’t let anything ever happen to you okay?” he whispers as she nods slowly.

“You are my girl you know?” she looks up at him with tear stained cheeks. “More than momma?” she asks as he grins, holding a finger to his lips, “just don't tell her” she smiles.

He climbes out of bed and holds a hand out to help her down, “let’s get you ready for school okay?” he asks as she nods, walking towards the door. “I love you daddy” she stops at the door, looking at him. He feels his heart clench as he smiles, “I love you too sweet girl” Jake says, following her down the hallway to her room.

“Good Morning” you smirk, pulling the glasses off your face, looking around the room of Aviators. “I have some good news” setting the sunglasses down on the podium, you move to stand in front of it.

The group sat with bated breath, watching your every move. “As you all know, the naval ball is approaching and I got word from Admiral Simpson, the dagger squad is all to be honored” you grin at the smiles breaking out on their faces. “Now, of course that's a big deal but I have more news on top of that” the group moved to the edge of their seats, watching your every move.

“You are all staying here in North Island, the dagger squad will remain a strike-team for the Navy '' the room breaks out in cheers as Jake looks at you with a bright smile, smiling back at him, you wink.

“You are all going to continue on with dog-fight maneuvers today, show some of these recruits how it's done” you smile, “dismissed”. The group all files out slowly, Jake is the last remaining in the room as he makes his way to you. “I get to stay?” he whispers, looking down at you with wide eyes.

Reaching out for his hand, you nod. “You do,” you whisper as his smile grows. “We can be a family” he whispers more to himself in pure disbelief. Reaching forward, you pull him into your arms. “We are a family, we can just be together now” he nods, nuzzling his nose into your neck to hide the tears in his waterline. “I am so proud of you” you whisper, running your fingers through the hairs on the nape of his neck.

“I asked if I could be the one to present you with your accommodation” he grins against your skin, “so of course I am”. He stands to his full height, looking down at you with a smile. He reaches out, cupping your cheeks with a wider grin.

“God, I love you” he whispers as you grin, kissing his palm, “i love you more cowboy, now go” you nod towards the door.

“I need you to go show these recruits how it's done” he nods, saluting as he walks out the door.

Standing at the mirror, Jake attempts to tie his tie for the fifteenth time. He was more nervous for this pinning than when he got his academy ring. “You need help, sailor?” you ask from the doorway as he looks over with a smile.

There you stood in the dress he helped you pick out a few weeks ago, still hugging you in all the perfect places. He nods, turning to face you as you tie the tie slowly.

He smiles, looking over the small details of your makeup and jewelry. The small “J” pendant looked perfect sitting on your neckline. “There” you whisper, patting his chest with a smile, looking up at him. He kisses your forehead gently, wrapping his arms around your waist. “I’m nervous,” he admits as you chuckle softly, looking up at him. “You deserve this, all of you do” he nods, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Woah!” Evelyn says from the doorway, looking between the two of you. Smiling, you look down at your daughter who is grinning as she makes her way to the two of you.

“Momma, you look so pretty! You look nice too, daddy!" she looks up at the two of you with a smile. Jake reaches down, picking her up to place her on his hip as she grins, looking at the three of you in the mirror.

Jake’s heart stops for a split second, his family staring back at him.

“Give me a kiss so momma can take you to Aunt Pens” he grins as the girl kisses his forehead, he leans up to place a kiss on hers. “Be good, okay?” he asks as she nods, hugging his neck. “You be good. Be nice to Rooster” she mumbles as he laughs, nodding, “of course, for you I will."

The rain poured in North Island, something you were not completely used to. Evelyn sat quietly in the back seat as the world was lit with multiple colors of storefront signs and red lights. “Momma, I dropped my toy” Evelyn mumbles as you come to a stop, reaching back and grabbing the toy from the floor of the truck, holding it out to her to take. Jake told you to take the truck after you dropped him off with Coyote for them to carpool.

The world stopped as the light turned green. You had no time to stop as the truck came barreling towards the two of you. “Evelyn!” you yell as you attempt to reach back into the back seat as the oncoming truck came and hit the driver side of the truck.

Within seconds, the world was dark.

Jake stood beside Coyote, looking between everyone and their spouses, sipping the beer in hand. He looked down at the watch on his wrist. He knew it didn’t take long to get to Penny’s from the venu.

“Where's Joker?” Bradley asks as he looks over at him, shrugging. “I have no idea, maybe she got distracted with Penny” Bradley nods slowly, looking out the window at the pouring rain. The sirens could be heard for miles, Jake and Bradley thinking nothing of it.

Reds and Blues filled your vision, looking around the truck as the world was upside down and spinning. “Ma’am can you hear me?” the paramedic’s hands were cold on your skin as you groaned. “I have a pulse!” he yells as you gently move his hand away. “No, No please help me daughter okay?” he stops, looking at you.

“Ma’am you need medical attention” shaking your head, you look up at him with pleading eyes.

“I don’t care about me! I need you to help her” you yell. The movement is shifted from you to the back of the GMC.

“Momma!” Evelyn whimpers as the paramedics help her out of the top of the truck. Closing your eyes, you sigh. “It’s okay baby! Go with them, they are gonna help you” she sobs as the additional paramedics take her to the awaiting ambulance.

“Ma’am, I’m gonna be honest-” the fireman stops at the look on your face. “Just tell me” you say, looking up at him he tried his hardest to hide the sadness on his face. “It’s gonna take us some time to get you out of here” he says as you nod.

“Can I just make a phone call?” you ask. He nods as you ramble off the phone number, a number you knew by heart. Bradley notices the vibrating first, nudging Jake’s shoulder. “Phone” he whispers as Jake nods, pulling the phone out of his pocket. He furrows his brows, he was not one to accept unknown calls but something in him told him to answer it.

“Hello?” he answers, the room full of noise but he doesn't miss the sound of an ambulance as hears you sob. “Baby listen to me” he sits up as the seat scratches along the floor. “Baby, what is it? What's going on?” he stands, the group of Aviators watching him.

“I need you and Bradley to meet Evelyn at the hospital” you say,taking a deep breath. “(Y/N) answer me what is going on?” He slaps Bradley's arm, motioning him to follow him.

The two men apologize to the group, walking out. “Just meet her there for me okay? I need you to take care of our girl” he stops at the door, taking a deep breath. “Baby, I need to know what's going on” he levels out his voice, hiding his nervousness. “There was an accident, I-I’m sorry about the truck, I don’t know what happened but what matters is that you and Bradley are with Evelyn right now” your voice cracks as the firefighter beside you nods slowly.

“I love you Jakob Seresin don’t you ever fucking forget that, you are the best part of me” your voice is soft as another voice comes on the line seconds later.

“Evelyn, the young girl will be transported to General, she should be there in about fifteen minutes” the line goes dead before Jake can reply.

The two men run into the Emergency Department like wild horses, pushing past nurses and people. “My name is Jake Seresin, I’m looking for my daughter Evelyn (Y/L-” a small voice down the hall stops him.

“Daddy! Rooster!”

Jake looks at the young girl as she runs towards the two of them as Rooster catches her first, holding her into his chest. She had a small bandage on her forehead, otherwise she seemed okay.

“She’s just got a few scrapes and she will be okay” the nurse nods, looking at him with a reassuring smile. “Do you know if her mother is here yet?” Jake asks. “I need an OR stat!” a doctor yells, running down the hall to meet the paramedics rolling in the gurney.

Jake turns his attention back to Evelyn for a brief moment until the gurney is rolling past him and the small ‘J’ pendant is shining brightly under the fluorescent lighting.

“Baby, stay with Rooster '' he whispers, kissing her head as he runs after the doctors. “(Y/N)!” pushing past the oncoming doctors and nurses, he manages to take your hand, noticing the blood that ran down onto his own palms.

“Baby listen to me” he’s whispering, holding your hand to his chest. “I love you, I love you so much and-” he lets the tears roll down his cheeks. “I need you to pull through this, for Eve, she-she needs you, I need you Jokes” he kisses your knuckles as the nurse gently moves him from the gurney.

“Sir, I need you to please step aside” she nods in understanding as he sobs looking at her with a nod.

The hospital fell silent in the hours of the morning. Jake sent Evelyn home with Rooster much to her protests of wanting to stay with him. The presence beside him pulls him from the blank stare at the now empty vending machine.

“How is she?” He looks over, noticing Phoenix sitting beside him. “I don’t know” his voice is hoarse, the first time he’s spoken in almost two hours. She nods, reaching out to give his arm a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry” he furrows his brows, looking at her. “Why are you sorry?” he asks as she sighs. “Joker and I may have had our difference as you and I but she doesn't deserve this and neither do you” he nods slowly, running a hand over his face.

His head falls to her shoulder in a heavy sigh, “I couldn’t protect them”. She furrows her brows, looking at the top of his head as she sits back in the linoleum chair. “Evelyn is okay” she starts, noticing the shaking of his shoulders and the small wet droplets she felt on her bare shoulder.

“(Y/N) may not be” he whimpers, closing his eyes tightly. “She will be Jake” she reassures him, running a soothing hand along his back in comfort.

“Jake” Bradley’s voice is soft as he shakes his shoulder, Jake sitting up quickly. “What, what is it?” he asks, looking up at the man in front of him. He fell asleep on Phoenix's shoulder and before he knew it the sun was shining through the hospital windows.

“They’ve got an update on her, c’mon” he motions to the doctor standing behind him, walking towards her. Jake rushes beside Bradley, standing straighter. He looked disheveled, the suit still adorned his body from the night before.

“Good Morning” the doctor smiles at the two of them, “I am Dr.Cameron” she motions for the two men to follow her. Both men on either side of her follow down the hallway of fluorescent lights. “I have been taking care of (y/n) since her arrival, I performed her surgery also” she turns to the two of them, stopping at the door.

“So, is she gonna be okay?” Bradley asks, watching as Jake makes his way to the small window that shows the inside of the room. He can barley makes out your silhouette.

He turns to face her, his eyes full of hope. “She’s expected to make a full recovery, she has suffered some sustainable injuries but she will be okay” she smiles at the smile breaking out on Jake’s face, nodding towards the door. “You can go in” she encourages as she shakes Bradley’s hand and walks away.

