#he had like. grown me & a few other and inserted more and more mechanical parts into us through our lives

[neobisexual]

had a very intense semi lucid dream last night where i was the daughter/acolyte of an insane cult leader/my dad who performed non consenual surgery on me and molested and raped me. it inspired me to start writing a lil sci fi novella but also to clean out my closet and find my vibrator cuz i was desperate for it after waking up lmfao

[robin-josephette-biden]

A Statement Through Horror: BDG and YouTube

In his video announcing his departure from Polygon Bryan David Gilbert [BDG] stated, “I want to make things that one day people will make a show like unraveled about.” [Paraphrasing here]. Since that announcement he has made some of the most interesting and engaging comedy videos on the platform. On Bryan’s channel, there is a section called “bdg’s scaries” that contains three videos. The first how to make jorts was released April 27, 2019 and will not be part of this analysis, as we are focused on the other two videos. These two videos are Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss which was released on October 25, 2020 (two months before his final Unraveled video and departure from Polygon) and Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 which was posted March 3, 2021. If you have not seen these videos yet you should stop reading immediately and go watch them both (honestly everything on his channel is amazing, especially the surprisingly compelling and personal Dances Moving! series) before continuing to read this as I will be spoiling both of them. The position of YouTube celebrity has been the source of a good bit of commentary as short form online media has become more and more central in our culture. Bryan has created two videos that I feel do an excellent job of exploring the relationship between youtuber and audience. I should also point out that this is merely my interpretation of these videos and is in no way BDG’s intended message. I’ll start by going over the first video. Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss opens with BDG outside an apartment building, standing in front of a black car. BDG points up at one of the windows and says, “Three years ago I was living in that apartment right there. Third floor, leaky windows, cockroaches, the worst.” I do not know if the real life BDG actually lived in that building, but the 3 years timeframe does line up neatly with his beginning to work at Polygon. BDG continues to bad mouth his old apartment and mentions how he has turned it all around stating, “But just last week I paid off my very first Subaru Impreza. And I own my own house in Nebraska.” This radical change in life-style he credits to, “. . . [working] from home, [making] my own hours, and [being] my own boss. And you can do it too.” I think that it is interesting that BDG’s career up to that point mirrors that of his character, going from newly graduated content creator making small videos in his apartment to one of the most popular creators on Polygon. And all that being accomplished through work that many (rightly or wrongly) would not see as fitting into the mold of the traditional 9 to 5. The idea of making millions working from home, at your own pace, and with no boss is intrinsically tied to the mystique of the YouTube celebrity. Moving into BDG’s office he explains that he makes $20k a month working on spreadsheets. A massive spreadsheet appears behind him that is dated, 01.12.88 (nothing of note happened on January 12, 1988 and the only thing that happened on December 1, 1988 is a large cyclone that struck Bangladesh, January 12, 1888 is the day of the Schoolhouse Blizzard which struck the midwestern US and killed 235 people (remember this for later)) and is filled, seemingly randomly, with garbled nonsense symbols. Many of the cells are the same as other cells and there are empty cells scattered haphazardly throughout the spreadsheet. BDG explains that he got this strategy from Dorian Smiles. In exchange for working on these spreadsheets BDG receives $10k - $20k a month (an amount that lines up pretty damn well with the amount he should be getting through his Patreon page currently, I don’t know if this was true when the video was made though) from Dorian. Wanting to know where the money is coming from BDG asks his bank and they explain that he is wiring the money to himself from another account he has. He grows confused as to the nature of this work and the disproportionately large amount of money it brings in, explicitly mentioning his confusion as to how the money is coming from someone with, “. . . my name and my voice.” and sets about to find and confront Dorian Smiles. BDG sets off for Center Nebraska, which is close to where Dorian lives (a small town in the northeast corner of Nebraska). He states that Dorian’s address hasn’t existed since 1888 (that’s a familiar year isn’t it?) when it was supposedly condemned during an enormous blizzard and is, “. . . just woods now.” The video then transitions to BDG walking through dark woods while his narration talking up the Dorian Smiles program continues becoming increasingly broken. He comes across a figure sitting in the woods that is convulsing strangely, when he calls out to it the figure turns and is him (heretofore named Dorian). Dorian slowly puts his hands over his nose and mouth while staring at BDG at which point the narration cuts out. BDG copies Dorian and when Dorian removes his hands in a flourish, BDG does the same to reveal that he no longer has a mouth. The video quickly cuts back to BDG in his office talking about the program, he asks the viewer, “Why don’t you join me?” and then sits back and smiles while that line repeats without him moving his mouth. The most pressing mystery is who Dorian Smiles is. I think the most likely answer (and one I know I am not the progenitor of) is that Dorian is a reference to The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, the story of a young man that has a portrait that ages and takes on the ravages of the debauched life its subject lives while Dorian himself does not. BDG would therefore be the unwitting recipient of that blessing, reaping massive rewards while his double, Dorian, lives in poverty and solitude. I like this explanation for Dorian, but I find it to be far more mechanical than thematic. On a metatextual level you could read that Dorian represents the character of BDG. The person that is in all of BDG’s videos, and the one with whom so much of the audience forms a parasocial relationship. In this lens the parallels with BDG’s own life make more sense. By this point in BDG’s career it is not difficult to imagine him feeling stifled creatively at work (I feel comfortable saying this given how soon after this video came out that he departed Polygon). His character had grown too large, potentially becoming alien to him, no longer reflecting the art he wanted to make and so he made a video about a distorted version of himself stealing his voice. In this way the video becomes a statement on his artistic integrity and his desire to test new boundaries and go in different directions. In hindsight, with the knowledge of his departure and then success after leaving Polygon, the video becomes almost heartwarming (if it weren’t terrifying) in the same way that a before and after picture of someone improving themselves can be. We will return to the Dorian Smiles system, but now we must move to the second video, Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97. I’ll save you the blow by blow breakdown and aim for a quick summary instead. This video is a simple stationary shot of an old CRT tv. A VHS tape is inserted and a video of a man teaching his, evidently young, son how to use a camcorder plays. It is relatively wholesome and corny in that way that all home movies are and when it ends the tape rewinds and the segment plays again, this time with a few deviations. Over replays the father becomes aware of what is happening and begins trying to reason with Jake through the camcorder begging him to stop watching the tape and move on. The father is menaced by a large shadowy figure that does not speak or move when confronted. Eventually the father resorts to simply taking the camera and recording his own screams of pain. On the final rewind the father simply says, “Attaboy.” before calmly walking out the room and into the dark hallway, a doorway opens at the other end, filled with orange light, and the father walks through and down stairs. The final shot of the video is of the television, showing the hallway, as orange light begins to flicker in the background of the left side of the TV. The sound of the father descending the stairs transitions from the TV to diegetic and a shadow appears briefly in the light. On one level the video is clearly a statement about loss and about trauma. Jake is losing himself by watching these videos on repeat, trying in vain to relive a happier time. In that desperate desire to regain what was lost he is distorting it, making it into something it isn’t, hurting it. At the beginning the father says, “Never ever press the rewind button, otherwise you might record over a precious memory. We always keep the recording going forward . . .“ I think there is an additional, and more personal for BDG, reading however. The father is the modern character of BDG, and we, the audience, are Jake. He is pleading with us to leave the past behind and move on. This was only his 3rd video that he posted after leaving Polygon. It is a plea from him to leave the old character behind and stop trying to make one into the other. To stop obsessively comparing the new videos to the old. To let the future be the future and let the past be the past. He is telling us that his new work will not be like the old, that he has progressed past that and that now his viewers need to as well. The detachment and confusion of Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss has transformed into a desire to move forward. But he needed to ensure that his audience was ready to come with him, and so he made a video about loss and the dangers of sinking too far into it. I know that there are some of you that feel I am reading too much of what I assume to be BDG’s thoughts and emotions into these interpretations, and I am the first to admit that I might be. In no way am I trying to say these are the only interpretations of these videos or even that they are correct. I think there is so much more of an artist that they put into their work than they realise. I do not know the mind of BDG, only he does, but these videos made me feel that I had a glimpse into the feelings of a man whose work I admire. These videos are either longer or a drastically different tone to the material he has put on his own channel and as such they stood out to me. They felt different, and they seemed to ask for a different level of scrutiny. On some level maybe BDGs videos can not be divorced from the story of BDG as a content creator, the same as any modern internet semi-celebrity, or indeed any artist. I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to answer the call to action I heard when BDG left Polygon, to unravel his work. I hope in some small way I’ve been able to do that.

[hitoshiikigai]

Foreign Feelings

anon request: Hiya there Sen!! I love your blog and i would love to read more of your writings. Can i request an imagine for being like a first year european shy student and becoming Nekoma’s manager, she slowly develops a crush for kenma but doesn’t know how to express her feelings because of language and because she thinks kenma won’t return her feelings

‪(o_ _)ﾉ彡☆ a/n 「i made it gender neutral, i hope that's ok and if it's not, i can change it to your liking! also, this is my first romance fic in my whole life, i hope it's satisfactory(ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ i feel like i just forgot the slowly part-」

‪pronouns used: they/them

‪word count: 2.8k

You continuously repeat your introduction in your head as you wait for your turn. It's ok, you can do this, you've learnt this in basic Japanese lessons, it's just a few lines. Nothing too complicated!

The voice of the person behind you breaks the chant in your mind, "I'm Haiba Lev and..." Your thoughts block out the rest of his introduction. Is he a foreigner too? That name definitely does not sound Japanese but you note of his perfect pronunciation- a screech of a chair moving startles you and you're suddenly aware of the eyes of your new classmates staring right at you.

Sucking in a deep breath, you stand up, doing a bow, the Japanese words tumbling clumsily out of your mouth, "I'm (Y/N) (L/N)- no wait- (L/N) (Y/N), please just call me (y/n). Nice to meet all of you." You keep your eyes on your desk as you bow once again before sitting back down. You pretend not to notice the murmurs and sounds of interest about the two foreign students in their class, busying yourself by preparing your things for the lesson.

Mechanical pencil on the right. Pencil case right above your notebook. The ruler-

"Psst... Hey, you're not from Japan, right?" You turn around to meet glowing green eyes that somehow made you feel like you were looking into a cat's eyes instead. You nod and he grins in what you could guess as excitement. However, before he could say any more, he was cut off by the teacher signalling the start of class.

Maybe he's a potential friend?

After a few lessons of trying to keep up with the lessons taught in Japanese, your brain's finally granted with a break from trying to translate and you can't help the sigh that escapes you as you rest your cheek on your table, closing your eyes.

"Hey Y/N! Wanna have lunch with me?" You open your eyes to see your tall classmate looming over you- right, his name's Lev. Or should you call him Haiba?

You quickly weigh the pros and cons of eating with him. He seems like a nice person to be friends with and having a non-Japanese friend in this less-than-familiar country could definitely do you some good, maybe your Japanese can improve faster as well. But... you were planning to just find some nice quiet spot to listen to music in hopes of preventing the growing headache, a result of an overwhelming first day.

Well, there's no harm, you suppose... "Sure, I don't mind," you agree and you search for your wallet in your bag as Lev waits patiently.

Once he sees you're ready, he smiles widely and starts walking to the cafeteria most likely and you follow him, having to walk slightly faster to keep up.

"Where are you from? I'm half-Russian but I can't speak Russian. Oh! I know a few people here already! I visited the school before the school year started and made friends with people from the volleyball team. I'm actually gonna join the team once they start taking in applicants and-" Lev rambles on and you could only hum or nod, insert a few words of your own when he asks a question until you reach the cafeteria.

"Lev! Here! You're late!" You see a student with black messy hair that spikes up everywhere except for the fringe that covers his right eyes waving his arm. Lev bounds up to the table with you in tow and you can already see a few curious eyes examining you. Your gaze sweeps across the table, an uninterested guy playing with a switch catching your eyes a tiny fraction longer than the others before you look down at the floor, shuffling just a bit behind Lev, your current shield.

"This is Y/N, my new friend! They're not from Japan and I thought I could show them around," Lev claps his hands on your shoulders and moves you forward, putting you right in the spotlight.

Oh no. Ok, deep breaths. A simple introduction, no big deal. It's definitely a smaller group, better than a whole class.

"H-hi..." You clear your throat, cursing yourself mentally for the stutter, and repeat yourself with what you hope was a stronger voice. There's a chorus of greetings and before you even realise, you find yourself squished between Lev and a friendly-looking guy with a buzzcut, who you soon come to know as Kai, after a round of introductions.

How did you end up here? In a gym full of flying balls that could accidentally hit your face anytime? With your arms full of water bottles that you just filled up? You definitely did not sign up for this... Ok, well technically you did, you just didn't know what was in store. Try being a manager just for one practice, they said. Somehow, it feels like you were tricked somewhere along the line.

You hand the water bottles to the boys, jolting slightly when your hand unintentionally brushes against Kenma's. He thanks you quietly and you only nod in acknowledgment, avoiding any form of eye-contact with him and quickly moving on to hand the rest of the water bottles out before going back to the sidelines to watch.

It's really amazing watching them play. Everyone seems so coordinated with each other and the teamwork is seamless. Despite that, there are a few individuals that pique your interest: Yaku who seems to be able to teleport anywhere in the court, Lev with his tall and powerful stature, and more importantly, Kenma with his smart plays. It's like he calls the game, dictating where and how the ball goes and it's a whole experience observing him. Of course, the other members are amazing in their own ways, watching the team play is like watching a well-oiled machine working.

"How are you, Y/N?" Kai asks from beside you, wiping his sweat and giving you a warm smile.

You peel your eyes away from the quiet setter to answer Kai, and also to make sure you aren't caught staring at the certain player, "It's..." You try to find the correct words in your brain as Kai waits patiently for your answer. "It's nice... to watch. Everyone's good." You blush in embarrassment at the simple words you used, not having the full vocabulary to communicate what you really want to say. Kai, being the angel he is, makes a noise of approval and gives another warm smile which at least make you relax.

"If you need help with anything, you can ask any of us," he tells you before going back to the courts. You bow to him which he only waves off, laughing amiably.

After attending a few more practice sessions and having lunch with the team almost every break, you've grown a bit more comfortable with them, especially with Kai and Yaku, along with Lev. The team always tried their best to use simpler words whenever they spoke to you and you're definitely grateful for their efforts. However, there's just one person you've barely interacted with:

Kozume Kenma.

The third years obviously noticed the lack of interaction, especially Kuroo and he made it his own personal mision to try to get the two of you to talk to each other more, albeit with many difficulties.

"Come on, Kenma. You don't think I don't notice you paying attention anytime Y/N talks? You're not exactly very slick, you always pause your games just for Y/N," Kuroo nudges Kenmas side with his elbow which Kenma slaps away in irritation.

"Shut up Kuroo."

Kuroo leans in closer to Kenma, "You can't tell me you don't notice Y/N staring at you during practice? Blushing whenever you're 5 metres away from each other? Or when-"

"Kuroo, please just shut up," Kenma groans and glares at his switch, clicking away at the buttons and suppressing the urge to scream in anger as the words 'GAME OVER' flash on the screen. Instead, he closes his eyes, inhaling deeply before letting out a long sigh.

Kuroo smiles knowingly before his eyes shift over to something behind Kenma.

"Kuroo-senpai? Kenma-senpai? Has Kai-san arrived yet? I need to ask him something..." Kenma stiffens as your soft voice reaches his ears. He bristles at the 'senpai' title attached to his name, wanting you to just rid of the honorific altogether. He was supposed to tell you, in fact, he had been wanting to tell you to just refer to him casually just like everyone does but he never got the chance. How could he when your conversations only last 30 seconds long each time?

Jump. Jump. Duck. Ju- GAME OVER.

He pressed down his buttons more aggressively, a frown slowly forming on his face. Why couldn't he be more talkative? Why is talking so hard? Why is talking to YOU so hard? Lev does it so easily, Kai too, and Yaku and... and just everyone in the team but him.

You stare in concern as you watch Kenma play angrily with his game and you look to Kuroo for answers only to be met with a shrug.

"Yaku will be running late, some class meeting or something," Kuroo stands up and stretches, walking out of the gym, "Meanwhile, I'll go get my things."

The sounds from Kenma's game filled up the awkward silence and you take a moment to steel yourself, walking towards Kenma. "A-are you okay, Kenma-senpai? You look... angry?" At your question, Kenma's fingers still and the sounds suddenly stopped.

Kenma looks up at you and places his switch on his lap before looking away. "I'm okay... I'm not angry." He mumbles and you smile in relief at his words. "Do you want to play?" He suddenly offers his switch to you and you blink in shock, never really having known or seen him to ever share his switch with someone, simply rejecting anyone- save for that tangerine boy from another school- who tried to even get their hands on his beloved switch.

Noticing your hesitance, he places the gadget on the bench, between the two of you, letting you take your time. You look back to search for anything that will clue you in if he doesn’t actually want to do this, but finding none, you gingerly take it, careful not to drop it or at least try to not leave any embarrassingly sweaty fingerprints. You feel Kenma shifting closer to you to get a closer look at the screen and you don’t know if you feel lightheaded from him being the closest he has ever been that you can actually feel body heat radiating from him or from forgetting to breathe. Trying to focus on the little digital character instead and your fingers clumsily hitting the buttons, a contrast to the way his nimble fingers moved with muscle memory.

And if you felt butterflies in your stomach as he occasionally positioned your fingers on the correct button, the butterflies immediately flew away the moment Lev walks in the gym and you were left with just tingling fingers.

You cradle the box of apple pie you bought in a rush from the bakery, trying to tidy up the ribbon you tied around it to make it more presentable. You had asked Kai about what Kenma liked because you knew there was no way you could write or even say anything close to romantic in Japanese, so you figured out you could give him little gifts, you know, actions soeak louder than words, that kinda thing? As you think of the many ways you could say something wrong by declaring your feelings to him in a foreign tongue like unknowingly saying something ridiculous, or stupid, or even worse, something dirty! Lev’s incessant teasing and mock-kissing noises only stopped when you reached the gym.

“Oh? Y/N-chan, who’s that apple pie for, I wonder,”Kuroo gives you a knowing look and blatantly stares at Kenma, who just seems unbothered. You try to reason yourself that he was only concentrating on his game. Ignoring Kuroo, you take a tentative step towards Kenma, making sure you’re in his line of sight before thrusting the box to him, “For you Kenma… Uh, enjoy it!” You blurted out before brisk walking to the equipment room to take refuge, not even waiting for his reaction.

You hear the muffled shouts of the boys and you can imagine them crowding Kenma. You wince in sympathy.

During the whole practice, you had to deflect the many looks and questions the boys gave you. Thankfully, Kai managed to stop them before it got too much. A godsend. Before any of them could corner you after practice, you zoomed past the gym doors the moment you were done with your manager duties, forgetting that you had barely paid any attention to Kenma the whole time.

“Lev, do you know who’s this from?” You ask Lev, holding up the canned drink that was left on your table.

“Oh, that’s from Kenma. He came here earlier to place it there. He honestly could’ve just asked me to pass it to you but he said I would lose it or something. How mean,” Lev huffs but you can only focus on the fact that Kenma went through efforts to make sure you received it.

“Thank you for the apple pie yesterday. It was really nice,” Kenma took a seat beside you, on the same bench you first played his switch together.

“T-thank you for the drink! It’s my favourite,” you smile shyly. The corner of his lips curl up, just ever so slightly, which you think was the trick of the light.

Kenma gives his switch to you, now a weekly routine for the both of you on days he finishes class earlier. The distance between you and him grew smaller and smaller until your elbows brush against his at any slight movement.

This is it. This is the moment. You made a mental deal with yourself a week ago. If you win this level today, the one where you always lose, you’ll confess to him and if you don’t, you’ll simply leave your feelings hidden and buried deep in the safe in your heart.

Your eyebrows furrow in concentration, refusing any help from Kenma (Kenma just ignored the tiny sting in his heart when you did).

In the meantime, Kenma takes the chance to watch you, sharp, feline eyes studying your features. The stray baby hairs peeking out after a long school day, the slight sheen on your skin from the hot and humid gym, the determination in your eyes. Determination? To beat the level? He restrains himself from chuckling at your cuteness. This felt very different when he watches Shouyo play his video games. Kenma just really feels different any time he’s around you.

You abruptly stand up and cheer, “I did it! Kenma, look!” You show him the screen with the words ‘MISSION COMPLETE’ flashing repeatedly on the screen. You grinned widely at him and he smiles back in fondness.

Suddenly, you go all quiet, which concerned Kenma. “I have something to tell you.” At that, he tilts his head, urging for you to go on.

“I… IlikeyouKenma!” Your words end up being stringed together but from the widening of his eyes, he mostly likely understood.

“You do?”

You nod with pink dusting your cheeks, your fingers fiddling with the ends of your blouse. You’re prepared to get rejected, maybe even move back to Europe and never show your face to him again. And if not, at least you could quit the manager position to avoid any future confrontations with him.

“I like you too, Y/N,” he replies softly, but it was definitely audible in the quiet gym.

And if all else fails- wait what? This time, it’s your turn to look at him wide-eyed, processing what he just said.

“Y/N! Did you leave me for your boyfriend?!” The doors burst open with Lev boisterously shouting, Yaku walking calmly behind him with a twitching eyebrow.

You backpedal away from Kenma, dropping the switch in surprise and you scramble to pick it up, saying a stream of apologies to him, wiping away the dust and checking for any cracks.

Yaku, being more aware of the mood, kicks the back of Lev’s knees, adding a smack to the back of the head for good measure, hissing, “Shut up, you idiot!”

You make eye contact with Kenma before bursting into giggles, him just letting out a snort. You’re just glad you managed to confess before Lev could confess for you.

[1 New Message]

Kenma: wanna beat the next level after practice? you can come over to my house for dinner

You: yes! i’d love to!

[memeadonna]

The Kingdom of Roses

You are the princess of Rusika, a kingdom neighbouring Novoselic. When one of your government’s high ranking officials is taken as a political prisoner, your kingdom retaliates by taking some of your own -- and they just might be more than you bargained for. 

Hello Everybody! My name is Jess and I’ve been a longtime fan of Danganronpa, from around 2012 or 2013 when I first played the games. I wanted to try my hand at writing a reader insert for one of my favourite characters (and my first ever husbando), one Kazuichi Souda. This beautiful art really inspired me (I scoured high and low for an artist credit, but I couldn’t find one. If you know who drew it please let me know and I will give them the appropriate credit), and I wrote an x reader. I hope you all enjoy!  Warnings: This work contains NSFW not suitable for readers under 18. Please do not interact with this post if you are under 18. 

Monarchies were a dying form of government. Most countries had established parliaments by now, but the Kingdom of Rusika, where you were born, and a few neighbouring kingdoms held onto their royal families until the very end. Novoselic was one such kingdom, one that until a few days ago had been your ally. Your father – beloved king of Rusika – had sent one of his most trusted advisors to negotiate a trade deal with the Nevermind family, rulers of Novoselic.

