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heartsofminds · 2 years ago

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‘cause no one breaks my heart like you

“Last times always make him uneasy. He thinks that he should be used to it by now from his track record of being abandoned (willfully or “out of their control” situations alike). None of this should hurt him as deeply anymore.” or Bradley Bradshaw is terrified of commitment and he decides to stop being selfish (even though it’s hard to see).

A/N: Okay so EXTREMELY long time, no see! I’ve been working on this little project since the end of September and have been driving myself crazy in trying to sculpt the words the way that I wanted and how to make this seem as realistic as possible. I appreciate every single person who has been so patient with me and my inconsistent posting and hope you enjoy 19k words of our favorite guy in the sky.

(Year 3)

He loves me. He loves me not.

He loves me.

The strange thing about crying is never knowing when the tears will fall. There’s this burning sensation that comes with it; clearly juxtaposed to the watery mess your eyes want to produce. Your nose burns, your face is hot, and the all-consuming, mind-numbing squeeze of rubberband-like pressure around your temples makes you dizzy.

Whether the dizziness is because of the crossed wires in your psyche (the hurt feelings and the busted-up ego that comes along with it) or the metaphysical spiral that sent you into a breakdown in the first place is up to your discretion.

The thought pattern sometimes breaks you out of feeling so non-descriptively shitty.

Because the thing about being a twenty-something that you’ve come to uncover is that life is shitty. Paying rent is shitty. Paying an arm and leg for a pilates workout is shitty. Office jobs are shitty. Office jobs that house cruel know-it-all men are even shittier.

Shit, shit, and shit.

You used to pride yourself on having a more extensive vocabulary than one filled to the brim with the swear word, but as of late, you can’t be damned to care. It’s not like anything you said at the office held any value to anyone anyway.

You’re just a “kid” - “You and my sister are the same age!” And you’re also a woman; one of the fifteen employed by the grounds and building company you’re a consult for, and one of three on the fifth floor working on engineering consults and software materials for digital blueprinting.

And the preparation for working in an environment like this - one where mumbled insults at the findings of a mistake on your colleague's draft or small comments about your body being made in passing (never enough to be called harassment, but certainly enough to make you question why it was even being brought up) - wasn’t new.

The patent leather diploma propped up on the desk in your home office gave proof of it. Years spent with dreaded calculus exams and awkward office hours spent with even more awkward professors and snooty boys with poor attitudes served as the price you paid for the merit.

So who can even be put to blame for thinking that you could handle it?

The answer is definitely “you”, but accepting blame for these kinds of things - accepting the fact that in a way, you’re only reaping the consequences of your own actions - is never an easy thing to do.

And your lips are chewed raw from all the intrusive thoughts plaguing your brain and sometimes you wish that you didn’t have this overarching tendency to view things from “outside of your body.” Sometimes being so critical inwardly kicked your conscience into a God’s eye perspective.

The worry of if your work pants actually did make you look frumpy or if the makeup around your nose was caking like how it usually does if you blend it in before you let it get tacky. You worry if your hair sits the right way or if the secretary downstairs thinks you have a Dunkin’ Donuts addiction. And then that makes you worry if she notices the breakout forming on the left side of your face.

The worry then transpires from material to emotional and manifests in the form of the two things you’re most deathly terrified of; being a failure and being a failure who finds herself alone.

Because what if you fucked around and lost the information to the three billion dollar hospital that you’ve spent the better part of fifteen weeks working on? What if you got fired because your bosses realized how inaccurate your math was sometimes? What if everyone was constantly laughing at you and that’s why you struggle to find a commonality with your coworkers?

And what if, through this whole slue of hypotheticals that hadn’t happened yet but had the potential to happen, you found yourself in a position to be alone? What if your boyfriend - your darling, kind, and sweet boyfriend - finally saw you how you saw yourself? And what if what he sees makes him want to walk away?

Bradley would never, you try and rationalize, but the more your brain tries to force the pieces of the jumbled insecurities to fit, you aren’t too sure.

The fact that the same work colleagues who spark the flame of your self-doubt are the same age as he; thirty-somethings with wives and maybe a toddler or two. Your bosses who scare the shit out of you are in the same age range as the men Bradley knows and loves; his Uncle Maverick and Uncle Ice, and the commonalities are far-fetched but multiply the more you think.

The more you torture yourself, really.

And the excruciating rug-burn-like feeling slides its way from the depths of your stomach up your throat. When you were little, you used to imagine that it was slimy and plasmodia-esque. The Mucinex guy, you used to call it, and the feeling is so sickening and ugly and horrific, that the ugly little cartoon ploy almost seemed cute in comparison.

You’re not really sure how your emotions caught up with you today. From how you run from them and shove them down and turn them off, you forget that you have feelings sometimes.

But then you wake up freezing because Bradley took all the covers in the middle of the night and Dunkin fucked up your coffee and you spilled said fucked up coffee on your new work shirt that you know the stain is gonna be a bitch to get out.

On top of that, your hair seems frizzier than what you remembered when you left the house and your lips are chapped with not a damned chapstick in sight in the abomination that happens to be your purse.

David across the hall from your office says something about how you’re late and it’s probably because “You changed your outfit about six times. Know how you women are. My wife is the same way.” And that’s not the reason why you’re running behind at all, but you’re sure indulging in the fact that your boyfriend hopped in the shower with you uninvited and then proceeded to invite himself to bruise your cervix this morning isn’t exactly “safe for work” content.

And your vagina hurts like a bitch because Bradley went too rough and the report you had filed was sitting on your desk with an intimidating note about how the numbers were inaccurate (“Fuck you, Michael and Rick from downstairs,” you think).

Maybe it’s the fact that you’re so tired and that the cogwheels in your brain are doing that fucked up thing again where it sends you into overdrive and your entire body feels numb. Maybe it’s the fact that you know you can’t cry; that you can’t actually process what you’re feeling until after five when you leave the office today.

But the burning sensation doesn’t go away no matter how much ice water you drink or how many times you excuse yourself to the bathroom to splash your face with cold water.

It’s all one big, nasty, slimy feeling that clouds your conscience until you’re met with the front door of your safe haven; Bradley Bradshaw’s home. The sniffles scratch at your chest like a stray dog begging to be let in. The whimper you let out is pathetic and you would’ve laughed at yourself if you hadn’t been so concerned with getting inside.

Fuck. Was unlocking Bradley’s front door always this difficult?

Bradley can sense you before he has any indication that you’re home. He joked how he could feel you oceans away when he was on deployment and while you thought that he wasn’t serious (Bradley was a sap and had a tendency to be so tooth-achingly sweet) you know that there’s some truth to it.

It was odd how he was always so attuned to your needs; how he could always tell how you were feeling before you were even aware that you were feeling it. It was something that you had raved to your friends about in the earlier stages of your relationship. It was also certainly something that they had witnessed on nights out at the club when visiting you in San Diego.

Something inside Bradley loves you so deeply, but he also can’t deny the fact that he loves the praise; the reassurance that he’s a good guy who is always doing the right thing. He’s not doing it for brownie points, “per say”, but the praise does feel nice, and after having to fight tooth and nail to stand out - to be someone and mean something to someone other than his family - the good deeds and the compliments that arose because of them were satiating enough.

But if he’s being honest with himself, he had always been that way. Despite his innate desire to recreate his parents’ epic love story, being empathetic and filled with space to make homes of other people’s sorrow was just something he was born with.

Nothing new, and nothing special.

You force the door open and try and breathe; the cold air of Bradley’s living room hitting your face and the dry heat of Southern California constricting your lungs even more than they had been. You just need a moment, you think. You just need to breathe and you’ll be okay.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

Suddenly you’re too aware of your heart beating inside your chest; the anger and sadness and frustration demanding to be let out. You can feel your trachea eroding away with your sobs. Your eyes feel like salt had been poured into them. Your body is heavy with the weariness of your soul, and something about today’s events and your life, really, has made your legs feel like they weigh a billion pounds. Moving them would only land you flat on your face.

And then you’re made aware of your breathing and your heartbeat is out of sync. The feeling claws your insides and makes every fiber of your being sting.

Fuck.

In. In. In. In. In!

Bradley rounds the corner where your hallway extends into your living room. He has a basket of laundry in his arms. His chest is admonished with a shirt with a comically stretched “UVA” logo. Under different circumstances (one where you could breathe, for starters) you would have laughed at him and his expression reads that he’s prepared for it; the slight smile line near his mouth is quirked up on one side being his tell.

“Hey, baby!” he says before coming into full view of you.

You can see the light in his eyes leave and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he drinks in your appearance.

Your own eyes widen as you damn near suffocate in the doorway of Bradley’s home. Your sweet, sweet Bradley who you’re sure you’ve traumatized in the span of three seconds.

You’ve had episodes like this before, but never in the presence of another person.

They don’t happen frequently, and from various self-help Refinery29 articles and Google searches, you were certain that what you were experiencing - the sudden shortness of breath and the tunnel vision and the pent-up, white-hot frustration making your head woozy - was not normal in the slightest.

And if it was anyone else you would tell them to get help. You would tell them that what they were experiencing didn’t make them any less of who they were before and that it would be absurd to define someone by such a small fragment of their experiences. But what you say to others is different than what you feel about yourself, because admitting there is an issue that you can’t solve by yourself is equivalent to weakness in your mind.

Weakness isn’t something you’re allowed to show very often; not with Mikes and Bills breathing down your neck looking for something to boot your sorry ass out of the front doors of their company.

Bradley recognizes the look you have on your face. It resembles that of new recruits during hypoxia training and even those unfortunate ones that experience g-lock while up in the sky. He’s had his fair share of freakouts and anxieties and he knows that the feeling is awful. Something inside the shelf of him breaks when he sees the same glimmer of fear in your eyes and a call for help on your face.

He drops the laundry basket to the ground and rushes toward you. His feet move faster than his mind and if people on the base could see him now, it would be the last time they called him slow to react.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he whispers, softly grabbing your forearms and rubbing his thumbs over your wrists, “You’re okay. Breathe. Just breathe.”

His grip on your forearms drops to your waist as he subtly moves you into the entryway of his home. You can feel the vacuum of air behind you as he reaches around your back to shut the door and lock it.

Bradley’s pupils search your face for answers your mouth can’t give him. He sees the slight bloodshot hue in the whites of your eyes. He sees the slight flush to your cheeks and knows that the dewiness of the shade isn’t because of the heat outside or the blush he had watched you apply this morning. He sees the forced movement of your chest; your lungs overworking themselves to keep you standing.

Your eyes are staring right back at him but your brain can’t seem to register that you’re safe. You’re home. You’re with Bradley.

The longer he rubs his thumbs in the crease where your elbow meets your bicep, the more feeling you regain. Your heart rate has slowed a good deal and the air you’ve so desperately been engulfing has allowed itself to make itself useful to you.

He shushes you and steps closer, engulfing you in a wrap that could envy that of a boa constrictor with its prey. He peppers the top of your head with small kisses and he makes sure your ear is pushed up to his chest so you can hear the thump of his heart.

You don’t even realize that you’re crying until he moves your conjoined bodies so that his back is facing the door and you’re being held close to his front. Bradley slides down the navy blue painted oak so swiftly and carefully with you in his arms that you can’t even be sure when your view changed from his face to being at eye level with his coffee table.

His hold is comforting and the dam that you’ve worked so hard to maintain all day has finally hit its peak of pressure and broken completely.

“You’re safe, baby. I’m here.”

The sob that leaves your mouth is one that you don’t even recognize as yours. The last time you can remember hearing something remotely similar resonates in the memory of your niece throwing the biggest hissy fit ever known to man at her second birthday party last summer.

Man, if only she knew that her competition was you instead of her new baby brother.

“My sweet girl,” Bradley whispers into your hair, holding you as your body shakes so violently it jostles his large frame behind you. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Get it all out.”

And you don’t know when the crying stops and turns into shallow sniffles or when the sky changed from its yellowed hue to the dark navy that usually blankets your late-night talks with the man behind you, but all you know is that Bradley Bradshaw is a saint.

Your sweet, sweet Bradley who would stop the world from turning if that’s what you asked of him.

Because it’s what you would do if he had been the one to ask instead. That’s how love works.

He loves me. He loves me not.

He loves me.

(Year 4)

He loves me not. He loves me.

He loves me not.

Looking for blame was never your strong suit.

But as you look outside the passenger window of an inherited Bronco on a chilly November night, the fingers you always seem hesitant to point uncurl themselves from your fist without resistance. You have half the mind to not actually point at the culprit of your anger who manifests in the form of the six-foot-one man seething beside you.

The radio is clicked off and the joyous laughter and cacophony of faux karaoke is absent in the midnight blue starlight. The windows are down despite the air surrounding the coast bringing the atmosphere to a standing fifty-five outside, and the wind from how fast your lover is driving taking the temperature down to at least fifty degrees even.

Your eyes refuse to drink in his appearance for more than five seconds at a time because you know that you’re an angry crier who gets set off very easily. Exchanging looks with the fuel that set fire to the burning in your belly would not do you any good at this moment.

When you had pulled on the pretty little cocktail dress and left Bradley to his own devices in the living room of your apartment, the thought of the anger brewing between you like a hurricane didn’t cross your mind at all.

And how could it?

In the four years of being together, there were a fair share of disagreements but nothing that wasn’t just a product of stress or small tidbits of jealousy and hurt feelings that brewed into something bigger than it was ever intended to be. They were usually resolved with a mature conversation on the floor of whoever’s living room followed by cuddles and on a few occasions, fervent makeup sex on the floor.

It always gave you rug burn but you never complained. Having Bradley was something you craved so deeply that no consequence could ever outweigh the desire; even damn near purple knees and a sore ass from how domineering he could be.

Love has a way of making the world stop turning. Nothing truly matters besides the feel of a warm body holding you in bed and the promise of sweet nothings weighing you down lovingly. That always is (at least in your case) until too much pressure is applied and you begin to freak out - the ugly truth of how much love can hurt with each pained exhale that mimics simultaneous cries of pleasure and calls for help.

“Does he really love me?” “Am I too much?” “Am I not enough?”

Insecurities upon insecurities and you really have no true basis for why you think this way or why you feel like you will never amount to what Bradley deserves. If you’re being honest, it’s all a jumble of things and it reminds you of the ABC spaghetti-o’s you used to beg your mom to buy.

Superficial and never really making sense, much like the word scramble of letters in your soup.

But despite you trying to tell yourself that you were being ridiculous - that the pit in your stomach that refused to move was nothing more than an overreaction - the ABC spaghetti-o mixture started to make sense of your anger and what may have caused it.

And the insecurity you had felt that you tried to push down inside of you; tried to deny the existence that it was there and was, in fact, so excruciatingly real made way at Rueben’s wedding shower.

It’s not like you hate being around Bradley’s friends - not like they’re strangers that you try and force small talk with so that the three-hour minimum interactions required for a get-together go by faster. Most of these gatherings have an imaginary itinerary that you’ve come up with and if you play the game right, you never come home with too bad of a hangover.

The first thirty minutes will be spent giving side hugs and enthusiastic “Hey! How are you?”’s being tossed around. You’re always grateful that the years of sorority recruitment have prepared you for holding “safe” conversations; ones that don’t deter any deeper than being happy to see each other and the San Diego weather that never seems to change.

Every now and again, one of the guys will hold up your left hand and inspect for an engagement ring before pushing Bradley’s shoulder slightly. A “You better lock her down before I do, Bradshaw,” nipping the air and making your cheeks turn slightly pink.

Hour one will entail being tucked beneath Bradley’s arm as he sips a Budweiser and joins the circle of regulars that you often go to the bar with or host for dinner parties at his place. Mickey and Rueben will give you friendly exchanges and ask about your work and siblings. Javy and Jake will give you a curt nod and then start to babble away with your boyfriend about whatever hazing-like endeavor they’ll pull on the new pupils in their class. And sweet ole Bob will stand to the side with his hands in his pockets before offering to show you the newest picture of his two-year-old niece, which you graciously partake in viewing because she’s a cutie.

You’ll slosh around the heavily poured margarita you’ve had in your hand for the past hour before Mickey will laugh and ask if you plan on drinking it at all, and you’ll give a faux introspective hum before shaking your head “no” and offering your drink to Bradley. And Bradley will ask what’s wrong with it and you’ll say it’s too strong and he’ll graciously take the glass and drop a sweet kiss on your temple.

And when he downs the drink with no grimace at the shit ton of tequila and triple sec poured into it, you’ll make note of how the margaritas you make at home are probably more of a mocktail than anything to him. You’ll then marvel at his ability to handle his alcohol, and recall asking him one time at the start of your relationship if a high alcohol tolerance was required to join the armed forces.

Hour one and a half would be spent with Natasha kidnapping you from the group of aviators Bradley has concerned himself with. “Sorry not sorry, Bradshaw. We got stuff to talk about,” she’ll say and then drag you across the room to another corner of aviators (thank God they’re all women this time). And then you get another round of “Hi! You look so good!”’s thrown at you and a mojito to replace the margarita on account of Cali. The funny stories of hookups and boyfriends paired with all the constant belly laughing are reminiscent of college roommates after a night out at the bars.

Hour two will include drunken karaoke (even if there isn’t a karaoke machine in sight) and some kind of serenade from Bradley. He always goes to the piano willingly (though it’s always anticipated that dear old Rooster is bound to end up there if the instrument is available) and he’ll pretend like he doesn’t enjoy it, but you know that his ego is inflated by everyone singing along and the praises sung to his playing.

Hour two and a half will bleed into hour three and usually ends with people starting to head out and “See you tomorrow!” being tossed around. Nat always gives you a tight squeeze and holds your shoulders before making you promise her to get lunch sometime soon. You’ll agree even though you know that your schedules will never align and it more than likely won’t happen, but the drunken stupor you’re both in creates a bubble of extroversion that neither of you can seem to put a cap on.

Bradley then takes you back to the car and turns on the radio. He’ll look over at you lovingly before kissing your forehead and rolling all the windows down. He knows that the sea breeze has made the air chillier than the number displayed on the weather app in your phone. You’ll groan as he gives you a, “C’mon, baby. You know I run hot!” with that cute laugh and head-shaking smile, and then you’re off down the interstate back to Bradley’s home, where you’ll stay the night and leave out back to yours around the same time he gets up for training.

That’s how the itinerary usually goes, and the comfortability of it all keeps you sane and acts as a warm blanket that keeps you distracted from the sheer differences between your boyfriend and his world.

But tonight was different, and the minute you step into the lavishly decorated venue, you know that your unofficial itinerary has no room to unravel despite the massive square footage of the party taking place around you.

You recognized Natasha alongside the other female aviators that you were friendly with but certainly not close to. Because of the occasion at hand, a few girlfriends and spouses were also huddled around them including Rueben’s fiance, Izzy.

And somewhere between the three glasses of champagne you had and Izzy’s stories about how she and Rueben were secretly “trying” but didn’t want anyone to know (you’re not sure how it’s a secret anymore because she blurted it out to her soon-to-be husband’s coworkers, but truly to each their own) planted a cherry pit of insecurity in your stomach. When you finished your glass of champagne and took note of how dizzy you were, the insecurity started to grow into the slimy monster that you were familiar with.

Then came the picking yourself apart.

Your eyes found the glimmer of engagement rings, baby bumps, and phones with family pictures as the home screen. Wearing your undergraduate alma mater’s class ring on your finger seemed infantile, and you made the conscience effort to slip it into the clutch you had been carrying with you the entire night.

Phoenix noticed the sudden stiffness in your spine and how your eyes had a glimmer of sadness in them; how they held sparkles of wishing that you could relate. It’s a look she remembered having during her time in flight school. And because she had taken it upon herself to act as your big sister turned good friend since you’ve been dating Bradley, she knew that you wouldn’t speak up or excuse yourself from the conversation.

Because you, much like her and so very much like Bradley, would rather suffer in silence and let the thoughts of not feeling good enough eat you alive until the joys of who you are become eroded to make room for the sorrows of who you aren’t.

It came as a surprise to feel her hand guide you away from the giggling women to the front table housing cupcakes and plastic water bottles with the cheesy Canva-designed “Hitched to Fitch” labels replacing the ones they had come with.

“Thank you,” you said, and she only nodded before handing you a bottle and grabbing one for herself off the table.

“M’gonna head to the bathroom and then go outside for a bit. Meet you there?” she asked and you agreed, your hands busied trying to twist the cap off of your water bottle.

Phoenix disappeared and your eyes started to search the room for Bradley. You’d even be satisfied to see some of the familiar faces that you’ve come to know via pool at Hard Deck or biweekly group dinners at your boyfriend’s house.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you scanned the room and realized that you didn’t see anyone you recognized for that matter. Instead of doing the smart thing and texting him about his whereabouts or trying to get some kind of idea about where he may have disappeared to, you did the opposite and headed outside to the back area where the sky swallowed any light in its darkness and the greenery around you smelled earthy.

The November breeze chilled your bones and it took everything within you to keep your teeth from chattering audibly. You internally scolded yourself for being insistent that you didn’t need to bring a jacket to wear with your cocktail dress. When the wind chill had been brought up when you were putting on your earrings, Bradley had only shaken his head and laughed before making sure to put on the baby blue suit coat of his that you loved. You both knew that you’d have it across your shoulders come nightfall when the sun had set and the late fall wind chill kicked in.

The back of your heels dug into the blisters that had formed sometime during the evening and your champagne-induced mind can’t force you to walk any farther. And your intention was never to wander off and not let anyone know. It was to find Bradley and get some air, and you fell short in finding your boyfriend, so the latter had to do for the time being.

Thoughts of the Law and Order episodes you watched leisurely slammed themselves into the forefront of your mind as the thought of a dangerous predator sent shivers up your spine. You chewed on your lips and crossed your arms over your chest; half thinking and half trying to preserve your body heat. You took a small step forward before your action was interrupted by the loud cacophonous laughter of the men that made up your boyfriend’s friend group.

You smiled fondly and decided to wait a moment longer before making your presence known. Not very often do they get to joke around like that.

“She’s letting you hit raw and you still haven’t knocked her up yet?” you heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Jesus, Fitch, are you broken?”

You can hear Bradley chuckle along with the other males making up the group as you remained standing hidden behind the archway of the garden. If you had common sense, you would hit the gopher of your curiosity on the head like some dumb carnival game and would reveal yourself; softly joining in on the conversation and maybe even getting to put a face to the voice you had just heard.

But instead, you stayed put and tried to flip through the catalog of voices that you had come to know.

Reuben was ruled out because the statement was about him. Mickey’s voice was naturally quieter and softer in nature. “Hit raw” would never come out of Bob’s mouth ever. Hangman is an actual menace to society, but would “Never use the Lord’s name in vain, sweetheart. Was raised better than that.” And Javy was on leave visiting his family in Ohio for the next three weeks, you remembered Bradley mentioning earlier.

So who could it be?

An instinct - that old know-it-all voice that was cemented into your subconscious from years of mistakes and warnings from your mother - told you that the curiosity would actually kill you this time. Part of you thought it would be best if you found the bathrooms and waited for Natasha there. Your frozen toes and embarrassingly hard nipples would certainly thank you, but yet you do the opposite of what your panicked brain is telling you (one thing that the ABC spaghetti-o’s made clear to prevent you from getting your feelings hurt).

You had decided to snoop some more and God, did you wish you could beat yourself upside the head to forget what you had heard. Maybe a concussion wouldn’t be that awful.

And by the time Natasha caught up to you, you had thanked God that the night sky concealed the sadness written on your face and that the cool air could be used as an excuse for your sniffles.

Bradley, your sweet Bradley, had betrayed you, and he wasn’t even aware of how deeply that had cut you yet.

As you and Natasha made your way to the group of men huddled outside, you could feel the energy from Bradley shift, and from one look at you, he can tell that something in you has changed. His eyes are softened from both the scotch in his system and the tenderness he held in his heart for your being. Something in you just won’t allow his hazel irises to bleed into you. You already have enough blood surrounding the metaphorical stab wound that he unknowingly caused you tonight to last you through the goddamn week.

He had reached out to bring you into him and tuck you into his front and wrap his arm around your torso. He knew that you were freezing and his suit jacket had been abandoned inside so blocking the wind with his body was the next best thing to warm you up, he had thought. His hand had grazed the goosebumps on your arms, but you pushed him away forcefully. He didn’t raise the question out loud, but when he turned to face you and saw the red tint on your cheeks and the straight line your lips were in, it confirmed what he had thought.

You were pissed off.

The thing about Bradley, though, is that he’ll never bring up someone else’s issue with him. He’s confrontational at heart but only about things that cut him deep; about things that stain his fingertips red with anguish and disappointment. And he knows that he has a lot of problems. He knows that what you had heard had to be beyond upsetting, and as you stood shivering with your arms folded over your chest and a good three feet put between you and him, he noted that the look on your face was something that he had caused.