Jake pushes the door open quickly, you turn slowly at the opening of the door, smiling. “(Y/N)” he sighs, rushing beside you. “Jake” you reach a hand out to him, his hand sliding into your awaiting one. He sits beside you on the bed, resting a hand on your knee. “You scared the shit out of me” he pants, looking you over. Scrapes across your face, bandages over the ones that looked too deep.

“I’m sorry, I-I’m sorry about the truck” he shakes his head, “I do not give a fuck about that truck, it protected you and Eve”. Reaching out, he runs his thumb over the bandage on your eyebrow. Bradley makes his way into the room, smiling sheepishly.

“Rooster” he smiles from the entryway, waving slightly. “Came to check on you, I’m gonna go back to Eve but I had to see for myself” he says, watching the smile on your face.

“Take care of her for me?” you ask, voice soft. He nods, “of course” he smiles at the two of you, turning to the door and shutting it behind him. “Hey” Jake pulls your focus back to him, looking up at him. He reaches out, cupping your cheek, "I thought I lost you tonight” his voice is soft as tears make their way to his lash line. "I may have never gotten to tell you all the things I've been meaning to" he smiles sadly, “You walked into my life all those years ago and changed my life, I have walked through this world living on the edge” the two of you chuckled slightly.

“But then four years ago, we sat in a hospital room very similar to this one and my world changed forever. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to better myself for the two of you” smiling, you kiss his palm. He smiles, stroking your cheek with the pad of his thumb, “the two of you are the best parts of me, you changed my life and made me a better man, the man I want to be for you and Evelyn” he smiles, catching the tear falling onto your cheeks.

“So no, (Y/N), you are the best part of me” looking over his face, it was full of seriousness as you leaned up to pull him closer. “Get over here” you grin, pulling his lips to your own. Jake Seresin lived his life vicariously, he lived his life as he knew his two girls needed him.

He pulls away from your lips, nudging your nose gently. “I love you” he whispers a grin breaking out on his face. You smile, looking up at him through your lashes, “I love you more than words could ever describe”.

The two of you fit like puzzle pieces, filling each missing part of the other.

The school yard was full of kids, Evelyn laughs from her spot on the playground. School was on its way out, she was waiting to be picked up. She looks up at the sky as two planes fly overhead, she knew exactly was flying those planes.

“There’s my mommy and daddy!” she points. True to her word, Jake grins from the plane beside you, “Think she saw it?” he asks. You turn to look at him with a grin, “I know she did” he chuckles with a shake of his head.

“Evelyn!” she looks back, smiling. Rooster stood beside the Bronco, hands on his hips. “Dad!” she runs down the playground steps, “wait, I thought your dad just flew a plane?” a kid asks. She looks back at the kid, smiling. “I have two dads,” she laughs, running to Rooster. He scoops her up into his arms, “there’s my girl” he grins.

“Let’s get you to base huh?” he asks, putting the aviators on her face. He straps her into the car seat into the Bronco, grinning as he climbs into the driver seat.

“Can we listen to grandpa's song?” she asks, he nods from the front seat with a grin. “Of course we can!” he turns the radio up, “Great balls of Fire” plays through the speakers.

The two of them sang loudly down the road towards the base.

Cyclone smiles from his office at the sound of Evelyn's giggles down the hall. “Hi Uncle Cy!” she says in the doorway, waving as Bradley sends him an apologetic smile. He smiles, waving to the little girl. “Hi sweetheart” she waves and runs off back towards the hall.

She knew exactly where to go, running these halls for almost two years. Pushing out the door, she makes it just as you and Jake land on the tarmac.

The canopy opens and the two of you climb out, Jake makes his way to you and wraps his arms around your waist. “You still got it, Jokes” rolling your eyes, you wrap your arms around his neck, “shut up”.

Jake grins over your shoulder, causing you to follow his sight. Bradley held Evelyn's hand as they walk along the rows of planes, “so that’s aunt phoenix’s plane” he points out the planes as he goes.

“And there is Mommy's plane” he smirks as you pull the helmet off your head. “Momma!” she runs over as you crouch down with open arms. “Hi sweetheart” you grin, hugging her tightly. “Thanks Bradshaw, leave me out” Jake says, shaking his head as he ruffles the little girl's hair. She shakes her head, standing back to move to look up at Jake. “Daddy, that’s mean be nice to dad” he chuckles, picking her up onto his shoulders.

“Got it” he nods, handing her his helmet. She plops it on her head as they walk inside. Standing to your feet, you smile.

This was your family, the three of them. The best parts of you lived on in the little girl on Jake’s shoulders, as well as in Jake. Bradley who was someone you least expected to be part of your family.

“C’mon Admiral Seresin, we got stuff to do” Jake yells as you chuckle, jogging to catch up with them.

"We got a little girl who needs to get an Ice cream sundae from the cafeteria” he says as she giggles, holding onto his head.

“I second that,” Bradley grins, following the two of them.

a/n: i hope i did this justice, if I love a fic I normally don't write prt 2's but I knew I had to write about dad!jake/dad!bradley. If you enjoyed this, likes,comments and reblogs are appreciated.

if you enjoyed this fic, you can find my other fics in my library.

library.

#glen powell #miles teller #jake seresin fic #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #jake seresin angst #jake seresin fluff #jake seresin fanfiction #hangman #jake hangman seresin #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fluff #dad!jake seresin #dad!bradley bradshaw

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luwukass · 9 months ago

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OKAY TRACKLIST BREAKDOWN!!!!

so i have now had breakfast and coffee and my brain is on and FUNCTIONING lets get into this

putting a break here incase youre scrolling and dont wanna read all of this lol

so first things first i was watching tiktok and people were making a big deal about how its split up into sides similarly to midnights now i do believe that taylor posted the back cover of the vinyl and that the cd will be different but i could be wrong. even if it is split up like this on purpose on every physical copy this does mean that it is a two LP album instead of one like midnights

one vinyl (both sides) can hold up to 44 minutes of music on it so we can roughly estimate that the full album will be about an hour and a half long now if each side is 22 minutes long each track on side a, b and c should be about (if each song is in equal length) 5 and a half minutes long. side d has 5 songs on it so some of those might be short to fit in the manuscript

i have also seen people compare this back cover to the back cover of lover which is absolutely breaking my heart and im sure thats not gonna be the last lover comparison i see about this album

okay so lets dive into this track by track

SIDE A

track one: Fortnight (feat Post Malone)

okay so first of all this is obviously not a reference to fortnite the video game but i think all of those jokes are funny as hell. the fortnight shes talking about here is a reference to the measurement of time as seen down below google states that fortnight is a british term for two weeks.

according to wikipedia fortnight is derived from the old english term fēowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".

now onto post malone i actually listen to some of his music from time to time. he mostly does do rap but his most recent album austin (which is coincidentally also taylors brothers name, but is also post malones real name) is listed on google as alternative rock, indie pop and synth-pop. so im unsure of what vibe post will bring to the track. i think its also surprising she placed one of the two collabs as the opening track. i think the vibe for this track will probably be either a story about what happened in a certain two week period or about what is going to happen in two weeks from the songs time standpoint (if that makes sense lol)

track two: The Tortured Poets Department

A TITLE TRACK!!!! now obviously we dont know much about the album yet so we cant really try and figure out what the title track will be about so im just gonna do a little yippee for having a title track

track three: My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

this is a Whole fucking title good lord the only thing that really comes to mind when i think of this title is the lyric in better than revenge where she says “soon shes gonna find stealing other peoples toys on the playground wont make you many friends” which is if im not forgetting anything the only lyric as of now where she’s referred to being someones partner as someones “toy” but that lyric itself is a metaphor for relationships being playing on a playground. this will probably be a sad or angry song about how her ‘boy’ goes around breaking/hurting his favorite ‘toy’ aka taylor

track four: Down Bad

okay now down bad if you dont know is a slang term to describe how badly you have fallen for someone (mostly used in a more sexual nature in my experience than romantic) so this song will probably be about how badly she is for the love interest of the song

SIDE B

track five: So Long, London

alright new track five lets go! so this is obviously seeming to be a reference to track 11 on lover, london boy. now like taylor said when she announced it this album has been a secret for two years so we dont know when these songs were written or who they are about but i feel like it is safe to say this song and most of the other will be about said london boy [i personally do not care who a song is about and it is not taylors job to tell us who a song is about and that isnt the point of her music, but i will be commenting on the joe breakup bc that seems to be a large idea of this album so far] i can see this probably being about the break up and possibly sampling some music from london boy like she did with cornelia street and youre losing me

track six: But Daddy I Love Him

okay so the first thing i thought of when i read this track title is the scene from the little mermaid where ariel is fighting with her dad over the eric statue and im gonna be honest i dont remember the plot points in order of this movie BUT i do remember when taylor dressed up as ariel for her new years party in 2019. so given what we know this will probably be a song about maybe her fighting/arguing with her dad over how much she loves the love interest of the song regardless of who he is/how he treats her

track seven: Fresh Out The Slammer

okay so im not sure what this song will be about bc i dont think taylor has ever been to jail before so it would probably be metaphorical type of “im back bitches” type of song im assuming this might be a bass heavy maybe more rock leaning song and if it is a “im back bitches” it might be about the amount of time she was single for with the ‘slammer’ being her old relationship

track eight: Florida!!! (feat Florence and the Machine)

alright so as we all know this album has been in the works at least for two years but we dont know when each song was written so take this with a grain of salt but the tampa eras tour shows were the first shows after the news of the joe breakup dropped. so this song might be about her feelings during those shows. for those that want to know these were the surprise songs for the tampa shows in order.

night one: speak now and treacherous

night two: the great war and youre on your own kid

night three: mad woman and mean

SIDE C

track nine: Guilty as Sin?