That advisor had been captured and held at ransom for some unknown reason. The Novoselic Kingdom really had no idea what they were doing, did they?

Sonia Nevermind was someone you had grown up with. The two of you had never been friends, per se, but you understood one another. You were Princesses tasked with leading your kingdoms towards prosperity. Your countries were similar enough – they had once been one, but after a civil war in 926, the country had been divided in half. While Novoselic’s exports consisted of luxury goods – wine, chocolate, and cheese – Rusika’s were more practical. Your main exports were related to geothermal energy and associated technologies, or mining precious gems. Your country – the kingdom of roses – was building the future. Hers was stuck in the past, weighed down by stupid traditions.

Your father trusted you more than Sonia’s father trusted her, and so you had grown up with more responsibilities. You had learned early on the burdens of leadership, and eventually began to find her boring. You made sure she never caught on, always giving her your full attention whenever she rambled about her silly life and silly problems.

Both of your countries had hit economic booms, so what need was there to worry? Gah, her philosophy was so stupid.

Today you woke up to find that your father had arranged the kidnapping of two of Sonia’s closest friends. She had just graduated from the prestigious Hope’s Peak Academy, and had apparently invited her entire class to Novoselic to spend their last vacation celebrating.

It was strange of him to make such a decision without consulting you first. You were supposed to be queen of Rusika one day, and he always made sure you had a say in decisions. Today you were instructed to dress the part of a princess and come greet your guests. You were to show them hospitality and make them feel welcome. You might have kidnapped them, but you weren’t monsters. They would literally receive the royal treatment, and you were to be put in charge of them.

As your handmaidens helped you dress (corseting you, doing your hair and makeup, and fixing your jewelry could be a six-person job), you went over what you wanted to say to your prisoners. How the hell were you supposed to make them feel welcome?

You had never seen a person with two different coloured eyes before. You had also never seen a person with pink hair. Based on the way they looked at you, dripping in jewels and looking your part, you doubted they had seen Sonia in all of her glory yet. You smiled as you introduced yourself, trying your hardest not to look like you were studying them. You explained the situation to them, told them they were valuable political prisoners and would not be harmed or imprisoned as long as they behaved, and did not try to leave.

The man with two different coloured eyes called you a fiend, as well as many other dark names as he promised his Princess would come for him. The man with pink hair affirmed “Miss. Sonia will rescue me!” and shook his fist at you, trying his best not to look starstruck.

Eventually, you got their names out of them.

“How long will we be here?” Gundham asked you over dinner that night. “I wish to return home as soon as possible. I have responsibilities.”

Realistically, you knew it wouldn’t be a quick endeavour. You and Sonia had spent three months as prisoners in a neighbouring kingdom as Rusika and Novoselic had laid siege to the capitol. That was when you had learned she was boring. She kept to herself in her room, and almost seemed upset with you whenever you would negotiate with your captors, or walked the palace grounds like a free woman.

“As long as it takes” you answered coolly, glad that Japanese was one of the languages your family had forced you to learn. Members of the royal family having to speak thiry languages was one tradition that Rusika had kept from its time joined with Novoselic. It came in handy when negotiating with foreigners. “I cannot provide a clearer answer than that.”

“Don’t worry, Gundham,” Souda spoke up. “Sonia will come for us!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gundham spent most of his time observing the animals on your palace grounds. Your late mother had loved peacocks, so your father had taken up breeding them. She had loved many different animals when she had been alive, so the grounds weren’t exactly wanting. He enjoyed speaking with the vain birds, whistling and cooing until they would fan their elegant tails. His hamsters seemed to enjoy their accommodations too, with more seeds than they could have ever hoped to have eaten.

Souda, however, wanted to remain as unaffected as possible. He did his best to refuse any luxuries you offered him. It was only after you found out he had taken apart every electronic device in his room did you ask Gundham. The Ultimate Breeder had warmed up to you quickly, especially since you were the reason his hamsters were so well taken care of.

After Gundham cryptically told you about Souda, you gifted the Mechanic with a set of tools and new appliances to play with. Boredom could be so cruel, and the last thing you wanted was undue suffering.

Seeing him slip shyly into your study made your gift worth it. He was so awkward as he stumbled out a thanks, looking everywhere except your face. He was blushing and fiddling with a screwdriver as he spoke. “I still don’t trust you. You’re Miss. Sonia’s enemy,” he pointed his finger at you. “And any enemy of Miss. Sonia is an enemy of mine.”

“Would you like a workshop?” you asked him calmly. “I’m sure your room is a bit cluttered with all of those appliances. I just want to make your stay comfortable, I bear no ill will towards you, Mr. Souda.”

His cheeks flamed up and he stammered out a non-answer, shuffling out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Souda and Gundham had been with you a little over two weeks when the former finally cracked. He once more barged into your study, and looked you up and down. “I want somewhere to work,” he declared. He placed a crumpled piece of paper on your desk. “Here’s the list of everything I need.”

You saved the speech you were writing and logged off of your computer. “Come with me, Mr. Souda,” you stood gracefully, glad you no longer had to wear your ballgowns around him. It had always made you feel overdressed and obnoxious, especially considering he preferred to wear his jumpsuit rather than the clothes your country had provided him with. It had taken a lot to even convince him to let the servants wash the suit, let alone wear another while he waited.

In the end, you had commissioned seven identical jumpsuits for him, to match the one he already wore. At least he no longer reeked.

You paused at the door to the workshop you had set up for him. There was a guard stationed outside, but a nod from you dismissed him. Kazuichi’s eyes lit up as he observed all of the new-age tech he had to play with. He stammered out a bright-eyed thanks, and you gave him your brightest smile. You had done lots of research into what he would enjoy; he was your guest, not your prisoner. Right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a month, Novoselic struck up a deal with Rusika. A hostage for hostage trade: Gundham Tanaka for your father’s cherished advisor. Kazuichi had not been mentioned in the negotiations at all, something that did not sit right with you.

He tried to pretend that he wasn’t upset he had been forgotten, but it was obvious to anybody with half of a brain he was torn up. You made efforts to spend more time with him. You had him accompany you on walks around the castle’s garden, and even took him out of the palace for a few walks around town for a change of scenery. Nothing you said lifted his spirits. He barely even looked at you now.

You watched him tinkering with his toys, but even that seemed to have lost its shine for him. He looked so sad, so bored that it made you anxious.

“May I ask you something?” you questioned on one such walk. The two of you had been caught in the rain and had sought shelter underneath a quaint gazebo. He looked back at you with a curt nod. “How is your hair pink?”

He blinked at you for a moment before he burst out laughing. It was the first time since he had come to Rusika that he had laughed, and it made your cheeks flame up as he smiled at you.

“I dye it,” he told you after he calmed down. “I first bleach my hair to take the colour out, and then I use a dye to turn it pink.”

“Colour?” You blinked up at him. “What colour is your hair supposed to be?”

Instead of answering, he removed his beanie to reveal about an inch of jet-black hair growing in at his roots. Your eyes widened in wonder. “So, it must be bleached again on the new hair?” you asked.

“Yes,” he smiled at you dopily. “It has to be done every few months or the hair will grow in its natural colour.”

“Does it feel different?” you asked. “The pink and the black?” Instead of replying, he took your hand and placed it onto his hair. Your blush only deepened as you felt how soft it was, and noticed his cheeks were bright red too as you pulled away. “Do you wish to turn your hair pink again? I will send for my stylist.”

He smiled at you, soft but genuine. “I’d really like that. Then I’ll feel a bit more like me,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What are you doing?” Souda peeked over your shoulder. You smiled tiredly up at him and you stretched as subtly as you could. You had been taking daily walks with him for several weeks now, and he would always drop by every few hours to see how you were doing, or to show off his latest invention.

“I’m looking at the schematics for a new geothermal energy plant,” you answered. “I’m trying to sort out how we can make our energy extraction more efficient.”

Kazuichi looked over the blueprints on your laptop screen. “I’d have to do the calculations, but if you merged these two pipes here-” he pointed. “-you would cut down significantly on the energy wasted.”

“Pull up a chair,” you told him. “Let’s take a look together, shall we?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kazuichi had been in your care for three months now, and he hardly acted like a prisoner. He called you “Miss” (probably because you called him Mr. Souda), and tended to barge in on you whenever he wanted. He had repaired the castle’s heating system, boosted your internet connection, and even helped you overhaul the design of your new energy plants. These plants would be 46% more efficient than the last schematic, something that amazed you. You told him repeatedly how marvellous he was, if only to see his face light up.

Lately, he had started wearing the jumpsuits your family had initially provided him with – similar to his old one but stamped with your country’s crest on the back – and had been a bit more… touchy than before. He would put a hand on the small of your back while you walked, or gently brush a lock of hair from your face as the two of you had tea.

You were not experienced in the slightest with intimacy or wanting to be in a relationship – you were certain you would learn that after you became queen – but now he was all you could think about. You knew the basics, knew what to expect from a man, but your heart was uncharted territory. You had never loved someone before, and some deep-seated fear in your heart was worried he would think you were taking advantage of him.

“I was in love with her, you know,” he told you one day while you were out for a walk. The two of you were once more caught in the rain and taking shelter in the same gazebo. “I loved Sonia.” Sonia. Not Miss. Sonia.

“Did it hurt?” you asked back, and immediately felt stupid for asking. It was none of your business, why did you want to know?

“I guess?” he shrugged. “I don’t – she never treated me like I mattered. She made me feel like I was nothing. Just a pest. Like I was disposable.”

“Sonia is a fool,” you told him. You meant it, of course you did, but at that moment you just wanted him to smile. “Your contributions will certainly leave their marks on this world. You are a remarkable person with a remarkable talent. Anybody who would overlook you is an utter fool.”

Kazuichi reached into his pocket and pulled out a small speaker. He set it on the railing, and it began to play a soft, slow song. “Will you dance with me?” he asked shyly.

“Of course,” you smiled at him, holding out your hand for him to take.

His steps were sloppy and uncoordinated, but the feeling of his warm body in your arms made you feel safe. You wanted him to love you. Love you the way he loved Sonia, and then even more. A legendary love that would eclipse all others.

When he leaned down to kiss you, you automatically tilted you head to the side. It felt like the first time and the thousandth time all at once – something new and exciting, yet undeniably right. He grinned at you like an idiot and kept swaying with you while the song ended.

“It all feels perfect with I’m with you,” he told you. “Like it all makes sense.”

“I understand,” you smiled up at him. “I feel the same way too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He barely left your side now. He would let you work, of course, but wanted to spend his every waking hour with you. He held your hand on your walks, kissed your knuckles like a gentleman whenever he greeted you, and kissed you passionately when you were alone with him. You loved watching him light up at your presence – it was like his world began and ended with you.

His greatest joy was when he got to work with you. To see you listening carefully to his advice, offering insights of your own based on your knowledge. You worked to improve both your geothermal energy plants and plan for new mines. The number of precious stones mined this year was astronomical, and it wasn’t over yet.

Your father was impressed with the improvements he had made to the schematics he had been provided with, so he was gradually given more and more responsibility (along with his freedom, of course). Eventually, he began to receive an “allowance” as payment for the work he was doing. He spent most of it on new gadgets to tinker with or gifts for you. You would often retire to your room to find a vase full of flowers or a box of chocolates, and every time you saw them you would break out into a grin you could not stop.  

The two of you would text one another (he made himself a cellphone because he was “bored and wanted to try it”) until you fell asleep, and within those words he bared his soul. He told you about his horrific home life – about the man who had dared to harm him – and about the friends who had betrayed him. He told you how much you mattered to him, all of the things he would do for you. Give up for you.

When he told you about his father hitting him one too many times, you left your room and went to his. You just needed to hold him, make him feel safe the same way he made you feel safe.

You were glad you went when you did, because there was a woman dressed in black trying to drag him out of the window. You raised the security alarm, and she was apprehended. Mukuro Ikusaba – the Ultimate Soldier – was thrown into your actual prison, and you once more had trouble with Novoselic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You answered the door with bleary eyes, but seeing Souda’s tired smile as he mumbled about not sleeping was worth it. You used your new nickname for him – the word in your mother tongue that meant little pink rose – and he melted into your arms. You didn’t care that you were wearing your nightgown, or that it was early in the morning, you had your prince charming and he was safe, and he was yours. Yours.

“I had a nightmare,” he was curled up among your pillows, snuggled up under your blankets. “You forgot about me like she did.”

“I’m not her,” you reminded him, pressing a kiss to his forehead before resting your own against it. You could feel his warm breath ghosting over your lips, and as you let your eyes slip shut your hands found his. “I will never think of you as less than extraordinary, my darling.” You promised.

He kissed your cheek, slowly painting his way over your cheekbones and down to your lips. You responded wonderfully, one hand cupping his cheek as you kissed him slowly. You opened your eyes to see him staring at you with pure adoration. He wasn’t wearing his contacts, and his eyes were a light, rosy brown colour. Stunning.

“I love you,” the words slipped out of your mouth unbidden. You were speaking in your mother tongue now, but based on the smile he gave you and the whisper of “Ai shiteru” you got in return, he had understood. More than understood.

Your lips met his again, a strange kind of hunger filling you. He must have felt the change too, the atmosphere crackling with energy as you traced your fingers over his body. As he traced his fingers over yours.

You both stripped completely and held one another, clumsy and laughing and so in love. “Tell me if it hurts,” he had whispered to you as he stretched you open with his fingers. You had kissed him in response, a smiling sort of kiss that you hope conveyed more than a simple “I love you”.

Your lovemaking didn’t last long, but it didn’t have to to be perfect. It felt like it was right out of a fairy tale, and your prince charming was here to save you from everything bad in the world. You were here to save him, in reality, but you were more than happy to indulge him in his fantasies, so long as you could play a part in them.

When you were done, he wrapped you in his arms and placed a kiss to your temple. He hummed softly and played with your hair, whispering his love over and over again. You smiled up at him, tired but satisfied, and when you fell asleep your smile did not falter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since that night you had shared, Kazuichi had been coming to your bed every night. You would fall asleep together and wake up together and talk until you couldn’t anymore. When you weren’t talking, you were either cuddling or doing something less… innocent. Your mouth had mapped out every inch of his body, and you knew what to do to make him open like a flower. He liked letting you do what you wanted to him – liked giving over the power and control and letting you make him feel good.

He loved it when you spoke to him in your mother tongue – no matter what you said he would squirm and turn bright red.

“Do you like it when I play with your pretty cock?” you asked him lowly, and he let out a sweet moan as his legs fell open. He could tell from the sound of your voice if you were being sweet to him or not, and you could tell based on the noises he made if he wanted you to be sweet or not.

You wondered what fantasies swept him away as you mounted him. When you pinned his wrists and mouthed at his neck, you wondered why he was mewling so much. Did he even know what he was begging you for anymore, or did his mind just go blank every time you began to kiss his scars?

You learned every embarrassing detail about his body, and he learned every detail of yours. He loved to have you on him – worshipping him, taking pleasure from his body – but what he loved most were the quiet moments after.

The moments when you would roll off of him and kiss him slowly and tell him how good he was. When you would worship every scar again, tell him he was beautiful. When he’d lay his head in your lap so you could weave your fingers into his hair and hum him lullabies. He always fell asleep in your bed after you made love. It was one of the most perfect moments you ever shared, and you felt so, so lucky to have shared so many of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today you woke up alone. Novoselic had finally sent an envoy to negotiate Kazuichi’s release. Today was the day.

Last night, he had helped you pick out your gown. He had chosen a white one with ruffles designed to look like flowers – Rusika was the kingdom of roses, after all – and as your handmaidens helped you get ready, you felt powerful.

You went all out – you wore your crown jewels and covered yourself in diamonds. You did not want there to be any doubt that they were dealing with a princess and would negotiate on her terms. Your father had been surprised when you had asked for this responsibility but granted you the negotiation opportunity.

Mukuro Ikusaba was wearing several chains, including a rather nasty-looking pair of handcuffs. She was positioned in a chair facing towards your throne, and she glared at you as you took your seat.

Kazuichi arrived only a few minutes after you, and his jaw just about hit the floor as he took you in. You gave him a smile befitting a queen as your eyes roamed his body – he was wearing a finely tailored suit and a ring with your family’s crest on it. You realized then you wanted to cover him in jewels. He would look so good sparkling.

He bowed deeply before taking his place at your side, breaking you from your train of thought. It was an old Novoselic tradition for the ruler’s consort to kneel on a special stool while the monarch conducted business, but while Kazuichi did kneel on the plush cushion, he tugged it towards you so he could lie across your lap. The action startled you at first, but as he snuggled deeper into your skirts and looked up at you with a smile, your fingers came up to weave into his hair in the way he found comforting, and he closed his eyes.

That lasted for a blissful minute before the throne room’s doors burst open and Princess Sonia Nevermind was announced. Her entourage filed in with her, and Souda tilted his head to get a better view of them. You recognized Gundham, and vaguely recalled hearing about a few of the others from Kazuichi. Classmates, if you remembered correctly.

Sonia had brought the Yakuza boy and the Ultimate Swordswoman as backup. She had also brought a hulking man with matching scars over both of his eyes. This man was someone you had never heard of, yet he was flanked by the usual Novoselic military honour guard. You greeted her in your shared tongue before switching to Japanese. “Welcome. What brings you all to Rusika?” you asked.

The princess of Novoselic cleared her throat and began once more in your mother tongue. “Apologies for interrupting, Princess Nevermind, but not everybody here speaks our language. I would like to include our guests in the matters we will be discussing,” Souda shifted in your lap, and you continued playing with his hair, sitting with the elegance of a queen.

Sonia began again, in Japanese this time. “I demand you release your prisoners at once,” she pointed at you. “Keeping a soldier hired by my country to retrieve a prisoner does not reflect well on the alliance between our peoples. I would hate for a war to break out.”

You sighed. “As a show of good faith, I will release the prisoner Mukuro Ikusaba to you,” you made a gesture and a pair of guards removed her shackles. You could feel Souda playing with your ruffles. “Was that all?”

“We are here for the prisoner Kazuichi Souda,” she answered. “I demand you release him.”

“Kazuichi is not a prisoner,” you corrected. “He has full autonomy and can choose to leave anytime he would like.”

“You kidnapped him as a political prisoner!” Sonia snapped, eyes locked on him. “Do not tell me that he is doing… that of his own free will!”

You gave his shoulder a pat with the hand that had been in his hair and he blinked over at Sonia. “I have done nothing malicious towards him,” you answered. “I have not-”

“Liar!” Sonia cut in. “You must have brainwashed him with Stockholm. You truly are a woman with flexible legs!”

Kazuichi raised his head a bit. “Don’t talk to my Princess like that!” there was a certain bite to his words. You ran your fingers soothingly through his hair as he glared at Sonia. “Gundham knows as well as I do that we were never mistreated here. We were given free reign, and I just so happened to be appreciated. I’m not a second choice here. I’m not forgotten.”

Sonia looked visibly upset at his words. “We did not forget you!” she assured him.

“You rescued Gundham after a month? A few weeks?” Kazuichi was bristling. “I’ve been here for eight. Eight months and you didn’t even bother to see if I was okay.” Sonia watched Kazuichi lie back down. “Excuse me for being happy. I forgot you don’t like it when I’m too overbearing with my affection.” He shifted around for comfort, burying his face in the crook of his elbow before tilting it out to the crowd.

“Is he truly able to leave anytime he wants?” Gundham asked.

“I am,” Kazuichi bristled once again. “I’ve got a job and everything.”

Sonia said your name. No title, just your name. “I would like to speak with you in private, future monarch to future monarch,” she was clenching her hands into fists.

“I’ll allow it,” you gave Kazuichi a gentle pat on the shoulder and he reluctantly pulled away. You stood, and he stood with you. He followed you down from your throne, and as you escorted Sonia towards your study you noticed Kazuichi was making a beeline for Gundham.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you were alone again, the first thing Kazuichi did was help you out of your dress. He was careful as he unlaced your corset, and as he helped you step out of it. He even hung it up properly so it wouldn’t get damaged. Then he was kissing you like he was about to lose you, pulling your body close and pulling you into his arms. He carried you over to the bed and tossed you into it, discarding his own clothes haphazardly as he followed.

“I love you,” he told you assuredly. “And nothing is ever going to change that. Not a single thing they say will convince me otherwise.”

You smiled at his words. “And I love you too, my little pink rose,” you gave him a deep, longing kiss.

It didn’t matter what the others thought or said. It didn’t matter what they did. All that mattered was what you and Souda thought. Souda was here with you. Souda loved you.

And no matter who decided to challenge that, they couldn’t take him away from you.

[defilerwyrm]

For the ask meme: burning bright, anything about the parts at the table with the Nein. You write their banter so well!

FIC SPOILERS BELOW!

Burning Bright on AO3

The entire dinner scene hit me like a bolt of lightning while I was working on this fic. It started with Beau’s outburst, and then Veth’s willful denial and subsequent fit, and I built the two scenes around that.

Diving into particulars….

“Uhm,” he said, intelligently, but quickly recovered and flashed his friends a smile. “It is most impressive. Certainly a step up from a tiny hut.”

A direct reference to the name of the spell. Originally it was Leomund’s tiny hut. I have no clue why in 5e Wizards decided to 86 the attribution names on so many spells like Otiluke’s resilient sphere and Tasha’s hideous laughter. Things like that always made me curious about the (what I assume were) PCs the spells were named after. I had thought maybe it was because the characters who diegetically invented them were specific to one setting, but in that case I don’t know why Bigby’s hand is still Bigby’s but Evard’s black tentacles are no longer Evard’s. I don’t like it. As an aside, Widowgast’s Nascent Nein-Sided Tower is, mechanically speaking, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. Anyway. Moving on!

It was delectable that Caleb wanted to impress him.

This boy hungry and not just for soup

Flustered, Essek tried to fend them off, but it was Caleb that did him in. It was always Caleb. The human took a large roll from his own plate, broke it in half, and offered one of these parts to Essek, who tried his best not to choke.

“You need to keep your strength up, ja?” Caleb implored him quietly.

The steady hand that accepted was a point of pride because it very much wanted to quake. The Kryn weren’t bread people, but...did he have any idea what this gesture would mean in Rosohna? Any inkling at all?

This is another one of those places where I delight in playing to cultural differences. What I’d had in mind for what that gesture—breaking food into two pieces and offering half to someone—WOULD mean in Rosohna was a bit nebulous, as I like to keep the reader guessing a bit and let their imagination fill in the blanks; but my rough idea was that it’s a courting gesture that signifies “I can and will provide for you, even if it means less for me.” An expression of selfless caregiving and an offer of partnership. Not wholly unlike a bird bringing food to a prospective mate.