But because he’s him and because you’re you, he decided to let you come forward and let you confront him with your problem because the absolute last thing he ever wanted to do was upset you, and he certainly fell short in avoiding that scenario tonight.

You stayed quiet and distant for the rest of the night. Your smiles and hugs and sarcastic quips were kept to a minimum and everyone noticed that something was off with you. When you had given Reuben and Izzy their parting hugs, he had whispered in your ear to “feel better soon.” Izzy had even made an effort (despite how “off her ass” drunk she was) to comfort you, and it was then that you realized that everyone had noticed you but Bradley.

Your sweet, sweet Bradley who always happily obliged to love you and make you feel known and seen no matter the cost, but clearly, that was short of a few oceans away and the contempt of what he had done took precedence of the space you held for him in your heart now.

All the realization did was piss you off more.

Bradley had tried to give you his suit coat but you had just brushed it off your shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Normally, you would profusely apologize and declare that the action was an accident, but you simply watched it fall, raised your eyebrows in a gesture of being unamused, and started making your way to his car.

He had opened the passenger side door for you, but you stared at him; a look of utter silent disbelief and frustration rampant in your eyes. He couldn’t even process all that he was seeing reflected in your face before you reached your hand out to slam the very door he opened. You slung it open again before damn near hauling your body into the leather interior of the seat.

He had half the mind to subconsciously reach out and shut the door for you until you started angrily buckling your seatbelt, to which he ultimately decided to back away and round about his vehicle with half caution and half emasculating retreat to the driver’s side.

The wheels of how you were acting and how he could even begin to tread the water of what exactly had made you so painstakingly angry. You wouldn’t look at him. You wouldn’t speak to him. You didn’t even acknowledge him, and through the years of being an only child with a mother who doted on him like no other, Bradley had to admit that he was selfish; that he always wanted attention and always had to have it. The older he had gotten, the better he had become at concealing this, of course (Well, that’s debatable, you would have said if you were speaking to him) but he doesn’t like to share. Never likes to be pushed aside to have to make room for something else if he can help it.

And his thinking is selfish…and absurd…and a “doorway for toxicity” (all things that his therapist had said before Bradley had stopped seeing him because he hates being called out), but he can’t help it, and despite keeping it at bay in his friendships, he certainly has a more than difficult time keeping it concealed in his relationships.

Bradley blames the scotch he downed before he said his goodbyes on why he felt so wounded; on why the guilt and embarrassment were eating him alive. Everyone had known something was wrong with you and it hurt his confidence that he couldn’t be the one to pinpoint what exactly had caused your sour mood. He certainly had an idea, but he’d come to learn throughout the years that assuming things would never do him any good.

The wound you had given his ego was further agitated by your show of slamming the door as soon as he turned on his heel to go to his side. Knowing eyes in the parking lot of the venue had made their presence known with hushed whispers and heeled footsteps walking faster to avoid running into him.

Your anger angered him, and instead of being open to the idea of criticism and accepting his party in making you miserable tonight, his need to deflect kicked in instead. Old habits die hard, and he just couldn’t resist.

He knew you would always forgive him; would always say sorry and mean it because you love him. He has a right to be mad too, he had thought. You let his suit coat fall to the ground on purpose. You refused his touch. You slammed the door to his Bronco not once, but twice. If anyone had a right to be angry, he knew it was you but who was to say that he wasn’t a second runner-up?

Bradley knows that he was so incredibly wrong for trying to play you; trying to play chess when you weren’t even aware that there was a game being played, but so help him God if he got into a massive blowout fight with you in the goddamn parking lot before the night was over.

And he’s pissed off but he isn’t an asshole (at least he doesn’t think he is intentionally). He settled for keeping his mouth shut because he knew it would keep your anger at a minimum with less material to be upset at.

He backed out of his parking space and put his hand behind your headrest, his fingers lightly grabbed the ends of curled pieces of hair that wrapped themselves on the wrong side of the seat. You can feel the wispy touches and you tried your best to shrug him off.

The ghost of his fingertips on your body drove you up the wall. Instead of harshly pulling your head away from him, you bend down to unbuckle the strap of your heel. You were sure you almost saw the tail end of a frown when you had come back up, but he was absolutely the last thing you wanted to look at for the time being.

You could feel his stare on your face. His eyes traced your collarbone and followed the labyrinth of shadows up to your jawline. The temptation to give him some grace, to entertain his worries for just a second rang the bell inside your heart, but you were stronger than that. You deserved better than that.

He didn’t care about you in front of his coworkers, so why should he get the privilege of caring about you now?

Bradley, obviously attuned to your every move and gesture, sensed your subtle attempt at fleeing from him. He never knew how far away someone could feel from another despite being stuck in the confined space of a front seat.

He could tell that you were digging your heels in; doing your best to avoid him and remove your brain from the peanut butter-thick tension that plagued the scene. It didn’t stop him from searching the side of your face for answers - for any indication that the metaphorical distance you’ve created between you two actually exists and isn’t just a figment of his chronic overthinking.

The radio was tuned to some 80s throwback station, a Bob Seger song that you knew the melody of but certainly not the words to, which filled the uncomfortable silence. The age gap between you and your boyfriend was further cemented as he sang the song quietly as if he had written it himself.

You’re sure you would have spiraled all the way down to the abyss located in the treacherous unknown of the Pacific Ocean if you were given the chance to. Anywhere would be better than here, you had thought.

Bradley’s hand slipped to the heat to turn it on amidst the chilly fifty-degree fall air that had you shaking in the passenger seat. Your anger was so rampant and rage-induced that your body felt like it was on fire. Your annoyance has no place to go, as he didn’t even bother to lower the windows in the car this time. He had known that the routine of you two going out was thrown off, and trying to keep a small sliver of expectancy would do you both no good.

Bradley could be so observant yet so self-absorbed at the same time, and it drove you absolutely nuts.

And you started to spiral and the heat that was being blasted in your face crafted a tornado of grievances that you weren’t even aware you were holding against him.

Bradley is a blanket stealer. He always gets the wrong kind of grapes for you at the grocery store. He can never tell the difference between Alexandra Cabot and Casey Novak no matter how many times you force him to watch Law and Order: SVU. He always gets an absurd amount of water on the bathroom floor when he showers. He never fills up the Brita filter after he uses it. He always places his shoes sideways on the rack near his front door; not quite crooked enough for you to say something about it but always slightly slanted enough for you to notice it.

Most of all, he hurt your feelings tonight and he had yet to acknowledge that he was the cause of it. Yet here he is, trying to get in your good graces because the guilt of knowing that he had done something was chewing him up and spitting him out currently.

So attuned to your needs but never to your feelings. Same old Bradley.

His hand traveled to the bare skin of your knee; his large palm cupping the bone before moving it upward so his fingertips could trace the shallow gaps where your joints were relaxed. Your breath hitched in your throat and if it would have been acceptable to scream - ie; your boyfriend not currently driving you both across a narrow two-lanes-of-traffic bridge over the ocean - you would have.

His touch burned you. Made your heart volcanic. Sent fiery tears streaming down your face. His touch had betrayed you. Made you small. Made you insignificant. Made you feel like he never cared.

If you could’ve caught a glimpse at yourself you would know that you were beet red. You could feel yourself visibly shaking with anger and you knew Bradley could feel it too. You smacked his hand away as if you were smacking a blood-sucking mosquito off your body in the suffocating heat of June.

Except this wasn’t a mosquito. This wasn’t the soft glow of a summer sunset with a pesky little bug slurping down your blood. This wasn’t a fond moment that you would laugh at later.

You’d been bruised; so deeply hurt. Made to feel so goddamn stupid for ever thinking that he loved you. That he respected you. Fuck him for making you feel the same way you do at your 9 to 5 every weekday.

Bradley reached and turned the radio off. The deep exhale and the pink flush that crawled up his neck was his tell of truly being pissed off. You had only seen it happen a handful of times. Most of the time Maverick or Hangman served as memorable faces to cause the reaction.

But this time, the time that extended your handful into two handfuls, was because of you. Part of you is prideful of that fact. Now he can feel what you’ve felt the entire night.

“What the actual fuck is your problem?” he griped at you. He shifted in his seat and his left hand gripped the steering wheel significantly harder. “Been acting like a pissed-off toddler all night.”

The desire to roll your eyes bated you with knowing it would satiate you in getting your point across. But the desire to do him one better, to see if you could irritate him more, took over. You know that nothing gets under Bradley’s skin more than someone taking the high road; someone one-upping him in his “noble and kind” act.

“I’m not starting a screaming match with you in the car,” you deadpanned. You heard him huff beside you, still avoiding his presence with your eyes.

“Would rather you fight with me than take an oath of silence.” He cracked his neck and stiffened his back against his seat. “More grown-up ways to go about telling me you’re mad, you know.”

The anger ran up your spine and reared its head in your ears. “Hmm,” you sneered pensively, “More grown up than my pussy then, huh?”

Bradley slammed on the breaks of the Bronco. His sudden change in speed caused you both to jerk forward. He thanked God that the road was dark and no one was directly behind him. His abrupt decision could have resulted in disaster. But even if someone would have rear-ended his prized possession, his biggest fear at the moment would have to be the fact that his suspicion was confirmed.

You had heard them and that’s why you were so royally pissed off.

He simply swallowed and pushed his foot on the gas pedal, the car slowly starting to move forward. He turned the radio off completely and his raised brows to signify that he was deep in thought.

How the hell was he going to get himself out of this now?

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

The scoff you let out rumbled in his ears; eardrums rubbed raw from how accusatory the pitch of your laughter sounded. “Does it fucking matter that I did?” Your voice sounded thick and the puff of air you blew out of your mouth told him that you were seconds away from angry tears.

“You’re laughing, Bradshaw but what about that youngin’ you brought tonight? She even old enough to drink yet?” his friend and old squadron partner, Yankee, had laughed.

Bradley had forgotten how loud-mouthed Yankee could be. Completely unafraid of asking the questions everyone was dying to know the answers to and unapologetically crass (even more so than Hangman, believe it or not). Call sign given to him by how goddamn opinionated he was about the MLB and how much of a ride-or-die fan of the New York Yankees he was.

Yankee was one of those people who you didn’t tell your personal business to because he was bound to have some opinion about it; whether it was if he could tell that your flight suit was slightly stained or if you were making the right choice about proposing to your long-term partner.

Come to think of it, Yankee was one of the friends Bradley had that he was sure he would never be caught dead hanging out with one-on-one. Something about the two never aligned. Bradley never found Yankee’s jokes to be funny and more often than not found his demeanor to be beyond annoying. But he can't help who his friends liked, and Yankee had never brought anything up against Bradley that made him want to beat him to a pulp, so he was found in the same hand-shaking and bar-hopping circle of friends with Yankee until the other pilot was moved to Corpus Christi.

“Hey, Rooster’s girl is at least twenty-three. Old enough for a master’s, but can’t hold her liquor for shit,” Hangman declared, sipping the Budweiser he had been holding by its neck.

You stuffed Bradley’s suit coat that was sitting over your lap on the middle console; desperate to have any part of him away from you. You hadn’t even noticed you were crying until you felt your tears fall into the dip of your collarbone.

The anger and sadness that bubbled inside you warmed your insides; turned your volcanic heart into lava. The heat from the vents of your boyfriend’s car blasted in your face and made you feel even sicker than you had previously. Your thighs stuck to the worn leather and itched due to your increased adrenaline.

You fidgeted about in the seat. Bradley adjusted his posture, leaning his head on his fist that rested on the window sill on his left side. He wanted to drop the whole thing. He wanted to return back to your good tequila-shot-induced moods before the night turned to shit.

He flipped the heat to a lower setting when he noticed your discomfort next to him. He haphazardly leaned over to close the vent on your side before he saw them; the tears streaming down your face and the pitiful pout adorning your lips. You looked so hurt. So broken. So done with him. Like maybe, just possibly, the love you had for him had finally given out.

He figured no one was to blame but him.

He tried his best to make you comfortable but the silence looming like a shadow from your side of the car sparked a wick of anxiety inside of him. His hands kept adjusting the temperature and checking your face as he turned the knob back and forth, the temperature going up and down. The air vents opened and closed as if they were playing some infantile game of peek-a-boo with you.

“Jesus - fuck -, Bradley,” you hissed, “Can you quit it?” The tears had turned from anger to sadness to annoyance and you wondered if it was possible for the primary purpose of tears to switch that quickly.

Bradley let out a soft sigh before flicking the heat off completely and rolling down both windows. “Sorry.” The meekness on his face wrote regret for all that had taken place.

“You don’t say,” Yankee joked, “Ole Rooster’s been scoping out the playground still, I see.”

The group of men laugh, none of them in the know of the impending doom of the night about to take place. It always started like this with Yankee. One second, everyone would be laughing and having a good time. The next, he would say some “balls-to-the-wall” asshole-ish comment that even made Hangman grind his teeth in their offending nature.

“I would say more ‘Babysitters Club’ and less ‘Sesame Street.’ Have to at least be in middle school now for Bradshaw,” Hangman fires back, and although the jokes being made about his taste in women and dating habits were being made fun of, nothing truly offensive had been said yet, so Bradley continued to laugh and nod his head with subtle “Fuck you”’s thrown in every now and again.

Bradley had been in the Navy since he was twenty-one years old. He knows the way that Navy men talk. He knows the way that most Navy men think. “Swear like a sailor” is the common saying and the various time he’s spent on deployments or on carrier ships provided that it was true. He certainly isn’t blind to the nature of how these men viewed women from how they talked about them when there weren’t female ears around or when they didn’t have a warm body to go home to at night.

And he’s not proud of it - knew that his mother and father would bury him alive for some of the things he’s said - but the guilt of his parents’ imminent disapproval had since been disbarred from his conscience. When it came down to it, no one gave a fuck who he had fucked the night before or what he had said about the women he was sleeping with. Not when he was miles away from home in an undisclosed location on a suicide mission with no one to go home to if he happened to make it back.

So many other people whom he had befriended felt the same way and Bradley had figured that this is why locker-room talk still exists in the military. Some of the things he heard he was sure could have been said at a random run-of-the-mill suburban high school in any part of the continental United States. All that was changed was the bass in the voices and the number of hairs on their chests.

It’s hard to be polite when preserving your life is the action item at hand.

“You know Bradshaw, I always knew you were smart,” the other pilot swishes around his scotch on the rocks in his hand, “They’re always so horny when they’re that young.”

Laughter rang around the room and he joyously partook in it. “Well, I do get laid pretty frequently if you may ask,” he added before taking a sip of the beer he had in his hand.

His gaze caught Bob’s eyes. Sweet, innocent Bob who thought the world of everyone. Sweet, innocent Bob who knew that Bradley was digging his own grave, but continued sipping his glass of red wine. The gawky metal frames that rimmed his friend’s eyes bore into his soul, almost magnifying the wrongfulness of what he was saying.

Bradley had broken their eye contact, his arm coming up to cover his mouth as he cleared his throat and a shaky hand bringing the neck of his bottle up to his lips. He had known that Bob would never say anything, that he wasn’t one for confrontation or calling people out even when they deserved it. But that was the good thing about Bob. He always let people make their own mistakes and never really offered much to say about it afterward.

“I knew it! You seemed looser than the last time I talked to you.” Bradley catches Bob’s eyes again, his friend’s eyebrows slightly raising in a scolding manner. “Now tell, she the tightest pussy you’ve ever had?”

The atmosphere thickened as the side conversations had come to a screeching halt. He would be lying if he told himself that the lump in his throat was from the lack of water he had drank that night rather than the uneasiness of knowing he was in the wrong.

And he knew he shouldn’t. He knew that he should keep his mouth shut; that he owed you the small price of privacy, that you wouldn’t like the mechanics of your sex life being discussed with men who were probably making paper mache volcanoes for their middle school science fairs when you were born. He knew that Bob wasn’t giving him a warning look for no reason and that Mickey didn’t wander back into the venue for no reason at all.

But despite his better judgment (or lack of coherent judgment at all), he opened his big, fat mouth. He had sped up the ends to his means without hesitation; without regard for your feelings.

“Tightest thing I’ve ever put my dick in.”

His friends nod their heads and laugh. Some of them chuckled to avoid the awkwardness and others in agreeance with what was being said.

Bob scooted himself closer to Bradley and shook his head with a deep sigh. “C’mon, Rooster.” A clammy hand had come to lay gently on Bradley’s shoulder.

He had pretended not to hear him. He knew the minute that he let Bob’s words register that he would drop to his knees and beg you for forgiveness. He hated peer pressure. He hated the way he was acting. He hated the way he was treating you behind your back. He hated the way his friends were laughing.

He hated himself more for doing it because you deserved so much better. But clearly, he didn’t feel bad enough to stop.

The sobs that wracked your chest shook you like an earthquake. The more you pondered on why he would say the things that he had said - why he would laugh and demean you behind your back - sent you into a frenzy.

Had he always thought of you this way? Were you always talked about so grossly? So demeaningly? Were you really anything to him other than a warm vagina to pummel his dick in when he was horny?

The questions remained unanswered as you tried to stifle your cries. You hated crying in front of people anyway, but crying in front of Bradley always made you feel awful. Tears always made him uncomfortable and your tears made him upset. Whenever the waterworks started from you, he drove himself mad trying to remedy your issue. You had used to think it was because he cared, but now you started to wonder if it was because he didn’t know how to tell you that he didn’t want to deal with it; that you were being a bother.

Your hand is bitten raw from trying to hold in your pathetic cries. The alligator tears that ran down your face at a rapid speed and the shaking of your shoulders did little to mask the fact that you were sobbing. Years of being told that your emotions would hinder your credibility at work, months of pent-up frustration, hours of disrespect, minutes of unkindness, and seconds of insecurity create an atomic bomb on the merits of the lesson you had been told throughout your entire lifetime; there will never be enough room for your emotions.

And you believed it. You took people for their word. You made narratives and internalized them from how people acted. You read between the lines and the margins of what you interpret carve doubt into your heart; carve the failure that you’re so deathly terrified of so close to your lifeline of needing to please everyone all the time.

The trait is toxic - an unfavorable condition - your therapist would say but it had become such a compulsion, you’re sure you would die without it. Something about approval is so intimately invasive and the shower thoughts you conjured up while thinking about this never seemed to uncover the answer as to why.

Why it matters. Why it doesn’t matter. Who the fuck would even care. (You, of course, but the world is so much larger than you are and your selfishness would be disappointing, you think.)

You wish your boyfriend could read your mind and see the twenty-five cent bouncy ball-like thoughts hitting every crevice of your brain right now. You wish that your hurt feelings could be seen by him with x-ray vision or some fictional superhero-like ability. Most of all, you wished that he had known that the events that had taken place throughout the entire night were tearing you up right beside him.

If he felt that way about you, felt like you were around just for your body and not for you, what did everyone else think? Was Natasha only friendly because she thought you were too immature to be left alone at gatherings? Did Rueben and Mickey actually give a shit about what you had to say when they asked about your work? Did Jake and Javy even know your name?

Did your boyfriend even like you?

The questions imploding like fireworks in your head made you cry harder, and you couldn’t help but let the sobs out now. Bradley looked over at you. His hand brushed your knee, his palm cupped it and his fingers spread out to rub soothing circles on the lower part of your thigh.

“Don’t cry, baby. I’m so sorry,” he begged, his voice quiet. Small. Unsure. All the things he had made you. “Please don’t cry.”

The rubber band inside of you finally breached the capacity of tension it was able to withstand. The fact that you needed comfort more than anything and the person who usually supplies it for you with no bounds is the one who is violating that comfort made your head spin.

“She’s got that young pussy,” Yankee continued. “Gotta fuck ‘em before they turn into moms. Not as tight anymore.”

Bradley’s ears turned red upon hearing Yankee’s declaration. Knowing that you fucked up and realizing that you fucked up are two vastly different things and the realization hit when he heard Jake Seresin (of all fucking people) tsk and shake his head.

“That’s fucked up, man. Have some respect.” Ever the Southern fucking gentleman.

The sandy-haired pilot’s mouth gaped open before closing; the words loose in his psyche but ceasing to exist in real-time. He finally thought that he had a handle on what he wanted to say. Something noble. Something dignity preserving. Something along the lines of “What the hell?” and “Shut the fuck up.”, but either or never making its way out between his lips.

Waiting for the perfect moment that never comes, he thought, and upon further internalized reflection, he realized that it posed itself as true. Jake wasn’t entirely wrong for saying that about him all that time ago.

The clicking of heels on the ground announced Phoenix and his dashing girlfriend’s presence with the group of men and snapped Bradley out of his thoughts. Something in the way she was carrying herself, something about the way that her crossed arms over her chest blocked her usually sunny aura, told Bradley that something was wrong.

He brought his lips down to her ear when he hugged her from behind and almost built up the courage to ask what was wrong. But he fell short when he was called away to do another round of shots with Rueben and Natasha. He had settled for a kiss to your temple instead before he bolted off.

“Fuck you,” you manage to spit.

Bradley raises his eyebrows. The curse word sends him into immediate fight or flight. “What did you just say to me?”

You know that you’re teetering the line of too much. Toeing the line of immaturity. Testing if your boyfriend liked you enough to put up with your explosion of emotions. “I said fuck you.” The definitive tone in your voice that you attempt scares you with how much it resembles your mother’s.

Bradley scoffs and squirms in his seat some more. His inability to sit still is his tell of guilt. “I told you it wasn’t like that.”

“What the fuck else was it supposed to be then, Bradley?” Your head snaps to look at his side profile.

The cream-colored polo shirt that you had bought him months ago was worn tonight with a different ending in a mind; one where he sped home and kissed your lips swollen and then had you withering beneath him as he fucked up into you on the wall of his foyer. Certainly not the narrative that was currently unfolding in front of him.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Now it’s your turn to laugh cruelly. “Well, what I didn’t want you to say was that I was the tightest thing you’ve ever stuck your dick in? That I’m insatiably horny? Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?” You turn your body to face him completely, heart beating in your ears and chest starting to heave with the upset of Bradley’s attitude toward you. “How the hell is Jake Seresin defending me before you even thought to?”

“Leave him out of this.” His face turns red and anger starts to bubble over inside him. Rooster always sweats whenever he gets flustered; so pissed off and angry that the heat inside of him has nowhere to go. The muggy threshold of the heat being flicked on minutes before pairs vexatiously with the aggravation that sits between the both of you.

He rolls the windows in the car all the way down but remembers to roll yours down enough for the smallest gusts of wind to be let in. Even though you had made him angry and he knows that you’re completely justified in the case that’s been built against him, he still cares about you.

He knows that you never like your window being all the way down unless the heat of the summer is unbearable and you were going on a beloved sunset drive with him; your shared playlist playing through his speakers and the top of the Bronco being taken off.

The way that your hair dances in the wind remind him of when you’re carefree enough to lean your head backward outside of the car while driving down a backroad, the words of a Paramore song exiting your lungs with such clarity that he could question if Hayley Williams had written the song or you.

But it’s not the heat of mid-June’s sunburn heating up his cheeks and your screams aren’t accompanied by the laughter of him poking your sides. Summer-salted air is replaced with a frigid fall breeze and your happy moods are burdened by your own frustrations.

“Wish I could tell you the same about our sex life, but obviously too little too late.”

His hand comes up to wipe at his nose. His eyebrows are furrowed. “What the fuck do you think we talk about then? Huh?” Bradley’s pointed tone sends a slight sliver of fear down your spine at his annoyance. “Do you think we sit on those fucking carrier ships in the middle of the fucking ocean for eight months at a time and talk about what? Girl power and Title IX? How much we love AOC?”

The tears dripping down your face continue to fall.

“I’m not saying that you have to sacrifice your conversations with the “bros” about jet fuel and g-forces and whatever the fuck else you always seem to insist is so goddamn important, but my vagina is not a conversation topic to have over a fucking draft beer with your buddies.”

Bradley rolls his eyes at your mention of the word “buddies.” If only you knew how he really felt about Yankee.

“And I’m so fucking sorry that my lack of not wanting to be disrespected disrupted what you think is a party conversation starter. Would you like my apology half-assed like yours or sincere with a complimentary blowjob because that seems to be all you think I’m good for?”

“I said I was sorry and I meant it!”

“You said you were sorry because you want me to accept your apology, but what next, Bradley? Are you actually gonna fix it?”

He rolls his eyes and lets out a deep exhale. “Don’t act like I won’t do anything you fucking ask of me,” his hand comes up to rub at his temples.“ I love you more than life itself and you know that.”

“So why are you acting like you don’t then?”

He starts driving down the stretch of road that leads to his home. The yellow glow of the street lights makes you want to ask him to take you back to your place. You can’t stand to be sitting next to him in his car's front seat, let alone sleeping in the same bed with him tonight.