okay so my main curiosity about this track is the question mark in the title because guilty as sin isnt much of a thought provoking title to me but that fact that its a question is interesting. the current vibes im getting are that this might be a more sexy song? but i have no idea here

track ten: Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

okay so THIS is giving big taunting energy like “aww who would ever be afraid of little ol me 🥺 youre afraid of me?” which im Hoping thats what the vibes are bc that would HIT but i can also see it being completely different as well

track eleven: I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

oh my GOD this one sounds like its gonna be sad. so this is obviously a reference to the common seen online phrase “i can/could fix him” which as ive seen is normally used towards people who are attracted to hot fictional characters that usually have a lot of emotional baggage or are villains (i saw it a lot when ballad of songbirds and snakes came out about young snow) so this song will probably be about her promising that she Can fix him and really will despite ‘him’ being broken or maybe even possibly a bad partner

track twelve: loml

so i saw and rb a post earlier about how its very interesting that this is already an acronym which i completely agree with because taylor knows we are no strangers to turning her song titles into acronyms. so loml does usually mean love of my life but i think because its already an acronym it might be something different (i saw someone earlier say it might be loss of my life instead of love)

SIDE D

track thirteen: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

this one i think will kill me personally. i think this one will probably be about her continuing to go on with life (and possibly the eras tour) post joe break up i think this one will either be a sad song or a light beat ‘picking myself up on my feet’ song

track fourteen: The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

this has so many implications but personally i think the interpretation shes gonna use for this song will be about how the said man is small emotionally and just as a person (i doubt she will talk about physical shortness in height or other areas)

track fifteen: The Alchemy

now im gonna be so real here i have no idea what this one will be about google says that alchemy is an older version of chemistry so maybe she will talk about the chemistry or alchemy she has in her relationships?

track sixteen: Clara Bow

alright Clara Bow! okay so i dont know much about old hollywood so i am NOT the person to deep dive into what this song will be about but all i do know about her is that she was The “It” girl of the silent film era so im assuming this song will probably be like the lucky one and talk about the rise to stardom and being the Biggest Star Of The Time

track seventeen(bonus track): The Manuscript

alright so after looking at the definition of a manuscript this is the PERFECT bonus track?!!?!?! so a manuscript is normally a piece of work that is written or typed out but isnt officially published which is just genius for having it be a bonus track that probably wont be on streaming (if not for a long time) i have no idea what itll be about but i love that mastermind

that’s pretty much all of my thoughts as of currently PLEASE let me know what yall think and what theories yall have for this album i am SO excited for april 19th 💕

#my posts 💕#taylor swift #swiftie #swifties #taylor swift theories #clowning 🤡#ttpd #the tortured poets department

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capricornlevi · 2 years ago

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don't know what i wanted - kishibe x f!reader

cw: brief mention of violence, injury, trauma (not graphic), hurt/comfort, injury recovery, established relationship. brief mention of having children (no decision or plans made/no pregnancy mention), consumption of alcohol/cigarettes, explicit sexual content (oral sex f! receiving, fingering, hand jobs, vaginal sex), - NSFW, MDNI

word count: 12.8k

a/n: this is technically a sequel to one of my earlier devil hunter!reader x kishibe fics but can be read as a standalone fic as well! this fic takes place after kishibe's injury when he was in his 20s, but reader-character is his partner as opposed to quanxi. the fic essentially covers the aftermath of the injury & how they recover together. hope you enjoy my loves, thanks for reading! thank you so much to this anon who helped inspire the plot of this fic

if you prefer to read on ao3, it is published here

___

“Stay still,” you mumble, frowning as Kishibe pulls his head back when you try to unwrap the gauze by his jaw. He has a frown of his own etched on his face, eyes shut and lips pulled tight with discomfort – you’d feel pity for him if he weren’t being so damn uncooperative. “You’re gonna tear your stitches.”

Your couch, despite serving as Kishibe’s resting place while he recovers from his injury, is likely not the most appropriate place to carry out some fairly intensive first-aid. However, you have no other choice since he refuses to go to the doctor to change his bandages.

One fucking hospital visit was enough, he’d muttered then, still drenched in his own blood, and you hadn’t the heart to argue with him.

That was two weeks ago now – fourteen days of sleeplessness, of antibiotics and pain medication and bruise balm for his ribs, of waiting until the dead of night to cry so that he doesn’t hear you.

You’re grateful that you weren’t there to witness it. It’s selfish, you’re well aware of that, but you’re not sure how you would have been able to cope if you had the images of the attack replaying in your head over and over, tormenting you both.

“Thought you’d be nice to me,” he grumbles, and although he can’t really smile with his injury you can still hear one in his voice. “Your bedside manner is lacking today.”

“I tried being nice at first. You told me to ‘ act like normal and stop treating me like I’m dying ’, so that’s what I’m doing,” you counter, carefully grabbing the corner of the medical tape.

He winces but doesn’t budge. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“A direct quote, I’m afraid. And that was before they administered the morphine, so you can’t even blame it on that.”

You pull the tape gently, exposing the stitches and bruised skin. Kishibe tenses underneath you, every muscle in his body going rigid, small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

It breaks your heart.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispers. His voice is quieter now since talking too much can be painful. “Bring back the tough bedside manner. I take back my complaint; I need to be humbled.”

You blink, trying to fix your expression into one that’s more impassive.

“I’m just focusing on the stitches. I need to be careful at this part,” you say, knowing that both of you recognise the lie for what it is.

This feels foolish. It’s everything you feared about getting involved with another devil hunter. You’re supposed to be unshakeable, callous to all loss, utterly focused on the mission. You’re supposed to be tough.

Instead, you’re close to tears at the thought of what would have happened if the strike had landed just a few inches lower.

Things were supposed to be different. You were supposed to do this whole hunter thing by yourself. This was never the plan; to factor another person into your life in such a significant way, to value their well-being as highly as you do your own.

But he makes your days interesting. He’s kind at heart and values you as an equal as well as a partner. He always seems grateful to even be near you, and so you’ll happily tend to his wounds and keep him company, and even let him smoke indoors once the window is cracked.

You remove the old gauze carefully, clean the stitches according to the nurse's directions, and replace it with fresh bandages while Kishibe stays still, eyes squeezed shut.

“Nearly done,” you reassure him softly, applying the medical tape at a careful angle, “nearly done, I promise … and … there. All clean.”

He opens his eyes and lifts a hand to his cheek. He’s not going to tug at the gauze, he knows better than that, but he ghosts his fingers over the bandages as if to check they’re really there.

You smile and lean in closer to press a kiss to his forehead, feeling the breath catch in his throat as you pull back.

“It’s gonna make me ugly, y’know,” he says, letting out an amused scoff.

“More ugly?” you gasp. He lifts up his hand to playfully flick your nose.

Joking around like this is one of the only ways you know how to distract him, to show him this change is not going to upset things irreversibly. The last thing he wants is for you to be walking on eggshells around him. For his recovery to be a success he needs support, normalcy – he needs you to be yourself.

“Yep," he agrees. "A nasty scar to complete the whole image.”

You scoff and climb into his lap, feeling him sink back into the couch cushions, muscles releasing their tension. His injuries are almost entirely confined to the upper half of his body but you still move with incredible care and gentleness as if he’ll break underneath your touch. Sensing your hesitation, he wraps a strong arm around you, pulling you closer. It’s easy to melt against him.

“You know I could never find you ugly,” you reply with a chuckle, nestling against his shoulder. “I tried really hard, too. When we first got partnered up, I used to stare at you for hours trying to trick myself into finding you gross, but no luck. You’re stubbornly handsome and always will be. It’s a flaw of yours.”

“A flaw?”

“Yeah,” you murmur, voice muffled against his sweatshirt. “It’s really fucking annoying, actually.”

He kisses the crown of your head. “Ah, I can live with annoying .”

Even after the absolute chaos of the past fortnight, he still smells wonderful. Fresh and clean and familiar, with something deeper in there that draws you in even after smelling it a thousand times — it’s him.

You hum thoughtfully. “I’m glad, because for a while there it was really inconvenient. Wanting to fuck your annoying partner is not something they teach you about during training.”

“But did they tell how inconvenient it is to keep fucking him afterwards?”

You laugh a little, your eyelids getting heavier and heavier with every passing moment.

With Kishibe’s health taken care of for now, you feel at ease. The sensation of being wrapped in his broad arms takes you back to the first night you fell asleep beside him, where you let go of your worries and concerns, trading them for a brief window of serenity.

It’s a type of comfort that you thought you could never have, a blessing only available to other people and never to devil hunters.

“Nah, I just kinda accepted it at that point.”

He says something in response, but you fall asleep before you hear it.

___

The pancake batter sizzles as it hits the pan, bubbles forming on the surface after a few moments on the heat – you finally got the temperature just right, and so you pour another serving alongside it for good measure.

Phew. You burnt the last one, and don’t have enough eggs for another batch.

This is your fourth time making pancakes this week since they’re a nice, soft food that can be easily cut up into tiny bites. They don’t cause too much strain to Kishibe’s jaw and you can flavour them with fruits and chocolate. Best of all, they’re significantly more appealing than the nutri-shakes the hospital supplied when he was discharged.

He took one sip before saying he’d rather you punch him directly on his dislocated shoulder than make him drink that shit again.

As if on cue, Kishibe’s voice calls out from the living room.

“Smells nice out there,” and it really does; the warm aroma of baked goods wafts through the air along with a hint of freshness from the fruits you prepared. It finally masks the smell of the smoke from the unsalvagable first batch. “Need any help?”

The offer sounds innocuous at first, but the desperation buried in the words tells you that he’s on the verge of disobeying his doctor’s orders.

“You’re on bed rest!” you shout back, stealing a chocolate chip from the bag on the countertop. The sweetness is enough to tempt you to grab another; this time, you pour a small handful and tip it into your mouth, savouring the taste.

You flip the pancakes with a spatula only to wince as the metal burns your finger – you hadn’t realised that you’d left it so close to the heat. You drop the spatula and it clatters against the tiled floor.

You groan, choosing to go clean the utensil before tending to your hand. It’s only a small injury but you grimace nonetheless as the pain starts to build, aching and throbbing. An angry welt forms on your fingertip.

It was careless on your part, but it’s not surprising that your attention span is somewhat lacking as of late. You run your hand under some cold water and get lost in the sensation.

Four days have passed since you last changed Kishibe’s bandages and two days since his most recent check-up (which you finally convinced him to attend), and things haven’t gone … smoothly, to say the least.