And actually it’s a little bit funny coming from Caleb, who has fuck-all to his name but his name, when Essek is a rich bitch who answers directly to the Bright Queen.

Not that he was about to say it out loud, but he was a quick convert to this whole bread thing. To say that it won him over would be an understatement. That seemed to be a recurring theme here.

I imagine if I’d grown up never really eating bread and was introduced to it in adulthood I’d be like “Where have you BEEN all my life?!” But also: the bread is friendship, the bread is the Mighty Nein, the bread is communion in the spirit of sharing rather than politics and appearances and power plays—things he thought he was fine without until they were foisted upon him.

Somewhere in the course of the multiple conversations going on at one time, Jester got an Idea, as she was prone to doing. He became increasingly aware of her talking about kissing, of all things, and this culminated in her shouting above the din, cheeks flushed purple though he hadn’t seen her touch any wine: “I have an idea you guys! Why don’t we all go around and say how many people we’ve kissed?”

Jester is the most wonderfully convenient deus ex machina if you ever need to insert an awkward or embarrassing conversation among the Mighty Nein, because this is exactly the sort of shit she would do.

Jester leaped up and slammed her hands onto the table. “Caduceus you’ve never been kissed?! That’s so sad!”

The firbolg was unfazed. He merely shrugged and said, “It hasn’t come up and I haven’t gone looking. Not something I’ve ever thought about, really.”

Jester’s tail lashed back and forth behind her like an overstimulated cat. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Fjord went a bit wild-eyed at this. Caduceus smiled gently and said, “No thank you.”

Three things about this part:

1) Jester’s tail doesn’t get NEARLY enough mention in fic! If I’m playing (or writing) a character with a tail you can be damn sure you’re gonna know what it’s doing! Makes me wanna play a tabaxi tbqh.

2) Cad’s “No thank you” is the sum total of his sexuality, lol. Jester was raised in a pretty highly sexualized setting, didn’t really get out much before she fled Nicodranas, and can be pretty naïve, so she doesn’t really get the whole aroace thing; but it never crosses Cad’s mind that this would be “abnormal“ or ”sad” in any way—it causes him no distress, as it shouldn’t. This is yet another “Same planet, different worlds” moment.

3) Fjord is physically restraining himself from yelling “JESTER WHAT THE FUCK” lmao

Veth kept picking at it. “So you’re um. You know. Into the fellas?”

Beau snorted. “I could’a told you that months ago.”

“Yeah you could’a!” Veth pouted with a self-conscious curl to her shoulders.

I saw a comment on Tiktok that said Veth was being borderline homophobic, but that wasn’t my intent! It’s just that she inherited a certain blind spot for male queerness from her player, and as hard as she’d been trying to encourage Caleb to hook back up with his female ex, it never occurred to her that he had a male ex, too—and given that they’ve been so close for so long, she’s feeling pretty self-conscious about the fact that she never figured out that Caleb is bisexual in all that time, as well as kind of upset that no one—Caleb especially—told her. She’s having a moment of “Why didn’t I know this? Did you think it was going to change things between us? Did I make you feel unsafe?” And also a little bit of “Okay well, now I have to get him to hook up with TWO people AT ONCE because my boy deserves threesomes 😤”

Jester went goggle-eyed at him. “You’ve only been with one person?” she exclaimed. “But you’re like a hundred years old! And very handsome. I would have thought you’d get like, all the ladies.”

Ladies. Right.

Veth might not be the only one with a certain blind spot.

Beau gave her a funny look, snorting. “I dunno, he seems like the kinda guy who turns down those offers left and right.”

..…But Beau’s got his number, for more than one reason. She’s got super gaydar, for one, and has him pegged as the type who’s very choosy about his partners (also mind you, this was before demi!Essek was canonized by WoG, so I was still rolling with my hc that Essek got around when he felt like it).

The uproar was instantaneous. Everyone—almost everyone—started talking or shouting at once. Beau’s voice rang out among the din with, “HOLY SHIT ESSEK FUCKS.” Strangely pleased with himself, he downed the rest of his wine in one gulp and spent the next few minutes fending off increasingly prying, personal questions until the Nein grew bored with his lack of answers and someone changed the subject.

There it is, the line that spawned two entire scenes!

He was not a war mage, but he was experienced and wily, and he was damned good at what he did, and as long as there was breath left in his body, the Mighty Nein would not fall here.

Joke’s on me, motherfucker literally has the War Caster feat -_-

But like in my defense, that’s just what it’s called in the book. The feat just means that you have either the training or experience to cast well during a fight, which I see as not necessarily the same thing as a war mage, which was my way of saying an arcane caster who is a soldier.

Veth stared at her blankly as if willing herself not to understand. “Caleb? With who?”

She breathed steadily. “...Essek. Caleb and Essek.”

Beside her, Jester squealed and brought her fists to her face.

Veth was less enthused. “WHAT.”

Beau’s mental commentary here is dead on. Veth still doesn’t really trust Essek at this point and has been pretty vocal about that…despite being the one to declare him part of the Mighty Nein? Eh, she’s allowed to have complicated feelings on the guy, all things considered. But I find it kind of comical and very Veth (and very Sam) for her to be all full of zest for trying to get Caleb back together with the frigging Volstrucker who is actively working for his abuser and worst enemy but balk at him hooking up with Essek.

Jester “explained” in a delighted yell: “Caleb and Essek are gonna fuuuuuuck!”

I don’t know, is this too unsubtle to call foreshadowing? The line flowed naturally in the dialogue, but it’s also letting the reader know exactly what they’re in for next, lol.

“...He’s going to break that little elf twink, you know,” Veth said, sounding distant. Seemed she was having some difficulty processing. Not too surprising, considering how adamant she was about wanting their wizard to hook back up with his old flame, the fucking Volstrucker. “We’ve all seen his dick.”

This was 100% taken from Sam’s little throwaway line “It’s above-average” but it turned out to serve two purposes other than reminding the reader that all of these people have seen Caleb naked:

1) It’s yet another thing Veth thinks she understands about him but doesn’t. Caleb’s a top like Dalmatians are purple and if you disagree then I respect your right to be incorrect ;)

2) That said, it is, in fact, foreshadowing for the sequel, in which Essek experiences a great deal of frustration. (I haven’t touched the damn thing in weeks, feels like; I’ve been too busy with work, being exhausted from work, and being in a tizzy about my upcoming surgery.)

Fjord blurted out, “I’ll join you.”

Poor Fjord has had such an uncomfortable night!

Hoo boy that was a lot. Thanks for the ask, this was really fun!! And sorry it took so long; I work Saturday nights and things got really busy for a bit there.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Angel of the Ink Machine, Chapter 1: An Unlikely Encounter.

Alright, this was a long time coming. And by a long time, I mean I have literally had it in mind since Fall. As a result, I’m going to ignore new information from TIOL so that I can do it as I originally planned.

The premise of this AU is simple: Sammy leaves the studio instead of Henry, and as a result, Joey needs a new partner in crime. He finds one in Allison. Power struggles, sacrifices, passion, ecstasy and tragedy ensues.

---

Sammy never even bothered to formally quit the studio, and it fell on Henry to explain to Joey what had probably transpired.

“He told me a few days ago that he wanted to get Mr. Arch’s attention and maybe a job from him. Sorry to say, Joey, but I think he got what he wanted.”

Joey’s face twisted with disbelief and anger and then back to serenity. “No, Sammy loved it here! I’m sure he’ll be back soon- he’s probably just sick. And even if he isn’t, well, we don’t need him anyhow, do we, Henry? So long as we have each other.”

“Hm? Yeah.” Henry didn’t tell Joey that Nathan had made him an offer as well, and that he was beginning to regret not taking it.

After a few days, Joey accepted that Sammy was gone and promoted Jack to the head of the music department. It was better that way, anyhow- Jack wasn’t so demanding, and let Joey have more run of the music room when he wanted it.

For the next decade, things went along as usual. The studio grew, Henry remained Joey’s finest and most hardworking artist, and Joey even began to look into some dark magic that could help him make his vision for the studio a reality. Joey was, however, beginning to feel increasingly alone in his vision. Henry had grown bitter and distant to him over the years, and then quit. It was disappointing, but not a surprise. It left Joey feeling rather empty in the realization of how little he’d lost. The loyal, invaluable partner he’d once had had turned into just another artist years ago.

Joey needed another person who truly understood his vision. Sadly, he didn’t know anyone that could have fit the bill.

And then he found her.

The place he’d found her had been a speakeasy during the prohibition- a hub of all sorts of illegal affairs. Joey had come here for booze and the occasional round of cocaine during the prohibition and had discovered magic that way. Now, the prohibition was over, but criminals still came to peddle their wares, and Joey, a frequent user of magic now, still came to supply himself with books and reagents that couldn’t be found anywhere else. It was a sleazy place- dirty, greasy, full of prostitutes and men who looked like they could rob you. So it didn’t surprise Joey when a woman- mid-twenties, curvaceous, and on the tall side- approached him while he was buying potions. He figured it was just a prostitute trying to find a customer.

“I need three of the generic restorative ones.. And a vial of clean animal blood, and a liter of chloroform, please.”

The woman next to him chuckled. “You know that restorative potions are horrendously marked up, right? And you could get the animal blood... from an animal.”

Looking at the woman for the first time, Joey realized two things. First, the nearly knee-length pink dress and grey leather jacket she was wearing looked far too new and expensive and a bit too modest to be a prostitute’s, and she looked awfully healthy and clean for one. Secondly, he recognized her from somewhere. Still, he wouldn’t let the woman embarrass him. “Well, yes. But I haven’t practiced making my own yet, and I don’t want to test the first few on myself! And I just so happen to have plenty of money for them.”

The woman finally made eye contact with him. Light grey eyes, Joey noted. “Really? So, you been into magic long, Mr…”

“Drew. Joey Drew. And not too long. My specialty is in the demonic, but I’m experimenting with a bit of everything. Trying to figure out what will work with my vision. Yourself? Actually, why don’t we have this conversation somewhere more pleasant.” Joey paid the man for the potions, and the two walked out of the dark alleyway and into the city lights.

“My specialty is potions. I brew my own. I also really like charms.”

Joey’s eyes went wide. “Charms? You criticize me for buying potions, and you buy charms? There’s no way of even knowing if they work!”

“Well, unlike you, I’m not working towards any grand vision. I think charms work. I think they make my life better. And that’s good enough for me. Honestly, some magic users forget that magic is meant to enhance life, not fill some kind of void in it. Heck, I could say the same of some artists.”

“Funny you should mention art. I’m an artist. And my life’s goal is to reflect life in art. It seems we have a similar view on life, don’t we? It’s just that I want to be the one to show it to other people. Say- would you like to see a bit of my vision tonight?”

“Sure!” Allison said with a smile.

Joey took her to his car and held the door open for her.

“Oh. A gentleman. And a rich one, it looks like!”

“Yes. I own one of the greatest animation studios in the world: Joey Drew Studios.”

Allison giggled. “I’m no cartoon expert, but if it’s one of the greatest in the world, then why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Well, it might not be the very best yet, but it will be! Especially once the project I’m about to show you takes off.”

“Great!” Joey could see the excitement in her eyes, and he loved it.

“And what do you do, Ms. Pendle? I feel like we’ve met.”

Allison’s face darkened a little. “Well... I used to be a Broadway performer. I quit. You see, I have an ugly history with cocaine, and some of my coworkers were getting me back into it. I knew I couldn’t stay without it ruining my health... so I didn’t. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, though.”

Joey could remember her now- a backup dancer in one of the plays he’d seen. He committed everything she’d said to memory, knowing it could be useful later on.

Before long, they were at the studio, and Joey showed her to the pedestal room.

“Wow. You got your entire staff to participate in your rituals? That’s amazing.”

“Just a few of them, actually. But yeah, a little power goes a long way when you’re dealing with magic. And this isn’t even half of it. Come. I assume you aren’t a vegetarian witch?”

“Well, I’ve never slaughtered an animal for magic, but I’m up for it so long as it’s not too often. It’s no different than meat, really.”

“Fair enough,” Joey said. Maybe it was stupid to trust this woman that he’d met this same night, but he got a good feeling about her. He just had to share everything with her. The elevator wasn’t romantic enough, so he took her to the ink machine, suspended with chains, and watched the amazement on her face as it lowered until its top was at floor level. Joey stepped onto the machine and pulled Allison along with him. He held her waist as the machine lowered until it hit the floor of the very basement.

“Wait a moment,” he said, before climbing down the machine and running to turn on the lights.

Allison’s heart was beating a million miles a minute looking at all the pentagrams on the floor, the supplies on the shelves, and the strange machinery. A small part of her was glad she’d packed a knife in her jacket pocket, especially given the human-sized iron cages. Mostly, though, she felt like she’d died and gone to magic-user heaven. Joey had thought she wouldn’t be scared off by this, and was more than happy to be proven correct.

“This is amazing!” Allison beamed. “What do you use it for?”

“Well… nothing good, yet. I’m trying to create life, but there’s only been failed attempts. Let you show you my best one.” Joey led her to a supply closet that only he had the keys for. The door opened to reveal a metal cage and little else. When Joey clicked on the lights, a mound of black sludge, maybe a foot and a half tall, made itself visible. A cartoonish mouth floated down about where an ear should be, and two black mounds that vaguely looked like pie-cut eyes rested at its base. “I don’t know what to do to improve results,” Joey admitted. “Ultimately, I want to bring my cartoons into the real world. But can you imagine me presenting this old thing on a stage?” Joey laughed. “Wouldn’t exactly have them cheering, now would it?”

“Hmm... well, it’s a long shot, but a while ago while I was traveling, I stayed with a witch for a while and learned the recipe for a special potion. I kind of... stole the recipe from her, so I don’t know all about how it works, but it’s had all kinds of effects on the substances I’ve used it in in the past. I once burned all my hair off by mixing it with shampoo! So, you wanna to see what happens when you mix it with ink?

“Why not?” Joey said. He was sure to hear an earfull from Thomas the next day about some mechanical nonsense, but at that moment, Joey didn’t care.

“Alright,” Allison said, digging out a small vial of clear liquid from her bag. “Where do I put this?”

Joey directed her to the insertion nozzle. Allison put in the substance. Joey gathered some film of Bendy and added it in as well. And then, Joey started up the machine. What came out was an abomination- a strange, humanoid creature made of ink, its spine and joints jutting out at sharp angles from its body. It had Bendy’s horns, his smile, and one of its gloves, but the similarities ended there. It looked around at its surroundings before beginning to wander off.

Allison yelped. “What do we do? I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be,” Joey said in an extremely calm voice. “Just be calm. Find an iron cage big enough and open it for me.”

Allison did as she was told, and Joey calmly approached the beast as it took in its surroundings. “Hey, there, buddy. Come with me. It’s okay.” He offered the beast his hand and led him towards the cage. He and Allison wrestled the creature into the cage and locked it. Joey sighed in relief. “That could have been ugly.”

“Yeah. That was amazing. But I’m sorry for causing it!”

They made eye contact. “Don’t be! That’s the closest I’ve ever come to making a functional toon! I mean, it still needs something... but thank you.” Joey ran his hand over her arm. “Allison. You can sing, right? You sang on Broadway?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been looking for a person who understood me- this side, the artistic side, the lust-for-life side- for years. Would you like to join my studio as a voice actress and help me with this grand project? Help me to do what no magician has done and create sentient life with me?”

“Yes! I’ve been looking for the next adventure since I quit Broadway!”

She hadn’t hesitated. This could only end well.

“Okay. Now, I’ll want you as a partner in crime and voice actress either way, but would you like to go out to dinner on Friday?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, pentagrams and demonic machines were one thing, but dinner? Now you’ve gone too far.” A pause. “I’m joking, Joey. Of course I will.” Dangerous just so happened to be Allison’s type, and she knew she could handle this little adventure if it turned sour.

[slightlymore]

Pride | Part 8 [The End]

Pairing: Doyoung, Y/N Other characters: Haechan, Johnny cameo Genre: Series | Smut | Angst | Crack | Fluff Warnings: as usual, language, same issues around mental health and unhealthy coping mechanisms, angsty, hard hitting family drama Words: 10K lol idk I wanted to write more bc it feels a little rushed but then it would drag too much

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |  Part 8 THE END

Okay so I did write this while severely sleep-deprived lol (please get enough sleep, don’t do what I do) so it might be all over the place anyways, when I started Pride I had no idea I would write so many parts, and that it would have been so angsty honk honk tell me if you liked the ending or not and I would love to hear what your overall thoughts on this series are (it’s fine even if it’s like “it sucked aha”) thank you for reading it, I appreciate your love and support a lot!! very many heart emojis here that I can’t do on the laptop, insert also sad clown emoji

TIME JUMPS EXPLANATION

Endind scene commentary 

Doyoung has always regretted the things he had done wrong, when he was feeling weak, or imperfect, or exhausted. He would think about those moments and learn the same thing all over. Never again. And he lived with that mantra for a long time. Never again. Don’t slip, don’t let yourself go. Because it was painful.

But was it effectively painful as is, or was it only because he knew he shouldn’t have done that in the first place? Would it have been painful if he consciously let himself go? Was he feeling guilty for the mistake or for not being perfect? And at night, while breathing in and silently screaming his desire to be fragile, to break, to show people his soft imperfect soul he would think about that again and again. He appreciated that in other people a lot. Why would other people hate it in him? Why has he hated himself for such a long time? It is a denial of the inevitable. Just accept yourself, Doyoung. Accept yourself. Accept. And he thought he did it. Doyoung was sure he did it all. But as the first rays of sun hit his trembling eyelids, he already forgot. He opened up his eyes and looked at his ceiling, not remembering a single thing he told himself in the intimacy of the night.

_____

When the phone rang for the first time, you jolted on your seat, staring it down as if it was some kind of poisonous reptile. 

God, you hated speaking on the phone. 

When it rang again your eyes darted around you looking at the way your desk neighbors were judging you for taking so long to pick it up. 

You breathed in and out. 

“Y/N from Marketing speaking?” you mumbled into it. “Pizza or noodles?” a lazy but confident voice asked. You blinked, silent for a few moments, and looked around as if checking what was going on. “Who is this?” you whispered. A loud snort made you wince and remove the receiver from your ear. “-can’t believe you don’t recognize the voice of the best boy, the light of your life, the reason of your existence, the spawn of god, the joy of your miserable-,” the voice said when you listened to it again. 

You closed your eyes and pinched the base of your nose. “Haechan,” you interrupted the litany, suddenly aware of the migraine lingering in the darkest part of your head. “So, pizza or noodles?” he chuckled satisfied.

It was pizza, and as you sat down for lunch you curiously looked around the dining hall.  It was the first meal at the company and if it wasn’t for Haechan you wouldn’t have even known that there was a cafeteria at all. Your eyes darted to your left. It was louder than you’d expect from grown-ups. 

“Yeah, it’s just like in high school”, Haechan swallowed his food, following the direction of your eyes as if knowing what you were thinking. Then he put down the slice of pizza he was holding and cleaned his fingers on a napkin. 

“Okay, so, that table-”, he indicated with his head a group of people behind him, “lawyers. They can suck my dick and balls. And I’m definitely not saying this because they bully the IT department and we’d kill each other. Then in that one”, he indicated another table in the middle of the hall, “graphic designers. You probably see them around in the marketing wing where you’re at. Eh,” he shrugged, “normal people. Kinda weird. You’d think they won’t have colors on their clothes since they use a computer, but they still do for some arcane reason”. 

You stared at them but only briefly before concentrating on your food as a few eyes returned the glares. The company was big and had hundreds of workers, but for some reason everywhere you looked around, people would stare back and whisper between themselves. “It’s because you made a ruckus at the party yesterday. Don’t worry, it will die soon.” Haechan explained, again reading your mind. It was kind of scary. “Where’s your group of people? Why are you eating with me?” you asked, unable to think about the day before. 

About to go home the previous night, you looked for Doyoung first. You had no idea why. No, okay, you obviously knew why, but you didn’t know what you would tell him if you'd actually found him. 

So you just gave up, suddenly anxious. 

During the drive home, you called Johnny, not caring about the late hour. He had some explaining to do. “I can’t believe you’ve done that,” was the first thing you said into the phone. 

Johnny’s voice was bright and not at all sleepy. He probably wasn’t home. 

“So you’ve met him,” he chuckled lightly. “John,” you murmured tired, unable to say anything more and hoping that the tone of your voice would make him understand. And he did. “I know, I know. But listen, you’re in love with him,” he said. You groaned. “I don’t know, Johnny. I was alright before meeting him again”.

Johnny’s voice got clearer signaling that he went somewhere quieter. “It’s not true. You were not okay. Do you think I don’t have eyes?”

“But what if-” your voice stopped working and you had to gulp down. Your eyes stung as finally, you let your emotions flow after seeing Doyoung. 

God, you didn’t want to cry. 

“What if I’m like this only because I can’t have him? What if, I don’t know, we get together, right? and, and, what if, fuck, I don’t know, I just change my mind? and I hurt him? again? like, like-” you stuttered and ate your words. “Like you did with me?” Johnny asked. You started to cry silently. “Listen,” he repeated calmly, still able to hear your muffled breaths, “it’s going to be alright. What happened with us it’s not your fault, okay? Not entirely. We-” he stopped as well, thinking. “Johnny, it’s fine, we don’t have to talk about that again,” you sniffled. “No, no, wait, I need the right words,” he assured you. “We just weren’t a match, okay? We liked each other because we were good friends and we saw each other grow up, we were always together and we do love each other, okay? we really do, but not- just not that way,” he added after a pause. You nodded, even if he wasn’t able to see, remembering the long and emotional conversation you had a few months ago. “Doyoung though-” he went on and you breathed in and out, “he’s different. And you know that. Everything is different with him. So go and tell him what you feel, Y/N, please. I hate seeing you this way,” Johnny’s voice got thinner as if was worried. You sniffled again in silence and you both just listened to each other's breaths for a while. It calmed you. “Well,” you finally spoke with a hoarse voice. “It’s too late now” “No, no, Y/N-” Johnny interrupted you. “John, he’s married, he got married, he did it, it’s too late, I can’t-” you interrupted him as well. “Okay, okay, he’s married, like a fucking dumbass, okay,” he calmed you again. “But, honestly, I don’t give a single fuck at the same time. You said he didn’t even know the girl. He got set up. By his family. Like in a fucking soap opera. Who does that nowadays?” You sighed slightly amused. “Say fuck one more time”. “Fuck,” he swore then lightly chuckled. “Seriously though, talk to him, okay?”

And you said that you would. 

And now you were there, eyes darting in the cafeteria looking for Doyoung again, heart stinging and anxiety as never before. 