“Take it back,” he says dismissively.

“Show me different and maybe I’ll consider.” He pulls the car into his garage and you throw the door open before he can come to a complete stop.

“Hard to when every little thing that slightly offends you sends you into a goddamn spiral.”

Your weakness. He’s got you there.

“Fuck you, Rooster,” you say weakly, stomping away inside to his bedroom as fast as you can with the heels you have on.

“Grow up,” you hear him say behind you, hot on your tail before turning around to head to the kitchen.

You spend the next two hours separate from each other, toeing around the house petrified of seeing the other’s face. No fight you had gotten into with one another had ever been this bad in the four years you had been dating, and part of you wonders if this is how relationships begin to fade; how people start to realize that maybe their person wasn’t their person.

But you think Bradley is it for you. You’ve always felt that way since coming to know him. Be with him. Have him in the same way he has you. You don’t think you can function without him no matter how much of an ass he’s being to you right now. And sure, you’re independent to a fault and yeah, you don’t always know what’s good for you, but you know one thing definitively, and that thing is that Bradley Bradshaw checks all your boxes despite driving you slightly insane at times.

You look up at yourself in his bathroom mirror as you finally scooped yourself off of the floor of his bedroom and made the decision to scrub your makeup off (or what was left of it after your meltdown, really). The patch of stress acne near the side of your forehead from the new project you had been put on at work and the ball of anxiety over what to wear to the wedding shower tonight made itself known. You realized that you had run out of makeup remover and face wash at Bradley’s house a couple of days ago, and the regret of not bringing some or asking him to drop you off at your own apartment started to settle with the burden of your hurt feelings and the freakout your skin was bound to have come tomorrow morning.

A sigh had left your mouth and Bradley’s bathroom cabinet opened as you decided to skip washing your face in favor of only brushing your teeth. But when you go to grab the lilac-handled toothbrush from its holder, you notice the two brand-new bottles of makeup remover and face wash that you certainly didn’t bring, and then you’re reminded of how sweet your boyfriend can be. How caring he is.

The soft spot in your heart that he owns starts to warm again.

After you manage to wash your face and brush your teeth, you run into the problem of only bringing a sleep shirt. Bradley keeps his house on sixty-five no matter the weather outside. He always claims that he runs hot despite some of the wind chill San Diego experiences at night during the fall and winter months. And while you have clothes at Bradley’s, most of them fall into the business casual garb you wear to work or are borrowed (more like stolen, he likes to joke) and no matter how cold you may be, your pride has so much more precedence than it would allow you to give in.

Bradley’s Chicago Bears hoodie sits folded in your designated drawer, but you bypass putting it on. The embarrassingly large t-shirt (albeit free t-shirt) that repped a random student organization from your undergrad institution would have to do tonight.

You waltz out of Bradley’s bedroom quietly. Not only to go undetected, but to be polite in case he had already fallen asleep on his declared refuge of the couch. The soft sound of Breaking Bad playing told you that he was still awake. He can never fall asleep with the TV on; no matter how tired he is.

“Baby?” Bradley calls out from the couch.

Shit. Were you really that loud?

Your feet move faster than your brain; something about Bradley is so magnetizing. You’ll follow him to the end of the Earth if you knew that he needed you. Your puffy-eyed, pantless form moves to stand in front of him. His form still wears the clothes he had worn tonight. The only thing different was the UVA throw blanket you had gotten him last month “just because” over his lap and his printed airplane-socked feet sticking out from underneath it.

Your gaze looks towards the shoe rack near the front door and you chuckle to yourself as you see them exactly how you imagined them. Tucked away where he wouldn’t trip on them, but slightly askew.

His hand comes up to grab yours that lies limply at your side. “C’mere,” he whispers, testing the waters to see how much damage he had done.

You give his hand a small squeeze, the coldness of yours allowing you to feel every callous on his palms. “Jesus, you’re freezing.”

He opens the blanket on his lap and guides you to straddle him. He closes the blanket and immediate warmth covers you. Bradley’s hands sit on your lower back above your tailbone, soothing circles being rubbed on the bone there, and his head coming to rest on top of yours. You breathe in his scent, your face snuggled into his neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he speaks and you exhale. You bite your lip, the tears welling up again and wetting his neck.

“It’s okay,” you weep brokenly. “I’m sorry, too.”

He presses gentle kisses on the top of your hair. The sadness that fills the room; the culmination of utter sorrow and confirmation of your insecurities makes the room heavy and eats away at you. Bradley does his best to comfort you until your sobs quiet to hiccups.

And as much as you love Bradley, as much as you want to be satisfied with his apology (or lack of a sincere one, thereof), you realize that sincerity was perhaps not one of his defining characteristics. But instead of calling him out, you so stupidly and cowardly accepted it and apologized right back.

He’s apologizing for the sake of saying sorry. For the sake of diminishing your anger. For the sake of being able to be truthful about never going to bed angry if someone asks. For the sake of doing so because if you accept, he’s still allowed to stay the same and he never has to change.

But you’re saying sorry for being a nuisance. For embarrassing him. For bruising his ego and for being accusatory that he never gave a damn about you.

And what you don’t realize is that you should really be saying sorry to yourself, because while you’re boxing yourself up to make space for him, he’s not sorry about forcing you to do it.

Boxes are heavier when they’re filled with resentment, you learn, and the weight becomes unbearable when sorrows are thrown out to sea with no lifesaver near in sight.

Love is all about sacrifice and banged-up feelings; even if that means that the love of the man you would do anything for suffocates you as you lay curled into his side with a heat made by his chest and his soft snores in your ear.

“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is kind.”

And for the first time in the four years you had spent together, you truly start to wonder if Bradley really does love you. The hot coffee on the nightstand when you wake up and the discovery of his thermostat being turned up to seventy degrees confuses you when you get up to head back to your apartment in the morning when you compare his treatment of you now to he had treated you the night before.

He loves me not. He loves me.

He loves me not.

(Year 5)

He loves me. He loves me not.

His mother used to tell him that women always knew.

And she would say it over the sound of a cheaply made General Hospital episode that she had taped so they could watch it together during their evening “wind down time.” His pencil would be scratching away at a Calculus problem from the AP Calc booklet his teacher had passed out at school that day and the soft clink of his mother’s knitting needles would grace his ears.

He would nod his head as he sat by his mother’s feet on the floor of their living room and wouldn’t say a word. The cocoon that the soft yellow glow of the lamp gave off wrapped him in a moment of security; a moment of comfort that he was never allowed very often.

And he had never really thought anything of it at the time. He had figured it was just some chock-full wisdom that would blossom into a useful tool for his adult life; one where his mom wasn’t dying and he was married with maybe a few kids and a beautiful house with a backyard and a bay window.

“Women always know,” his mom said as the female lead had discovered her husband cheating on her long before she had traveled home to catch him in the act.

“Women always know,” his mom said as she would catch him trying to sneak a girl into his teenage bedroom at half past three in the morning.

“Women always know,” his mom said as she comforted him when she had declared to an eighteen-year-old Bradley that she no longer wanted to continue with chemotherapy. She died not even two days later.

“Women always know,” he can hear his mom’s voice in the back of his head as he watches you tiptoe around him when you come home from work.

The door closes with a soft click and your keys are grasped tightly in your hand to prevent them from jingling. The bags underneath your eyes beg the question of when the last time you had gotten a full eight hours of sleep was, but you both would rather not inquire out loud.

The answer would shock both of your consciences.

The tossing and turning you had done the night before was cruel. The anxieties of your day had breached unknown territory; the pit of your stomach hollow and your chest tight. Your mind was so frazzled with fear you couldn’t bear to stay still because the lack of movement gave way for your thoughts to be caught; for your fear and anxiousness to swallow you whole.

Bradley would normally stir in his sleep the minute your eyes had popped open in the middle of the night, but instead, he had elected to turn over and cuddle his face more into his own pillow. The action tacked itself onto the mile-long list of things you were upset about - things that you found unfathomable that your brain scrambled together.

And when you had finally gotten to sleep, your alarm clock blared beside you. Your heart had started to race and the monster of nerves you had successfully defeated for an hour and a half resurrected itself.

When you had turned to face Bradley, you found him still fast asleep and that’s when you knew.

You’re not stupid. You’re not oblivious. In fact, you’re always so painfully aware that it kills you sometimes. You notice how he’s been pulling away. You notice how he’s seemed more reserved and despondent than usual. You notice how he doesn’t kiss your forehead anymore or ask to join you in the shower when you’re both spending your mornings at home together on the weekends.

Conversations at the dinner table are neither here nor there as most nights he can’t be damned to make it home to eat with you. For the first time in five years, you had run out of face wash and had to write a note to yourself on your phone to pick some more up from the store the next time you went shopping. Bradley had watched you type it out and his sagging shoulders wore disappointment on them.

You knew.

You knew he was both feet out of the door with your relationship; his hand still on the doorknob to close it but not having the guts to lock the door while he’s at it.

You know.

You know that you’re going to break up. You know that Bradley is the one who will be taking the initiative and doing it. You know that he’s been thinking about it for a while. The absent gasps whenever you do happen to catch dinner with him say so, and all you can think about is his mouth opening and closing like a goddamn goldfish as he searches for the words to bring it up. The thought makes the actions of the inevitable seem more bearable.

But yet you cling to what little time you know you have left with him.

How you know that you’ll never get to sleep beside him again. How you know that you’ll never get to snuggle into his UVA blanket. How you know that you’ll never visit the Hard Deck or the base or any spaces where Rooster Bradshaw exists freely.

How you know that things will never be the same and that your sweet, sweet Bradley will soon become a sweet, sweet stranger.

So you try to prolong it.

You never linger in the same space as him for too long for fear of the dreadful topic being brought up. You bite your tongue a lot more than you usually do. You keep your stuff neat and tidy; praying for some miracle that he didn’t see your hairbrush on his bathroom counter and that it would buy you another day with him.

You know it can’t last forever but the stupid, naive part of you thinks you can stretch the time to infinity and it’ll be some Groundhog Day-type plot.

You had started planning your arrival home around his schedule months prior. You aimed for leaving the office when you knew he had already left base about an hour earlier. If Bradley was anything, it was predictable, and he would either be in the shower when you had made your way home or cooped up in the home office he had made of the spare bedroom.

You nearly jump out of your skin when you see him standing in front of you; hands drying the ceramic plates Penny and Mav had bought you as a housewarming gift whenever he bit the bullet and moved you both into his parents’ old house last summer. Gray running shorts are low on his hips and a New York Yankees long-sleeve looks damn near painted on his biceps. You swallow the lump in your throat that travels down to your stomach.

Your brain can’t even begin to think of what to do or say but Bradley beats you to it.

“Hi,” he speaks, breaking the ice of your anxiety that freezes you both over. He knows that you can feel that something is off. He knows that you’ve felt it for a long time. He also knows that he’s about to shatter you completely and he’s not sure if he can watch as he does it.

“Hi,” your voice quietly sounds. Your hands start to shake and Bradley’s eyebrows upturn with sympathy as he drinks in your appearance.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He places the plate down and steps towards you. “C’mere.”

His arms stretch to accommodate you. His heart beats wildly as he approaches. He thinks you can sense it because you slam your ear against his chest. There’s no way you can’t feel the rise and fall and frenzied thumping coming from his pectoral.

“Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her,” his heart begs, but his brain knows that either way, hurting you is inevitable.

He wishes there was another way but he knows wishful thinking will only put you both in a landmine of resentment; a world of a loveless marriage and three kids who will eventually have to pack their bags for their respective weekends with you and him on opposite sides of town. He doesn’t want that for you. He doesn’t want that for him. He sure as hell doesn’t want that for them. So he pushes aside his selfish desire to keep you close and does what he always does.

He decides to walk away.

“Just get it over with,” you say weakly from his chest. He plants a gentle kiss on the crown of your head. His thumbs rub soothing circles on the backs of both shoulders. Your stomach is cold and the rest of your body is left scorching.

“What are you talking about?” his chin comes to rest on top of your head. His hold on you unintentionally shoves your face deeper into his chest.

“Don’t make me say it. Please don’t.”

“I can’t talk about it unless you tell me what you’re gettin’ at, babydoll.”

“Don’t play stupid, Bradley,” you release yourself from his grip, “You’re going to break up with me. We both know it so please, just do it already.”

The words that you say steer clear of the convoluted plan he had in mind. Breaking up is no easy task and the guilt of the thought even crossing his mind had been weighing on him for ages. It wasn’t like he sat down with himself and crunched the numbers of the housing market to see when the best time would be for you to move out or that he had a set itinerary of how the conversation was going to play out. He wasn’t even sure he was going to do it today until you had left for work, and it seems to him that you had figured it out without having to mention it to you.

Women always know.

“Don’t say it like I’m just trying to throw you away.” You flinch at his words. He realizes that his tone had come off more aggressive than he intended it to be when he notices the slight watering in your eyes.

“Isn’t that what a break up is?” you want to ask, but you’re so stunned you can’t get your vocal cords to carve out the shape of the letters, let alone thrust any sound out.

He takes your hand and leads you to your shared bedroom. The white duvet and navy blue bordered throw pillows remind you of when he used to take the time to hold you before you fell asleep at night. The hardwood of the floors tell the secrets shared between the two of you as hushed and giggled whispers; pointless gossip and serious confessions alike. The framed pictures on the dresser show you and him in various moments of your five years together.

Easter spent at your parents’ with your siblings and nieces and nephews this past spring. Thanksgiving with Mav, Penny, and Amelia three years prior. A selfie you forced him to take with you at Phoenix’s wedding last year. A candid shot taken by one of your friends of you two curled up on the beach; blissfully in love and lost in each other’s eyes at the start of your relationship.

The photos and the room had seen so much of you two. Various deployments and promotions. A canvas of emotions and intimate moments. Laughter and tears. Petty fights and teenaged makeout sessions. So many things that had written the story of you and Bradley long before you had moved in and long after. The thoughts of the memories fill you with excitement.

But the thought of him not feeling the same way - the fact that he’s bringing you to a room with the story of you both written exclusively in every crevice to end things - brings a waterfall of tears down your face.

The story of creation and its impending graveyard.

Another pang of anguish surges through you and the coldness in your stomach spreads to your feet.

He sits down on the foot of the bed first. He looks up at you with worry written in his irises. Bradley can sense your discomfort; the sadness and panic bouncing off of your aura in waves of deep indigo blue - the color that he’s assigned depression. He doesn’t know why (and he thinks that if he were you, he would slap himself across the face) but he offers his hand to you.

There’s no hesitation and his hand guides you to sit on his lap like how he always does when you’re upset and need comfort.

You sit down and push your face into the side of his neck. The stinging sensation from the hot salt water tears leaking into a cut he had given himself from shaving that morning makes the nature of the situation all the more realistic. This is the last time he will hold you like this. This is the last time he will know you as well as he does. This is the last time he will ever have the chance to make you miserable.

Last times always make him uneasy. He thinks that he should be used to it by now from his track record of being abandoned (willfully or “out of their control” situations alike). None of this should hurt him as deeply anymore.

But the feeling of disappointment is just so intense this time. He’s sure it doesn’t even fall within the scope of what could be considered “hurt feelings.” He would classify this as torture, and he can’t help his own quiet sobs racking his chest as he holds your crying and shrunken-in form in his arms.

“I don’t want to break up, Bradley,” you weep, “I just don’t want to.”

He shakes his head and wipes his own eyes. “We need to.”

There’s something so personal about failure. It’s not a stranger to you. It’s not a monster or fear or the Mucinex man that you try to boil it down to be. It’s something that you can’t obsessively try to avoid anymore because it’s right here in your face.

Except this time, it takes the shape of Bradley’s red-rimmed eyes and gray hairs on the border of his hairline that you hadn’t noticed before.

Bradley isn’t one for bragging. He can’t stand bragging, actually, and he wonders if that’s why he has such a hard time trusting his judgment. He considers that to be the reason why he’s always teetering on the edge of uncertainty, but he knows deep down that this time, he’s right. He’s so spot on and as much as it kills him, it would be more of a crime to deny it than to just admit that he’s right.

He knows it. You know it. He’s sure God does, too.

“No, you want to,” you stubbornly sniffle.

Ever the most hard-headed person to exist, but a sweetheart when it comes down to it. He almost cracks a smile at your attitude, but then he runs into it like a wall of bricks. You’re breaking up. This is the last time he’ll ever get to see your bull-headedness in full effect. The thought makes him whimper and he prays that you didn’t hear the infliction of it in his voice.

“That’s not true, sweet girl,” he sighs, fingers tracing the seam of your work pants, “I can’t make you miserable anymore. We need to.”

“Who said I was miserable?”

He pauses. He knows that the statement he’s about to make will send an uncomfortable chill down his spine. He knows that it’ll make him feel that way because he’s being called out.

“I don’t want to get married and you do. That’s miserable.”

Your ears burn more than they already had because he’s right. You’ve been waiting around for a stupid diamond on a stupid gold band; for reassurance that he wants you to be his as much as you love the idea of being his forever.

Five years and you know how he takes his coffee in the morning. Five years and you compromise regularly about what to keep the thermostat on. Five years and nine weddings you had attended with him. Five years of loving each other and knowing one another in ways that only fiction writers can dream of having someone know them. Five years of feeling like you would die without him.

Five years and he’s ready to throw it all away because he doesn’t think you both want the same things. Five years down the drain.

You think being kicked in the face would hurt a hell of a lot less than this does.

“Uh-uh. No,” you say. You paw at your eyes with your hand ferociously. “No! You don’t get to do that. You know that’s not fair!” You spring up from his lap like he was a fire that had just licked your skin with white-hot heat.

He grabs at your wrist, his eyes pleading with you to not leave him. His touch burns you but you give in. “It’s not fair to keep doing this to you.” His arms envelop you once again and you feel like you can’t breathe.

You push at his chest. “This isn’t fair.” Your arms try and pry Bradley’s arms off of you. “You can’t - I can’t just let you throw us away like this. It’s not fair!”

Bradley swallows down the lump in his throat. His eyes produce more tears the more he watches you struggle against him. He’s scared that if he lets you go that you’ll lose it completely. Part of him knows keeping you near is helping him hold it together too, but he tries to rationalize the overall shittiness of the entire situation by telling himself that he’s appealing to your needs - that you need him, but he also knows that he needs you.

“I love you so much,” he whispers into your hair.

“Then why are you hurting me?” The question explodes in the air, It’s something that he thought he was prepared to hear from the pep talk he had given himself on the ride to work this morning, but it still stuns him.

“I’m hurting you by keeping you with me.”

You scoff and cry harder. The fight inside of you hasn’t ceased yet. Such a stubborn girl, he thinks. It’s one of the things he loves the most about you.

“You’re hurting me now.”

Bradley swallows his comment. His mind ping pongs back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on how to tell you why he knows this is for the best. The truth is, he doesn’t know it. He just thinks it, and the worry of having to follow his instincts, to have to be guided by something so material and un-cemented, scares him to death. But he knows that you deserve the word and the world is something he knows that he’ll never be capable of giving anyone.

“You deserve someone that will marry you.” The words taste bitter in his mouth. “Someone who will make you so happy that you won’t even think of us anymore. Someone who can give you that house in La Jolla and a huge wedding and babies and a dog.”

“Someone who won’t blow up in flames while they’re in the sky,” he almost adds, but he closes his mouth instead. The conversation was already heavy. There’s no need to tack on his death that is always in the cards.

“I deserve you,” you say, tone dripping with determination and assurance.

He’s full-on sobbing now. “You deserve so much better, baby. Why can’t you see it?”

You chew on your lips so hard that they start to split. The salt of the blood in your mouth is vile but you would rather taste that than the tears that have been roaming down your face.

“Why can’t you just be better then?”

He feels like you stabbed him in the heart. He guesses that he deserves that. “I can’t be better if you deserve the world. I know I can’t give you that.”

The room fills itself with hiccuped breaths. His heart cracks and yours disintegrates. Bradley moves himself to the headboard to support his back. If you weren’t so concerned with your world crashing down, you would have made a joke about how his age was catching up with him. But trying to force yourself to smile feels like a crime.

Bradley has experienced loss. He’s experienced disappointment. He’s experienced heartbreak. He thought he was prepared for what he was choosing to do, but he never had thought of how he would feel when he was experiencing all of these things at once.

His abs hurt from how hard he’s crying. The hair on the crown of your head is soaked from his tears but you don’t mind nor do you notice. The chest of his long sleeve is stained black from your own tears. You both cling to each other even though being close is what causes you to ache.

The bright white of the linen duvet reflects cornflower blue in the moonlight. Your throat is dry from your heaving. His head hurts from his racing thoughts. Both of your eyes sting uncomfortably; you seeing the world as if you were underwater. Not only because of your uncontrollable sobbing but because the focus of your life - the love you so willingly gave that has illuminated your world for the past five years - has finally dimmed.

The hours spent holding each other felt like seconds and you finally muster up the courage to say something; to put on a brave face and revel in one of your lasts with him.

“Bradley?” you croak. He clears his throat and presses a timid kiss to the top of your head as if he’s scared that his lips are more of a weapon than a tool of comfort.

“Yes, baby?”

“Will we still be friends in a few weeks?”

He sucks on his lips. He wants to say that you’ll always be friends. That no one that comes after you will ever hold a candle to you and what you both had. That you’re his beginning and end, but he can’t keep dragging you along with a false promise of giving you what you actually want. He can’t make himself want to be a husband even though he knows that it’s what he needs to be to keep you. Wanting you just isn’t enough anymore.

The risk is contemplated, but he never wants to prey on you and your vulnerability. He settles for the safe option.

“Depends on if you still wanna be, sweet girl.”

You plant a soft kiss on the wet spot on his chest your tears have created. The answer is sweet but not what you want. You wish it would’ve broken his resolve; would’ve reversed your relationship ending. You know that he knows better than to do that.

The silence sets in again before you speak up.

“Bradley?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Will you still call me every night before I go to sleep so I can hear your voice?”

“I can for a little while, baby.”

His answer is the right thing to say, you know, but you can’t help the fact that the statement breaks your heart even more. “Why only a little bit?”

He sighs. You’re not making this easy for him. “Babe, you know why.”

“Right,” you whisper, shifting in his lap to wrap your arms around his neck. You peer into his eyes. The hazel in them is dimmed. There’s no sparkle left. “M’sorry for asking.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he reassures, “Just think that maybe that won't be healthy if we do it for too long.”

It kills him to say that, but he knows that he’s doing the right thing. It certainly doesn’t feel as such, and he would think that nearly twenty years of service in the Navy would help him separate the bad feelings from the nobility.

Breaks up just don’t work like that, he figures. No amount of experience or preparation can concoct an easy way out where no one gets hurt.

He gets lost in his thoughts before he hears your voice again.

“Bradley?”

Broken. Timid. Inquisitive. A test to see if he still cares enough about you to answer. He knows how you are and that you’re reverting back to old patterns that you had lost during your time with him. He has to push aside his feelings of being slightly offended that you’ve put the wall back up so quickly, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s done enough damage to last a lifetime. He just wishes that you didn’t think he could fall out of love with you this easily.

“Hmm, baby?”

“You’re my best friend.”

“My best friend too,” he exhales, the pang in his chest valiant in letting him know that this is the end, “Always will be.”

You pause and tailor your next statement carefully. Part of you takes it slow to prevent yourself from breaking down again but part of you takes your time to keep him near; to keep him from walking away from you. And you don’t want to do this to him. You don’t want to anger him or upset him and that’s the fucked up thing about it.

He’s hurting you and you don’t want to hurt him back.

“Yeah, but what happens when you date another girl and she’s your best friend instead of me?” The thought makes your skin crawl and you dig half moons into the skin of your hand with your thumb to prevent yourself from letting out a chest-wracking sob. “What am I supposed to do then?”

Bradley sighs. The thought of you moving on is selfish but he knows that it’s inevitable. He wishes that no one will ever get to know you the same ways that he’s gotten to, but shakes the thought as soon as he realizes how selfish it is - a declaration of love or the right answer.

He does the latter.

“You’ll find someone who’s an even better best friend than I am,” he sniffles. He hadn’t even noticed that he had started crying again. “Someone who doesn’t make you cry.”

Your breath hitches and it triggers more tears to stream down your face. He’s hurting, too. You never want to see him hurt like this, but then you realize that after today, you will never have to ever again. The thought makes your body ache; withdrawal symptoms before any withdrawal had actually begun.

“You promise we’ll still talk?” you speak in a watery voice.

“Yes, babydoll,” he wipes his eyes and sniffles some more, “ We’ll still talk.”