The doctor had kindly but firmly informed you both that in order for Kishibe to proceed to the next step in recovery, he needed to play it safe over the coming week. Unfortunately for him, playing it safe means that he has to actually get some rest.

A lot of rest.

He hadn’t even complained when receiving the news – he just sat there, utterly motionless, with displeasure and annoyance radiating off him like a fever. It worried you. This whole thing hasn’t been easy on you but it’s not exactly a walk in the park for him, either. He might pretend otherwise, but he doesn’t like to be benched. He’d do more to help you if he could.

As if it weren’t bad enough that he can’t hunt devils or even pay a visit to headquarters, now, he’s rendered completely and utterly defenceless, unable to even make himself a meal without assistance. It goes against every survival instinct in his body.

Part of you wishes he wouldn’t be so stubborn about saying on the couch. You had offered to share your bed with him - expected it, even - but he refused. Hurt at first, you hadn’t brought it up again, but once he understood your reaction he explained it was because his meds make him toss and turn in his sleep. He didn’t want to wake you.

Then you offered to take the couch instead since he’s the one recovering, after all. Again, he turned that down, but you didn’t take that refusal as much to heart as the first one.

This setup - him staying on the couch, allowing you your own space - seems to be the one bit of independence he can hold onto, the one way he thinks he’s making your life easier amongst all of this.

The buzzing of a timer startles you out of your trance, and you turn off the tap to go pour yourself a coffee.

You plate the pancakes and chop some berries and fruits to serve alongside them, angling the knife so it doesn’t put too much pressure on your finger. In spite of this, the burn starts to sting once again, the pain sharp and angry. You give up halfway through. Taking the plates in hand, you turn to bring them into your living room.

When you enter the room you see Kishibe already standing. His arms are folded casually across his chest despite the damage he sustained to his shoulder and ribs. He’s pacing slowly, fixated on the wall to your left-hand side – from the looks of it, he’s browsing the books on the shelf behind the couch. He seems to be scanning the titles with interest.

Something’s … different. In a strange way, a sort of déja vu that you can’t quite place.

As he spots you, head turning in your direction, you know from the look on his face what he’s about to offer. You cut him off before he can do so.

“Don’t need any help!” you inform him. “I can carry the plates – you’re supposed to be resting .”

“Not what I was gonna say, smartass,” he huffs in amusement, until his eyes flicker down to your hands and you know he can see how you’re favouring one side over the other, gingerly holding one of the plates so as not to aggravate your burn. He lifts his gaze up, a question written on his face as he regards you.

Playing ignorant, you choose not to address it. “So what were you gonna say, then?”

He’s not going to drop it entirely, of that you’re certain, but he does concede a little. He straightens his posture, a glint in his eye, and tells you, “I was thinking we could eat at the table tonight?”

His tone is light and ebullient, his demeanour carefree in a way you haven’t seen from him in a long time. He had spent the past two days in what could only be described as a pit of despair, and so to see this change now ... it stops you in your tracks.

You blink at him. “What?”

“Can we eat at the table?” he repeats. “Just this once.”

It seems harmless, but you’re not sure if it’s wise. The instructions from the doctor were for Kishibe to minimise unnecessary movement and stay well-rested.

(He had also been told to try and eliminate stress as much as possible, but the two of you had laughed at the last part.)

Still, you’re not sure if this is a good idea; the last thing you want is to set back his recovery, even at his own request.

“Please?” he follows up. The word stings you as much as the burn. “I just want to have a meal together like we always do. Just once, and then I’ll go back to bed. And I’ll shut the fuck up from here on - I won’t complain about the bandages or the shitty nutri-shakes or the exercises for my shoulder or whatever it is they want me to do - I won’t say a word about any of it,” he pauses and breathes in, breathes out. “Just a half an hour of being normal. Please.”

Looking at him now, it’s plain to see how being confined and restricted has eaten away at him.

You come to a decision quickly, happy that this won’t do too much harm. If anything, this might help his recovery somewhat.

“... for half an hour only,” you direct slowly, not breaking eye contact, “and absolutely no unnecessary movement. If you try to pick up the plates or push in chairs or anything, I’ll give you a matching scar on the other cheek.”

“Oh, I assumed as much,” he answers quickly, and millimetre by millimetre, his expression lifts into something that looks a lot more like him – like how he looked when you walked in the room, like how he’s looked at you since you first got partnered up together. Even with the bandages, you can see his lips quirk upwards; the closest thing to a smile as he can manage. “And I agree.”

He lets you carry the plates in without objection, and you eat your meal together in blissful silence.

It’s been a while since someone other than you has eaten at this table.

By the time you’re halfway through the stack of pancakes, some colour has returned to Kishibe’s complexion.

"Fuck, these are the best yet,” he says after a particularly big forkful, “which makes me a little confused, because I could hear you swearing for about fifteen minutes while you were making them.”

“Well, I burnt the first couple,” you point out, taking a few orange slices and setting them down on your plate, “which I’m sure you know since the smoke alarm is a rat bastard.”

“That's not all you burnt,” Kishibe remarks as he takes a sip of water.

You lift your head. “Hmm?”

He sets down his glass and takes your hand, flipping it so your palm is facing upwards. “I saw you holding the plates funny,” he frowns when he spots the welt on the tip of your index finger. “What happened?”

You can’t help but laugh. Kishibe was nearly eviscerated a few weeks ago, yet he’s here worrying about a burn that will fade in its entirety before the month is out.

“I burned it on the spatula,” you answer as he strokes circles on your palm with his thumb, “it was my own fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

His eyes flicker up to yours and you wish you chose your words more carefully.

It was my fault.

Wasn’t paying attention.

My fault.

In amongst the near-constant worrying about his health and the gratitude at the fact he’s still alive, you can sometimes forget that it wasn’t only Kishibe who got hurt that day.

You open your mouth to say something but with a near-imperceptible shake of his head, he tells you that it’s not necessary.

“Did you put any burn gel on?” he asks then, moving on as if nothing happened.

You try to take your hand back but he clasps it gently. “No, not yet.”

He raises his eyebrows with mock surprise and you chuckle, letting your head fall back with a groan, predicting what’s coming next.

“Don’t start," you warn him.

He scoffs. “This coming from the person you gave me a lecture on how to properly care for wounds not two days ago-”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take care of the damn burn-”

“ - and about the importance of recovery and taking proper medical advice - ”

“Fucking hell, I’m doing it!” you exclaim with a laugh, pushing back your chair and letting go of his hand. “Who knew you could whip out the guilt trips like that?”

He shakes his head and shrugs his uninjured shoulder. “Not a guilt trip. Just pointing out the similarities.”

You stand up to leave but before going to the kitchen cabinet to fish out your heavily-used first aid kit, you lean down, tilt his face towards your own and press a soft kiss to his lips.

“You’re insufferable.”

He kisses you back. “Yeah, but you knew that already.”

---

He looks so … unlike himself. Hooked up to all these different machines, with gauze covering most of his upper body, he could be anyone.

You thought there’d be some recognition within you, some moment where you see him in the hospital bed and just know it’s him, but you don’t feel anything of the sort. It could be a stranger lying there for all you know. His face is covered, the clothes aren’t his, there are no distinguishing factors at all that make you think that the person in front of you is Kishibe.

Maybe they were wrong?

The Division officials might have made a mistake. The scene was chaos; there were so many people running around, so many casualties, it would have been easy for them to misidentify a person in an ambulance, to have shouted the wrong name by accident.

Maybe this isn’t him. Maybe he’s fine. He could be still at the scene helping to clear up, administering first-aid to the survivors …

But then you spot it – hanging on a coat rack in the corner of the hospital room is his jacket, torn and bloodied but still his. You walk over to it, movements so slow and mindless it’s as if you’re possessed.

You barely register the low buzzing of the machines. Even when they emit a loud beeping sound every now and then you can’t bring yourself to look at them directly. He’s being kept alive by these machines.

You stand by the coat rack and reach out a trembling hand. Some dust - no, it’s black, so it’s soot - starts to fall softly to the floor, almost like snow, and it stains your hand as you pull back the fabric to search for something. You rifle through the side pockets looking for it even though you know he never keeps it there, checking every nook and cranny –

There it is. His battered old lighter. It’s in the left-hand breast pocket, as always, but that was the last place you searched.

Your fingertips touch metal, tracing the outline of the lighter as your eyes start to sting. You breathe in through gritted teeth as you slip the lighter out of the pocket, clutching it in your palm as if it’s made of solid gold, and you turn it over to make sure it’s his.

You make a choked sound that thankfully catches in your throat before it turns into a sob.

You can’t cry here. The hospital is full of other hunters, milling about to try and find and identify any survivors. You can’t break down in front of them.

Although personal relationships between two partners aren't banned or even all that rare, displaying such open, raw vulnerability in front of everyone … it would mark you for death. To let other hunters see you weep for Kishibe would mean that, in their eyes, you have become weak, soft, unfit for this line of work. They would never trust you on a mission, and being untrusted while out in the field is a guaranteed death sentence.

A few tears might be excusable, but you know that the cry you just suppressed would have burst out like a dam breaking. It would have made it very clear that your relationship goes beyond that of coworkers.

It’s funny though, in a way; if they outright asked you just what your relationship actually is , you wouldn’t be able to tell them. You know it’s not casual – not anymore. The pit of agony in your stomach tells you that you’re even farther gone than you’d assumed.

But it’s not defined, either, and likely never can be.

You hear some people shuffle outside the hospital room as the door handle turns. You hastily raise your hand to your face and wipe at some tears that are threatening to spill, slipping Kishibe’s lighter into your own pocket as you do so.

Two nurses stride in and start to record some of the figures displayed on the machines, paying absolutely no attention to you. There’s a single chair in the corner of the room and so you go to sit down before your legs buckle underneath you.

You were warned it was going to be bad, and the hushed voices around you tell you that it can’t be good news.

When you arrived at the hospital they had asked if he had any family, if you could contact them, that they should really be here for this. They said that if he has any hope of survival, he needs support.

You can only hope that when he wakes, you’ll be enough.

___

Kishibe is no longer on bed rest, and he is delighted.