Haechan raised an eyebrow at your question. “I’m eating with you because you would probably eat alone right now. And-” he talked raising a finger as he sensed you wanting to interrupt him, “-if by 'my group of people'" he mimicked the quotations marks with his fingers, "you mean Doyoung, he never eats here. He stays in the office.”

You put your slice of pizza down and crossed your arms on your chest as if indicating that you didn’t like how Haechan assumed things.  Haechan smiled.  “I wasn’t looking for Doyoung”, you lied.  Haechan mocked you with a bemused face. “I wAsn’t loOkiNg foR DoYouNg. I can tell him that you were looking for him if you want”.  “No, Haechan. Wait, I’m-” you clenched your jaw and closed your eyes briefly. 

Haechan stared at you waiting for you to go on sensing something more than just you wanting to see your crush. 

“Do you think I should talk to him?” you asked after the pause.  The boy's eyes turned serious.  “About what?” he asked as well.  You sighed. “About us. We… I don’t know. We almost kinda dated and he liked me first but I liked another guy and then when I understood my feelings he said that he was getting married and I had to act so quickly and I fucking panicked and then he was gone and I realized how much I’m in lov-” you stopped yourself from the frantic babbling. You gulped and looked around, as if afraid of people hearing you, or - worse - Doyoung himself. 

Haechan breathed in and out slowly while adjusting his glasses on his nose. “I think you should talk then,” he replied quietly. 

Your eyes darted towards his, but he wasn’t looking at you. Staring down at his pizza he played with a piece of it, rolling it around. “Are you guys not going along? Do you hate talking about him?” you asked, suddenly aware of his discomfort. 

Haechan thought about it for a second then when he raised his face he got a wide smirk on. 

“Every day that I see him he has a resting bitch face,” he replied, “or he’s annoyed, or he wants to punch me, or he’s like I had enough of you, Haechan,” he deepened his voice trying to imitate him.  You rolled your eyes amused, almost if seeing Doyoung in front of you. 

“Honestly? He’s… weird,” he added a little more seriously. You waited for him to go on, a light pressure wrapping your heart. 

“It’s like,” Haechan spoke again looking at the ceiling as if unsure of what words to use, “he’s a house with all the lights on, and you come closer, but no one is inside?” he questioned looking back at you.  “So you’re left with this sense of worry and uneasiness. I want to understand him but he… won’t let me get close. Not that I actually want that,” he explained with a smile. 

You rested your back on the chair, pensive and suddenly feeling uneasy yourself by Haechan’s smile that didn’t reach his eyes at all.

_____

Insomnia, change in appetite, dizziness, rapid mood swings, intrusive thoughts, lack of concentration, pronounced sensitivity to external events, unfulfilled and intense longing. Isn’t this what Doyoung feared all along? Isn’t this what he tried to avoid? 

“You don’t look that good, son.” 

Doyoung turned his head towards his father as if seeing him for the first time. He hasn't been for a while now but thanks for noticing. 

It was a bright and yellow morning. Rude and unnecessary. 

“Maybe,” the man talked again with a weird twinkle in his eyes, smiling at his wife, making her chuckle as if she was already able to understand what he was trying to say, “you didn’t get enough sleep last night?” his father finished. Doyoung’s mother hit her husband’s hand tenderly with a little stop it. “I know you’re a grown-up man, Doyoung, but we still have some rules in this house. Sleeping with a lady on the first date it not gallant”. 

Doyoung stared at them both. 

Oh. 

Right.

He met his allegedly future wife the previous night. And they were right. He did come back in the morning. It was a beautiful evening. Doyoung was sitting down rolling the stem of his glass of wine between two fingers, watching the way the dim lights of the restaurant made the golden liquid shine. Then he opened up another button on his shirt, feeling pathetic that he actually made an effort to look good for someone he didn’t care about. He ruffled his hair. He sighed. When The Wife came, he saw her legs first, walking slowly in a high pair of heels. Doyoung let his eyes gaze on them, going up shamelessly until meeting the seam of her tight dress. So he wasn’t the only one that tried for no reason. In spite of everything, Doyoung stood up and put a smile on his face. The Wife did the same and shook his hand. She sat down and the waiter came to fill up her glass as well. She said she was sorry for being a little late. Doyoung said it was alright. It was a nice night, wasn’t it? Yes, it was indeed. Kinda chilly. Yes, it is. The smog these days is terrible. Have you ever eaten in this restaurant? No, it’s my first time. What do you think is good? Let’s check the menu. 

“Listen, Doyoung,” she finally said his name after a moment of silence, the cutlery gently hitting the plates as the only sound to fill the room. Doyoung looked up chewing slowly, unable to feel any taste. “You seem like a good person and I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your family and what’s your opinion on all of this-” she started gesturing vaguely at them both, “-but I am in love with somebody else”, she finished. 

Doyoung blinked at her, feeling nothing and gulped down. His head was completely empty. 

He looked at her worried and pained face and felt like seeing his reflection in a mirror. She was in love? He felt sorry. 

But she was also happy. He could see it in her eyes, in the way her expression wrinkles weren’t accustomed to frowning like that. She wasn't unhappy. She was just worried. That Doyoung would say that he doesn’t care about her love. Forcing her to marry him anyway. 

“Me too”, Doyoung said after a few seconds. 

The relief that washed over The Wife’s face was so contagious that Doyoung felt like smiling himself, but he didn’t. It wasn’t nothing to be happy for. Not for him. Not at that moment. 

“So what are we going to do?” he asked her. She blushed. “We’re not going to get married. If my parents don’t agree... I’ll just run away! - with him!”. 

She was so confident, radiant, and - in love - that Doyoung had to recollect himself after being hit with so much light. She knew what she wanted and she was going to get it. She was in love and she was loved back. 

Doyoung felt like crying. He wanted that so badly as well. 

“I came here to speak to you directly because even if I already knew what I was about to do, I thought it wasn’t unfair to not explain myself and just vanish”, she added. Doyoung nodded and sipped on his drink, unable to speak. The Wife-but-not-Doyoung’s-one-anymore looked at him with a wide smile but he saw how it flattered a little seeing his expression.   “And what are you going to do?” she asked cautiously. Doyoung shrugged, letting his lips stretch in a smile that couldn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t know. Live in the moment, I guess,” was his reply, hoping that it was an adequate answer and to just drop that conversation. 

The Wife furrowed her eyebrows. 

“Did you come here with the intent to actually force yourself into this stupid relationship? While being in love with somebody else? Like an idiot?” the Wife asked. 

Doyoung felt his eyes widen at her use of words. He suddenly felt pathetic and weak in comparison. 

“No one is waiting for me,” he explained. “It’s too late now”. The Wife scoffed. “Are you in love or what?”. 

Doyoung emptied his glass with a trembling hand. 

“I just feel like I’ve been fighting a lot by myself while no one is fighting for me, so I gave up, as pitiful as that might sound,” he explained himself. His voice got sharper and he just wanted to go home. 

The girl rested her back on the chair while crossing her arms on her chest with an angry expression. The fact that she didn’t need to walk on eggshells around him anymore made her real personality shine through. Doyoung found it rather refreshing but he hated it at the same time. He was scrutinizing himself very well already, judging his every step and word and thought. He didn’t need other people to do it as well. 

“So you never broke down,” she observed. Doyoung looked up. 

“Do you need to reach a breaking point?” he questioned. “Do I really need to get to the point of losing all my pride and sanity? It doesn’t have to be like this. Love is not like this”. 

The Wife tilted her head to the side as if analyzing him. Doyoung felt vulnerable all of a sudden. 

What was he doing? Talking about feelings with a stranger? A stranger he was sure he was about to marry just 5 minutes ago? He felt dizzy and his head hurt. 

“No,” she agreed. “Love is not only this, no. But it can be like this sometimes." Doyoung poured some more wine into the empty glasses. “Why is she not doing it then? Why does it always have to be me?” Doyoung asked with the littlest voice. “Why did she let me go so easily?” The Wife sighed. “I don’t know her nor do I know you. But it sounds to me like she perhaps loves you too much-”

Doyoung interrupted her with a chuckle, shaking his head. 

“-because!” the girl raised her voice for fear of being interrupted, “-she did not let her egoistical feelings get in the way. If you told her that you were about to get married, she obviously thought about you first, instead of herself and her needs. What would have you done in her place?” she asked. 

“Fight,” Doyoung whispered. “But did you?” she asked again. 

Doyoung gulped. 

“Did you fight for her love? Your parents told you that you had to get married and what did you do? Accepted it? You went to her and were like 'listen this is the situation, can you promise me you’ll love me forever so that I know it’s worth fighting for you?' Is this what you did?” the Wife was almost angry and in another situation, Doyoung would have found it entertaining. 

He didn’t reply. The Wife took it for tacit approval and went on. 

“We’re taught to not be selfish in love, that if you love them then just let them go, and all of this bullshit, but!-” she slammed her hand on the table suddenly making Doyoung jolt, “-it doesn’t mean that’s how she is really feeling. I’d say she loves you." she pointed her finger towards him as a politician would after their speech. 

“No, don’t feed my hopes, please. You don’t know anything,” he shook his head. “Doyoung, this makes no fucking sense. Get out of your head. I want you to call her, now. Just talk. Communication." “What?” “Call her. Do it. I want you to explain the new situation to her. Tell her that you aren’t getting married and that you love her and you’re ready to fight for your love. Show yourself."

Doyoung shook his head again. “Stop it.”

“Do it."

“Who do you think you are?” Doyoung was starting to get a little angry. 

The Wife didn't budge and just smiled. 

“Fate."

“We’re done. There’s nothing else to do now." Doyoung got up suddenly and retrieved his wallet. A waiter came from the shadows to accept his card. The Wife sighed and just looked at him as if disappointed. “Alright, but when Fate is going to kick you in the butt again when you least expect it, please think of me and my words." “I don’t believe in fate,” he replied putting on his jacket. 

But Doyoung thought of those words all night while moving his phone from one hand to another, walking home slowly. It was cold as hell and he enjoyed the pain of it. He wasn’t alone. He could almost see the black car that was following him from a certain distance. “Yes, sir,” was the bodyguard’s answer when he told him to fuck off after he insisted on taking him home as programmed. 

And he thought of those words again, months later, the instant he heard your voice in that party hall. He swore he was hallucinating. He felt his limbs paralyzing and shaking at the same time. But he was trained. He knew how to work in these high tension situations. It was a little click and he couldn’t feel anything, adrenaline killed and buried in the deepest parts of his brain, like hungry wolves ready to tear him to pieces when he wouldn’t have had the force to keep them locked anymore. And so he moved like a machine, like something as far from human as possible. Later. We’ll deal with this later. I can’t. I can’t do it now. I can’t let myself fall. Stay. Focus. Later he could feel it indeed. It came eventually. He felt it right there while worried about your cut. He felt it as he held your hand and dragged you away. Pain washed him all over as if for the first time and love. Oh, love, it was so much love, he felt like drowning, he felt like a withering garden begging for rain and it came suddenly, so quickly, that he couldn’t possibly absorb it all at once. 

When he opened the bathroom cabinets he saw the first aid kit in a second, but he felt so overwhelmed and all over the place that he couldn’t bring himself to face you properly. He pretended to look for it for a while and his body felt your burning gaze all over his skin. Why were you looking at him like that? Stop it, no, please continue, no, stop, it’s too much, please, please, never stop looking at me. 

When he turned around he couldn’t bring himself to touch you again either without dragging you against his chest, never letting go. Was this fate? Was this the fate The Wife was talking about? Is this real? Is everything real at all?

As Doyoung’s parents were scolding him about apparently fucking like a rabbit the whole night, he put down his coffee and intertwined his fingers together, resting his face on them, closing his eyes and breathing in. 

“We’re not getting married,” he suddenly spoke up. The cutlery stopped moving and his parents’ faces fell off. 

“What?” Mother asked with a tiny voice. “What are you talking about?” Father furrowed his eyebrows, no amusement left in his eyes. Doyoung looked at them.

“I-am-” Doyoung articulated every word well and slowly as if talking with a stupid person, “-not-getting-fucking-married."

Father’s breath grew in pace, eyes out of his orbits. 

“Doyoung,” his mother’s voice was a little surprised whine. 

He looked at her with the corner of his eyes and his expression was probably one of his worst ones so far since she jolted imperceptibly as if seeing her son for the first time. 

“What’s with this attitude? Who do you think you are?” Father’s voice was getting deeper and his cheeks and neck reddening. 

Doyoung looked back at him with a killing glare. 

“Doyoung, sweetheart, you don’t have to get married tomorrow. Get to know each other first. You’ll definitely like each other as time goes by-” Mother tried to calm everyone down. 

“Like you and dad?” Doyoung let his tongue be as poisonous as it wanted. “Getting married to someone for convenience to just fight like fucking dogs every day in front of a child, huh?” he asked. 

Mother gasped and covered her mouth with the impeccable napkin. 

“Kim Dongyoung!” Father hit the table with his fist making all the tableware tremble. 

Doyoung didn’t flinch. 

“Do you want my son to assist at how I fuck different women every night? Pretending that he doesn’t understand what’s going on?”

Mother started to sob. 

“And you,” Doyoung spoke to her, ignoring her tears, “do you want my son to listen to his mother bad mouthing me from the most tender age? Telling him what a terrible father I am, that he shouldn’t love him, letting him know how unhappy she is while the only thing he should be preoccupied about is the multiplication table and which toy he should be playing that day with?” Doyoung directed his gaze towards his mom raising his voice on the last words. 

“Do you want me to bring my son to work to prove to my wife that I am in fact not fucking the secretary while letting her suck my cock under the desk?” he continued this time directing his speech towards Father. 

The man was fully red at this point and when he got up from his chair Doyoung thought that he was about to punch him or just drag him on the ground. 

But he didn’t. He was shaking as if no one had confronted him like that before. 

His voice was dangerous and slow, like a poisonous snake. 

“You’re going to get what you deserve, Dongyoung,” he spoke and Doyoung knew what that was. 

Because in his father’s eyes, Doyoung was the faulty one.  For speaking up. For telling the truth. For letting both of them, grown-up adults that were still running away from themselves like children, face their own feelings and shortcomings. Forcing him to be perfect and to do stuff that they wanted. Forcing him to accept every shitty thing they did but making him feel guilty for his actions. 

“I will. And you as well, Father,” he replied getting up and throwing his napkin on top of his plate. His mother’s sobs were the only sound he could hear as he exited the room.

Doyoung apologized for having spilled his drink on you. And you looked up as if that was the last of your problems. Your fingers were trembling as you disinfected your cut and Doyoung knew it wasn’t because of the pain. 

Right? 

No, don’t do it. Don’t go there again Doyoung. For once, for a single time, stop jumping ahead. Just ask. Stop living in your head. Don’t assume. She’s not in love. She’s not here because of you. This is not fate. 

So he did ask. He asked why were you there and the transient relief he felt when he was as close as to believe he was the reason for all of that, that maybe, just maybe, you tried to be selfish again, washed away. Because he could see how sincere you were while assuring him that you had no idea it was the place he was working at. There was no plan. 

So this is fate? This is how it works? It gives you the possibility but you still have to work for it? You still have to endure the pain of trying and trying and failing over and over again? If fate could make you both meet again, why didn't it do everything? Why did fate bring you in front of his eyes again just to listen to your sweet voice say that you were over him? Like a slap. Like giving a thirsty man a cup of water and taking it away right before the moment a single drop of refreshing sweetness could have eased his burning tongue.

It’s not so simple to draw the line. This was the only lesson Doyoung fully understood. There’s no one way someone can be. It’s not black and it’s not white. Everything is blurry. Everything is gray.

_____

“Y/N." It took only that single word to make Doyoung snap his head up and look at Haechan. “She was looking for you,” he added while standing in front of Doyoung’s desk, one hand comfortably inside his pants pocket, the other holding a coffee. 

“Is that for me?” Doyoung asked eyeing the cup. 

Haechan snorted incredulously. 

“I’m telling you that the ex you’re still in love with was looking for you and you talk about a goddamn coffee?” 

Doyoung straightened his back. 

“She told you that she’s my ex?” he asked surprised. “So you don’t deny that you’re in love with her,” Haechan considered while sipping on the coffee. 

Doyoung’s eyes got darker as they usually did when talking to Haechan but the younger one could see the redness on his cheeks and the way his adam apple traveled up and down, anxious and embarrassed. 

Oh Doyoung, Haechan thought, you’re so fragile. 

“How is that your business?” Doyoung didn’t budge, even though he was aware that Haechan was your new interest. 

Was Haechan jealous? Was that a new way Haechan tried to make him angry with? Since Doyoung arrived at the company Haechan has never let him alone. He was nagging and whining and messing up with Doyoung, making him angry and irritated, laughing when Doyoung snapped. 

Haechan shrugged. “I’m a Gemini. Everything is my business."

Doyoung sighed and flipped the papers he had underneath his hands as if telling the other that the conversation was over. 

But he still felt the other’s gaze on top of his head for long seconds. “So you’re going to be a pussy about it.” Haechan didn’t move and talked with a low voice Doyoung has never heard before. “You’re going to hold yourself back and prepare some escaping routes, just like always."

Doyoung stilled and looked up.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked almost in a whisper, too surprised by Haechan’s serious tone to actually get angry at the insult. 

“I see you, Doyoung. I really see you. And I see how your father treats you,” Haechan sipped on his coffee again while staring out of the office windows as if talking about anything besides that. “Y/N was surprised when I told her that you weren’t some CEO or something. I didn’t tell her that you were punished.” Haechan filled the silence again as Doyoung was just staring. “I wasn’t punished,” Doyoung gave him a death glare. 

Haechan shrugged. 

“Do something for yourself for once, would you?” he added and Doyoung could have sworn that underneath the nonchalant mask Haechan had on, rested a troubled and sensitive soul. 

“Are you two not dating?” Doyoung finally spoke when finding his voice. 

Haechan came back to his normal self with a nasal laugh. 

“You are so fucking stupid, oh my God,” he groaned. “No, darling, we’re not. That poor girl was too proud to admit that she’s in love with you while you probably just got back from your 'forced newlywed trip'”. 

Doyoung furrowed his eyebrows and that was enough for Haechan to widen his eyes. 

“So it’s not true,” he whispered. 

Doyoung didn’t comment on that and Haechan didn’t add anything. 

He looked out of the window again, lower lip slightly trembling so he bit on it. Then he smiled bitterly. “Fuck. Then you have to tell her that. Talk to Y/N,” he whispered again and just left leaving Doyoung confused as never before.

_____

You didn’t see Doyoung that morning and you didn’t see him during lunch either. Then at almost 5 o’clock your phone rang again. You rolled your eyes wondering what Haechan wanted to say to you. “Y/N from Marketing speaking." Your voice was flat but a little amused, ready to listen to whatever nonsense Haechan will talk about. 

But when you heard the voice you gasped silently. 

“Hello, Y/N. Doyoung from IT here."  

His voice was warm and deep. Your breath grew heavier. 

You couldn’t speak so you closed your eyes. Doyoung didn’t add anything either and you both ended up just listening to each others’ breaths for a while. 

“Doyoung,” you said after what felt like ages and a few seconds at the same time, your nerves thin as never. 

What were you both doing? What was this? 

“Y/N,” he said in the same tone but then cleared his throat. “I-” he stopped. “I actually called with a purpose,” he added. 

You imagined him, sitting behind his desk, cheeks flushed, fingers restless. 

Or so you hoped. 

Maybe he was just nervous. Maybe he hated to see you again. Maybe he was over you and now his pain just got back and it was all your fault. 

“Yes?” you asked, raising your voice to seem nonchalant. “Yes. There’s this project that Haechan and I are working on,” he started, “-and we’ve been told to work with someone from marketing for the selling issues. And they suggested you since you’re new and you still have to prove yourself” he finished explaining. 

You nodded. “Yes. Okay. Alright,” you almost stuttered. 

“Come to my office. The map is on the server,” he ordered softly and hang up. 

Just like that. 

You remained still for a few seconds, with the beep-beep of the line ringing in your ears. Then you swallowed with a certain difficulty feeling your throat dry.

When you arrived in front of his door, thin nerves and muscles shaking, you just closed your eyes and forced yourself to calm down. You were about to see Doyoung. You were about to see him and talk to him. It wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a fantasy. He was there, behind this thin closed door. 

God. 

You knocked. 

His melodious voice told you to come in. And you did. He was sitting behind his desk, blinds slightly closed making the office semi-dark. “I didn’t know IT people had their own offices,” you smiled awkwardly while stepping in and closing the door behind you. “Well, we don’t need human interaction to do our jobs,” he replied in the same tone. 

He got up and indicated you to sit down on the couch in front of his desk. He brought his laptop with him and placed it on the coffee table in front of it. You sat down, hands neatly placed on your thighs and you hoped he didn’t hear the way your breath hitched as he sat down as well, his thigh touching yours slightly. 

His cologne was the same, you noticed, and your fingers vibrated, trying hard to stop themselves from touching him. You looked at his shoulders and imagined tracing them with your hand. Then wrapping them as you got closer. Then sliding them up to his nape, slowly, into his hair, closer and closer and closer and feeling his breath and kissing his lips and sitting on his lap and as you did so, his arms would hug you, pulling you close while he whispered your name. 

Y/N. Y/N. Y/N. 

“Y/N." You jolted. He was turned to you, hands on the laptop screen, a PowerPoint on it. You looked at the computer then at his face. He understood that you haven’t been listening to him and sighed.  

You breathed in and out. 

“Doyoung,” you said and you saw him visibly shiver hearing your voice call his name. 

“I think that we should t-” but you couldn’t finish the sentence as the door got opened with a loud thud. 

Haechan was almost breathless when he barged in. 

You and Doyoung looked behind your backs, both surprised to see Haechan with flushed cheeks and red eyes. “Haechan,” you said. “Is everything alright?” Doyoung asked as well. Haechan caught his breath by now, staring at you both then his lips tightened in a straight line. “Yeah. Yes. Sorry, I’m late. Let’s go to the conference room. It’s more spacious there,” he spoke up and turning around he just left. You and Doyoung looked at each other surprised. 

You bit your lower lip, unable to carry on the conversation anymore. 

“You were saying? I think we should?” Doyoung didn’t budge. 

His eyes were dark and his lips slightly parted. You stared at them, perhaps far too long because you suddenly felt your cheeks hot and your breath hitch. 

You were leaning in, imperceptibly and Doyoung saw. 

He didn’t get away and he didn’t refuse you. Looking at his eyes for a split second you could see that he was nervous. 

Then the magic disappeared again as Haechan’s voice made you both jolt again.  “What are you doing? Are you coming or not?” he yelled.

_____

You were sitting down, each with their own computer, clicking and typing. Doyoung briefly filled you in, explaining again what you needed to do. You just nodded and got to work. 