You start to play with his hands. Your finger runs across a faint scar on his index, the freckle on his pinky, the empty space where you wish a gold wedding band would be on his ring finger. The tips of your own fingers start to burn when you realize that his disinterest in ever wanting to wear one is why you’re breaking up.

You push the thought to the side and continue on in the conversation.

“About life stuff?”

He gives a soft chuckle, the one he usually gives you when he’s playing into your amusements. Part of him is never serious when he does it, but there’s a new wave of promise that he has to keep.

“About anything you want.”

The crying dies down again. The energy in the room is constantly going up and down like the waves on the beach near the back of the house.

“Bradley?” you interrupt the quietness again. The lack of sound makes you even more anxious than you already are.

“Yes?” He curses himself as the statement leaves his mouth. He knows you’re picking apart his lack of use of a pet name; that you’re convincing yourself that you’re an inconvenience to him and that he never cared for you the way you wanted him to.

Bradley almost tacks one on, but the pause between adding it and answering would have been too broad and you would have noticed and called him out on it. He decides against it. He also starts to wonder when he became so decisive all of a sudden.

Turmoil does that to someone, he guesses.

“My heart hurts so bad and I don’t know how I’ll fix it.”

The energy in the room spikes again. The tension you can feel radiating off of him like an unbearable heat makes your eyes water. Crying was something you did often but not something you enjoyed. You’re in for some long, painstakingly miserable months, you think.

“Mine does too but we’ll do what we always do, right?” You shift in his lap and curl into him more. You know he’s right, but it doesn’t mean that what he’s saying is what you wanted to hear. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I - I don’t think I kn-know how to d-do that anymore.”

He moves his chin from the top of your head to actually look at you. He had been avoiding it for the fear that he would be too cowardly and would retreat back to keeping you in this miserable, hopeless search for a marriage that he was never planning on partaking in. He can’t go back. He can’t undo what he had just done. Even if he were to announce that he wanted you to stay, it being brought up in the first place will forever have torn an irreparable hole in the fabric of your relationship.

Bradley’s hands cup your face and he smacks his lips on your forehead. He thumbs away the tears that had been endlessly streaming all night. He rubs soft circles back and forth on your cheekbones. The pressure you get in your cheeks from crying always gives you a massive headache, he knows.

The fact that someone else will know that about you sends him into a spiral of guilt. A spiral of weakness. A spiral of wanting to undo what he had just done.

But he doesn’t.

Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Do the right thing.

And so he does.

“Bullshit, baby. You’re the smartest woman I know. You’ll figure it out.” Truthful words, but not truthful feelings. He’s never been good at deciphering those.

“Bradley?”

“Yes, baby?”

The words get stuck in your throat. You never want to make him feel bad because you know how hard he is on himself. You’re not sure if saying what you want to say is even worth it but - from the way he’s holding your face, from the way you’ve gotten to know and love him, from the way that he will always be your sweet, sweet Bradley - you determine that he needs to hear it.

“You’re the kindest man that I know even though you stomped on my heart.”

He sends you a soft smile and delivers a soft kiss to your lips; the first one of the night despite being so close to him all evening.

“I learned how to be because of you.”

You don’t know how long you both stay like that - wrapped up in each other with waves of tears coming and going as they please. The soft whimpers leave your mouth and the sniffled breaths that leave his paint each corner of the bedroom with an ending.

One where you don’t get the ring and the house and the babies. One where he doesn’t get the girl and the family and the happily ever after. One where you both don’t have a soulmate anymore.

He knows that he shouldn’t say it. He knows that it’s probably the last thing you want to hear. He knows that he’s not ready for you to leave and he says it hoping that maybe, he can take back what had happened; that maybe you can steer the conversation in talks of staying together and compromising and “working it out.”

“I love you. I’ll always love you.”

You look up at him brokenly. His heart stops beating when you open your mouth to speak.

“But you’ll never love me enough to try.”

Bradley closes his mouth and exhales deeply through his nose. The point you made is compelling and it stings to know that it’s completely truthful. He sits with you on his lap, subtly rocking you back and forth until the sky turns from the midnight blue of nightfall to the yellow-tinted wisteria of sunrise.

Women always know. And he would be foolish to pretend like your gut feeling was wrong.

He loves me. He loves me not.

None of it matters if he doesn’t love you enough to be what you need.

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zoeysdamn · 1 year ago

Text

Bark, Bite & Break Bones - Tyler Galpin x Van Helsing!reader | Part.10 [FINALE]

Summary: Deep into a rescue mission, you’re about to face some childhood traumas along with distressed werewolves. But if you’re here rescuing kids, who’s handling Tyler’s safety out there? Was it a mistake to choose to leave him in this tense atmosphere where everyone’s looking for a culprit? You just hope you won’t be too late to see the mystery of this curse unfold.

Warnings: graphic gore depiction (be careful), swearing, angst, mention of blood, mention of arson, mention of child neglect (minor), mention of slapping a partner [THIS IS A PIECE OF FICTION, THIS IS NEVER OKAY IN REAL LIFE] Also, my sincere apologizes for the badly written fight scenes and even shittier plot lmao

A/N: oh my gOD the last chapter is finally out!! (who would have thought). Really not my best chapter, but honsetly I had 0 plot for this one lmao I’m still pleased of how it turned out. Read the warnings carefully, and enjoy!

[Main Masterlist] [Wednesday Masterlist] [Prologue] [Part.1] [Part.2] [Part.3] [Part.4] [Part.5] [Part.6] [Part.7] [Part.8] [Part.9]

The heat was almost unbearable and hitched your skin. Ashes and the heavy dust from burning wood were veiling your eyes too, making them water in a pitiful attempt to clear your vision, but by now you weren’t really paying any attention to it anymore. A burning ache seemed to grow in your lungs every passing second, and you knew it was a matter of a few minutes before breathing would really become painful.

Nothing looked like the dorms anymore. No matter how well you thought you knew the grounds, every corner was metamorphosed into unrecognizable burning piles. Time was of the essence yet you lost yourself so many times trying to scramble your way through the blazing building.

Despite the burning in your throat, you tried to call out, “Hello?! Anyone here?”

Nobody answered the raspy question. So you carried on your search under the unbearable warmth of the fire around you. Sweat beads dripped down your forehead and a cough tore from your aching throat. Then, very faintly, a whimper echoed somewhere behind a crumbled part of a wall. Through your coughs, you tried to call out again.

“Hello? Are you in there?”

Another long whine answered you and after pushing some rubble you could outline a shivering form through the thick smoke. Two students were curled up on the ground, trembling with fear and halfway through their wolf transformation. Unruly fur poked from under their skin at odd places, yet couldn’t hide the pure look of distress on the children’s faces. As soon as they noticed you through the thick smoke, a growl emanated from one of them; surely more instinct than real disdain. Despite the urgency of the situation and the burning flames all around, you carefully knelt in front of the shivering students.

“It’s okay,” you tried to reassure them as best as you could, “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”

Carefully reaching out with your palm, you let the two children crinkle their snouts at your scent. Whether they knew who you were or not didn’t seem to change the fact they immediately winced and backed down even further against the wall, trying to growl in an intimidating manner. But the low whine that escaped instead didn’t fool you. The fire alone was a traumatizing experience, but an early, forced wolf-out was even worse. Memories of written testimonies of previous hunters flashed in your mind, their tales of great pain and tortured howls from werewolves who had been forced to transform too soon. Those kids right here were in more dreadful pain than anyone could imagine.

Slowly unsheathing your dagger, you kept your eyes focused on the younger students. At the sight of the silver blade, one of the students let out a terrified cry.

Immediately flicking the dagger so that the blade rested in your palm instead of facing them, you held out your other hand in a somewhat reassuring gesture. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” you shushed, trying the best to ignore the blazing warmth of the fire around you. “I’m not gonna hurt you. See?”

As to prove your words, the blade sank into your skin, drawing blood onto your palm. The strong copper smell of blood immediately made the students’ eyes widen and their half-transformed snout crinkle despite the bitter taste of ashes and flames all around. You knew that a werewolf transformation, particularly an early one, sharpened the senses and the smell ; thus, the strong smell of blood and silver should be upsetting enough for the human part of those students, and hopefully help them turn back. You simply hoped that the human part of them would take over quickly, it was becoming really hard to ignore the blazing fire around you.

Fortunately, after what felt like the longest seconds of your life, the harsh features of half-turned students started to fade into softer, human ones. With heavy whimpers tainted in pain, the two children started to turn back in their usual normal selves and soon tears-stained cheeks replaced their furry ones. When they lifted up glassy eyes to you, it was the only sign you needed and you grabbed the arm of the closest student.

“Come on,” you urged them, “we need to get out quickly.”

If either of them wanted to speak, the protest died quickly. Sooner than later the two young students ended up clinging to your side, never letting go of each other as the three of you hurried through the burning corridors.

The smoke made your eyes and throat burn, and despite trying to keep a clear mind you couldn’t help but an all-too familiar memory to overcome your senses. Flashes of another place, burning to the ground just like this one, and the dreadful feeling of panic overflowing your entire being, those were painfully familiar to you. For a moment you were this terrified little girl again, trapped inside your grandparents house while the fire destroyed everything and no one around to help you. But the iron-grip of the petrified children on your sleeve reminded you that no matter how the dread of memories tried to drown you, you had a responsibility. Those kids needed you, and you’d be damned if you couldn’t save those terrified children from this blaze just like you had been all those years ago. This time no child would feel as helpless and trapped within the flames, that you promised to yourself.

A loud crack erupted just before a beam collapsed in front of you, making you jump backward with a curse. A tiny whimper escaped one of the students and you squeezed their shoulder in reassurance, looking around to find another way out.

“Come on, stay close to me,” you coughed as you hurried to a window nearby. Getting out of the building was becoming more than urgent, or neither of you three would last long.

Suddenly a gush of fresh air kissed your face and made your eyes widened. The exit was close, there was still a chance for you and the kids to get out in one piece. Following the feeling of night breeze, you clumsily reached the window you had previously noticed among the rumbles. Shouts of people outside became louder and clearer, a nice indication that the nightmare might be over soon. When you reached the window, you peeked outside to see the surroundings: first floor, some bushes at the foot of the outside wall, just before one of the paths leading to the outer courtyard where everyone gathered. Perfect.

“Hey!” you shouted, and some other students a few meters away whipped their heads in your direction. “Over here! Come help me, there’s kids in here!”

While a bunch of people hurried in your direction, you helped the two younger students climbing on the window ledge. When they noticed the height, they gave you frightened looks.

“I can’t do this,” whined one of them, almost pleading. But you would have none of that, and grounded a hand on their shoulder.

“Yes you can,” you said with a firm yet reassuring tone. “You’ve been very brave already, I know you can do it.”

Some older students below started to organize themselves by climbing on each other’s shoulders to be able to catch the younger kids. At the sign they were ready, you hoisted the first kid on the ledge.

“I’m right behind you,” you promised them when they gave you one last frightened look. “Trust me.”

And so they did. Holding their hands to lower them until your arms couldn’t take it anymore, you let go of them only for a second before they were caught safely on the ground by the group of students down below. Seeing how well their friend’s rescuing went, the second kid let you guide them without a word, trusting you to get them out safely. Once the two rescued kids were back on the ground and outside of the flaming building, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. That’s it, they’re safe. But a loud crack behind you brutally reminded you that you weren’t out of trouble yet yourself, and out of reflex you jumped from the window ledge before the flames could reach you.

The sudden nature of the jump hadn’t allowed you to properly prepare yourself so you ended up half-landing, half-crashing on the ground rather unceremoniously. A grunt left your lips at a sharp sting on your ankle ; surely you had landed on it, spraining it in the process.

Unknown hands came to help you up and you gratefully took them – although you may have recognized Ajax among them, you weren’t so sure. Dozens of questions were thrown at you but you barely heard them. The adrenaline rush had died down, letting the pain and exhaustion crash into you like a wall of bricks.

It was a familiar voice that dragged you out of the numbing limbo of thought.

“Holy fuck Y/N, are you alright??”

Lifting your head up, you were met with a pair of cerulean blue eyes ; to say that you were surprised by the fact they weren’t throwing daggers at you as per usual would be the understatement of the fucking century.

Despite the soreness of your throat and the ache of your limbs, you couldn’t help but grin. “Awww,” you cooed with a raspy voice, “you actually care. Took you,” you coughed roughly, “a god damn fire to soften on me.”

Bianca scoffed at your antics, “Don’t flatter yourself Van Helsing.”

“Aaand here she is. But I’ll be okay, thanks.”

Even with all the sarcasm and usual bitterness, you could see that for once, the siren truly was worried. It was hard to believe that she would at some point, after having tried to drown you barely a few months ago.

A chuckle just next to you made you realize that you were literally leaning against someone who helped you walk away from the building – probably one who had helped you get up. Turning your head, you realized it was indeed a familiar gorgon student.

“Through a fire and still being sarcastic,” he joked. “Is there anything that can actually kill you?”

You snorted, wincing in pain in the process. “Wouldn’t anyone like to know, uh?”

“Y/N!!” shrieked a voice.

The three of you turned just in time to catch a glimpse of a blonde and pink tornado rushing at your side. You hadn’t time to catch your breath that she was already crushing you into a hug.

“Thank you!” Enid cried. “Thank you thank you thank you! You saved those pups, I can’t thank you enough!!”

From above her shoulder, you caught sight of the two young werewolves students you rescued, surrounded by teachers and being taken care of. A sigh of relief got past your lips. Everybody was okay, that’s all that mattered. Wait. Everyone?

“Where’s Tyler?” you asked abruptly, suddenly very aware of your surroundings.

Enid parted from the hug, looking confused. Bianca, Ajax, and Wednesday – surely arrived shortly after Enid – looked at each other, shrugging.

“Nobody knows where he is?” you asked frantically. At the shake of their heads, a new feeling of dread sank into you. Suddenly, you could sense that something was very, very wrong.

WIthout really thinking, you pushed yourself off Ajax and started to search frantically around you for a familiar freckled boy. But Tyler was nowhere to be found. Ignoring the calls of Enid, Wednesday and Ajax, you hobbled the best you could through the courtyard. Still no chance.

As you started to fear that he might have disappeared, your gaze focused on the forest. The pit of dread growing in your stomach only worsened, and you realized that something much more dangerous was most likely to occur. The fire, the sudden panic, with all this pressure and stressful situation, Tyler could lose control over the Hyde at any moment. And you hadn’t been here to contain him and keep him grounded like you had promised him to.

Limping toward the woods the fastest you could, you truly hoped that you were wrong, and that there was no Hyde running wild out there.

The chilly air of the night did nothing to calm your nerves as you rushed through the woods. Even with your limping leg, you searched frantically for Tyler but he was nowhere to be found. Calling him would be useless, it would only frighten him more, should he not recognize your voice from afar.

Mentally, you couldn’t help but scold yourself a little. None of that would have happened if you hadn’t agreed to follow Xavier, Wednesday and Bianca in the first place. Sure, the fire would have happened anyway, but at least you would have remained on Tyler’s side all along. Maybe those two kids were safe thanks to you, but if anything happened to Tyler you would never forgive yourself.

A faint crack made you whip your head around; only to find a dark silhouette clutching its head a few meters away. Carefully approaching the groaning form, you knew who it was before even seeing their face. No matter how gray his skin was starting to turn, how his bones seemed to want to pop out in sharp edges or how fucked up the situation was, you could recognize your boyfriend anywhere.

“Tyler?...” you called him, voice barely above a whisper.

A grunt answered just as he whipped around to face you. Halfway through his own transformation, surely fighting against the Hyde within his own body and mind, Tyler stared at you without really looking at you. With ragged breaths, he found himself standing still and you used it to slowly approach him, a hand halfway held in his direction.

“Hey there big boy,” you said softly, careful to not upset him more. His lack of reaction made you optimistic, and for the briefest moment you thought it could go easily. Boy, you were wrong.

In a blink of an eye you ended up thrown against the nearest tree, back hitting the trunk forcefully as a clawed hand squeezed around your throat. The force of the impact against the tree was so strong, your head bumped harshly and made you dizzy for a handful of seconds. When your eyes refocused, there was nothing left of Tyler in front of you; the full-grown Hyde’s face breathed heavily inches from yours, sharp teeth and furious eyes threatening to tear off your head any moment. His transformation had been so fast you hadn’t even been able to see it.

Another growl, more impatient this time, escaped him and the Hyde’s claws squeezed harder around your throat.

Breath getting short, you yet couldn’t help but to let slip a snarky comment. “Jokes on you, I’m into that,” you rasped with a smirk.

That definitely didn’t ease the creature and he slammed you once more against the tree, tearing off a pained grunt out of you. Internally you cursed your natural sarcasm and some more rational survival reflexes finally sprung out. Your right hand came to cling on the monster’s wrist, like it would do anything to make him drop you - just like the pathetic attempt of kicking your tired legs. The more seconds passed, the more tired you grew ; you knew there wasn’t much you could physically do in this state. Your right ankle throbbed in pain, and the previous walk-through in the fire had drained you from all energy. But you had to fight to stay alive, or else there would soon be nothing left of Y/N Van Helsing.

So instead of fighting, barking and biting with all your might, you forced yourself to relax as much as you could, gulping slowly and easing your muscles. The sudden stop of resistance seemed to surprise the Hyde, for his growls ceased for a moment – but not the iron grip around your throat though. Trying to push a smile on your tense face, you put on the most soft expression you could pull.

“It’s me,” you whispered softly, voice rough and cracking. “It’s me Tyler…Look at me babe, please look at me…”

The creature cocked his head at the sound of your voice. The calmer tone, although it had still some panicked edge, seemed to ground him. Sensing this as a progress, you pushed your luck a bit further, your left hand slowly raising to reach his distorted face. He flinched a little under your touch, but except for a light grunt of surprise, let you cradle his cheek.

Thumb grazing the rough surface of his bony cheek, you tried to keep a soft smile despite the pain. “I’m not gonna hurt you Tyler,” you promised in a soothing tone, “I can’t, you know that.”

The creature grunted again, like fighting with himself. You truly hoped that you could get a hold on the human part of Tyler and help him come back. The more he felt the caress of your hand on his face, the more it seemed to help him turn back into his human form.

Inhaling sharply, you decided to take your chance.

“Tyler,” you called him slowly, “I’m gonna need you to let me go. Can you do that?”

He struggled so hard, you could practically see the raging internal battle between the Hyde and Tyler.

“Let me go,” you whispered, eyes pleading this time, practically on the verge of tears. “Please…”

Slowly, very slowly, the clutch around your neck eased a little. The newfound arrival of air made you gasp but you had to refrain yourself from making any loud noise to not frighten the Hyde. Instead, your left hand still cradled his cheek, as a sign of encouragement. The creature lowered you gradually, and when your tiptoes finally touched the ground again you choked on a sob.

“Thanks Tyler,” you whispered, careful as his claws were still wrapped loosely around your throat, “you’re doing great.”

A spark of consciousness flashed in his globulous eyes, like his human self resurfaced for the briefest moment.

But then something seemed to make him snap, a gurgling roar tearing from the monster’s throat in fury. What was a hopeful moment a second ago turned into unbridled rage ; the other clawed hand of the Hyde rose high in the air and before you could even register what was happening, dove right onto your face. Everything went very quickly, one second the glint of sharp nails urged your survival instincts to try to cover your face with your left hand ; then a slice and a faint moment of blackout. A second later, the pain exploded.

A wail left your lips but you didn’t even hear yourself scream, nor did you feel your body drop on the forest floor. The pressure around your throat was gone, but the pain erupting through your left hand numbed everything else. Vision got blurry as you stared at the teared open flesh and puddle of blood that was once your left hand: a large gash opened your palm from forefinger to the wrist, as three half sliced fingers dandled, barely holding from their base by a thin tendril of flesh. The cover of your face from the Hyde’s claws had cost your hand. Taken aback in surprise - maybe by your scream, maybe just because of the blood - the creature had dropped you on the spot, jumping away from you – but right now you couldn’t care less, too busy clutching your butchered hand, curled on the ground. While you whimpered, spiraling down this overwhelming pain, the Hyde groaned, barking erratically like fighting some invisible demons. His very own body seemed to struggle with itself, so much that after long seconds he started to turn back, his bones replacing themselves, the gray skin fading to be replaced with his human, freckled one.

The loud thump of Tyler’s body falling on the ground suddenly reminded you of where you were, taking your mind away from the pain for a second. And no matter the throbbing of your hand, or the fact a monster was squeezing your throat to death only a few minutes ago,the sight of Tyler laying on the forest ground, shivering and whimpering made your heart clench so hard it was almost as painful as the rest of your body.

Clutching your injured hand close to your chest, you tried to crawl closer to Tyler, calling him with a pathetic whimper. HIs head rolled slowly, glossy unfocused eyes searching for the source of your voice. It wasn’t until you finally reached him and reached for his hand that he seemed to fully regain consciousness.

“Y/N…?” he rasped with a sore throat.

Hearing him again almost made you cry, so relieved that he was safe. “Yeah,” you choked on a sob, “it’s me, babe. You’re back, it’s going to be okay.”

Tyler tried to push himself up, but his attempt ended in failing miserably and he slumped on the ground once again, grunting. “I can’t move,” he moaned. Surely his transformation had left him more groggy and drained than any previous one. “Where are we?”

Another groan of pain tried to get past your lips but you swallowed it. “Somewhere in Nevermore’s forest, not sure how far…do you remember anything?”

“I…not really…the fire, the screams it- it became too much for me. And- and I started to feel dizzy so I walked away to calm down but…I don’t remember anything else…”

You nodded, hissing at the odd sensation of your three fingers dandling from your hand in an awfully gory way. Tyler heard and tried to get a better look of you. His eyes widened at the sight of your butchered limb and the bruises around your neck.

He paled, holding out trembling fingers. “Did I…did I do this to you?...”

The brush of his fingers on your cheek should have comforted you ; but despite your better judgment, you flinched at their contact. Tyler felt his heart break; oh my god, he did that to you.

Just as the grueling panic and shame slated to overflow him, you immediately gripped one of his hands with your good one.

“Hey, hey,” you said softly, “look at me Ty. Look at me,” at your insistence, he finally lifted his watery eyes to meet yours. Despite the pain and the tiredness plaguing both your mind and body, you tried to hold a steady and convinced gaze.

“It’s gonna be alright, okay? Shit like that happens during hunts, I’m used to it and you weren’t yourself.”

“But–”

“Shh,” you interrupted him. “Keep your strength. I’m going to get us out of here, we’re gonna be alright.”

“How touching to see you this optimistic,” quipped a voice behind you.

Startled in surprise, you whirled around, leveling yourself in a seating position thanks to the adrenaline rush this sudden appearance gave you. Standing a few feet away, a man stood with a heavy coat, blonde hair and a satisfied smile. It took you a handful of seconds to pinpoint exactly where you had seen this prick’s face before. Yet last you remembered, members of the school board didn’t usually carry guns with them.

Staring warily at the medium, you snarled at him. “What are you doing here in your cheap typical villain outfit? Here to peek at naked and injured students like a creep or to finish the job?”

His smile didn’t falter. “As a matter of fact, it is indeed why I’m here, Miss Van Helsing.”

You squint your eyes at him, careful to ot let panic rise too high. “So are we expecting some classical villain speech where you unfold the whole plan or is your boss gonna do it himself?”

The medium cocked his head to the side in amusement. “I’m afraid I don’t get what you’re implying. I work alone.”

Slowly, the pieces started to add up in your head. Everything was aligning and went clear. “You’re the one who put the nithing curse on the school,” you realized. “You did this.”

“That I did,” he agreed, loading his gun meticulously. “I had to make enough diversion to trigger the Hyde without too much suspicion. I must admit, the fire wasn’t what I expected but my, it did work splendidly.”

On the ground, Tyler whimpered, mind trying to get a grasp on reality through the haze. “I know…this voice…” he slurred.

The look of disdain on the psychic’s face wasn’t even hidden by the night. “You gave me more struggle than I thought, I give you that. For some pathetic creature, you sure were hard to convince to unleash once your precious bodyguard was gone, earlier.”

The thought of that arrogant fucker messing with Tyler’s mind just to make him lose control made you blood boil. “You’re a fucking psycho,” you seethed.

The board member only shrugged. “You left me no choice. If you had died in that coffee shop like you were supposed to, none of this would have happened to Nevermore, my dear.”

To the boiling anger added disgust and you snickered bitterly, “Of course you were the one who hired the mercenaries,” you spat, rolling your eyes. “Couldn’t do anything by yourself, uh? Why even doing all of this when you could have just refused Tyler’s application to the school, uh?”

This time, the medium knelt in front of you, taking in your injured self, pathetic and tired – the laying form of Tyler didn’t even seem to have his attention.

“Because it would have been much more beneficial for me to have the nuisance of Y/N Van Helsing being removed at the same occasion,” he said with a sick smile. “Do you even know how much is the bait placed on your head by some vampire covens, little hunter?”

