#have the same problems and the same kind of brain just in different directions. coughs up blood they make each other feel like they're not | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

miekasa · 4 years ago

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six thirty

+ pairing: armin arlert x (fem) reader

+ genres and warnings: college au, enemies to lovers… kinda… in a very nerdy academic rivalry kind of way, me being a comedian you’re welcome, fluff, smut/nsfw content

+ word count: 5.6k… pls say sike

+ notes: shout out to ryn for listening to me during our very many rambling sessions and also for extorting me into posting this. consider it a late birthday present for my favorite menace </2

+ side notes: no i am not a part of armin nation and i never want to be, nor do i wish speak of this again.

Armin Arlert is the perfect student. Prompt and well prepared during lecture; smart and insightful during office hours; the apple of any teacher’s eye. Unfortunately for him, so are you.

If you asked Armin, you were a little too clever for your own good, and liked to make it very well known that you believe you’re the smartest person in any room you walk into. That may be true, but it doesn’t mean that he has to sit there and worship your superiority complex.

If someone asked you, you’d say that Armin was a know it all, and a manipulative little piece of shit. Again, not a completely false statement, but perhaps a slightly biased character analysis.

Neither of you are wrong. It’s why you’re both the bane of each other’s existence.

There’s a noticeable grimace on your face, chin in your palm, elbows resting atop your desk, as you turn your head to where, sure enough, Armin is seated where he always is: first row, right side, directly in front of the podium, like perfect little teacher’s pet he wants to be. He doesn’t have any books to unpack like everybody else because a shiny, blue iPad is propped up on his desk in place of all of that. He’s robably looking through his pre-written list of showboaty questions to ask during lecture. Like he’s a cut above everyone else.

Maybe some of the other morons in this course, but not you, that’s for damn sure. You bet that if you broke his thousand dollar tablet he wouldn’t think he’s such hot shit anymore. Maybe that would knock him down a couple of pegs.

“Look at him sitting there with his stupid blue eyes, and his stupid Bieber haircut, and his stupid, shiny blonde hair, and his stupid fucking glasses. I bet they’re not even real and he just wears them to—”

“Did you just call his hair shiny?”

You snap your head to your left, “What—no, of course not. I said shoddy, he’s probably a bottle blonde. Maybe all the chemicals from the hair dye seeps into his head and warps his sense of reality.”

“I’m pretty sure you said shiny.”

“Shut up, Annie.”

She raises an eyebrow at you, “You got something against blondes? Because your track record would beg to differ.”

“Once. We kissed once, and it was truth or dare, and we were both sloshed.”

“You still chose me,” she reminds you, pulling her notebook out of her backpack.

You huff, ignoring her words and turning your head back to Armin, this time finding him twirling his stupid fucking expensive Apple Pencil between his fingers like it’s nothing. You can feel your eye begin to twitch.

Perhaps he can, too—or maybe he can just feel your eyes boring holes into him—because he turns in your direction and ceases his pen twirling the moment you make eye-contact. More students filter in, walking past your line of vision, but each time they move, you and Armin meet gazes again; neither one of you daring to look away, a palpable tension between you.

His eyes might be icy blue, but you can see the rose pink tint underneath his skin, even from the distance; a familiar blush that spreads across his nose and cheeks. You exhale with a silent laugh, breaking your eye contact before he grows completely red, just in time for Dr. Zöe to start the lecture.

Everybody thinks that Armin’s so brilliant, so smart, so untouchable. You know that his only genius is that he’s fooling everyone into thinking that he’s the kind, humble, little nerd boy who wouldn’t harm a fly, when that’s far from the truth.

Armin is mean. He’s competitive and possessive and snarky and sly. He’s the definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but you’re pretty sure the only person in the world who might believe that is Eren. Though, you’ve heard some of the insults Armin throws Eren’s way, and they’re not exactly soft. Granted, that’s a factor in any friendship, and most of his jabs are coated with a layer of intellect the brunette likely doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t make Armin any less sarcastic. It just means Eren’s too dumb to know what’s going on.

Poor kid. Maybe it’s for the best.

That’s all to say that Armin is nothing but a big talker—not even; a smooth-talker, is more like it. He comes across as perfect, all good and sweet and soft, because that’s what he lets people see. Nobody else looks through to the sharp tongue and ragged edges, because they’re too busy cooing over innocent blue-eyed baby in front of them.

But you know that Armin, the one he doesn’t want other people to see: the one that’s so good, he’s bad; so sweet that he’s sick; so nice that it’s cruel. And you know just how much pressure to apply to make his façade crack.

And you intend on doing so.

“I don’t know which formula to use—hey, are you two eye fucking again? Cut it out, I’m trying not to fail over here,” Eren exclaims, poking Armin’s shoulder with his pen.

The jab averts the blonde’s attention back to his friend, eyes wide as he blinks himself back to reality. He curses under his breath when he feels a familiar warmth creeping across his cheeks. Few things piss Armin off like the way he gets red in the face after thinking about you, or even just looking at you, for too long. Whether it’s red out of pure annoyance, or another feeling he tries to push down, it’s irritating, and above all, embarrassing.

He spares one more glance over his shoulder, to where you and Annie are sat a few tables away in the library. You’ve looked away by now, focusing back on your notes, but Armin swears he can still see that irritating smirk on your face from this angle.

He rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He should be able to keep it together around you by now, but he can’t, and it bothers him. You bother him.

“We weren’t eye fucking,” he refutes, turning his back to you completely, “She’s such a little know it all sometimes, s’annoying.”

Eren raises an eyebrow. He knows that you and Armin don’t get along, but he doesn’t understand why. Armin knows almost all your friends, and you definitely know all of his—Eren would even go as far as to say that you and him are pretty close friends—so it’s not a matter of not spending time together. You’re also the two smartest people Eren knows. In theory you should have more than enough to talk about together, but every time you’re in the same room, you hardly acknowledge each other outside of surface level commentary, or glances that border on staring.

Thankfully, the bickering remains in the classroom for the most part. Eren’s seen you and Armin go at, and he’ll be the first to admit that it’s beyond intimidating. Though, a little part of him finds it oddly entertaining, and he can’t help but to be impressed. All the more reason for you two to start playing on the same team.

Eren thinks the two of you should get to the root of the issue already. Which, if you asked him, has very little to do with your rivaled academic genius, and a lot to do with your lack of it concerning your feelings for each other.

“She’s not that bad,” Eren vouches for you, “I think you two might get along if you ever spoke outside of trying to one-up each other in class.”

“I’m not trying to one-up anybody,” Armin rolls his eyes, a nasty habit he’s picked up as of late, “And if you stopped and used your brain for a moment, then maybe you could solve the problem.”

“I did use my brain!” Eren’s lips fall into an offended pout, “But none of this makes any sense to me! I fucking hate math, you know that.”

Armin sighs, feeling sympathetic for Eren as he slumps into himself defeatedly. He knows that Eren isn’t dumb, but math in any capacity is certainly not his strong suit. He also knows that he shouldn’t give Eren all the answers, but sometimes he needs a little push to get him there. A little bit of added guidance and motivation to keep him going. It’s either that, or he has to trick Eren into doing the work himself, but clearly that method wasn’t working out today.

“You already solved for the activation energy, now you’re supposed to use the Arrhenius equation in the expanded form.”

Eren’s lips fall into a small o-shape, as his eyes scramble across his paper again. “But—how do you—”

“There’s two measurements given for temperature.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah! Okay, right, but then—”

“You have to convert it to Kelvin first or it won’t work. It’s given to you in Celsius.”

Eren furrows his eyebrows together, and then it finally clicks for him. He mutters to himself as he puts his pencil to paper to begin to work through the problem, “How do I convert—”

“Add 273.15 to it. Make sure you put the bigger one first in the equation, or else you’ll get a negative error.”

“You didn’t even do it,” Eren huffs, angrily punching numbers into his calculator, “How do you know it’s right?”

“Because I took this class already,” Armin reminds him, sparing a brief glance over his shoulder, “Isn’t that why I’m tutoring you?”

Eren coughs over his embarrassed blush, “Oh, yeah, right.”

It’s quiet between them as Eren makes a final attempt at solving the equation, carefully and proudly circling his answer when he’s finished. He looks to Armin with bright eyes, and is content when the blonde gives him a reassuring nod, confirming that his answer is correct.

“Well that was a bitch to work through,” Eren sighs, stretching his arms behind his head with a slight yawn, “Chemistry is nothing but glorified math. It’s barely a science.”

Armin shrugs, but he doesn’t disagree. He isn’t the biggest fan of chemistry, unlike somebody else he knows. “Why’d you take chem if you knew it would have so much math?”

It’s Eren’s turn to shrug, slumping back in his chair and running a hand through his hair, “I gotta take all the pre-med requirements… just in case.”

“You wanna go to med school? Since when?”

Eren averts his eyes from his friend, a telltale sign of his bashfulness coming over him. It doesn’t happen often, but Armin knows it’s sincere when it does.

“Dunno. I’m not sure of it, just wanna keep my options open, you know?” Eren replies casually, “Doctors help make a difference and all that, and surgery looks kind of cool. Besides, if my bastard father could do it, how hard could it really be?”

A gentle smile grows on Armin’s lips, “You can do it. If you really want to, I know you can.”

Eren’s head snaps up, eyes wide and filled with affirmation and adoration. He relaxes his expression quickly after, but the pink hues are still present, “Thanks, Min.”

From his position he catches eye of another head of familiar blonde hair over Armin’s shoulder, and beside it, your own hair. There’s a flash of a moment when your eyes meet Eren’s, and you offer him a small wave before turning back to Annie to resume doing your homework. Eren barely gets the chance to wave back, but a dopey smile sits on his features at your kind gesture. It fades when he looks back to Armin, once again pondering the animosity between you two.

You and Armin aren’t all that different, you just need to get to know each other better. Actually, Eren thinks that you might make a good couple if you both stopped overthinking it.

“So, what’s the deal with you and (_____)?” Eren asks, bending his right knee to wrap his arm around his leg and rest his chin on top of it, “You act like she kicked your cat.”

“What?” Armin questions, flustered, “What—no, she wouldn’t touch Soup.”

Eren quirks an eyebrow at that. “I still can’t believe you named your cat Soup.”

“It’s technically a nickname.”

“A nickname for what?”

“…For Miso Soup.”

Eren blinks. “Okay, if she didn’t mess with Soup, then what’s the issue? You scared of her or something?”

“Why would I be scared of her?” Armin asks, tone incredulous; then softer, more subdued, like a kid who doesn’t want to admit they’re wrong, “’M not scared of her.”

“You stare at her like you are—well, you look kind of angry, but also scared. Like, when you see those balloon things outside of car washes. You hate them, but you can’t look away from them—”

“I am not scared of those!”

“You are, and it’s okay,” Eren waves away his friend’s denial, “Oh, I get it—is this one of those things where she makes you nervous, so you respond with anger and sarcasm instead of thinking through your feelings?”

“You’ve been going to therapy for one month, relax.”

“Maybe you two should go to friend therapy and work this out,” Eren bites back, “It probably doesn’t help that she’s always with Annie. They both look like they would murder someone with no remorse. I admit, it is kind of scary… but it’s kind of hot, too.”

Armin spares him an unamused glare. Eren crosses his arms in defense, “What? I’m not wrong. It’s sexy in a scary kind of way, maybe that’s why you’re always eye fucking. I don’t blame you, she’s hot. I would let her and Annie axe-murder me without regret.”

“Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and do problem six, I don’t have all day.”

Eren huffs, but flips the page to the next problem, grumbling under his breath as he attempts the, “It’s not as sexy when you’re mean, you know.”

Armin hits him silent.

Tuesdays are Armin’s favorite days because he only has one class. Sure, it’s three hours long, but it’s much more bearable than his usual eight-hour day.

It’s also the one class he shares with you. Which is why he’s always mentally exhausted by the end of it, but physically, he feels like he could punch a wall; all his pent up anger and frustration is channeled into his body and he’s desperate for an outlet for it. It’s a feeling he hates to love.

Annie seems to have cut class today seeing as she’s not next to you; and it’s almost as if it’s emboldened you to mess with him even more than usual.

He bites his tongue as Dr. Zöe enthusiastically uses your latest point as a segue into the final topic of the evening. He made that same point ten minutes ago. You just worded it differently—admittedly, more concisely, but somehow with a little more nuance, than when he had hesitantly proposed it—and, yeah, maybe you made it sound more convincing, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t come up with it first. If his stupid, fancy stylus didn’t cost upwards of $200 he might have snapped it in half.

You’re definitely the better conversationalist, that much he can admit. Words have never been his forte and he hates the way you can talk circles around him, and that there’s so little he can say to make you stop.

He wishes you would just shut up. In fact, he’d like to shut you up himself.

Thankfully, class ends sooner rather than later. Armin finds himself briefly talking with Dr. Zöe afterwards, most other students having taken the opportunity to leave early for the night. To nobody’s surprise, you’re not one of them, having stuck around to talk to the professor, too.

“The two of you should consider lab research this summer,” Dr. Zöe suggests ardently, walking between the two of you as you exit the lecture hall, “I could really use two students like you!”

Armin chuckles at his boisterous professor. He’s known about the research opportunities at their lab for quite some time now, and he knows that you have, too. “I don’t know that lab work is really my strong suit.”

The three of you come to stop at the hallway intersection, the professor now standing across from you and him. You give them a polite smile, “And I’m not sure that collaboration is mine.”

Armin spares a glance just in time to see you flash one of your own in his direction. Dr. Zöe’s eyes flicker between the two students rapidly, a slight squint to their eyelids.

They aren’t quite sure why their two brightest students seem to despise each other. They wish you two would just get along already, so that they don’t have to spend the summer training half-witted chemical engineering majors how to use basic lab equipment; and instead, conduct some actual research.

“Well, I hope the both of you reconsider,” they smile, “I’ll see you during office hours, I presume?”

You two nod in sync, sending the doctor off with happy smile, just long enough until you see that they’ve turned the corner further down the hall

“Had fun stealing my point earlier?” Armin questions, looking your way as you still wave mindlessly, eye-twitching at your polite façade.

“I would call it improvement,” you tell him, not bothering to turn in his direction; still and smiling waving like the professor can see or hear you, “You should stick to showing, rather than saying. You never were good with your words.”

Armin kisses his teeth together. He’ll give you what you want, if that’s how you want it.

In a fit of irritation, he grabs your moving hand by the wrist, and pulls you down the opposite hallway, not caring for your dramatic wailing behind him.

“Hey, Einstein, the exit is the other way, do you have any idea where we’re going?”

“Ever heard of observational learning? Maybe if you shut up for a second, you would figure it out,” he snaps, pulling you further.

There’s a door on the left that Armin knows is unlocked, and he’s quick to open it and pull you inside. Before you have the chance to glance around, he has you pushed up against the wall, jaw forced up and forward.

He could scoff at the small hitch in your breath at his actions, clearly a little too satisfied with being manhandled; but instead, he takes the opportunity to press your lips together. Armin quite likes the feeling of your lips on his; warm and soft and far too welcoming; a rare moment of silence.

“Someone could hear us.”

Or not so silent.

“Then be quiet,” he snarls.

Armin feels your fingers weave themselves into his hair, scraping along his undercut in sync with his lips trailing down your jaw. A groan falls from his when he feels you tug at the ends of the strands, just hard enough to force his face back to eye level with yours.

“You’re the one with the big mouth.”

“You’re so smart, huh. Always got something to say,” Armin lets out a low chuckle, deft fingers running down your sides to squeeze at your waist, “You can be really fuckin’ annoying, you know that.”

You mirror half of his ministrations, letting your right hand trail down his chest barely brushing over the very visible bulge in his jeans, before hooking your index finger under the belt loop, effectively pulling him closer to you.

The smile on your face is dirty, but you’re not laughing like he was, “Do something about it then.”

His blue eyes grow cloudy as he takes a good look at you; slowly rakes over your features, from that stupid, snarky look in your eyes, to your kiss-bruised lips, down to your chest, and back up again. Armin finds himself copying your smirk for all the wrong reasons. But it’s your own fault; you always did like to push him one step over the edge.

“Fine.”

Despite your twisted grin there’s a look in your eyes that’s eager; willing; ready for the taking. That same look you have when you talk over him in class; when you pretend to ignore him around your mutual friends; when you want him to fuck you stupid.

Armin uses his right hand to cup your jaw again, closing the distance between your mouths with a less than gentle kiss. He feels your groans reverberating through his body, waves of heat accompanying them and going straight to his erection. Your arch your back into the kiss, but he forces you backwards, left hand flat against your tummy.

Following suit, he pushes himself against your body, pressing his knee between your legs; the thin fabric of your stockings doing little to prevent your thighs from rubbing against him.

He swipes his tongue over the seam of your lips, earning a frenzied whine when glides his tongue across yours, and teasingly licks at the roof of your mouth. Your tongue is lithe against his, but somehow just as deceptive and sly as always, and Armin would be a fool to deny that he loved it.

There’s a spark flickering in his stomach when you push your center harshly against his; and it’s only ignited further when he feels you bite his bottom lip. A guttural growl escapes him, his right hand moving to your throat with practiced ease, pushing the back of your head into the wall.

He pauses for a moment, drinks in your wide eyes and desperate visage, “You are the single most frustrating person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

And he couldn’t get enough of it if he tried. He couldn’t get enough of you.

You must see through his words, into the grainy expression of adoration in his eyes, because he can see it filtering into yours, pupils dilating with both want and care.

“Aw, baby, I love you, too,” you pout, leaning forward as best to can to peck him on the lips, “Now, shut me up and fuck me. It’s exhausting being this pretty and smart-mouthed, you know.”

Armin dips his head into your neck, squeezes against the column of your throat with warning until he hears a gasp escape from your lips. He presses gentle kisses into your skin, in stark contrast to the increasing pressure from his fingers, waiting for one last request, and then, finally—“Please.”

He smiles, loosens his grip for a moment, just long enough to hear your pretty panting, before slotting his lips against yours again. Your moans are lewd and sloppy and breathless between kisses, and it makes his dick twitch in his pants. You really are so fucking loud. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He uses his free hand to push your skirt up, and subsequently dip past the weak barrier of your tights and underwear. The slightest flicker of his fingers against your center has you choking out a moan, and Armin is forced to press his right thumb harder against your neck.

“Quiet,” he reminds you, “You asked nicely, so I’ll give you what you want. No need to be loud about it.”

He watches you nod with short and restricted movements, a sadistic kind of power washing over him at your eager compliance. He uses his middle finger to rub slow, careful circles around your clit; the feeling of your wet cunt against his fingers, coupled with your wanton moaning only spurs on the throbbing in his pants.

“Armin,” you whine, impatiently; but he expected that of you, “Don’t tease.”

His eyes flash to yours briefly, pressing his lips to yours again to swallow your shuddered moans. He dips his tongue into your mouth at the same time he does his middle finger into your cunt. An obscene moan echoing through the classroom, as Armin feels your body arching into his again; feels your fingers frantically flying to his hair, searching for purchase to anchor yourself on.

He pulls away in time to add another digit and watch you groan underneath him. He pushes both his fingers in to the knuckle, carefully curling them upwards to elicit the prettiest sound out of you. He has to admit, it’s probably his favorite thing to hear come out of your mouth.

He keeps a steady pace, pumping his fingers in and out of your pussy with perfect friction, teetering between letting you moan his name and choking you silent. Your hands are frantic in his hair, grasping and pulling and so, so, desperate, Armin can’t help but to finger fuck you harder.

“You want one more?” he questions, but his voice is taunting, words ghosted over your lips just out of reach for you to kiss.

He can feel your leg trembling against his, see you pupils shaking along with your shaking head. Armin stops to smile; he thought you might do that. He could probably make you cry right now if he wanted to. Maybe later.

“Want you to fuck me,” your words short and ragged, eyebrows raised when he uses his thumb to press lightly against your clit, “Armin, please.”

The blonde shakes his head, “You’re dumber than you look if you think I’m gonna fuck you in a classroom, baby, so if you want to cum now, you better tell me.”

You have the audacity to pout of all things, “You’re mean.”

Armin lets out a breathless laugh. “You like it,” he leans forward to peck you sweetly, “So, what’ll it be?”

“Fine, but I want head later, too,” you tell him, words becoming less firm when Armin teases his ring finger against your slit, “Please.”

Armin hums in compliance, leaning forward to kiss you again, this time with more tact, and he chases your whines when he finally pushes a third finger inside of you.

“Look at you,” he croons breaking your kiss and forcing your head back again, “You take it so well.”

“Ah—fuck, there, Armin—there,” you cry, wet heat squeezing around his fingers in intermittent spasms.

Armin watches your chest heave with desperate breaths, air stuttering to pass from your lips to your lungs with his hand around your neck. He can feel your walls constricting around his fingers, feel your body shaking underneath him when he increases his pace. He curls his fingers again, just right, just until he hears you sing a strained call of his name. And when he feels your nails scraping down the nape of his neck, and the slight weight of your body convulsing, Armin knows you’re done for.

He’s nice enough to fuck you through your orgasm, shallow thrusts of his fingers bringing you to and down from your high as he watches you pant for him. He presses small kisses against your throat, up, up, up, until he’s kissing you, and carefully pulling his fingers out.

He removes his hand from your neck, and slides it down your waist to offer you support. He’s not prepared for your sudden pull on his neck, forcing him into a kiss that conveys your content; he’s quick to raise his left hand, palm meeting the wall to hold himself up against your sporadic actions, chuckling lightly into your kiss. You were always so reckless and happy after an orgasm.

You kiss him like you have him wrapped your finger despite being the one pleading moments ago. You do, so he supposes it’s not unwarranted; and he welcomes your flirtatious kisses despite the annoying blush they always bring forth.

And sure enough, he can feel his face on fire when you pull away. Armin scoffs internally at himself; he really should be able to keep it together around you by now. But when you kiss him like that, you kind of make it hard to think straight.

“You’re so good when you’re not… pretending to be good,” you hum, a blissful, hazy look on your features as you wrap your arms around his neck.

Armin shakes his head with a chortle of disbelief; leans forward to kiss you again, “’M not pretending. I am good.”

“Yeah, you’re such a good little saint that arguing with your girlfriend turns you on,” you taunt him, “It’s okay, Armin, you can admit it.”

He groans, out of shallow annoyance this time, and it makes you giggle. “Why are you acting like you’re not complicit in this?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” you refute with an exaggerated roll of your eyes, “You get turned on by hearing me talk about biochemistry. I like it when you tell me to shut up about it. We are not the same.”

“Yeah, because you look hot doing it,” he tells you, “Speaking of which, Eren called you hot today, so I kind of need you to slip a neurotoxin in his Gatorade.”

“Aw, Eren thinks I’m hot? Tell him I think he’s hot, too,” you bat your eyelashes at him, but Armin only offers you an unimpressed glare in return.

“I think he might be onto us, actually,” Armin notes, affectionately bumping his nose against yours.

“If he’s onto us, then it’s because you’re the one giving it away, not me.”

“Oh, because you could never do anything wrong, right?”

“Right,” you flash him an overconfident smile before reaching up to kiss to the tip of his nose, “See you’re so smart, baby.”

Armin shakes his head again in disbelief. You’re a handful, he can see that much.

“Come on,” he prompts, “We should go, I still have to finish my lab write up, and I know you haven’t started your paper.”

Armin tries to motion you forward, but is stopped when he feels your hand combing through his hair, and sees the genuine spark of concern in your eyes. “The one for your elective? I thought you said you were going to finish it on Monday.”

“I was,” Armin admits, “But then I didn’t.”

“You want me to help you with it?” you offer kindly, pushing his bangs back and letting your hands fall down the sides of his face, palms resting against his ears.

He nods gently, turning his head to press a kiss into your left palm, before wrapping his hand around your wrist, “I can help you outline your paper.”

You nod in return, and Armin spares one more kiss, before pulling your hand away to lace your fingers together.

Thankfully, nobody’s around to catch you exiting the classroom, or see you holding hands as you make your way out of the building and towards the bus stop. This was Armin’s favorite part of any Tuesday; the one time he could hold your hand on campus without the fear of getting caught by your friends.

He reasons that you guys should probably tell them soon, though, especially if Eren might have an idea of what’s going on. You were bound to get caught sooner rather than later. That, or Eren and Sasha would start meddling.

“If you think Eren knows, then Mikasa definitely knows,” you note, swinging your intertwined hands as you walk through the parking lot as a shortcut.

“Maybe if you actually remembered to hide Soup’s toys, there would be less evidence for her to piece together.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you didn’t forget when your midterms are, I wouldn’t have to emergency cat sit the hour before Mikasa comes around, and there wouldn’t be any toys to hide in the first place.”

“I’m bad with dates, you know that!” Armin pouts, “I don’t say anything when you forget about ten page papers until four hours before they’re due.”

“You’re saying something right now, actually.”

“That’s not what I—you know, you’re so—”

Armin’s quiet when he feels your lips pressed against his cheekily, “Annoying. I know. You like it. You’re not very good at staying mad for very long.”

Armin’s tempted to roll his eyes yet again—he really needs to quit it, or at the very least, get your own temper under control before it’s irreversible and completely rubbed off on him—but takes the opportunity to kiss your forehead, instead.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Your eyes twinkle under his affections. “And that you love me?”

He nods, “And that I love you.”

“And that you’re gonna fuck me before you make me write my paper when we get home, right?”

Armin chuckles and presses another kiss to your forehead, “We’ll see about that one.”

Hange huffs as they make their way through the parking. They always forget their keys in their office, and always, inconveniently park half-way across the campus. In their defense, this parking lot is free, and the one closest to the Medical Sciences building is not. So, really, capitalism is the one to blame for their frequent late night car lot strolls.

They hear two familiar voices bickering just as they’re about to step into their car, and are more than surprised to see their two favorite students walking together. Walking together and holding hands. Wait—you and Armin are walking together and holding hands?

Hange blinks for a moment, drowning out the sounds of the conversation after they see you two kiss. Their jaw practically falls to the asphalt and they might not blink for a full two minutes as they process what they just saw.

Their trance is broken when it finally, finally clicks together, and Hange has to try their hardest to contain their squeals before sitting in the driver’s seat, an overly forceful slam to the car door following. They waste no time fumbling with the pockets of their lab coat to fish out their phone, and make a call to their favorite math professor.

“Levi, I told you Arlert and (_____) had to know each other outside of class! I think they might be dating! You know what this means, right? I can have them both in the same lab without worrying they might start a chemical fire, and I won’t have to hire two brick heads this summer!”

Levi has never hung up a call more quickly in his life.

#aot x reader #snk x reader #armin x reader #aot imagines #snk imagines #armin smut #armin fluff #eren x reader

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warmblanketwhump · 3 years ago

Text

safe enough to fall

a little university-themed thing I wrote using @sicktember prompts: comfort item, sneaky temperature check, medicine, unlikely caregiver, and lightly inspired by these prompts

the grip of the winter’s cold was their constant, unrelenting companion - but sometimes, B just wished it would be a little less faithful.

It doesn’t ease in the morning, when B wakes up coughing with a cold nose and stiff limbs. It stays as B shivers through the lukewarm shower and the hurried layering of clothes over damp, goosebumped skin. It sticks to them like cling wrap on the bus, in the lecture hall, the windy walk to their next class, makes them tense their rattling jaw, and leaves them hunched over and huddled up, desperate to conserve any scrap of heat.

This was a fact of their university existence - that after the pleasant crispness of fall, their poor, scholarship-funded body was plunged into four months of frozen hell. They didn’t like to complain - after all, they were getting a free education. But no one told them how brutal their university’s winters would be, nor that dorm heating was little more than a few puffs of warm air every hour, or that regardless of how many layers they pulled on, they’d be chilled to the bone until late March.

Their final class of the week is in a drafty science lab, and they hold back a groan. The cold's not the only source of their dread - it was the thought of spending 90 minutes with their perky, overly friendly lab partner, A.

A, whose parents were well-off, well-known benefactors of their university. A, who lived in a nice house with proper heating and had the money for a warm winter coat. A, who obliviously chattered on about anything and everything. Besides that, they were just so...happy. All the time.

The can afford to be, B thought miserably. There was no way all that sunshine could be real.

B really tried to tamp down their bitterness, but it was hard to listen to someone gush on about their amazing weekend their family spent on some tropical island when B spent the same weekend wrapped up in blankets, trying to stay warm enough to study their nomenclature notes.

Two minutes before class, A bounds into the lab like a freed golden retriever and begins their usual volley of caffeinated questions, which B responds to in short, clipped answers. Suddenly, the questions stop and A’s brows furrow.

“You look cold. Are you okay?”

B shifts on their stool and tucks their fingers into the sleeves of their worn secondhand coat, pulling it tighter with a shudder. “I am cold. It’s winter.” They cough weakly into their elbow - the nagging cough has gripped them for weeks now.

“Are you sick?”

Direct, then. That was new. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t have a fever or anything.” In truth, they had been feeling a little lower than usual the past couple of days, the chill a little deeper, the aches more pronounced, the cough a bit more painful. But in their book, that was hardly enough call themselves sick. B sniffles and A opens their mouth to comment further, but the professor calls the class to attention, and the moment is gone.

90 minutes later, they’ve got their work cut out for them - a ten-page lab report that’s going to count for nearly a quarter of their final grade. And as luck would have it, it was a partner project, which meant B got to spend more time with the equivalent of human rocket fuel.

“So...do you want to just knock this out tonight?” A's eyes dart around nervously.

B frowns - it’s almost the weekend, and they figured A would have plans with friends this evening. But B sure doesn’t have anything going on., so they don’t protest. “No… I s’pose we should get as much done as possible while it’s still fresh. Want to go to the library?”

“Ugh." A cringes. "Do we have to? That place is like a tomb.”

B huffs indignantly. “It's not that bad," they mumble in a weak defense of their favorite study spot. A shoots them a glare, and B rolls their eyes. "Do you have somewhere better? It's Friday, so most places are closing up.”

“Well, my parents decided to go on some last-minute ski trip to the Alps again, so my place is free," A says as they step out into the biting wind. "Plus, I have a ton of food and it's actually warm in there, unlike these buildings.”

The promise of decent heating and food that wasn't from the dining hall was enough for B. "Fine. Your place." The pair trudge through the bitter wind as the sun begins to set, and soon they arrive at A's parents’ home - a beautiful, winding estate just a couple minutes away from campus. B has to bite their lip to keep their jaw off the ground - in the blustering snow, this place looks straight out of a Christmas card. Another reminder of how they don’t fit in this world.

Will you stop? B chastises themselves. A having money isn't a personal attack on you. Just enjoy the free food, finish the assignment and get over it.

Despite the towering exterior, B's house was quite cozy, colored in warm neutrals and filled with soft, comfortable furniture. Just past the mudroom, they spot a big living room filled with with an enormous overstuffed couch, squashy-looking pillows, and soft throw blankets. Everything about this place screams warm. A rubs their arms, suddenly aware of how cold they are. The heat nearly makes them dizzy, and they can feel the temperature difference as it seeps into their cold skin.

"Want some cocoa?" A tosses their bag into the corner and heads for an electric kettle in the kitchen, and B follows. "It always helps me warm up." B nods. A couple minutes later, A pushes over a steaming mug with the top entirely covered in marshmallows.

B wraps their chilled fingers around the mug and takes a sip, and the warm, rich liquid feels like heaven to their cold body. "That's amazing."

A smiles. "It's the good stuff." They sip in a surprising silence for a few moments, before A sighs in resignation. "As much as I wish this was just a social call, this report isn't gonna write itself." They grab a bag of popcorn and nod their head toward the living room, and B follows dutifully. A flicks on the gas fireplace and tosses B a throw blanket, and the pair gets to work.

------------------------------

After a couple hours of studying, three instances of indignantly thrown popcorn, and a dramatic reading of the periodic table, B realized that they may have misjudged A. Deep down, under the bubbly exterior, A was a genuinely kind, sweet person. It wasn't an act - they just were human sunshine. And the longer they spent time with them, the more B realized they didn't mind their company at all.