“When is this due?” you asked after probably twenty minutes of full silence. You knew Doyoung would be silent but Haechan? It was surprising to see him so concentrated on his work, not looking up even once, no jokes, and no smirks. He was also in a bad mood, you thought, his red swollen eyes still fresh in your memory. 

“Tomorrow morning. We’ll have a meeting and we’ll present the project. Hopefully, it goes well and we can go on with it,” Doyoung replied softly, almost in a whisper. You nodded. It was doable. You got back to work a didn’t speak for some time. 

God, you were about to kiss him. 

What were you thinking? What the fuck were you thinking? And him? Not pulling away? Staying still and looking at your lips the way you looked at his? You could do it, right? Maybe it was possible. You could talk to him and everything would be alright. Just like you’ve always dreamed. 

Right? Right?

After an indefinite amount of time, you looked up and glanced at the time. 

“Fuck,” you swore. 

It was already night and you did almost nothing. 

Haechan raised his eyes as well for the first time and turned around to see the dark windows. “We can take a break,” Doyoung murmured closing his laptop. 

Haechan relaxed on his back. “Who appointed you as a leader?” he asked amused. You smiled a little, happy to see him that way again. 

Doyoung crossed his arms on his chest. “You can be a leader then.” “Okay, then I decide that we can take a break,” Haechan giggled and you chuckled as well. 

Doyoung opened his mouth to say something but his voice got suddenly swallowed by a loud, weird noise. 

You all looked up and in seconds water poured out of the ceiling. 

You screamed and got up suddenly. 

“What’s going on?” you asked no one in particular putting your hands on your head instinctively.  “The sprinkles!” Haechan yelled. “But there’s no fire? Is it?” you asked looking around the room, shocked. 

"Haechan Lee!" Doyoung groaned, eyelashes fluttering in an attempt to see through the drops. "It's not my fault! I didn't do anything this time!" Haechan screamed back, one hand shielding his head. "Go and stop this mess!" the older ordered. 

Haechan had the time to roll his eyes before running to the wall on the opposite side of the conference room. 

You whined, leaving them to their bickering and tried hard to cover the computers ignoring that they were already wet in a desperate attempt to salvage them. 

Doyoung looked at you and promptly came closer, grabbing stuff and throwing it under the desk before realizing that it was too late. 

He groaned again. 

You fell to your knees defeated, fists holding handfuls of melted paper. 

"It doesn't work," Haechan yelled. Doyoung looked at him with such anger that you sensed it radiating through him even if unable to look at him in the face. "For fuck's sake, Haechan, you're useless!" Doyoung walked over and pressed the buttons on the switchboard then looking up at the ceiling as if expecting it to stop soon. 

"What the actual fuck," he swore loudly since it wasn't working indeed. 

Haechan whined beside him. "This was my best suit". 

Doyoung ignored him and walked towards you again, looking around for his phone. "Aren't there other people in this god-forsaken company?" "Shouldn't it stop by now?" you asked, your voice almost inaudible. "I don't know. Something's broken," he spoke more softly to you.

You patted your jacket and retrieved your phone from the inside pocket. It was slightly damp but it worked. "Here," you handed it to Doyoung as he was about to lose his mind from not finding his. He took it and putting one hand on his hip he called someone. 

In the meantime, Haechan crossed the room again and looked at the desk near you and the papers on the floor. "Shit," he commented. “At least I saved on the server,” he added. 

You looked at his wet strands of hair as he passed a hand on his forehead throwing them back. “Me too,” you said to Haechan, then you both turned to Doyoung. 

"They're coming. Let's leave the roo-" he ordered but his voice died in his throat when he heard what you were talking about. He looked down at the computers, pale as a sheet. “Doyoung?” Haechan’s voice was low and dangerous. “You also saved on the server, right?”

He didn’t and while you’ve followed angry Doyoung fighting with an angry Haechan through the corridos directed to the janitor’s room your head was hurting so badly that you thought it would burst. 

“Listen,” Doyoung stopped suddenly making you almost bump into him, “I am a fucking mess, okay?” his index was pointed towards Haechan. “I am a mess and I have so fucking much on my mind, I can’t concentrate, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and I know this is not an excuse for not doing your job well but guess what, I am not perfect, okay? I am not fucking perfect. I make mistakes and I don’t give a shit, alright? I don’t give a single fuck about anything. And now shut up and go home if you want. You’ve done your part,” he spitted out then busted the janitor’s room open and entered it. 

Haechan was still in the corridor a few steps ahead of you. 

You were both still, shocked by Doyoung’s rage. 

But then Haechan started to chuckle softly and looked at you. 

“He did it, finally,” he said, without giving you any explanation and got into the room as well.

_____

"You've already seen it, Doyoung," you whispered slightly embarrassed. 

Doyoung was in front of you, one hand placed on the other hand’s wrist trying to undone his sleeves, as he watched you getting undressed. 

He looked at the way your bra cupped your soft breasts then promptly turned around. 

“You could have gone to another room,” his voice was steady but his reddish ears gave him away. 

You were told that the janitors had clean uniforms in the storage room and now you were in the middle of getting your soaked clothes off, with no time to go home and get changed since the dear Doyoung didn’t save any of your work. 

“And also, I've never seen anything," he said. "Well, I’m not saying naked but you definitely saw me in a bra before,” you replied. 

Doyoung’s back tightened and he turned around, looking at you from under his wet hair. "I'm afraid you're mistaking me for Johnny," he raised his eyebrows before turning away again. 

You opened your mouth to speak but you were too surprised to say anything. Doyoung's eyes were - you might dare say - jealous and furious. 

Was this what Haechan was talking about before? That he’s done it? Was he talking about Doyoung just owning his true feelings and wearing him of his sleeve? Did he finally snap? 

"Okay, so who is this Johnny guy?" Haechan stepped closer with a sly smile. You looked at him but he wasn't looking at you. No, he was looking at you but not at your face. 

Doyoung raised his gaze for a second and slapped his shoulder. "Look away."

Haechan exaggerated a cry. “I was just curious. I don’t care about Y/N."

“How can you not care about her?” Doyoung mumbled and you swore that your face turned violet. 

Haechan put his tongue in his cheeks annoyed. "Doyoung, you're so fucking stupid. So many months working together and you still didn't get it?" 

"Doyoung," you called him softly. "He's not interested in boobs," you explained with a smile, still shy from Doyoung's previous words. 

Haechan gulped, suddenly blushing even harder. 

Doyoung turned his head around and furrowed his eyebrows at you. 

Then his eyes got wide and when he looked back at Haechan he noticed his red cheeks and the way he tried to not look at Doyoung's naked upper body. 

Doyoung covered his nipples. 

Haechan groaned and hit him. 

“I’m not interested in you either, dumbass,” he added but still turned around to not look at either of you.

_____

It was hours later and you kept glancing at the neon green number on the clock in front of you. You got back to Doyoung’s office to, well, continue or start again everything you’ve done before. 

“If you’re tired, you can go home, it’s fine,” Doyoung’s soft voice grabbed your attention. 

You sighed and closed your computer. 

“Do you want to talk?” you asked with a low voice. 

It was almost a whisper but in the thick silence of the room, disrupted only by the buzz of the computers and your breaths, it sounded almost too loud. You glanced at Haechan, fast asleep with the head on his arms then you glanced at Doyoung again and at his slightly surprised expression. 

That was blunt and all of a sudden. But it was so late and you were exhausted physically and mentally and you couldn’t take it anymore. 

You both knew that you weren’t asking to chat about the weather but he still wanted to make sure. 

“Talk about what?” 

Yeah. Talk about what? Us? Is there an us? There was only you and him and the feelings in between. Talk about feelings? Does he have feelings as well though? Talk about me and my feelings? Fuck. 

You looked down at your hands still on the keyboard and at the way your fingers started to shake. You clasped them together. 

“I still have feelings for you,” you breathed out suddenly, then you looked up for a split second to see Doyoung’s expression. 

His eyes were wide and round, his glossy pupils shaking imperceptibly. He didn’t expect you to say it like that. 

“I know,” he whispered. 

Your breath hitched at his words and you tried to swallow the lump forming in your throat. 

He knows. He knows? He knows. 

Of course, he knows. He probably noticed. You were no actress and you couldn’t fake your emotions. Also, you tried to kiss him just a few hours before that.

He knows. 

Okay. 

That’s it? And now?

You shook your head. “No,” you said. “I don’t think you do”.

Doyoung blinked, a single expression line between his eyebrows. “I don’t just have feelings for you, Doyoung. I am in love with you,” you confessed and this time you tried to sustain his gaze. 

Doyoung’s adam apple went up and down and his lips opened as if he couldn’t breathe. 

“I am foolishly in love with you. I am foolishly in love with everything you are and with everything you do,” your voice trembled. “ “When I think and when I don’t think, you’re still in my mind, roaming around the whole day. And during the night I can’t get any relief from this mind of mine because you’ll visit me again and for a while," you breathed in sharply, talking fast, "-just for a while, the gap inside of me would get filled only for me to wake up and realize that it was just a dream. I have so many feelings and all of them are consumed by you and I have so many things but they all mean nothing to me, without you. And I could blame everything and everyone for this but it’s all on me. It’s all on me, Doyoung. I knew everything and I still acted that way and when I heard you before when you said that you couldn’t concentrate or sleep or-” and you choked, tears spilling on your face. 

Your hands found them and you hid your head in your palms only to jolt and look up at your side after a moment.

Doyoung got up in a second and grabbed your hand. 

He was standing there with his fingers around your wrist, flushed and short-breathed. 

Then he pulled you towards him making you stand up and you let him do that, landing in his arms, wrapping yours around his torso, muffling your cry with his shirt, closing your eyes, drifting away, head empty and heart full. 

Doyoung was holding you tight, one hand on your back and the other one on your nape, stroking your hair and shushing you softly. “I hate to see you cry and I hate that I’m the reason for that. I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whispered against your temple. You shook your head with an exasperated whine and looked up at him. “You didn’t do anything, Doyoung,” you objected. 

He looked at your face as well. He didn’t expect that. He didn’t expect any of that. His mind was racing and his heard was about to give up. 

“That’s the point,” he explained. “I didn’t do anything. I could have tried more. I walked on eggshells around you the whole time and at the first problem I would just let you go, finding an excuse, being afraid-” “No,” you interrupted him, shaking your head again, “I don’t want to hear you blame yourself." “I don’t want to hear you blame yourself either,” he replied. 

You opened your mouth but didn’t say anything, knowing how stubborn Doyoung could get. 

Okay. Okay. It's fine. 

“Okay, now I-” you looked at your hands, pressed on his chest feeling his heart pumping blood like crazy. 

Your first instinct was to just pull yourself away, telling him that you’ve said everything you had to say. And wait. Wait for him to take the second step, to understand your thoughts without you explaining anything, just like he has always done before. But Johnny’s voice thundered in your head telling you to talk and explain yourself and to use your words, so you raised your head to look at Doyoung again. 

He didn’t look away from you, not for one second, and when you locked eyes he brought one hand up to cup your face and with his thumb he caressed your cheek, removing the last tear. 

“What about you, Doyoung? Do you love me?” your voice trembled. 

Doyoung sighed as if relieved. 

He pulled you close and cupped your face with the other hand as well. 

He leaned in until breathing on your open lips.

“I love you,” he said in the tiniest of whispers. 

“I love you,” he repeated. You whimpered. 

“I love you, Y/N. I love you,” his soft chant continued. 

He said that again and again, kissing you with little pecks, then again after the kiss got slower and as your lips didn’t want to leave each other anymore. 

“Look, I’m glad you idiots finally aren’t idiots anymore,” Haechan’s voice startled you for the third time that day, “but would you get a room? If not I’m going home."

_____

You ended up all going home that night - or very early morning. The project could have granted you all a promotion but you decided that you all didn’t give a single fuck. Everything looked so unimportant now that Doyoung was holding your hand and your muscles relaxed in his arms. 

You felt asleep there, in the crook of his neck, deeply, after months of insomnia. 

You remembered little snaps as he carried to his car. He would shush you when your fingers gripped his shirt harder. 

“Doyoung, it’s fine, I can walk. Put me down,” you whispered going in and out of sleep. “Sleep, I’ll take care of you,” and the kiss he planted on your forehead felt like a spell as you lost consciousness soon after. 

You didn’t wake up a single time during the drive and it was only when you reached your front door that Doyoung woke you up by gently shaking your shoulders. “Sorry,” he said. “Last time I had luck but this time I can’t find your keys,” he added when you fully opened your eyes with a yawn. “My bag now has more stuff in it than when I was at university,” you smiled. Your voice was hoarse from the nap and from the cry you had. 

Then you entered your apartment, walking slowly in silence, and you both undressed, throwing the coarse uniforms away. 

You did it lazily and with no malice, looking at each other bodies, this time without blushing. 

Then you sat down on your bed, completely naked and you looked at Doyoung, naked as well, standing in front of you as he removed the last piece of fabric from his body. 

“Wait,” he suddenly said, and turning around he left the room. You looked at his back as he was walking away and sighed. 

You couldn’t believe it. 

It was so surreal. 

You sighed again deeper, feeling it difficult to breathe. 

You were exhausted and drained, body aching and head-spinning so when Doyoung came back with a glass of water all you could think of was the morning after your terrible meeting with Doyoung. 

That time he was also standing in front of you, with one glass of water in his hand, face lit by the new rays of the sun. He had fewer clothes on now, of course, but for some reason, you started to feel as if no time has passed at all between the two events. There was no misunderstanding, no pain, no fights. 

You smiled and took the water from him. He smiled back and sat down on the bed beside you. His eyes were telling that he knew what you were thinking, like soulmates reading each other’s minds and that he was thinking about it as well. 

“Another thing,” he said and his voice was as tired as yours. “Someone, let's say Fate, told me to tell you that I am not married and that I am ready to fight for our love,” he added looking at you with a little nervous smile. 

Your eyes widened. 

“But-” you felt overwhelmed. “But the ring,” you mumbled looking down at his hands as your brain was trying to run at a speed too high for your tired cells. Doyoung looked at his hands as well before raising them up and showing that they were bare. “It was just a random ring. You assumed things,” he replied. 

You looked back at his face, confused and dizzy. 

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why-” you gulped, “why didn’t you call?”

Doyoung sighed. 

“I also assumed things. I thought you didn’t love me,” he tightened his lips. “I am sorry,” he whispered wrapping your shoulders with his arms and pulling you towards him. He nudged at your temple while you processed the information, repeating the apology, planting little kisses on your temple. 

“Does this change something?” he asked after a whole minute of silence. His voice sounded afraid and you looked up at him. 

“No, love, no, shh, don’t get me wrong,” you assured him with a pained expression, cupping his face. 

He let you do that, slightly surprised and definitely flushed by the sudden pet-name. “This is even better, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not married,” you chuckled a little. 

Doyoung cupped your face as well, his thumbs pressing at the corners of your eyes. 

“Then why are you crying?” he whispered so softly that it made you sob even harder. 

Your lower lip trembled looking at his eyes, at his expression, at his face, drinking him in. 

“I’m just happy. And I love you. I love you so much and all of this is just-” you smiled through the tears unable to go on. 

You were too exhausted and emotional to be rational in that moment. You had do idea what to do and you just wanted to be. 

Doyoung’s pupils shook as he bit his lip, trying not to cry as well. 

“God, how much water do I need to make you drink to make up for all of these tears?” he chuckled lightly as a few tears fell on his cheeks as well. 

You were both there, naked, crying, and laughing at the same time and you’ve never felt happier in your whole life. 

“What happened though? How did you end up not getting married? What did your parents-” you started to ask wiping your face. Doyoung closed his eyes and shook his head, letting himself fall down on the bed and dragging you with him. “Later,” he mumbled getting you both under the covers when you landed on his chest. 

You smiled and closed your eyes as well. 

And you both slept a lot, hugging each other tight, bare limbs intertwined together, skin pressing on skin, lips murmuring loving whispers. It was the highest level of intimacy, naked in front of each other, and clothes had nothing to do with it. 

Your souls were open and your emotions out, telling each other everything, with no fear and with no more pride.

[writeyouin]

It says asks are closed, but your recent post said they're open? If they are closed, that's fine, sorry to bother. Love your stuff btw! What if LL crew were temporarily turned human. The human liason helps them adjust (even if this is just for a while-they hope) and since it's Christmas, they decide to make everyone a traditional Christmas dinner (or as close to it as they can...) Who actually helps in the kitchen, who's more of a hindrance, and who sneaks food when they think no one's looking?

Transformers MTMTE/LL Reader Insert – For Just One Day

A/N – This one was tricky, trying to fit everyone in.

Warnings – Very Mild NSFW

Rating – T

It started with a stupid bet that the crew wouldn’t last a day as humans. To be honest, you forgot even making the bet with Brainstorm, but apparently those were your exact words, and now he hadn’t just turned himself human, but the entirety of the Lost Light. Fortunately, the effects of Brainstorm’s device were only going to last a day. Unfortunately, the day it took place was Christmas. Now, you not only had a million questions to answer about being human, but you also had to cook a Christmas dinner for everyone because Swerve had given the idea to Rodimus and it had spread like wildfire.

“Okay,” You said, tying back your hair and putting on an apron, mildly anxious now that everyone was looking to you for a Christmas feast. “I’m going to need help in the kitchen, if anyone will volunteer.”

Ultra Magnus nodded. He had just finished making a pamphlet for the bots who were struggling with their humanity. “I shall organise a cooking party,” he said, and with that, he was organising groups of bots who had volunteered into those willing to cook meat and those who weren’t.

Soon, you were left with a group of around thirty volunteers, looking to you for instructions. Among them were Rung, Ten, Swerve, Nautica and Cyclonus. You started by showing the group how to prepare the vegetables, setting off a production line. Rung was very attentive to his carrots, though having more experience on model ships, he was paying far too much attention to detail and was very slow with his work. Upon watching Ten, who was much faster, you decided to partner the two up to make up for Rung’s lack of speed.

Whilst trying to give instructions to some other bots, you found Swerve watching you dreamily, rather than preparing his items. When you went over to him, he blushed and started talking a million miles an hour, soon becoming more of a hindrance than a help, though you humoured him, since it came from a good place.

“You can keep yapping, as long as you get back to work, instead of staring at me,” You winked.

Swerve, feeling suddenly very nervous looked around for something to distract you, although it was too late for you not to have noticed his blatant ogling. “Ugh, I- I- I- FLOUR FIGHT!”

He threw a fistful of flour at your face. You coughed and spluttered, raising a bemused eyebrow once you were okay.

“I-Uh-I-” Swerve babbled, wondering why he hadn’t just got back to work when you had called him out.

“I’ll let that one go, but I’m gonna get you back later,” You deadpanned, smiling only when your back was turned and he couldn’t see you; it would be fun to watch him panic for a while.

You walked on, stopping when you found Nautica stirring an empty pot, whilst watching Brainstorm and Perceptor dreamily. You had a feeling that she had volunteered for the cooking before she realised that they were going to be running various experiments on the now-human crew. You stopped to look at the pair of arguing scientists.

“It is not a contest,” Perceptor sniffed drily.

Brainstorm wrapped an arm around him, “Everything is a contest, Percy. If it wasn’t, existence would be futile. So, you in or not?”

“Most definitely not. I am here to research the human mechanics that you have so hastily created, not compete over who can do the most experiments before the day is up.”

“Ah, classic Percy, that’s the fighting talk I love. We’ll tally the scores at sundown.”

Turning your attention back to Nautica, you knew she wouldn’t abandon the work she had promised to do, even if she didn’t realise that she wasn’t actually doing it.

“You should go with them,” You told her.

“Hm? Me? Oh, no, I couldn’t. I’m supposed to be here,” Nautica smiled bashfully when she realised that she had been stirring the wrong pot and the cocktail sauce was still just a batch of raw ingredients.

“Nautica, you’re supposed to be having a good time. Go nuts, run some experiments. Christmas is all about having fun, after all.”

Nautica chewed her lip, considering it.

You pushed her towards the exit, “Go!”

With that, Nautica gave you a quick hug and ran excitedly out, leaving you to get back to checking on everybody else. On her way out, you saw Megatron standing awkwardly in the doorway. From the disturbed look on his face, it occurred to you that nobody had told him what was going on and he had only just figured it out upon seeing everyone else.

You approached him, “Hey Megatron… It was Brainstorm-”

“So I gathered,” He replied gruffly. “Please can you inform me how long this is to last.”

“Around twenty-four hours.”

“I see. Then I shall remain in my hab-suite until it is over.”

“Wait,” You grabbed his arm. “We’re um, celebrating a human holiday, if you want to join us.”

“Please (Y/N), do not pity me. You know I have no place among my peers during celebrations.”

“Megatron, I will only pity you if you leave. Come on, you should be among your friends, and don’t say you don’t have any ‘cos that is utter rubbish. So, as your friend, I am ordering you to get over to your other friend, Rung and help him with those potatoes.”

Megatron stared at you, dumbfounded. If he didn’t have so much respect for you, he would have left to hide away until this was all over. As it was, he simply nodded and joined Rung, who immediately struck up a friendly conversation.

‘Right,’ You thought to yourself, ready to get back to work until you saw Tailgate hanging out near Cyclonus, about to pop some raw bacon in his mouth.

“NO,” You ran over picking him up. “PUT THE BACON DOWN.”

“WHAT? WHY?” Tailgate whined. “You didn’t yell at Ravage when he stole the eggnog.”

“He did what?” Sure enough, when you looked around, the eggnog was gone without a trace; how Tailgate had seen him take it was beyond you.

“(Y/N), I just wanna taste Cyclonus’ cooking. Pleeeeeease.”

“Tailgate, I get that you’re excited, but Cyclonus is on meat duty, ‘kay. Meat can make humans really, really sick if we eat it raw. I’m just doing this so you don’t get ill. So, I’ll say it again. Put the bacon down.”

“Do as (s)he says,” Cyclonus added, without even looking up from his cooking station.

Huffily, Tailgate put the bacon back onto the counter and you let him go. “If you want everything so perfect, you better check the dessert station,” he huffed.

You were puzzled for a moment, but you decided to do what he said, heading over to the dessert section.

“Oh, come on,” You groaned, upon seeing Rodimus remoulding all the gingerbread men into gingerbread Rodimus stars.

“Hey (Y/N)!” Rodimus grinned, trying to hide his artwork behind his back. You had been far too occupied to notice, but Rodimus had already been kicked out of the kitchen by various other members of the crew no less than seven times for causing havoc wherever he went. Quite frankly, he didn’t want to be kicked out again; it was getting harder and harder to sneak back in.

“Really? You couldn’t leave the gingerbread men alone?”