You scoffed, “I don’t know, do enlighten me then old fart.”

Admittedly not your better insult, but the flaring of his nostrils was enough proof it was pissing the medium off. Good.

“Way too many numbers for you to count.”

“Nice,” you grinned in a provocative way, which seemed to anger him even more. Without hesitation, he pressed the barrel of his gun against your forehead.

“It would have been so much easier to have the Hyde kill you,” he seethed, clearly starting to lose patience. “He would have been put back in jail, and you would be six feet underground. Everyone would have been happier like this.”

The realization of his sick plan made you growl. “You expected Tyler to kill me by putting him in stressful situations. Too much of a coward to pull the trigger yourself?”

As the only response you heard the click of the gun being loaded. The previous calm and composed attitude of the psychic was gone, long replaced by irritation and febrile movements thanks to your insolent attitude. What could you say, without any weapon or functional body, it was all you were left with to fight. So if you had to walk away from life with bites and sarcasm, this asshole better be prepared ‘cause you fucking would.

“Shut your bloody mouth,” he spat on the verge of patience. “Do you know how hard it is to earn your place as a psychic? When you don’t have a name like mighty Vincent Thorpe?”

“Boo-hoo, poor little you,” you pouted.

“I had to crawl my way up to where I am now,” he continued, ignoring your remark. “The things I’ll do when the higher families of vampires will thank me for bringing them your head, I’ve earned them.”

“By putting some kids’ lives in danger, your fucking psychopath,” you spat at him. “You’re delusional as fuck if you think they’ll treat you as an equal.”

An amused smile stretched his lips and his finger pressed on the trigger. “I’m willing to try.”

For a second, your breath stopped and you thought that you really were about to die here. You didn’t shut your eyes but squeezed Tyler’s hand on the ground beside you, not knowing if he really felt it or if he had passed out. You just wanted to let him know that you were by his side until the end.

Then something jumped on the psychic, tackling him to the ground with force; the shot went off somewhere else behind your shoulder but you actually felt the heat of the bullet brazing your skin.

The psychic screamed, fighting the giant beast that had attacked him under your wide eyes. Between fits and bites you caught sight of blonde fur with pink tufts somewhere. Even in the dark you understood who it was. Enid’s werewolf form. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to hear shouts from behind you, adding to the wolf’s grunt and the wails of the man crawling for his life under her. You started to feel dizzy, eyelids heavy and head spinning just as quick as the adrenaline dropped from your body. When you picked up familiar voices such as Ajax, Wednesday or even Weems’ voices, your body allowed itself to let go. From what you remembered, it might have been Bianca or Xavier that caught you before you crashed unconscious face first on the ground, with the screams of terror of the psychic being torn apart in the distance.

You had woken up a day later in Nevermore’s infirmary, splint around your right ankle and head feeling like lost in the fog. Groggily, you had taken notice of your surroundings, mostly beds occupied by students who needed medical support after the fire. The more your senses came back, the more you had become aware of the throbbing of your left hand. Glancing down at it, you had been met with a heavily bandaged limb, specks of blood soaking through the cotton. Angry red lines crossed by stitches peaked from under the bandages; it wasn’t pretty, but at least you had all your fingers. Whoever operated you must have been able to stitch back the three of them that had threatened to get lost before it was too late.

Ultimately, you had lifted your head to see Tyler at the door of the infirmary, looking at you with wide eyes. You had smiled at him; then he did too. For your first reawakening after the long night the previous day had been, it was all you could ask for.

Two weeks later, and you found yourself sitting in the corridor of Weems’ office, waiting to be called in by the headmistress.

In the past weeks, things had been kind of hectic. First there was of course the betrayal of the board member who had deliberately put students’ lives in danger – multiple times – and whose betrayal couldn’t be ignored, no matter if he was going to spend the next few months in a hospital bed thanks to Enid. Then the fire that had destroyed a good half of the dormitories ; aside from the trauma it inflicted on all of the students, it took some organization to find arrangements to keep a roof above everyone’s head.

On a personal level you had to deal with physical recovery, which was slow but not doing so bad after all. People at school did not look at you with utter disdain anymore – the two students you rescued even hugged you. Hell, even Bianca Barclay definitely buried the war hatchet. But the problem lies elsewhere.

Tyler hadn’t been the same after that fateful night. Of course, when you two reunited in the infirmary, he had brought you in a bone-crushing hug for long minutes, not caring if anyone saw his tears of relief. Then he had kissed you senseless, drunk in joy of holding you alive and well in his arms again. But the overwhelming joy of reuniting had been short-lived.

If he refused to leave your side – as if you would ever leave him either – he always stood a little setback. Like putting a safe distance between the two of you, not too important to mean a break up, but enough to miss him; to miss the old him, to miss how you were together. The first days he didn’t even dare to touch you, it was always you who initiated the physical contacts, reassuring him this was more than alright. Now he didn’t hesitate anymore but you still sensed him stiff in some of your embraces. More held back.

Fidgeting with the bandages on your left hand, you felt your heart squeeze at the thought. With everything going on in the aftermath of the whole story, you didn't really have time to speak about it yet. Maybe today was the right moment.

The sound of the door opening made your head lift up. Exiting the principal’s office, Tyler had his shoulders slouched despite the encouraging smile of Weems behind him. When he saw you, your boyfriend gave you a sincere, soft smile. But it didn’t last long and only a few seconds after he looked away, almost ashamed and scurried to the end of the corridor without another word.

Mouth agape, you watched him practically running away from you without any explanation. The headmistress calling your name tore you out of your deception surprise and you turned to her.

“I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes, Miss Van Helsing. Do you mind waiting a little more?”

Still taken aback by your boyfriend’s odd behavior, you only nod your head to the Headmistress, who gave you a small smile before shutting her office’s door. Sighing, you slumped in your chair feeling a bit lost.

“How are you holding up?”

The sound of her voice made you realize that Dr.Fern had taken the seat next to yours. The fae therapist was looking at you with kind, concerned eyes. Although she knew you weren’t going to pour all your emotions on the spot, the aura of wariness and sadness you carried around kind of worried her.

Despite her original thought, you shrugged. “I’ve been better. I’ve been worse too, so I guess not so bad in the end.”

That made the fae smile sadly. Surely you hadn’t the best coping mechanism, but in all honesty after everything you went through, she thought that you were, indeed, not doing so bad. As to prove that, you dodged the subject.

“Why are you here?” you genuinely asked. “I thought that Weems only wanted to hear the testimonies of people who had been here?”

“She wanted my insight on the self-defense aspect of Tyler’s transformation,” she said. “Although it was more for a legal aspect, I’m pretty sure she had been convinced of it before I even stepped in the room. I wouldn’t worry about him being framed again.”

You nodded, grateful to hear that. Still, the pained look in your eyes didn’t fade away; this wasn’t what was truly bothering you. Sighing deeply again, you slumped, looking at the wall in front of you.

“How long before he gets eaten up by guilt?” you asked in a tired tone.

Dr.Fern’s eyebrows rose up a little, but frankly she was only half surprised. You didn’t seem like the kind of person to trust a therapist’s opinion, but this wasn’t the monster hunter who asked it. This was the young adult worried for her boyfriend, and afraid of how drifting apart you two were.

“He’s already plagued with guilt,” she answered after a silence. “I’m not sure it will leave so soon.”

You shook your head, more for yourself than for her. “No one’s expecting it to. Everyday I tell him he doesn’t have to feel guilty, that I don’t hold any grudge against him, I just…”

“Yes?”

You hesitated, then turned to face the therapist. The tears on the corner of your eyes stunned her.

“I don’t want to lose him,” you muttered, throat tight. “Not like that. Not when I can feel him drifting away a little more everyday, watching him destroy himself with guilt and not being able to do anything. And if he leaves I… I’m not even sure what I would do.”

The way your voice broke a little at the end of your sentence truly made her sympathetic of you. For a moment, you almost felt relieved to have been able to put words on what you felt, and to share it with someone you could trust. But just as quick, your protective self came back and you wiped the tears that were threatening to fall. The therapist respectfully looked away, knowing that showing yourself being vulnerable had been quite a progress for you already. She didn’t make any comment either when you awkwardly adjusted your posture on the chair, like nothing happened.

“You know,” she said after a silence, “I always wondered how you managed to get Tyler to let you help him.”

Frowning, you looked at her, “What do you mean?”

“Well he was always willing to take therapy sessions with me, but I’m his assigned therapist, it makes sense. However he was never too keen on letting strangers get close, did he?”

You thought about it. “I suppose?...”

“So he would never have let anyone he didn’t know help him, let alone inspiring respect right?” she continued. “Yet you managed to make him do both, I wonder how.”

Remembering the rocky beginnings of your relationship, you snorted softly, “I was a bitch to him, that’s how I did that.”

That made her smile too, “Then maybe two times’ the charm.”

The door of Weems’ office opened, the headmistress expecting you in and that put an end to your conversation. Dr.Fern gave you one last polite smile before taking her leave too, leaving you quite perplexed by the chat you two had.

But after all, maybe she was right. You didn’t want Tyler to leave because of some stupid guilt – then maybe it was time to bitch him into his way out of it. The old fashioned Y/N-Van-Helsing-way.

Twenty minutes later, after a very short and for once not unpleasant meeting with Weems, you made your way confidently to your dormitory. This part of the building had thankfully been relatively untouched by the fire, so you still had most of your belongings here. And so did Tyler. That’s why you were pretty sure you’d found him in your room, packing his things in a hurry before you came back. And that’s exactly how you found him when you bursted in the room unannounced.

A shirt in hand and the other opening a backpack, Tyler jumped in surprise, staring at you. He stood here with eyes wide as saucers, like a deer caught in headlights. You gave him a half-soft, half-snarky smile.

“Oh, you’re packing? Don’t forget your visa, you’ll need it to get to the checks-in of Dumb Man Land.”

“I– “

“Take some sweaters too,” you said casually, neatly folding one of said pieces of clothes like everything was normal, “I’m not sure that thick skull of yours would be enough to keep you warm.”

Tyler dropped his bag, approaching you slowly. “Babe I–”

“I assume you know my address to keep me updated,” you cut him, packing a pair of jeans too, “surely you already have it and planned to leave a note to me when you would have left without a word, right?”

“Hey,” he said, gripping your hand to make you face him. “Look at me.”

The two of you stared at each other for long seconds. Him with pained, guilty eyes, you with a mix of sarcasm and hurt. And just like that, he knew how pained you were, fully aware of what he had planned, no matter how much casualness and sarcasm you put into your action to stay strong. His heart broke at the sight.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I have to leave.”

“Like hell you do,” you scoffed.

The tone you used was softer than he would have thought.

“I can’t stay here with you,” he pressed, voice wavering. “I can’t be around after everything I did.”

“Says who?” you countered daringly.

At first the bold attitude had surprised, then puzzled him, but now it almost irritated him. How could you not understand?

“I do,” insisted Tyler frantically. “Don’t you see? I’m a fucking danger Y/N!”

You shrugged, “Not that I’m aware of. Well, except in bed but that’s not something I would complain about, tiger.”

The wink at the end of your sentence almost made him lose it and he gripped your shoulders frantically. Even through your clothes, you could feel his hands shake and his eyes were full of tears.

“Why don’t you get it!” he cried, on the verge of maniac tears. “None of this should have happened! I’m a fucking monster Y/N, just– look at you!” he pleaded, letting go of your shoulder to hold up your left hand – very carefully – between his larger ones. “Look at what I did to you!!”

The slap echoed before it stung. Cheek red, Tyler didn’t move his head under the sheer shock of your action. You however, stood very calm with your hand mid hair. Slowly recomposing his spirits, he turned to gaped at you.

“Did- did you just…”

“Slapped you? Hell yeah I did,” you huffed in a firm voice. “And if you’re pulling out the “You’ll be safer without me” bullshit, I swear to God I’ll fucking do it again.”

“You would be safer away from–”

Another slap landed on his other cheek, this time with your bandaged hand. The shot made the pain rise up again and you cursed at it. That made Tyler glance at you with worry. Instead, you gave him a smug smirk – or at least the best you could pull through the wince of pain.

“See? I can still slap some sense into you with my frankenstein’s hand. Seems good enough for me so drop the bullshit.”

Equally stunned by your words and your actions, Tyler could only stare at you. To be honest, he had expected every kind of reaction from you; cries, rage, maybe even begging.

But he would have never thought that you would literally punch some sense into him; it felt like the first time you had pinned him on the ground when he had tried to attack you on his first day here. Even with a half healed hand and a splintered ankle, you stood here tall and proud before him, not taking any of his shit.

As the realization sinked in him your eyes softened and you took his face in both of your hands.

“I’m fine, Tyler,” you said softly. “Doctors patched me up, I’m in one piece, the rest will heal with time. I’m fine,” you repeated, gently forcing him to look at you. “You have no reason to feel guilty about anything.”

“I attacked you,” he muttered in a broken voice. “I hurt you,” he continued, fingers grazing your bandaged hand, “how can you not be angry at me?”

A sad smile made its way to your face. “You weren’t yourself,” you reminded him, “there’s nothing to be mad about.”

Tyler could feel the sincerity of your words, he truly did. Still the guilt wasn’t so easy to brush away. So you continued.

“Do you know what hurt me the most?” you asked softly, and his eyes widened in fear. Dozens of answers swirled in his mind.

Noticing it, you caressed his cheekbone with your thumb to ground him before carrying on, “That you thought leaving me would actually help me. Or you.”

He stuttered a bit. “I…I didn’t think you would ever want to see me again,” he confessed. “Or being with me.”

You cocked your head to the side, “What did I do to make you think that? Did I act any differently with you since that night?”

“...no,” he admitted.

That, at least, made you smile sincerely. “I’m tough Tyler,” you promised. “But not tough enough to see you walk away to punish yourself and hurt the both of us in the process.”

He bore his deep brown eyes into yours, and with that you were unable to stop the tears from falling.

“I love you,” you choked on with a sob, “so I’m asking you this with everything I have: please, please, don’t leave me alone. I can’t do it anymore, not when I still get the chance to hold you in my arms, Tyler. Do you want me?”

“Always,” he answered feverishly without a doubt.

“Then let me be with you,” you smiled through tears, “I don’t want to fight alone, never again. I found a home with you Tyler Galpin, please don’t shut yourself from me again. Don’t let me shut myself to you again, or else I don’t know what kind of atrocity I would become without you.”

A beat passed. Then you were enveloped in a tight, bone-crushing hug, pressed against Tyler’s chest. The moment you felt his arms around you, you didn’t bother anymore to hold back tears and let yourself sob against his shoulder. Tyler’s face was buried in your neck, and although he didn’t make any sounds, you could feel him shake with his own sobs. You held each other tightly, painfully aware of how close you had been to losing each other just moments ago.

At some point, you didn’t really know when, you had ended up laying on the bed, still entrapped in each other’s embrace. Carefully lifting his head from your neck, Tyler pressed a long kiss against your forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“I know,” you sniffled, curling yourself to tug your head against his collarbone.

“I’m an idiot.”

“I know,” you repeated with a chuckle, then lifting your face to meet him. “But you’re my idiot.”

Tyler smiled warmly and pressed his lips against yours, making you sigh through the kiss. it felt like it was the first time you kissed him since that night. It felt like finally, he was back.

“Promise me you won’t abandon me,” you pleaded softly between kisses.

Looking at you lovingly, Tyler caressed your face. “I won’t,” he promised before diving on your lips again.

This time you moaned, and you slid one hand to his cheek, keeping him close to you. But then you felt him taking your hand gently in his and you broke the kiss, looking at him intensely. The freckled boy looked at your bandaged hand with sad eyes, before dropping soft kisses on each of your knuckles.

“I’m truly sorry about your hand.”

“It’ll heal,” you reassured him. “Plus, you won’t be the only one with badass scars to show off now,” you winked.

He chuckled and the sound made your heart flutter. “Or I’ll have to find how to make it up to you for the rest of my life.”

It was your turn to grin. “I’m sure you’ll find something to work with,” you teased as your other hand slid under his shirt.

Almost two months later, all of the students and professors of Nevermore academy stood in the courtyard. In front of a newly reconstructed building, Principal Weems proudly stood on a stage, delivering diplomas to last year students with large smiles.

The day was promising for everyone, for it held a symbol of accomplishment for some, of vacations for others, and for most the end of a complicated year. For Tyler and you, it was a little bit of the three.

You both stood in the courtyard among graduating students, your diploma in your right hand. Next to you, Tyler was holding your left one lovingly. His own diploma was secured in his pocket; the proof that he had made it through the year and that he was, as the agreement with the judge had specified, now a free man. He glanced at you, a soft smile on his lips. You too were free now; he couldn’t help but wonder what the two of you could do now.

As Principal Weems was making one last speech, you felt Tyler’s gaze on you and turned to him with a smile.

“What is it?”

The only sight of your smiling face brushed the lingering doubts away from Tyler’s mind. Maybe he had an idea of what you could do after all.

Raising your hand with his, he pressed a kiss on the back of it. His lips left your skin, but he still brushed one of the scars around your fingers with his thumb. All of that under your loving gaze.

“You know,” he whispered to you, “I have thought of how you could cover those scars.”

Slightly surprised, you cocked your head, “Oh yeah? How?”

Looking up at your face, Tyler gave you the soft smirk you had fallen in love with.

“By putting a ring on those fingers.”

Around you, the crowd cheered and applauded the last speech. At first you didn’t react; but then the biggest grin grew on your face. Just as if they were coming home, your lips naturally found their way to graze Tyler’s.

“Sounds like a plan, pretty boy.”

A/N: Annnnd that’s a wrap!! Again, I’m so so very sorry for the long period of time it took to write the last three chapters, and for the shitty plot of the last one QwQ Life had been complicated and hectic for the past 4 months, writting had been incredibly hard. Still, I’m satisfied with this fic and wanted to thank everyone for your patience and your kind words! Take care of yoursleves ♥♥

-Zoey

Taglist:

@igotanidea @officerrrfriendly @beggingforxavierthorpe @aliciahlewis @stresseyzesty @katiemrty @leightonsteele @black-swan-blog27 @mooniesthings @nightfurya @steadypoetrydinosaur @hellokittysblog0 @thecraftoflove @yasmine302 @huang-the-geek @sahvlren

Usernames unfound by Tumblr:

@spiceyhotsherbet

#tyler galpin #tyler galpin imagine #tyler galpin x you #tyler galpin fanfic #tyler galpin x reader #tyler galpin x y/n #tyler galpin angst #Wednesday #wednesday series #wednesday netflix #Van Helsing! Reader #no beta we die like men

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afandommultiverse · 1 year ago

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Showing Miles Quaritch the Vitraya Ramunong

❀ A/n - oh. my. god- IT FEELS GOOD TO BE BACK LMAO!! Finally got these HCs out only AFTER I got my car back from it being stolen and my college semester is over🤩 but you know what? AWOW is on Disney+ now and I put that shit on so fast and IM READY TO WRITE AGAIN!! I missed my hardass colonel🥰

❀ EXTRA A/n - I know it’s been super long but these HC’s are for @isimpforfictionalppl as they asked for a continuation on the last post! Sorry it took so long boo🫶

❀ Warnings - None really besides my foul language and the amount of fluff in this

❀ WC - 2.6k

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

✿ After nearly a month and a half of being a hostage for Quaritch and his team, the anger of being captured and taken from the people you’d come to love and live with began to dissipate. Don’t get me wrong, it was still there, but the feeling of anger and always fighting back was exhausting, so slowly but surely, you were coming to terms with your predicament.

✿ However when Quaritch told you Jake and his family, your family, fled to the islands, that anger returned, and there was a good week where you didn’t eat, yelled, and threw fits when Quaritch demanded his usual lessons on ‘All things Na'vi.’

✿ That was when Spider would step in and take over lessons for the day, knowing that giving you time and space was the best thing for you now. He knew you were hurt—not just angry; he was too, but you had a long history with Jake and Neytri, and this felt like a bigger betrayal to you.

✿ Quaritch could sense this too; even though it was pissing him off and stupid to him, he could see where you were coming from and tried not to bother you until he deemed it necessary. When the hissy fit of yours hit for seven days, he was over it and knew he needed to get you over it too.

✿ So he took you out—no guards, no other squad members, and surprisingly, no spider. He had offered, but Spider decided against it, instead choosing to stick with the science geeks. He warned you with the usual threats, warning you not to run, attack, or do anything else stupid that would leave him pissed and you in a shittier mood for even longer.

✿ The second you hit the forest line, you ran. You can run so fucking fast that you didn’t bother to wonder if Quaritch was following you. You weren’t running away; you couldn’t. You couldn’t leave Spider, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to get away; they would find you, and if they didn’t capture you back up again, they would only follow you to see if you would lead them to the village to use against Jake, even though they couldn’t even find him now.

✿ You ran fast, but Quaritch was faster; it wasn’t long before you heard his thundering footsteps and loud curses, calling out to you to stop now or your punishment will be worse. You didn’t listen; you were only ducking under branches and roots and running through creeks and ponds. Quaritch didn’t realize you weren’t running away until he saw you turn your head and smirk at him. He could see the humor in your eyes from here.

✿ He was so captivated by that look in your eyes that he almost ran into you when he realized you had stopped. You took a deep breath and sat down on your knees, taking a few more breaths before leaning forward and laying your arms out and your face in the grass. He didn’t know what you were doing, but he let you; he watched you and waited.

✿ When you picked him up, he heard a sniffle, his ears twitching at the sound, and he immediately hated it. When you turned to look at him, two stray tears slowly fell from your cheeks. You motioned him forward, guiding him to sit just as you were.

✿ "You want your lesson for today?" Your voice is a bit more hoarse from no use, and when it was used, it was usually just yelling as of late.

✿ "I wouldn’t mind having my favorite teacher for today." He joked—well, you thought it was a joke, but in truth, he was being honest. You corrected him in ways he would remember, usually by smacking him on the side of his head or pulling his tail, but it worked. Lessons with Spider didn’t usually stick with Quaritch; Spider wouldn’t dare hit him like that; rather, he would reply with smart remarks that turned into arguments.

✿ "Take your shoes off." He gave you a weird look before shaking his head.

✿ "No. The kid tried that, no." He shook his head, his lips pinched in disapproval. You rolled your eyes, wiping your cheeks, and gave him a no-nonsense look.

✿ "Do you want your lesson?" His lips frowned into a thin line, staring at you hard before grumbling and turning away to shuck off his shoes. All while he mumbled how ‘stupid’ it all was.

✿ Finally, he stood barefoot on the grass beside where you sat.

✿ "What do you feel?" You asked, looking up at him questioningly. You had your thoughts and opinions on the workings of these new recumbents; they had to have just as much of a connection to Eywa as yours and Jake's hybrid bodies did.

✿ "What do I feel? I don’t feel anything. What, you mean the ground?" He stepped around, looking for something to feel, but still felt nothing other than the soft, dewy grass beneath his feet.

✿ You stood up, grabbing his forearms on top and guiding his hands to hold your forearms as well. He stood watching you quietly before you looked up at him and demanded he close his eyes. He did, not even thinking twice before obeying your order. Something about that bugged him, but he continued to follow it.

✿ "Take a deep breath." He took a weak breath in and out, hoping that would appease her, but the quick kick to his shin let him know it wasn’t, so he took a deep breath in, and the tension in his back and shoulders he was trying to keep to stay alert fell away in one, two, or three breaths. That was when he felt it.

✿A buzz underneath his feet, not like a vibration or movement, just the hum of life underneath his feet. He began to step around, thinking, ‘Did you just make me step on a toxic plant?’ He was immediately suspicious of the feeling beneath him that slowly began to course up his legs.

✿ "What do you feel?" you emphasized. That was when he opened his eyes, finding yours staring up at him with emotions that made him fall silent. There was hope in those eyes—not one he had ever seen before during your stay here. Miles had seen your eyes, angry, sad, and even a little happy, but this hope was different than your hope to escape. So he replied.

✿ I don’t feel nothing, nothin’." He felt your fingers push harder on his pulse, but he was smarter than that and, of course, older than that. This body may be young, but he is still the man he once was. That hope of yours was dashed; your eyes narrowed, and you let go of his arms, stepping away from him. He almost missed you, but he too stood back, going to put his shoes back on.

✿ "No, come on." You turned and started walking away without hesitance; he looked back.

✿ "Where are you going?" He leaned down and grabbed his boots, ready to catch up with you when you broke out into a sprint again. He had no choice but to drop the shoes if he really wanted to catch up with you; running barefoot around here was going to have to make him focus more, and he hates to admit it, but you are faster than you look.

✿ So they were gone, and he was trying not to step on anything sharp, poisonous, or anything else above that could render him in any shape or form. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t trust you.