"Alright." A drops their pencil and rubs their eyes. "If I have to balance one more equation, my brain's gonna explode. Study break time." A flips on the TV and puts the volume on low.

B leans their head back on the couch and pulls their throw blanket to their chin, trying to ward off the shivery feeling in their core. Despite the heat of the fire, the mug of hot chocolate, and the thick blanket, they just can’t seem to get warm.

Their face feels hot, but their blood feels chilled and heavy, the weight of it making them ache deep down in their bones. B wraps their arms around their knees, trying to rub away the throbbing pain and get some warmth into their skin. They glance out the picture window at the now-blowing snow. It's gonna be a miserable walk home.

"B, you're shivering." A's turning to look at them now.

B startles. "It's-It's nothing. Just a chill." The concern in A's voice triggers their flight response. "I....I should probably get back to the dorms. It’s late–" They're cut off with a hacking cough that leaves them breathless and they wince at the ache in their chest.

"B, it's snowing, and you haven't even had dinner-"

"Where's my jacket?" They push themselves up and toss the throw blanket off, instantly regretting it as the air invades their pocket of hard fought warmth. They’re trembling and dizzy and desperately freezing, but they cannot stay here. Then, the world tilts and they fall back on to the couch. For a moment, they're just laying in an icy, spinning world, trying to catch their breath, when warmth suddenly envelops them.

A's tucking the same thick grey blanket around their shivering form. As they pull away, their hand lightly brushes over B's neck, then freezes. B twists away from the gentle touch, but it’s too late. Realization floods over A's face. Caught. "You lied. You are sick."

B groans, even as their fingers weave into the chunky knit and pull the warm layer closer. "A, please. Just let me go home. I'm probably contagious. You don't want me here."

"B, you look like death warmed over. I'm not sending you out in a blizzard when you're feverish like this. I won't do it." There's a spark in their eyes and a set to A's jaw that dares B to challenge them.

B leans back, defeated. Even though they want nothing more than to run out of this room, they're too weak to stand and too cold to move. So here they'll stay.

It's okay. Someone's here. You can give in now.

No. I can't. I can't let them see me like this.

What choice do you have? You already look awful. Let them help you.

A covers them with another blanket and places a gentle hand on their back, rubbing slowly. The firelight flickers, casting light and shadow across their solemn face. “B. Tell me what you're feeling, and I'll get you what you need.”

B swallows down the rising panic, the helpless vulnerability they feel, and takes a shallow, shaky breath. “I…I guess I just feel….not right. I’m always cold...but it's...worse.” They sniffle weakly, trying to still and order their swirling thoughts. “Chills, fever, cough, sore throat, kinda stuffed up. And it just hurts everywhere.”

A nods slowly, then leaves the room. They return in a few minutes with a few small bottles, carefully scanning the labels and holding them up for B to see.

“Can you take this? Any problems with this one?” B had to take a moment and match the brand names with their usual knockoff brands, but soon they had a couple over the counter medicines picked out, along with something for their cough.

A glances at the medicine labels once more. "This one says to take with food. I've got some leftover chicken and dumpling soup I can heat up - does that sound okay?"

B nods almost imperceptibly. "Sounds wonderful." A gets up to heat the soup, and B feels the anxiety rising in their stomach when they're not in the room with them. A returns with a mug and manages to gently spoon a few sips of broth into B's mouth before B starts falling asleep, clutching the grey blanket even tighter to their shoulders.

A smiles sadly. “That blanket's my favorite whenever I'm not feeling good. It's the best thing you could have to fight off what you’ve got. Trust me.”

B curls into the soft fabric. It was as if the warm environment of the apartment and the comfort of the blanket had been a signal that it was safe to leave survival mode, rest for a moment, open the floodgates that had been holding back whatever had been ailing them for weeks.

After B takes their medicine, A’s eyes shift awkwardly around the room. “So….when you’re sick, do you like having someone with you? Or do you want to be by yourself?”

A sudden rush of emotion crashes over B. They’d so rarely had the choice. It takes all they’ve got not to throw themselves around A and beg them not to leave. “Stay, please,” they ask in a small, trembling voice. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

A smiles halfway and gently pats B’s leg. “Seeing as how I live here, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” They take their spot at the end of the couch and pull B’s legs over their own, flicking the TV to a familiar movie. B tries to keep up with the plot, but they keep falling in and out of a fitful, restless sleep, tossing, turning, unable to get comfortable enough.

When B’s about ready to cry from exhaustion, A’s there, covering them up with another blanket, bringing them a glass of water, gently stroking the damp hair off their forehead before laying a cold cloth over it. They flinch at first, but the cool dampness eases the fire of their fever, even for just a moment. The last thing B remembers before falling unconscious is a gentle hand squeezing theirs.

It could be minutes or hours later when they jolt awake from a fever dream in a cold sweat, choking and coughing. They’ve kicked off their blankets and the cloth is nowhere to be found, but the chills are back in full force. A appears in B’s blurred vision, hand held to B’s forehead. “Poor thing. Your fever’s worse,” they murmur.

B’s still gasping for breath, curled up in the fetal position, body wracked by the shakes as they try force the words through their chattering teeth. “A...It's so cold. I’m so scared.”

If B was more lucid, they’d see something in A’s eyes crack wide open at their weak, fearful cries. A pulls the trusted grey blanket from the floor and wraps it back around B, rubbing their arms to try and make them feel warmer. There's something in the tenderness of the gesture, and B’s panicked gasps turn into soft, quiet sobs. They try and cover their face with one hand, but A’s hand is there, catching their wrist and wiping the tears away with their thumb.

“Hey. You’re gonna be okay. We just gotta get through tonight, alright?” A’s voice matches their usual cheery demeanor, but B can see the fear in their own eyes. They don’t know what they’re doing either.

“Why are you helping me?” B whispers in a tear-roughened voice.

A shrugs. "You're sick. You need help. Is it that so surprising?"

B's eyes flash a delirious spark. "You don't get it. I'm a broke scholarship student. I'm nothing like you. I'm not fun, or bubbly, or rich, or any of those things you are, and I don't fit in here. So why?"

B can't stop the words now, every single insecurity laid bare. "Why do you try to talk to me when I'm nothing but rude to you? Why'd you invite me here? Am I just a project to you? Why are you helping me? I'm not worth it!" The words spill out before B can stop them, and the raw hurt in A's eyes nearly rips B's heart out of their chest.

B claps their hand over their mouth, tears flooding their eyes. Now they've done it. They've laid it all out there. A's gonna kick them to the curb. And B won't blame them one bit.

But instead, A just looks at them, and pulls B into a hug. Their voice wavers only a bit as they whisper in B's ear: "You're not a project. You are completely worth being cared for. And you’re not the only one who knows what it feels like to not fit somewhere. Trust me.”

Alone. In a big, empty house. Studying on a Friday night. No plans of their own.

A, are you lonely, too?

Their words are so simple.

And yet they're everything B didn't know they needed to hear. A's got one arm around their shoulders, and one hand threaded through their sweaty, fever-damp hair, and they're cradling B so tightly it’s like they're the one who needs to be held.

B can't find the words to apologize or comfort them back. They're too tired for that. But they wrap their other arm around A and let their head rest on their shoulder. They stay like that for ages until their head begins to drop, and A shifts so they’re both laying down, B curled against A, A’s arm wrapped around their shoulders as they tuck a blanket around them both.

And finally, finally, B lets go. It's safe to fall, this time around. Because for the first time, there's someone there to catch them.

#sickfic #whump #sickfic prompt #whump prompt #cold whump #lol i rewrote this four times #can i just be chill about whump #no #no i cannot #also it’s cooler today #fall means whump weather #I don’t make the rules

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drspencerweed · 4 years ago

Text

Dreams Do Come True

Summary/Request: from anon: CONGRATS ON HITTING 500 ILYSM!!! random request,, having a wet dream about spencer while sharing a room on a case (i know, super original) and him getting all hot and bothered hearing you moan 🙈😁

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

W/C: 3484

Content: smut, fluff, friends to lovers, oral sex (both receiving), premature ejaculation, wet dream, sub!spencer

A/N: Hi! So this probably isn’t exactly what you asked for, but I started writing it and it kind of took on a mind of it’s own. I banged this out in two days, it practically wrote itself. I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist

read on ao3

Sharing a hotel room with her was normal. It was. Sure, they had never done it before, but that was just because Hotch had never randomly assigned the two of them before. So okay, it wasn’t normal by definition. But he wasn’t going to make it weird. Just because he had a small crush on her did not mean that he would let it be weird. They were colleagues, and they even spent time together outside of work too! She would come to his apartment to watch old movies, and he would go to hers so she could cook for him. So he knew he could spend time with her alone, that wasn’t the problem.

It was the sleeping that was potentially the issue.

His little crush had been invading his subconscious almost constantly nowadays, and he was known to talk in his sleep. He was so scared he would say something wrong in his sleep. If she overheard something like that, he knew their friendship would never recover. How can you act normal around someone who said your name in their sleep?

He had been avoiding going to sleep before her, so he had taken Derek up on his offer for a drink in his room to talk about anything but the case they were working.

“So when are you going to tell [Y/N] that you’re into her?” Derek asked out of nowhere.

Spencer stuttered around the sip of his drink. “W-Who says I’m interested in her?”

Derek just laughed and clapped Spencer on the shoulder. His cheeks were burning, a sure sign of his embarrassment at being called out. “Pretty boy, you give her heart eyes every time she walks in a room.”

His blush deepened. “Even if I was interested, there’s a very low probability that she is also interested. So the answer to your question would be never, obviously.” Derek stopped his giggling and gave Spencer an incredulous look.

“All that genius and you don’t see how she looks at you?” Derek asked.

“How she looks at me?”

“She looks at you like you hung the stars, man.”

Spencer scoffed, brushing off the comment. “No she doesn’t.”

Derek started laughing again, “Yes she does! Oh my god, the genius can’t read basic body language?”

“Even if, occasionally, her body language reflected an attraction to me, it was probably because she was thinking of someone she actually was attracted to. Statistically, most women find me awkward and-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, none of this negative self talk. You’re a catch!”

Spencer just waved his hand at the comment, taking a long sip of his whiskey and coughing a bit as he swallowed. Derek eyed him curiously.

“I’m telling you, you’re never gonna get anywhere if you never shoot your shot. The worst thing that could happen is she says no.” Derek advised. He shook his head and finished his drink .

“The worst that could happen is she thinks I’m an absolute weirdo and never wants to talk to me again.” Spencer explained.

“That’s not going to happen.” Spencer rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I can’t risk losing her.” He insisted. Derek sighed and accepted that he was a lost cause, leaning back in his seat and changing the subject.

~~~~

Spencer made his way back to the room a few hours later, saying a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in that she was already asleep. The light was off, so he clicked on the bathroom light so he could see but hopefully not wake her.

“[Y/N]?” He called quietly into the dark. All he got in response was a small whimper. He thanked his lucky stars and made his way to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Once he was all cleaned up and in a pair of sweatpants and a tshirt, he made his way to climb into bed. Just as he swung the sheets off, he heard a low moan from the bed next to him. It stopped him in his tracks. He turned towards her bed, looking at her face for any signs of distress. Nightmares could be debilitating; he knew from experience. But her face was peaceful, beautifully restful. He stopped again for a different reason, taking in the way her face looked as she slept.

Then it scrunched up as she let out another moan. His eyebrows furrowed, wanting to wake her in case she was having a bad dream, but not wanting to disturb her. He swallowed thickly.

Another moan. This one was followed quickly by a quick, “Spencer!” He reeled, unsure where his name had come up. Was she dreaming about him? Was she having a nightmare about him? Or was she calling out for his help?

She let a long, drawn out, “Oh,” and rolled from her side onto her back. He took a step forward, planning to shake her awake from what was clearly a nightmare at this point. But suddenly, “Go on, lick me.”

Spencer stopped with his hands out above her shoulders, inches from waking her. Lick me? He mouthed to himself. What could she possibly be dreaming about?

“Fuck, Spencer, I’m gonna cum!” She exclaimed, rolling back on her side. And-oh my gosh. Spencer took three quick steps back, realizing far too late exactly what was happening. He was entirely unsure how to react. [Y/N]? Having a sex dream about him? It was unbelievable. On his third step back, he ran right into his bed, and lost his balance.

He fell to the floor with a crash.

Her eyes blinked open, and he didn’t have any time to get up or move at all, so her eyes met his immediately upon waking. “Spencer? What happened?” Her voice was tired from sleep.

Spencer blinked, and immediately panicked. He was never good at lying under pressure. “I-uh. You were having a, uhm, dream. And I thought, thought it was a nightmare so-” As he spoke, [Y/N]’s face got redder and redder, and she sat up in bed and placed her face in her hands.

“Oh no, you didn’t hear anything, did you?” She asked cautiously, barely chancing a glance up at him. He swallowed tightly and nodded. “Fuck me!” She said, throwing her head back on the pillow. Her voice sent something through him, and all he wanted was to say Okay and kiss her. But Spencer knew one didn’t control their own subconscious. Just because she had a dream about him didn’t means she actually wanted it to happen. He scrambled to his feet and cleared his throat.

Before he could say something, anything really, she was sitting up again with a groan, rubbing her hand over her face. “Well I guess now you know about my stupid crush.”

“Your crush?” He asked. She looked at him incredulously.

“You heard me moan your name in my sleep. Yes, obviously, my crush. On you.” She explained matter of factly. He stuttered, trying to allow his brain to process the amount of information he had just been given. It didn’t make sense to him. [Y/N] was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, not to mention one of the most confident. She carried herself with such authority he never thought she’d look twice in his direction. Clearly, she’d want some confident alpha male who could match her energy, not his insecure nervous self. But here she was, telling him point blank that she had a crush on him.

He didn’t know what to do. While he was standing there, stuttering, trying to gather his thoughts, [Y/N] made her way out of her bed to stand in front of him. She was only wearing a tank top and a pair of small shorts, and he could barely keep himself from staring at her body. “I had no idea.” He finally settled on saying, and she let out a loud laugh.

“Really? Profiler extraordinaire? No idea? Why do you think I cooked for you so many times?” She smiled at him while she said it, like she couldn’t quite believe he didn’t see it.

“I thought you just wanted to be friends!” He exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. She seemed to deflate at this, her face falling and wringing her hands together.

“I did! I do! But I was always open to...more. I just wanted to spend time with you.” She explained, sitting back on the edge of her bed and staring down at her hands. “But you clearly have no interest in that-”

“No! No.” He corrected quickly, and then realized with a sudden clarity that since her confession he’d done nothing to imply he felt the same. She stared up at him at his exclamation, unsure what he meant.

“No?”

“No, you’re wrong, I do have interest in that. In more.” He explained, sitting next to her. He awkwardly reached for her hand, which she offered with a small smile. Lacing their fingers together, he looked her in the eye with purpose. “I also have a crush on you. I stayed out of the room tonight because I was trying to avoid, uhm. What happened to you. I thought that might happen to me.”

She stared at their entwined hands, and then looked back at him. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” He smiled at her, and her face brightened immediately. She turned completely towards him and pulled him in by the neck, pressing their foreheads together. Spencer let their noses rub together, both of them still beaming.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” She whispered, her breath fanning over his lips as she said it. Before he could even nod, her lips pressed to his. It was magic. Her lips were soft and urgent, catching his bottom lip between them. Her hands pulled him closer to her by the neck, and he let his hands find her waist, urging her closer. She climbed into his lap with his guidance, and he let his tongue slip into her mouth as she did it. Her hands roamed into his hair, pushing it off his head and carding her fingers through it, causing him to moan. She giggled into his mouth.

“You like having your hair played with, baby?” She asked, pulling away to watch his reaction as she tugged on his roots. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he let his hands drop to her ass. He squeezed and pulled her down onto him, letting his lips find her neck. She let out a loud groan as he sucked a mark into her pulse point, but she pushed him away with both hands on his cheeks.

“Not above the collar,” She reminded. He smirked at the idea of everyone on the team knowing what they were doing. At everyone on the team knowing that she wanted to do this with him.

“But what if I want people to know you’re mine.” He asked, pressing a quick kiss to her lips as he said it. She smiled at him.

“I think you’ve got this whole thing wrong then.”

He furrowed his brow at her, unsure what he could have possibly misunderstood.

“You, Dr. Reid, are mine.” She said, and then pushed him down onto the bed. He stared up at her perched on his lap, and let his hands roam her body. Now that he had free reign to touch, he never wanted to stop. She sighed and ran her hands down his chest, going to the bottom of his shirt and pulling it off of him. Her hands lit fires under his skin, as he gripped her by the hips and rolled his hardness into her. She chuckled at him.

“Hard already, baby?” She teased. He moaned and threw his head back as she rotated her hips on him. “Use your words.” She ordered, gripping his face to make him look at her.

“Yes, miss.” He answered on instinct. He immediately froze up, trying to take back the honorific when they had never discussed anything like that. It just slipped out, his little experience with being a submissive taking over because of [Y/N]’s naturally dominant role. But her eyes lit up, and she simply smirked at him.

“Good boy.” She whispered, and pressed down hard with her hips.

He came in his pants.

With a loud groan and a thrust upward, he shot into his sweatpants. She chuckled as he shuddered through his orgasm, and leaned down to kiss him. As soon as he came down from the high, embarrassment overtook him. He had a chance with his dream girl, and he literally blew it not five minutes in. Because she called him a Good boy. He brought his hands up to cover his face, but she caught his wrists before he could reach. He closed his eyes and turned his face away, not ready for the ridicule that was sure to follow.

“Awh, did I make you cum?” She rolled her hips a few times, and he hissed at the oversensitivity. “That’s so hot.”

“W-What?” He asked, turning back towards her slowly. She was beaming at him.

“You were so overwhelmed with me that you came so quick, what’s not hot about that?” She said, stroking his cheek. “The cutest boy, all worked up, just for me.”

He blushed again, and swallowed as he smiled back at her. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” She asked. His hands danced along her sides, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples through her shirt.

“Wanna make you feel good.” He said while she gasped.

“What’s stopping you?” She asked with a smirk. He surged upwards and began kissing her again, only stopping to finally rip her shirt off of her and get his hands on her bare breasts. Her hands found his hair again and tugged on the strands, causing their mouths to break apart as he panted.

“Wanna taste you.” He requested. She moaned and pulled him into another kiss, guiding his hands to touch her under her shorts. His fingers trailed through her wetness, and she moaned against his lips. Then he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked on them, while her eyes watched through hooded lids. He moaned around his fingers, the taste of her so intoxicating he wanted more of it.

“You’re so fucking hot. Such a good, good boy.” She whispered, stroking his hair. Then she crawled off his lap and laid out on the bed next to him. He turned to watch her as she shimmied off her shorts. Her eyes fell to where he was still sucking on his fingers. She gestured him over to her, and he quickly crawled between her legs. She nodded towards him. “Go on then, taste me.”

He dove in tongue first, with broad licks up and down her pussy. Her hands immediately laced through his hair, pulling him closer to her. His tongue traced from her hole to her clit. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and pulled her in, letting his lips latch onto her clit and sucking. Flicking the tip of it with his tongue, she moaned and threw her head back on the pillows.

“Oh!” She cried, and it sounded just like when she was having the dream earlier. Spencer had a quick thought about making her dreams come true, but brushed it to the side as idealized thinking. Then she lifted his head off of her and looked straight into his eyes. “Go on, lick me.”

Whether she remembered her dream or not, she was clearly living out her fantasy. He lolled his tongue out of his mouth and leisurely licked over her pussy, his tongue flat and wide. She canted her hips up towards him, and he let his tongue form rapid circles around her clit. Her moans fueled his motions, and he moved one of his hands down to pressed two fingers into her.

She whined as he entered her, and let out a quick “Spencer!” He curled his fingers while sucking on her clit again, and her thighs began to clench around his head. He found the right spot inside her by listening to her moans, and then focused all his attention there while flicking his tongue against her clit.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum!” She cried, tugging on his hair. He kept doing everything exactly the same, pushing her over the edge with a loud shout. He kept up his ministrations until she pushed him off from the oversensitivity. She let out a loud sigh as he pulled off, and her hands went up to clutch at her own hair for a change. Staring up at the ceiling, she let a grin cross her face as a few aftershocks rolled through her. He admired her as she came down from her high, and then moved to the bathroom to wash his hands and get a rag to clean her up.

When he came back he went to wipe her down, but she took the rag from him. “Sit. I get to take care of you, now.” She wiped herself down and then kneeled in front of him. She pulled down his sweatpants, which stuck a little to his cock which was hard again. Smirking up at him, she began wiping him down while he hissed, the gentle touches not enough for him. Suddenly her hot mouth wrapped around his head, and he groaned out. She made quick work of him, throwing her all into the blowjob from the start, taking him as deep as possible over and over. His hands clenched in the sheets as he came for a second time, this time down her throat.

She swallowed as he watched in awe, and then wiped down his softening cock and stood up. Silently, she made her way to the bathroom and got rid of the dirty towel.

When she came back Spencer was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He smiled up at her and reached out a hand, which she took gladly letting him pull her in for a hug, with her standing between his knees.

“I really like you, you know.” He said, his chin resting between her breasts as he stared up at her.

“I know. I really like you too.”

“Would you like to get dinner with me, when the case is over?”

“As long as we can keep doing what we just did before then, absolutely.” She said with raised eyebrows. He let out a laugh which made her smile, and he pressed a kiss to her chest.

“Of course.”

“You can make my other dreams come true.” She smirked.

“I’d love to.”

~~~~

When they walked into the precinct the next morning, [Y/N] was wearing a scarf, despite the hot Texas heat. She hadn’t quite caught Spencer in time, and he had in fact left a mark. Of course the whole team noticed.

“Oi, Pretty Boy, was [Y/N] in your room last night?” Derek asked at the coffee station. Luckily Spencer was facing away from him, so Derek didn’t see how his immediate reaction was to blanche at the memories from the night before. He gathered himself quickly.

“Yes, of course, why?” He asked as he turned around, stirring his coffee. Derek’s attention was on [Y/N], who was talking to an officer on the other side of the precinct.

“That scarf is only there to hide something, I think our lovely lady might’ve got some last night.” Derek said with a smirk. “Don’t let it break your heart, you still have a chance!” He turned to Spencer and clapped him on the shoulder, who was blushing intensely at the tease. [Y/N] had, in fact, ‘got some’, and he was the some she got with. Derek noticed he was off.

“C’mon, I’m just teasing. She probably didn’t get a chance to-” While he was talking, Spencer caught [Y/N]’s eye from across the room. She smirked at him and waved, and he smiled and waved back. Derek cut himself off when he saw Spencer’s wave, turning to see just as [Y/N]’s face turned back to the officer she was talking to. “Oh my god. You crazy man, you actually did it!” Derek exclaimed, shaking Spencer.

Spencer spluttered, shaking his head. “N-No, it’s not like that, I-”

“I don’t need all the details, I just need to know it happened. Because it did happen, didn’t it?” He asked, trying to look Spencer in the eye, but the latter was aggressively avoiding eye contact. Spencer pursed his lips to try and contain his smile as he nodded. “My man!” Derek exclaimed, pulling him into a hug.

Spencer caught [Y/N]’s eye again over Derek’s shoulder, and the smile she gave him made him smile right back.

They had dreams to realize tonight.

Final A/N: thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

taglist: @rusticreid @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto

send me a message or comment on this fic to be added to my taglist!

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #sub spencer reid #criminal minds fan fic #spencer reid fan fic #my fic #mine

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hurting-fictional-people · 3 years ago

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Betrayal story - part 4

Look, the story has a name (hopefully I’ll come up with a better one later)! And the characters do too!

Anyways, if someone hasn’t seen the picrews (it’s here if you want to), Whumpee is now Liam Beaumont, Caretaker is Chase Raymond and Whumper is Jonah Sharpe. If you have trouble remembering: Caretaker still starts with a C no I totally didn’t give him a name that starts with a C on purpose what are you talking about and I think you’ll get very different vibes from Liam and Jonah haha

CW: electric torture, forced to watch, whumpee held hostage, hurt no comfort (for now), restraints

tagging @thelazywitchphotographer @swift-perseides @whump-it-like-its-hot @sunflower1000 @msrandonstuff @fromtheo-withlove @boxofsilence @lionhxartx @sometouchofmadness @paleassprince

Part one here, continued from here

Twelve messages wait for Chase when he picks up his phone. All from Jonah, all demanding him to work quicker, to give in new information faster. He purses his lips and takes a deep breath, clutching the new drive he was given to fill.

After so many betrayals, he should be used to the sting that comes along with lying and deceiving. He’s done it before, felt that guilt, drowned in it – and yet he can’t help but hesitate. Liam’s pale lips, creased brows, shallow breaths, sparkle to life in his mind, a painful reminder of what is at stake if he annoys Jonah too much. Right beside Liam’s face, though, are the ones of Chase’s team, his friends, his family, all trusting smiles and loving gazes he cannot ignore. It’s enough for him to type a message and turn off the phone.

Working on it, Chase sends and hopes it is enough to keep the man quiet for at least another day as he turns his computer on and starts erasing from the drive the most meaningful information he’s stolen.

When Jonah bursts into his room, Liam is almost happy to see him. Five days have passed since he’s woken up in a room instead of the cell, and all he’s had since then is loneliness and echoing silence. With the only human interaction he was given being the occasional visit from a nurse who gave him a clinical once-over and refused to so much as look him in the eye, it was no real surprise when his thoughts spiraled out of control, swirling around and sinking down between Chase’s inevitable and yet somehow unexpected betrayal, and his new status as a hostage.

“Doing better?” Jonah asks, leaning against the doorframe. Liam’s heart pounds both in relief and terror at the sound of a voice that isn’t his own.

“Do you care?”

“Getting some rest got your tongue loose, I see.”

“Why are you keeping me here?” That’s the question that’s been eating him alive, disrupting his sleep, watering his fear into a blossoming flower of dread that grows and suffocates any hope that tries to bloom beside it. Each answer Liam’s imagined sounds worst than the last, but if there is truth in any of them, he has to know. To prepare.

“We talked about this already, didn’t we?”

Jonah’s eyes are as cold as he remembers from their few encounters, but this time something lurking there whispers stories of anger and pain to come, and that alone is enough to raise goosebumps along his entire body.

“What do you want to let me go?” What could he have to give a man who is already filthy rich, when Liam has nothing to offer but a cramped apartment and a lot of resentment?

“Nothing you can offer, lovely,” Jonah chuckles. “Fair try, though.”

But nothing about this is fair, in any possible way. “So you are just going to keep me here because you don’t like Chase? I have nothing to do with him, please just let me the fuck go and I won’t even tell anyone, you–“

“Liam, honey, let us clear something up. There is nothing you can do to convince me to let you go. All you can do is comply, and maybe I’ll be merciful if you do, but you are mine for the time being, and there is no one here to help you but me.”

Liam’s reply dies on his tongue, killed by the unrestricted horror the words wash him over with. It doesn’t sound real. Sounds like something he’d watch in a movie, read in a book, hear about on the news. To hear them directed at him and feel the pulsating response from the healing stab wound in his gut, makes him hold his breath and pray to just wake up from this nightmare. When did his life turn into this? Was it when he met Chase? Was it before?

“Now that that’s out of the way, come on, we have somewhere to go today.”

Liam’s stomach drops to the ground, farther, falling and falling to the center of the Earth as he clenches the sheets in his fists and hisses, “Last time you said that, you locked me up until I got an infection.”

“Ha, that was fun, wasn’t it?” Jonah says, raising a brow. Liam doesn’t even blink at the grin playing on his lips. “Don’t worry, love, I don’t make the same mistake twice. We’re having a different kind of fun today. Up now, or I’ll call my men to do it for you.”

Gritting his teeth, Liam pushes the sheets away and slowly stands up, holding his side and fighting a groan, but on his feet without help.

They walk in silence, and neither Jonah nor the guards say anything about how slow he is, or how terribly pitiful he looks stumbling through the hallways. A thousand words speed through his brain, pleading to be heard, but he doesn’t voice any of his questions. Doesn’t think he’d get an answer if he did, anyway.

He is led into a nearly barren room, with only a camera over a tripod standing in front of a wooden chair. A wooden chair surrounded by restraints.

He takes a step back before his brain catches up with the movement, straight against a guards’ chest. Jonah giggles and tuts softly.

Two men grab his arms and drag him to the chair, and the panic suddenly becomes so deep, so all-encompassing, it swallows down his fight. He is pushed down on the chair, the restraints are buckled around him until all Liam can move is his head, and all the while he just sits there, hyperventilating and near to tears, as still as a statue. Watching but never moving, terrified but frozen in place, petrified, and he hates himself for it, even if he knows the feeling should be directed at Jonah and Jonah alone.

“Well, I didn’t know you’d be so pliable, sweetheart,” Jonah mocks, setting the camera up. “I would’ve played with you sooner had I known.”

He parts his lips, but the words refuse to form. Fear envelops each of them before Liam can push them through gritted teeth, and all he does is stare at the guards surrounding him, at the cold stickers being placed on his arms, his shoulders, his hands. Liam shivers, but there’s no air current here.

“Why, why, why are you doing this?” he chokes out. He knows what’s about to happen, has seen it on television enough times to recognize the electrodes, the box placed next to the chair.

“Because Chase pissed me off today,” he shrugs, and a red light blinks to life in front of the camera. Jonah walks toward him, stops in front of the chair, and smiles. Liam’s eyes are blown wide as he stares up at the man. “Has Chase ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?”

The weight on his stomach is so huge that Liam can’t even find energy enough to feel outraged.

Jonah pulls out a linen scarf from his pocket as the guards plug wires to each sticker and wiggles it in front of Liam’s face. “Here, I’d bite down on this if I were you.” When he fails to open his mouth, the man rolls his eyes and grabs his cheeks, squeezing so suddenly and cruelly his mouth opens without command and the scarf is shoved inside, making him gag. “Not that well behaved, huh. No problem, we have time to get you obeying.”

When the guards take a step away, Liam finds himself wishing they didn’t.

“Smile at the camera, love,” Jonah says, stepping to the side so Liam is the only one being recorded. He stares straight at the lens and tries to draw in a deep breath.

He knows it is coming. He prepares for it. And then Jonah flips a switch, and there’s no preparing for pain so big, for agony so deep.

The world shatters around him as electricity lights up his body, turns him inside out, upside down, and no breath could’ve ever made this any better. There’s no air to breathe, no room to writhe, no place to escape. There is only pain, boundless and searing, here and now, splitting him into thousands of shards he can never hope to piece back together.

And then it stops, and his throat is raw but he doesn’t remember screaming and his chest heaves as he fights for air and tears fall from his eyes to his chin to his chest but he doesn’t remember crying either.

“Beautiful,” Jonah sighs somewhere close. Liam coughs and chokes on his own tears, trying to beg or maybe cry out, but whatever his mouth forms gets caught on the gag before it reaches anyone’s ears.

Please please please stop, it hurts, hurts so much, so, so much, please, please–

“Let’s go again.”

Liam doesn’t have time to even be scared before his world dissolves into burning agony once more. All he can do is scream and silently plead for help he knows isn’t coming.

When Chase turns on the phone, his heart nearly stops at the video awaiting him.

Two hours have passed. After five days of trying to convince that despicable man to let him see Liam and failing miserably, barely sleeping, worry and guilt eating at his insides, he fell asleep. He forgot. For one hundred and twenty minutes he allowed himself to rest, and now he is paid with Liam’s frozen image staring at him, waiting on Jonah’s chat, along with one single line of text that chills him to the bone.

This is for turning off the phone.

He clicks and feels a chasm opening in his gut when Liam fills the screen, strapped to a chair, scared eyes darting around a room Chase can’t see through the video, searching for an escape that is nowhere to be found, stopping on each electrode that is stuck to his body. The fear is clear as crystal on his face. It makes Chase’s heart squeeze until his chest is so tight he places a hand there, afraid to find it as hollow as he feels. Liam doesn’t talk, doesn’t scream, doesn’t beg. He simply blinks at the men towering over him and doesn’t ask for help, and that might be what truly undoes Chase.