He’s definitely not out of the woods yet - he’s still on a list of meds as long as your arm - and he’s been ordered to only engage in the lowest-of-low impact activities; walking, essentially, and maybe cooking a quick meal or two. Nevertheless, he welcomed the news with open arms. He expected it would bring him a degree of freedom and independence he’d spent the past few weeks yearning for.

This morning, however, you’re discovering that this may not be the easiest milestone to have reached. Success and improvement aren’t guaranteed and he’s struggling more than he anticipated he would. He gets fatigued easily - walking from the kitchen down the hallway has his muscles aching and his body weak - and everything hurts. The many weeks spent without exertion have taken their toll.

He’s at the stage in his recovery where the long-term effects of his injuries are starting to make themselves known. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but it looks as though his shoulder might be damaged permanently; as he tries to reach above his head he winces in pain, even more intense than in previous weeks. The resulting hit to his morale is tough to see.

He tries to put on a brave face, but you can see right through it.

“Looks like you’re finally going to be the stronger one,” he jokes half-heartedly as you support him on his way back to the couch. He’s bearing most of the weight himself, but using your shoulder to keep steady. “Take this as my concession.”

“I was always the stronger one,” you mumble, lowering yourself down to let him sit.

He collapses onto the couch, face twisted in pain. “ Mentally stronger,” he concedes. “And emotionally, I guess. Better socially, too, if you count having to put up with the brass. But I think I’d have put up a good fight for the title of physically strongest.”

You scoff as you release him. “Even with your best fight, I’d have left with a clean sweep.”

With his good arm, he clutches his chest dramatically as if gravely offended.

“Would lying to you be nice?” you ask fondly, arranging the cushions on the couch so he can sit more comfortably. “I thought you were sick of the sugarcoating?”

Laughing, he drops his arm. “Guess not.”

“Good,” you smile, watching as he settles himself. “I like when you’re agreeable.”

He chuckles again. “Ever thought of being a doctor? You’d be good at it, if you gave up shit-talking your patients.”

“Well, my patients would probably be more reasonable,” you say with a yawn, subtly rolling out an ache in your shoulder from supporting Kishibe up and down the hallway. “I wouldn’t have to shit talk them as much.”

Even in this hypothetical context, it’s funny to think of a world in which you and Kishibe work normal jobs. People become devil hunters for two reasons: revenge or necessity, and sometimes both. But over time, those reasons start to twist and change, becoming stronger or weaker or more obscure, and through the course of their career, hunters often collect new motivations.

For you now, it’s just that you’re good at what you do - as good as your partner, if not better - and so you rarely let yourself think about what could have been had you chosen differently. It seems pointless.

“And if you leave, then what would I do?” Kishibe pipes up with a grin. It’s a little strained since you know he’s in considerable pain, but he does look as though he’s entertained by all these impossible scenarios. “When you’re off being a big-shot doctor - can’t really be a hunter then, can I?"

You sit down cross-legged next to the couch, a place you’ve spent countless hours as of late. If you checked, you’d probably find an indentation on the carpet. “Why can’t you be a hunter? They’ll just give you a new partner.”

He makes a noise somewhere between disagreement and disgust. You laugh, feeling a little bemused; you’re far from being his first partner, and he’s not yours, either. You’re not sure where he got this strong distaste towards the idea of working with someone new. It’s bound to happen eventually.

You take his hand in your own and give it a squeeze.

“Ah, I don’t think I’d want a new partner,” he admits casually. “I think I’m set.”

You arch a brow. “You know you won’t have to sleep with them, right? You can just work with them?”

“Wait, really?” comes his sarcastic retort, his expression taking on a forced and sudden seriousness. “Holy shit, that changes things. Why didn’t you tell me this before now?”

You release his hand for dramatic effect only for him to stubbornly take it back.

“... you’d really quit if I couldn’t be your partner anymore?” you ask after a moment has passed. The question gnaws at you, allowing your mind to revisit the prospects you had locked away in a box somewhere in its depths. You try to keep your face impassive as you can.

He nods as though there’s no need for him to even consider it. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

“And do what instead?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “Male modelling?”

You roll your eyes. “Be serious.”

“Ouch, first of all,” he huffs, only to be met with an amused glance from you, “and secondly – I’m not sure, really. I haven’t thought it through.” Well, that makes two of you, at least. “I just know that it … I know we’re told not to rely on our partners to the point of it becoming self-sacrificial, but the thing is - I think I’m gone past that point. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. So, I just don’t think I could trust anyone as much as I do you.”

Something’s at the tip of your tongue; something that scares you.

You don’t say it. Instead, you just enjoy the easy silence, both of you indulging in the frivolous what if’s in your own minds.

The quietness is soon interrupted by the sound of an alarm buzzing in the kitchen

“Time for your meds,” you announce. You get to your feet and ignore your own fatigue.

“The ones that taste like shit?”

You shake your head. “Nah, the little tiny ones you can knock back with water.”

“What a relief,” he sighs, eyes following you as you head out to the kitchen. “Thanks, doc."

___

It’s not always so easy for Kishibe to keep things light-hearted. As the week progresses and his injuries show no signs of improvement, he has taken to napping during the day, more to let the time pass by quicker than anything else.

He seems less willing to do the exercises the doctors assigned him, and the tasks that he once begged you to let him do no longer carry the same appeal. He eats a meal with you at the table, chats for a few minutes, then returns to the living room. Afterwards, he stays quiet unless spoken to.

You know it has absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s not any form of silent treatment – in fact, you can see how he uses his very limited social battery to chat with you over dinner. His eyes still show fondness when he looks your way. He still kisses the crown of your head when you embrace him.

He’s just struggling. And you are too.

You’re reading a book - or trying to, at least - as Kishibe sleeps off the morning’s unsuccessful attempts at stretching out his shoulder. Your eyes are unfocused, the page before you blurry. You find yourself thinking of that first morning you woke up next to him.

When you woke up in your bed, rays of sunshine streaming through the curtains, you knew Kishibe was lying by your side. You didn’t even have to roll over to confirm it; you could smell his aftershave.

It’s not that you forgot - neither of you had too much to drink the night before - but it all felt so surreal that part of you thought it was a dream. But you felt so grounded that morning, Kishibe’s arm draped over your waist, and you knew it was all real from the soft sounds of his breathing next to you.

“You up?” he mumbled, his voice laced with sleep as it often is during your early-morning missions.

“Just about.”

“Will I get breakfast?” he asked as he suppressed a yawn. He made no attempt to move his hand away.

“I can get it. You paid for the cab,” you replied, not moving away from him either.

The cab. Last night. The cab you took home from the bar, to sleep with your partner, to make a decision with irreversible consequences.

Though funnily enough, the regret hadn’t hit you yet. You half-expected to wake up in a cold sweat, having come to the realisation that entertaining your feelings for Kishibe was the stupidest mistake you ever made.

But you didn’t feel anything of the sort. This was … easier than you had expected. It was like a piece of your day-to-day routine you hadn’t realised you were missing.

You rolled out of bed and looked at him, his hair touseled from sleep and a satisfied smile on his face, and it took only that one glance to make you crawl back under the covers and let him take you apart over and over again.

The pattern continued over the following weeks, months. You worked as normal, bickered as you always did, and then went home together most nights. Your dynamic didn’t change all that much, except maybe for the fact that you were a little gentler with each other – not in the field, of course, but in the mornings when you woke up with bloodshot eyes and tired limbs.

Of course, relationships don’t tend to work on that trajectory; the idea that you can just coexist forever without anything ever changing. Happy as you were, you knew things wouldn’t continue undefined, unexplored. Something would come along to disrupt things. Something big, something you weren’t prepared for –

Just then, Kishibe stirs. You drop your book to your lap, ready to leap up to assist if needed, but he falls back into a restless sleep after a few moments pass.

Despite everything, you smile. His morale may have taken a hit but he’s still trying, trying every single day, to get better. That hard work can’t just be for nothing. You’ll both see improvement soon.

You’ve gotten this far together, you think to yourself, and he just might make an optimist out of you yet.

You thought he fell back asleep, but …

He says it so softly that he could just be sleep-talking, but the words cut clear through the air, repeating in your mind on a loop until you can no longer think of anything else.

“Love you.”

___

It’s a bad night for Kishibe.

Yesterday was his first attempt at sharing your bed, a fairly significant milestone in itself, but the pain kept him awake all through the night, tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. Though you swore that you didn’t mind (and you meant it), he’s returned to the couch this evening and there was no convincing him otherwise. He stayed silent while you tried to argue your case.

However, you weren’t about to let him isolate himself indefinitely or stand idly by as he wallowed in his own imagined failures, and so tonight, you decided to stay with him.

You’re curled up in an armchair on the other side of the room, wrapped in a blanket and resting your head against the velvet cushion behind you, watching in silence as his face twists in pain to the point it’s almost unrecognisable, clutching his sides as his aching muscles try to heal themselves.

His breath sounds torn and ragged as it leaves him, but apart from that, he makes no verbal signs of discomfort. You start to worry that he’s holding back for your benefit.

Obviously, you don’t want to hear the sounds of his suffering, but the idea that he’s trying to act tough or unbreakable or any of that other bullshit you stopped caring about long ago …

He sucks in a shallow breath and his hands ball into fists, his knuckles turning white as he does so.

You catch a glimpse of the clock above the window; it’s just after two a.m., which explains why it’s been a few hours since you’ve heard the sound of traffic or footsteps from the street below floating through the cracked window. You rub your tired eyes with the back of your hand.

Ordinarily, you’d be in bed by now, but you can’t bring yourself to leave. The thought of him being here alone in the dark, sweating bullets as he tries to struggle through the pain … you know you wouldn’t be able to get a wink of sleep.

Just then, Kishibe makes his first utterance of pain; a low sound that gets caught in his throat, but you still hear it.

You shrug off the blanket and rise up from your chair, quietly pacing across the room. You sit down on your haunches by the sofa and Kishibe opens his eyes – exhausted, bloodshot eyes that have something of an apology in them.