✿ When you finally stopped and waited for him, it made him grind his teeth as he jogged up to your smug smile, barely even breathless while he took a second to gather himself. "Just what the hell is this?" He waved to the bush you stood in front of. A smug smile fell from your face as you rolled your eyes and turned around, facing the bush and pulling down its leaves to reveal a tranquil, illuminated sight.

✿ "Vitraya Ramunong," you said, stepping through the bush that seemed to move around you to let you through, and the bush held open waiting for him to pass as well. As we walked through, I felt it close behind him, closing in on him until he was out on the other side. ‘The Tree of Souls,’ he thought to himself.

✿ He had never seen them before—not in person anyway. It was a sight; he felt his eyes grow wider as he looked on. He never realized how translucent the branches were; he could almost see the works of the tree as they circulated like veins. As he stood in awe of one of the smaller trees, you stood by and watched him.

✿You knew he was lying; he had to be; even Eywa recognized him. ‘Eywa,’ you thought to yourself, questioning this sign and its meaning. When you zoned back into the moment and Quaritch still stood in awe of the tree, you hesitantly reached out and grabbed his hand.

✿ His attention pulled away from the trees, and he looked down at your conjoined hands before meeting your eyes. He even went to pull away his hand, but you held on. "Come." You pulled him deeper into the glowing forest, bringing him to what appeared to be a sapling compared to the other illusive trees. You sat down in front of it, once again bowing and pushing your arms out, except this time you kissed the ground, whispering something in Na'vi tongue, before looking back up at Quaritch.

✿ "I want to show you something." You grabbed your queue, bringing it over your shoulder, and opened it up before him. He had looked at himself a lot when he first woke up, but nonetheless, the sight of a queue unfolding was still incredible, and when you held out your hand, he was weary of your future intentions.

✿ "Now hold up, sweetheart. I like you and all, but I know how this goes, so I appreciate the offer and all-" Your offered hand moved quickly and slapped his shoulder hard, leaving a reverberating sting, and before he could react, you slapped him again in the same spot. "What the hell was that for?" Grabbing your hand in case you intended to strike again

✿ "That is not what I meant! I want to show you a memory!" You held out your hand again, and he stared at it for a few seconds before gilding his hand down his queue. He hesitated before setting it in her hand, staring at your palm, but he handed it to you gently.

✿ He watched as you held it, the queue unfolding, before you guided it to a branch and attached it slowly. It wasn’t long before you laid yours down as well, covering the very top of his.

✿ "Take a deep breath." You said that, and Miles complied, taking a deep breath, but when he opened his eyes again, he almost freaked out.

✿ A different environment surrounded him; the soul trees that once surrounded him were gone, replaced with a meadow with tall flowers and giant leafy plants that hung over his head. He looked around, searching for you, and found you behind him.

✿ "Where are we? What happened?" He walked towards you, but you only held your finger up to your lips and hushed him, turning around and walking a few steps forward.

✿ "Mom?" A young voice called out, searching through the plants before stumbling out and finding you. A little boy, his face lighting up at the sight of you, bolted towards a giant smiling and pulling at his lips.

✿ "Mom!" He jumped, and you grabbed him, swinging around and throwing him up in the air a bit before catching him and putting him down. "What are you doing, my little spider?" You spoke, leaning down to look at his hands, which held different assorted flowers in them.

✿ "I think I have all the flowers I want." He held them up to show you, explaining why he had chosen them. Miles watched, numb with shock and almost not believing the sight in front of him. ‘This is a memory," he whispered to himself, looking on and observing the interaction between you two.

✿ You stood and grabbed his hand; he led you forward, and Miles followed shortly behind the both of you. He realized now that Spider couldn’t see him; after all, it was a memory, your memory. He wondered what other memories you could show him.

✿ Spider stopped in front of a tall and rigid tree, where a big rock with moss growing all over it stood, a single pink flower growing at the very top edge. He crouched down and set the small bouquet he had gathered on the rock.

✿ "Is it okay to miss her? Even though I never met her, mom?" You smiled softly, reaching your hands out and fussing with his locks, laying them nicely and pushing down flyaways. "Of course it’s okay; she is who made you, carried you, and brought you into this world lovingly. Never forget her, my little spider; without her, you would cease to exist." You rubbed his cheek softly, patting it softly before pulling away.

✿ Spider looked at the rock and sat in silence for a second before turning back to you. "What about my dad?" You looked at his small face, turmoil turning in his eyes, searching for the answers he hoped you would have. You took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, watching birds fly to other trees and creatures swing from their branches, thinking of the words to say.

✿ You didn’t know the relationship Quaritch had with his newborn son before he died, but what you did know is that Petra would talk about his visits with him, and while he sounded distant, he nonetheless cared for the boy. "Without him, you also wouldn’t exist, my little bug; he may have done some wrong, some things even I don’t know about, but he loved you, and that deserves remembrance." Spider nodded his head and turned back to the rock. He took a few steps toward it before pulling something from his belt. He revealed an old tooth, specifically a front one from a Thanator.

✿ "Where did you get that little bug?" You asked, watching as he set the tooth on top of the rock. He sat there and looked at it for a bit before answering.

✿ "I found it while playing with Kiri; she fell and hurt herself, and when I helped her up, I saw it. I thought maybe..." Spider didn’t continue, but you knew what he meant. He wanted somewhere to pay his respects not just to his mother but to his father as well. Spider didn’t know the full story as he was still young; however, he did know enough to think that his father was the best of men in the eyes of Na’vi, and with your approval, he felt better about missing the absent figure in his life.

✿ Spider looked a little longer before slowly turning around and walking back to you. He sat down and rested against your chest as you wrapped your arms around him, holding him and rocking him slowly, humming an old song from when you were younger back on earth.

✿ "Oél ngáti kámeie, Mom." You leaned down and gave Spider a soft peck on the forehead before replying,

✿ "Oél ngáti kámeie, my little spider." Things around Quaritch slowly started to shimmer and disappear in a white light before the light completely engulfed Quaritch and caused his vision to become blank.

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

❀ A/n - I hoped you guys all enjoyed this little comeback, please remeber to like or comment or even request your own scenario. Thank you for reading! 🫶

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muuuumin · 1 year ago

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I don't know why I woke up with angst in my mind, maybe it's the bad weather? But here's just some thoughts on angst for Jaytim

I've read a few scenarios where Jason is afraid that he'll hurt Tim again, leave him a bloody mess but worse. It doesn't matter that he's gotten a better hold on the Lazarus pit rage, the scars that will never fade from Tim's body is a reminder that it will never truly be gone.

Maybe one time Jason's lazarus pit bubbles inside and its a terrible mix with whatever toxin Scarecrow has injected into him- he's fighting terrors and its too late by the time his fist connects with Tim's cheek. Thank god it wasn't his full raw strength, he'll be forever grateful that Nightwing was attempting to hold his arms back from behind. But it still leaves a nasty bruise on his babybird's face and when he comes around from the antidote, he can't bear to look at Tim who is by his side. Jason hates how Tim is only worried for him when he's the one with a bruised face, hates that his wonderful boyfriend has tried to cover the worst of the bruise with makeup and gives him a reassuring smile. Jason absolutely hates the fact that Tim forgives him before he even says he's sorry.

Jason has never felt any shittier.

"I hurt you."

"We always get hurt on the job." Tim gives him a small smile and reaches forward to hold his hand, but Jason pulls away. Tim's eyebrows furrow as he frowns a little.

"Yeah but I was the one who hurt you."

Tim sighs and shakes his head, "Jason, the toxin was influencing you heavily. I don't blame you at all."

"It wasn't just the toxin, Tim. It mixed with the Laz.. the Lazarus pit inside me. It means its still very much there and we won't know what will happen the next time something goes wrong."

Tim seemed to be staring hard at Jason's face, not liking how his boyfriend was avoiding his eyes. His mind calculating his next words carefully with a small swallow.

"You've come a long way Jason, the toxin would have caused you to become aggressive with or without the lazarus pit so-"

"I think we should take a break."

Jason interrupts Tim, teal eyes returning to him.

Jason and Tim both know there isn't a simple 'break' for them. It's either a harsh clean or they stick it through, anything else was too complicated.

"You don't want that." Tim says firmly and crosses his arms over his chest.

"I don't want to hurt you again."

Tim flushes angrily, "and this isn't hurting me? Because it makes me so happy to hear those words come from you?"

Jason flinches and wishes that they weren't at the batcave.

"Tim please, I-"

But Tim snaps, "I know you're scared. I'm scared too, but I'm scared that this single incident from our 3 years of dating is making you want to throw it all away. I know you're hurting, but please don't give up on us. Not... Not unless you stop loving me." His voice falters to almost a whisper at the last sentence, and Jason instinctively reaches out to him, pulling Tim close to his chest, to his beating heart.

"I will never stop loving you." He mumbles into Tim's hair, breathing in the shampoo they share together. "I'm sorry.."

Tim doesn't say anything, just trying to compose himself and pressing his face into the comfort of Jason's chest.

#jaytim #tim drake #jason todd #red robin #batfam #red hood #dcu #leaving it not fully resolved because angsty #tbh in the morning I had them have a shouting contest but I wasnt feeling as raw angst now so its mellowed out fast #maybe later they have a fight about this again

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papercutsunset · 1 year ago

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Gold and Steel

Listen-- PMS has been kicking my ass and I forgot to edit this yesterday. Even now, I'm hunched over because (glitter here) the nausea's back. BUT!! The Bloodsaw brainrot is also back. This would take place right before Tunnels of Terror. (Also, peep the Harrison Bergeron mention. Remember how Bloodsaw died protecting him and then he died of [redacted]?)

WIP: The Monster Lesbian Support Group

Word count: 998

Prompt: Sex (didn't use it much. It's more implied)

Warnings: some homophobia stuff (mentions. it's 1997.)

Sitting on the edge of the bed with her sweater undone, Laura fumbles the chain of her cross. Putting it back around her neck is always an issue of fingers on lobster claws and chewed-down nails aching. She isn’t the one who needs to wash her hands, anyway.

I would consider doing it for her, but I’m not sure why she wears it. It’s not faith. She told me that months ago, sitting on the hood of my car in a secluded spot by the edge of the lake where nobody could see us.

I know why, I suppose. It’s not a question worth asking. Appearances need to be kept up, right? Laura Mandarin needs to be the pristine, god-fearing former-high-school-cheerleader as much as Caroline Bradshaw needs to be the opposite. They would blame the fry cook at the Dairy Prince for corrupting such a vulnerable girl as Laura Mandarin. Never mind that all this was her idea. I know how the blame game works. It wouldn’t be the first time.

It’s a small thing, the cross. Delicate. Gold. Treasured. She got it when she was twelve, back in Pine Valley. How fitting, compared to the steel up my ears and in my eyebrow.

I toy with the edge of the curtain, propped up on one elbow by the window. The plaster is crumbling again. It’s a side effect of living in this shitty second-floor-apartment with a shittier landlord in an even shittier town. I fucking hate this place.

The only question worth asking, while I shrug my bra and shirt back on, is, “Do you need a ride?”

She takes her hair out of the back of her sweater and lets the blonde waterfall cascade down white polyester. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question.”

Laura looks at me over her shoulder, eyes connecting across every plane of existence. “I don’t need a ride.”

“Alright.”

“But I’d like one.”

My heart skips a beat. I’m not going to admit it. “I’ll drive you home, then.”

“Will you help me?” She holds up the cross, dangling from the gold chain, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

You could call me hypnotized. It’s a moment of intimacy in the dark of a room in the morning, a moment of intimacy before we go back to acting like nothing ever happened, a moment of hands brushing hair from her neck so I don’t catch it in the clasp.

She’s the perfect picture of America. Not late-nineties-hip, but pure. Skirt down past her knees when she pulls it back down, sweater neat and tucked in, cross hanging delicately around her collar. It’s like these moments together that make things feel right: her hands in my hair, tangling black snarls around slender fingers, rings cast on the floor, the sheets tousled and left as askew as us.

I move her hair back into place and lean around her, the snake around Eve’s torso. “You know, I don’t have to get to work for another hour.”

She giggles when my fingers brush her chin. I melt in turn. But, in the way the routine dictates, she shimmies away. “I have to get home. You know my dad worries.”

“He still thinks you’re seeing some guy named Bloodsaw.”

“Yeah, and he isn’t stoked.” Laura stands, smooths out her skirt. When she turns around, she leans down over me with her hands squarely where she had been sitting. “But I am.”

She plants a quick kiss on my mouth before I turn my legs and get out of bed, stretch myself out, and stare the day in front of me down the barrel. It’s a routine I’m used to. I wash my hands in the kitchen sink. Breakfast is peaches-and-cream oatmeal and toast with cream cheese. She does her makeup in the bathroom; I put on pants before we leave; she only entwines her fingers with mine when we’re alone in the hall or the stairwell. I’ll take what I can get, even if I want more.

I drive her home to the sound of the scat station on the radio. We mostly listen to it as a joke, a merit patch for living here. It goes by all too quickly, and then we’re at her father’s— and then her hand is gone from my leg, and she’s out on the curb.

She leans down to look at me through the window, hair falling to frame her face. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, but I’ll see you at the party later, right?”

Right. That dumbfuck rich kid tunnel party I explicitly wasn’t invited to. I swallow. “Yeah, sure. I have to work, though, so I might be late.”

“That’s fine. As long as you’re there.” She assesses my face, reads something I didn’t mean to write there. “I want you there, you know.”

“I know. I’ll try.” It’s a promise I don’t mean to make. It rests on my tongue, anyway.

“Good.” Her grin is May sunshine; I wish she would kiss my cheek. “Maybe we can sneak off, if we’re careful.”

I can’t hold back a soft laugh. “With all your preppy friends around?”

“Oh, Care. I know you like cheap beer, and there’s going to be plenty. Harrison promised.”

Harrison, that fucker. Laura captivates me, though. That’s the issue with having a girlfriend you would do anything for. “Fuck. Fine. Okay.”

Another ray through the clouds, lips wide over perfect white teeth. “Good! I’ll see you there.”

She takes my hand in hers— gold-painted nails on steel rings through the window of a car I know is going to break down later. The blame game doesn’t work here. This is a moment where she didn’t watch her last boyfriend die; this is a moment where I don’t kill demons because angels told me to. There’s no blood on our hands and faces. It’s just us.

I want so desperately, it hurts. “I’ll see you there.”

#pride month drabble challenge #lake wonder #bloodsaw #laura mandarin #writing #monster lesbian support group

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themadsquirrel09 · 1 month ago

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Find you ☆ Chapter 8

👉 Click here to go to chapter 1! 🎆

👉 Or read on AO3 💬

Fandom ☆ South Park

Ships ☆ KenMan ♡ KenEric (Eric Cartman x Kenny McCormick), Clybe (Bebe StevensxClyde Donovan) and Creek (Tweek TweakxCraig Tucker). There might be some glimpses of other ships.

Characters ☆ Kenny McCormick, Eric Cartman.

Rating ☆ M

Warnings ☆ Swearing, violence, fluffiness, tegridy. They are aged up here. It starts when they are 14, but happens mostly when they are 18, at the last year of school.

Chapter summary ☆ Where do you go when winning means nothing?

☆ 395 words ☆

With love: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Stan

The fight is over and I won, but it never feels like it. I put my Mysterion costume on and walk aimlessly, but end up right in front of Cartman’s house. Maybe because nobody is looking, I can’t hold back the tears. That is until a light hits my face.

“Kenny?” Eric comes close and pulls me by the wrist. “Shit! Come here. Try to stay quiet so Liane won’t hear us, ok?” This time, I’m the one squeezing his hand while we go upstairs. “God-fucking-dammit. What is going on?” He asks as we get into the room.

“I got into a fight with the old man, busted his face real good,” I say, smiling bitterly.

“Fuck,” His eyes fill with tears. I know he cries easily, but I wasn’t expecting this! He looks pretty though, with the emotion free and tears gleaming on his clear eyes.

“Eric… it's ok.” He hugs me. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he whines.

“Is not that bad, I just need to sleep.”

“No Kenny, we have to clean those wounds first.” He pushes me away, then goes out of the room; soon Cartman is back carrying food and a first aid kit. “I knew your parents were assholes, but I thought they mostly fought each other,” I sit on the bed and he gets ready.

“Lately they seem to have it against Karen, they don’t hit her, but they insult her and I can’t fucking contain myself.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and I relax my tensed fists.

“I should make them into chili.” I let out a snort.

“No, I don’t want to end up far away, in a place that’s even shittier.” I take his hand and it is calming, we were in the same foster home and it sucked, even if it was just for a while.

“You can stay here. We could bring Karen.”

“Are you serious?”

“Wait, don’t move,” Eric says, lifting my chin, cleaning a cut. I look at him, kneeling in front of me, healing my wounds. I want to remember this. “Well, I don’t know what else we could do without killing.” I take off his hat, run my fingers through his hair.

“I’ll think about it.” Suddenly, I’m too tired. I get into the covers, he says something and I’m not sure if I fall asleep or pass out.

Prev ☆ Next

#sp fanfiction #sp kenman #kenny mccormick #eric cartman #squeethelines

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blackirishweab · 1 year ago

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@mevima I got you

[Video starts]

Person 1 (suit): You know, we used to be called Dunkin Donuts, but now the donuts are trash thanks to him.

Person 2 (lab coat): they’re dry, cruel, stale… almost resentful hunks of cardboard.

Person 3 (apron): *clearly stressed* it’s an unsustainable way to make donuts.

Suit: we are hemorrhaging cash on these things, gentlemen.

Apron: there has to be a reason.

Lab coat: he’s lost it.

Apron: *starting to sweat* that man invented the Strawberry Refresher and the Everything Bagel. He knows what he’s doing.

Suit: listen, the board wants him out. Just, just talk to him, Jo (referring to apron).

*camera pans to a disheveled person (hair) who’s sorrowfully staring at one of the driest donuts know to man like it holds the answers to all the secrets of the universe, but it’s too late for any of those answers to have any impact on the world*

Jo (apron): sir? What would you have us… uh… do about the donuts?

Hair: *quietly* more. dry.

Suit: I’m sorry sir? (Asking Hair to repeat himself)

Hair: *still speaking quietly* more. dry.

Jo: sir, how can we-

Hair: *half shouting* I said more dry!

Lab coat: sir, any drier and the structural integrity of the donut, it’ll fail.

Hair: *with eyes and hair hinting at his carrying a burden almost too large for one person to shoulder* I want them dusty, scaly, chafen, hard… the pastry equivalent experience of fucking a skeleton.

Jo: we used to stand for something: quality donuts and coffee. And and, and now…

Suit: fine, you know, we could add Popeye’s biscuit mix to the formula

Hair: yes

Lab coat: a bit of concrete.

Hair: yess

Suit: fuck it, kitty litter,

Jo: *sweats and shakes his head in denial*

Hair: Drier, tougher, denser.

Lab coat: procure some kind of freeze dry machine/dehydrator that would remove all water from the donuts.

Jo: *sweating harder and shouting in distress* that’s just a round, shitty, cracker for fuck’s sake!

Hair: Fucking good, then! Good!

Jo: *dripping* why are we making these dry, fucking terrible, gross, stale donuts that no one will buy?

Lab coat: *glistening from the stress of having to bring so much pain into the world*

Hair: And what do we do with the donuts no one buys?

Suit: we dispose of them. We throw them all out in the garbage.

Hair: And where does the garbage go?

Jo: *even his hair is dripping wet now* into the garbage trucks, I’d imagine.

Hair: the garbage goes into unmarked box-trucks, headed for undisclosed government locations!

Jo: *starting to crumble under the thought of these donut shaped atrocities* And why the FUCK would you be doing that?

Hair: Joseph-

Jo: why are we stockpiling millions of fucking terrible donuts-

Hair: JOSEPH-

Jo: -that no one fucking wants?! *starting to sound desperate and worn down*

Hair: because… Jebicon 885, a 12 kilometer wide asteroid is headed directly for Earth. Dunkin’ has partnered with NASA in creating and engineering-

Jo: wha-

Hair:-the advanced heat shield tiles for the new space shuttle in using our shitty, dry, gross-ass, fucking shitty donuts to protect its crew from atmospheric entry and the blast of a 10 megaton nuclear payload that they must detonate inside the core of Jebicon 885.

…

Jo: oh my god…

Lab coat: so that’s why they’ve been so dry, stale, and hard all these years…

Suit: *nodding in stressed understanding*

Lab coat: …heat shields for the new space shuttle…

Hair: And if I have to be known for making the grossest, driest, most fucking terrible, shitty donuts to protect humanity, then so be it. You all are thinking quarterly. I’m thinking survival. Legacy. Alpha Centauri. Space and shit!

Suit: you can count on us. Whatever it takes, we’ll get it done.

Lab coat: we’ll find a way to make them even drier and shittier, sir.

Jo: we’ll get right on it sir.

Hair: *turning his back to the room* now get to work.

*Lab coat and Suit leave the room*

Joseph: Hey sir, I… I just wanted to say I, um, I’m sorry for doubting you, and-and I’m so proud that… you know, after this is all over, we can go back to making quality donuts that are soft and never frozen, and made at each location like we used to.

Hair: except… *turns back around* we won’t stop.

Jo: *shocked, confused, heartbroken, and utterly speechless*

Hair: How do you think they felt, Joseph, when my wife and infant daughter were quenched to death in the chihuahuan desert? How do you think they felt-

Jo: what?!

Hair: their pain, the key to saving humanity? And they live on through all those who choose to endure their suffering by eating these fucking abomination donuts?!

Jo: this can’t save them…

Hair: *perspiration gathering on his upper lip as he gives what started as a monologue, but spiraled into a deranged and sadistic manifesto* and, in turn, will lead to more Strawberry Refresher sales.

Jo: *mind shattering*

Hair: Can you see it now, Joseph? See the clock for all its inner workings, in its festooned ornamentation?

Jo: *absolutely losing it* no, no, no, no…

Hair: to see… everything. How do you think My Family felt?! A bit thirsty? A bit quenched? A bit… dry?!

[video ends]

This is better than any Marvel movie I have ever seen

#transcription #a poor one but a transcription nonetheless

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gantzxjoel · 2 years ago

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arrival. ft. moon siheon

well, this certainly is not the pearly white gates his christian upbringing had told him would be awaiting him.

it’s not the other place, either.

in fact, it seems kinda like a shittier version of his own apartment, with bare white walls and scuffed wood floors. except, unlike his apartment, there’s some people milling about, in anxious little bubbles here and there, chatting mildly while apparently waiting for… something, joel’s not entirely sure what.

the only person present who isn’t in a group is a small figure, seated against a nearby wall with knees pulled up, in a position far too casual for how short a dress they’re wearing. like they know where his gaze will be drawn, and sure enough, they’re right.

well hey, i’m already dead. what’s the worst that could happen? approaching the other - god, that’s a lot of pink. pink hair, pink dress, pink blush… wonder where else they’re pink too. - joel whistles lowly, putting on one of his more charming smiles as they look up. “i think i’m a little lost? i know there’s no way they let me into heaven, but if an angel like you’s around, then that must be where i’ve ended up.”

it’s cheesy, sure, but a pleased little smile crosses their face, so joel marks it down as worth the cringe.

“i’m joel.” he continues, tucking his hands into his pockets, aiming for something near cool despite the fact that he kinda looks like a hot fucking mess. his t-shirt is probably older than the person in front of him, a huge hole in one armpit, bearing the name of a band that broke up before he could even walk. he couldn’t bear to throw it out, same with his worn-out jeans and ratty ass sneakers. he feels comfortable, how he supposes someone should, right before they kick it, even if he kinda looks like an arctic monkeys reject. “can i sit?”

“siheon.” they smile, drawing his attention to their mouth, shiny with lip gloss. strawberry, if he had to guess. maybe cherry. “i was actually about to get up.” extending a small hand towards him, siheon entreats joel’s help to stand. dusting themselves off, siheon straightens their dress, watching joel as he watches them. “i know i’m short, but my eyes aren’t that far down. i take it you like it?”

“like is kind of an understatement.” he’d forgotten to pencil flirt with someone in purgatory into his plans for the day after kill yourself, damn. “what is this place, anyway?”

“not hell, but something close enough.” siheon sighs, idly checking their nails. “not everyone’s here yet, that’s why it hasn’t started. you’ll see once it does though. the boba,” they gesture behind joel, where there’s a large black orb that he hadn’t even noticed, too distracted by thirst, “will start talking, and we’ll be off doing god knows what. hopefully not more rats.” their nose wrinkles, evidently not a fan.

“rats?”