And then Jonah turns on the switch, and Liam’s head snaps back, body contorting against restraints so tight there’s no room for him the thrash. Even through the gag, he screams, and Chase would scream as well if he wasn’t too busy gripping the phone as if his life depended on it, trying to steady his trembling hands.

When the shock stops, Liam’s face is tear-stained and exhausted, sobs wracking his body and ripping apart Chase’s soul.

His fault.

It is his fault. After everything, after betraying Liam into not trusting anyone, after losing the boy who might’ve been the love of his life, after being responsible for his stabbing, his kidnapping, after everything–

The switch is turned on again, and this time when Liam screams, Chase’s eyes well up with tears he has no right to cry. A kind of rotten helplessness takes over his body, its clawed fingers wrapping around his arms, his legs, his heart and squeezing, whispering and shouting his failure, his guilt, his powerlessness. His eyes plead to close, but he needs to see this. It is his fault, his burden, and if Liam was forced through it, he has to at least watch it to the end. If anything, to know he’s still alive.

It lasts longer the second time. A life. His useless life. Liam convulses and cries and howls, and if Chase could only take the pain to himself, he would. He would switch places with Liam in the blink of an eye. He is the one who deserves that pain. He is the one who betrays and hurts and destroys anything he touches, and it should be him, not the boy who smiles at the sunrise and cries over books and dreams about changing the world.

He stares unblinking at the screen and watches in silence as electricity courses again and again through that body he had once held and thought about spending a life beside, fogging those eyes that used to engulf him in love, twisting that face he once kissed and touched and loved into one of raw despair. Each time it stops, neither of them has time to catch their breath before it starts again. After the third time, Liam doesn’t cry out anymore. His voice breaks in a ragged wail until it dies down and all that’s left are silent sobs.

When the video ends, Chase is nearly numb. The last image shows Liam’s head hanging forward as he struggles to breathe, Jonah’s fingers casually carding through his sweaty hair.

Chase is out of his house before his brain even processes what he’s doing, inside his car, driving to Jonah’s building in a blur of hatred and desperation. When he parks in front of the tower, the phone buzzes and he doesn’t hesitate to read it. Not anymore. Never again.

You lost visit privileges. Leave the drive with the guard at the door and keep in touch.

With Liam’s screams still ringing inside his mind, forever trapped there, he doesn’t dare do anything other than what he is told. He gives the guard the flash drive, and for the first time in years, he prays. Because if anyone notices the most important files missing… he can’t bear the thought of what could be done to Liam in retribution.

(next)

#spoiler alert: ofc jonah's gonna notice there are files missing >:)#whump #whump writing #creepy whumper #betrayal whump #held hostage #electrocution #electric torture #freeze response #angst #forced to watch #hurt no comfort #i'm not sure how much i like this one y'all but i needed an excuse for what's happening next part :')#and i spent way too long staring at this so i'm just gonna post it already #i'm also starting to regret stabbing liam in the gut cuz now it's hard to find tortures that won't kill him lol

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tuanyiems · 4 years ago

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To Tango

Yugyeom x Fem Reader Genre: fluff, a little angst, smut Words: 12k [Masterlist in blog description] Plot: Sequel to Take Two (Arranged Marriage AU) Part of the Marriage Life AU series. You and Yugyeom have decided to take things slow now that you are starting over on the right foot. This proves to be more difficult when your insecurities about your virginity grow larger and Yugyeom’s dance partners get prettier and sexier with each routine. Warning: gyeom and reader need to work on their communication lulz, loss of virginity, fingering, oral (f receiving), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, riding, creampie, a brief moment of unintentional cockwarming lol

“Oh, and the sex, Y/N!” Anna let out a dreamy sigh, plopping her head against the couch cushion dramatically, her third glass of wine swirling dangerously in her hand. “I thought we were great in bed before, but engagement sex! Y/N, it’s absolutely mind-blowing!”

You giggle in response to your best friend, lips on the edge of your own wine glass as you nursed your first cup.

Anna reaches out her left hand, eyes crinkling at the sparkling ring on her finger. “I can’t wait to get married and have newlywed sex! Is it even better, Y/N?”

You cough in surprise, mouthful of wine spilling back into your glass.

“Oh dear, are you okay?” Anna reaches over, patting you on the back. She glances over cautiously. “You know, I heard most couples need time to learn each other’s bodies. Not all men can be like Jungkook. It gets better, don’t worry!”

“No!” You looked up in surprise, cheeks heating up. “It’s not that it’s bad. Yugyeom isn’t bad…or well, I don’t…he’s probably not.”

“Wait!” She shakes her head in disbelief, slamming down her wine glass on the coffee table. “I thought you and Yugyeom were getting along! It’s been a whole year, Y/N!”

“W-we are,” you stutter, looking away.

“But you’re still a virgin?” Anna asks slowly. You gulp down the rest of your glass, squeezing your eyes shut in embarrassment as you reluctantly nod.

“Aww, it’s okay…sex isn’t even that…good.”

You roll your eyes, giggling at the obvious lie. “Stop Anna, you looked like you were in actual pain just saying that.”

She grinned, flashing a row of plum teeth. “Sex is amazing, Y/N, I’m sorry.”

You shrug your shoulders, pouring more wine into your glasses. “I’m sure I’ll find out eventually. Yugyeom and I are just taking things slow.”

“Of course, there’s no rush!” Anna smiles reassuringly.

“Right, no rush.” You agree, nodding your head with conviction. Deep down though, you’re worried. After the two of you finally cleared the air of your misunderstandings last year, you both agreed to take things slow, get to know each other as friends first. Of course, this was more for Yugyeom. You had already been head over heels for him two years prior to him ever knowing your name. As time passed, your feelings for Yugyeom only grew stronger, but you weren’t sure you could say the same for him.

It took months for him to come to terms with you being his wife, you didn’t want to scare him away by asking for anything more. But a whole year has passed since then and the two of you hang out more like roommates than a married couple.

The first time you went on a real date, it got so awkward that Yugyeom literally called up Bambam to break the silence. The last time you tried to hold Yugyeom’s hand he flinched like you were going to chop his fingers off or something. Ever since then, you’ve given up, relishing instead on your casual nights in watching k-dramas and weekly grocery store runs. Those count as dates, right?

“Everyone has their own pace Y/N,” Anna adds, as if she could hear your worried thoughts. “There’s no order to when you’re supposed to get married or have sex. Don’t worry about it.”

You look at her with a pout. “Even if we’ve never kissed?”

“YOU’VE NEVER KISSED?!”

You laugh, half at her reaction and half in agony as you nod.

“What the hell is wrong with Yugyeom?” Anna yelled out indignantly.

You smile sheepishly, brushing your fingers through your hair in defeat. “Maybe he doesn’t want to kiss me. We hang out like bros. I think I’ve been friendzoned.”

“Nonsense! There’s something wrong with that boy if he doesn’t want to kiss you. Even I want to kiss you sometimes! That’s how hot you are!”

You laugh, collapsing into the couch cushions at your friend’s bug-eyed expression. “Anyways, it’s not that big of a problem. In his defense, he’s only just gotten to know me. I’m not as outgoing as you Anna, my charms are a little harder to see.”

“No way, Yugyeom’s just blind. That, or he’s a coward! You need to grab that boy by the collar and show him exactly what he’s missing out on. Just grab him and plant a wet one on him!”

You chuckle, shaking your head. “I think that’s called assault, Anna. We’ll get there in due time. No rush.”

“No rush about what?” Yugyeom interrupts, entering through the front door. He had just come back from the dance studio. You avert your eyes. Even after a long day of dancing in track pants and a plain white tee, hair stuffed into a black cap, Yugyeom still looks irresistible.

“Are you two drinking again?” He asks after no answer, approaching the two of you on the couch.

You smile sheepishly, twirling the red wine in your glass.

“Yes we are! Have to get rid of our frustrations somehow!” Anna barks back, pouring more wine into both of your glasses.

“This is my second glass,” You tell him quietly when he glances from Anna back to you, questioningly.

Yugyeom raises his brow skeptically, leaning over the couch to get a closer look. You gulp, eyes trailing the tip of his nose and the curve of his cupid’s bow. He’s so close; you could smell the lingering scent of the outside air mixed with his faded cologne.

“Your second glass?” he asks, eyes trained on yours like he could read your thoughts if he stares hard enough. You pray that isn’t true.

You nod quietly.

“Then why are your cheeks so pink? I think you’re already drunk!” He declares, standing up straight. Anna laughs, looking at you with a knowing smile.

“Did you eat dinner yet?” You change the subject quickly.

He smiles down at you before stepping away. “Yeah, I’m gonna go shower and then head to bed. Don’t keep her up too late, Anna!”

“That’s your job, Mr. Hubby,” Anna mumbles under her breath, snickering when your eyes widen, and you turn back to check if he heard. Yugyeom is already down the hallway though.

You pout, sinking into your seat. “Don’t say it!”

“You’ve got the hots for your husband!” Anna sings with excitement, nudging you teasingly.

You can only groan into the couch cushions because you know she’s absolutely right.

Of course, by now everyone knows you’ve had the hots for your husband ever since you laid eyes on him as a freshman in college. You were like the Cinderella of arranged marriages on campus. You agreed with it yourself. It wasn’t every day that parents matched their daughters up with their longtime crushes.

But that was a sweet and innocent time in your life, when you’d have daydreams of cooking dinner with him and he’d help tie your apron from behind. Maybe even tuck a stray hair behind your ear. Now your daydreams are far more…mature.

So, when you send Anna on her way and turn around to see Yugyeom stepping out of the shower, striped pajama pants on, and only striped pajama pants on, you are a bit breathless, to say the least.

“Jungkook picked Anna up?” he asks nonchalantly, water droplets dripping off his wet hair and falling down his chest.

You beg your buzzed brain not to follow the wet trail. Your mouth waters anyways.

“Mhm,” you manage out after a pause.

He chuckles, his hands coming to cup your cheeks. “Are you sure you only had two glasses? You seem out of it.”

“I’m fine,” you laugh nervously, shuffling out of his grasp. “Anyways, aren’t you tired? You should head to bed.”

“I am,” he smiles. “You too? Do you have a long day tomorrow?”

“I’m gonna be in the kitchen all day. I have to practice a couple recipes.”

“I’ll help!” he grins, shoulders squeezing together happily.

You scrunch your nose, landing a soft punch on his bicep. “I sense ulterior motives. I’ll take it though!”

He laughs, patting your head good naturedly. “Then it’s settled. Just wake me up when you start.”

You smile, watching as Yugyeom turns towards his bedroom, fresh muscle relief patches stamped across his back. He had been in the studio nonstop all week. Ever since changing his major, he’s been overworking himself to make up lost time. And now he’s spending his day off to help you.

You are grateful that he no longer gives you the cold shoulders. In fact, you have a gut feeling he’s been trying to make up for his past behavior by doing favors for you. You keep telling him that everything’s been forgiven, but the boy doesn’t listen.

He’s truly been nothing but sweet.

So, it should be okay that you two sleep in different beds at night. Lots of arranged couples do. You should just be happy you got to marry such a kind man. It’s okay that he doesn’t love you, you’re lucky nonetheless. Eventually, you two will become best friends.

Best friends last longer than lovers, you’ve been told.

But when you tuck yourself into bed that night, you can’t help but feel a little bit colder than usual.

“So, how can I help?” Yugyeom asks, hands on his hips as he sports your far too small, far too pink apron.

You giggle at the sight, sliding the cutting board towards him. “Can you dice the veggies, please?”

“Yes Chef!” he salutes you playfully.

You chuckle, bringing out the other ingredients for your recipe. The sleepyhead woke up at noon and insisted on helping you before even brushing his teeth. Of course, you ushered him into the bathroom soon enough, but it was harder to kick him out of the kitchen.

You glance at the back of his hair, strands curling up in opposite directions like wild flowers. You’d think the image of Yugyeom looking the very opposite of his appearance in the dance studio would damage your infatuation with him, but instead you found his clumsiness endearing.

There are a lot of cool bad boys out there. You’re glad Yugyeom is one of the good ones. Sometimes you fear he’s too good. Like maybe he’s being nice because he feels guilty still or maybe even sorry. You bite your lip. You would hate it if he were only acting this nice because he felt sorry for you.

“Oh my god, Y/N!” Yugyeom yells, breaking you out of your thoughts. “You’re gonna cut yourself like that!”

You look down at your chopping board, fingers dangerously close to the knife. “Oh.”

“And you tried to kick me out of the kitchen. I should be the one nagging you!” he chides, taking the knife away from you. “I’ll finish up the chopping, you can start cooking.”

You nod, feeling your cheeks heat.

“How are your classes going?” he asks, popping a slice of carrot into his mouth.

“Pretty good. I just can’t wait to graduate.”

Yugyeom lets out a soft chuckle. “Same.”

“Extra year was worth it though, wasn’t it?” You grin, filling a measuring cup with water.

He answers with a wink. It makes your stomach flip.

“I never said thanks,” he starts, going back to chopping vegetables. You look at him curiously, waiting for him to continue. “For convincing me to change my major. And supporting me this whole time. I don’t think I would be here without you.”

You shake your head, busying your hands as your cheeks flush once more. “It was all you. I wouldn’t invest in something I didn’t believe in. You had it in you the whole time.”

“Ah, stop it,” he bumps shoulders with yours gently.

You couldn’t help the growing smile on your face as memories from last year floods you.

Yugyeom looked like a nervous puppy in front of his father. You were sure if he had a tail it would be tucked between his legs right now.

You never thought of the Kim family as intimidating. Although the first time you met your in-laws they were angry whispering to each other with Yugyeom over the arranged marriage, they have always been nothing but kind to you. And when you and Yugyeom started getting along, they became even more jovial, showering you with household gifts and random text messages of affection.

However, Yugyeom’s respect for his parents was immeasurable and in front of his father, he became a little boy.

So here he was, face as pale as snow, about to break the news to his father.

You reached out to him, taking hold of his hand quietly. He flinched at the touch before offering you a nervous smile back. You squeezed his clammy hands in yours.

It was the first time you truly felt like Yugyeom’s wife. The two of you were in this together and you were going to support your husband’s happiness even if it meant going against his parents.

As it turned out, Yugyeom’s parents were more than understanding. Disappointed, yes, but after you gave your reassurance that you supported his decision, they were all on board with him pursuing dance.

You chuckled to yourself, remembering how Yugyeom’s frightened face had melted back into his usual boyish excitement. There was something very pure in the way he expressed himself. It was part of the charm that drew you in, in the first place.

You glance his way, catching him bouncing his shoulders up and down to a beat only he could hear. Sometimes you wonder what goes on in that brain of his.

Yugyeom’s knife stops midair. He turns to you abruptly with arched brows. You blink back nervously. But instead of saying anything, he breaks into a big smile before returning to the vegetables, his body grooving back and forth in a little jig. You chuckle softly, shaking your head. Whatever’s in that brain of his, you don’t have to worry about it.

“Wow, this is delicious!” Yugyeom exclaims, taking another big bite of your dish. You smile, placing your hands on your hips with satisfaction. “You deserve an A++!”

“You say that about all my food,”

“I mean it this time! It’s so good.”

“Oh, so you didn’t mean it the other times?” You give a playful pout, pushing the plate closer to your side. “I’m eating this alone!”

“Aww, hey! You know what I meant,” he whines, scooting closer to get another bite.

You laugh, taking the dish into your arms as you swat his hands away. He only pushes closer, wrapping his arms around you.

“Just one more bite!” he whines, squeezing you against his chest.

“All mine!” You grin, grabbing another spoonful. You swirl the spoon around teasingly before aiming for your own mouth, but before you could bite down, Yugyeom squeezes you closer, sticking his head cheek-to-cheek against yours and successfully steals the bite.

You gasp, face flushing at his close proximity and then watch as the plate slips from your nervous hand. Almost as if in slow motion, you see the contents of your dish spill onto Yugyeom’s grey sweatpants. Your eyes double in size the liquid sinks into the fabric of his pants and the rest falls to the floor in thunderous claps.

You blink, frozen, until you take in a sudden breath and collapse to your knees.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” You immediately apologize, wiping at his pants hastily.

“Oh, hey hey hey!” Yugyeom grabs at your hands, flustered. “I-I can wipe myself. Don’t worry about it.”

You look at the red flush across Yugyeom’s face, reaching towards his ears and all the way down his neck. Your palms go clammy in his as you realize your precarious position. You glance at the wet spot near his crotch and then back at his wavering pupils.

“I’m so sorry!” You apologize again, for different reasons this time, as you fumble back to your feet.

He only shakes his head vigorously, unable to meet your eyes as he lets go of your hands.

“It’s my fault,” he says, rushing to the kitchen counters to grab a kitchen towel. “I was playing around too much.”

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, taking the towel from him with a sympathetic smile. He looks at you with a pout. “I’ll clean up the mess, you should go change.”

He lets out a sigh before consenting, heading towards his room with his head low. In the privacy of his bedroom, Yugyeom lets out a deep exhale, his heart thrumming in his chest. He hopes you hadn’t noticed.

He looks down, pulling his sweatpants off. Please go down, but instead thoughts of you return to his mind. If he is being honest, it isn’t the first time he’s imagined you in that kind of position, but to have it actually happen—you, on your knees, right below him—and the way you looked up at him with your big, shiny eyes. All you had to do was lick your lips and he would’ve came in his pants.

“Fuck,” he whispers, looking back down. “Go down, go down, go down.”

You sit in Jungkook’s apartment, watching beside Anna as the two boys bicker about the latest trendy dance on TikTok. You laugh, watching as your husband grows red in the face from laughing so hard. He didn’t even drink tonight.

“What are you grinning about, huh?” Anna teases, refilling your glass with more sangria.

You point at Jungkook just as he begins rapping nonsense to the cellphone that is leaning dangerously against a half empty water bottle, off the edge of their coffee table.

“That’s the guy you’re about to marry,” you deadpan. “And that’s the man I’m married to.”

You look solemnly at Yugyeom who is now flailing tissues around as he hypes Jungkook up in the background.

Anna chuckles, clinking her glass against yours. “A bunch a fools, we are.”

You gulp down the fresh glass before breaking out into a grimace. Anna definitely put more brandy into the second pitcher of sangria. You look back at your friend with a frown.

She only laughs in response. “What? It’s not like you’re driving yourself home, that’s what the husband is for!”

“True!” You laugh, drinking more.

Yugyeom scowls, giving Anna a reprimanding click with his tongue. “You’re such a bad influence, Anna!”

She feigns offense, turning to him with her mouth wide open. “Excuse me? Who’s the one that brought you guys together, hmm?”

“Our parents,” Yugyeom retorts, a pleased grin on his face. You chuckle, earning yourself a glare from your friend.

“But I was the one that brought Y/N to the dance studio and stopped you two from divorcing each other,” Anna pouts, squeezing your arm for backup. You only giggled more, sipping on your glass of sangria.

“Speaking of the dance studio,” Jungkook starts, breaking the little spat between Anna and Yugyeom. “You’re working on that new routine with Lisa, right?”

You let out a sigh that only Anna notices. She gives your arm another squeeze, well aware of your concerns.

For the past couple of weeks, you had been complaining to Anna about Lisa. In all honesty, there was nothing real to complain about. Lisa was one of the sweetest girls you have ever met, and her dancing was some of the best you had ever seen. But that was exactly what was wrong. Lisa wasn’t just perfect, she also went perfectly with Yugyeom. The two shared an unrivaled chemistry on the dance floor and that did nothing to curb your own insecurities over your relationship.

It doesn’t help that Yugyeom is spending hours of his day to perfect his new dance routine with her.

But how could you even tell Yugyeom this? You were the one that pushed him to pursue dancing!

You stretch out your legs on the couch, wiggling your toes with a frown on your face. You really shot yourself in the foot this time around.

“Bro, don’t remind me,” Yugyeom sighs, much to your own surprise. You perk up, turning your attention to him and ignoring the snort from Anna. “I’m going to kill Bambam.”

“Why, what happened?” Jungkook asks.

“Yeah, what happened?” you insist, a little too eagerly.

Yugyeom turns to you with a frown. “Bambam took Lisa ice skating and she sprained her ankle.”

“Oh no,” you mutter, pressing the wine glass back to your lips to hide the smile spreading across your face.

You feel Anna’s elbow dig into your side.

“Aww, go Bambam though,” Anna cheers. “Hasn’t he been in love with her for forever?”

Yugyeom rolls his eyes, walking over to plop next to you on the couch. His arm naturally reaches overhead, leaning on the cushion just above your head. You swallow, overly aware of his body next to yours.

“It wasn’t even a date, Anna,” he sighs, shaking his head in disbelief. He looks at you then before adding, “That’s why I’ve been at the studio longer than usual. Learning the routine with a new partner is so stressful.”

“Who’s your new partner?” Jungkook asks, squeezing himself next to Anna.

“She’s an underclassman. I don’t know if you know her. Does Chungha ring a bell?”

You watch Jungkook’s expression remain unimpressed as he shrugs. “Nope.”

Pleased with his response, you relax your shoulders and unintentionally lean into Yugyeom. If it weren’t for the alcohol and your slow reflexes, you would’ve sat back up, but Yugyeom presses back into you before you can move. When you feel his hand slide around you, you tip the rest of your glass into your mouth.

“You guys wanna come watch us practice?” Yugyeom offers, seemingly unaware of your wildly beating heart.

Jungkook and Anna agrees quickly, leaving you with no choice but to watch another woman dance with your husband. The only thing that was making you feel better though is the fact that she isn’t Lisa and of course, the additional helping of sangria from your best friend.

When it is finally time for you and Yugyeom to head home, you are completely drunk. You have no idea how he was able to get you to and from the car but when you are finally sober enough to open your eyes without feeling like the world is spinning, you find yourself sprawled on your living room couch.

“One day I’m gonna get Jungkook shitfaced and toss him to Anna. See how much she likes it,” he grumbles under his breath as he approaches you. “Oh, you’re awake.”

You giggle, still drunk enough to ignore your usual nerves. “They’d probably just have drunk sex, Yugy.”

Yugyeom blushes, sitting next to you on the couch. “Let’s wipe your makeup off Y/N,” he replies, ignoring your comment.

You turn to him with your eyes closed, laughing when the cool towelette touches your skin. He chuckles against you.

“Stop laughing.”

“It tickles!”

“Just a little bit more,”

You sigh in relief, opening your eyes again to see Yugyeom tossing the dirty wipes into the trashcan.

“Come on, let’s go brush our teeth,” he beckons.

Your lips jut out instinctively as you cross your arms defiantly. “Do it for me!”

Yugyeom lets out a sigh but a smile quickly breaks onto his face anyways. He always complained to Anna about getting you drunk, but the truth is that he could never get truly mad. How could he when your drunken self becomes a cute little monster?

You are annoyingly adorable.

Even during the early months of your marriage when Yugyeom was adamant on hating you, he could never get over how cute you became when you were drunk. While he found your normal self already quite endearing, it was a different pleasure to see your guard slip down.

Grabbing your toothbrush and spreading a pinch of toothpaste over the bristles, he smiles as he walks back over to you. Your eyes open again, feeling him approach. You flash him a bright smile, showing off your wine-stained teeth.

Chuckling in defeat, he pushes your toothbrush against your smile and begins brushing. You watch him with lazy eyes, smile still adorn on your lips. It makes his skin flush under your gaze. Maybe you are still very drunk, but time feels like it stops.

It’s not often that Yugyeom gets to see you with your guard down. You are always a little shy and always put together. Whether it is helping him talk to his own parents or waking up early to make him lunch, you are always the one helping him and rarely is it ever the other way around.

It’s why times like these, Yugyeom takes his time memorizing your features.

On normal days, Yugyeom already thinks you are perfect.

On nights like tonight, he thinks you are perfectly imperfect.

And that makes you all the more beautiful.

All too soon, it is time to put you to bed. He is surprised you’re even still awake. It’s way past midnight, which is way past your usual 10PM bedtime.

“It’s time to sleep now, Y/N. Can you walk or should I carry you?”

You glance at him, fiddling with your thumbs. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Yugyeom chokes on his own spit. “Y-you don’t want to sleep in your own bed?”

You shake your head with a pout. “I wanna stay with you.”

He lets out a breath before taking a seat next to you on the couch. It shouldn’t be a surprise that your drunk self is being clingy, but Yugyeom can’t help his thoughts from wandering to the other day when you spilled food all over his pants.

You pat his thigh, leaning closer. He gulps, feeling nervous suddenly.

“Yugy, what’s your ideal type?”

The question catches him off guard. It’s not until you squeeze his thigh again that he remembers to answer.

“I-um...”

He glances down at your wide eyes. The anticipation in your gaze is evident.

“I like someone who makes me want to know more about her,” he finally answers.

His answer is almost sobering enough. You feel your heart dropping.

“What type of wife do you want then?”

Yugyeom wants to laugh at your sudden interrogation but you look so serious. He looks away, pretending to think deeply about your question. The truth is though, he can barely think with you so close to him. The only thing he can think to respond with is you. Of course it’s you. It could only be you.

Before Yugyeom could even accept the idea of marriage, he had already fallen for his wife. Against his will and against his pride, you had snuck into his heart.

When he looks back at you, you feel a flutter in your chest. You wonder if your buzz has gotten to your head. Hope rises in your heart the longer he stares.

“I want a wife who doesn’t like wine so much,” he lets out a small laugh when you immediately frown. If only he could kiss the pout on your lips.

Yugyeom sits up, thinking you’ve finished but you’re quick to keep him seated. With the last bits of alcohol giving you courage, you throw your leg across his lap and straddle him, palms flat against his chest.

“I want a real answer, Yugy,” you pout, too involved in your own questions to see the way Yugyeom’s entire face has gone red. “What’s something I can do that you find really charming?”

He looks at you like a deer caught in headlights. The longer it takes for him to answer, the more you begin to question whether you’ve crossed a line. But Yugyeom is just trying to form a coherent sentence in his mind, anything to keep you from pressing further into him and realizing that you’ve given him a semi.

When he doesn’t answer, you bite at your lip, crestfallen.

You know you should have seen this coming, but it still hurts. He couldn’t even think of a lie to tell?

The next question leaves you in a whisper, “Why aren’t you attracted to me?”

Yugyeom’s eyes grow big with alarm. The sadness on your face is so apparent and it makes his stomach ache with guilt. Why would you ever think this? He is literally hard right now because of you!

“I am!” He shouts back immediately.

You look back at him, but your eyes say you don’t believe him.

“I am, I really am! Why would you even ask?”

“Then,” you sink into him, shoulders slouching. “Why won’t you kiss me?”

Yugyeom looks at you, then your lips, and feels the heat rise to his cheeks. He wants to kiss you right now. He has never wanted to kiss you more than now, but you’re drunk. What if this is just the alcohol talking?

Before he can say anything though, your arms are wrapping around his neck and pushing him against you. Your lips are soft on his and you taste minty from the toothpaste.

You feel a shiver in your spine when he starts to kiss back. Soft at first, and then his arms are squeezing around your waist and you’re running your fingers through his hair, pulling him closer until it feels impossible to breathe.

It doesn’t matter. You decide kissing Yugyeom takes priority over breathing.

You moan against him when he slides his tongue into your mouth. When you rut against him, you can feel his hardness through his jeans. It sends a thrill through your body. You rub yourself harder against him, savoring the way he muffles a groan against your lips.

But when you slip your hands underneath his shirt, feeling his hot skin, Yugyeom pushes you away.

“Wait,” he mutters, catching his breath. “Y/N, we can’t.”

“What are talking about? Who’s going to stop us?” You chuckle, trying to sneak your hands back onto him, but Yugyeom is quick to grab your wrist.

He inwardly curses himself, cringing at the tightness in his pants, but he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he took advantage of you while you were drunk. He is not going to share your first time together when you aren’t fully sober. It is wrong no matter how much you insist on it.

With a sigh, he lifts you off of him and stands up.

“We can’t, Y/N. Come on, let’s go to sleep.”

You feel a wave of heat rise to your face as your eyes fill with tears. You stare at Yugyeom’s feet, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes.

“Come on,” he beckons, reaching for your hand.

Pulling away, you get up on your own. Without a word, you walk into your bedroom and slam the door shut.

And as you lay in bed, hot tears spill out endlessly.

You stand at the entrance of the dance studio, a sick feeling in your stomach. Yugyeom left early this morning so you were never able to talk about what happened last night.

“Are you going to open the door or what?” Anna looks at you sternly. “What happened between you two? Why are you acting so weird?”

“Yeah, did you lose your virginity or something?” Jungkook jokes.

“Anna!” You yell out, appalled.

She looks back at you with wide eyes, putting her hands in the air. “It wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Yeah, Yugyeom told me months ago,” Jungkook chuckles, a pleased smile on his face.

“Okay, I’m going home.”

Before you could march away and find a cliff to jump off of, Anna and Jungkook are pulling you by the arms and into the studio.

“Hey, you guys made it!” Yugyeom greets you cheerfully. He glances over to you and a pink hue dusts his cheeks. He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly, unsure of what to do until a girl approaches him. You blink, breath caught in your throat when you see how beautiful she is. “Oh um, this is my new dance partner, Chungha!”

You bite at your lip, noticing far too quickly how Yugyeom’s mood changes at the sight of her. But could you blame him? In just a basic pair of black leggings and sports bra, you could see how toned her body was. Her big, bright eyes blink back at you, and you could see the fluttering of her long lashes. She looks flawless.

And then she smiles.

To think, you had been relieved Lisa was no longer his dance partner. No wonder he isn’t attracted to you. You wouldn’t be either if you were surrounded by women like Lisa and Chungha all day.

“It’s nice to meet you all!” she greets cheerfully. “I can’t wait to get your feedback.”

“Same, Yugyeom said you’re a great dancer,” Jungkook adds.

She smilsd shyly, sharing a look with Yugyeom. “That means a lot. I don’t know if I can meet those expectations though.”

“Nonsense,” Yugyeom rolls his eyes, pushing her shoulder playfully. “Stop pretending to be humble.”

As the two laugh in their own world, you finger at the end of your t-shirt uncomfortably. They have only been practicing the dance together not too long ago but they already look so close.

“Oh!” Yugyeom looks back at you, almost like an afterthought. “This is my wife by the way!”

“Oh!” Chungha exclaims, eyes wide as if she were seeing you for the first time. “It’s so great to finally meet you! When Yugyeom said he was married I was so surprised, but you are so cute!”

You force out a smile, accepting the compliment—though, you wonder if it really was. It sure didn’t feel like one.

“Well, we won’t hold you up anymore!” Anna interrupts, rubbing your arm comfortingly. “We’ll go make ourselves comfy while you two get ready.”

“Hey, it’s our sister-in-laws!” Bambam and Taehyung welcome you from their seat by the mirrors.

“Soon,” Anna grins coyly, sharing a look with Jungkook.

Ignoring the two lovebirds, Taehyung grabs your arm, ushering you to take a seat between him and Bambam.

“I haven’t seen you in forever,” he pouts before flashing his iconic square smile. You answer with a weak one of your own.

“How long have you two been here?”

“Since the morning. We had to practice our routines too,” Taehyung answers.

“Yeah, and those two have been at it since we got here. I think knowing there’d be a live audience today made her nervous,” Bambam adds, referring to Chungha.

“It’s just us though,”

“Still,” Taehyung shrugs his shoulders. “This is her first performance since starting uni.”

You glance at the two who are currently crouched over a tablet and reviewing a video of their practice. She is giggling over something Yugyeom had said and is slapping his shoulder playfully.

You frown. “Doesn’t look nervous to me.”

Taehyung smirks, bending his head to meet your eyes. “Is someone jealous?”

You frown even more, lip jutting out in a pout.

“Aw, poor baby, it’s okay Y/N,” Taehyung chuckle, patting your head. “She’s harmless.”

“Tae!”

You both look over to see Yugyeom staring from across the room. His eyes meet yours briefly before he averts his eyes to Taehyung.