“(Y/N),” Rodimus put a hand over his heart. “I, for one, am disgusted that you would allow us to take part in an act that encourages cannibalism. I mean, eating fake humans is the first step towards eating real humans, and I will not stand for it.”

“Ugh, where the hell is the dessert team?” You asked frustratedly, looking around for any sane bot.

“Oh, them? Well, they chased after Riptide who stole all those little pastry things to eat. Then when they came back, Rewind and Chromedome had stolen all the chocolate.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They heard something about chocolate being an aphrodisiac, so they took it and went away to canoodle.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then Drift came to try some stuff.”

“Drift, really?” You said, surprise colouring your tone.

“Yeah, don’t tell him I told you, but he has kind of a thing about watching organics eat, so he stole some food to get into his kink state. Anyway, that was when the dessert team abandoned base and went to play twister. By the way, super-fun game. Anyway, that brings us to this point, when I’m your only hope for saving dessert, thus saving Christmas.”

You rubbed the back of your neck tiredly, “Fine… Do whatever the hell you want to the gingerbread. Just make sure to cook it afterwards. I left the instructions on the datapad there.”

“You got it,” Rodimus winked. “This is gonna be the best dessert ever.”

Finally, you were free to get back to work, and with only a few more problems, dinner was served. You and a few others volunteered to take food to those who had decided to quarantine themselves. Your first stop was Whirl’s hab-suite. Quite frankly, you were surprised that Whirl hadn’t come out to make mischief when everything started.

You knocked on his door, “Whirl, sweetie, you in there?”

“GO AWAY, MEATBAG!” He roared from inside.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I SAID GET LOST. I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE WHILE I’M LIKE THIS.”

You didn’t really understand what Whirl’s problem was, so you just left the food outside his door, telling him what you had done before leaving. Whirl didn’t go to collect the food. How could he, when he had a problem of this nature? As it turned out, something had gone wrong with Whirl’s transformation, so instead of his usual holoform, he looked entirely different. He was a grown man in a leather jacket, with fairly good looks. The problem was that without his interface panel or his usual feminine form, he couldn’t hide his arousal for you. As such, he had vowed not to come out until everything was back to normal.

Where others were saying Merry Christmas, all Whirl could think was ‘Bah, humbug.’

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[fanficflaneuse]

To Love Again

A/N: Dearest magical tumblr friends, it’s me again, bringing you yet again another little piece of writing nobody asked for. Here I was, thinking I’d only write Draco x reader inserts (exhibits A and B). But I got this idea a couple of days ago and I couldn’t stop until I wrote it. I haven’t read a lot of Wolfstar (anyone care to explain why this ship is called like this?) fanfics, but I hope I have done a decent job here and you can enjoy it. Also, I don’t really know how the mechanics of it all work just yet, but if you have any suggestions for me to write (like a ship, a reader insert, or just any advice to make my writing less sucky), just send me a message and I’ll try to give it a go <3 

Details: 

Sirius x Remus (Wolfstar?) 

Word count: 2215 (oops!)

Summary: Remus and Sirius survived the war and now, scarred and scared, are trying to figure out how to deal with their feelings for each other. 

Disclaimers: A bit of internalized homophobia. One cuss word. Also, the portrayal of Remus’ internal conflict might be laughable. Oh well, hopefully I’ll learn. 

For a few months now, Remus found himself waiting eagerly for Friday nights. He’d cradle his little boy in his arms, telling him stories until his hair turned blue and his breathing slowed down. He’d tuck him in bed, close the door, careful to leave it ajar, and wait by the fire until Sirius knocked on his door.

Things had been a little (read very) awkward between them before and during the war. It had taken them a while to even carry a normal conversation that didn’t end up in deafening silence. Remus, who for twelve years had to remind himself every day that his best friend, his love, had betrayed them, was a little apprehensive at first. Even after they proved his innocence, he found himself doubting, longing for what could’ve been instead of allowing himself to live his present. He had grown accustomed to playing the part of the lone wolf. After all, for a long time he had seen himself alone, rejected and betrayed. When he felt ready to let go, he found a very different person than the one he had loved back in his Hogwarts’ days.

Roughened and deteriorated by the dozen years of solitary confinement, Sirius had also changed. He was a fiery, hungry creature. Starved of love, friendship and freedom. Often than not, he lived in his memories. He dreamed about the past and wanted it back, every single bit of it. He wanted Lily’s playful eyerolls and James’ cackling as he played with tiny little Harry. He wanted the laughter when he’d say he’d be the world’s best dogfather. He wanted the get togethers with Andromeda and Ted and their sweet little daughter. He wanted to confide in Peter again, not think of him as the man who had ruined their lives. He wanted Remus – the young Remus – back. The man he had fallen in love with, who wore his ring proudly as they announced they’d get married eventually. Disappointed by reality, Sirius was rough and volatile. Sometimes he wouldn’t know how to act with people around him, not even his beloved Remus, who looked older and more defeated than he ought to be. He no longer wore his ring.

And just when it seemed that they were both healing, that they could start building something again, Nymphadora appeared on the picture. The sweet little girl from the Sunday get togethers with the Tonkses, now a brave Auror, snatched his love away from him. She had brought warmth in Remus’ heart, something Sirius had failed to do. She made him feel loved and wanted. And Remus loved and wanted her in return. As the other members of the Order exclaimed who cute of a couple they were, Sirius said absolutely nothing. He didn’t even dare to mention his ring, much less his feelings again. And he stood on the first row, solemnly, as Remus put a different ring on her finger, imagining it was him in her place. He was also there when she gave birth to a tiny little boy who, much to his father’s relief, wasn’t a werewolf. He was also there when his own not so tiny little Harry had been named godfather to the baby boy, Teddy Remus Lupin, metamorphmagus son of his werewolf.

He had been there as Remus cradled Nymphadora’s limp body in his arms, close to his chest. He was crying and sobbing because his love had been murdered. It was him – Sirius – who had avenged her death. In the most chaotic turn of events, she had been murdered by his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. And as the dark bitch witch died with the flick of his wand, he knew that nothing he could do would ever bring his love’s love back. He felt useless, even as the people around him celebrated Voldemort’s second fall.

They had both survived. Scarred and grieving, but they had both survived.

Three years after the war, Remus had taken yet again the position as DADA teacher in Hogwarts. Sirius himself had taken the Transfiguration department and, much to Headmistress McGonagall’s chagrin, had turned it on its head. Students loved him. It did help that his teaching approach involved turning into a dog half of the times. Thanks to him, students were more motivated than ever to learn how to be animagi. He didn’t think he’d enjoy it as much as he did.

Being so close to Remus and Teddy was also a big plus. The first year after the war was rough and more than just a little awkward. Their relationship had suffered greatly and they didn’t know where they stood. The unsaid agreement was that they wanted each other’s company. As Remus learned how to be a good father to baby Teddy, he had hardly any time left to think about something else. After the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts flew by, Remus and Sirius found themselves increasingly acknowledging their feelings for each other. Even if the feelings were not exactly as in their memories, the affection manifested itself in shy compliments and gifts, memories, some hand holding here and there. And, as of lately, cuddling sessions on Friday nights.

They hardly ever spoke directly of the matter. Not for a lack of trying, at least on Sirius’ part. But Nymphadora still loomed over Remus’ heart and whenever they even tried to bring it up, Remus would recoil and they would avoid each other for weeks. Today, though, Sirius was determined to change that. He wanted Remus to be his boyfriend. He wanted the three of them to be a family. And he would never replace his first cousin once removed, but he felt he couldn’t spend the next three years or more waiting without no chance of a change.

As he knocked on Remus’ door, he took a deep breath. He was set on not giving in, no cuddles or kisses until the situation was sorted. Then Remus opened the door and engulfed him in a hug he just couldn’t resist. He hugged back and they moved towards the couch in front of the fire. For a while, they sat there, huddled together, in a silence they both felt a bit uneasy.

“What’s got your wand in a knot, Sirius?” Remus asked, sitting up a little bit straighter to look at him in the eyes.

“You,” he answered a bit more harshly than he would have liked.

Remus shot him a worried glance. “Why?”

“I…what is this?” Sirius asked, motioning with his finger the (very short) space between them.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” he answered.

Remus looked away and said nothing. If the silence that engulfed them was deafening.

“You’re allowed to move on, Moony”, Sirius added softly.

Remus furrowed his brow in response. Apart from the love he had for Dora, he felt a sense of duty to her. Old, poor and ugly, she had loved him for who he was. They had gotten married. She had given birth to their son during the war. And she had lost her life for a better world for their son. She was gone for a little over three years and there he was, cuddling and kissing with her cousin, his first love.

“You’re allowed to love again!” Sirius exclaimed, a bit exasperated now.

“Not you!” Remus countered, which left Sirius a bit taken aback.

“Why?” he asked, unable to conceal the resentment in his voice.

“Because you’re…” Remus looked at him from head to toe.

“Is it because I’m a man? Would it be any different if my name was, say, Serena?” he barked.

Remus couldn’t lie to Sirius; he was, indeed, conflicted. What would people think? After marrying a woman much younger than him and having a child together, a relationship with a man? During his schooldays, Sirius had helped him come to terms with his pansexuality, just like his friends had helped him accept his lycanthropy. But still, after so many years, he still shamed himself for both. What would Andromeda say? Him, dating her first cousin. Raising her grandson together. They were much too old for that. Remus couldn’t look at Sirius in the eye.

“You’re Nymphadora’s cousin. You are my son’s cousin!”

“I am Nymphadora’s first cousin once removed. And it doesn’t matter. Moony, what we had was –“

“A phase,” Remus muttered under his breath. It seemed as though he was trying to convince himself as well as Sirius.

“Don’t you dare to say it was a phase, Remus John Lupin. I proposed to you. We…we even talked about adopting. We dreamed about a life together before all of this happened,” Sirius said, his eyes pooling with tears.

“That was a very long time ago, Padfoot,” he said, afflicted by his own words.

“Look at me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel anything for me,” he countered, taking Remus’ chin in his hand and motioning him to look his way.

“Sirius…”

“What?” Sirius moved closer to Remus, still holding his chin delicately. Sirius was crying now.

“Tell me you don’t love me anymore. Tell me you don’t want me by your side and I’ll leave. I’ll leave immediately. I swear. But don’t make me wait any longer. Don’t made us both suffer anymore under the weight of your prejudices against yourself,” Sirius almost pleaded.

“Please,” Remus said in a very weak voice, “please just let me go”.

Remus was also crying now.  The only man he had ever been with was Sirius. He had been his first everything: first kiss, first time, first love. They had discovered each other together. He had dreamed of a life with Sirius. The children, the house, absolutely everything.  They complemented each other in ways he had never managed to find in someone else. And he would be lying if he said he wasn’t still in love with him. For as much love he held in his heart for Dora, he had never stopped feeling absolutely everything for his best friend.

Sirius stood up to leave. He wiped away the tears and opened the door, not looking back. As he walked down the corridor to his own quarters, he busied his mind with thinking the exact words he’d write in his resignation letter to Headmistress McGonagall. He didn’t want to process what had just happened. He didn’t want to feel the emptiness in his heart, the feeling that his heart was irremediably shattered. Sirius was so distracted he didn’t hear someone calling his name.

Remus had seen Sirius leave the room. It all felt so definitive that it finally dawned on him: he couldn’t let Sirius go. He was his love. Dora would always be in his heart, in his mind, in his memories, in the son they had together. But Sirius was here. They had a second chance to be happy and he couldn’t waste it anymore.

It was now or never. He ran after his love, calling his name. He saw Sirius, standing in the middle of the hallway and practically ignoring him as he called him. Remus felt his heart break a little over the thought that maybe he had already given up, but he had to be determined now, just as Sirius had been a while ago.

Remus reached Sirius, who kept walking at a very slow pace and wiping away his tears. He tried talking to him, to no avail. So, he resorted to more un-Remus like tactics; he yanked Sirius by the arm and made him turn around. Sirius was taken aback; Remus looked like he had run a marathon. He scanned his lover’s expression for a second, trying to find any clue to his uncharacteristic action, when Remus attacked him with his lips. Sirius gladly complied, giving in to a fiery, hungry kiss that tasted of need and want and love. They were both panting as they pulled away.

Sirius was about to say something, but Remus, still out of character, didn’t let him.

“I love you, Sirius Orion Black. I want you. I want to be with you, forever. I want us to be a family. I’m sorry I have hurt you with my doubts. I was afraid. I still am. Oh, Merlin! But I can’t lose you again. I really…I really don’t know what else to say. Give me another chance, please?” he said impetuously, not even bothering in making sense anymore.

Sirius smiled widely and wiped away a treacherous tear. “I love you too, Moony. I have never stopped loving you”.

They kissed again. This time it was soft and tender. They hugged for what seemed like an eternity and then walked together, hand in hand, to Remus’ quarters.

After a while of cuddling, kisses and promises by the fire, Remus stood up and walked towards an old cabinet on the other side of the room. He rummaged through it for a while, until he found what he was looking for. He walked back and sat next to Sirius, their knees touching just slightly. Sirius distinguished a little velvety box and felt a smile playing on his lips as Remus opened it. There it was, Sirius’ ring, immaculate as ever.

As he put it on Remus’ finger, they both felt whole and happy again.

[centuryofdean]

Of Food and Comfort - Epilogue

Author Note:: Sooo this took longer than I wanted. It was always my plan to have a small epilogue for this story, but I didn’t want to promise it and then it never happen. It is finally here and I apologize if it isn’t up to par.

My small hiatus didn’t go as planned. I really wanted to start writing other stories to have ready to post, to read other writers’ works--but that didn’t happen. Instead I fell into a deep slump in my life. I won’t go into detail because you aren’t here to read about it but this epilogue is everything I want in my life and I’m starting to fear it will never happen. 

Author Disclaimer:: Marvel and its characters are not mine. I take no credit. Instead I claim the maybe not so great plot, writing and characteristics of the reader insert character. I am not a die hard Marvel fan, I haven’t read all the comics, but have watched the movies. I may get some things wrong, so please don’t hate me. I also have been incorporating Old Norse as terms of endearment.

Summary:: You worked for Tony Stark as a…mechanic of sorts. Anything around the Avengers compound that needed a technicians touch, you handled. With working and living there, you had grown to be friendly with the super heroes. Of course you had grown to have feelings for one of them. The muscled Thunder God to be exact.

Rated:: M for Mature. Please do not read this story unless you are 18+. Smut. NSFW

Pairing:: Thor x Reader

Three months had passed since you moved to New Asgard with Thor. At first it was hectic with trying to rebuild and organize housing for all of the Asgardians. Thor worked almost night and day on different buildings with his people. You worked through most of the day doing the same or helping gather food for families and cook.

The people of Asgard were grateful for your help, some even remembering you from your short visit months ago. The weirdest part of it all—one that you were trying to stop at every given point—is that the people started calling you ‘Your Majesty’, ‘My Queen’, or ‘My Lady’. Thor had introduced you as his ‘beloved’ to them, so it must have stuck.

As time went on, it got colder but thankfully did not snow. Not all the homes were finished before it got too cold to build. You and Thor graciously offered your mostly completed home to families whose homes weren’t completed yet, but none had taken the offer.

Thor came home late at night dirty and tired from hard day’s work. After making and eating dinner, the both of you would curl up in the bed with Mjölnir and discuss what was done and what still yet had to be done. Even though it was exhausting trying to rebuild a society, it was still worth it at the end of the day when you could sleep warmly and soundly in Thor’s arms.

Since it had begun to be too cold to work outside on homes, you spent most of your time working on the inside of yours. The house and roof were completed, but most of the flooring and walls weren’t. Thankfully the quinjet had satellite internet to research how to do most of these things. Thor spent a lot of his time during the day doing the same with other families, or just checking in with the Asgardians daily.

Tony and Steve came to visit a few times. They toured the town and met some of the people. Tony explored the nearby towns and made some calls to have power and running water construction start in the spring. For the time being the people of New Asgard used wood fireplaces and water from the nearby streams and nearby inland waters that came from the North Sea.

Overall—everything was going great. Although it wasn’t the same type of easy living as you had at the Avengers Compound, you still enjoyed your new home with Thor.

Being extremely tired was of the new norm. That was to be expected while working all day. Lately you had been waking up in the middle of the night sweaty—even though it only mildly warm with the fireplace. It was only when you threw up a few times that you were convinced you worked yourself sick. In the mornings you woke with a clogged nose and sniffles, using what little energy you had left to convince Thor you would be fine without him. It wasn’t the first time in your life you got colds. His people needed his help more than you needed it.

It was a nasty cold that seemed to come and go for a few weeks. You were finally satisfied when you were no longer sniffling or throwing up.

Until you woke another morning to find yourself kneeling over a bucket and emptying your stomach again.

“Gods help me,” you muttered wiping your mouth. Mjölnir was whining softly at your side, nosing your head and neck while you faced the bucket and retched. “I know you’re hungry buddy. I’ll make breakfast in a second.”

After getting up and cleaning yourself, you hissed walking to the kitchen. It was mostly complete. The drywall was put up and ready to be painted, the cabinets and counters were installed. You spent your own money on these things, and even used your money to buy similar building supplies for the other Asgardians when they would accept it. This wasn’t the reason you hissed though, you hissed because a strong ache started in your lower back.

Since it was nice and cold out but not freezing, you were able to store food just outside the door in a wooden box (to keep out animals). Eggs and sausage in hand you started to make food.

Milling around the other dry foods sitting on the table you found peanut butter, and it sounded good on a slice of toast. Then you remembered that Thor used the last of the bread making a sandwich for dinner last night.

As you flipped the eggs on the pan, you suddenly had the urge to put a dollop of peanut butter on the eggs. It was something you did occasionally for Mjölnir—but you wanted to try it. Mixing some of the eggs and sausage in dry kibble for the dog, you took a bite of the peanut butter eggs and rolled it around your tongue softly. The taste was by far different, but it wasn’t that bad? When you were about to take another bite, Mjölnir snuffed his snout into your stomach and huffed.

“Bud you will get yours once it cools off I promise,” you sighed. “Just—”

You were cut short when he started to whine and lick at your shirt.

The taste of yolky peanut butter danced on your tongue while your brain tried to process what was wrong with your dog. Soft aching pain radiated from your lower back and pelvis. Why were you eating eggs and peanut butter?

“Oh fuck,” you whispered starring into light brown eyes of Mjölnir. He barked softly and wagged his tail.

In a blur of moment you got off the stool and frantically looked for your boots and keys. A few weeks after arriving to New Asgard you and Thor acquired some vehicles for the people to use. The both of you used the one of the trucks regularly to get supplies from nearby towns. It was about an hour drive to the closest one, but you weren’t even worried about the drive. You were anxious.

“Come on Mjölnir,” you hollered for him to follow. In one motion you yanked the bowl of his food off the table and flung the door open. Not having to be told twice he followed you into the cold morning and to the truck. All you had to do was open the door and he jumped inside.

You sat his bowl of food on the bench seat and hurried to the driver’s seat.

The hour drive flew by fast. You weren’t sure if it was just because you were nervous or just scattered brained. Mjölnir waited out in the truck while you ran into the convenience store and asked to purchase a pregnancy test.

Ironically, the drive back to New Asgard took forever. You kept running scenarios through your head that it was a fluke, you weren’t pregnant. Life would remain the same as it was. No big deal.

But what if you were? How would Thor react? How was it even possible? It didn’t seem likely that Asgardians could procreate with humans? Thor was a God though! He must have been alive for thousands of Earth years, especially if there is Norse Myths about him! Panic started to set in you again—what if you were and everything went wrong because Asgardians and humans weren’t compatible to procreate?

Mjölnir shoved his head out the window and chomped at the wind as you drove.

Even though you weren’t ready for it and worried everything could go wrong—you would be mildly disappointed if you weren’t pregnant.

After pulling back into the driveway at the house, you sat with the truck off and just starred at the tests in your hand. You had never taken a pregnancy test before. You read the instructions over and over again to make sure you were going to do it right.

Taking a deep breath you grabbed the three tests you bought, opened the door and let Mjölnir out, and walked calmly to the outhouse. Since there was not electricity or plumbing in New Asgard, everyone had an outhouse built. It wasn’t great—you gagged when you walked in sometimes—but you told yourself if wasn’t forever, it was just temporary.

You’ve used porta potties before, you can use an outhouse.

Over the course of five minutes everything changed.

One by one each test showed the control line—and then faint positive lines.

Your heart started to beat so hard and slow you could feel pain in your chest as your eyes started to water. Faint lines count right? Trying to hold back tears, you gasped and shoved all the tests in your coat pocket.

Where was Thor?

With Mjölnir by your side, you tried to walk calmly through New Asgard. People were out and about trading and building. Everyone smiled or waved as you passed by. Eventually you started to ask if anyone had seen Thor. There wasn’t a solid answer, some said he was last seen on the edge of town.

Just as you were passing the last building you did not find Thor, but you did find Brunnhilde. She looked tired, but smiled none-the-less when she saw you. “Have you seen my oaf of a boyfriend,” you asked a little out of breath, but heart still beating in anxiousness.

Her lips twitched as she tried to repress her smile. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, lightening lit up the sky just behind her near the beach. A few bolts here and there, but lasting longer than normal—especially abnormal without thunder and rain.

“He’s on the beach My Lady,” she laughed softly. Whispering a small ‘thank you’, you rushed towards where you saw lightning strike, Mjölnir in tow.

“And stop calling me My Lady,” you hollered back at her, “you know I hate it!”

It didn’t take long for you to find him after that. You stifled a laugh when you found him sitting in the sand with his legs spread, leaning over while he tinkered with something in his hands.

“Thor,” you called out for him.

Immediately he tensed and shoved his hands into the sand. “Schatt,” he replied, not moving, “what are you doing here?”

As you got closer, he didn’t get up, instead he seemed to push sand around and particularly place a rock down in the sand. What on Earth was he doing?

“I was looking for you,” you said confused, almost forgetting what you were here for. “What are you doing?”

Looking a little flustered, he just smiled. “It’s a surprise,” he said softly. “Do you need my help?”

That’s when you became speechless. Over the months Thor lost some of the weight he had gained on the ship. Working every day instead of sitting still and eating will do that. You never told him, but you were happy he wasn’t the same chiseled Adonis he used to be. Thor was still fit and strong, but much softer than before.  You confessed how much you enjoyed his long hair that braided up into a top knot and down into his beard; and he continued to do it.

Even though you knew one of his eyes looking back at you was fake, you couldn’t help but stare helplessly back at both of them. Suddenly you started to cry, remembering what you found and had to tell him. Warmth filled you from the inside, seeping out through your wet cheeks.

“What is wrong drotting,” he rushed forward to wrap you in his arms. Warm. Safe. Happy.

Unable to speak, you took the handful of plastic in your pocket and shoved them at his chest. He looked at it oddly and tried to read what he could on them.