“yeah… there was like a maze, and rats… i don’t know. i’m probably the worst person you could’ve asked about what’s going on, honestly. when they explained it all the last time i was kinda having a breakdown. recently deceased and whatnot, y’know?”

oh, right. if he’s dead, that means siheon’s dead too. fuck. he wonders what happened. they look young, not like the kind of person who’d do something like he did. maybe drugs? either that or robbery. the charm bracelet around their tiny little wrist is worth more than joel makes in a year, at a quick glance.

“a maze sounds cool. not so sure on the rats bit, though. more of a snakes guy myself.” siheon shudders dramatically at this, making him crack a smile. “when’s the boba start talking?”

“once everyone’s here, i guess. we’re all supposed to be here by the hour. i don’t know what happens if you’re late, and i’m not exactly keen to find out.” shaking their head, siheon looks around, evidently observing the crowd. “watch out for that guy over by the door.” they nod off to one side, where a guy who looks like he could bench-press joel easily is stood, surveying the group. “he nearly killed me and one of the other players last time. you’ll know which one when you see him. the guy who looks like he’d be on the cover of men’s health.”

now that piques joel’s interest, more than rats or dudebros with anger issues. “you mean to tell me there’s not one, but two hot ass people here other than me? fuck, this really is heaven.”

siheon laughs, folding their arms over their chest. “this isn’t exactly a place to meet your next partner, unless you’re into trauma bonding. plus, captain korea’s a dick.”

“i love dicks.” double entendre, nice.

“i gleaned that much, yeah.” alright, call his ass out then, damn. “i’ll let you make your own decisions, but you can’t blame me if you waste your time with it.”

“sounds like you’re speaking from experience.” does siheon have tea? fuck, joel hopes they have tea. being dead kicks ass, so far.

laughing, siheon shakes their head. “i barely know the guy. like, literally, i don’t even know his name. i think we exchanged like, maybe 20 words to each other? not my fault most of his were rude. made a stellar first impression.” not the tea he was hoping for, but still spicy. hot people arguing? dinner and a motherfuckin’ show, if joel plays his cards right.

sucking his teeth, joel tries not to look too disappointed. “damn, and here i was hoping we were about to play house with some ripped daddy.”

this makes siheon pause in their fidgeting, glancing up from where they’d been absently picking at a loose thread in the bow on their dress. “are you always this insufferably horny?” insufferable, him? never. and here joel’d thought they’d been into it. hmph!

“mm…” joel pretends to consider, “nah, i think being dead is really doing it for me though. purgatory, giant talking boba… really gets the engine going.”

siheon hums. guess it’s not the craziest thing they’ve heard, all things considered. joel’ll have to try harder. “maybe get laid before the next time. last thing we need is some horny dog trying to hump our legs while we are in the middle of a battle. somebody’ll probably shoot you.”

skrrt, wait, back up. they get to have guns? forget getting laid. “we get to have guns?” the excitement must be visible on his face, as the look siheon gives him turns mildly concerned.

they seem to consider him for a moment, playing with their tongue piercing. not that he’s looking.

he’s kind of looking.

sighing, siheon rolls their eyes so hard he’s pretty sure they can see their brain, before shaking their head once more, as though disappointed. “i changed my mind. i think you’ll fit in just fine around here.”

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stayarmytinyzenmoa-l · 2 years ago

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Prominence [WCh. 2.70]

Social Media AU ; Idol AU ; Added Unit AU CW/TW: Language Genre: Comedy, Romance Pairing: NCT x Idol!Reader, Seonghwa x Reader Y/N Pronouns: Female (She/Her) Word Count: 3.2K

Notes: Hehe…. more angst Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thank you for reading!

26 February 2022

Yangyang woke up slowly, his eyes still heavy from staying up so late the night before and every limb aching from sleeping on the floor. He tugged at his pillow to turn over, but when instead he heard a groan, he backed off immediately.

"Dude, get off of me!" Yangyang pries Mark off of him.

"I should be saying that to you!" Mark groans. "Ugh... I can't feel my arms," Mark pushes up on the bed to stand. "(Y/N), are you-" He stops.

"What's wrong?" Yangyang sits up.

"Where... where did she go?" Mark's face drops into a frown. Yangyang shakes the grogginess out of his face.

"Oh no," Yangyang stumbles when he stands up. Grabbing one of the stuffed animals that had mascara wiped all over it. "Aww... poor Yuumi," Yangyang frowns.

"You're worried about the cat plush? We have to find (Y/N)!" Mark freaks out. The door opens next to him, Xiaojun standing there with his arms crossed and face mask freshly applied.

"She went with Kun for a walk," he says.

"Oh, thank god, I was so worried," Mark's shoulder slouched.

"I know. The walls are thin," he says. "Oh, and by the way, 'You're hot, why wouldn't Seonghwa want to date you again?' is not the right way to console a woman, Yangyang," Xiaojun shakes his head and Yangyang face heats up and Xiaojun closes the door.

"Do you think... do you think I was too harsh last night?" Yangyang asks. Mark shakes his head.

"I'm going to be honest, Yang, I don't think (Y/N) even remembers a lot of what you said. And even when she does, I think she kind of needed that. You know (Y/N), she's too stubborn, you really have to sit her down and give it to her cold for her to finally acknowledge things," Mark says.

"I mean... but still," Yangyang says. "I made her cry."

"She was already crying!"

"But still! I feel like a shitty friend!"

"You'd be an even shittier one if you didn't say anything, though. Just think of it like an intervention," Mark says. "Plus, she was sobering up around that time too, so she'll probably remember soon. If it wasn't us who told her that, it probably would've been someone else. I'd rather her hear that from us than from, god forbid, a police officer or anyone else," he says. Yangyang sits down on his bed, thinking back to last night.

"Yeah, you're right about that," Yangyang falls back, allowing himself to bounce on the mattress. He grabs onto the pillow and screams. "She hates me!"

"She doesn't hate you!"

"Oh my god, our friendship is ruined!"

"She probably doesn't even remember any of it!" Mark tries to console him.

"What about our blood pact, Mark?!"

"Our what now?!" Mark's jaw dropped and Yangyang reaches under his bed, pulling out a piece of paper with hastily drawn scribbles all over it with three fingerprints stamped onto it that were very obviously blood. "When the hell did we do that?!" Mark gasps. Yangyang holds it up to his face and squints, trying to make out the illegible writing.

"You know what? I have no idea," he frowns.

"What does it even say?"

"I can't really read it, but I think we're entitled to each other's first borns," Yangyang says with uncertainty. Mark's face remained in a state of shock.

"Man, if that's the worst that our drunk charades have gotten, then you have nothing to worry about last night," Mark says. Yangyang shoves the contract back under his bed.

"Yeah... you're right," Yangyang yawns. "I can't believe I let her take the bed, I should've made her walk back to her room, now my back's all jacked up," Yangyang twists uncomfortably and Mark chuckles.

"She needed it more than we did," Mark sighs. Yangyang could only nod, trying to salvage his messy bed.

Mark was right, he just said what you needed to hear, and if he was lucky, you'd remember it subconsciously at least.

Four hours earlier.

"Yeah, I knew she wasn't going to sleep," Yangyang watched you pace around his room, hands squeezing each other while you muttered incoherent things to yourself. Yangyang's hand flew up instinctively to catch whatever you threw at him.

"Get out of my room!" You shout.

"This is my room!" Yangyang gasps. "Why would you have a roll of toilet paper in your room?!" He argues. Mark shakes his head.

"Not the best argument, Yang," Mark grimaces.

"Seriously? I'm a guy!"

"You're disgusting," you flung a bottle of lotion at him next, something Yangyang quickly dodged.

"Okay, well, if I'm going to get lectured, I at least want you to be sober when you do it," Yangyang walks passed you and lightly pushes you on the bed. You dramatically sprawled over it and turned to Mark.

"Mark, did you see that? He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you, (Y/N)," Mark handed you a water bottle and you sat up.

"Why can't drunk you mistake Mark's room for your room for once? Why's it always mine?" Yangyang whines.

"Because I hate the 127 dorms!" You shout.

"Hey! What's wrong with my side of the dorms?" Mark asks.

"Doyoung is there!" You screamed into a pillow and, once it falls onto your lap, you stared at mark with the utmost seriousness. "He scares me."

"So you're not afraid of a literal stalker but you're afraid of Doyoung?!" Yangyang's jaw drops.

"That's different! I can't call the cops on Doyoung!"

"Why are we calling the cops on Doyoung?" Mark interjects.

"We're not! He just doesn't like me and I don't want to deal with that because it's not my problem!" You explained. The two boys stared at you and you scoffed. "Go away, I'm tired," you muttered, pulling the comforter over your lap.

"You're in my room! Go to yours!" Yangyang throws a pillow at you, but you quickly swat it away, its trajectory instead landing on Mark. "Mark! No! Baby, what happened?!" You cried. Mark only sighs.

"(Y/N), you're drunk, go to bed," he pushes you down gently, but his hand quickly retracts when tears well up in your eyes. Before he could move away, you latched yourself to his waist and Mark instinctively hugged back. "Is everything okay, (Y/N)? What happened out there?" He asks. Yangyang rolls his chair closer to the two of you, a comforting hand on your back now.

"I'm sick of everything right now," you blabbered. "I'm so sick of it. No one used to like me, everyone used to hate me, the hashtag '(Y/N)Out' trended weekly on Twitter then all of a sudden I have a stalker?" Your words were almost entirely slurred. "It's just not fair, Mark, what did I do? What the hell is this timing? Why is everyone blaming me for it?" You frowned. Mark just pat your head.

"Hey, come on, it's not your fault, (Y/N), none of us are upset over something you can't control," he says. "(Y/N), this is on the company to handle, they're the ones managing you."

"It's not that simple! This has been going on since I debuted! You may not be upset about it, but everyone else is, Mark! The company keeps saying that they'll handle it but then it just gets worse! I'm so sick of it! I breathe and people get pissed! It's just so horrible! There are so many horrible things about me that everyone's saying, but none of them are true! Jeno's like a brother to me, I can never see him romantically! I don't even have the skills to seduce anyone, alright? Seonghwa asked me out first, not the other way around! Hell, I wasn't even friends with him first, that was all Wooyoung! Keeho and I have known each other for years, Yeonjun and I just met, and I only happened to be in the same room with other guys! I've never bullied anyone in my life! I'm not lazy, I just can't dance in skirts as short as the ones they give me, alright? And I'm not a clutz either! I genuinely don't know where any of those stockings I used went, or any of the makeup brushes, or ribbons they put in my hair, I even use my own paycheck to get new ones! And I most certainly do not kill kittens!" You rambled. "Imagine, imagine, if I involved anyone else, it would just get worse for everyone's reputation, so it's better if everyone would just let me handle it," you insisted.

"(Y/N), did you not hear a single thing I said earlier?" Yangyang asks.

"Oh, you're the one to talk! I went out for dinner with you and Mark once before Photograph was even announced and people were calling me a prowling harlot while they were babying you both on Twitter," you argued. "Seriously! It was even your idea!"

"Geez, (Y/N), this is why we keep telling you to stay off of Twitter!" Mark steps in.

"Even if I salvaged my relationship, what if Seonghwa just hates me more now? I overreacted so much for no reason and I hate thinking about it because it's embarrassing!"

"Oh my god, (Y/N), you're hot, why wouldn't Seonghwa want to date you again?!" Yangyang insists.

"You think I'm hot?" You ask.

"That's not the point right now!"

"And, besides, what does the opinion of strangers on the internet mean in comparison to ours, (Y/N)? Your actual friends," Mark's voice, for the first time, had gotten louder than his usual comfort. Your lips sealed. Yangyang takes a deep breath.

"Look, (Y/N), I know it doesn't seem like it, but we get it, hell, we probably get it more than anyone else," Yangyang says. "What we don't get is why you're dealing with it on your own. You have Saeron and the others, you have Mark and I, and... I don't know what the hell is going on with you and Seonghwa but I'm pretty sure you have him too, there's no need to beat yourself up about any of those rumors. You know they're not true, we know they're not true, why does anyone else's opinion matter? It's just bad luck that it all happened after your breakup, but even then, you're both talking it out now, right? There's nothing to be worried about," he says. Mark hands you the discarded roll of toilet paper and you pushed it away.

"Don't touch that, Mark, who knows what Yangyang did to that," you mumbled.

"Oh thank god she's back," Mark buries his hands in his face. "Are you sobering up?"

"The world is blacking out around me."

"Oh my god, what did you drink?" Yangyang's shoulders slumped. You threw your arms open and beckoned both of them to come closer.

"Ah, what the hell," Mark hugs you first before dragging Yangyang to join.

"I love you two so much," you sniffled. "You're both like brothers to me," your voice wavered.

"Yangyang... what stage are we at?" Mark asks.

"The last one, she should be passing out soon," Yangyang whispers.

"I can't wait to take your first borns."

"What?" They both turned to you, but you had already fallen asleep, your head knocking against the wall behind you.

"Well, I'm sleeping on the floor tonight," Yangyang removes one of your limp arms from his shoulders.

"I'll stay here too just in case. She likes me more when she's drunk."

"I wonder if that's like a thing?" Yangyang pulls the comforter from under you and places it on the floor.

"I think it's more of a she hangs out with you more and me less thing," Mark shrugs.

"Sure, yeah, let's go with that," Yangyang stretches out over the floor. "Shit, the things I go through for this girl, (Y/N), you're lucky we're best friends."

"She's not going to remember any of this, is she?"

"Nope."

That should've been the end to that conversation, but, as Mark digested and went over everything that had been happening these past few days, and how could he not? It's been bothering his close friend for ages, how could he not worry? Two things suddenly stood out to him, and slowly everything started to fall into place.

"Hey, Yang?" Mark looks up at the ceiling. "You don't think..." Mark looks at his phone now, going through a specific set of messages with his stylist. "You don't think this and that are related, right?"

"Mark, a lot of shit happens, please be more specific."

"I'm talking about the missing items from the stylists and Kyungjae, dude."

"Oh, shit, dude," Yangyang props himself up on and elbow and he and Mark look at each other. "You don't think that Kyungjae's the one taking them, do you?"

"I do, I think it has something to do with those crazy messages (Y/N) has been getting too," then, as if the devil heard, your phone buzzed above them. It was only out of blatant curiosity that Yangyang grabbed it, the unknown number sending you multiple messages at once of the same topic.

'Just leave. The group's better off without you.'

"Geez, how many of these has she been getting?" Yangyang clears the message from your screen and places it back on the charger pad. Then, in that moment of silence, Yangyang gasps. "I've connected the dots."

"You didn't connect shit," Mark shakes his head. "I did."

"We've connected the dots!" Yangyang scrambles on top of his bed and shakes you. "(Y/N)! (Y/N), wake up we found out who's stealing your shit!" He shouts. You placed a hand on his face and shoved him away from you, Yangyang promptly landing on Mark.

"Don't piss off the sleeping beast," Mark groans.

"We'll tell her in the morning later."

Six hours later

Winwin listened with intensity, trying his best to picture everything in his head. His hand was pressing against his temple while the other one held his phone up.

"Well, any questions?" Xiaojun asks on the other side of the phone. Winwin hums.

"Uh... yeah... Who's Kyungjae?"

"Hyung, he is literally the antagonist of this whole story!" Ten sighs on the other screen.

"Just give me a second! It takes me a while, okay? And who's Wooyoung?!"

"Oh god," Xiaojun brushes his hair back with his hands. "Kun, you tell him the story." Kun looks away from his computer and to the screen.

"Hey, I'm just here to fact check, you're the story tellers."

"Okay, wait, wait, hyung, what do you think about (Y/N) and Seonghwa getting back together?" Xiaojun moved closer to his screen.

"Well, it's not much of my business, but if they're happy together then they're happy together? Sure, I think they should probably work some things out first, I think Seonghwa might be hiding something still, but that's a bridge they'll cross when they get to it," Winwin shrugs.

"So you're team YNSH," Ten says.

"Team... Team what?"

"We need better names for these," Ten rolls his eyes.

"Hyung! You need to be team YNYY!" Xiaojun shouts

"Team... YN... YY?" He asks. "(Y/N) and Yangyang?!"

"Yes!" Xiaojun throws his hands up. "He's our junior! We have to be on his side!"

"Oh my god, Dejun, YNYY is dead! That was so last season!" Ten scoffs.

"Let me dream, Chittaphon!"

"Okay, okay, break it up you two!" Kun says sternly. "Winwin still needs the finer details explained to him."

"Don't worry, I got this," Hendery grins. "So, basically, (Y/N) has a mech-"

"Shut up, Hendery!" Everyone cut him off.

"Where are you guys sourcing Seonghwa's side of this story anyway?" Winwin asks.

"Oh, I have my sources," Ten says. "Very reliable sources that don't want to be named."

"That's even more worrying," Kun shakes his head. "And... Ten have you been typing this whole time?" Ten freezes.

"No."

"Oh my god, you're taking notes!" Hendery gasps

"I have clients too!"

"(Y/N)'s private life is not meant to be sensationalized!" Kun scolds.

"Ugh, I'm changing their names anyway!" Ten sticks his tongue out.

"Good god," Kun shakes his head.

Elsewhere.

The sound of a keyboard clacking was the only thing that filled his ears. A cup of coffee steamed next to him while he looked between the two monitors as well as the files next to him. Pictures, text receipts, audio transcriptions, he had enough to build a case but at the same time not enough for a hefty conviction. Not to mention a motive, but is there ever a stronger motive in sasaeng cases?

Not to mention, the items stolen are essentially borrowed items, none of which actually belonged to you. Hard to build a case around that as much as he'd want to.

He answered his phone as soon as it rang.

"Is it enough?" The feminine voice asks.

"Not necessarily," Kanghoon sighs. "I'm sorry, I know you're paying a lot for this. Are you sure the company isn't doing anything, Saeron?" He asks.

"I keep asking, and the answer is always that they're working on it."

"I don't even want to know how you got most of these."

"Let's just call it undercover work."

"Infiltrating a sasaeng group chat is hardly undercover work," Kanghoon sighs. "I'm just surprised you found out my line of business so quickly."

"You're not very private for a private investigator," Saeron says. "Besides, you can't tell me that you weren't already looking into this." Kanghoon pauses. Sure, maybe he did look into a few things after your breakup scandal, but it was only to make sure you were alright. Naturally, any investigator would be concerned about malicious messages. "Is there anything I can do to help?" Kanghoon looks over at his third monitor.

"Sure, there's a Twitter account that's been standing out to me, maybe you could leak a thing or two about it on your 'private' account, looks like you've amassed quite the following."

"Which one?"

"Looks like you may have interacted with them before, the @ should be 'I know how this works' no capitals and no spaces."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do," Saeron sighs.

"Does (Y/N) know you're doing any of this?" He asks.

"No, this is all my own doing," Saeron answers. "You must think it's over the top, don't you?"

"No, not at all. You'll be surprised how often my agency gets requests like yours, we usually turn them down but... well, she is my sister."

"Right, thank you so much for your help, Kanghoon, I mean it, I owe you one," Saeron says.

"It's nothing... just make sure she's alright for me, yeah? She didn't look too hot when I ran into her."

"I can do that for you, thank you." With that, Saeron hung up. Kanghoon placed the cigarette between his lips, lighting it without another thought, and took a slow drag.

"All of this just to be an idol, what's even the point?" He wonders aloud. "Is it even worth it?" He continues. How could he forget how tired you looked earlier? It was heart wrenching. He opened your texts, finally clearing out the '100+' notification on that icon and did a brief skim through all of them. The light at the end of his cigarette burned brightly.

Maybe it was time he stepped in.

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keilemlucent · 4 years ago

Text

long days for bad people

(r18+)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

word count: ~6k

Being a prized, adored possession was far better than you thought it would be.

warnings: light daddy kink (no age play, just the name in mostly jest), spit kink, crying kink, degradation, brief descriptions of blood + violence, kidnapping (consensual?? read a/n), brat taming, light sadomasochism, mind break, praise kink

------

here it is, mafia au, villain hawks, dom, brat tamer, soft(?!) hawks. what more could you want?

there’s briefly described kidnapping at the beginning of the fic but it is reiterated throughout that this is consensual! no yandere/stockholm stuff in this fic.

i’ve been working on this one for a while and i’m happy to finally share it. hope y’all enjoy!!

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You shouldn’t have fucked around with the League.

God, it was common knowledge in the parts of town and circles you inhabited. Of all criminal syndicates, mobs, to fuck with, the League wasn’t one of them. They were known for their complete cruelty and violent delights. The League had such a reputation due to the fact that they openly left bodies carved up and burnt as they pleased.

But, you were a fucking idiot and got involved anyways.

It was a small loan, Giran almost seemed to scoff when he gave you the cash. You and your almost-stranger of a roommate were just very late on some bills and were going to lose a lot of material items if you didn’t scrounge up at least two paychecks in about three days.

You swallowed your pride and took the first and easiest loan you could get. That just happened to be with gap-toothed, wide-grinning Giran of the League. He, you knew from what you’d heard, was somewhat fair in matters like yours.

You had two weeks to pay him back.

...

You didn’t make it in time.

You were close to the amount, notably. You scrounged and clawed your way into getting the cash back. You weren’t much of a pickpocket, but you snagged some odd jobs around the apartment building that you and your roommate were still fortunate enough to keep a room in.

After one particular job, a nasty carpentry gig that you weren’t qualified for, you returned home tired and worn.

Sure, you were a day late on payment. But with this last gig, you were so close. The League would have to pity two, stupid, stupid young girls?

They didn’t, you realized, as you stepped into your apartment.

Your roommate's slain corpse was laying over the arm of your cheap couch, eyes vacant and mouth dripping blood onto the old beige carpet.

You dropped to your knees, horrified and completely stunned.

“You should’ve known better,” it was a hum from across the room, from a figure you didn’t even know was in the room until then. “Really, you’d expect folks to be smarter.”

Your mouth dried as the figure moved from the nighttime shadows, flashing a dazzling smile and ruffling crimson wings.

Hawks.

You’d heard of him, everyone had. Terrifying, fast, precise, and cutthroat. He took orders and didn’t ask questions other than snark. He talked too much, fucked too much.

“W-wait,” You didn't know why you were pleading, but you had to try, right? “I’m so close, wait—”

Hawks sauntered up to you wielding one of his feather blades, the red of blood mixing with the filaments of his feathers.

He crouched down in front of you, tsking, “I don’t like begging, angel. I’ll make this quick for you. Your friend there?”

Hawks jerked his finger behind to your dead roommate.

“She fought, pleaded, begged, all that normal shit I don’t like hearing when shitheads like you two don’t make payday,” his voice was slow, talking about death like some casual thing. “I’ll make this nice and fast if you don’t run your mouth anymore, how about that?”

You swallowed, nodding.

The small percentage of your brain that was fully functioning figured dying quickly was a much better way to go than whatever the hell had happened to your roommate. There was far too much blood for that to be quick.

Hawks hummed, the tip of his feather blade tipping up your chin so you were forced to meet his gaze. You vaguely heard the pitter-patter of your tears hitting the carpet below. Blood rushed in your ears as you stared death in the face.

Hawks appraised you.

You watched the metaphorical cogs and wheels turning in Hawks’ skull as he looked you up and down before flashing forward, gathering you in his arms and flying from the apartment.

Your first thought was obvious as you clung to him in the open air:

He’s going to drop you and kill you.

When you screamed, tears growing thicker, he slapped a gloved hand over your mouth, “I’m giving you an out, kid. Trust me. You’ll prefer this over death.”

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Your new existence was certainly better than death.

If you were ever caught and convicted of any of the illegal things you participated in, you’d be fucked, thrown into prison until you rotted, until you were just dust and bone.

But, until then, you worked for the League.

You had groveled at the feet of their leader, Shigaraki, hands clasped on your lap, claiming your worth, or maybe lack thereof. Not many attachments, not many people who’d miss you, a semi-useful quirk.

With a boot shoved into your skull, he sneered that you’d be the League’s new errand dog.

The real reason they accepted you was due to the threatening air Hawks was exuding and the fact that their old ‘errand bitch’ had died the week prior. They needed a new body to act as a civilian and do things that only an unsuspecting-looking ‘civilian’ could. You fit the bill, and Hawks had taken a liking to you.

Oddly, working for the League was actually pretty okay.

You got your own room. It was small, but you only had to share a bathroom with the somewhat unhinged Himiko, but she was fairly nice once she warmed up to you. Everyone lived in the League’s HQ and went about their business, getting drunk at their bar front each night.

Most of the mess happened at night, but it was important to put on a nice veneer and keep spirits high. Not to mention that no one would dared to fuck with the League, anyways. The cops and federal government had long been paid off due to the resources that the League had acquired for them.

You felt somewhat untouchable.

A lot of this confidence was due to the fact that you had become Hawks’s... Keigo’s...

‘Songbird’

As he liked to call you, anyway.