“Can you come over for a second? We need a second opinion,” he says.

“We do?” Chungha asks softly.

You sigh, hugging your knees.

Bambam chuckles beside you. “It’s hard work liking someone, isn’t it?”

You turn your head, giving him an empathetic smile. “You of all people should know.”

You watch Bambam’s shoulders slump, slightly regretting your comment when you see the look on his face. But Bambam is quick to recover.

“Yugyeom cares for you more than you think.”

You have a hard time believing that, memories of last night’s embarrassment resurfacing again. Instead, you cross your arms and turn your whole body away from the three across from you towards Bambam.

“She called me cute,” you pout.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

You sigh. “Not when it’s coming from someone who’s drop dead gorgeous. Cute sounds like an insult.”

Bambam shakes his head in disbelief but doesn’t try to change your mind.

“Sounds like insecurity to me.”

You feel a flush across your cheeks. “Yeah well! Maybe I wouldn’t be if…”

“If?”

You bite at your lip. If Yugyeom had continued kissing you last night? If you went all the way with him? If you hadn’t spent an entire year essentially being friendzoned by your own husband?

You sigh. “I don’t know.”

Bambam gives you a pat on the back. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’s just another misunderstanding. Just talk it out.”

You nod, not wanting to talk about your relationship problems anymore.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Taehyung announces, jumping to the center of the room like a TV host. “May I introduce to you, for the first time ever! Yugyeom and Chungha!”

You clap along weakly as everyone cheers. But the sick feeling in your gut only grows once the performance starts.

The dance is a passionate one. Their bodies are constantly tangled together, Yugyeom chasing after Chungha. You dig your nails into the flesh of your palm as Yugyeom presses himself into Chungha’s back side.

But more than the touching, what hurts the most is the way he looks at her. He looks like he wants her. You knew what you were signing yourself up for when you pushed Yugyeom to pursue dancing, but when did he become such a good actor too?

He’s never looked at you like that before.

It takes a room full of clapping to get you out of your thoughts. You wish you hadn’t though. Chungha is beaming up at Yugyeom and he is looking back like she is the only girl in the room.

“How were you able to watch Lisa do this dance with Yugyeom?” you mutter to Bambam, looking away from the two on the dance floor.

“Trust,” he answers easily. “Besides, Yugyeom’s too dorky for Lisa. She would never fall for him.”

“Hey,” you scold lightly.

“You can either be mad at him or defend him, Y/N. You can’t choose both!”

You roll your eyes, heat rising to your cheeks. “I’m not mad at him, he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why does Yugyeom keep looking at you like he’s sorry?”

You only sigh, too afraid to say out loud the answer you hold in your heart.

That maybe, he is only sorry because he can’t love you back.

You sit on the couch of your living room, absentmindedly spooning your ice cream that is now soup. A couple days have passed and you and Yugyeom are back on good terms. At least on the surface. Silently, the both of you seem to have agreed to pretend what happened the other night on this couch had never happened.

You decided to stop thinking about the way Yugyeom looked at Chungha or how she was so much better than you. Again, you do what you are good at, using your blind optimism to mask the hurt you are feeling inside.

“I’m back!” Yugyeom calls out as he steps through the entrance. He spots the back of your head from the living room and glances at the TV only to find that you are staring at a black screen.

“Hey,” he calls out again more softly, approaching you on the couch.

“Oh, Yugyeom!” You startle, before offering him a smile. “Back from practice?”

“Mhm,” he returns a hesitant smile.

“Aren’t you early? What time is it?” You glance over to the clock on the wall only to find that it is already 9PM. “Oh wow, look at the time! Did you have dinner yet?”

Yugyeom shakes his head, observing how your eyes never quite focus, glancing at his torso briefly before darting back to your bowl of melted ice cream and then the clock on the wall.

“I left some dinner for you in the kitchen, you just have to heat it up.” You place your bowl on the coffee table. “Want me to get it for you?”

He places a hand on your thigh, stopping you from leaving your seat. “I got it.”

He rises to his feet before pausing. Yugyeom looks at you, his eyebrows arching with concern. He stares for a moment. Ever since you guys came back from the dance studio together, you had been quiet. Everything you did and said felt a little too robotic. A little cold even, like you were keeping him at a distance. And then he thought about your lips. The way they felt against his that night—cool from the aftertaste of toothpaste, but hot against his tongue.

“Yugyeom?”

He swallows. “N-Nothing.”

You look at him for a moment longer before forcing out a smile. “Let me just heat up your dinner and then I’ll head to bed!”

Yugyeom watches as you hastily leave him for the kitchen. It is obvious that you are still bothered and this time around, Yugyeom is sure he knows why. But he doesn’t even know how to start talking about it. He can’t even think about the other night without feeling like a flustered mess.

And by the way you are smiling at him, it feels like you don’t want to talk about it either.

Were you embarrassed about it? Was he right and it was just the alcohol talking? Maybe you were regretting it now.

“It’ll only take another minute and you can take it off the stove,” you smile up at him, giving his arm a pat before you walk away.

“T-Thanks,” he mutters. “Good night.”

You smile weakly before closing the door.

Yugyeom sighs, staring at his dinner on the stove. Even when you aren’t feeling your best, you still take care of him. He wonders how he can make you happy.

His thoughts wander to Taehyung. What if it was him you had walked in on at the dance studio during your freshman year? Would you have fallen for Taehyung instead?

He had seen the way Tae looked at you the night of the party. It was the first night since the wedding that you had gotten all dolled up. He saw you as soon as you stepped through the door. He was sure everyone had their eyes on you.

Even with his own stubbornness back then, he couldn’t stand watching everyone eyeing you at the party. Although he had been determined to avoid you that night, it was the look Tae gave you that drew the line for him.

Since then, you and Tae have become close friends. It annoyed the hell out of him especially when Tae was blatantly flirting with you just to get on his nerves, but he couldn’t even complain. It was karma. He deserves it for the months of hell he put you through.

You may have liked him first, but Yugyeom wonders if you’d still like him for long. With the way things are going, it seems like you are going to realize how subpar of a husband he is and leave him for someone better.

The very thought makes Yugyeom want to hurl.

He shuts off the stove with a sigh. Why is he so bad at communicating with you?

Despite being tired from practice, that night, Yugyeom couldn’t sleep. His thoughts keep going back to you and the sad smile on your face tonight. He did that.

And now here he was, hiding in his bed like a coward. Sitting up, Yugyeom turns on his lights with a sigh. This was not okay. He was not going to repeat the same mistake again. He had to talk to you.

With a renewed purpose, Yugyeom marches over to your room, but when he stops at your door, he freezes. What is he doing? You’re probably asleep by now. He glances at the clock down the hall. It’s almost midnight.

Maybe he should wait until the morning instead.

Just as he’s about to turn on his heels though, your door opens. You both jump in surprise.

“You’re awake!”

“Yugyeom?” You rub at the sleep in your eyes. “What are you doing out here?”

He shuffles awkwardly. “Oh, I uh…”

You stiffen, anxiety creeping up your spine as you watch him fidget in front of your doorway. For you, there can only be one reason for Yugyeom to be coming to you in the middle of the night.

He must have come to his senses.

Yugyeom takes in a sharp breath, steeling himself. “Can we talk?”

Your stomach sinks. You want to tell him no.

Instead, you quietly step aside and let him through. He sits on the edge of your bed nervously. You stare at him from the doorway still.

“I-” his voice trails off before it can fully start. He bites at his lip, pulling at the chapped skin until it is wet and raw. “I…”

When no other words come, you let out a tired sigh. “Gyeom,”

He looks up at you and you can see the worry digging creases into his forehead. You wish you could push him out of your room. You aren’t ready for this conversation to happen. But Yugyeom looks at you so helplessly, you don’t have the strength to deny him.

So, with a pang in your heart, you speak. “You never answered my question the other night. Not seriously anyways.”

He looks at you curiously and you approach him. “Will you answer me now?”

“I-sure.”

You take a seat next to him, tucking your hands beneath your thighs. “What kind of girl do you actually like?”

Yugyeom turns his head your way, looking lost. “But I did answer you. Someone who makes me want to get to know her.”

You squeeze your shoulders together, staring down at the floor. “So, someone with stories…someone with experience?”

Yugyeom swallows, feeling himself fall deeper into a hole. “N-no! Not necessarily…”

“What about your exes? What were they like?” you glance at him, wanting to watch his face but scared of the honesty you’ll see.

Yugyeom’s face flushes red. “W-what? Where is this coming from, Y/N?”

Your face falls before you drop your head once more. “Nothing, it’s stupid. I just thought…maybe if I changed? Do you think we could ever be more than friends?”

Yugyeom chuckles softly. It feels unnatural in the tense atmosphere though. You wonder if he’s laughing at you. You wonder if the very idea is that absurd to him.

“Y/N, you’re my wife.”

“On paper,” you mutter. You shift on the bed, wringing your hands together. “But you don’t even want to hang out with me much, let alone date.”

“That! That’s because I’m shy!” he blurts. He tugs on your hand to look his way, but you’re too ashamed to look him in the face.

You wonder if you’re being selfish by putting him on the spot like this.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” you resign, pulling your hand out of his grasp. “I know this arrangement was never your choice. And well, you can’t control who you’re attracted to.”

“I’m not lying though. I really like you, Y/N, I’m just…I’m just really shy.”

You frown at his insistence. “You aren’t shy around Chungha or Lisa.”

Yugyeom looks at you surprised. “Chungha and Lisa are just friends! I don’t think of them like that!”

“That’s impossible! Chungha and Lisa are both so pretty and charming and sexy! They’re the whole package!” You glare at him angrily.

“Yeah, maybe for Bambam!”

“I bet you’ve talked to Chungha more times than you’ve ever talked to me,” you grumble, crossing your arms.

“Yeah, well, I could say the same for Taehyung,” Yugyeom blurts, mirroring your posture.

You raise your brows in surprise. “Tae?”

“Don’t play dumb, he was obviously flirting with you at the party.”

“What party?” you turn to him confused. “Wait, are you talking about the party where I first met him a year ago?”

“Yeah, and I bet if you met him any earlier, you would’ve liked him instead!”

You frown, sitting cross legged on the bed so you could face him fully now. “I’ve liked you for two years before you even knew I existed. Don’t try to change the subject when you were flirting with Chungha right in front of me just a few days ago!”

“That was not flirting!”

“Not saying it’s a bad thing! You can flirt with whoever you want because you’re allowed to like whoever you want. Clearly, it’s not me!”

Yugyeom guffaws in exasperation, cupping his forehead with one hand. “Goddammit, but it is you. It’s been you this whole time.”

“I’m a big girl, Gyeom, you can give me the hard truth.”

He straightens, glaring back at you. “You want the truth?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Yugyeom scoots closer to you. “Remember when you and Anna had that bachelorette party?”

You pause, frown deepening. “It wasn’t really a bachelorette party, it was just the two of us drinking wine.”

“Nope, you insisted it was a bachelorette party,” he argues, chest puffing out. “I know this because when you got wasted over a bottle of wine, it was me you called to come get you. It was me who carried you back to your apartment and tucked you into bed, but not before you tried to strip down to your underwear while announcing your virginity to the entire complex.”

You gape at him, horrified. “I did what?”

“And I have liked you ever since,” a small smile stretches across his face. “I found out the perfect, goody two-shoes girl was masquerading as a terrible lap dancer by night and ever since then, I’ve wanted to get to know even more sides of you.”

You close your eyes, pressing a thumb to your temple. “Wait, back up, Gyeom, I gave you a lap dance?”

“Yeah, and a terrible one at that,” he laughs.

You falter, anger dissipating quickly. “I don’t remember this.”

“That was only the first time, you know,” he looks at you with a small, teasing smile.

You cringe. “How come you never told me?”

He shrugs. “It happened during the time I was trying really hard not to like you. Anyways, I didn’t think it was something you’d be proud to learn.”

“After seeing all of that,” your voice comes out small, like you want to make a joke, but your tone doesn’t quite match, “wouldn’t you rather someone like Chungha?”

Yugyeom sighs loudly. “What’s with you and Chungha?”

“You two have chemistry,” you admit, lips pouting.

“Because we’re friends,” he explains.

“Then what are we?” You look up at him nervously. He meets you with an equally anxious gaze.

Without answering you, he puts his hands out towards you, palms facing up. When you tilt your head curiously, he takes your hand in his.

“You make me nervous,” he mutters, and you can feel the clamminess of his hot palms against yours. Your brows raise in surprise and you watch as a flush of pink rises to his cheeks. “You think I’m flirting with Chungha, but actually I’ve been trying to flirt with you this whole time. I guess I’m just terrible at it.”

You swallow, not sure what to say to this confession. From the way he looks at you, you know he’s being sincere, which only makes you more confused.

“And I’m terrible at it because,” Yugyeom pauses, face tomato red as he tries to compose himself. He looks away and you grip his hand tighter. “I think you have this idea about me, like I’m cool or something. You’re always saying I inspired you to pursue your dreams, but I think it’s the other way around. And it’s…it’s just a lot of pressure.”

“I-I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to make you feel this way.”

“I know,” Yugyeom looks at you softly, “because you’re you, and you see the good in everything—even me. But if I’m being honest, that cool guy you had a crush on at the dance studio? I’m not sure I’m him. I’m clumsy and childish and always cause accidents when I’m around you. The closer we get, the more I worry you’ll figure this out and regret liking me.”

You thread your fingers through his and pull his hands to your chest, shaking your head adamantly. “That will never happen!”

He chuckles, but the laughter doesn’t meet his eyes. “You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can,” you tell him stubbornly. “I moment I said, ‘I do’ I promised just that.”

“Can you say that after my next confession?” he scoffs.

Your brows furrow, but you don’t let go of his hands.

“Do you really want to know who my first love was?” he asks quietly.

You nod, heartbeat thrumming in your ear.

“It was dance,” he sighs, looking down. “It’s always been dance.”

You look at him confused, trying to process this information. “You mean…”

“I’m a virgin, too,” he mumbles, the tips of his ears glowing hot red. When you don’t say anything, he looks up with a small frown. “Still think I’m that cool guy?”

You can’t help the smile that stretches across your face. Without thinking, you spring from the bed and pounce onto him. Yugyeom catches you by the waist easily, his eyes wide with shock at your sudden actions, but he holds you tight in his arms anyways. You shake in his arms, giggles erupting from you and tickling the crook of his neck.

“Why would that ever make you uncool?” you laugh, fingers combing through the back of his hair.

Yugyeom relaxes into your touch, resting his chin on your shoulder. “But, what if I’m not good at it?”

You pull away to look at him. He chews on his lips timidly.

“Well, it’s not like I have anything to compare you to,” you chuckle, rubbing gently at the nape of his neck. “We can take our time, learn together.”

Finally, Yugyeom smiles, relief rushing through him. “It’s not that I don’t want to, just so you know. I just want to make sure you have a good first experience too. What if I hurt you?”

“It hurt more thinking you didn’t like me.”

He sighs softly, pressing his forehead to yours. You can feel the ghost of his breath on your lips. “Trust me, I like you a lot more than you realize.”

“Oh, I’m starting to realize,” you roll your hips tentatively against him and his lashes flutter in surprise as you feel the outline of his semi hard on through his pajama pants. His grip on your waist tightens.

“W-what are you doing?”

You can feel him shiver against you and probably for the first time in this relationship, your chest inflates with confidence.

“Starting lesson one,” you whisper into his ear as you press your core harder against him. The feeling of his hardness blooms excitement throughout your skin. Never has anyone been this close to you in this way. The thought used to scare you, but right now, you’ve never been more thrilled.

“Are you sure?” the words barely make it out of his throat as you press a kiss to his neck. You can feel his breath hitch at the slight graze of your lips, and it urges you on. And despite Yugyeom’s cautious words, his arms pull you closer and he tilts his head, giving you better access.

“The surest I’ve ever been,” you reassure him before sucking on the skin of his jugular. His pulse beats against your lips and you’re happy to know you aren’t the only one whose heart is racing.

“You’re…How’re you so good at this?” Yugyeom mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut in agonized pleasure as you roll your hips against him once more.

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” comes your breathy confession. When he doesn’t say anything, you glance at him. “Is that strange?”

He breaks out into smile, shaking his head. “I’m glad it wasn’t just me.”

You smile, “Really?”

Yugyeom nods, lips chasing yours. “You don’t know how many boners I’ve had to hide from you.”

His hot breath fans at your lips before he is pulling your bottom lip between his teeth. You can’t help the moan that muffles against his mouth as his tongue explores your mouth. When he pulls away, you are gasping to catch your breath.

Contrary to the kiss, Yugyeom looks at you with the softest gaze and wipes at the wetness of your lips with a gentle thumb. He lingers at your bottom lip for a moment longer.

Yugyeom sucks in a breath, eyes dilating when you take his thumb into your mouth. You meet his stare with hooded lids as you suck his entire thumb into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the digit. When you release him with a pop, you can feel him twitch underneath you.

There is a hunger in your core that you’ve never felt before. Your entire body aches for Yugyeom in its most primal form. You want him. The thrumming in your chest only further confirms this.

You clutch at his plain tee, heat rising to your cheeks, “Can I taste you?”

Yugyeom groans, throwing his head back. You can’t help salivating at the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing. When Yugyeom looks back at you he almost looks pained.

“I don’t think I’ll last, Y/N,” he mutters, ears reddening.

His confession makes your heart inflate and you press a kiss to his jawline.

“It’s okay, I won’t time you. I don’t know if I’ll be any good anyways,” you smile to lift the mood, but Yugyeom shakes his head.

“No, let me make you feel good first,” He presses a kiss over your smile. “I want to take care of you this time.”

You swallow, heart thrumming in your ear. “Well, what if I don’t last?”

He chuckles, kissing down your throat. You shudder, skin prickling at his breath.

“Oh, I’ll make sure you don’t,” he mumbles, sucking at the sensitive skin. You groan, threading your fingers through the back of his hair. “I’m no quitter, Y/N, and we’ve got all night.”

You shiver, stomach twisting with excitement. Not knowing what else to say, you can only nod when he sinks his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts.

But Yugyeom doesn’t move further. Instead, he looks at you again, eyes serious. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? We can stop if it gets too much.”

And although your cheeks heat up at just the graze of his fingers at your hips, you nod without hesitation. “I want you, Gyeom. I’m ready.”

He sucks in a quiet breath. “Lay down for me?”

His request is a whisper, barely audible, but you scramble to the pillows. Yugyeom follows right behind and when you sink your head into the pillows, he meets you, right above, lips finding yours once more. As his tongue explores your mouth, his thighs press between yours, spreading your legs apart. You can’t help being hyperaware of the dampness of your underwear as he does this.

But the thought quickly leaves your mind when he places a hesitant palm to your chest. To your embarrassment, your nipples are already hard with arousal when his fingers graze against them. He groans against your mouth, fingers rubbing rough circles around the peaked buds.

You find yourself already breathless at the sensation, the sensitive skin sending tingles straight to your core. You moan when he slips his hand underneath your shirt, the pleasure growing ten folds with his warm hands on your bare skin.

“God, you’re so soft,” Yugyeom groans, squeezing your breasts in his palms. “Can I take this off?”

You nod quickly, hands already coming to the ends of your shirt to help him slip it off. Yugyeom leans back on his heels, eyes eating you up while you laid topless in front of him, chest heaving from just his small touches.

“Gyeom,” you mutter, feeling self-conscious when he doesn’t move.

There’s a glint in his eyes as his fingers meet your waistband again. You suck in a breath, nodding silently for him to continue. He licks at his lips, pulling the flimsy fabric of your shorts off of you.

You cringe at the sight of your yellow cotton underwear, the pink heart patterns looking suddenly very childish with Yugyeom’s eyes on them now.

“I-I have better underwear-” you rush to cover yourself but Yugyeom moves your hand.

His palms squeeze your thighs, and he looks at you with a reassuring smile. “It’s cute. You’re cute, and beautiful and charming and sexy. The whole package.”

You blush, hearing your words said back to you.

“Plus,” he grins, hands sliding up your thighs and you shiver. “These ones are soaked, just for me.”

Your breath catches in your throat when he runs a finger up the wet cotton. He chuckles darkly at the sound of your whimper when he circles around your clit. It’s just a whisper of a touch and yet you find yourself careening.

Your heart feels like the wings of a hummingbird, flapping against your chest. Never have you laid yourself out, so bare, for someone. It’s scary, being so vulnerable, and yet you find yourself wanting to jump into the darkness of the unknown.

The way Yugyeom looks at you is dark and heavy, like he is trying to swallow you whole, hungry to take in every piece of you. And maybe with anyone else this would frighten you, but it’s Yugyeom, and so you are excited. Excited and eager to give all of yourself to him.

“Can I?” he asks, pulling at the edge of your underwear.

“Please,” you consent, lifting your hips.

Yugyeom groans helplessly at your bare sight, dripping wet just for his eyes to see. He lifts at his t-shirt, skin already hot. You swallow, eyes traveling down his bare torso, to the tattoo stretching across his rib cage and then the growing bulge his thin pajama pants does very little to hide. You clench around nothing, just imagining what’s beneath.

Yugyeom catches the movement and curses. You don’t even know what you do to him.

Your eyes shudder close when you feel his fingers back on you, spreading your slick in circles around your clit.

“Does that feel okay?”

You answer with a whimper, arching into his touch.

He bites at his bottom lip, watching you squirm beneath him. You are so sensitive and so eager. Nothing he could have ever imagined could measure up to this view. He could probably cum to this sight alone. The strain of his pants warns him of the very possibility.

“More,” you barely manage to croak out between a moan but Yugyeom hears you and without hesitation, he dives into your heat, eager for a taste.

Your eyes flutter open at the new feeling, hooded eyes staring down at his head between your thighs. You moan, embarrassment heating your cheeks, but your fingers thread through his hair and push him deeper.

The sting of his scalp only drives him on, lapping at you hungrily. When he moans into your folds, you find yourself vibrating with him. His tongue feels so soft and delicious against you and when he sucks on your clit you tremble at the sensation shooting straight to your core.

Sweat glazes your forehead and you strain to keep your eyes focused on Yugyeom. You can’t even see his face, but you can’t pull your gaze away. The top of his head bobs eagerly and from behind, you can see him thrusting into your sheets.

You whimper, feeling your abdomen tighten when he rolls his hips extra rough.

“Gyeom,” you squeeze around his hair strands.

He looks up at you, eyes glazed over with lust, tongue still swirling around you at an agonizing pace. Squeezing your thigh, he presses a finger to your entrance. He presses, barely entering but you find yourself clenching already.

“Gyeom,” you whine, head falling into the pillow in frustration.

You feel him chuckle against you. A soft kiss to your clit. And then he slips a finger into you slowly. You’re so wet, he slips right in easily. You close your eyes, savoring the unfamiliar feeling. Unfamiliar, but not unwanted. Your body hums for more.

He dips his finger in and out, enjoying the way your body arches, trying to chase after his finger each time he pulls out.

“More?” he asks, teasing two fingers at your entrance. You nod eagerly, squirming at his touch.

Yugyeom dips two fingers into you, dick twitching at the feeling of your tight walls squeezing around his digits. When he curls his fingers, you let out a loud moan, eyes fluttering shut. He reads your body easily, mouth back on your clit as he repeats the motion of his fingers over and over.

Your body tightens, heating up quickly. There’s a burn in your abdomen, a fire that flickers every time he sucks around your clit and curls his fingers against your flesh. You clench your fists around your sheets, feeling your heart pound faster against your chest.

Your whole body trembles, toes curling and abdomen squeezing until it feels like your soul lifts from your body and everything goes white.

When you come to, chest heaving like you just ran a marathon, Yugyeom is back on his knees, looking at you in awe. His lips are red and chin, wet with your arousal.

“Was that okay?” he asks, a boyish smile on his lips.

You chuckle, eyes rolling to the ceiling. “That was amazing.”

“Good.” You feel him lie on the bed beside you, arm coming around your waist.

You turn on your side, meeting his gaze. “Now it’s my turn.”

His eyes widen and the confidence from before quickly fades behind pink flustered cheeks.

“I-Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

Your hands travel down and land on the tent in his pants, straining to be released. You lift a brow at him, but he only gets more red.

“I want to,” you tell him. “I want to feel you inside me. I want this.”

He gulps and you feel him twitch against your palm. “I-I might not last long.”

You kiss his worries away. “That’s alright, you said we had all night, didn’t you?”

You pull at his waistband and he sighs at the release of his cock. You sit up and Yugyeom kicks the rest of his clothes off before helping you straddle him.

You look at him with wide eyes, before looking back at his cock. His tip is red and shiny with precum. Your eyes follow the vein that travels down the length of his cock. You can’t even help it, your mouth waters.

Your stomach flips nervously. Yugyeom seems to sense your worries when his hand rests over yours.

“You really don’t have to. We can wait.”

“I do!” you say quickly. “I just-,” you blink, swallowing thickly. “Will you fit?”

Yugyeom groans, hands squeezing around your thighs roughly. “Are you trying to make me cum before we even start?”

“I-no,” you feel your cheeks grow hot. “It’s a legitimate question!”

He chuckles, until your hand comes around his shaft. Yugyeom sighs at your touch, your soft, small hands feel like heaven compared to his own. Though you don’t intend to tease him, your hand rubs him agonizingly slow as you feel the smoothness of his skin and the ridges of his veins pulsing in your palm. You watch in awe as you squeeze up and a small clear bead of precum buds at his slit.

Yugyeom’s breath hitches when you dip your head down and lick at his slit. Your brows shoot up at the taste. He’s salty, but it’s Yugyeom and you find that you don’t mind it. Instead, your mouth waters for more.

“Fuck,” Yugyeom curses, stopping you when you try to dip your tongue down again. You look at him in surprise, but he’s quick to reassure you. “Next time, baby, I really want to last.”

You nod, flushing at the pet name.

You rise onto your knees, hands coming back down his cock to align him to your entrance. You shiver, feeling his tip between your folds. Yugyeom looks just as nervous, the heat of your entrance making his heart race.

It takes a few tries, his cock teasing between your folds, before he enters. Barely there, but you feel the stretch. He’s much bigger than his fingers, but the stretch isn’t the pain you always imagined. Unfamiliar, maybe a little uncomfortable, but nothing scary at all.

This realization fills you with a newfound courage and you sink down onto his cock with an extended sigh.

“Fuck,” Yugyeom whispers a strained curse, a devil’s grip on your hips as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and slips down his face as his jaw clenches. You’re so fucking tight and warm around him. When your cunt clenches, he groans, balls tightening. “Fuck, don’t do that.”

You still, falling onto his chest. You can hear his heart thrumming wildly in his chest.

“Sorry,” he heaves, hugging you tightly against him. “Just, I need a minute. You feel like fucking heaven, baby.”

You smile, pressing a kiss to his chest. When his cock twitches inside you, you shiver. To be honest, you’re no better either. You feel so full with him inside you. This feeling is so new, but so right. You can feel your walls pulsing around him. Or maybe it’s his cock pulsing against your walls. Probably both.

You close your eyes, savoring the feeling before Yugyeom finally let’s out a soft breath. And then, he is lifting his hips. You moan, the movement pushing him deeper into you. You place your palms on his chest, sitting up.

He looks at you with hazy eyes as you lift off his cock before sliding back down his length. Yugyeom’s moan is load and uninhibited. The sound sends another wave of arousal straight to your core.

“Oh god,” he moans, hips lifting to meet yours every time. “Fuck!”

You strain to keep your pace, his arms helping you out as you gave into the wave of pleasure each time his thick cock slide into you. Already, your whole body was buzzing with pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck,” Yugyeom’s desperate moan meets your ears and then you feel his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you to his chest. He groans, teeth digging into your shoulder.

And then you feel it. Hot cum shooting into the deepest part of you, flooding you with warmth. The sting of Yugyeom’s teeth sinking in your skin, the sound of his heaving breath and heart beat against your ear, the pulse of his cock thrusting into you as he rode out his high—you feel like one body against his and the feeling makes your eyes wet.

You smile, pressing a kiss to his jawline as he softened inside of you.

He let out a satisfied sigh as his cock slipped out and you felt his cum slide out of you. “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I told you I wouldn’t last long.”

You shush him with a kiss.

“I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” you smile.

His hand on your waist tightens. “You’re really the best thing to ever happen to me.”

You giggle, tension breaking. “I could get used to this Yugyeom.”

He smiles, hand coming to your cheek. “I mean it.”

He looks at you quietly. It’s a fleeting moment, but the feeling lingers. You feel warmth blooming in your chest.

You kiss him again, “I know, Gyeom. This time, I really know now.”

#got7 scenarios #got7 imagines #got7 reactions #kim yugyeom #arranged marriage au #marriage au #marriage life series #fluff #angst #smut #fanfic

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maxineswritingcenter · 3 years ago

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You Saved Me - Derek Hale x fem!reader part 6

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To say that I was doing well after I left Derek’s house would be a lie. I really don’t understand why it hurts so much. We barely knew each other outside of a few encounters. Was it just me that felt the aching in my chest? I want to believe that he felt the same thing, but that seemed selfish. That I wanted him to miss me. That I dreamed of him showing up at my window and begging to see me. But that wouldn’t be real, that was a fantasy. Derek would never act like that. That was just my fantasy.

I promised Stiles I wouldn’t get romantically involved with Derek, but it was more painful than I have ever imagined.

I sat in Coach Finstock’s office while the school day went on. Relacing the netting on the crosses that were used in case any of the players broke their own. The repetitive movements were mind numbing so it was probably for the best. I could zone out and not think about Derek.

Tonight was parent teacher conferences for some students who weren’t doing well academically, both Scott and Stiles were a part of that list. But who could blame them? One of them was a werewolf and the other was friends with the aforementioned werewolf. The weeks seemed to run together, it didn’t even feel like autumn yet, but we were halfway to winter.

I had stayed away like I promised. The only times I even heard about Derek was from what Scott told Stiles. They were both planning on finding the alpha and taking him down together. That would be good for him. Good for both of them. I have been feeling so many emotions since then. A lot of anxiety and anger. But they never felt like my own. I sighed and rested my eyes for a minute, the repeated movements slowing my brain down enough to sleep on Coach’s desk.

The man in front of me was badly burned, one side of his face was pink and muddled, much of his hair was burned on that side.

“I need your help.” Derek’s voice echoed, “If you can hear me, I need you to give me a sign. Blink. Raise a finger. Anything. Just… Just something to point me in the right direction, okay?” The man, his Uncle Peter, stayed in the same position.

He sighed, “Someone killed Laura. Your niece, Laura? Whoever he is, he’s an Alpha now… but he’s one without a pack, which means he’s not as strong. I can take him. But, I have to find him first.” Still no response.

“Look, if you know something, just give me a sign. Is it one of us? Did someone else make it out of the fire?”

Still getting no response, he became agitated, “Just give me anything! Blink! Raise a finger! Anything!” He growled, reaching for the man, “SAY SOMETHING”!

“Hey.” I jolted at the sound of Finstock’s voice. He stood in the doorway of his office.

“You alright, kid?” He asked, his eyes went from my face to the crosse that I was aggressively fixing the net on. What was that? Was I… seeing what Derek was seeing? No, that was impossible. Insane even.

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.” I went back to relacing, tugging the knots taut and reaching for a lighter to burn the ends of the string so they wouldn’t unravel.

“Do I need to kick his ass?” He asked, his large eyes looking a little more crazy than usual. He was trying to seem threatening, but I wasn’t threatened by his booming voice and looks anymore. He was alluding to someone not treating me right but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

I chuckled a little, “No. It’s not his fault. He’s going through a lot right now.” I stood up and placed the crosse in the spare locker with the rest of them, “Besides, I probably shouldn’t be dating considering the last guy I was dating murdered my parents and tried to murder me.” The humor was dark, but what a way to cope.

“Any news on that guy?” He stood up straight, walking to his desk.

“Nope. I think he skipped town. He’s the feds' problem now.”