He opens his mouth to say something but you just reach your hand out to cup his cheek. Your thumb traces slow, soothing circles and he leans into the touch, almost mesmerised by the movement. You don’t say anything, don’t try to crowd him or lay next to him or get him to talk unnecessarily; your touch alone is enough reassurance. His gaze softens.

It’s been a week since he told you that he loved you. It’s been six days and twelve hours since you said it back. Neither of you has said it since, but you don’t really need to. This is enough.

The only perceptible sounds in the room are that of the two of you breathing and the tick-tick-ticking of the clock behind you, but you can easily tune that out, choosing instead to focus on how Kishibe’s chest is now rising and falling at a much steadier pace, on how the divot between his brows has fully relaxed.

Your thumb gently grazes over the reddened skin on his cheek but he feels no pain from it – he told you before that the scar by his jaw is as close to fully healed as he’ll get it. His eyes flutter shut as you keep up your gentle caresses, but you don’t stop. You keep going as if it’s offering some comfort to you as well.

This started out as a bad night, but it just might turn into one of those rare occasions where Kishibe gets more sleep than you do.

And you don’t mind at all.

___

Kishibe finishes his first complete set of exercises the following morning.

Two days later and he can walk unsupported, up and down the hallways – it tires him out, but he can do it. He sleeps the full night in your bed afterwards.

He’s more proactive, too, in his recovery. He’ll make an effort to keep to a schedule, which certainly helps to keep him from falling back into that pit of despair. He responds better to feedback from doctors. That familiar glint in his eye returns, as does his sense of humour. He starts to smile more.

As the days pass, his progress becomes more and more apparent - an exercise here, an independent task there - and it all adds up to a far more encouraging picture than what was painted at the beginning.

It’s not all good news, of course; there are still signs of long-term damage to his shoulder. His range of movement will likely never be the same.

But crucially, his outlook has changed. He no longer carries himself like a burden.

As a result, you’re sleeping through the night again – it’s easier to wake up in the mornings knowing your day will have a sense of normalcy.

Though come to think of it … it’s hard to pin down what ‘normalcy’ will even look like from this point on.

As he continues to improve, you find yourself considering it more and more. Will it involve you going back to work? Or will it be both of you returning to life as Devil Hunters, living life exclusively in the short-term, never planning or aspiring to anything else?

You doubt that’s even possible. Maybe ‘normal’ isn’t something that is casual, unlabelled. Maybe ‘normal’ isn’t about just hooking up and going your separate ways the next morning.

Maybe it hasn’t been like that for a while now.

___

“You take good care of me, y’know?”

You lift your head, surprised; you thought Kishibe was asleep. It’s midday and he’s stretched out in your bed - he had the last of his stitches from surgery removed yesterday; the new medication makes him drowsy - and the last time you glanced in his direction, his eyes were closed.

“Whatcha mean?”

You ask the question through a mouthful of piping-hot vegetable soup, having made yourself a bowl while he napped. Sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed with a book in your other hand, you have the bowl carefully perched on your lap – eating in bed is not a common occurrence at your place, but you don’t like leaving Kishibe unaccompanied while the meds are wearing off. This way, you’re within reaching distance of him should anything happen.

“Everything okay?” you follow up when you don’t get an answer.

“Yeah, all okay,” he mumbles, his voice sleepy but still achingly fond. His eyes are still closed, a lazy grin on his face; you have to imagine that it still hurts for him to smile, but he seems to take some novelty in the fact that he can do it at all. “I was just saying: you take good care of me. Really good care.”

You chuckle softly as you take another sip of the broth. All it took was his stitches being removed and the sentimentality just starts pouring out.

“Is this because of that stuff you were saying last week?” you ask amusedly, recalling his reluctant praise for your first-aid skills and how he said you’d make a great doctor . “About me quitting and getting into medicine?”

“Maybe?” he answers with the lilt of a question. He sounds a little hazy, almost unsure of whether he even knows himself.

Now properly awake, he starts to sit up in bed, clasping his hands behind his head as his lower back stays supported by pillows – again, likely pushing the boundaries of his comfort, but he seems unperturbed by it.

Despite the fact that he’s only wearing a t-shirt and that the windows are thrown open to allow some fresh air into the room, his cheeks are flushed pink. His hair is messy, too, the soft black strands pushed back as though he’s run a hand through it.

He smiles at you as you eat, eyes scanning your face. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was trying to commit it to memory.

It takes a while for realisation seems to dawn on him, for him to figure out what he had initially meant to tell you.

“I just … wanted to tell you you’re great at this,” he says then, with considerably more determination this time. “At all of this. And to say how much I appreciate it. To thank you, as if that’s even enough.”

You lower the spoon from your lips and shoot him a bemused look.

“You a little stoned off the pain meds, huh?” you tease. “They got you on the good stuff?”

He laughs. “Yep, a bit.”

“Knew it.”

“But I’m still telling the truth,” he continues with a shrug, and he sounds so sure of himself, “pain meds or no pain meds.”

“Always honest to an absolute fault,” you remark quietly, stirring distractedly as he gives you a wry smirk.

And it’s true.

His honesty wasn’t the easiest thing to get used to at first. Teasing and flirtation aside, when it came down to it, Kishibe could be blunt – to the extent that it caused quite a few spats in the early days of your partnership.

However, somewhat reluctantly and without any conscious decision on your part, you got used to it over time. It went from aggravating to just annoying to tolerable , and now, you figure that his honesty is more of a virtue than anything else.

In your line of work especially, you can’t rely on someone who sugarcoats things and builds up a false sense of security. Dependability is everything. You’d rather hear the truth from him than something that could get you killed.

He’s an honest hunter. Part of you wonders if outside of work, he’s picking up some of your bad habits.

You slide off the bed and set your bowl down on the nightstand as his gaze follows you. When you return, you hop up next to him, laying down by his side. He shuffles over to make space and you pull the covers up halfway, staying on your side, propped up on an elbow and resting your chin against your hand.

Then, you just look at him, taking in the relative peacefulness that he hasn’t been able to enjoy in so long.

“Okay, in the spirit of honesty,” you begin, smiling to match the expression on his face. “Want to tell me how I’ve been taking good care of you?”

“Fishing for compliments?”

“Oh, always.”

“Well now who’s being honest?”

You raise your eyebrows as a means to challenge him; he relents with a laugh.

“Fine, fine. Want to hear me sing your praises?”

You nod instantly and he rolls his eyes without any malice. With a fond shake of his head, he starts to speak.

“Okay, where to start? I mean, I suppose firstly; you’re here all the time. I like that I can go to sleep at night and then wake up in the mornings, knowing that you’re here.”

You snort at the candour and his straightforward delivery. “Is this your way of telling me to back off? Because I won’t be offended. Too much, anyway.”

Kishibe barks out a laugh.

“Nah, the opposite, actually,” he corrects you, his eyes twinkling, but then grimaces in pain as he rolls out a kink in his shoulder. You shift over to go and help him, but thankfully, the jolt of discomfort passes as soon as it hits. You return to resting on your elbow but stay a little closer this time.

“I want you here as much as possible,” he says then, a softness to the words. “So I can take good care of you, too.”

Oh. Huh. You truthfully weren’t expecting that.

You chuckle, unable to think of any other way to respond. Ignoring the heat creeping up your neck, you try not to read too much into it.

“You do take good care of me — saved me from that pack of fiends back in January, for one. Talked me out of signing a contract with that Devil, for another -”

He shakes his head by means of interruption, clearly dissatisfied with the angle you’re taking.

“I don’t just mean work stuff. I mean … I don’t know, doing extra stuff.”

Your brow furrows in confusion.

“Like more than what partners do?” you ask, genuinely curious. It’s hard to think of anything he could do for you that he hasn’t already done. You share a relationship of equals; you’ve never wanted for anything.

“More than what partners do,” he agrees, tilting his head to the side. “I meant … like what husbands do.”

Oh.

You blink at him. He blinks back. Neither one of you says anything else.

An unfamiliar sensation rushes through you like a wave, starting in your chest and spreading up and out to your limbs, and it’s such a strong, visceral feeling that you have no idea how you can’t place it.

Surely something this intense has a name?

Kishibe looks far more composed than you feel, far more composed than he arguably should be considering what was just said.

Other than his light blush and the way his pupils are just a little blown out, he seems unruffled.

You, on the other hand, are decidedly not .

Then, before you can even begin to formulate something resembling an answer, he ups the stakes once again.

“Move in with me,” Kishibe says, phrasing it as a statement rather than a question, and it’s as though a year’s worth of unspoken words are hitting you at once.

In a way, you suppose they are.

Unable to do anything else, you sit up straight, lips parting helplessly while no words come out.

If Kishibe is concerned by your lack of response, he doesn’t show it. He stays where he’s sitting, patiently awaiting an answer without so much as an anxious fidget.

An answer.

Your answer.

You search for one desperately, trying to pick just one decipherable thought amongst the thousands rushing through your mind right now …

But before one comes to you, a lightbulb goes off. You don’t have to give an answer – no, you shouldn’t give one, considering that Kishibe’s on medication, recovering from weeks of pain and rehabilitation, and he’s not thinking things through right now.

Of course, you think to yourself as the waves start to subside, this isn’t an official offer. He’ll forget all about this in the morning.

Rather than stress him out with complications or details or promises that he may not even be aware he’s making, you decide to give him an out. To give him the opportunity to revisit this another time.

You twist to the side to look at him, hoping your face doesn’t betray you. He looks back expectantly.

“Maybe you should get some sleep-”

“I don’t need sleep,” he objects, frowning now. “I’m being serious. This isn’t the drugs talking - well, maybe part of it is, I don’t know … but I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

You laugh softly, marvelling at the absurdity of this conversation. “You want me to move in with you?”

He nods. “And, to be completely honest, I want a lot more than that.”

You know it’s a bad idea to push further, but your curiosity wins out. “Like what?”

“I want to marry you,” he answers matter-of-factly, and your heart goes from beating too fast to stopping entirely. “I want to wake up next to you in the mornings. I want to see you before we go to sleep every night. And if we get there and decide it’s something we can do, I want to have babies with you and see them grow up in a house we own together. I want to stay with you every day until we’re old as shit and you really do find me ugly.”

He stops speaking like he’s run out of breath. Similarly, you feel as though you can’t get enough air into your lungs.