Keigo was the general, loveable annoyance of the League, but his connections were invaluable and his skills were unmatched. Despite how he could grate on people (read: Dabi and Shigaraki), he was respected and feared just as much as everyone else was, if not more so. And being his metaphorical and literal pet had its perks.

Sure, the first time he had you come to his ‘office’ and he fucked you against the window until it was smeared with cum and blood was a bit surprising, but god, if you didn’t fucking love it. Being Keigo’s personal fucktoy came with protection, pleasure, and a surprising amount of genuine attention. The dude was lonely, and so were you. The two of you made a good ‘couple’, if you could even call yourselves that. The sadism he doled out was always counterpointed by affections that did seem genuine.

Keigo was fond of you, and you of him. Maybe your brush with death had twisted something in your head, to even allow yourself to get close to a man like Keigo, but you couldn’t make yourself care.

You were comfortable and content.

...

[bird boss]: hey babe ;^) get to my office in the next thirty minutes

[you]: what if i don’t

[bird boss]: do u really want to find out

[you]: ...

[you]: im just curious

[bird boss]: don’t get cheeky songbird

[you]: u make me wanna u know

[you]: i know it gets you riled up

[bird boss]: tread lightly kid

[you]: oooo i gave you some guff over text

[you]: what’re you gonna do about it?

[bird boss]: use your imagination

[bird boss]: 25 minutes now, songbird

[bird boss]: don’t make this worse for yourself <3

You set your phone on your cheap duvet, quickly primped yourself to see Keigo. He wasn’t too strict about your appearance but wearing dark clothes and some of the more expensive gifts he’d gotten you over the months he’d been screwing you never hurt. Something about ownership with him always got him hot and bothered.

You tried to remind yourself frequently that Keigo saw you as some sort of possession, but a possession with feelings.

Meandering through HQ was always a bit daunting, despite your protections. Your skimpy outfit choice and hardly-hidden lingerie made you feel a bit more like an object than you liked too.

There were hardly hungry mouths around the League, they kept you all fed, but god, were there starving eyes.

Dabi wolf-whistled as you walked past him through a common room, shouting something about how Keigo was collecting his pound of flesh for the day. Maybe a line or two about being a whore, but that was all flavor at that point. Keigo called you far meaner, more sinful things. And hell, it wasn’t like Keigo hadn’t... shared you on more than one occasion.

Maybe you were a little fucked up for enjoying your lifestyle to the degree you did, but why not indulge where you could? Life was far shittier scraping paint off old fences and picking up cans to just scrape by.

Opulence was a breath of fresh air. And if you were Keigo’s fuck toy? Then, god, you were Keigo’s fuck toy.

When you arrived at Keigo’s office, you knocked gently on the door, quickly adjusting your skirt and blouse.

The door opened, though no one was behind it. Only a single one of Keigo’s feathers allowed you entrance.

His office seemed daunting and extravagant for a man who did most of his ‘work’ in far-shadier, far-bloodier places. The walls were covered in mirrors and old paintings, something out of vanity and pride, knowing how Keigo saw himself. There were several black leather couches scattered around against walls, some stained by your various... activities. There was a broad desk parallel to a back wall made entirely of windows.

Night had fallen, leaving the room lit by a few lamps and warm fixtures.

“Hey, boss,” You hummed as you stepped in, shutting the door behind you just before the lingering scarlet feather flicked the lock on the door.

And the other one.

And the deadbolt.

You swallowed thickly.

As much as you enjoyed a lot of the perks of your... position, it was also daunting.

Keigo was daunting, all bloody colors, vanity, and hunger.

He sat behind his desk, wings puffed up, and partially extended over the back of his chair. The desk chair was massive, specifically acquired so that you would have enough room to properly straddle his lap for hours on end if he so wished.

Keigo idly clicked around on his desktop computer. He leaned slack and back into the chair, legs spread wide and exuding casual confidence that reeked of his own ego.

Keigo normally wore a mix of black and red, as edgy as it was. He liked to seem clean, hide the stains of sanguine that undoubtedly lingered on him no matter how he tried to cleanse himself. His black slacks were pressed, the seams pristine. The black shirt he wore was rolled up to his elbows, the buttons of his red vest undone as well. His black tie hung half-undone and limp around his neck. His tousled gold hair was mussed as normal, ruffled by his flights. His feathers might’ve needed preening, but you doubted that that was the reason he called you to his office.

And based on the deep set of his brow and the sickly smile on his lips, he was already on edge and in a mood.

“Songbird, come over here, will you?” Keigo sat back from his typing, watching you from across the room. He took you in the same way a parched man sucks down red wine, greedily and soon to be fucked. “On my lap.”

You complied, despite your earlier attitude. You padded across the room, going around his desk.

As you moved to straddle his lap, worn hands gripped your waist. His amber eyes gave you a warning, crinkling at the edges, “Not like that, sweetheart. Do daddy right.”

Oh, so it was one of those moods.

Maybe you were Keigo’s sexual punching bag so he could exert control on something he could later kiss better and patch up.

Sure, he was going to fucking ruin you, but part of the fun with him was that the more it hurt, the nicer he was after. And, all things considered, with some of the... other folks the League brought in to satiate its member’s desires, you fared far better. Keigo cared about you, in his own particular way.

You tried to lean over his lap yourself, but his hands and feathers positioned you perfectly as he wanted. With the tight grip he had on your waist and shoulders, dragging you just as he liked, it was easy to see his need for control.

Your head hung off of one of his thighs as you squirmed in his lap. His bulge already pressed into your ribs, a wonderful reminder of the reward you’d reap later on. Keigo’s hands gathered your hand to the small of your back, a feather replacing their grip a moment later.

“Sit with me while I finish this shit,” Keigo grumbled, going back to clicking the desktop. His leg bobbed absentmindedly, his free hand rubbing over the curve of your barely-covered ass. “Be a good girl, (Y/N). If you can stand that.”

He laughed under his breath.

You let your head dangle limply downwards, blood rushing to your cheeks.

You’d thought you’d be in for more of an ass-kicking, but it appeared Keigo was taking things unusually slow. You knew better than to complain, but kicking up a bit of metaphorical sand couldn’t be that bad, right?

“I dunno,” You hummed, kicking your legs lightly. “I don’t think you like it when I’m a ‘good girl’, daddy.”

“Watch it.” A single, sharp smack to your butt was hardly enough to shut you up, but Keigo did so all the same, rubbing over the covered flesh a moment later, “I’m not in the mood.”

“Are you sure about that?” You wriggled, intentionally pushing up against his growing erection.

His breath stuttered, a smirk pulling at the corners of your lips. The hand on your ass didn’t rear again, rather Keigo kept thumbing smooth circles as he continued to click around on the computer. He might have been actually doing work. Or, he was ignoring you, egging your sass on.

“If you didn’t want anything, why’d you call me in here?” You asked, way too cheeky for the way Keigo’s body was practically vibrating underneath you. Pissing him off had consequences, of course, but you weren’t in the mood to play ‘good girl’ that day.

“I told you, I want you to sit with me,” Keigo pinched your ass. “But, you’re too mouthy to do just that one thing. You’re usually better than this.”

“Am I?” You played innocent, craning to give him a wide smile. “Hadn’t noticed. What I am noticing, is your already-hard cock, dear.”

“Oh, ‘dear’?!” Keigo paused on the computer. “Cheeky. Cute.”

Keigo would just dig in more, lean in, before ‘snapping’, if you could call it that.

You gulped as his hand swatted at upper thighs, his nails almost knicking your skin.

“Up and don’t get smart about it.”

Oh, you were going to be remarkably smart about it.

You rose but hardly stayed upright for long. Sliding down to your knees, you pushed at Keigo’s legs, “Wouldn’t you prefer me down here? Just for a treat while you finish your work?”

Keigo clicked his tongue, gaze flickering down to you, “Fine. Behave yourself.”

Yeah, right. You both knew that that wasn’t going to happen.

You were already tucked underneath his desk, undoing the fly of his pants.

You pulled his cock from his trousers, pumping his cock to full hardness. Smearing around preek for a bit of extra flare before inching forward.

Wrapping your mouth around Keigo’s dick was somewhat of a feat— he had a decent girth to him, so you usually took the opportunity to warm him (and yourself) up with a bit of tip-kissing and kitten licks.

But, you were feeling bold.

You spit on his dick, a move that normally would have earned you plenty of verbal snark, but anything Keigo could’ve said to you was swallowed as you took his cock down to the back of your throat.

You sucked around it, massaging the vein on the bottom with the flat of your tongue. Drool began to pool at the side of your lips as you let the head bump your throat, gag reflex be damned.

All the while, Keigo had stopped moving above you. The fabric of his trouser balled up in his ringed-fingers as he gazed half-lidded down at you.

You smiled around his dick, looking up at him innocently as you began to slowly bob your head. His wings fluttered, twitches and air stirring around you.

Keigo stifled a laugh, a hand tangling in your hair, “All that talk earlier and now you’re treating me to a blowjob without even me having to tell you to? Dove, you’re too much.”

You pulled off of him to reply, “I can only try.”

Before he could reply, you spit on his dick again, and went back to slurping around him.

You held the base of his cock in your hands, twisting and spreading spittle. It almost felt like your actions were for show, but Keigo’s eyes were rolling back in his head all the same.

You smirked.

A drool pool from your mouth, puddling in your lap and soaking your skirt. Not like you weren’t already dripping from the sinful sounds Keigo stopped trying to hold.

“A-ah, that’s it, angel,” Keigo fucked into your mouth with his hold on your hair. “Just like that.”

Your hand rose to play with Keigo’s balls, teasing at the sack as he cried out a high moan above you.

Considering the performance you were giving, it was unsurprising to feel him tensing above you. You’d been on your knees for him hundreds of times; you’d learned to see the little twitches and puffs of breath he’d give when he’d get close to coming.

You pulled off his cock with a pop, detangling the hand from your hair in the motion. It was all fast enough that Keigo couldn’t have stopped you in his hazy, pleasure-filled state.

Based on the look of rapid disbelief he was giving you, your trick had worked well. Knowing Keigo’s... tendencies made you hesitant to push him too much in the past, but for whatever reason, you were feeling stupidly bold.

Consequences.

“Sorry, daddy,” You wiped at your mouth with the back of your hand. “Didn’t feel like swallowing today.”

Keigo’s disheveled appearance was more than gratifying. Knowing how easily you made him come undone by that point was one of the perks of your position.

His hair was more than ruffled, strands and tufts chaotically curled around his cheeks and ears. There was a bright blush on his face, spreading from his nose to the apples of his cheeks, down his deck. At some point, he’d popped the buttons at the top of his shirt. He was covered in a sheen of sweat, half-panting and based on the darkness in his brow and the far-too peachy smile on his face, Keigo was fucking pissed.

His wings stood on end.

You gulped from below him.

Maybe you pushed your luck too far.

Maybe.

“You’re playing real cute today, aren’t you songbird?” Keigo didn’t move, but his feathers twitched above him, wings flaring out even farther. “Real fucking cute.”

You were fucked.

Good.

A few feathers flew from Keigo, one snagging at your wrist, wrapping around it, and pulling you up from the desk.

You wobbled as you stood, dragged across the room as Keigo leisurely followed behind you. When you tried to set your own pace, Keigo swatted your ass with a huff, “You never learn, huh? I thought I’d trained you better than this.”

You opened your mouth to spit some dickish retort, but you were cut off as Keigo’s shoved you onto one of the leather couches.

“Don’t.” Keigo’s tone was acidic as he stood over your, wings still flared out. “I told you I wasn’t in the mood for your cute bullshit, dove, and you still decided to test your luck, huh?”

You kneeled on the cushions, sucking down air, shaking with anticipation.

“You don’t feel like swallowing today? That’s fine, I can work with that,” Keigo shrugged easily from above you.

Keigo had an... active sexual imagination, and you could tell by the crook in his lips that he had something devilish planned as retribution.

A sharp slap came down on your cheek, Keigo catching the opposite jaw and keeping you from recoiling too far. You blinked as the pain spread around your skull like licking flames against a frostbitten body.

You wanted more.

A little grin stretched against your mouth as Keigo rubbed at your cheeks with his thumbs, “Aw, you always get so sweet like this, dove. You can be a good girl if you try, can’t you?”

His actions carried candor and his words absolute torment.

Despite how Keigo was trying to goad you into submission, you had a bit of spark left in you.

Plainly, you spit on him.

The glob of saliva landed on Keigo’s cheek, under his eye.

He blinked at you.

You continued to smile.

His own expression grew strained.

“Oh, songbird,” Keigo damn near lamented, wiping away the kind gift you’d given him. His voice was smooth without any bit of waver, all of the sexually-charged anger rolling just beneath the veneer. “You’re just being pain slut today, aren’t you?”

You were, absolutely. You could feel your arousal wetting your panties, the heat of the strike from your cheek beginning to boil something in your gut.

“You just need a bit of special attention today, right? That’s all.” Keigo tsked, fully removing the tie from around his neck. “You just need a little reminder.”

“Reminder of what?” You asked, tilting your head quizzically.

Keigo flipped you, feathers pushing and bracing you as needed while nimble hands tore off your clothes without reverie.

“Plenty of things, especially with this attitude you’ve got today,” Keigo’s tie looped around your wrists, binding them together at the center of your back.

“You definitely need a reminder of who’s the boss around here,” Keigo shoved you forward, stomach flush with the back of the couch.

You reeled from the pace of it all, shifting your knees for any bit of stimulation you could get. Keigo’s feathers were slicing and pulling your clothes from your body faster than you could keep track of. It was overwhelming, making your mind swim in the best possible way. You throbbed.

“Maybe a reminder about who fucking provides for you,” Keigo’s own clothes were shaken off, dropped to the floor and forgotten.

It was true. Keigo always made sure than you were taken care of, in more ways than one. Despite how fast-paced and laid back he could seem, he was always on top of making sure you had more than enough material and immaterial pleasure whether than be in the form of food, fucking, or otherwise.

You yelped as a smack fell across your ass. A feather caught the elastic of your panties, snapping a moment later, leaving you fully bare before him.

Keigo’s worn hand came to press at your throat and jaw, tilting your head back as he climbed behind you, “Maybe, you need a reminder about who keeps you safe.”

This phrase was softer than the others, a sweet kiss pressing to your cheek and his voice a bit more gentle. It was jarring at the skin still stung from his earlier strike, but you cherished the heat besides.

Once again, true. The folks in and outside of the League were greedy. There were plenty of unwanted souls that stole glances at Hawks’s prized songbird. There were starved eyes that tore into you whether you were dolled up for Keigo or not. There had been some... close calls, one could say, but Keigo always was there, in the end, unafraid to get his hands dirty.

“You know what the most important reminder is, dove?” Keigo rolled his hips against you, cock wedging between your thighs.

“N-no,” You stuttered, brain turning gooey as Keigo’s arms snaked around your waist, sharpened nails leaving indents in your hips.

He nosed at your neck, leaving a few love bites in his wake.“‘N-no’, what?”

“I don’t know,” You leaned back into Keigo’s chest, rubbing your thighs around his cock.

“Oh, songbird, you sweet thing,” He chuckled, all teasing and self-indulgent. “I’m the one who makes you feel good.”

He was so right, wasn’t he?

With the way he’d learned your body over the last few months, he’d had some undeniable pursuit to make you feel the best.

Keigo was inquisitive by nature. He had kept you on your back for hours while he finger-fucked you, watching every twitch and roll of your hips to figure out just the right ways to break you. He’d kissed and sucked and slapped every inch of you, sussing out the perfect ways to make you writhe and cry for him.

Sure, you were an absolute terror to him sometimes. Not to mention that Keigo jumping you covered in the blood of that day's targets was as macabre and horrifying as it sounded.

But, fuck, if he didn’t know how to bring you to ecstasy that fucking ruined you in the best way.

Keigo got off on watching you shatter for him. It was the reason he’d torn you from that cheap, bloodied apartment in the first place. A kind, naive little morsel that he could play with as he wanted. You didn’t complain. Fuck, you reveled in his attention. You gave it back to him, like the fucked up, semi-divine being could be any more debauched than he already was.

Corruption spreads, but you’d never complain. If being plucked from struggling for pennies to being fucked stupid by a man who could kill you at a moments notice, a man who would kill for you, somehow poisoned you?

You’d die with a bitter taste on your tongue and a smile on your face.

Keigo rubbed at your clit, nipping at your neck, and rolled his hips greedily. His cock was covered in a mix of your slick and his own preek, easily sliding between plushness of your thighs.

“You love pushing me, acting all tough,” Keigo chastised, clicking his tongue. “I mean it when I say it's cute.”

You don’t have any more quick retorts in you, not when his fingers are down your throat, gagging you as spittle dribbles down your chin onto the leather below. It was sure to leave a mark.

“Behind all that bark and snark, you’re just a good girl, aren’t you?” Keigo punctuated his words with a bite and nip to your neck. “Just needed a reminder, right, dove?”

You whimpered against his fingers at the praise, grinding against Keigo’s touch needily.

His fingers pushed pinched your tongue, breath curling over the shell of your ear, “What are you?”

You mumbled against his fingers, “A g-good g-girl.”

It was humiliating in the best way. Keigo’s light laugh at your attempt. The way he nuzzled his nose into the sweat at the crook of your shoulder was just aloe on the burn.

“I misspoke, if you can believe that,” Keigo’s cock pulled out from your thighs. “Songbird, you know what I meant to call you?”

You squirmed at the loss, but he was quick to hush you. His fingers left your mouth with a thick trail of spit.

“You’re my good girl.”

You melted in his arms.

Falling back against Keigo’s chest, you craned your neck to lock your lips to his.

Maybe that was it, why all the filth didn’t bother you. Because you had worth. Maybe it was insecurity, or maybe it was self-aware in the face of your lived experience. Before being taken, the life you’d lived made you just a rusty cog in a dying machine. You wouldn’t have amounted to anything, probably.

But with the League?

You were the prized, beloved consort of an angry god.

Keigo owned you, body, mind and soul, and you let him. That’s not even to mention how you had him wrapped around your finger. He adored you, under all of it.

Fighting with him was for sport, not blood.

Keigo licked past your lips, pressing his cock to your cunt teasingly. You whined against him, wriggling in his arms.

“What does my good girl want?” Keigo loved making you beg for him, claw for any bit of stimulation. He liked it even better when you were already soft for him.

Stray tears pricked at your eyes, “Y-your cock.”

He pinched the meat of your thigh, shaking his head, “Not good enough. Speak properly, dove. Clear and correctly.”

You swallowed, searching for the words in your own haze.

Your words were willed to be solid.

“I want your cock, daddy.”

It was just enough.

Keigo pushed forward, the head of his cock already stretching your cunt. Consider the girth of it, the lack of preparation stung and burned more than you would’ve liked, as good as it felt to finally be filled.

Keigo cooed at your soft tears, keeping your face to his with a firm hand on your jaw. He shushed you, far too sweetly while licking the salt from your cheeks, “Relax, angel. Big breaths.”

You nodded, sputtering as he speared into you. Keigo’s free hand went back to toying with your clit, encouraging the tension to drain from your body.

As he bottomed out, you shuddered, falling back into his chest. Keigo’s wings fluttered, twitching in wait. Hot breath fanned over your face, Keigo groaning and locking his jaw.

The stimulation was overwhelming. You had expected Keigo to be meaner, considering how mouthy you’d been.

Yet, it made sense. Keigo had figured out one of the better ways to make you break was softness.

(Truthfully, it made him crack in the same way, but he’d never tell.)

“Feel that?” He asked, just barely rolling his hips.

Keigo released your jaw in favor of wrapping a hand around the front of your throat, tugging you as close he could manage.

“Uh-huh,” You panted.

You could, the kiss of his cock head against your cervix was almost uncomfortable. The delicious pressure and sensitivity already had you reeling in his arms, unsteady and wanting.

“I fill you up so good, don’t I?” Keigo praised his own ego, his cock, but he wasn’t wrong. The curve of his cock rubbed against all the right spots. He stretched you just right, the burn ebbing away into a need for more, more—

“Please, Keigo—” You gasped. Your legs shook as Keigo slammed into you, shoving you forward and into the wall.

His pace was brutal. Hands and feathers kept your back in a harsh arch as he rearranged your insides to his liking. He was kind enough to keep stroking at your clit, bruising your hips and babbling filthy nothings.

“I’m the one who makes you feel this good, only me, right, dove?” Keigo growled into your ear with a particularly hard thrust.

You nodded against the wall, aware of the drool slipping down your chin as your mouth lolled open. Your insides were hot like white flames, searing any ability to use coherent speech.

Keigo snickered at your state. Slowing, he gripped your ass cheeks. You yelped, inside jumping as he pried them apart. You flinched, hole twitching as he spat down, the liquid cool against the flushed skin.

It was little moves like that, Keigo just subtly making your shudder and feel dirty that got you the most fucked up and fucked out.

You pressed back on his cock, panting against the wall and keening. You would’ve spoke, if you could, but anything that you had the ability to say would’ve been torn apart by Keigo’s sharpened, silver tongue.

“My filthy little dove, huh?” Keigo sneered, watching you try to bounce on his cock the best you could. “Such a glutton when you get broken down like this, needy whore.”

The pleasure of Keigo’s cock tearing up your insides was all you could focus on through the fog of your mind, desperate and wanting and greedy.

“Y-your,” You corrected, the words bubbling from your lips, disjointed and messy. “Yours.”

Keigo may have been avian, but he purred like a damn cat at your admission. He held you like a possession, cock throbbing as he fucked you just right.

“God, you’re sweet, angel,” He nipped at your jaw before wrapping his hand around your throat. “Even all fucked up, you know who you belong to so well, don’t you?”

You nodded, rolling your hips back.

Keigo must’ve taken pity on you, squeezing at the sides of your neck. Cruel as he could be, he must’ve noticed the way your thighs and knees trembled against the leather. Keigo knew the cloud in your eyes well— how to get you hazy and how to fuck you perfectly through the fog.

He fucked back into your dripping cunt, pace harder and faster than before. You were helpless to do anything other than fall forward into the wall, cheek squished against the scarlet.

“Who’s brat are you?” Keigo squeezed a bit harder at your neck as you swallowed against his palm.

“Y-yours—!” You squeaked out, mind going numb from the stimulation and pressure.

A wicked sneer curled against your ear as Keigo’s movements grew sloppier. His tongue lolled over your shoulder, messy kisses and slobbery bites and marks left in his wake. He was close, but you weren’t far off easier.

“Little bird,” It was sweeter, closer and hotter. “Can you come for me? Come all over my cock?”

You nodded.

“Not good enough.” Keigo bit down, nearly breaking the fragile skin of your neck. “You know I like words, angel.”

You gave him words, plenty of them.

Nearly incoherent pleads and cries poured from your bruised lips as Keigo pounded into you. Each blabbering wail was met with Keigo groans and grunts, condescending little phrases spitting over you without release.

Your lack of leverage and use of your arms made you thumping against the couch and wall, vision darkening on the edges as the pressure in your gut and the hold on your throat remained.

You were breaking in his arms, tears rolling down your cheeks as you held yourself from cresting. The exertion of it all was taking its toll, legs jellied and chest beading with sweat.

Keigo sensed it, shifting his hips to hit the spongy spot in your cunt, “Come, dove.”

You let go.

A sob shattered in your throat as your climax crashed through you. Keigo released your throat, holding you by your bound arms as he bottomed out. His own harsh cry panged against yours as he stuffed you full.

Surprisingly gently, he rocked his hips against your own, letting the ambient throb of your cunt milk him dry.

You came down, rolling and spinning as you sucked down air a bit too fast. Keigo panted behind you, though the sound seemed dull.

The pressure from your wrists released, soft thumbs rubbing at where the fabric had bitten into your forearms, “Hey, angel, you with me?”

You could only nod weakly, exhaustion and aches creeping in.

Keigo repositioned the two of you, setting himself against the arm of the couch, wings up free to drape and splay over the floor. He dragged you with him, pulling you to lay on his chest. The stickiness of his spunk, your slick, and general sweatiness might’ve been uncomfortable, but you weren’t quite lucid enough to care.

“How are you feeling? Still feeling a little mouthy?” Keigo teased, already knowing your answer.

You muffled a groan against his chest, shaking your head against the sweat of his chest.

“Awww,” Keigo chuckled, fingers brushing over your cheeks, “Is my dove a little fucked out?”

“Keeeigo, b-be nice.”

Your voice broke, parched.

Keigo snorted, pressing a kiss to the side of your forehead, “I guess I can manage that. Just for you, though. Can’t let the others see me get all soft.”

You wouldn’t; seeing Keigo warm and gooey, both of you mutually fucked-out, was a pleasure only you got to indulge in. And you loved every moment of it.

++++++++++++

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