“Does Stiles want to be a doctor?” He changed the subject, he was looking at a paper in his hand.

“Uh… Not that I know of.” I shrugged.

“Because he wrote a detailed history of male circumcision on his economics test.”

I got out late, well past the time the student teacher meetings were over. Filing records, grading a couple things for Finstock and ordering more pearls for the upcoming games since we were running low. These days really run together, especially when you’re trying to forget most of the year that happens.

Speaking of happening, was I really seeing the same thing Derek could? It didn’t make sense. They were just random dreams. Like the one the other day where Derek was speaking to this woman about how she didn’t kill his sister. That was just a dream. But… Why could I feel sadness? Sadness, guilt and pain.

I got home, seeing that Stiles’ Jeep was nowhere in sight meaning that he was off to do more werewolf nonsense with Scott. I trusted Scott to keep him safe, but that didn’t mean I wanted Stiles running around where there was an alpha on the loose.

That night I made dinner, ate, saved two plates for Uncle Noah and Stiles and sat in the living room. They were running a story on another body that had been found. A bus driver killed in an animal attack. They were calling it a mountain lion. A mountain lion was more likely than a werewolf normally. But here we are. Officially werewolf capital of the world. I turned off the TV and laid back on the cushions, closing my eyes. Maybe a couch nap would relax me a little, it would kill my back in the morning, but I would be able to tell when Stiles came home.

Scott and Stiles were walking towards me across the school lawn, playfully pushing each other.

“I’m gonna kill both of you.” Derek’s voice said, “What the hell was that? What are you trying to do, attract the entire state to the school?” He was frustrated and angry, but also a little scared. Finding the alpha is what he needed to do, at the same time though, this person got the jump on Laura.

“Sorry…I didn’t know it would be that loud…” Scott said sheepishly.

“Yeah, it was loud… And it was awesome!” Stiles cheered.

“Shut up.” Derek barked.

“Don’t be such a sour wolf.” Stiles mocked.

“What’d you do with him?” Scott asked, looking around me.

“What?” Derek asked, I turned to see an empty backseat, “I didn’t do anything…” I saw Scott and Stiles’ eyes widen as pain exploded through my back. Blood gushed from my mouth as I was lifted up. I was coughing and choking on my own blood. Pain and fear were running through me, my heart pumping so quickly causing more and more blood to gush from my mouth. The last thing I saw was the world rushing by me as I was thrown towards the school wall.

I woke up before I made impact. My heart was racing and my back ached. I reached behind myself awkwardly. The only thing I felt was the raised bumpy scar from my stab wound. So it was just a dream, but it felt so real. So…Was it real? Did I just experience Derek…

I looked up at the clock and saw it was well into the early morning. I got up and made my way upstairs, Stiles’ door was slightly open and there was still light inside. I just went in, panic already starting to build in my chest. Stiles was sitting at his computer, he turned and looked up. He looked like he had a long night.

“Stiles, is…” I swallowed thickly, “Is Derek d-…Dead?” My lip was trembling. He opened his mouth to answer then closed it. He avoided my eyes.

“I really don’t know.” He explained what happened at the school that night. How the alpha attacked them and chased them around the school and that when they got out, Derek’s body was gone.

“I don’t know if he crawled off somewhere or if the alpha dragged him away before the cops showed up. But I’m pretty sure I won’t have to go back to school until Monday. We tried to blow the alpha up. And we also kinda blamed Derek for it.”

I shook my head and chuckled, “Nice. Throwing a dead man under the bus, after all he’s done for me.”

“It wasn’t my idea!” He shouted in a hushed tone, “We thought he was dead for sure. But now I don’t know. Besides, we couldn’t give up the big secret to a hunter’s daughter, a dick, and Lydia who has been through enough already.” I nodded and left the room. He called after me but I couldn’t be in the room anymore. Just… they could have blamed anyone. A rabid animal even, but they were blaming Derek. I closed the door and leaned against it, slowly sliding down until I met the floor. My chest felt tight and I wanted to cry. I had cried so much lately I didn’t know if I could. My emotions were running so high and it was so confusing? Why was everything so different?

It was Monday morning and tonight was another full moon, meaning Scott was jumpy and could turn at any moment. The night before they had gone off to “hang” but Stiles was really bad at hiding the alcohol he had taken to get drunk with Scott.

I was eating cereal at the kitchen table when Stiles came down. He was groaning and definitely hungover.

“Booze doesn’t pay, does it?” I smiled.

“You’re more chipper than usual.” He grimaced a bit, holding his head.

“Not chipper, just really good at fakin’ it.” I went in for another spoonful. He looked away, hearing Uncle Noah coming through the kitchen on his phone.

“We are watching his family’s house. Maybe he’ll wind up there?” Uncle Noah looked up, seeing Stiles, “Give me a second.”

“Don’t you have a test to get to?” He asked.

“What’s going on? Did you find Derek yet?” Stiles asked, more pep in his voice.

“I’m working on it. You go take your test.” He said firmly.

“All right, Dad, listen to me-” Stiles stood up.

“Go!” He shouted, I had never heard him shout before.

“This is really important! You have to be careful tonight, okay? Especially tonight.”

“Stiles, I’m always careful.”

“Dad, you’ve never dealt with this kind of thing before, okay? At least, not like this.”

“I know. Which is why I brought in people who have. State detective. Go take your test.” Stiles grumbled but grabbed his book bag and left the house. Uncle Noah sighed and went back to his phone call as he followed Stiles out the door.

Later on in the day, Stiles texted me. He probably shouldn’t be, especially with his test.

STILES: Scott had a panic attack about Allison. He said he might kill someone.

I sighed, my thumbs dancing over the phone screen.

(Y/N): Then we’ll chain him up so he can’t get out. I’ll pick up some chains at the hardware store.

After a stop at the hardware store, I got to the lacrosse fields where Coach Finstock was looking over a list.

“How’s the pink-eye epidemic?” I asked. He rolled his eyes.

“Real good, half of my players had to go on the bench. Goddammit, Greenberg.” I looked over the list.

“Who’s Bilinski?” I squinted at his sloppy writing.

“That one.” He pointed his pen towards Stiles.

“You put Stiles on the first line?” I smiled, perhaps my subtle hints had worked.

“Yeah, and we made McCall co-captain.”

I blew air out of my mouth, “I’m sure Jackson shit a brick.”

He shook his head, “Yeah, he’s not taking it well.” I shrugged and made my way over to the bench where Scott and Stiles were in the middle of a conversation. I didn’t join, just listened in.

“Yeah, she likes you. She’s totally into you.” Scott smirked. Stiles grinned, clearly excited. The She in this scenario could be none other than Lydia Martin. But there was something about Scott’s tone that threw me off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lydia making her way to her seat in the bleachers, pulling out a compact mirror and fixing her lipstick. I didn’t want to believe that Scott would do that to his friend, but the facts were pointing towards it.

Practice seemed to be going well, that is until Scott got pushed over during a practice run. I could practically feel his anger from across the field.

“All right, you’re up, big boy! Let’s go!” Coach called. Scott retaliated this by knocking into another player, and sending him hard on his back. I winced, intaking a breath through my teeth.

“That’s it, McCall! That’s the spirit! You earn it! Earn it, McCall!” Coach grinned. Maybe this is why we had so many players on the bench. Coach could see victory when Scott played. It was Stiles' turn on the offensive against Scott. With the full moon so close, I don’t think their friendship would do Stiles any favors, he shoved Stiles away just as hard and fast as the other player. Each time he got a goal. The next player, Danny, also was a victim of werewolf rage since Scott hit him in the face, sending him to the ground. I grabbed Coach’s whistle and blew it, calling for the play to pause.

I jogged up to Danny and knelt down, some other players surrounded as well.

“Danny, can you hear me?” He nodded slowly, holding his bleeding nose. I stood up, “Take him to the bench guys.” I walked back over to Stiles and Scott.

“Everybody likes Danny. Now everybody’s gonna hate you.”

“I don’t care.” Scott said smugly. Stiles shook his head and went back to the benches.

“What the hell is your problem? You make co-captain and it goes to your head.” I shoved his shoulder. He breathed out, his eyes glowed yellow

“You don’t want to mess with me right now.”

I narrowed my eyes, “Is that a threat?” He smirked, his eyes going up and down my body.

“It could be.” I looked at him in disgust.

“First Lydia and now me? You’re a really shitty friend, Scott.” I made my way back to Stiles who was staring back at the bleachers. Jackson and Lydia were talking.

“He did it.” He whispered. I squeezed his arm lightly. It was going to be a long night.

That night, Stiles and I went to the McCall’s house to get prepared for the full moon. Stiles carried a duffle bag to the best of his ability, even though it had the steel chains and locks I had bought. One of the only reasons I came was so if I needed to I could get him out quickly. The other was because I didn’t know how he would react to the situation with Lydia. Stiles unlocked the door and went inside. Did Mrs. McCall know he had a key?“

Scott?” We heard her call. Mrs. McCall turned the corner and saw us in the hallway. She was in her scrubs, probably going in for a late night shift.

“Stiles.”

“And (Y/N).” I waved.

“Ah.” Her eyes went to Stiles' hand, she pointed, “Key.”

“Oh, yeah, I had one made.” Well, that answers that question.

“That doesn’t surprise me. It scares me, but it doesn’t surprise me” And then, like a buffoon, Stiles dropped the duffel bag with a heavy thud.

“What is that?”

“Uh, school project.” He lied. Mrs. McCall, who either believed the lie or just wanted to change the subject, asked: “He’s okay, right?”

“Who, Scott? Yeah, totally.” Stiles lied.

“He just doesn’t talk to me, not much anymore. Not like he used to.” She said somberly. I could only imagine that’s how my mom felt when I went into high school and into a phase where parents were uncool.

“Well, he had a bit of a rough week.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, be careful tonight.”

“You, too.”

“Full moon.” She looked out the window. Stiles and I stiffened.

“What?”

“There’s a full moon tonight. You should see how the ER gets. Brings out all the nutjobs.”

“Oh.” He breathed out, both of our shoulders dropped.

“Yeah…” She said awkwardly.

“Right…”

“You know, it’s, um, actually where they came up with the word "lunatic.”

We opened the door to Scott’s room. Stiles dropped the duffel and turned on the lights. We both jumped when we saw Scott sitting in his computer chair.

“Oh my god.” I put a hand on my chest, trying to catch my breath.

“Dude, you scared the hell out of us. Your mom said you weren’t home.”

“I came in through the window.” he said blankly. Stiles and I shared a glance.

“Okay, um, let’s get this set up.” Stiles bent down to get into the duffel bag that was near the radiator, “(Y/N) got the heavy duty stuff.” I kept my distance from Scott, staying right by the door, ready to grab Stiles and book it.

“I’m fine,” Scott said, causing us both to stare, “I’m just gonna lock the door and turn in early.” We all knew a door wouldn’t stop him, he had other plans in mind.

“Are you sure?” Stiles asked, “Cause you got this kinda serial killer look goin’ on in your eyes. I’m hopin’ it’s the full moon taking effect cause it’s starting to freak me out.”

“I’m fine.” Scott repeated, “You should both go home.”

“Alright, we’ll leave.” He stood up then stopped, clearly trying to put his back up plan into motion, ‘Well would you at least look in the bag and see what we bought? You know, maybe you use it, maybe you don’t.”

“Just in case you’re feeling a little anxious.” I smiled. Scott got up and walked to the duffel bag. He bent down and pulled out the thick, metal chains.

“You’re thinking I would put these on? Chain me up like a dog?” He snarled and dropped the chains.

“Actually, no.” Stiles quickly pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slapped him on Scott’s wrist, chaining him to the heater. I grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him away when Scott lunged.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Scott growled.

“Protecting you from yourself.” Stiles sighed and glared, “And giving you payback. For making out with Lydia.” And there it was. Maybe I should have checked the bag for other items he bought. He went downstairs, leaving me and Scott in the bedroom.

“(Y/N), uncuff me!” He struggled.

I shook my head, “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I don’t have the key.”

He lunged and growled, causing me to jump. I looked away, embarrassed that I was showing him that I was afraid. But I was afraid. I’ve known this kid practically his entire life and he was turning into a completely different and dangerous person.

“You like that? Hmm?” He hummed suggestively. I shook my head, talking to him was probably going to just make things worse. Thankfully, Stiles had come back…with a dog bowl.

“I brought you some water.” He said, pouring water from a bottle into the bowl and setting it down in front of Scott.

“I’M GONNA KILL YOU” Scott roared and threw the bowl at Stiles.

“Stiles…” I whispered. The situation was getting dangerous.

“You kissed her, Scott! Okay? You kissed Lydia. And that’s my…The one girl that I have-'' Stiles shook his head, “You know, for the past three hours, I’ve been thinking it’s probably just the full moon, you know? He doesn’t even know what he’s doing and tomorrow he’ll be back to normal. He probably won’t even remember what a complete dumbass he’s been. A son of a bitch. A frickin’ unbelievable piece of crap friend.”

“She kissed me.” Scott interrupted.

“What?” Stiles looked so betrayed.

Scott grinned menacingly, “I didn’t kiss her, she kissed me.” Stiles glared and walked out of the room, I followed behind.

“She had her hands all over me, she would have done anything I wanted! ANYTHING!” Scott’s voice rang through the house. Stiles paced back and forth outside the door.

“Stiles?” Scott called through the door, “Please let me out. It’s the full moon, I swear! You know I wouldn’t do any of this on purpose. Stiles, let me out. This is starting to hurt. You said it, Stiles, it’s the full moon. It’s Allison breaking up with me. It’s not just a break, she broke up with me. It’s killing me! I’m feeling hopeless. Just let me out.” Stiles paused, looking towards the door. I looked him in the eye, shaking my head.

“He’s just trying to make you feel bad.”

Stiles nodded, “I can’t.” He called.

“No! No no no!” Scott shouted, followed by screaming. And then silence. Stiles opened the door, Scott was gone. Only broken handcuffs remained. I grabbed a set of chains and started going downstairs.

“Stiles, stay here.”

“(Y/N)!” He called, grabbing my arm before I went out the door.

“Stay put.” I glared, shutting the door behind me. Scott was a sweet kid normally. But if I needed to keep Stiles safe and if that meant knocking out a couple of his teeth then I would. I went around back to his window and followed the path of broken grass into the woods. I gripped onto the chains tightly, ready to swing if I needed to. My plan had been to knock him out and chain him to a tree. Not sure how well that would work though.

I stopped in a clearing, having lost the trail. Behind me a twig snapped. I’ve always been an act first, ask questions later in these situations. I swung the chain, cracking Scott across the face. My eyes widened at the state of him. Like Derek, he had coarse hair growing down his cheeks, the bridge of his nose was scrunched up and appeared more animal like, his brow bone protruded. His jawline though? Still weird.

Scott’s head had swung to the side with the chain, he looked back slowly, and glared as he spit blood onto the ground. The scrape on his cheek healed almost immediately.

Ha ha, I’m in danger.

“Scott.” I said cautiously, taking a slow step back, “You know me. I’m your friend.” He wasn’t moving closer, but he also hadn’t stopped looking at me with his glowing yellow eyes like I was food.

“So, uh, you blow off your steam. Do some running, clear your head, that good stuff. And I will see you tomorrow. Okay?” I smiled nervously, he didn’t answer, “Okay.” Now it was time to run since I had gotten myself a decent head start. I turned and ran, hearing a roar and footsteps behind me. I threw the chains back over my head, hoping to trip him or hit him in the head. That didn’t seem to do much since he didn’t slow down.

All at once I was body slammed to the ground and turned on my back. Scott was sitting on top of me, leaning down he roared loudly in my face. His large pointed canines shone in the moonlight.

I screamed, shoving and kicking at him, “SCOTT! SCOTT PLEASE!” He thrusted a clawed hand down towards my chest that I barely caught. He seemed slightly confused, but pushed down. I whined, using everything I had keeping his sharp claws from my chest. I couldn’t even breathe.

“Scott, please don’t hurt me.” I begged through my teeth. He roared again, raising his other arm to strike when something flashed across my vision. Whatever it was, it knocked Scott off of me. I gasped for air, my lungs and muscles were screaming at me. The two began to fight, growling and snarling. I sat up, scrambling to get out of the direction of the brawl. I couldn’t see much in the dark since the clouds had covered the moon, but whoever it was got Scott on the ground, roaring down at him. The other stood up straight just as the moon’s light peaked through. And there stood Derek Hale - tall, proud, and very much alive.

---------------------

Read part 7 here!

Oh boy, who could have seen that coming? Anyone who’s seen season 1, that’s who.

Likes, Comments, and Reblogs are appreciated!

Comment below or message me about being on the taglist :)

You Saved Me tag:

@nyotamalfoy

@fruitloopzzz

@babygirl-angel-love

@aestheticeggs (hi eggy)

#derek hale x reader #teen wolf fic #teen wolf x reader

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dresupi · 3 years ago

Text

Darcy/Stephen Strange - The Big Kiss that gets interrupted - Speedrun Prompts

for @artemisgarden

1,217 words

Rated T

~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you insane?” Stephen sounded sort of upset, if Darcy was going to call it anything at all. She pressed her lips together because while she could definitely understand his query, she sensed he had more to get out than just that one question.

“Do you actually have problems with decision making, Lewis? Your doctorate tells me that no, you don’t, but then again, the fact that you ended up here, in the very place I asked you -- very politely I might add, as per your request for all future communication -- not to visit. Not to come within a mile of. But you took that as invitation to come here? To ground zero of the very… event that you, yourself predicted?” He exhaled.

“Are you finished?” she asked, glancing over to where Ian was standing, arms full of her equipment, wind whipping all around them.

“Well… I…” He flailed his arms for a moment before crossing them in front of his chest. “Yes, I’m finished.”

“Okay, well, as you know, I’m a scientist first, and a heeder of warnings second, I didn’t want to miss any readings that might help with my research. I understand that my being here is some sort of sore spot for you, but there is a storm shelter right over there, Ian and I just needed to put out some of my equipment to measure different levels in the storm, and then we’d be down in that shelter, safe. Now that you’re here, you’ve cost us valuable minutes where we could already be finished.”

“The fact that the general populace has been evacuated didn’t register at all as dangerous? My own warning notwithstanding?” Stephen asked, gesturing to the empty farm behind him.

Darcy sniffed and looked around, noticing for the first time that there were no other cars around other than the one she and Ian had come in. No animals on what was clearly a dairy farm either. “Now that you mention it, that is sort of weird, but--”

“But nothing, we’re leaving.” He drew one of his portals in the air and gestured towards it, the wind picking up considerably.

“Just let me set out my equipment. This is the biggest one of these storms to hit since the blip unblipped. I want to get the readings. It’ll take like… thirty seconds since we don’t have to take time to run for shelter now.” She held her hands out to Ian, who quickly handed off two of her interstellar barometric gauge readers. He had the other two.

She handed one to Stephen, who took it because she left him no choice but to take it or risk breaking the state-of-the-art patent-pending equipment she was utilizing for the first time. She set each of the readers up, synced up with satellites in the upper atmosphere. They’d relay the information to her computer back home.

After they got each one set up and turned on, She allowed Stephen to pull both her and Ian into the portal, dropping them off in his living room. An interesting choice for landing points, but whatever.

She coughed and closed her eyes for a moment to stop her head from spinning.

“You both could have died,” Stephen hissed.

“Excuse me, Dr. Strange, sir…” Ian began. “I know full well the risks involved with Dr. Lewis’s research and I know that the research is paramount to understanding these superstorm cells…”

“So you were aware of the risks involved and still allowed your mentor to walk into certain death?”

Ian swallowed and set his jaw. “No offense meant to Dr. Lewis, but have you met her? What do you think would have happened to me if I’d tried that?”

Darcy snickered, and Stephen rolled his eyes, turning back to her.

“Do you know how worried I was?” he asked.

Her eyebrows went straight up. “I’m sorry, how worried you were? I wasn’t aware I was supposed to take your feelings into consideration when I made life or death decisions. You certainly don’t take mine into consideration.”

He narrowed his eyes, focusing directly on her. “I never made any life or death gambles either.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think our ‘acquaintanceship necessitates’ that I check in with you for every little thing.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. Because for someone who very clearly didn’t want to be in a relationship with her, he certainly cared a lot about her knowing how worried he was.

Stephen’s look hardened, his voice lowering to a volume that might not be as noticeable to Ian. “I specifically warned you… would you excuse us, please?” he asked, directing his attention to Ian. “If you’ll walk down that hall there, the kitchen is fully stocked. Help yourself.” Ian lingered, glancing over at Darcy as if he weren’t sure whether to leave her or not.

She waved him on, and he went, her gaze not breaking from where it was currently boring into Stephen’s. “You specifically warned me…” She gestured for him to go on.

“I warned you it was dangerous,” he continued. “I did that out of worry for your safety... “

“And that’s it?”

“Yes, that’s why I warned you. Believe it or not, I think the world’s better with you in it.”

“Oh,” she chuckled, breaking his gaze to wander over to fiddle with something on an end table. It looked expensive. But everything in Stephen’s place did. “The world’s better with me in it? Why is that, pray-tell? My exceptional brain? My research? My connections with Thor and New Asgard?”

“Of course your brain and research are important,” Stephen insisted. “But that isn’t why… I can also visit New Asgard whenever I please, with or without your connections...”

She snorted derisively.

“Are you going to make me say it?” he asked.

Darcy smirked. “Absolutely I am.”

“I... “ he began, trailing off.

Darcy laughed and started to walk down the hall in the same direction Ian had gone. He was probably lost. She’d show him the way to the kitchen.

“May I show you instead?” Stephen ventured, and she stopped walking, turning back.

“I’m intrigued by how you’d do that… considering you could never engage in an intimate sort of relationship with--”

He moved closer to her, cutting her off and reaching for her hand. “May I show you?” he repeated, his voice low and his eyes impossibly dark as he peered into hers.

Her belly swooped and she nodded, hoping like hell she wasn’t just wishful thinking again.

Stephen leaned down to press his lips to hers, and they did, for a tantalizing second before someone cleared their throat.

They both turned towards the sound to see Ian again. “Sorry, but I got lost… which way is the kitchen?”

“Here,” Stephen drew another portal, this one to the kitchen. “Just through there.”

“Right, thanks…” Ian ducked back inside, the portal closing after him.

“Sorry, he’s kind of…”

“Gone,” Stephen finished for her, leaning down once more, his hands cupping her face.

Darcy rose up on her toes and moved into the kiss, her hands gripping his forearms to keep herself steady. Tilting her head to deepen the kiss she let her eyes flutter closed when his tongue swept briefly into her mouth.

It was kind of insane how good he was at this.

#Strangeshock #Darcy Lewis #Stephen Strange #Darcy x Stephen #Stephen x Darcy #Darcy/Stephen #Stephen/Darcy #orange #speedrun prompts #artemisgarden

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wen-kexing-apologist · 4 years ago

Text

Of Prices Paid

This is kind of long, so maybe check it out on ao3?

There is a lot to get used to in this immortality business, Nile thinks, as Joe guns the engine and peals away from the lab. No matter how much her brain screams at her to move on, Nile cannot tear her eyes away from the twisted hunk of metal that had been Merrick’s car. Not until Joe turns a corner and it disappears from view. Inside their vehicle, the Guard settles into silence, and at first Nile is grateful for it. No one is trying to gauge how she feels when she is still in shock. No one is trying to debrief her when she can still hear the wind whistling in her ears, when she can still remember the way her skull crawled underneath her skin to piece itself back together.

Nile feels too good for someone that had just rearranged her skeleton, and it seems wrong, in a way, to be sitting here feeling no pain, no exhaustion, no fear. The quiet in the car has a complexity to it Nile can’t quite untangle. It’s woven like a tapestry made of guilt, which roils off Booker like thunder, spun with anger that Nile can feel in the way Nicky sits, his shoulders tense, his hands balled in fists. But it’s like a mirage in the desert, holding its form until it’s looked at up close. When Nile first met the Guard they had felt like a lie, like a fantasy or a dream. She hadn’t understood, hadn’t felt the years they had lived until now. Until she was sitting in this silence; this tired, expansive, comfortable silence. Nile is not used to this kind of prolonged stagnation, the lack of desire to fill empty time with entertainment. But these people beside her are ancient and do not notice they pass full hours just sitting in this car, aware of one another and completely content in that.

Nile distracts herself from the thoughts of blood, the sound of the gunshots, and the ghost of pain that crash around in her head by watching the others. She watches Nicky’s attention flicker between the light in Joe’s curls and the movement of his shoulder, takes note of the small smile that turns Nicky’s lip when he looks in the rearview mirror and finds Joe’s eyes meeting his. Nile watches Booker playing with his rings, his fingers fumbling and trembling. Notices he keeps his sunglasses on even as the sunlight starts to dip below the horizon. Nile inspects the way Andy’s jaw is set, watches her close her eyes, and hears how deliberately she breathes. Nile sees Andy flinch when Joe takes her hand, sees her shoulder slump a little when he turns his head for just a moment, and gives a gentle squeeze. Sees the smile spread briefly across Andy’s face as she nods softly and responds in kind. Nile watches Joe press a soft kiss to Andy’s knuckles, pat the top of her hand, and return his grip to the gear shift.

Nile stretches, uncomfortable and itchy with the blood still caked against her skin. They’d been driving for hours by this point in unfamiliar terrain. She feels a hand press quickly, tentatively against her elbow, and meets Nicky’s gaze. It’s piercing, studious, full of questions, and Nile blinks away the stinging in her eyes. It has been a long time since Nile cried, especially in front of others, and she was not about to start today, in a car full of people she barely knew. Nicolo softens, opens his arms a little in an offer Nile takes. She leans against his side, lets him hold her weight; Nicky wraps an arm around her and kisses the top of her head like her father used to. “We’re almost there,” he says, and Nile is equal parts surprised and not to find the man she read as the most quiet and contemplative of the group is the one to finally break the silence.

“Good,” Nile replies “Cause I’ve had to pee for about an hour now and I was starting to get worried,” The car is filled with laughter like fireworks, explosive but brief. Nile notices how Joe laughs with his whole body, how Andy chuckles under her breath, a timid thing. She sees that Nicky smiles and Booker doesn’t.

“It’s not another mine is it?” Nile asks as she sits back up, Nicolo returning his arm to his side. “Because I don’t know about ya’ll but I need a stiff drink, a soft bed, and a shower,”

“I can solve the drink problem,” Booker pulls his flask out of his jacket pocket, wiggles it in Nile’s direction. Nile takes a swig, tries to stifle a cough as the whiskey hits her tongue.

“No,” Andy says, biting back a smile “It’s not a mine,”

Ten minutes later, Joe turns down a dirt road. The cottage that sits at the end of the driveway looks straight out of a storybook. It’s roof thatched and slanting, the garden overgrown, Nile half expects a witch to pop out of the front door and welcome them in. Booker is the first out of the car, rushing towards the building before Joe has even finished parking.

“Guess he had to pee too,” Joe remarks bitterly as he jods to the side of the car to open the door for Nile and Nicky, offering his hand to help them stand.

“Such a gentleman,” Nicky says as he untangles himself from the middle seat, takes Joe’s hand, and pulls him in for a quick kiss. Their fingers are the last thing to part, Nile notices, as Joe heads towards the passenger seat to open Andy’s door. Nicky moves towards the trunk to grab their go-bags and carry them into the house.

“Joe,” Andy scoffs light-heartedly when Joe dips into a bow and extends his hand. Nile pretends not to notice how long it takes Andy to get out of the car, the way her face twists and her breath catches in her throat. Whatever weight had been lifted upon their arrival, upon the promise of sleep comes crashing back down.

“You okay, boss?” Joe asks, but the joy Nile usually recognizes in his voice is not there.

“Yes,” Andy pats his cheek twice with a smile that does not reach her eyes. “Just need to stretch my legs a bit. I thought when we invented cars they’d eliminate some of the more unpleasant aspects of riding horseback. But as it turns out, sitting in the same position for extended periods of time makes my joints stiff whether I’m in stirrups or in shotgun,” Nile knows just as well as Joe that Andy’s giving a bullshit excuse, but she understands Andy’s need for strength in this. “Why don’t you give Nile the tour? I’ll check the perimeter,”

Joe nods and Nile watches the frown fall across his lips as soon as Andy turns away.

“She’s good,” Nile cannot stop herself from saying. “She’ll be fine,”

Joe’s shoulders fold, his hands massage his neck, and when he turns to look at Nile, his eyes shining, she is struck for the first time by how easily, how readily these people choose kindness and honesty. She’s seen the way they tear through a siege, the ruthlessness and the precision of their actions. Yet when Joe looks at her, a man she’s only known for two days, a man she watched a few hours before pop Keane’s spine out of his neck, he seems so worn, so weary, so...vulnerable. So separate from his capabilities in battle.

“You did good today,” Joe kicks the dirt beneath his feet, sending a couple rocks scattering in different directions. “Thank you for everything. I don’t know how we would have gotten ourselves out of that one if you hadn’t been there,”

Nile smiles “All I did was untie Andy and jump out a window,”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” Joe holds the front door open, and Nile steps through into the bright, inviting warmth of the cottage. “You’ve done a lot for us, for Andy, already. I look forward to getting to know you better. You’re going to make one hell of an addition to the team,”

“Thank you, Joe,”

Joe grins “I’m always here if you want to talk. But for now, let me show you around,”

After a quick pit stop to the bathroom, Joe and Nile walk together through the cottage, and as she listens to Joe, Nile finds it a little easier to accept the new conditions of her life. She watches the way he gestures when he speaks, makes a mental note of all the little details he shares with her, the dates of when the cottage was built and what missions they’d stayed here for. The excitement Nile hears in his voice falters and then falls away all together when Nicky walks by, arms crossed and standing in front of the bathroom door, where the shower has been running for the past few minutes. Joe’s brow furrows and his eyes focus, trained on the back of Nicky’s head, hair matted with his own blood.

“Quel bastardo prenderà tutta l'acqua calda.” Nicky mutters.

Nile bites back a smile as she watches Joe unconsciously turn his body to face Nicky, struggling to find the words he needs to finish his conversation with her. Joe runs his thumb across the ridges of his ring and shakes out his hand.

“Go,” Nile says gently, nods her head towards Nicolo.

“Are you sure?”

“Joe,” Nile gives him a knowing look “Go get your man,”

Joe chuckles, squeezes Nile’s shoulder, and heads toward Nicky. Nile watches the two of them wrap their arms around each other and press their foreheads together, breathing each other in. The intimacy of the action makes Nile worry she’s impeding on their privacy so she pretends to focus on the painting in front of her. They speak to one another, chatting in languages that Nile doesn’t know until she hears Joe say bitterly:

“I’ll kill him,”

“Joe, please.” Nicky pulls away, cups Joe’s face in his hands “He doesn’t deserve to see your anger. He doesn’t deserve anything from you at all.”

“Nicky he-”

“I know what he did,” Nicky shuts the conversation down “He is our family and I love him, but for the time being he has no right to my life, or yours. Booker is young and foolish and desperate still, he does not understand the depth of what he’s done. We will figure out his penance and he will serve it, and then we can move on from this.”

“Nicolo-”

“Che cosa?”

Joe begins to say something, but shakes his head and instead says “Ti amo,”

“ uhibbuka aydan ”

Joe and Nicky separate at the sound of the front door opening. “Who let Booker shower first?” Andy asks, running her fingers through her hair with a sigh. She opens the door to the bathroom, and bends over to pick up Booker’s bloody clothing “Time’s up, Book,” she calls. Andy wordlessly hands Booker a towel, and Nile averts her eyes in embarrassment as Booker, water still running, steps out of the shower stark naked and wraps the towel around himself. Andy places the bundle of his clothes in his hand, “Burn whatever you can’t salvage,” Booker does not meet Andy’s eye, but he nods. “Joe, Nicky, anything you want Booker to get rid of?”

Joe and Nicky head towards the shower, tugging their shirts off over their heads and tossing them to Booker. Booker leaves Nile and Andy alone in the living room. An awkward silence begins to settle between them, but Nile has spent most of the day without words and she’s starting to get tired of it.