You hadn’t realised that you’d started trembling.

What he’s saying … it sounds like an indulgence. Something that’s so normal for so many, but so unbelievably idealised in your own mind that you hadn’t even allowed yourself to hope for it.

How can you possibly plan for your lives together when you can only take things week-by-week, grateful for every morning you wake up unscathed?

But now … Kishibe isn’t unscathed. The worst-case scenario actually happened, but instead of running away when faced with the harsh truth of your mortality, you both got through it. You stayed by his side, caring for and comforting him. He, in turn, placed his trust in you, entirely and without hesitation. And you know that things would be the same if the roles were reversed.

But that doesn’t mean … you’ve never even thought about … how could you begin to take on all of those responsibilities …

Almost as if he’s reading your mind, he elaborates.

“But I don’t mean - I don’t want to force you into a life you don’t want, or anything like that. We don’t need to do it the traditional way. I don’t care about the official papers or the white picket fence or any of that bullshit, and the kids thing is a whole other conversation too, and … shit, I didn’t mean this to pressure you,” he says, and you know he really means it. “It’s just … I don’t know … with everything that’s gone on, I think I’d regret it if I didn’t say it.”

As the words sink in, something inside you clicks into place.

So that’s the feeling you just experienced: true regret.

Regret that you hadn’t said something like this earlier.

Regret that you’d lived a whole life without even allowing yourself a glimpse at the other possibilities.

Regret that it took Kishibe nearly dying to get this far, that you had wasted so long pointlessly holding back the inevitable.

But with the regret came a sense of relief as well, relief so great that it feels like a deep breath after being held underwater. Relief that offers your racing mind some much-needed clarity.

You look at him with a smile and his shoulders relax.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

He exhales - you hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath - and nods slowly. “Okay, good,” he says gently. “Is that your answer?”

You shake your head once. “Not quite; I do want you to get some sleep first. I need to be a thousand per cent sure this isn’t influenced by those meds. Then I’ll give the official answer,” you finish, ensuring the words are delivered softly so he knows it isn’t a rejection.

Thankfully, he doesn’t interpret it as one. “Fair enough. Can’t argue there.”

You lean over to kiss him then hop out of bed to let him rest, picking up the bowl to take back to the kitchen. In preparation for his nap, he settles himself in amongst the pillows and blankets, beaming from ear to ear.

“See you soon, doc.”

You head out, laughing, and just as you’re about to close the door behind you, you call out over your shoulder.

“If this is going to happen, you need to do some serious work on those godawful pet names.”

___

At some point that night, Kishibe wakes next to you. He’d been in and out of sleep all day and you’d dozed off hours around midnight, but you’re not sure what time it is when your eyes open instinctually at the sound of him stirring.

The air feels heavy but warm, almost like an embrace.

“You awake?” he asks softly, but his words are clear and crisp. The medication’s worn off.

You don’t roll over, don’t shift in place. You stay lying there, staring at the ceiling, feeling your eyes inexplicably prickle with tears.

Happy tears, for once in your life.

“Mhmm,” you agree softly once you’ve cleared your throat. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s okay.”

The only visibility in the room is from the moonlight trickling through a small opening in the curtains; not enough for you to see his face, but you know he means it from those two words alone.

It’s time to make good on your promise.

“You’re really sure?” you ask then. “About what you said, earlier?”

A beat of silence.

“Yeah. I meant it.”

Another moment of pure quiet, slow and sedated, without so much as the sound of a car passing outside.

You breathe in deeply.

“Then yes. My answer’s yes.”

___

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment at which Kishibe officially moved in. You both agreed that it was better for him to move into your place as opposed to finding somewhere new - he practically lives here already, plus you hate packing - and for lack of an official move-in date, today seems as good as any. Kishibe has finally been given the all-clear: a clean bill of health, with minimal long-term damage. The relief is so profound you could cry.

And so tonight, you’ll toast his recovery and celebrate the move, celebrate getting to this point together, celebrate the good habits you’ve picked up from each other and the fact that you’re not as terrible at this as you once feared.

Kishibe doesn’t have much left back at his old apartment, which makes the move-in process short and sweet. This morning he had gone back to hand in his key to the landlord, packed a suitcase with the few belongings that he hadn’t already moved over, and arrived back at your door with a smile on his face and an expensive bottle of whiskey in hand.

Now, he’s in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Your offers to help him are pointedly ignored. In his words, he wants to start repaying the favour for all you’ve done – you explain that he doesn’t need to repay anything but he’s typically insistent – and, truth be told, it’s nice to sit back with a glass of whiskey while a meal is served to you.

You enjoy the delicious smells wafting through the kitchen, the sight of Kishibe humming along to one of his vinyls as it spins in the record player on the countertop. You laugh as he tries (and fails) to hit one of the high notes.

He, in turn, appreciates the look on your face when he serves up the dish in front of you. He marvels at your strength, your resilience. He never imagined he’d be grateful for almost dying.

Hours pass with the two of you eating, talking, drinking, acknowledging your mutual ignorance over the course of your partnership - you think back to a time long before his injury when Quanxi mailed a package intended for him to your address, assuming that the two of you were already living together - and you feel your heart swell at how your little apartment is, for the first time, full of laughter and levity.

After the meal has been enjoyed and the kitchen cleaned spotless by a highly-motivated Kishibe, you retire to the couch for the evening to sit together, not to rest. In a perfect world, that couch will never need to be slept on again.

As you settle on the couch, you don’t miss how Kishibe’s gaze lingers on you – the later the hour gets, the more heated glances the two of you share. You feel a pleasant heat creep up your neck as his eyes trail downward.

You mindlessly flick through the channels, settling on some shitty murder mystery you have no intention of actually watching. He wraps his arms around you and you lean your head back against his shoulder, draping his arm over your waist.

You hadn’t realised that the hem of your t-shirt had lifted a couple of inches until a few minutes later when you feel his fingertips graze against the exposed skin by your hip. It’s only the lightest of touches but it feels incendiary .

Your enthusiastic reaction is understandable since you obviously haven’t been able to share any physical intimacy since his injury. His health, understandably, took priority, but now you’re now far more reactive to his touch after months of going without it. He notices.

Testing the waters, you push back against him and feel him already half-hard against your lower back.

“I know what you’re doing,” he murmurs softly, his breath hot against the back of your neck. Your laugh is saccharine, playing innocent.

You missed feeling him like this. You’d gotten so used to this type of intimacy, so familiar with each other’s bodies.

Bored of the movie you’d barely been pretending to watch, you crane your neck around to press your lips to his jawline, only barely skimming the sensitive skin. He makes a gruff sound of approval that catches in his throat, and before the moment has passed, he has you lifted up and around onto his lap, pulling you in for a heated kiss.

Wasting no time, apparently.

It hadn’t taken much to get him going, but then again, it has been a while — you can’t fault him for his eagerness when you're just as excited yourself.

You return his kiss, eager and hungry as his tongue pushes into your mouth. This is far messier than usual – in the past, you’ve taken your time with soft, languid kisses, gentle caresses, but this is different; heated, urgent, as though you physically can’t stand the absence of his touch.

With immense self-control you pull back, looking with hooded eyes as a thin string of saliva connects your mouth to his.

“Bed,” you choke out, the whisper barely audible as it leaves you, but he responds without question. He helps you up from the couch and grasps your hand firmly as you head down the hallway.

Once the bedroom door closes behind you, he half-guides, half-pulls you onto the bed with him. You don’t even have time to gasp. Within a matter of seconds, he’s lying on his back in the centre of the bed as you hastily move to straddle him, the movements a little unpolished and frenzied but you’re past the point of caring about appearances.

Your lips are so close to his that you share a breath before he pulls you in for another messy kiss. You grind down on his clothed cock and he shudders, grabbing your hips and grinding back, marvelling at the fact that he can finally, finally touch you like this again.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve fucking missed this?” he whispers into the shell of your ear, having moved his kiss-swollen lips to nip and suckle at your pulse point until you can feel his mark against it. “Weeks and weeks of having to look without being able to touch,” you tug his shirt up a few inches, mirroring his earlier movements on the couch. You gently drag your nails over his lower stomach, over his hips, running your fingers around the waistband of his pants, “… fucking hell, fuck, I missed this so fucking much …”

You want to hear more. Every word sends shivers down your spine, goosebumps prickling on your skin, and so you push him a little more; “how badly did you want to touch?”

He laughs disbelievingly, the sound canting up into a sharp gasp when you slip your hand fully into his pants, cupping the bulge in his underwear. “W-well,” another shaky pant, “it’s … shit, it’s most of what I thought about the past month,” a groan this time, “...at least .”

“Mm?”

You lean in to kiss his neck, clouding his thoughts even further. He makes an admirable attempt at continuing; “yeah … spent every night thinking about the thousand different ways I want to touch you,” you nip his earlobe with your teeth, “... lick you, fuck you,” he swallows thickly. “And how could I not?”

You straighten up, giving yourself a moment to catch your breath. “What do you mean?”

His breath is heavy as you start to stroke him through his underwear. You feel a bit mean for making it so hard for him to reply, but his shaky moans and the way his muscles tense as you touch him are too much to resist.

To his credit, he gives his answer. “How could I not feel that way when I was there on the couch, thinking about you in our bed? Imagining being able to just reach my hand down and make you come on my fingers, imagining how good you’d taste … knowing you were just down the hallway … holy fuck, it nearly killed me.”

“Nearly killed you, huh?”

He nods, letting out a short laugh. “Part of the reason I insisted on the couch.”

You yelp with surprise as he hauls you further up his body – you remember his strength all too well, but hadn’t expected him to regain most of it so quickly.

“And you know what I wanted most of all?” he asks once you’ve steadied yourself against his shoulders, pressing a kiss to your forehead before helping you tug off your shirt.

Once your upper half is bare you shake your head to answer his question, going to open the buttons of his shirt with unsteady hands. You get the top one open, then the second, then the third -

His grin turns salacious. “For you to sit on my face.”

That’s enough to shock you into halting your movement. Your whole body heats, anticipation crackling through you. “I - what?”