“What is it love? What are these? First Response and Clear Blue,” he muttered squinting his eyes while looking it over. A laugh ripped from your throat, awkward and rough.

“Thor,” you blubbered, “they’re tests. I’m pregnant.”

Thor’s eyes went glassy, brows furrowed as his lips moved mimicking the word ‘pregnant’. Confusion was still grasping him as he tried to process the news. Overcome with the urge to do something, you grabbed one of his hands from around your waist and brought it up to rest on your stomach.

“We’re going to have a baby,” you whispered, trying to catch his eye. Was he mad? Was he scared?

He stood almost limply while his hands flexed over your middle on top of your coat. You could hear him mutter the word ‘baby’ over and over. “T-Thor,” you asked hesitantly. Was this the moment he grew angry?

Instead he broke away from you and walked back to his odd rock.  Dread filled you to watch him walk away like that. He didn’t look thrilled at the news, just walking away like that. Was he going to ask you to get an abortion? Would you even entertain the idea? Tears were already filling your eyes again at the thought.

Mjölnir was following Thor around, jumping softly as Thor rose up from the sand. When he turned to you, you were shocked to find a wide bright smile gracing his face. Your heart started to thud a little irregularly at it. Once he got back to you, he fell to his knees and pressed his face against your stomach, laughing softly. On instinct your hands wove into his hair to hold him there.

Thor captures one of your hands and brought it to his lips where he pressed a kiss to the back of it, then flipped it over to place something cold and smooth into it.

The wasn’t very big, but the size of a nickel—not as perfectly round either. It was mostly flat on one side while the other rose softly here and there in no particular pattern. The color of it was just the perfect hue of cerulean blue that you were comparing it to his eye every fraction of a second to see if it were truly the same color. It was beach glass, small and imperfectly perfect.

“This is the best one I have made so far,” he rumbled softly, still rubbing his face against your stomach. “I will keep trying, but we can take this to a shop and get it made into a ring.”

As he said the words, memories were clicking into place, seeing lightning at the beach throughout the past few weeks. He has been making these? Why has he been making—made into a ring?

“What,” you asked a little thick in the throat. “W-what do you mean?”

There he was, the God of Thunder just kneeling in the sand in Norway at your feet. His mustache twitched with his smile, moving fluidly with his lips and he pressed them against your hands and then your stomach.

“I was waiting to make the best piece first, then get it made into a ring before I asked. Steve said I needed a ring to ask,” he murmured with a soft chuckle. “Now I feel is the best time more than any.”

Your heart wasn’t beating fast, but it was beating hard. Quickly your hands grasped onto his shoulders as you felt the shake and wobble in your legs. They didn’t want to hold your whole weight all the sudden.

“Y/N, will you do me the honor of being my wife now that you are already doing the honor to being the mother of my child,” he smiled up at you as he said the words. A choked sob left you as you tried to gasp for air. You would say you fell from the shock because your legs weren’t working, but Thor was already holding you tightly, easing you down to your knees in front of him.

Kissing him softly, you cried. “You’re not mad about me being pregnant,” you asked.

Thor chuckled deeply, nosing his way to your neck where he laid extra kisses. “Of course not drotting, this is wonderous news. I am just a little shocked since you said you take that medicine to prevent this, but I am not mad. I could never be mad.”

“I love you so much,” you trembled the words as you whispered them against his neck.

“As I love you,” he murmured back. “Though you will do me the honor? You will be my wife?”

“Of course,” you cried softly.

If someone had asked you a year ago where you thought you would be in life today—this isn’t what you would have imagined. None the less, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Previous Chapter << Part 12: Waffles

[utterlyinevitable]

2, 3, 11, 18 for the 40 Questions for Fic Writers (also, if these are too many, sorry!)

I’d answer the entire fic writer asks list if you sent it to me haha ♥

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Smut. Is smut a trope? 

All the scenes I want to write play out so well in my head but then I put it into text and it’s a CRINGE FEST 😫 

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

I mean.... probably not any body/gender swap ff tropes. Nor supernatural stuff. And absolutely nothing with horror/gore. I generally just write about things that happen in my life or those closest to me so there’s always a existential realism to my works (hopefully it comes across).

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

It’s a hobby I wish I could monetize. If I got paid to sit here and write my silly little stories all day I’d be living a great life 😌 

Thank you, Corona, for reminding me how much I love to write. 

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

No 😂 @withbeautyandrage​ tried to get me to do/use a character outline template once and I gave up after inputting their middle name lmao

Thesaurus.com is basically what I use religiously when I remember. 

I do outline my fics though. The first thing I always write is the rough dialogue and then piece the imagery around it.   

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Ohhhh I have so many alternate endings! Even when my fics are published they still live rent free in my mind and are editing themselves 😅 So I’ll just summarize the ones that definitely aren’t getting another part: 

If there was a Drunk Words Have Sober Consequences Part 3 or extended ending, Ethan would just say “Stop it” and Becca would challenge him with “Say it. You haven’t had any problems the last few weeks, what’s one more time.” The problem is he know this would be the very last time she’d let him this close. He wasn’t ready to lose her even before they’ve started. He’s silent and looking at her like a deer in headlights and she adds “I’ll make it easy for you” and starts to rip herself away. Just as he’s about to plead with her one last time and she’s about to turn away, June comes in; “Am I interrupting something?”. Ethan shoots Hirata daggers a snarl ready to erupt but Becca gets there first, “No. Just arguing about patients again” and leaves. (and patients is a play on words for patience bc that’s what they’re actually fighting about and becca has 0 patience left).

In Hopeless it ends up being Ethan who texted “come home with me” instead of Raf. She meets Ethan in the parking lot and they go back to his place. The whole travelling there bit is full of awkward silence. There’d be no conversation besides asking if she’d like a drink or needs to charge her phone. The most mechanical they’ve ever been. She’s still so emotional and regrets turning up at his office and almost getting caught by Harper. She knows this is a bad idea. So does he. But they don’t care. The warmth of their bodies together makes the entire world disappear. It’s irrational and neither are having any foresight about what’s going to happen next. They’re going to fuck the entire night, and then what? She gets a cab home in the wee hours of the morning, not staying the night ever again because he didn’t deserve her. 

In WIADTS after Stuck, Becca doesn’t stay in this alternate ending. They don’t make it to the weekend getaway. She’d checked out of their relationship hours ago and there’s no going back. She does this stealth mission a bit better with giving Ethan a false sense of security. He went to work earlier than she did and in those two hours she packed up everything and left to her friends’ place. She went to work and just avoided him. Avoided him as much as she could to avoid the inevitable fall out coming when he gets home and realizes she’s gone. That afternoon she started looking for other jobs across the country. Boston hurt too much. 

In happier events, Miles Apart! 

Even though they fell apart and she’s doing amazing across the country and she’s releasing her first book, they’re still on one anothers minds. That’s why she calls him.  Somewhere in this conversation she asks him to write the foreward of the book, he accepts with an “of course”; and then he tells her not to be a stranger next time she’s in Boston, and she tells him the same. Then Ethan lies and says he’ll be in California next month and if he could take her out to celebrate. “I’d like that.” The second they hang up Ethan pulls up his airline app and buys a ticket to California for next month. 

She sends him the address for a vintage coffeeshop that she loves and knows he’ll appreciate. She turns up 10 minutes early to settle in and running over just a few things she practiced saying to him in the mirror the last few days. She didn’t want anything to be too weird or anything to elude to their break up. She’s focused on moving forward. She’s grown a lot in the last year. 

But Ethan was already sitting there in the back corner staring out the window. 

Becca hung in the doorway and drank him in. needing a few moments to calm the butterflies raging in her stomach. She walked over slowly. As slowly as possible without being suspicious. 

Ethan sensed her. Her same old perfume hit his nostrils like a freight train with the first few steps she took, and he looked at her. 

They shared a weird greeting. Him getting up but neither moving to shake hands or hug. She took the seat across from him and ordered a coffee and asked how his flight was. Then immediately showed him the book when pleasantries drifted. She made a joke out of never getting his signature and as much as it pained him Ethan let out a small chuckle. Everything about her was still so endearing. 

That little joke broke whatever barrier was left between them. 

What was carved out to be an hour lunchbreak turned longer as time slipped away from them in their ease of conversation. So easily falling back into one another like the years apart meant nothing at all. 

Thank you for these 💕

[victorlimadelta]

Pidge is actually trying to take this a tiny bit seriously. Last night, while she was working on moving her work station into the makeshift pharmaceutical laboratory she’s set up for herself over the last few months, she was putting together a presentation, like it’s a business pitch or a grant funding exercise. Still, it’s easier to illustrate her point when she has diagrams to go off of. The fancy little holograms from her PADD can even be manipulated in real-time in three-dimensional space, for added cool factor.

It also means she can keep her thoughts together as she goes through the theoretical aspects of this with @swordsedge Ulaz. Before she begins, she takes a shot glass, fills it with the Olkari root extract she’s come to love so much, and knocks it back like it’s so much liquor. That should keep her going for the next eight or so hours and stave off the fluorescent-inspired headache she’s guaranteed to get if she works down here too long. She offers some to the Galra in front of her, but he declines. Reasonable. He doesn’t know what it is, and she could have tampered with it, so she’s not offended.

They’d had a brief conversation last night, as well, about how to structure this upcoming week. Pidge had asked Ulaz what the Galra Empire would do for someone who had a genetic degenerative disease. The answer, unsurprisingly, was a mercy cull. For an empire driven by expansion at all costs, a disabled life is not one that can be afforded. Ulaz did show the correct amount of disgust as he explained, at least, which reassured Pidge that he was here for the right reasons, to do the right thing. What wasn’t so reassuring was that he hadn’t actually encountered this specific problem before, as a medical officer.

Tilting her PADD against her empty glass so the holograms can project onto the table, Pidge launches into her explanation. “so, you understand what we need to do here,” Pidge reminds Ulaz. “this is different from just keeping shiro in stasis and keeping disease from progressing. this is total genomic overhaul.” She flicks the first diagram out from her screen to the table, starts spinning it--a puffy little X shape made of squiggles. “what we’re working with is the x chromosome, a location on the short arm called p21.2-p21.1.” When she zooms in with her fingers, there's a noticeable length difference between the two top arms of the chromosome. “there’s a deletion here--not one of the worst, but not in a good place, either. this codes for dystrophin: the protein that builds human muscle. without it, the muscles we’re born with can’t be effectively re-built when they’re damaged. usually, you’d have a backup on the other matching pair in your chromosome set, so your body could just use the one that works and ignore the one that doesn’t, but shiro can’t do that, because he doesn’t have a second x chromosome, he has a y chromosome. which, don’t tell it i said this, but it’s pretty useless, aside from sry. poor little thing. smallest in the human genome.”

This is probably stuff Ulaz already knows. Based on what Pidge surmises about Galra, just from pure conjecture surrounding the fact of Keith’s existence, they also must have a similarly-based biology, with double-helix DNA, ACGT pairs, X/Y sex chromosomes, even the same number and arrangement of chromosomes. Otherwise, Galra wouldn’t be able to reproduce with humans, or proliferate so far with so many other alien races. Still, it helps to start from the common denominator and build up to more complex premises.

Pidge pinches her fingers together, then spreads them to zoom in on her DNA diagram--to the portion that’s missing. “there’s maintaining the dystrophin shiro still has, and there’s teaching his body how to make it for himself. two different things. he already had weakness in his legs, to be expected, but now you’re telling me he’s having trouble breathing. that means his diaphragm can’t repair itself. he’s too weak to work his own lungs. that’s... that’s advanced. the only way it could be worse is if it was in his heart, and we don't know that it's not. so, we can’t just plug this with pharmaceutical intervention. giving him the actual dystrophin protein isn’t, by itself, going to get him where he needs to go. he needs to do it for himself, and he needs to be able to rebuild what’s been lost on top of it. that means...”

Another diagram flicks next to the first. This one's the clip of what's missing. “i have to get this, here, but... everywhere. as far as you're telling me, this is something the galra weren’t even interested in devoting resources to. it’s something humans haven’t quite been able to achieve, even with crispr, our most advanced gene splicing engineering technology.  altean alchemy isn’t suited to this, and i can’t see that they've ever attempted a genetic cure, just an amino acid replacement. the olkari seem to find it anathema to attempt it, even with their advanced biohacking abilities. but i’m--we’re not dealing with just one set of medicine. we’re not limited here. i can use all of this accumulated knowledge and make something bigger than the sum of its parts. i just need to run this by you, theoretically speaking, to see if it’s even possible in practice.”

Dismissing the first diagram to focus on the second, she twists her two hands, pulls them apart, and it zooms in on the individual molecules making up the DNA helix: red adenine paired with green thymine, yellow cytosine paired with blue guanine, clumped in threes (that’s a slight liberty with the illustration, but it works for these purposes). “coran’s taught me how to use this lab to make pharmaceutical compounds i thought would be impossible with the materials we have. apparently all you have to do is ask these atoms and molecules nicely to create their bonds. so far i’ve been... moderately successful in using it.” That’s false modesty. Pidge has been able to synthesize a full medication line for Shiro by now, from advanced corticosteroids to muscle relaxers, from gene-targeted therapies to painkillers. “but, i mean, dna is just a bunch of molecules, when you get down to it. huge, snarled-together molecules, but molecules all the same. the backbone of the helix is the same. the a, c, g, t are the same. if i can teach the lab to make the individual components, it’s just an issue of putting the building blocks in the right order and making them stick together. that part, actually making the gene i need, that’s the part i have the most confidence in. i know i can do it. what i don’t know is how much time it’s going to take, or if i can accelerate it by redirecting non-essential ship power to this one resource. and i won’t know for sure until i get started on it. but, the good news is, i know what i need to make and how i need to make it. easy.” Relatively speaking, of course.

The next image Pidge pulls up is entirely new. “this--this part’s more complicated. this little device is crispr. technically it’s a repeating genome sequence that humans synthesized from a bacteria, but you can use it for genome modification. depending on what kind of rna you attach to it, you can use it to snip out genes entirely, or cut and paste from one mis-transposed location to another. notice i didn’t say insert. it needs to get the material from somewhere to insert it in the first place, and creating the right sequence out of nothing was always a little too difficult to stabilize in human trials. plus, there were ethical concerns with using it on stem cell lines. no such worries here. if i use altean alchemy to create the missing piece, and if i use the right rna to point it at xp21.2 through .1, it should plunk it right into place. and there’s no medico-ethical dilemma present for doing this with a full-grown person, like there would be if we were trying to fix it in a zygote. it doesn’t even generate the should-we argument. now, getting the rna to target the right location, and getting the delivery mechanism to be stable, and getting it to lock into place, that’ll be a little more difficult.”

What flashes into the set of images Pidge is using, this time, is a series of ones and zeroes. “that's where the olkari technology comes in. their tiaras use human brainwaves, sent as binary code, to modify messenger rna, to redirect plants on what genes they should be expressing at any given time. it unlocks a gene’s potential. this should be the key to not only targeting the right location for the gene insertion, but also in making sure that it’s getting used correctly to code for dystrophin. the question you’re probably about to ask is, how does this work with dna when dna isn’t written in binary? but it’s not about reading it, it’s about finding it. rna will read it for itself, pull the correct amino acids, and make dystrophin. cells are pretty smart that way.”

Dismissing all those prior symbols, Pidge finally pulls up a diagram of the human body. “so, congratulations. using a series of increasingly unstable chemical reactions pulling from the most advanced medicine, science, engineering, and coding from three different starfaring species, we created, spliced in, and activated exactly one copy of the dystrophin-coding gene, into one cell.” The hologram zooms in to some generic muscle strand of the forearm. “that cell could die before undergoing mitosis. even if it survives, that’s no guarantee that the new, fixed genome will propagate very far, even within the same physical location of the body.” A red flash, indicating failure.

“but, if i’m understanding your research correctly, there’s something you can do with filtered quintessence to not just make it stick around, but to get it to actually change the whole body genome. this is the part that i’m the most skeptical about,” just in case Ulaz couldn't tell from her tone. “i don’t know how quintessence works at the best of times. as far as i care, though, if it does what you say it will, then it can be literal space magic--as long as it works by a set of fixed principles. if you’re saying we can wash out the old genome and, i guess, dye the new one into place by steeping shiro in enough quintessence, it’s worth a try.”

Presentation over. Pidge collapses her diagrams, puts her PADD face-down on the table. When she catches Ulaz’s face, his expression is unreadable. Just like always, really. “so, after all that, i have two questions for you. one, does that sound like something we can, theoretically, even do? i don’t want to waste time or energy on research if it’s not going to pan out in real life. and even if it does, question number two, how much quintessence would it actually take to do something like that? are we talking on the level of a d-cell battery, car battery, aircraft engine, starship-class balmera crystal, the type of energy it would take to hold strand in stasis for eons--what do we need, and can we actually get it?”

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

How We Got From There to Here

April is Autism Awareness Month.  This is the one and only fan-fiction that I have ever written featuring Peter Parker with Autism.  

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Summary:  When Peter, who has Autism, tells Tony that he quit his schools FIRST robotics team because 'they didn't like him' and he didn't get to work with Ned, the man gets to work to find solution.  This leads them to join a small community team that suits their needs perfectly.  Together they navigate the world of robotics from build season all the way to World Chapmpionships.

Tags: Autistic Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parkers Parental Figure, FIRST Robotics, Platonic Cuddling... ...

Word Count: 7015

Warnings: No      Rated:  G

Link To Post On AO3 [2019-5-20] How We Got From There to Here- happyaspie

    When Tony first met Peter Parker he had noticed a few things. The kid was jittery, stuttered and avoided eye-contact as if it would burn. He didn't think too much of it. He was Tony Stark. People often acted nervous around him. A result of being well known, always in the face of the public and even more so since taking on the moniker, Iron Man.  He didn't notice a whole lot outside of that for a long time.  After all, his contact with the kid was limited to a very few interactions and most of them were brief or he was too angry to pick up on anything else other than maybe, that the boy has some serious issues with following directions.

  It was later when the kid had slipped up and his aunt found out about his extracurricular activities that he started to pick up on more.  Peter was spending a good bit of time with him in the lab now.  As he did so, he started to notice more and more things about his new mentee.  Like, the fact that he could talk circles about whatever subjects he wanted to talk about but the second Tony would change the subject the kid would revert to one-word replies.  The repetitive fidgeting the kid did with his hands and fingers had also caught his attention.  He definitely noticed that the boy never asked for anything.  If he did it was just on the verge of frantic.  Like the first time, Peter had ever had to ask where the bathroom was or when Tony lost track of time one Saturday and the boy hadn't had anything to eat or drink in hours.  He eventually learned that Peter was just in general... awkward, from the way he moved to the way he talked.  It was subtle but he could see it now.  Not that he minded in the least, the boy was wicked smart and his smile was damn near contagious.

  It was when he was sharing coffee with Peter's Aunt May, one afternoon that he learned that there was more to the kid's awkwardness than just being a bit of a nerd.  He had mentioned something about the kid's constant fidgeting when May had corrected him and used the word stemming.  He hadn't really known what she meant until he got home and looked it up.  Then it all started to fall into place.  Peter wasn't just awkward, he had Autism.  When he had called her later to verify she was shocked that he hadn't already figured it out.  They stayed on the phone for quite a while discussing it.  After that, Tony became much more tuned-in to Peter and his idiosyncrasies.

  One afternoon as they were working together in the gym, Peter was rambling on and on about robotics.  Nothing specific, just robotics in general. He seemed to know an awful lot about it as the words flowed out of his mouth in rapid succession.   When Tony finally felt like he could get a word in he asked him why he'd quit the robotics team at his school if it was something he was so into.  Peter had grown quiet for a moment before expressing that the team didn't like him.  That had Tony's attention.  How could anyone not like Peter?  

  "I thought your best friend, whats-his-face, was on the team with you?", he asked.

  "Yeah, Ned.  He does the programming.  I like engineering.  We didn't work together.", Peter said offering Tony a rare split second of eye-contact.  That was happening more and more often and he loved it because May said it meant that the kid trusted him.

  "You're a natural at Robotics, the team would be lucky to have you on it."  After that nothing else was said about the subject and discussion when back to Peter rambling on about pneumatics and hydraulics, something he had taken a recent liking to. Tony finally had to cut him off to ask him if he needed some water.  When the boy enthusiastically downed the entire bottle in one long breath, Tony, gently reminded him where the bottles were kept and he could get one whenever he wanted it.  He almost laughed when Peter gave him an indignant 'I know' because he'd never once gotten one by himself despite knowing where they were.

  After Peter had gone home that evening, he made a phone call.  A guy he had gone to college with had started a small community robotics team right there in Manhattan a couple of years ago.  He'd been quietly sponsoring the team since it's rookie season, however, he'd never actually gone out to the shop they used to meet any of them.  After talking to Rob about Peter, it became clear that this was more than likely a much better fit for the kid that his school team had been and he was excited to check it out.  

  The first time Tony had entered the workspace, he expected to be surrounded by a bunch of hero-worshipping teenagers but it seemed that they had been prepared for his visit and all he got was a multitude of thank you's and handshakes before being led on a tour of the facility and introduced to the robot they had built for the previous season's game.  It was all very impressive.  All of them were so polite and friendly that he was actually kind of sorry he hadn't brought Peter with him. 

  The next week, with May's blessing, when he did bring Peter to the shop he was sort of expecting the kid to see the large group of teenagers gathered in the smallest meeting room and turn on his heels.  When he didn't Tony was thrilled.  In fact, if the fluttering of his hands by his sides was any indication, he would say the boy was excited to be there.  As they were shown around the workshop portion of the building, no one seemed bothered by Peter interrupting whatever they were saying to insert information that he already knew, nor did they seem fazed when he criticized their choice in wheel design or climbing mechanism.  They thanked him for his input.  By the end of the night, Peter was ready to come back and be apart of the team.  

  By the time January rolled around and the build season really started, Tony was starting to wonder what he'd gotten himself into.  Meetings went from once a week to nearly every day.  Most days Peter wanted to be there, he had become an intricate part of the team, especially during the design process.  Some days he fought it saying that Patrolling was more important. Other days he was conflicted to the point that Tony or May had to pry his hands out of his hair and coach him through it.  They never did find a perfect balance but by the time the six week build period was up and competitions were starting, Peter was eager to see the robot in action.  

  The team attended two district competitions and won both, once as the alliance captain and once as the first choice of the top team.  They had also gotten an award for quality at both competitions.  There was a great deal of excitement when they made it to the state competition.  It was by far the best season the team had ever had.  Tony wanted to believe that it had everything to do with Peter but he never said it.  It was called a team for a reason.  