“So,” she begins, “How much you spend on clothes?”

Andy raises an eyebrow, “Depends. We buy shirts for our missions in bulk, because it’s cheaper. Dark clothes help with blood stains, because if we don’t get shot we can just...wash them. It’s not always like this,” Andy sighs, cracks her knuckles, and massages her shoulders.

“You know, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that this week,”

Andy sighs “You arrived at a uniquely...complicated time and I apologize for that,”

“I don’t think you need to apologize for what happened today. I figured my life was gonna get complicated the minute I was pistol whipped in Afghanistan and woke up in the trunk of some white lady’s armored vehicle, driving through the desert.”

“Yeah, can’t say after all these years that I’m the subtle type,”

“No shit.” Nile smiles, picks dust from under her fingernails. “Were you friends with Heinsberg or something?”

Andy’s eyes are bright and her grin energetic and genuine in a way Nile hadn’t Andy was still capable of. “No, I just likes to sow chaos,”

They chat for a few minutes about nothing in particular. Nile asks about the sculptures on the table, Andy asks about her friends back in Afghanistan. Nile is struck by how natural it seems for her to exist in this space. Andy seems more relaxed than she has in days, Nile can see it in the way she stands, the ease at which conversation flows. The sound of the shower quiets, and the door to the bathroom opens.

“Nile, would you like to go next?” Nicky asks.

“Sure,”

“We left a towel in there for you,” Joe adds.

“Thanks,”

There is a sound of a door opening and closing, and all eyes in the room turn to look at Booker. “I brought you some clothes,” he hands the pile to Nile, and one to Andy, and for a moment Nile cannot help but think that he looks small.

“Joe and I are going to change, and I’ll have dinner started by the time you’re done,” Nicky says, his back to Booker.

Nile nods and closes the door, wipes the steam clinging to the bathroom mirror away, and strips herself down. She takes a moment to look at herself, touches the blood caked to the side of her head, runs a finger down her arm where her bone had been sticking out just a few days before. She looks at her foot, no evidence of an entry or exit wound from the bullet she’d shot into it a few hours ago. She presses a hand to her neck, traces a line down the carotid. The first wound that should have killed her and no scar to prove it. She forces herself to think about something else, singing songs in her head to drive off the existential crisis she can feel brewing. Just a few hours ago she had jumped from 15 stories, felt the blood rush to her head, felt the pain shudder through her body like lightning as a car bent itself beneath her. She had taken lives, and in doing so committed herself to an eternity of slaughter.

She turns the shower on, waits for it to run warm. Within a minute she can hear the muffled sounds of shouting, an argument she wouldn’t have been able to understand even if she had wanted to. She sticks her head beneath the stream, watches as the water turns pink beneath her feet. She massages shampoo into each cornrow, making a mental note to pick up some supplies the next time they were anywhere near civilization. This bathroom was not stocked with her hair texture or skin type in mind. She scrubs herself down with the washcloth they had left her by the sink. Wonders to herself as she hangs the cloth up to dry how many gallons of bleach the Guard must go through after missions. Free of blood, Nile conditions her hair, turns off the shower, and pats herself dry. She finds no moisturizers, no lotions, no oils or gels in the bathroom cabinets, slips into the clothing Booker has given her, and steps into the living room.

“You could have just volunteered yourself,” Joe is standing in the kitchen when Nile returns. “There was absolutely no need to sell us all out,”

“I wasn’t trying to sell you out,” Booker exclaims, and Nile realizes there are advantages to the lack of questioning she’s been subjected to. Mostly that she hasn’t had time to tell anyone she grew up speaking French. “If he could get your DNA then it’s possible he could have figured out a way to-”

“Sebastian,” Andy sighs “stop,”

It is a testament to her command, the respect and reverence these old friends have for one another that Andy need not raise her voice to be heard over shouting. Booker deflates, unscrews the top of his flask and takes a swig “Oh. No need to stop on my account.” Nile’s voice fills the sudden silence “I can hang out somewhere else. I was just looking for a plastic bag. I’ve got conditioner in that has to sit for twenty minutes and need to wrap my head,”

“I’m not. You’re a member of this team now, Nile,” Andy responds, “You should be a part of every conversation that we have. I’m just...tired, and hungry, and covered in blood, I want to shower, and honestly, I don’t care what Booker has to say about his choices right this very minute. I think we should just eat dinner and pick this particular conversation up in the morning,”

“Sure, boss,” Booker and Joe speak together, and Nile watches Nicky whisper low to Joe, slip something into his hand, and push him out of the kitchen. He wipes his fingers on the hand towel sitting on his shoulder, and stirs whatever canned good he’d put on the stove to warm.

“Here’s that bag,” Joe places it gently on her head, it feels familiar, familial in a way that almost knocks Nile off her feet with homesickness.

“Thanks,”

“Okay, I’m going to get cleaned up,” Andy inches towards the bathroom. “Nicky and Joe, finish cooking and set the table. Booker, get the rooms ready. Nile, put your feet up, watch some TV, decompress a little, you’ve earned it,”

Before she can fully process the request, Nile finds herself alone in the foyer. While she’s searching for the remote, Nile realizes that the shower has not started up. She knocks softly on the bathroom door and looks over her shoulder to make sure no one else is paying attention. Nicky and Joe are bickering with one another about the addition of salt to the dish they are preparing, and Booker is nowhere to be seen so she asks a question.

“Andy, you okay in there?”

It takes a moment for her to respond, “I’m fine,” a comment she punctuates with a sharp inhale of breath.

“You sure about that?” Nile pries “Do you wanna give me your dirty laundry?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Andy replies, which she follows rather quickly with a quiet “fuck,”

“Andy, do you need help?”

“I–” Andy stops herself “No,”

Nile doesn’t believe her. “Andy, I know everything hurts. I know you’re worried about what we’re all going to think, but let me make it clear. I don’t care, I don’t pity you, and I won’t judge. I’ve been immortal for like...four days. If you’re bleeding or bruised I’m not gonna freak or feel bad about it. I’d honestly be more creeped out if you were completely fine.” Nile puts a hand on the doorknob and lowers her voice. “It just, sounds like you need help, and there is no point in causing yourself potential harm for the sake of appearances,”

The door opens and Andy drags Nile into the bathroom, closing the door quickly behind them. “I just don’t want the guys to worry.” Andy says.

“I know,”

“I kind of wish Booker had just killed me with that gunshot.” Andy winces as she tries to remove her shirt. Nile helps Andy untangle her arms from the sleeves, tosses the shirt onto the floor. “This whole mortality thing is kind of a pain in the ass.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Nile teases.

Andy smirks “You’re so kind,”

“I’m sorry...did you want sympathy?” she asks, Andy kicks off her shoes and her pants, grabbing Nile’s arm to steady herself.

“No,” Andy laughs “No I did not,”

“I think we should get that looked at,” Nile moves on, pointing to the bandage on Andy’s abdomen, soaked with blood. “Looks like you re-opened the bullet wound.”

“I’m not going to the hospital,”

“Okay well, let’s just get the blood off of you first, and go from there. I feel like we should try not to get it wet though.”

“Fine, just...help me into the tub,” Nile holds Andy’s weight, pretends not to see the way Andy grits her teeth when she steps over the rim. She lowers herself down until she is sitting in the bottom of the tub, and reaches for a washcloth and some soap. Andy’s body is riddled with cuts and bruises, and Nile understands why Andy was hesitant to ask for help. It’s a pretty gruesome sight, even for someone who was expecting injury.

Andy sighs, a deep, exhausting thing, and leans against the back of the tub. She dips the washcloth in the water, lathers it up with soap and starts to scrub at the parts of her skin that are not tender. Nile closes the toilet seat and sits herself down.

“So…while you have me trapped here, in pain and unable to stand, do you have any other pressing questions about immortality, or...anything really?”

Nile chews her lip, feels her cheeks get warm “I’ll be this age forever, right?”

“Yup,”

“Does that mean....okay this is gonna sound stupid,” Nile closes her eyes so she won’t have to see Andy’s face when she asks “Will I still get my period?”

“Oh no,” Andy chuckles “God no. Your body heals itself, so there is no tissue to shed. If I still got my period I probably would have tried harder to end my immortality. Can you imagine thousands of years of that shit?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to,”

Andy wrings out the blood and dirt from her washcloth, and tries to reach behind her to scrub at her back. She bites back a cry of pain, the water rushing through the tub spout drowns out whatever sound escapes her lips. Nile takes the cloth wordlessly, begins to wipe the grime away from Andy’s skin “How many times have you died?”

“Lost count,” Andy stares at her feet. “At least two thousand, probably more,”

“How many times have you blown yourself up?”

“Five,”

“Only five?”

“Blown myself up or been blown up?”

“Blown up,”

“Then probably...forty,”

“What is the weirdest way you’ve died?”

“I ate mercury,”

“What?”

“Joe dared me too,”

“Most embarrassing way you’ve ever died?”

“Are all your questions going to be about my deaths?”

“How old are you?”

“Around sixty-five hundred. My foot got tangled in the sling of a trebuchet as I was helping place the payload and I got hurtled into the sky,”

“Have you ever tried to figure out why this is happening?”

“How would I do that?”

“I don’t know, but...aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Andy’s voice isn’t dismissive when she replies.

“Why don’t you believe in God?”

“I told you before, there was a time that I was worshipped as a God, but I’m just a person who has a hard time making death stick to her. I can’t shape the world, I can’t heal the sick, I can only kill,”

“And save,”

Andy looks at Nile and there is something in her eyes Nile doesn’t know how to decipher. “Regardless, having been a God to some sorry fuckers thousands of years ago, I have a hard time thinking that any part of it is real. As old as I am and as travelled as I’ve been, I’ve seen many religions rise and fall around all different types of Gods. And while I understand the comfort of prayer, community, and worship, it just hard for me to think that God exists when I see something so many people have believed in and have devoted themselves to disappear within a few decades. But you can believe whatever you want, I’m sorry if I was harsh about your religion before,”

“I appreciate that,” Nile’s hand freezes as she goes to scrub the dirt from Andy’s shoulders and finds a stab wound sitting there instead, cut deep and oozing. “Where did you get this?”

“Goussainville,”

“Its bleeding,”

“Is it?”

“Okay Andy, first of all, you can’t keep shit like this from anyone anymore. Secondly– and I can’t believe I have to ask this question –do you have bandages here? A first aid kit?”

“Yes, in my bag. I bought some the other night,”

“I’ll go grab it,” Nile hands Andy the shampoo and conditioner and slips out of the bathroom to go in search of medical equipment. Joe and Nicky look up from their work and raise their eyebrows quizzically. Nile pretends she doesn’t see them.

Booker is precariously balancing a stack of bedsheets when Nile comes into the room. “Have you seen Andy’s bag?” she asks him. Booker’s eyes are red when he looks up at her.

“Um, yeah,” he throws the sheets down, roots through the pile of bags on the floor. “Here,”

“Thanks,” Nile’s replies, her voice hesitant. She looks Booker over as she sifts through the bag. “How are you?”

“I didn’t mean to…” Booker seems desperate “I didn’t know,”

“She knows,”

“I thought I- it doesn’t matter,” Booker shakes his head. “I should have realized they would lie,”

“I know you think you were doing something good,” Nile says carefully. “But that wasn’t a choice you made with everyone, it’s a choice you made for everyone. Booker, if you have to kidnap your friends to get them to do something, maybe it wasn’t a good idea in the first place,”

“You’re right…” Booker plays with the edge of the folded bed sheets, not meeting her eyes. “We’ve all done things to piss each other off before, but this is really bad. I don’t know what I’m gonna do...what they’re gonna do,”

“I don’t either,” Nile finds the first aid kit, and leaves Booker alone. Andy is washing the suds out of her hair when Nile returns. “Anyone have medical training?”

“Nicky,”

“Are you okay with having him look at you? You have to be more careful now,”

“I know,”

“You think you know, but you haven’t been mortal in...over six thousand years. You can push yourself an awful lot, but you can’t ignore your injuries. When was the last time you had an infection? Or had to take medication?”

“Fine,” Andy sighs “Let me put on some pants.” Nile helps Andy out of the tub, turns the water cold and rinses the conditioner out of her hair as Andy dries herself off, struggles into her underwear and sweatpants.

“Nicolo,” Andy pokes her head out of the door “Vieni qui per favore,”

Without hesitation, Nicky joins them in the bathroom, “Everything okay, Andy?”

“Nile is worried I may need medical attention. She hasn’t taken any bandages off but she said there was blood on them and is concerned that I may have ripped my stitches, or whatever the hell it was they did to me,”

“Also she has a stab wound she didn’t tell anyone about on her shoulder,”

Nicky turns to look at Nile, then back to Andy, he raises his eyebrow slightly, and shakes his head when Andy shrugs. “I’m assuming it is okay for me to examine you?”

“Yeah,”

Nile watches Nicky work, how delicately he removes her bandages, the intensity of his stare as he analyzes the damage. “The stitches have definitely slipped,” he presses his hand to Andy’s stomach, rolling his palm slightly around her abdomen and then close to where her bruises have started to bloom. “You don’t have a rigid abdomen, so there’s probably not internal bleeding. Let me see the others,” Andy complies, resting her chin upon her hands, rolling her neck until it cracks. “The back seems to have slipped as well, and the shoulder one is a little too old for stitches. I don’t have sutures here, but I could glue it if you want,”

“Do you still need me?” Nile asks, a little woozy.

“I’ve got her,” Nicky replies.

Nile leaves the room and nearly jumps out of her skin when Booker and Joe rush to her “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Nile pours herself a glass of wine. “It’s all good,”

Booker and Joe finish setting the table and they all prepare themselves for dinner. Nicky and Andy join them soon after they have sat down to eat. Over dinner, the attention turns to Nile, she is attacked from all sides with all the burning questions the immortals have about her life. Joe learns of Nile’s interest in art history and spends the rest of the meal excitedly telling her fun facts about every famous artist they’d ever met. Nile sits on the kitchen counter while the others wash the dishes. She listens to them hum snippets of long forgotten songs, and marvels at the way they move around one another without needing to speak. They are more than just a team, more than just a family, Nile realizes as Joe starts up a gramophone. When they are all together they are a single living organism.

Booker tries to offer her more wine and Joe tries to pull her, gently, off the countertop so he can teach her how to swing dance. Nile is not exactly shy, and under different circumstances she knows she would have participated more in the evening's festivities. But for tonight, Nile stays rooted in place, as a casual observer of their joy. Nile feels happier than she has in months, as she watches them drink, as Joe prays, and as the old friends dance together. A promise of what this life could be. The evening begins to calm and Andy, skin flushed and pupils dilated, and Booker head to bed.

“You coming?” Joe asks Nicky, who has been sitting at the dining room table, propping his head up with his hand, reading a book.

“Later,” Nicky looks up from the page “I’d like to read for a bit,”

“Okay,” Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s temple “Goodnight,”

“Night, love,”

Nile moves to sit on the living room couch, rests her arms on her knees, hangs her head so she can focus on the floor. She finally lets herself breathe, lets herself think about everything that she just went through. The burning pinch of the bullets that riddled her, the way her bones felt moving underneath her skin, the smell of blood and dust. She thinks of the man that killed her, the way life had left his eyes, how Andy had a similar look in her eye when the two of them peered out the broken window in Merrick’s penthouse. She runs her hands across her head, rubs the tears from her eyes. She needs to think, to make a decision. The longer she stays here the harder it is for her to justify leaving. This is a family, not hers, not yet, but she knows how easily it could be. She pulls out her phone, spends too long staring, blurry eyed at photos of her family. She thinks about her brother, his passion, his joy, and his sadness. She thinks of her mother, how hard she had worked to provide them a life they could be proud of, how determined she was to be happy despite the wrongs the world had handed her. She thinks of the emptiness that consumed their family when her father died, how badly her mother’s hand had shaken when she’d closed the door behind the officers that had delivered the news. Could she put her family through that again? Could she put her mother through that?

“I made you some hot chocolate,” Nicky places a steaming mug down on the coffee table. Nile blinks up at Nicky, so wrapped up in her own head she hadn’t fully processed what he’d said to her.

“Oh.” Nile sits up a little straighter “Thank you,”

“Could I join you?”

“Sure,” Nile holds the mug between her hands and lets the heat spread across her fingers.

“I’m not sure that it tastes very good, but sometimes all you need is a little warmth,”

“Thank you, Nicky,”

“Of course,” he takes a sip of his own drink. “How are you feeling about all of this, Nile?”

Nile sighs “Honestly? I have no idea,”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not sure what I want, I’m not sure what to do,”

“Do about what?”

“Any of it– All of it.” Nile watches the ceiling fan circle, searching for the right words “I’m not sure how to feel about this immortality business. I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet, it still feels like a dream. I keep pinching myself just to see if I’ll wake up. I’ve died four times in the last week, I keep having nightmares, and I just,” Nile’s lip trembles “I just want my Mom, you know?”

“I do,” he admits “They don’t tell you when you train for battle how many people will die crying out for their mothers. In times of strife, in times of fear, we want that which will bring us comfort. I’ve lived for nine-hundred years, and time has eaten away at a lot of my memories. I can’t remember what my mother looks like, but some days I am hit with an overpowering wave of melancholy knowing that I will never see her again. I can still remember how it felt, the first couple of times. How terrifying it was, how isolating, and every time I came back to life I thought of her, I wanted her to be there to tell me it was okay. But at the time I thought there was a devil in me, so I never let myself go back.” Nicky turns the full force of his attention towards Nile, and though every action he performs is gentle and controlled, Nile shrinks under the pressure of his gaze. “You’re an incredibly strong person, Nile,”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be,”

“You don’t always,”

Nile stifles a laugh, because Nicky means well, but he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what it is like to wear her skin, to grow up where she did. And while she has no doubt he’s faced trials and tribulations, and had his fair share of hate spewed at him, no amount of time on Earth will ever let him understand what she means. “I think I want to go home,”

“Why?”

“I want a better goodbye. I want to hear my mother’s voice again, I want to hug her one last time,”

“And what purpose does that serve?”

“I don’t know…” Nile shrugs, she looks to Nicky with lost eyes. “I don’t want them to suffer, I don’t want them to have to mourn me,”

“What happens if they start to realize you aren’t aging?”

“I leave,”

“And cause them pain,” under different circumstances, Nile would have thought this point was cruel, but to Nicky it’s a matter of fact. It is not a question, it is not a hypothetical, it’s merely...truth.

“I know what it was like, after my Dad died. I don’t know that I can put them through that,”

“You’ll have to do it eventually. You just have to decide whether you cause them misery now, or later,”

“I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye,” Nile’s voice cracks.

“Nile,” Nicky takes her hand, brushes a tear from her cheek, “No one ever is,”

“Ugh sorry,” Nile takes a raggedy breath, sniffles, and forces herself to smile, though it falters for a moment. “I don’t normally cry,”

“Why not?”

“It makes me feel weak, it makes me feel vulnerable,”

“But neither of those things are true,” Nicky takes a sip of his drink, “could I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,”

“Why did you come back?”

“What?”

Nicky’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to find the words. “When Andromache and Booker were brought into the lab, we asked after you, wanting to make sure you were okay, you were safe. I don’t think any of us would have forgiven ourselves if you had been captured too. Andy said that you had left, that you wanted to get as much time as you could with your family before the immortality caught up to you. We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again....until you came bursting through that door,” Nile feels her cheeks go warm “So...why? What caused you to come back?”

Nile examines the contents of the mug between her fingers, takes a sip to wash the tremble out of her voice. “Right before I left, Andy handed me her pistol and told me to get rid of the weapons before I got on a train. When I went to toss them, I noticed the clip was empty. Booker was the one that prepped that gun for her, so I knew something was up,”

“Ok,” Nicky surveys Nile’s face “But that doesn’t answer my question,”

“It doesn’t?”

“No,” Nicky’s lips turn up in the ghost of a smile “Just seeing that gun doesn’t mean you have to come back for us. We basically kidnapped you to get you to come here. You’ve only known us for a few days, you have no obligation to us. You could have looked at that gun, thought something was wrong, and then gone back to your family anyway. But instead...you chose to save us, even after our broken promises. Andy told you we’d keep you safe, and we left you alone, exposed, and in the open,”

“It’s not your fault,”

“I know,” Nicky runs a hand through his hair.

“How did you know about what Andy said to me anyway?”

“She was beating herself up about it in the lab,” Nicky states. “You don’t have to tell me if you do not wish too, Nile. I was just curious,”

“No,I–” Nile stares straight ahead of her when she says it, focusing her attention on the front door. “It was Quynh,”

“Quynh?” Nicky asks, and Nile nods, forcing herself to face this kind man who asked hard questions.

“And you,”

“Me?”

“You were right. When I first saw the gun I thought about just leaving, figured that whatever was happening you’d have the time to get out of it on your own. But then I thought of Quynh, of feeling her drown over and over; the wildness of it, the insanity. And I thought of what you told me the other night, your fear of capture, of spending an eternity in a box. Feeling what Quynh felt– feels,” Nile corrects herself “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I knew I couldn’t leave you all to that potential future.”

Nicky sizes Nile up and though he smiles warmly at her, she feels like he is staring right into her soul. It’s not uncomfortable, just unexpected, Nile takes another sip of her hot chocolate to break the eye contact. When Nile looks at him again his body seems heavy, he’s staring at nothing in particular and rubbing his wrist absentmindedly.

“How ‘bout you? Are you okay?”

Nicky shakes his head and it takes him a minute to say anything at all “I don’t think so,”

“Were you scared?”

“Only for a moment, when they injected me and Joe with something and I thought they might separate us.”

“But they didn’t,”

“No. I did have to watch him tortured though,”

“I’m so sorry,”

“I’d throw myself in front of every danger to keep him from being hurt,” Nicky admits “And I couldn’t spare him from the pain,”

“Is that why you haven’t said a word to Booker since we left the lab?”

“We had some time to question him,” Nicky says after a moment of contemplation “when they got into the lab. Joe was pretty busy yelling at him, but Booker told us he hadn’t meant for it to go like this. He’d been promised answers to his existence, a potential cure to his immortality, a way to die before his time. He thought that we could all get some answers, that we would all want a way to end this cursed existence.” Nicky runs his hand over his face, looking to Nile with tired eyes. “I have never had a child, so I do not know what it is like to lose one. Much less three. I know Booker is hurt and lonely, and I cannot begin to understand the pain he must have felt having watched his children fade away, without being able to stop it. But he is wrong about us.

Nicky turns to look behind him to the doorway where Joe is sleeping. “I’ve always had Joe, and Joe has always had me. For Booker, who has seen it all slip away from him, that seems like a blessing, and I don’t disagree. But,” Nicky scratches the back of his head “we have watched each other die over and over again for 900 years. And every time I see him die, I have to wait with grief spreading through my chest before I can reign it in, and hope that he moves again, that I can see him breathe. I throw myself in front of danger to protect Joe all the time, and I do it so that he does not have to suffer the wounds, but there is a part of me that does it because I am selfish. I hope that I will die before him so I do not have to bear losing him forever. I get a taste of what my life would be like without him by my side every time I watch him die, and I know I would be lost. Booker thinks the weight of immortality does not fall upon our shoulders, thinks that because Joe and I have always had each other that we walk on air, oblivious to the harsh realities, the objective truths of living as long as we have. He believes we do not know the loneliness, but Joe and I have lived every day with Death’s scythe above our heads. Booker and Andy do not have a monopoly on the tragedy, self-pity, or loathing that comes with what we do or...what we are. I am just as angry and tired as the rest of them, and there are times I wish I would just die, same as them. But, I make an active choice every single day to not succumb to the pressure. I choose to believe there is a reason for this, that this life has purpose, that we are doing good. I believe Joe makes this life worth it, but so does Andy, so does Booker, Quynh, and Lykon would have too had he lived long enough for us to know him. Booker thinks he is alone, because he does not see all of the wonderful people around him for the gift they are.

“What’s that advice people like to tell children? ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?’ I haven’t said anything to Booker since the lab because I’m angry. I am angry that we were captured, I’m angry at the fear I felt, however brief, over what could have happened had you not been the incredibly kind and compassionate young woman you are. I’m angry that Joe and I bore most of the consequences of Booker’s lapse in judgement. And it’s not anger he deserves, because I believe it was a mistake, I don’t think he would have done it had he known the extent of Merrick’s masochism. I don’t even think I would be mad if it had just been me. But it was Joe the guards beat in the van, it was Joe that Merrick stabbed. Booker never had to suffer the consequences of his own suicide attempt. Perhaps I am being too harsh, but for the moment I have other things to worry about.” Nicky clears his throat, holds his mug between his hands.

“Andy?”

Nicky’s sigh carries centuries on it “Andromache has lived a long life, longer than I can even fathom. She’s done a lot of good in this world, and she deserves the rest. I want to keep her around as long as possible, but I’m happy for her that sometime within the next sixty years or so she will finally know peace. It just….hurts,” Nicky stands, offers to take Nile’s cup “But these are the tired musings of an old man, I probably should not have offered you so much of my burden,”

“I asked,”

“You are a good person, Nile. I’m very glad to know you,”

“So are you,”

“Nile,” Nicky puts the mugs down to dry and says in a voice so low Nile isn’t quite certain she heard it correctly. “Could I give you a hug?”

“I guess?”

Nicky’s arms are strong, and certain when he pulls her in, and while he holds her the ground seems sturdy beneath her feet for the first time since she woke up in that hospital bed. “Thank you,” he whispers, squeezing her tighter “for saving my family,”

“Nicolo,” Joe is standing in the doorway, squinting against the light in the living room. His curls are messy, his beard is ruffled, and Nile has to keep herself from laughing at how adorable he looks.

“Trouble sleeping?” Nicky asks, he says it like it’s a joke, but Nile knows it isn’t.

“I was just thinking how cute I looked laying in that bed, and I would hate to deny you the opportunity to watch me sleep,” Joe winks, his face lighting up in a smile.

“I’ll be in in just a moment, Yusuf, va bene?”

“nem,” Joe disappears back into the bedroom.

Nicky turns back to Nile, and much like Joe’s earlier, when his eyes meet hers, they shine. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I think so, are you?”

“I am,” Nicky squeezes Nile’s arm, his right lip pulling upwards “Goodnight, Nile,”

“Night,” she replies as Nicky follows Joe into the other room. While Nile is tired her mind is still working too quickly to settle for the evening, so instead she spends some time pacing the living room. She thinks about the days, about the Guard. Though they live forever, Nile has seen the way they come alive around each other, has seen the love they share. This is a family, she has no doubt, and one she will be lucky to one day feel a part of. When she plugs her phone in to charge, she feels the need to study her mother’s face, to try to commit it to her memory. She leans against the doorframe to the bedroom the others are all sharing, a bed made beautifully at the end, just for her. If Nile hadn’t just spent the last few years sleeping next to a dozen fellow soldiers she’d think that it was weird they always seemed to share a room. She looks at Booker, snoring lightly in his bed, even asleep his face is full of sorrow. At Andy, who is curled up on her right side, eyes flickering rapidly beneath her eyelids, face peaceful. She cannot tell where Joe ends and Nicky begins, the two of them a pile of legs and arms, nestled together warm and close. Nile turns off the lights, fumbles her way in the darkness to the bed, it’s a little lumpy, but much more comfortable than the cot she’s been sleeping in recently. She stares up at the ceiling, listens to the others breathe until she slips into unconsciousness.

That night she does not dream of Quynh, nor the men that she has killed. Instead, she dreams of her father’s combat boots, of the folded flag that hangs above the front door. She dreams of her brother, of the music he’s been working on. She dreams of her father, and feels like she is flying when he lifts her and places her on his shoulders. She dreams of shag carpet against her skin as she sits between her mother’s legs, as her mother braids her hair and calls her beautiful, and reminds her that there is so much life to be lived outside Chicago. “Look,” her mother says, and holds up a mirror. Inside it Nile sees Afghanistan, sees Gousainville, and London. “You have so many more adventures ahead of you,” her mother says, leaning forward so Nile’s cheek is pressed against her own. “Go find them,”

Nile wakes up in the morning to the sound of muffled laughter and makes her choice.

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gar-trek · 3 years ago

Note

no i care about ur tng s1 opinions !!

Well anon since you asked..... (imagine we are hiking together, lol :)

Alright... season one of TNG... well... it wasn’t great. In fact, if it was not a Star Trek show, I’m not sure I would have gotten through it at all. Now I'm not saying that I hated it, in fact there was plenty that i did actually like. But overall it just kinda boring and it was hard to really get into it. Sometimes mediocracy is a worse then just being flat out bad, ya know? To keep things comprehensive, since half of this was written in an RV and the other half is written whilst im on 3 hours of sleep, lets put my review into a nice list of things i did not like, and things i did about season one of TNG

The bad:

-I have talked about this before, but I think my main issue with TNG so far is the extremely awkward vibe it has. Shots linger way too long after characters are done talking. the jokes do not hit most the time. the dialogue is often stilted and awkward. The characters just do not feel real to me at all. It's just very very strange. I don't know if its a problem with the writing, the directing or the producing, or maybe just all three, but overall shit is just awkward all the time. I wish the charecters felt more real. Like yeah, maybe we didn't see much of Sulu in TOS, but they still managed to make him a guy you could imagine yourself meeting at a bar or whatever. what am i gonna go have some drinks with fuckin season 1 William Riker?? Nah, wtf is that bitches motivations and aspirations ?? that he wants to be captain and has blue eyes ?? what i am trying to say is that nothing feels real and no smart ass not because its a fictional sci-fi show, but because the characters all act super weird or literally just do nothing.

-Picard. I’m kind of turning the corner here but like... he just doesn’t do it for me as captain. I feel like since he’s the captain that makes him the “””””main character”””” and yet... what does Picard do? He’s just kinda boring. Like the man doesn’t even always bean down to the planet or whatever. And you guys already know my thoughts on his relationship with Wes... yeah :/ so no, I don’t hate Picard, I just kinda hate that he’s the captain.

-Where is the action ? Am I an old white male boomer for wishing TNG had a little more tits out violence like TOS did. I mean where is the punching? Where is the redshirt deaths and photon torpedos and shit. I need more violence, and I know that’s like, opposite of the message of Star Trek but dammit... more violence!

-Every single thing that happened to Tasha Yar in Skin of evil. I know you know :/ we all know. :/ and mini rant but in the beginning of that episode Worf and Tasha had a cute little moment and I actually thought “wow they would make a good couple actually or at least best buds” but.. well you know :/ too bad. Also I feel like they spent a lot of time trying to set up Tashas backstory and she actually had something interesting going on so like.... again too bad I guess :/

*cough cough*

anyway, here is what i did like:

-despite their awkwardness i do think some of the characters are neat. Geordi has to be my favorite, he just brings such a good vibe to the crew and I think the whole concept of his character is really interesting. I like Worf but I still feel like we don’t get enough Worf time and of course I like Data, tbh I never disliked him but he definitely grew on me more as I watched. Data does have the tendency to make me cringe... but like in the way your weird lovable friends do. And of course Wes, who deserves so much better then all the dumb ass situations they write for him.

-I think they do a good job of making it feel like the Star Trek universe without just copying everything they did in TOS. like its super different from TOS in a lot of ways, but still it feels like the same universe, and maybe even a little more true to the universe. like the prime directive thing is taken a lot more seriously, same with the federation not wanting to resort to violence right away, all that star trek jazz. its still there, its still trek.

-they don't do a bunch of annoying pandering. i feel like nowadays when they come out with remakes or spin-offs or whatever they always have to have a million callbacks like "hey remember this thing you loved?? here it is again exactly the same" because like yeah that is easy and it more fail-proof. like they could have just stuck a vulcan in the main cast, don't tell me you wouldn't have gotten Spock brain and just ate that shit up, but they were like nah and tried new stuff instead. and i respect that. because the callback episode they did do (naked now) kinda fuckin sucked. so good for them for trying to forge their own path.

okay anyway those are my general thoughts. More specifically, here are the epsidoes i think were the very worst

- Encounter at Fairpoint (literally the first episode and i kept checking my watch wondering when it would be over. it should not have been a 2 parter that was way too long. Q was annoying as hell. the main plot was not that interesting. )

- Where No One Has Gone Before (very tedious and hard to sit through. "oh we traveled too far into space.... oh we did it again! haha lol!" boring. did not like that Traveler guy sus as hell.... hated that Picard only made Wes and Ensign after the Traveler said Wes was important.)