His large hands rest against your bare hips before moving up, up, up over your waist and ribs and finally, your breasts, cupping them in his hands and running his thumbs over your peaked nipples.

“… for you to sit on my face, please ?”

A giggle slips out in spite of everything.

Months of not getting to touch like this, and that’s what he wants to do first? You’re not going to object too strongly, but; “I didn’t … I just … don’t you want me to do something for you?”

He smiles again, looking up at you through heavy-lidded eyes, as though he could devour you right now and it would be the best thing that ever happened to him. “This is for me.”

Well, no use in arguing any further. Wordlessly, you shrug off your skirt and underwear, tossing them on the floor as Kishibe’s eyes stay locked at the apex of your thighs. He lays his head back down on the pillow, practically beaming.

You move to the top of the mattress, using the headboard for leverage as you angle yourself over him, thighs caging his head. Too far gone to feel any self-consciousness about your vulnerable position and how evidently wet you already are, you spread your legs further and slowly lower yourself over his mouth, feeling his breath against your soaking folds. Shaking already, you approach and just about feel him –

You half-expected him to tease, but he doesn’t; as soon as you’re close enough, he cranes his neck to run his tongue all the way through your entrance, slow and deliberate.

It’s hot, almost unbearably so, and you can’t help but cry out as your head falls back involuntarily. His movements stay slow and tantalising as he savours the taste of you, eating you out in a way that could almost be described as leisurely .

Any words of praise you want to give him die a sudden death, caught at the back of your throat as keens and gasps and broken fractions of syllables are the only sounds that escape – you can only hope they are sufficient in getting your point across.

They do. He groans his approval, spreading you open with his thumbs, marvelling as your thighs start to tremble with every motion he makes. Your fingers hurt from how tightly you’re gripping the headboard.

Your back arches, desperate to seek more of the sensation that’s sending sparks through your entire body, but he’s careful and methodical in the way he takes you apart. He takes his time, sucking your throbbing clit into his mouth and applying just enough pressure that the build is steady but aching. You start to rock back and forth against the wet heat, trying to resist the urge to ride his face.

He suddenly pulls his mouth away and you almost weep at the loss of contact.

“You don’t have to be careful with me, y’know,” he points out, the lower half of his face drenched already, “I’ve got a full bill of health, so please don’t hold back on my account.”

“Yeah?” you ask breathlessly, and your clit gives an answering throb when he presses a closed-mouth kiss to it.

“I wanna see you squirm on top of me,” he answers, low and heated now, and so you do what’s asked of you.

Sinking back down on him, you start to writhe as his tongue presses flat against your folds, dragging up to circle the bundle of nerves, focusing solely on getting you as close to the edge as possible.

It goes from feeling too careful to too much . Too intense. It feels like a hot ball of fire building in your core, with every probe of Kishibe’s tongue stoking the flames.

Then, just as easily as breathing, it goes from too much to just perfect.

You weren’t expecting the feeling of his stubble against your thighs at this angle to be so uniquely pleasant. It stings a little as you rise and fall, yes, but it adds a whole new sensation that makes you keen almost pathetically, desperate for everything he’s giving you. Every lick against your slick flesh makes you throb, your swollen clit grateful for the friction.

You sink your fingers into his soft hair. “More, fuck, please. I need more.”

He uses his hands to gently push your lower back, prompting you to bend and change the angle which makes his nose graze against your clit. You feel one, then two fingers slip inside you and work you open, the pressure building in your core as your body desperately chases release, moving in whatever way necessary in order to get it.

Just as you feel yourself approach the edge, you distantly hear Kishibe mumble something between your thighs. As good as the vibrations feel, you raise yourself up to hear him speak.

“Can you - can you -” he mumbles, the words slurring.

“Hmm?” you ask, a little cruelly, running a hand through his hair and admiring the view beneath you.

“Ride me?” he asks. “Please, please fucking ride me … I know it’s not suave or cool to beg, but please, I need to know what you feel like around me. Fuck, I missed it so much.”

You don’t answer with words, instead moving down his body until you’ve reached his thighs. You straddle them, and when you pull him in for another heated kiss. you can taste yourself on his mouth. He moans into it, thrusting his hips up between your spread thighs, and you decide he’s wearing far too many clothes.

You unbutton his pants with one hand, keeping the other at the back of his neck as you deepen the kiss. He opens his mouth and gasps into the kiss as you take him out of his underwear, his cock so hard it seems almost painful as it bobs against his stomach. He shudders when you slip your hand from his neck down his torso, index finger tracing his chest before you take him in your hand, giving his shaft a few lazy pumps to tease him.

“Please?” he asks once more, pupils blown out with desire, and you don’t feel like denying him (or yourself) for much longer.

You position your hips until they’re seated above his, your fingers still loosely wrapped around his cock which twitches against your touch, and you only let go of it to brace yourself on his shoulders.

You circle your hips so the head of his cock rubs against your slit; when it catches against your clit you let out a shocked mewl.

He smiles up at you. You smile back, and then you sink down onto him.

“Oh fu-u-uck,” he groans with every inch that slips inside, struggling to keep from bucking up into the heat enveloping him. “How … how do you feel even fucking better than I remembered?”

You feel the stretch even though you’re soaked, but it’s not unpleasant given how well he prepared you.

He lets you set the pace as you ride him, pulling yourself up until he’s almost slipping out before sinking back down to the hilt, your slick walls coating his cock.

For you, too, it feels better than you remembered. Even though you’re arguably more desperate, more fervent tonight than you have been before, time seems to move slower. It no longer feels as though these are just stolen moments that you need to savour before they’re gone forever.

This feels nothing like that – this feels wonderful, unending.

You quicken the pace as his hips start to buck up into yours. He seems as though he’s resisting the urge to start erratically thrusting up into you, rutting into the heat that’s enveloping him so perfectly. He bites his lower lip hard.

“Can’t believe … fuck …” he whispers, looking up at you with something that can only be described as pure reverence. “... can’t believe I get to have this. Get to have you.”

With that, all measure of self-control is out the window; you speed up your motions and he fucks into you desperately, hands gripping your hips so tightly you’re sure you’ll still feel it tomorrow. Every cell in your body seems to burn hot as you lose yourself in the sensation.

“S-so good, so, so good …”

When his thrusts turn sloppy and his words start to slur, you know he’s approaching his peak.

It’s close, you can tell it’s close …

However, you reach yours first; the orgasm hit you out of nowhere, the usual build-up lost to the overwhelming sensation. Your vision goes white as you throw your head back, crying out his name over and over again until it echoes in your ears. Unending pleasure wracks your body and happily, you let it.

All it took was that sight – you, repeating his name like a prayer as you come undone above him – and he’s spilling inside you with a low groan.

You hear your own name falling repeatedly from his lips as he thrusts as deep as he can, ignoring the aftershocks that start when you keep pulsing around him. He’s so beautiful like this it nearly hurts you.

Exhausted, your upper body collapses against his chest and he wraps his arms around you, pressing your sweat-damp foreheads together as he gives a few more shallow thrusts.

He doesn’t pull out for a little while longer, and when he finally does, he keeps you tucked against him in a tender embrace, filling the room with words of praise.

How wonderful you are, how perfect. How loved.

The two of you have all the time in the world, and you’re more than content to spend it this way.

___

When you wake up the next morning, you immediately notice that Kishibe isn’t in bed next to you. Your heart sinks as you roll over – his side of the bed is still warm so he can’t have gone too far, but you didn’t even hear him leave.

You sit up with a start.

Was this too much? Is he panicking? Is the reality too different from the fantasy you both had come up with?

But before your worries escalate to something more, you pick up some soft sounds coming from the kitchen; pots and pans clanging gently, as if someone’s trying to use them as quietly as possible without waking you.

The faint scent of coffee hits you then, wafting through the gap in the door, along with an aroma you’ve become very familiar with over the past while.

Pancakes.

You let out a short, relieved chuckle. It’s second nature for you to expect the worst and it will take a lot of unlearning, but you figure that there’s no better person to experience that with than your partner.

You yawn as you slide out of bed - you didn’t get much sleep last night, after all - before shrugging on a robe and padding down the hall.

“Really leaning into the domesticity, are we?” you call out as you enter the kitchen, spotting Kishibe by the stove with a frying pan in hand. True to form, he has two mugs of coffee ready and holds one out to you as you approach – you accept it with a grateful squeeze of his hand, lifting the cup to your lips and savouring the bittersweet taste. It doesn’t go unnoticed that he picked your favourite mug.

“Indulge me?” he asks as he flips a pancake, taking a sip of his own brew, and you make a sound of agreement.

“Never said it was a bad thing,” you add with a smile, blowing softly to cool down the drink before taking a seat at the little table in the corner. He has it set for breakfast - a cup of sugar, a little jug of milk, some sliced fruits are laid out in front of you, along with cutlery and plates - and he even has the newspaper folded on the table despite neither one of you ever reading it.

To say that it’s endearing is an understatement; you’ve earned one or two clichés of domestic life.

He joins you once the pancakes are finished - “ how the hell did you manage to not burn a single one?” - and pulls his chair closer to yours. He glances at you when you take the first bite, almost self-conscious in the way he watches you eat, looking relieved when you hum your approval.

“So,” he begins, after taking a bite of his own. “Think you’ll be going to work on Monday?”

Though his tone is conversational, you know the question is loaded. It’s not accusatory in the slightest - you know he will respect whatever decision you arrive at as long as you come home to him afterwards - but he just needs to know, to prepare for whatever course you both choose to take.

You think for a moment. You assume, based on the trajectory this conversation has taken, that you’ll need to look at other prospects. You’re not sure if you’ll quit outright – if that’s even possible – but you think it might be time for an extended hiatus in the devil-hunting department.

The Division would have no hesitation in replacing you should you get injured or be killed in action – they can cope without you for a few months. Or longer.

“I think I’ll call in sick,” you reply in between sips of coffee.

“Really?” he queries with a grin, turning to face you – you can’t help but match it. “‘Cos I think I will too.”

You nod confidently, feeling your heart swell in your chest.

“Sounds like a plan.”

#kishibe x reader #kishibe x you #csm x reader #kishibe #csm kishibe #may tries to write

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