-Skin of Evil (dumb stupid dumb)

-The Nuteral Zone ( i dont even want to get into this. i actually think this one stunk the worst and it was the last episode. so many things wrong)

annnnddd the episodes i liked!

- The Last Outpost (Ferengi Ferengi Ferengi Ferengi )

-Haven (how can you not love Lwaxana Troi this episode made me genuinely laugh so many times. lots of very good character moments here)

-Angle One (i really liked the concept of male wife girl boss society i thought it was funny and interesting)

-Conspiracy (i felt like this one actually kept me on my toes. also liked when that dude's head exploded)

annndddd that about sums it up people! was that a comprehensible review? no. was it long? yes. feel free to disagree with me or fight it out in the comments. what are your least favorite episodes from season one? do you agree with my takes here? let me know

#okay time to be a person now #so tired #so so tired #stick around for soon when i review killing time #yeah thats right bitch i read a book!#star trek #tng #the next generation #tng season 1 #review #my takes #data #william riker #whatever whatever

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canyouhearthelight · 4 years ago

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The Miys, Ch. 108

And we are somewhat caught up! My queue has run out at least, and I’m astoundingly glad it has, because now I get to thank a bunch of people who have just detonated my inbox with love, and kept me going.

Before I get into the gratitude: If, at any point, a comment a character makes does not make sense, please let me know. Send an ask, even on anon, because I am well aware that everything in my brain does not get a chance to make it in the story (example: Charly’s triangle comment here, and the fact that Noah’s dialogue in the beginning has an actual translation…)

First, shoutouts to @charlylimph-blog, @baelpenrose, and @quantumizedinsanity for the characters in this chapter and for being very, VERY dear friends to me. A global pandemic and nationwide protests, along with a job change and a major move, have done nothing to hurt friendships that are already cross-country from each other.

Annnnd to everyone who has been blowing up my notes with likes and reblogs: @dierotenixe(hang in there! i PROMISE!), @iamverypotato,@itscryptifssil, @steadynightninja, @thepalemarcher, @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @26fancyraptors(MISSED YOU!), @werewolf2578 (we don’t talk enough, how are you!?), @experimentalspades, @odd-dream-worlds, @duchess-katala03, @pineapplewitchboi, @dark-choclat-cupcake, @littleshydragon, and all the others.

I held my breath, bracing for what I knew was coming. Nothing came after several minutes, to my surprise. I slowly lifted my head and opened my eyes, focusing on drawing deep, even breaths. Maybe he got bored and wandered off. Maybe he had mercy on me….

Yeah. And maybe Grey is making genetically modified fish that fly.

Slowly, carefully, I grabbed my fork and lifted a bite of pie to my mouth. A glance at Charly showed a serious expression, nothing given away. Damnit. I knew she could see Arthur behind me, I was hoping for a telltale giggle, or a warning glance, something. Right when a traitorous voice of reason spoke up belatedly to point out that Charly was never serious…

“You really will adopt anyone, won’t you?” Arthur asked as he came around to take the chair Jokul had just vacated.

Fuuuuuck…. Busted. “I didn’t adopt him!” I tried to argue. “I actually made a very concerted effort to avoid that!”

Unceremoniously, he snagged Charly’s pot pie, only to have his hand held at fork-point until he let go. Without even acknowledging the lunch-standoff, he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “You tried to ‘avoid’ it by foisting him off on Zach Khan, your… nephew, thing, and his girlfriend. Still adoption-adjacent.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to interact with him.”

“Uh huh. And how will you explain to poor Hannah that dear Ivan’s partner isn’t invited to Insert Winter Holiday dinner, hmmm?”

“I hate you.”

“Lies and deceit,” he rebutted calmly. “You adopted me first. Before anyyyyone on this ship. I daresay you’re quite fond of me.”

I scowled at him, shoving my remaining lunch in his direction. “Here, before you start poaching this direction.”

An eyebrow arched in the general direction of my fish pie. “That looks suspiciously like dairy. You wound me.” Grabbing my fork, he poked at the lumps of meat. “I would have thought you would be at least a little subtle in any assassination attempts. Have I taught you nothing?”

“Of course you taught me something,” I cooed, jokingly, while I patted his arm. “The fastest way to a man’s heart is six inches of steel through the ribs, slight upward angle. Cyanide smells like bitter almonds, so always use shortbread cookies to administer it. Three pounds of pressure will tear off a human ear, and even a three year old can bite through fingers,” I recited. “Also, the pie is dairy-free, surprisingly. The ‘cream’ is silken tofu and aquafaba, turns out.”

Charly was choking with laughter, while Arthur finally smiled at me. “See, I told you that you love me,” he gloated before scooping up a scallop and some crust. As soon as he started chewing, his expression changed from one of amusement to something strikingly similar to Mac when I flick water in his face.

“Scallops,” I explained. “I had the same reaction.”

“Heathens,” he managed around the mouthful. After he swallowed it, he gave the dish a considering look. “Not bad per se, but… There is no fish in this fish pie. What is aquafaba?”

“Chicpea juice. Usually it’s used as an egg substitute. I guess they used it for consistency here.”

Charly leaned forward, narrowly avoiding landing an elbow in her lunch. “And how can you tell that’s what’s in there?”

Glancing over at his student, Arthur shrugged. “She has a point. This,” he poked at the sauce, “looks like heavy cream.”

“Tastes kind of nutty, though,” I explained. “Anyway, enough about food. What brings you down here?”

“Galactic Core Curriculum,” he explained. “That’s the excuse anyway. Alistair - Cthulu damn his soul - told me you were eating lunch here after fifteen minutes of questioning. Tyche told me Charly was with you, so I figured lunch with you, lunch with one of my favorite students, plus I can kill two errands with one meal.” Charly stared at him like he had lost his mind, but he ignored her. “When I arrived - lo! What to my wondering eyes should appear, than a certain former cult leader harassing said friend and student! What person could resist such a temptation.” Deflating dramatically, he scowled at me. “Imagine my delight to hear you giving him relationship advice,” he intoned flatly.

“I got him to go away,” I pointed out.

“Before I managed even one strike in a highly one-sided battle of wits.“

“Mr. Farro,” Charly cut off, glaring for all she was worth. “Jokull came in peace, he leaves in peace.”

“Oh, he would have left in pieces. His ego anyway.”

“Fucking triangles, I swear,” Charly muttered, attacking her lunch with renewed violence.

“Anyway,” I forged ahead. “Jokul was here for fifteen, twenty minutes. You had your chance.”

He glanced away with a cough. “I… may have been resisting the urge to vomit.”

“Arthur.”

“Relationship advice is… not in my skillset,” he admitted. “Tell you your partner is abusive? Can spot a mile a way. Great for getting people out of bad relationships, with concierge crowbar service if necessary. Not great for saving them.”

“Crowbar? Really?”

“You know, for prying people out of bad situations?” He genuinely looked confused, so I left that one alone.

“For what it’s worth, Jokull wanted to talk to you about what he’s going through right now,” Charly added.

“Why in any galaxy…”

I had to laugh at that one. “Everyone treats him poorly,” I shrugged before giving Arthur a pointed look. “He’s having a rough time right now, feels like he has no one to talk to except Ivan, and thought you would have some insight into that kind of thing.”

“What part of this,” he gestured to himself with a fork, “implies anything remotely close to wanting people to like me and therefore actually knowing how to accomplish that.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” I muttered.

Giving me a hard, thoughtful look, Arthur’s entire demeanor changed. “Ah… On a more serious note, though… yeah. I don’t get why people not liking you is a problem, but you’ve told me before it’s something that bothers you, so it’s feasible it bothers other people. I’ll make a point not to make it worse.”

Clearing my throat, I pushed the conversation on to the next topic. “You mentioned two errands earlier. One for me, one for Charly?”

“Right.” The relief to be changing topics was palpable. “For you, Councillor, Galactic Core is almost finished. Eino is already considering other ongoing-education programs, and you’re going to need to start scouting educators again. That late-twentieth through contemporary Terran history course? Big support-base, turns out.”

“You wouldn’t tell me this without a reason,” I pointed out. “And you’re a History teacher. Volunteering?”

“I want it done right,” he admitted. “The idea being bounced around isn’t for a requirement that everyone take the course. Not at the same time, anyway. History-focused educators only, approved curriculum.”

“Approved?” I asked. “By whom?”

“A committee,” he shrugged. “Eino, obviously. Xiomara, with her background - which, by the way, is ridiculous - “

“We know, we know,” Charly and I groaned.

After glancing between us for a moment, Arthur continued. “And me.”

“Why you?” I asked. “No offense, just trying to understand.”

“No offense taken, I’ll explain that part later, but I promise it’s for a legitimate reason. The point is, Eino and his committee approve the curriculum and number of slots. You and Tyche make the decisions for who is allotted where.”

“Fair point,” I conceded.

“Fine. The area of history I focused on for my Master’s degree has an important component that ties a lot together and makes revisionism harder - wait. What?” I could almost hear the gears squealing as they ground to a halt. “Did you just say yes?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“That was… disturbingly easy,” he gave me a skeptical look. When all I did was grin, he slowly turned to Charly. “As for you, I wanted to talk to you about the assignment that’s due next Friday.”

“I already turned it in,” she pointed out.

“Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s a week and a half early.”

“Right….” she nodded slowly. “And I made sure it met all the criteria on the syllabus. Plus I had three different people proofread it.”

“All of which is admirable, and it would be considered a very well-done assignment,” he admitted. “If you didn’t have an extra week and a half left to make it even better.”

“Mr. Farro….”

“You aren’t in trouble, in any way shape or form,” he reassured her. “But I know you are capable of doing better than the assignment you already gave me. I wanted to offer you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Charly asked suspiciously. “This isn’t illegal, is it?”

“What? No…” he sputtered. “Illegal!?”

“Gotta be sure,” she nodded sincerely. I was reasonably certain she was giving him a hard time, but it was still hilarious to watch.

Shaking his head, Arthur did his best to recover. “The deal is this: if you stick with the assignment you already sent me, I’ll grade it as it stands. But. If you re-do it and hand it in on the original due date, you’ll be eligible for extra credit for your extra effort.”

“But I still get the grade on the one you already have, either way?” she asked skeptically.

“I’ve already graded it, and you won’t get a worse grade if you re-do it,” he promised.

“I’ll think about it,” she hedged carefully. “That paper was a lot of work.”

“That’s fair,” he nodded. “What if you sent me an audio recording, instead? No extra writing.”

“I can do that,” she agreed, sticking out her hand. After Arthur shook it, she glanced at the time. “Shit. I gotta go. Sophia, don’t be late back to work, okay? Tyche won’t care, but Alistair may stop letting me have extra marshmallows in my cocoa when I come by your office.”

After she left, I gave Arthur a very serious look. He tried to ignore it, but after about five solid minutes of The Squint, he caved. “For the love of… She’s smart, okay? You know, I know it. The paper she handed in a week and a half early was much more insightful than anyone else in the class. They were assigned a research paper on the underlying causes of the breakdown in relations between the Ekomari and Shalt-kri’i. Everyone focused on political ideologies, trade resources, navigational route control. Standard causes for war, from a Terran perspective. Do you know what Charly Harper wrote her paper about?”

“Food?” I asked, going out on a limb.

“So close! Cultural differences, plain and simple. Ekomari are vaguely mammalian, and their diet consists of native arthropods. Guess what Shalt-kri’i look like?”

“You’re kidding me…”

“Not even slightly. And! To add insult to injury, in a very close to literal sense, Shalt-kri’i greet each other as friends by spreading their appendages, a lot like a hug. Whereas Ekomari show aggression by… standing up on their hindmost appendages and spreading the rest to look bigger.”

“And no one caught this before?”

“Not on the Ark, no.” He spread his arms wide. “No one even considered it. Sure, the rest are good points, and they did make everything worse, more than likely, but the start? She nailed it.”

“Then why have her re-write the assignment?” I was honestly confused at this point.

“The way she wrote it, I could tell she wasn’t confident about the answer at all.” He looked about as frustrated as I had ever seen him. “You get her talking about engineering, or pranks, she knows she knows what she is talking about. I want her to know that she is just as right about this as she was about that.”

Hard to believe that this was the same man whose office I had marched into, out for a pound of flesh and the blood besides, because the same woman we were discussing left his class in tears and begged me not to make her go back. However…

“Honestly?” I ventured. “I want to hear this recording when she hands it in. I’m really curious about this.”

“You think she’ll write it?”

“Pfft,” I scoffed. “I know she will. You gave her a challenge where she can’t lose, but stands a lot to gain. I just hope you’re ready for that sound file.”

“I honestly can’t wait,” he smirked.

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#the miys #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #found family #aspec #science fiction #original science fiction #earth is space australia #humans are space fae #hfy #fiction #original fiction #my writing #apocalypse #aliens #post-apocalypse

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imnotwolverine · 4 years ago

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Happy New Year, and hello 1000 followers!!

Hello dear readers! Welcome in my writing nook, and welcome in 2021 - FINALLY!!

2020′s been a long year. A sad year. A year that felt like March for 9 months straight. A year that left a little dent in my corner of the couch as I was huddled away, writing in the most awkward positions because my cats tried to get on my lap alongside my laptop (it doesn’t fit - trust me, kitties).

But, it was also a fun year; I could spend long hours reading and writing to my heart’s content. Meeting new people, and discovering kinks and fantasies I never knew were even a thing. To that; thank you my fellow horny bitches, you gave me the perseverance to work on getting proper orgasms, buying a sex toy and making my boyfriend very confused about what-the-hell was going on with me. (thankfully the shock is now gone and he’s enjoying this new horny me far too much 😂)

In more fun news; I just noticed my once small reader tribe has crossed the 1000 follower-mark (WHAT?! HOW?! YOU GUYS AND GALS ARE AMAZING -- *bounces off the walls*)

I don’t really know how to thank you all for your love and support in reaching this unique milestone. But to those who are just crazy about reading, let me share with you something from my vault of short stories - a little side project next to this blog, to practise my writing ❤️

The Keeper

This new world order was hardly orderly.

It was dusty chaos, filtering in through the sole newspaper-covered window above the door that had just veered at the return of the Old Man, his persistent coughs making that same dust curl and swirl through the air.

Feeling my old bones crack, I took a moment, stretching out on my paper throne of Descartes’ body of work, before I jumped aside so he could add his new-found treasures to this grand collection of paper-bound napping nooks.

It was a good new stack. Six thick covers, the pages yellowed and musky in smell. Perfection, really. Old, gold, glorious perfection. But the Old Man didn’t seem to share my sentiment; his leathery face was wrinkled with concern, heavy brows furrowing like a thick hairy caterpillar above his gentle eyes.

Finding a new spot I swished my long tail, more dust swirling up in the single streak of light that caressed the silhouette of the Old Man.

I hadn’t seen him this worried since we met all those long years ago, his warm hands taking me to this dusty good place that I called my home. Our home. A home that oozed old world magic; thousands of books all lined up in ceiling-high cabinets, their vastness somewhat resembling the sky-high buildings outside; that is however where the comparison stopped. This place was warm, kind, soothing. It smelled nice, felt nice, housed mice - my favourite.

Outside, the world was cold, white, wicked. It smelled of chemicals and disdain, the presence of nature and animals one not wished for in its green, disorganised beauty. But the Old Man had been different. Had been. Right now he moved with the same hasty manner the men outside did, his heavy feet moving daintily past the hastily stacked collections, the structure in them long gone.

The same had happened to the ever structured and unchanging man I once knew; The Old Man was looking older each day, which was strange for a being I thought immaculate and immortal. In my long years of life I had never truly ever seen any differences in this man, his wrinkles ever wrinkly and his eyes ever curious. But, these past few weeks I started having my doubts. I never liked change, but change was suddenly here in abundance. I could hear it on the nervous streets outside. I could feel it in my aching bones and the knits in my pelt. I could feel it in the lack of scratches I received, the Old Man suddenly more occupied with the world outside than in.

This new world order was a terrible thing indeed.

Stretching up my aching back, I curled my tail around my paws, watching as the man passed yet again, his eye catching mine for just a second, his feet slowing down so he could give me a long overdue sign of affection.

“Hello Minnie.” He said gently, his warm voice making my muscles tremble in delight, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait yet a moment longer. Duty calls!” And with that he disappeared once more, the door hastily closed behind him as he moved back out into the streets that no longer had names.

Everything was changing and I didn’t like it one bit.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away - or actually a few streets from here - I lived a perilous life of hunting, fighting, mating and waiting. You see: I was not made for the streets I lived in, the large neon lit signs up above too bright for my eyes and the food too sparse to feed the real hunger inside of me. The hunger that goes beyond the growling of the stomach; it was the hunger that gnawed at my brain and my heart as I watched dark figures pass by beneath their umbrellas, their eyes not directed at me, but at my much shinier counterparts on those sky-licking white screens.

e-Cat, e-Book, e-Love..e-Life. The words sparked with promise on beaming backgrounds, luring in the attention of the drifting souls down on the streets. Luring them in to look up, up and away from the truth that could be found right at their feet. A truth that once, an age or so ago, was so very normal.

It must have been a good time then. With ear-scratches and hugs and real talking; I had once even seen humans talk so close to another that their lips touched. And they seemed to find it very agreeable indeed, their lips curling in what the Old Man had explained to be smiles.

Smile (verb)

Form one's features into a pleased, kind, or amused expression, typically with the corners of the mouth turned up and the front teeth exposed.

Humans are peculiar beings.

Then, one day, someone looked down, not up. A man, a dreamer probably, his step shortly disrupted from his travels as our eyes met and, just like that, I was invited into his life, his shovel-sized hands picking me up and stuffing my scrawny bones beneath his warm jacket.

The Old Man.

“Why..I thought you had gotten rid of this?” A new voice entered the small haven of books, the door swiftly closed again. Their hushed voices made me blink open my eyes, a flickering light turned on to brush artificial light over the Old Man and the new person. A Young Woman.

She was pretty I think. Her hair cut just beneath her ears and her body wrapped in a large, fresh smelling jacket. I liked her smell. She smelled of my creatures, two males I think. And so with a little more curiosity I yawned and stretched, welcoming the two back in my domain.

“Hi there Minnie.” The Old Man wistfully scratched me behind the ear.

His voice sounded fragile as crystal, his eyes looking equally translucent as they shimmered in the low light of the single light bulb.

“OH..what am I to do, Dee? It’s just..” He turned back towards the woman, her eyes still looking in honest amazement at the huge collection of books stacked up high to the ceiling.

“Well..this is more than a ..little problem, Badger.” She looked back at him, teeth biting down onto her lip in thought. Humans sure had a weird way of expressing distress. Why didn’t she just hiss or growl? Furl up that pretty mane of her? - At least she got the eyes right.

With a quick flick of her large pupils she looked at me, then the books again.

“Alright. I’ll..I’ll see what we can do.” And with that she disappeared back out of the door, back into the mayhem of white light and clicking feet on cold pavement.

“Hahaha. Oh, aren’t you a happy little purr-machine?” His large hand stroked comfortably over my back, my legs stretching out a little further to give him extra length to touch and soothe.

“How about I read you something, hmm? Ever seen one of these?” He picked an object from one of the shelves, the thing foreign, but smelling of forests and sweat. I liked that smell.

“It’s a book. A very old, nearly extinct..book.” He shuffled a little in his seat, his hand scratching over my chin as he sensed my shock-surprise at being moved. And then he opened this so-called ‘book’, his deep voice sending warm vibrations through my body, my eyes closing slightly as I let him take me away to another world. A world with a thousand trees. And nymphs. And gods - which I think from his descriptions, are like humans but then ever older.

Every few minutes or so he would turn a page, a new whiff of smells entering my satisfied nostrils. I was warm, safe and quite content, my muscles vibrating along with the man’s words as he relieved the ache deep in my soul. I had never heard or smelled such words as his, but I liked them very much.

A loud crack burst open the door, that fierce white light burning my eyes as I quickly skedaddled, getting out of the line of sight of whatever horrific beasts were here to break into my sanctuary. Humans, their smells not to my liking. Too much rubber, plastic and other synthetic whiffs.

“Take him.” One spoke, the others following his curt instructions, the Old Man being mercilessly dragged from the corner where he trembled like a child, his large body not small enough to hide behind the books like I could.

It all happened so quickly that I wasn’t sure whether it had happened at all, the small room quiet and the dust settled before I dared to look again. I waited and waited. The night came and went, but the Old Man didn’t return. My hunger did though. The gnawing, aching emptiness made my bones clatter in their furry furbishments and I tried my best to understand the words the Angry Men had spoken.

“Incinerate elsewhere. Risk of attention. Incinerate elsewhere. Risk of attention.” The words had near eaten me alive when the dark door opened finally, the satisfying scent of two tomcats alerting me it was her. She was not happy though, my heart already aching for her before she could switch on the light, her tears muffled behind a pale hand.

“Oh gods.” She squirmed when the light bulb flickered on, her eyes roaming over a new trail that led over the floor, the smell reminding me of food..though I hadn’t found any, anywhere.

“Oh gods..Badger.” Her eyes started to rain, her lip trembling in pain as she cried out.

That is the moment when I crawled out of my hiding, my careful paws walking towards her until she noticed me, her lips curling up in what I learned was that good emotion. A smile. Though on her it looked a little weird - were there more types of smiles?

“Minnie.” She whispered, picking me up to cuddle until our short interaction was roughly disturbed by a sound outside. “Shit..Fuck..Okay we need to go.”

And, again, I found myself in the insides of a jacket. This time hers.

From the insides of the nice smelling jacket I heard a million voices spinning around us. Some human. Some metallic. Some whispering, some loud. My ears were folded flat against my skull by the time the world quieted again, the two of us landing on a mattress in a mal-furnished room; there were simply too few comfortable places to lay on, the mattress the only surface that was to my liking.

The Young Woman got up, her nose sniffling with the threat of more tears as she conjured up some food and water. Strange food and water. The type that was the standard these days. Tasteless. Shapeless. Soulless food. And disgustingly sterile water. Blergh.

But thankfully this new place brought me something good: the woman was more than eager to hug and cuddle, her body sinking down onto the mattress again so I could crawl up to her, her eye-water sinking into my fur as she held me close.

I wanted to speak to her then, and I did. I talked and talked and talked. But I’m not sure if she understood me. Why was all this water coming from her eyes? Was she the goddess of rain? I leaned in heavier into her warm chest and felt my muscles buzz with eagerness.

And then she found it. My greatest secret. The thing that the new world order was supposed to hate according to the Old Man.

Scratching my chin, I easily surrendered it to her, her fingers removing the small tube from my collar, unscrewing and finding two things: a miniscule piece of paper, reminding me of the smell of home, and some type of metal pill-tube-thing.

Silently she read the words, her lip trembling again with emotion, before they turned into a watery smile - happiness, love, good!

“Oh, I will..I will.” She mumbled.

Curiosity sparked in me and I spoke to her again, begging for her attention: “Please tell me what it reads!” -- And of course she couldn’t understand my words, but the sentiment was clear I think, for she now finally read it aloud:

“Code Minerva. Keeper of Wisdom. 112049 - Erase after uploading. Ps. she loves ear scratches.”

It was the day the new world order fell into true chaos.

I liked it very much.

General Tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss @tumblnewby @magdelen69 @thereisa8ella @mary-ann84 @darkbooksarwin @summersong69 @madbaddic7ed @luclittlepond @maroonmolly @just-a-normal-fangirl18 @hell1129-blog @agniavateira @tillthelandslide @elinesama @aletheladyinred

#1000 followers #happy new year #and a different bit of fiction #no idea if anybody would want to read this #but here you go!#celebration time #yaay

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maevemarethyu · 4 years ago

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Unexpected (2/?)

You weren’t expecting it. Neither of you were.

That didn’t mean you weren’t happy with how it ended.

Warnings: Cheating, Threats, Sad Boi Hour, Heatbreak, I’m not quite sure what else.

Steve and Sam are waiting for Bucky when he walks into the shared living room; looking every part of a pair of worried parents. The familiarity of it lifts a weight from his shoulders. Meeting you hadn’t been what he expected, then again, he didn’t know what he was expecting in the first place.

He only knew that you weren’t it and he was glad.

“How’d it go? You rushed outta here before either of us could stop you.” Steve worries, resting a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. Steve had been there for him for as long as Barnes could remember and Sam had been a rock keeping the two old men above water in the new age.

“Y/N is something.” He mutters cryptically as he crashes onto the couch, mind swirling as he tries to make sense of everything that had happened. The lack of elaboration has his friends looking at him for an explanation.

“Something as in good or something as in she threw something at you and called you a liar before chasing your ass away from her house.” Sam asks, taking the seat next to Barnes and earning a glare.

Good. You were definitely good despite your very bad situation. He had run to you half cocked with no plan and laid what was probably the worst news possible on you while your kid was asleep in the other room.

“She- They- a kid. She has a daughter named Laysa. Four weeks old.” Disbelief laces his voice. He could understand why Claire would cheat on him; he was a broken weapon made by HYDRA with more issues than Time Magazine. But, you?

He couldn’t understand why anyone would cheat on you. You were beautiful and thoughtful and the brief glimpse he’d caught of the fire in your eyes made his stomach twist in a way he didn’t want to elaborate on for a long while.

And you had a child. Patrick had a family with you; a domestic life Claire had snubbed Bucky for desiring.

“What?” Steve says through grit teeth. The Captain was like his friend; he too wanted to eventually settle down and start a family. When they were younger, the two Brooklyn boys had it all planned out. They’d marry the loves of their lives and get houses side by side; their kids would grow up together and they’d take turns having Sunday brunches at each other’s houses till they were old and gray.

The dream may have been postponed a few decades but, when Bucky told Steve about proposing to his long-time girlfriend, he was happier than he could ever remember being. After all the shit HYDRA put him through, he was glad Buck had found a nice girl like Claire.

How wrong he had been.

“You did the right thing telling her. She deserved to know.” Sam adds but, Bucky just shakes his head.

“I could have worded it better.” He admits, twisting the ring on his finger. “She opened the door and I blanked. Then I basically yelled it in her face: Your husband is fucking my wife.”

He watches Steve’s face go red from secondhand embarrassment and Sam fails in holding back a laugh but, they all fall silent when someone clears their throat. Barnes feels the hairs on the back of his neck raise as he reluctantly turns to face the new person in the room. A person he had purposefully left out of this because A. She was on a mission and B. He thought she would raise hell when she found out.

“Hey Nat…” Steve coughs awkwardly.

Fresh off a hard mission, covered in scrapes and bruises, and scowl on her face; Natasha Romanoff looked ready to raise all seven layers of hell.

“Someone. Explain.” She asks calmly… too calmly. It unnerves the three men in the worst way possible and Bucky’s explaining the situation before his brain can catch up. Once he’s finished, the woman simply mutters an okay before walking out of the room and leaving the trio speechless.

She returns a minute later in a fresh change of clothes and is stuffing knives in different pockets of her pants.

“What are you doing?” Sam asks, curious and worried at the same time.

“I’m going to fucking kill them.” She announces, making her way to the door. If it were anyone else, Barnes would have thought it was a joke but, he knew Natasha. He knew what happened to people that hurt her family and, even thought he loathed himself for it, he still cared about Claire.

“Natalia.” She stops with a huff when Bucky calls her name. “Please, don’t.”

For once, she doesn’t fight him and she instead takes a seat on the armchair across from him.

“If I ever see her again, I will not hesitate. I mean it Bucky.”

“She doesn’t even know I know yet. Neither of them do. Y/N wants to wait until her divorce papers are ready.” Her green eyes soften at his obvious pain. In all the years they’d known each other, she’d never seen him like this. “Her friends are lawyers and she asked if I wanted to meet them with her tomorrow.”

“I hope you said yes.” To his surprise, its Steve that says it. Out of everyone in this room, he’d have thought Steve would be the one handing out second chances. In a messed-up way, he was glad the courtesy didn’t extend to cheating spouses.

“I did. We’re meeting for breakfast.” He nods, and the three Avengers let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Mr. Barnes.” FRIDAY’s voice echoes in the silent room. “There is a Miss Y/N Voight calling for you. Should I take a message?”

As soon as the AI says your name, his breath catches in his throat and his mind goes straight to the worst-case scenario: Patrick came home and something happened to either you or Laysa.

“No, you can patch her through Fri.”

There’s a shuffle over the speakers before your voice is heard.

“Hello? James?” To his relief, you didn’t sound any more distressed than you were when he left.

“I’m here Y/N. I’ve got Steve, Sam, and Nat here with me. Is everything alright?”

“Oh, hi other Avengers. Yeah, it’s just that I called Matt’s secretary and explained the situation. She told me to bring any official pre-nuptial documents with us tomorrow and figured I should let you know but, I didn’t have your number. Had to call the station to get this one.”

He didn’t like the idea of you calling your husband’s place of work but, you didn’t sound bothered by it and he hopes its because you managed to avoid talking to him directly.

“Секретарь? Я думал, вы сказали, что юристы - ее друзья.” The secretary? I thought you said the lawyers are her friends. Natasha asks in her mother tongue, a habit she and Barnes had gotten into whenever they needed to have a private conversation, and the man shrugs.

“Они мои лучшие друзья и заботятся обо мне.” They're my best friends and, they care about me. You reply without missing a beat, catching everyone in the room off guard. “If I tell them before tomorrow, nothing is stopping them from finding and maiming Pat… my soon-to-be ex-husband. You aren’t the only one with scary friends Barnes.”

Your words were so brazen that Bucky could picture you sitting on the phone with a smirk on your face as clear as day and a grin finds its way onto his face; earning a curious glance from Steve.

“Anyways, I’ve gotta go. Laysa’s fussing.” Sure enough, a sharp cry comes from the speaker. “I’ll see you tomorrow James and, I guess goodnight everyone else? Keep up the good work? Bye.”

When the call ends, everyone’s eyes turn to Bucky and he keeps his head down. It was kind of you to risk a confrontation with your husband to help him get prepared for tomorrow. He couldn’t imagine being kind in a situation like yours. You had a child to worry about through this; you had every right to be bitter.

“Fri. Can you print out-“

“Already on it Mr. Barnes.” The AI announces and, not for the first time, Bucky is grateful for Tony’s stubbornness. If it weren’t for Stark there wouldn’t be any pre-nuptial documents. James had thought it a waste of time when it was first brought up but, it looks like he’d need to thank the billionaire once more for forcing him to sign the papers.

“She sounded oddly cheery for someone who just found out their husband was cheating on them.” Sam frowns, causing Bucky to look at him in confusion.

Did Sam not hear the way your voice cracked when you mentioned calling the station? Could he not tell you had just cried your voice hoarse? Was he oblivious to you attempt of covering up your pain with thinly veiled humor?

No, you were not cheery. You were shattered, just like him but, you were trying your best to seem put together. He could see right through you. His friends though, they didn’t seem as attuned to your sorrow.

“We all process grief differently. For all we know, she’s still in shock.” Steve reasons, ever the mediator.

“She sounds like she has her hands full.” Natasha hums in agreement. “She’s probably focused all of her attention on the baby. I know it helped Laura whenever Clint was away on missions.”

You were coping, in your own way. Barnes decided to take your lead, standing from his seat.

“Heading to bed Buck?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you all in the morning.” He lies before leaving in the direction of his room. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with the images of Claire and Patrick burned into his eyelids so, he bypasses his bedroom and makes his way to the gym a floor below. He hated lying to his friends but, they were like yours, they cared about him almost too much. They were always so eager to help and he was grateful for it, really, but sometimes he needed to be alone in order to work through whatever problem he was having. The man liked his solitude.

When Bucky had told Steve he wanted his own apartment, the blonde nearly had a conniption but, he eventually relented and together they had found a place not too far from the compound. Right now, he was missing his little slice of solitude.

Thankfully, the gym is deserted when he arrives and, as he sets up a punching bag, his mind wanders; remembering times when his life wasn’t so damn complicated. Back when he’d spend the afternoon looking down alleys to make sure Steve wasn’t getting his ass handed to him. Back when the most he had to worry about was whether to take Sally or Jane dancing that evening.

He can only stay in that headspace for so long before he’s back to reliving the worst moment of his new life. He had thought he finally got it right with Claire; he used to think she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, she was smart, a kick-ass agent, she made him feel like he was able to put himself together again with her help. She was too good for him and he used to think it was only him who thought it.

After years of being together, she’d finally thought it too.

A hard jab to the bag slices it open, pouring sand into his sneaker and he almost yells in frustration. Then he remembers you and the way you chucked your phone past his head without so much as a sound. His anger was explosive but, yours? Your anger was silent and seething; dare he say calculating.

He wondered if you’d look as lovely screaming as you did seething before shaking the thought from his head with wide eyes. Whenever he and Claire argued; whether or not she was pretty was the last thing on his mind.

Comparing you to his wife should have been the last thing on his mind but, no matter how hard he tried, your face was the one to pop up when he lost focus. He wasn’t upset by it thought, he’d much rather remember your face instead of Patrick and Claire’s in the throes of passion.

Yeah, he’d much rather remember how nice your smile was as you got your daughter’s bottle ready.

#bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky fanfic

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thelibranarchives · 4 years ago

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For @giucorreias Flufftober prompts. Day 1- Touch.

'Bellatrix Lestrange,' Harry Potter said, voice so toneless and flat that Draco Malfoy shuddered suddenly with the goosebumps that cropped up. He didn't dare lift his eyes from the ground, though. Not that he could, with the blue-black bruise over his left eye. The entirety of the nearly twenty foot great hall was silent, half of them ashamed at being admonished and the other half, listening with rapt attention to the saviour of the wizarding world.

'I'm pretty sure,' Potter went on, 'that with the exception of the first years, a majority of the rest have had first hand experiences with her.'

A few voices in the back made mumbling noises as though protesting. Potter looked sharply at them.

'Or wasn't that your excuse to start physically and verbally abusing the Slytherins?' Weasley snarled in their direction, hands on his hips.

More voices rose and Draco swept a quick look around the hall. The students at the four tables were now standing up and starting to talk over each other while those at the fifth table that housed the eighth years were fuming silently. Blaise, Pansy, Millie and Daphne were standing next to him, all of them holding hands like a group of five year olds about to cross a road.

Draco knew they had brought this upon themselves and the students were, at least slightly justified in their actions. Their attitude wasn't really shocking. It was Potter's stance that was surprising everyone. Just like it did four months ago when all three of the Golden Trio testified for Draco and his mother.

Potter had smiled at him after he had been acquitted, a smile Draco had trouble fathoming even months later. Draco had thought it felt like a truce that day. He didn't know how to define what was happening now.

'Since many of you seem to have trouble recalling Bellatrix even though we have on record that she visited our school on the weekends,' Potter said loudly, quieting the hall once again, 'how about someone who I know is still in your nightmares?'

Granger whipped her head around to Potter at that, eyes widening in realisation. Draco closed his eyes, grunting in pain and squeezing Blaise's fingers into paralysis.

'Fenrir Greyback!' Potter said and everyone flinched before they were aware of what they gave away.

'That was who Draco stood against and lied to. A dangerously powerful Legilimens and a frightening werewolf.'

'He bullied you. He bullied us. They all did!' A sixth year Hufflepuff screamed.

'Malfoy was the reason the Death Eaters could enter Hogwarts,' another chorused.

'And what makes you think he didn't suffer like you?' Granger snapped, turning back to them. 'Would a pensieve memory of Draco shrieking under a Cruciatus be enough or would you like to go back in time and watch it happen yourself?'

'Draco,' a soft, lilting voice called that Draco found himself unknowingly turning towards. 'I haven't ever thanked you for healing my injuries, have I?'

Luna Lovegood walked down the aisle between the tables to stand before him. 'Thank you,' she smiled, engulfing him in a hug.

Draco saw more than heard the gasps that followed. His grip on Blaise's hand loosened momentarily.

'If we stood beside each other, how many do you think will mistake us for siblings?' Lovegood pulled back and went on, either truly oblivious to the bulging eyes or deliberately choosing to ignore them.

'Quite a lot, I'd say,' Ginevra Weasley said, coming up behind her and wrapping a hand around her shoulders. She scrunched her face, looking from Lovegood to Draco and back again, nodding as if she found the similarities already.

'Are none of you hungry?' Longbottom asked from the eighth year table.

'We'll be right there, Neville,' Ginevra replied, steering Lovegood away. She stopped when she reached Daphne.

'Oh Daphne,' she said conversationally, 'did all the first years you helped escape make it?'

'They did,' Millie nodded. 'We uh, we diverted the Dea- the Dea- we diverted them elsewhere when they came for us.'

'That's what I heard,' Ginevra nodded back. 'Don't you like plum cake? That's our dessert today,' she continued, looping her other hand around Daphne's neck, signalling Millie and walking off.

'You heard her,' Weasley said, looking at Blaise and Pansy, 'the food's going to go cold.' He motioned them both to join him.

Blaise, Pansy and Draco exchanged looks and started to move when Potter grabbed Draco's wrist and held him back, his expression inscrutable. Potter stared at him for a long time before he tightened his hold and turned back to face the room.

'Voldemort,' he started, uncaring of the wince the name induced in the others, 'causelessly believed that purebloods and Slytherins were better than muggleborns and mobilised an army of like minded people to take over the world. If you were any better than him, you wouldn't judge someone on the basis of their blood or house affiliation.'

Draco idly thought Potter had grown into quite the person, drilling silence into others. A wandering part of his brain also wondered if defeating Voldemort gave one such powers.

'He was your worst enemy!' A boy from Ravenclaw shrieked.

'Voldemort was my worst enemy. Draco was only my opponent at school and we've made our peace with each other,' Potter snapped. 'If this is only about him, then why are the other younger year Slytherins also taking a trip to the Infirmary twice a day? Have they bullied you or insulted you? Did you know that none of the Slytherins here killed anyone?'

'They tortured us.' This time it was a Gryffindor. 'Last year. You don't know what it was like. You weren't here.'

Potter rolled his eyes. 'Yes, I was pole dancing in France.'

Draco couldn't help the snort but covered it up with a cough just as Potter became serious again. 'You all were threatened to torture each other by the Carrows. Either point your fingers in the right direction or don't point at all. This alienation of Slytherins and blaming them for everything that happened is no different than Voldemort ostracising muggle borns. No one is asking you to befriend them but this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated further.'

Potter didn't wait for their response. He turned to Draco, took his chin in his hand and lifted his wand to Draco's swollen and bloody face. He locked eyes with Draco once before whispering, 'Episkey.'

Draco's injuries healed with a crack and snap as Potter slithered his arm around his shoulders and walked them to the eighth year table. He forced Draco down in between himself and Finnigan and piled his plate with food before pushing it towards him.

'Eat. You look like you are starving,' he said, pouring some soup into his own bowl.

'Thank you,' Draco whispered, shocked into gratitude and something that felt like affection.

Potter smiled wider at that and in another absolutely astonishing gesture, knocked their heads together. 'No problem, now eat.'

Down the table, Ginevra Weasley and Lovegood were in a conversation with Daphne and Millie. On his right, Blaise, Longbottom and Weasley were chatting about the new single from the Weird Sisters. Opposite him, Pansy and Granger were being painfully awkward until finally they both snickered when they reached for steak at the same time. Potter was complaining about his Transfiguration essay to Dean Thomas on his left and Headmistress McGonagall had moved to the podium and announced that she was scrapping the system of house tables from the great hall, informing everyone that they had to mingle or else.

Deputy Headmaster Flitwick had deducted fifty points each from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and Hagrid and Firenze toasted to Potter. Draco was, however, deaf to it all. He was stuck in that timeless moment when Potter smiled at him.

He now knew how to define it. Change. That was what this was.

In the occasional bouts of lucidity he had the past year, when he was not obsessing about the result of the war, Draco had found himself obsessing about the aftermath. The changes that would be brought forth seemed to range from working for the Ministry brewing illegal potions and teaching Dark Arts at Hogwarts if Voldemort won to either grovelling in poverty, famished, desolate and lost or locked up in Azkaban for life if the Light side won. Therefore to Draco, this outcome of the war was unexpected to say the least.

The touch of change had always carried with it a sensation of dread in the past. But now it appeared to contain an inexplicable elation that whispered of hope. If the post war atmosphere included Lovegood, Granger, Longbottom and the Weasleys backing him and Potter leaning into Draco as he unconsciously ran his fingers through the mess at the nape of Potter's neck, then change definitely wasn't something to be feared.

Since he was completely lost in experiencing the new touch, only Blaise noticed that Draco's wrist was still in Potter's grip.

There will be more fluff in the coming days. This was onlymeant to lay the foundation for it.

#oneshots #hogwarts #eighth year #drarry #harry x draco #harry/draco #harry potter #fluff

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libraryscarf · 4 years ago

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once like this (t) 4.5k words

Galo did not expect to meet an angel at the bus stop.

But then, not many people expect to meet an angel anywhere, bus stop or otherwise. Most people go entire lifetimes without meeting angels.

All of them, in fact.

Until now.

“‘S’cuse me?” Galo said, because he couldn’t very well say anything else.

The young man standing in front of Galo repeated himself obligingly.

“I am an angel.”

Galo gave him what he hoped was a flattering once-over.

“Well…you do look…um.”

The young man who called himself an angel did not seem either flattered or offended by Galo’s stuttering. In fact, he looked a bit bored with the whole conversation.

He was quite a bit shorter than Galo, and he seemed…translucent, somehow. As though he were more an echo of a person than the real thing. He was remarkably pale. He had a pale, angular face, and pale, silky-looking hair.

The only part of him that wasn’t pale were his eyes, which were a fierce, bloody pink. That couldn’t be healthy, Galo thought. Conjunctivitis, perhaps?

“You do not believe me,” said the young man who called himself an angel.

Galo’s eyes went very wide.

“Oh. You’re serious?”

“Of course I am serious.”

“Like, an actual angel?” Galo prodded “With wings and shit?”

The young man nodded. Galo needed a moment to process this. He needed several moments.

He could call Aina. She would probably know what to do.

“She would tell you to call the police.”

Galo reeled backward. “Can you read my mind?” he demanded.

“No,” said the angel. “But I know what you usually do in unprecedented situations. Right now, all of your friends would tell you I am delusional, and that you should call the authorities and get away from me as quickly as possible.”

Galo hesitated, then asked:

“Should I…do that?”

The angel looked him square in the face with those ferocious, beautiful eyes.

“That is your choice.”

Galo felt hot, from the tips of his toes to the very top of his scalp. He suspected that had more to do with this stranger’s devastating attractiveness than with his alleged divinity.

He cleared his throat.

“Can you prove you’re an angel?”

“I could, but it would destroy this body.”

Galo inhaled sharply.

“You would die?”

“No,” said the angel. “I cannot die. This vessel, however, can.”

An expression flickered across his face; if Galo trusted his eyes, it was almost a smile.

“As a general rule,” the angel said, “the human body does not enjoy housing a pillar of divine fire.”

Galo wasn’t sure if he should laugh or not. He tried to do both at once, which resulted in a sort of choked snort.

“We can start somewhere else,” he suggested. “Do you…have a name?”

The angel considered this for a moment.

“I did not give myself a human name,” he admitted. “It seemed unimportant.”

“Unimportant!” Galo repeated incredulously. “But it’s—it’s you! It’s the first gift you get in your life! You should give yourself a name. I can help you.”

The angel’s lips twitched again. Galo wondered, if under the right circumstances, he might hear him laugh.

“I do have a name,” the angel said. “A celestial one. It’s not exactly…friendly to human ears.”

Galo puffed his chest up.

“My ears are up to the challenge.”

The angel raised one pale eyebrow. Then he opened his mouth, and Galo’s vision went blurry. His head began to ring; it felt like all the air in his chest was being pressed out of him.

Then, everything went white.

When Galo woke up, he was lying prone on the bus stop bench. Something hot and metallic ran sickeningly down the back of his throat. He coughed, wetly, and realized his nose was bleeding.

The angel knelt next to him, and the expression on his face was no longer hard to read. He looked absolutely horrified.

“Are you all right?” he asked, as soon as Galo opened his eyes.

Galo sat up, wiping his nose off on his shirt. His head still seemed to echo with that otherworldly bell.

“Yeah!” he said. “That was cool as fuck! That’s your real name?”

The angel regarded him with narrow eyes.

“Something like that,” he said.

“I’m not sure I can pronounce that,” Galo admitted. “So I’m gonna think of something else to call you. Hey, our bus is here!”

: : :

Keeping an angel in his apartment proved to be more of an ordeal than Galo anticipated. This was complicated by the fact that, despite claiming to be a near-omniscient heavenly entity, Lio had no idea how to use a sink, or a toilet, or a stovetop.

(The name was Galo’s suggestion. “I think it sounds kickass,” was his argument. Lio had agreed.)

“For an angel, you sure seem hellbent on hurting yourself,” Galo muttered, snatching Lio’s hand away from the gas range for the third time that evening.

“I am merely researching.”

“Yeah?” Galo stirred the marinara sauce with unnecessary aggression.

“Can you go research on the couch, or somewhere else where you won’t burn your fingerprints off?”

“I don’t have fingerprints,” Lio said. He waggled his hands in front of Galo’s face to demonstrate that he did not, in fact, have fingerprints. The pads of his fingers were as smooth as glass.

“Damn,” Galo said. “You could really confuse some detectives.”

Lio blinked. “Are you suggesting I carry out a crime?”

To Galo’s horror, he actually seemed to be considering it.

“It would be a very new experience,” Lio murmured. “I would, of course, have to take precautions.”

Lio did this sometimes. He seemed to forget that the things he said inside his head and the things he said outside of it were not one and the same. It worked the other way too. He would occasionally wait for Galo to answer a question that had not been asked aloud.

Galo wondered if telepathy was a thing angels had. He swallowed hard, and looked deliberately away from Lio’s soft hair and pretty shoulders. He really hoped it wasn’t.

“We’re not going to commit crime,” he stated firmly.

“Of course you aren’t,” Lio corrected. “I was referring to myself.”

Galo pointed him sternly out of the kitchen.

“Go sit on the couch and watch TV until you stop thinking about setting your hands on fire or breaking the law. We’re going to have a nice dinner.”

Lio’s forehead wrinkled, cutely. Most of the things he did were cute, which made Galo miserable.

“You know, of course, that I do not need to eat,” he pointed out.

“And I still don’t care,” Galo retorted. “You can’t just sit around my apartment not eating.”

“Why not?”

“My conscience won’t allow it.”

“As an angel, I overrule your conscience,” Lio said. “By quite a lot, I might add.”

Galo dropped the spoon back into the saucepan.

“And there’s that.”

He spun to square off against Lio, hands on hips.

“I want answers.”

Galo tried to sound mad. He really, really did. But Lio was hard to be angry at. Negative emotions seemed to slide right out of Galo’s brain when he looked at him. It was like Lio emanated a calming, gentle aura that hung about him like a golden curtain. When Galo tried to look through it, he felt like he was on the verge of seeing something too good: too relentlessly beautiful to exist.

The whole situation really was a pain in the ass.

Galo fixed his eyes a little to the left of Lio’s face, trying to evade direct confrontation with the pleasant, tempting warmth that tickled the edges of his psyche.

“So if you’re an angel,” he said, slowly. “Why did you show up to me, specifically? Is this some It’s a Wonderful Life shit?”

Lio didn’t have a ready reply to that, which fueled Galo’s suspicions.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” Lio said stubbornly.

They had been dancing around this ever since the beginning: days and days of simply not talking about it.

Now, it suddenly seemed to Galo that this wasn’t something he would normally do. He wasn’t often the type to look at his feelings sideways.

On the heels of this thought, he realized: it must have been Lio’s influence. That sweet, irresistible halo of warmth depositing a steady stream of pleasant chemicals into his brain. Galo hadn’t wanted to talk about anything uncomfortable—not with the way Lio’s presence made him feel.

Now that he knew that, Galo was pissed.

“Not cool of you to dope me up with your weird angel pheromones, dude,” he said tightly.

Lio looked a bit alarmed, and the cloud of seductive warmth around him dropped instantly to a dull fizzle. Galo winced as the comforting glow in his head faded, replaced with awkward reality.

“I…I apologize,” Lio said. “I wasn’t…strict enough with myself. I too am learning how this works.”

“I want you to start explaining shit,” Galo said bluntly, before his own, entirely human reactions to Lio surfaced and caused any problems.

“What kind of shit would you like explained?” Lio asked meekly, his mouth pursed in a charming pout.

Galo narrowed his eyes. So the angel could play dirty.

“What are you really doing here?” he demanded. “And if I think you’re lying I’m gonna send a prayer direct to God himself and narc on you.”

Lio’s nostrils flared in what Galo chose to believe was amusement.

“I’ve never lied to you,” he pointed out.

“No, you just distracted and misdirected me. You started glowing all nice and everything just…slid out of my head.”

Lio maintained his staring contest with Galo’s chin, even as his own eyebrows drew together. It was the first time he had really displayed worry, and despite Galo’s demand for honesty, he wanted desperately to smooth those furrows away.

“I was hoping to curb your curiosity for your own safety,” Lio admitted. “I intended to tell you—afterward.”

The way he said the last word made the bottom of Galo’s stomach drop away.

“After…what?”

Lio pressed his lips together and looked up—straight into Galo’s eyes.

Galo saw it then. A wrong fold in the fabric of his life.

He remembered another himself: a Galo identical to him, but at a different time. He remembered fire. He remembered the door behind him locked. He remembered suffocation. He remembered pain.

For a moment, Galo remembered dying, as clearly as if it were happening that very moment.

When he opened his eyes, his cheeks felt warm and wet. Lio raised a hand to his face, wiping off the tears and mucus with his own sleeve. The intimacy of the gesture sank into Galo’s heart like a bullet.

“I’m going to die,” he said.

And he knew, as he said it aloud, how true it was.

: : :

Despite knowing the fact of his future death, Galo was more concerned with who was responsible for it. Someone had trapped him there on purpose. Someone wanted him dead.

“That’s not important for you to know,” was Lio’s only response. Galo saw red.

“There’s someone out there who wants to—who succeeds in—killing me!”

“You aren’t going to die like that, Galo Thymos,” Lio said.

“Well, how about some other way?” Galo retorted. “How am I supposed to relax, knowing that someone wants me dead? How can you say that’s not important?”

Lio’s face closed off like a trap, which meant Galo had struck a nerve.

“I’m not going to look for revenge or anything like that, Lio,” he pleaded. “I just want to be prepared. Please.”

The muscles in Lio’s jaw worked as he fought with himself. Finally, he ground out:

“I have broken so many rules just to get this far,”

“Great!” Galo said happily. “What’s one more?”

The wave of aggravation rolling off Lio curled the hairs on the back of Galo’s neck.

“Never mind,” he amended quickly.

“Galo Thymos,” Lio said, in a somewhat strained voice. “This is the end of your involvement. I ask you��I beg you, to let me take care of the rest.”

Galo went silent for a few moments. When he spoke again, it was quiet. Hurt.

“Who would hate me that much, Lio?” he asked. “Are you really not going to tell me?”

Galo felt sick at the very thought of it—that he had offended someone badly enough to warrant that hatred. That just wasn’t his style.

He was the guy everyone liked. Even if he was ignored, even if he wasn’t respected, he could be liked. He’d done his best at this, and after all that—had he really failed?

Lio said nothing, but he cupped Galo’s cheeks in his hands and lifted his face. It felt lovely.

Until today, Lio had so rarely touched him, and his skin was feather-soft. That alone was almost enough to make Galo forget how miserable he was.

Almost.

“Maybe that was the way it should have happened,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Lio’s fingers against his face twitched.

“What?”

“Maybe…” Galo’s voice trailed off. His throat felt like a clogged pipe.

“Maybe if I did hurt someone that badly…then maybe that way was right.”

“No!”

The light touch on his face vanished, just as Galo jumped at the force in Lio’s tone. He looked up and gasped.

Thin, bat-like wings unfurled from Lio’s shoulder-blades. They were huge and black: a hungry, hot black that made Galo feel slightly dizzy. Simultaneously, two horns erupted high on Lio’s forehead: wickedly sharp, their color bright, fearsome white that cast the rest of the well-lit apartment into shadow.

“You will not die before your time, Galo Thymos,” Lio said. Except… it didn’t sound very much like Lio anymore. His voice seemed to come from everywhere in the room, and the floor trembled.

“I will not let you.”

Galo could only stare, awestruck. When he found his voice again, the wings and the horns were gone. It was just Lio again, sitting there innocently like nothing had happened.

“Is that why you’re here?” Galo asked, promptly shoving the impossible vision aside to be dealt with later. “To prevent my death?”

Lio avoided eye contact. He hadn’t yet mastered the human art of lying. Despite the telltale silence, Galo had to believe there was another reason. Angels didn’t simply fall to earth to save one life.

“Let me guess,” he said, adopting a melodramatic attitude. “You’re here on a special mission to prevent global conflict! You have been assigned the critical task of protecting Galo Thymos, whose tragic and early death sparked riots all over the world!”

Lio didn’t laugh; he gave Galo a hard look.

“You do not seem to understand the value of your own life,” he said.

Galo shrugged.

“In my line of work, dying is part of the contract,” he said lightly. “But…I did kind of hope I’d be able to put out a few more fires before it was over.”

Galo’s rueful smile slid off when he looked at Lio again. For the first time since they had met, the angel looked furious. His eyes were pools of molten heat.

“How dare you,” Lio hissed. “How dare you, Galo Thymos?”

Galo’s mouth flopped open, uselessly.

“Huh?”

Lio stood, and for a moment Galo worried he was about to sprout wings and horns again. But the only thing he did was keep glaring down at Galo, rage peeling off him in terrifying, invisible waves.

“You would die alone,” Lio said cruelly. “You would be mourned by the few who know you, and then you would be forgotten. This does not bother you?”

“It sure doesn’t, now that I know heaven exists!” Galo shot back.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew it was foolish to escalate the argument, but he was tired of being scolded, even if it was Lio—beautiful, wise, immortal Lio—doing the scolding.

He stood, and was pleased to note that despite the angel’s formidable aura, Galo was still significantly taller.

“Typical Galo Thymos,” Lio said. His eyes were narrow slits of fire.

“Arrogant, irresponsible, and reckless.”

He turned, stalking out of the room, and Galo was left with a heaviness tugging on his heart that he had never felt before.

: : :

Despite his swagger and his bravado, Galo was afraid of many things.

He was afraid of hesitating during a crisis. He was afraid of losing the small group of people he considered friends. He was afraid of taking any action, making any decision that might dishonor the great man who had saved his life. The great man who stood before him now.

Kray Foresight grinned down at Galo like a lunatic, his eyes blazing red through a haze of smoke. The pungent scent of melting metal hung around them like a poisonous shroud, stripping away the inside of Galo’s lungs.

“I certainly didn’t expect you to make this so easy,” said Kray. “But you are, if nothing else, predictable.”

Galo was without gear, without matoi, without backup. He had already been inside the building when the fire started, just two floors down from the governor’s office. When smoke began pouring into the room, Galo realized that it was here.

This was the place he died. This was the man who killed him.

He thought he knew now what Lio meant, when he said dying alone was something to fear.

Kray looked down at him, the smoky shadow of his immense form filling the doorway. His eyes burned with insane, festering hatred as he looked at Galo choking on the floor. Then, wordlessly, he shut the door, and the lock clicked into place.

Galo tried to cry out, but his throat was on fire, his lungs withering. He shut his eyes against the smoke, and felt the dark coming to meet him.

Then he was lifted, cradled gently against a strong, warm body. Galo was confused at this. Had he already died? Could this be the beginning of an afterlife?

“I am sorry for cutting it so close.”

Lio’s voice came from nearby, the tone of it jagged with distress. To Galo, it sounded like every beautiful noise in the world.

“Ugh,” he groaned. “I ain’t dead?”

He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he knew from the lightness of his own heart that Lio was smiling at him.

“No, Galo Thymos,” Lio said. “You are not dead.”

Galo laughed aloud at that, even though it hurt. He was giddy from the adrenaline, the pain, the endorphins.

“What’s with that?” he muttered. “Why is it always ‘Galo Thymos’ this, and ‘Galo Thymos’ that?”

Lio seemed to relax as soon as Galo began complaining. “Is that not your name?” he asked innocently.

“It is! It totally is. But my friends just call me ‘Galo’.”

“Is that what we are?” Lio asked very quietly, almost to himself. “Friends?”

Before he could answer, Galo realized they were no longer moving. He peeled his smoke-crusted eyelids open. That was when he started to yell.

“Lio!”

“Yes?” said Lio, bewildered.

“We’re a million miles in the air!” Galo hollered.

“Two point eight, actually.”

Galo clung to Lio’s torso, his mind in ruins from trying to make sense of what was, quite obviously, a view of Promepolis from cumulonimbus height.

“Oh my god, we’re gonna die,” he muttered. “Oh my god, we’re totally, definitely, absolutely going to die. Holy shit.”

Lio’s laugh was a gorgeous sound, but Galo was too busy panicking to appreciate it.

“You really think I rescued you from a burning building just to send both of us plummeting to our deaths?” he asked, still chuckling.

“Yeah, actually, I do think that!”

Lio gently began untangling Galo from the protective pretzel he had tied himself into around Lio’s body.

“You can stand, you know,” he said, but Galo just gripped more tightly.

“I really gotta remind you that you’re the angel here?!”

Lio dropped him.

Galo gasped; he expected to feel the air rushing out of his lungs as he shot toward earth. But instead, he was standing up. It was as simple as it was impossible. There he was, standing on nothing at all.

Galo stared between his feet, every muscle screaming in panic. He squeezed his eyes shut again.

“Please don’t tell me this is some ‘believe in it and it’s real’ shit,” he groaned. “Because I am not good at controlling my thoughts.”

Laughing again, Lio said: “I know this about you, Galo Thymos. Do I have to remind you that I am the angel here?”

Galo forced himself to open his eyes. He looked from the distant ground back to Lio, then from Lio to the ground. He looked back at Lio, and his brain point blank refused to acknowledge what he was seeing.

In all the ways one might expect, Lio looked exactly the same. But he was another creature entirely. Galo saw, flickering at the edges of his vision, a massive, winged shape that seemed to be made entirely of fire.

He blinked a few times, but despite its size, the flaming, winged form managed to escape his direct gaze, and searching for it strained his eyes. But Galo knew without a shred of doubt that Lio was, somehow, both beings at once.

“I cannot let you see my true nature,” Lio said in answer to Galo’s wordless confusion. “I do not believe you would survive.”

Galo bristled.

“But I’m—”

Lio held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, despite being the great Galo Thymos. You need to comprehend at least nine more dimensions before you can behold my full glory.”

“I bet I could do it.”

Galo couldn’t believe the look on the angel’s face at his challenge. Lio was smirking.

“Do you really?” he asked dangerously. “I couldn’t even tell you my real name without half of your pitiful little organs exploding.”

But that smirk had Galo fired up. This, he wouldn’t lose.

“Try me.”

A few seconds later, Galo woke up, feeling the warm, salty trickle of blood out of his nose. Lio was crouching over him, his face torn between amusement and concern.

“Are you convinced now?”

“Okay,” Galo said sheepishly. “Maybe nine dimensions is still above my pay grade.”

He wiped his face, but then realized the blood was already gone. Moreover, his desiccated lungs now felt full and healthy. His scorched clothes were whole and clean.

“You’re, uh, burning a lot of that angel fuel on me right now,” he said. “Where was all this generosity when you first showed up?”

An odd expression flickered across Lio’s face.

“I had to be cautious,” he said. “I could not cause too much of a disturbance as long as your death was a variable. But now it doesn’t matter.”

A chill rippled through Galo’s stomach.

“What does that mean?”

Lio smiled and shook his head. He helped Galo sit upright, then lowered himself beside him. It was just the two of them, perched on nothingness.

At the periphery of his senses, Galo felt the presence of the “real” Lio. His head hurt at the idea of that enormous, incomprehensible entity manifesting as the beautiful young man next to him, feet dangling into emptiness. But Galo, above anything, wanted to perceive that true, divine shape. He wanted to show Lio how capable he was of understanding him—how willing he was to learn.

“I want you to look at the sunset now, Galo Thymos,” Lio said quietly.

“I wanted you to see it once like this.”

: : :

“I can’t come back with you.”

Galo frowned. The words didn’t immediately make sense to him. Of course Lio was coming back with him. Where else would he go?

“Why not?”

Lio gestured to the city beneath them, dappled with the shadows of clouds.

“This is as close as I can get.”

“But…you’ve been living in my apartment!”

Lio nodded, and the peaceful, resigned look on his face made Galo feel sick.

“Why can’t you come back with me?” he asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

Lio turned his head to look at Galo. The warm, dying colors of sunset made him look more human than ever.

“Remember what I said about the fragility of this body?”

Galo stared at him numbly as the pieces fell together. The Lio he had known—the Lio he had come to love in the fierce, desperate way a person can only love something temporary—was gone.

“You sacrificed it to save me,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

“It is good this way,” Lio replied. “I couldn’t have stayed forever.”

“Why not?!” Galo blurted out. He was so angry, it was so desperately unfair. “Why couldn’t you?”

“Because…I’m in trouble.”

Lio’s tone remained light, but Galo knew it was terribly serious.

“I ran into some friends earlier, at the Foresight Foundation building.”

The way Lio said “friends” led Galo to believe they were quite the opposite.

“They made it very clear that if I saved you, I would suffer for it later,” he said with a sigh. But rather than looking at all concerned for himself, he glanced guiltily at Galo.

“That’s why I took so long. I am sorry. Again.”

Galo could only stare. Lio looked so young and golden, it nearly broke his heart.

After a few moments of unbearable silence, Galo asked in a quiet voice:

“Are you going to tell me now? Why you saved me?”

The angel smiled at him, warmer than light itself.

“You still have to ask?”

Galo goes grocery shopping on a Thursday night.

He buys six frozen pizzas and twelve cans of dog food. He slings the bags over his arms and jogs out into the brisk night air. Ever since he moved deeper into the city, the sidewalks have never been empty. He weaves in and out between slower walkers, calling pleasant greetings to those he recognizes. Despite his better judgment, his eyes follow a head of pale blonde hair until it is out of sight. Another stranger, he thinks.

Galo takes the subway to a stop near his apartment and disembarks. The station is much less busy than usual, and although he doesn’t mind a crowd, it’s nice to hear just his own footsteps echoing against the tile.

Six years have passed since Kray Foresight was charged with first-degree arson. To Galo, each of those six years is a gift.

He almost doesn’t notice the slender silhouette leaning at the top of the stairs. His arm bumps their shoulder, and he utters an automatic apology.

Galo takes another two steps. He stops. The bags of groceries fall out of his arms, cans clattering across the concrete. He doesn’t want to turn around. If he doesn’t ruin this illusion, maybe it will last a bit longer.

From behind him, he hears a voice: achingly lovely, and as familiar to him as his own.

“Are you always this rude, Galo Thymos?”

: : :

Most people go their whole lives without kissing an angel. But for Galo Thymos, on a warm Thursday night at an unusually quiet train station, things were very different.

: : :

fin

(author’s note: this piece was written for the “parallels” galolio au zine, which raised over $800 to donate to the National Black Justice Coalition. it was fantastic to be involved in the project and work with some amazing people!!)

#scarfwrites #galolio #galolio fanfiction #promare #promare fanfiction

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