  The state competition had been iffy at best with Peter.  It was much larger than the district competitions.  The crowds were a little tighter and it was loud, even for Tony.  He was glad he's packed the kid his sound-canceling headphones, he wished he'd packed himself some.  By the end of the event, the kid was getting tense and cranky but they made it.  When the team lost in the first round of the finals, Peter was in shambles.  Tony had to take him outside where the boy found a place to hide and quietly cry as Tony reassured him that they'd had an awesome season and that he had two medals to show for it. Once he had the kid calmed down enough to go back inside he was pleased to see that the team greeted him pleasantly while Rob invited him to come help pack up the pit area with them.  

  When the announcement at the very end of the day had them listed with enough points to just make it over the threshold of making it to the world competition, everyone was shocked and Peter, despite having his ears covered firmly with his hands had a smile on his face that was so wide you would think it would have split his face in two.  Once Tony managed to slip the headphones back over his ears, Peter used his now free hands to hug Tony so tight that he could barely breathe.  This was followed by multiple high-fives with his teammates.  

  That win had led to a dilemma.  The championship was held in a giant convention center in Detroit.   The venue was huge, the crowds would be large and it was guaranteed to lead to overstimulation even with headphones and fidgets.  Peter insisted he had to go, while May questioned whether or not it was a good idea.  "Tony, it's four days of constant crowds and noise on very little sleep.  He's not going to sleep well in a hotel.  I'm not sure you can handle what may come out of this..."

  "He's done large events with me before, granted they were only for a few hours but we managed."

  "You did but think about it.  What did you do when he started to get overstimulated?"

  Tony didn't even have to think about it.  Terms like meltdown, stemming, sensory-overload and overstimulated were everyday words for him now.  "He sat outside with Happy for a bit... when that wasn't working anymore we left."  Then he saw her point.  There would be no going home because he was ready.  If they went they were there for the duration.  Of course, he could get a private plane or take his car and get them back to New York whenever they needed to go but there would be no instant gratification.

  This left Tony was torn on the matter.  He'd seen the kid sit on the verge of a sensory overload at the last competition and this one was bigger, longer and further away from home.  But for all they knew it could be a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Eventually, it was decided that if Peter wanted to go, he should get to.  It would be a good experience and Tony could tag along as a chaperone, since May had to work and there was literally less than two weeks' notice.

  After talking to Peter and May, it was decided that Tony would be there but in the background.  Peter would have independence while on the trip.  He would ride in the car with his teammates and stay with them in the hotel as well.  They were meant to be set up as four boy's per room but Tony paid double to keep Peter's room at three to make it less crowded and Tony would stay in a room in the same hotel so that Peter had somewhere comfortable to escape to.  They had gone over everything with Peter and he seemed more than confident that both adults were overreacting.  He went out as Spider-man nearly every night with no problems.   Neither adult felt the need to explain that he never left his own neighborhood and had the option to come back home whenever things got to be too much. Instead, they just agreed with him.

  And all of that led up to where they were right now.  Tony, standing outside of the conference center watching Peter bang his head up against a tree and cry that he wanted to go home while the rest of the team was inside cheering. He wasn't even sure what had led up to this moment.  Not for certain.  It had been going well, the first day went by like a breeze.  The second was almost as perfect, outside of a few small anxiety-inducing moments, such as having to order off of a menu at a completely new restaurant.   They had worked there way through it and his team was nothing but supportive. 

  Day three got a little rough towards the end.  Peter was adamant that he wanted to go back to the hotel by lunch and seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown so Tony had given in.  That was probably his first mistake, but the kid looked exhausted.  In his head, it made sense, let Peter go back to the hotel and catch up on some sleep then the next day, the most important day, he would be more ready to go.  It hadn't worked out quite that perfectly.

  Peter came back to Tony's room and they both slept, curled up beside each other on the king-sized bed until dinner time.  Then after eating with the team, the kid seemed to be in a much better headspace so he had encouraged him to sleep in the room with his friends for the night.  They had to get up extra early to be at the venue for the final alliance selections.  While they were placed towards the bottom of their field, they had a lot of things going for them and being chosen as a partner by another alliance was a possibility.  He really wanted Peter to be there for that. 

  That might have been his second mistake because when he came down to meet the team for breakfast it didn't look like Peter had slept.  Then when Peter's face scrunched up at the portable breakfast he had been handed, Tony thought they might have already hit the end of their rope for the day.  However, rather than toss the bag filled with a Tampico orange juice, a cup of yogurt and granola bar on the ground he handed it to Tony telling him 'no'.  Tony not wanting the day to go sour, handed him a bottle of Pepsi and promised to show up with a breakfast that he did like soon.  That seemed to work and Peter followed his team out to the cars without another word.  The silence should have clued Tony into just how off the day was going to be.

  Tony arrived just in time for the alliance selections to start with a McDonald's Sausage McGriddle in hand.  At first, when he didn't see Peter on the stands with his team he panicked.  Checking his messages, there was nothing from Rob indicating that anything was wrong so he took a deep breath and climbed the ungodly amount of stairs up to where Rob and his wife, Joyce, were sitting with the other adults behind the kids.  "Where's Peter?", he asked trying to sound casual.  Joyce smiled and pointed a few rows over to where several teenagers from various teams were gathering on the benches around several Nintendo Switch systems.  Peter was right in the middle of them.  "Katie talked him into going with her to play with them.", she said proudly and rightfully so.  Peter six months ago wouldn't have talked to anyone he didn't know more than a few words here and there without the mask of Spider-man.  The mask seemed to open something up in him.  Maybe it was the barrier of the person not knowing who he was.  There was no expectation.  Whatever the difference was, there was no denying the changes that had come about in maskless-Peter since joining the team.   He was far less shy around new people and with the encouragement of a few select friends he was joining in on more and more social opportunities.

  Hating to interrupt but also not wanting to hand the boy a cold sandwich later he slipped over towards the group and quietly handed the bag to Katie to give to Peter.  When she did, Peter's eyes flickered up towards Tony and looking him right in the eyes he thanked him.  "You're welcome, Buddy.  I'll be right over there", he said gesturing towards the other adults.  It was then that, the boy finally looked back down at the screen.  

  Once everyone had been told to put the games away and come sit together for the Selections to start he could see Peter's face fall.  He was worried he was going to have to jump in.  The kid didn't always do well with changing activities so abruptly but with Katie's help, he seemed fine.  Though rather than going to sit with her, he carried his bag over and squeezed himself indirectly beside Tony.  Eating his sandwich, Peter would periodically look over at Tony and just as he was starting to wonder if the boy was trying to suggest that he needed something, Thunderstruck came blaring into the room and the announcer started talking.  Everyone, including Tony's, attention went to that.  It was amazing how quickly he had been sucked into the whole competitive robotics culture.  He certainly approved of the soundtrack... mostly.  He could have done without a few of the songs.  Mainly the Macarena and that mostly because once Peter had mastered the dance, it became a running joke to add said dance to every song that ever played from that day forward. 

  During the video explaining alliance selections, Peter started getting restless.  Tony offered to take him to walk around but he declined, apparently, they had been told that they should stay in their seats for the process.  Even with reassurances that it would be fine to get up, Peter stayed still.  Alliance selection lasted way longer than it had at any other competition they had been to and he could feel Peter tensing up beside him.  Just as he was about to try to talk the kid into going on a walk with him again, the third seed team called out their team's number as a third pick.  The whole team erupted into cheers around them causing Peter to violently flinch and cover his ears before registering what all of the yellings was about.  Scrambling to get his headphones out of the backpack, Tony quickly set him on his ears and watched Peter visibly relax before everything clicked.  "We got picked!  Oh my God, Mr. Stark!  They picked us!", he laughed, hands flying wildly in the air before coming to a still around Tony's neck in a hug.  It really was something.  

  After that, Tony let his guard down.  That was mistake number three but just like the other mistakes, it wouldn't add up until later.  The kid smiled through all of the matches and cheered when they won.   Then as if by some miracle the little community team and it's three allied forces managed to win the field.  That would mean, moving on to The Einstein Round Robins.  No one had expected that and it was exciting beyond measure.  Peter nearly couldn't contain himself.  It was an honor to have gotten that far and much to Peter's excitement, it meant another medal to add to his growing collection.

  Once things had settled down and Peter was happily playing Uno with his team Tony gently patting the boy on the shoulder, he had been reminded that he was in charge of the team's lunch that day.  It was time for him to leave to go get it.  Peter nodded and Tony walked out of the conference center with Joyce and one other adult to collect the multitude of sandwiches he had previously ordered. 

  When they returned the message was sent out that they were in the courtyard outside and everyone should join them.  Tony wasn't concerned, the team had an established buddy system and Peter was good at following those kinds of rules.  When more than twenty minutes had passed and there was still no Peter, Tony started to get concerned.  Looking around, it appeared that the majority of the team was there already there, save for the drive team and a few mentors.  Asking around, no one had seen him.  Then one of the boys piped up and said that he'd seen Peter leave with another team member.  When Tony questioned that kid, he said that Peter had started with him but then ended up leaving with a different group.  It ended up being a wild goose chase and Tony was getting frustrated.  He had already texted the kid seven times with no reply, a quick check later and he'd figured out why.  The battery on Peter's phone was dead.

  He wasn't panicked but he was getting there.  It was an insane amount of people exiting the building at the moment.  Tony knew that Peter knew where to go for lunch and figured he would show up eventually but not having a direct line to him was kind of nervewracking.  Just when he was about to go try to track him down himself, Joyce grabbed him by the arm.  "He's fine, Tony.  Rob found him in the bleachers.  Apparently, he got separated from his group and went back there since he didn't have a buddy anymore.  He's in the pit area with him and the drive team.  I've already sent two of the kid's to get him."

  Tony thanked her and relaxed.  When Peter got to the courtyard he looked a little worse for wear.  He wasn't smiling anymore and he was staying at least five steps behind the two boys who had gone to collect him.  "Hey, Kiddo.  How was the pit?"  Peter didn't answer.  That was fine, he was probably stressed.  "Look why don't you go get a sandwich.", Tony suggested.  When Peter whispered 'no' he tried again.  "Okay, I'm going to go make you a plate.  If you eat it, cool.  It not then that's fine too.  Yeah?"  Peter nodded in the affirmative and Tony took that as a win.

  After some quiet debate, Peter wolfed down both of the sandwiches Tony had brought him as well as a bag of chips and two cookies.  Tony hoped that was enough to perk him up a bit but it wasn't.  He wanted to go back to the hotel.  He asked at least seven times and Tony deflected each one.  "You let me go yesterday!", the boy finally shouted, hands full of his own hair.

  "Yeah, I did, Buddy.  We can't do that today, though.  We need to cheer for the team.", he said calmly.  His good deed from the day before was now getting throw back in his face.  He'd accidentally set a precedent that they could just return to the hotel on a whim.

  Being told 'no' seemed to agitate Peter even more.  He watched as the boy started to pace and backed off.  Sometimes, Peter just needed time to process everything.  He hoped that he would calm down on his own.  Before he had a chance to find out, one of the mentors was grabbing Peter by the arm and tugging him towards where they were taking pictures with the new banner and handing out medals.  For his part, Peter did really well keeping it together for the pictures, though he was about two steps from the rest of the group and there was no convincing him to get any closer.  

  As everyone else started to mill inside, Tony stayed in the yard with Peter.  The kid was getting more and more worked up.  After fifteen minutes of watching the kid cry, Tony really wanted to relent and take the boy back to the hotel but that would defeat the purpose of them being there.  The team had made it to Einstein and it was a big deal.  Peter would be so mad at himself later if he missed that, he was sure of it.   "Pete, we need to stay here.  Look, let's take a break, yeah?  We can get some shaved ice and then see if we feel like going back inside."

  "No!", Peter screamed.  "No, I don't want to go back inside.  I want to go to the hotel!  I hate robotics, I hate this team, I hate being here.  Take me home!"  

  Tony was at a loss.   The kid was standing in front of him completely broken and crying.  He found himself having to glare at people as they walked past too stare.  Especially when Peter started his routine of self-harm.   Tony had never seen it get this bad.  He was used to the hair-pulling but seeing him scratch his arms and hit his head on things was different.  May had reassured him that if it ever came to that, the best thing to do was to let it run it's course unless he was becoming a serious threat to himself or others, not that, that had ever happened.  Watching the boy repeatedly hit his head less than gently on the trunk of the tree beside the path while begging to go home was heartbreaking.  With his own eyes watering, he did as May had suggested and turned his back, only glancing behind him occasionally to make sure that Peter hadn't gone too far.  He finally understood May's concerns.  No one but him could have handled this.  He loved Rob and he loved Joyce and the whole team was fantastic but they wouldn't have been able to handle this.  Looking at his watch, they were already missing the first match.  

  Next time he turned around, Peter was no longer hurting himself had gone back to pacing.  Tony casually mentioned that he was going to get in line for some shaved ice.  The boy followed him at a distance.  Tony would randomly point out different things for Peter to look at. Like a dog or a cloud that looked like a rabbit. Just talking to talk.  Helping things go back to normal.  By the time they had gotten to the front of the long line, Peter was almost calm.  Tony was getting answers out of him anyway.  Even so, it was clear he was still extremely tense.  

  Shaved ice in hand, Tony started to wander to a less populated area of the field.  It was quieter.  Eventually, Peter started talking more normally, yet his posture still screamed anxiety and tension.  Looking at his watch again, they had now missed three matches.  Sighing, Tony looked at Peter and decided to bite the bullet.  "Are you ready to go back inside?  This is pretty exciting stuff.  Don't you want to go watch some of it?"  

  "No", Peter curtly answered.  That seemed to be his word of choice for the day.  

  Tony gave it a few more minutes and tried again.  "Should we go back inside?"  The expected 'no' came without hesitation.  Tony was starting to think that something else was off so despite the fact that they had just had lunch and the kid was still holding a small dessert in his hands.  So, he started offering things.  Sometimes listing out different possible solutions got the kid thinking about how he was feeling and usually, that helped sort out anything else that might wrong.  "Does your head hurt?", he asked first. It wasn't unusual for Peter to get headaches when he was tired or overstimulated but he would keep quiet about it until it was unbearable if no one asked.

  "No.  I'm fine.", he grumbled.

  "Alright.  Good.  Did you get enough to drink at lunch?  Do you need some water?"

  "No", Peter answered more calmly that he had anything else in the last hour.  He was more than likely already clued in on what Tony was doing.  That meant that this was helping.

  "Okay... did you get enough to eat?  I can buy you a slice of pizza or something.", he tried fully expecting the kid to decline that too.  He'd had a big lunch.  

  "I need to pee!", Peter exclaimed in reply, dropping his unfinished cup of shaved ice into the grass as if the urgent need has snuck up on him.  ...it probably had.  He'd been so focused on fighting back the anxiety and sensory input while trying to regulate his emotions that the state of his bladder had probably been placed on the back burner.  That is until he'd started to calm down and Tony had started forcing him to take inventory of his own body.

  "Okay", Tony said.  He hadn't been expecting that but if the boy was offering that information on his own accord it meant he needed to act fast.  This was going to have to be handled delicately because the bathrooms were inside the building he was currently refusing to go in.  "If you need to pee, then we need to go inside.  The bathrooms are inside."

  "No", Peter whined as he started to dance from foot to foot.

  "Listen to me, Bud.  If you need to pee, then we need to go inside.  We can come back outside after if we need to.  Yeah?"  He held his breath as he waited for Peter to reply.

  "Yeah.  I need to pee.  Let's go inside.", Peter pitifully decided, allowing Tony to let out the breath he'd been holding.  He wasn't actually sure what his next move was going to be if the kid continued to refuse.  

  As they made it to the front entrance, Tony managed to skip through the bag check line.  All he'd had to do was flash his media smile and gesture towards the kid behind him who was now holding himself.  The security guard in all his wisdom suggested that Tony leave the backpack with him and pointed towards the closest bathroom.  Peter was antsy about leaving the bag with the unknown person. Tony assured him that it was fine and getting to the bathroom was the priority at the moment. 

  While Peter was taking care of his business, Tony had time to go through the day and was starting to piece the events that lead up to this point.  He was pretty sure he had it nailed down.  He already knew that the kid was tired.  After napping all afternoon he probably didn't sleep much that night and they'd left really early.  When lunch came around, Peter was going leave with one group but had then changed his mind to go with another.  Probably because the second group was going to stop by a bathroom.  Then he'd gotten lost and he was all of the sudden out of compliance, with he buddy system rule, so he hurried back to the bleacher rather than trying to catch up to the other boys, even though he knew where they were going.  That had more than likely been a panic move, especially if he knew his phone was dead.  Then when Rob found him, he had taken him back to the pit where everyone was probably in a hurry trying to get things packed up to be moved to the assigned alliance pit area. It was probably close quarters and a little chaotic.  Both of those things would be enough to raise Peter's already triggered anxiety.  After lunch, while trying to process and internally deal with all of that, he'd been pulled into pictures and still needed to use the bathroom.  At some point, it all became too much to deal with at once and holding back the tantrum had been a lot of work.  Meaning that when the coast was clear and everyone else was back inside, he'd lost it. 

  Tony was just thinking that if anything he should be slightly proud that the kid had held it together as long as he had.  Then Peter rapidly exited the restroom and was bouncing in front of him.  "The bag.  Mr. Stark, we need to get the bag.  My things are in it."  

  "Yeah, alright, let's go get it.", he said swinging an arm over the boy's shoulders.  "Since we're inside, why don't we go see how the team is doing."

  "Okay, but we have to get my bag first.  I need to get my things."

  "Of course, first your bag first, then we can go see the team", Tony reassured.  

  Bag in hand and headphones in place, Peter was more relaxed then Tony had seemed him all day.  When they joined the group in the VIP area with the team.  Peter sat beside Tony and rested his head on his shoulder.  Tony didn't mind.  The kid was already tired and he knew an emotional outburst of that caliber had to be draining all on its own.  As the weight on his shoulder became heavier and heavier he turned his head to check on the overextended child.  While he wasn't asleep, he did have his eyes closed and was taking deep even breaths.   His eyes would periodically crack open when the crowd got particularly loud to see what all of the fuss was about.  

  When all was said and done, their alliance hadn't made it to the highly coveted honor of getting to play on the Einstien Field but it had been an amazing season.  To have gotten as far as they had something to be so proud of.  He thought Peter would be disappointed but he seemed fine.  "You did good, Kid.  Look at that.  You're part of an Einstien team now.  How about that?"

  "Mm-hmm", Peter hummed tiredly.  "Can we go to the hotel now, Mr. Stark?"

  "No, Pete.  We're going to go to Ford Field to watch the final match."  When Peter whined, Tony continued.   "I know you're tired.  So here's the deal.  First, we're going to watch the finals, then we can go back to the hotel.  We can eat and go to bed right after if you want.  You can even stay in my room if you'd rather."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise.  Let's see this through, alright?  Part of gracious professionalism is cheering for the other teams, yeah?  When Peter nodded his head Tony sighed.  That had been a lot easier than he thought it was going to be.  "We're fixing to walk over to the other venue  Do you need a drink or a snack?  Need to pee?"  When Peter confirmed that he didn't need any of those things they started walking to catch up with the group.  No one batted an eye at the way Peter was clinging to Tony's hand both of his.  It was probably clear to the rest of the group that Peter was not having a great day.  

  Sitting in the chairs at Ford Feild was interesting.  It was almost comedic to see the robotics playing field set in the corner of a huge arena.  While everyone was finding their seats music started playing.    It was all of the usual dance songs they used at every competition they had been to.   Tony smiled at the screen as dozens upon dozens of teenagers and did the Cupid Shuffle and YMCA.  Then that god-forsaken Macarena song came on and rather being annoyed, Tony was elated to see Peter perk up and join some of his friends in the ridiculously repetitive motions.  He took a quick video and sent it off to May.  He was sure she was worried.  He's sent her several messages that day and hardly any of them had been great.  

  Once the speeches and awards started the arena grew somewhat quiet and Peter ended up asleep slumped down in his chair, still holding Tony's hand.  Just before the actual match was about to start Tony reached in his pocket with his free hand and got out his wallet and handed a fifty-dollar bill to the kid beside him.  "Think you could go get me one of those large popcorns and two bottles of water?  You can even keep the change.", he smiled.  

  "Of course, Mr. Stark!", The boy beamed.

  "Hey, hey!  Take a buddy with you.  I don't want to get in trouble for this!", he called after the kid who then quickly grabbed a buddy.  

  Once he had the goods he woke Peter up.  "Hey, Kiddo.  Wake up time.  I got you some popcorn and a drink."  Peter groaned but accepted the snack.  Tony was sure he would, it was way past the time they would normally eat dinner.  By the time the match actually started Peter was wide awake and in a good mood.  They cheered for the Red Alliance because that was Peter's favorite color and when they won he was ecstatic.  

  The night was set to end with fireworks but he didn't know how Peter felt about that so he gave him the choice.  "Do you want to stay for fireworks or do you want to go to the hotel now?"  He was surprised when the answer was 'stay'.  He was even more surprised when he stood there face all aglow from the sparkling lights, with a smile.  Not the wide grin Tony was used to seeing, it was more of a relaxed, contented smile.  He took several pictures of that too.  

  Peter ended up riding back to the hotel with Tony rather than the team but that was okay.  Once they got there, everyone was already outside by the public grill fixing hotdogs and grabbing chips.  Peter casually joined the group and held out a plate to receive his dinner and Tony just sat back and watched.  

  "Are you going to eat too, Mr. Stark?", Peter asked through the hotdog being stuffed in his mouth.

  "Yep, just waiting for all of the ravenous teenagers to get their's first."

  Peter just nodded and continued to eat his way through his plate. Tony eventually made it into the line at the grill and got an extra hotdog for Peter before rejoining the boy at the picnic table.  "Thank you, sir.", Peter said when Tony added the new hotdog to the plate.  "I can still stay with you tonight right?"

  "Of course, wouldn't have it any other way, Kid.  It's our last night here.  We get to go home tomorrow."  

  Peter smiled as he wiped some stray mustard off his chin.  "This was fun but I'm ready to go home.", he admitted.

  "Me too, Bud."  Then as soon as their plates were cleaned up they were both excusing themselves to their room.  It was a little after ten but Tony was pretty sure he could sleep for an entire week at this stage.  Peter had collected all of his things from the other room and was in the bathroom getting ready for bed while Tony texted May with their travel plans.  As soon as he came out, Tony went in and got himself ready. 

  Soon they were both in the bed and rather than curling up beside him like he had the day before, Peter rested his head right on Tony's shoulder.  When Tony looked down at him, Peter looked up and their eyes met.  It was the second time that day, that Peter had looked at him so directly for such a long stretch.  "What are you thinking about, Buddy?", the man whispered.  He could see the wheels turning in the boy's head. 

  "That you helped me today.", Peter said with no real context.

  "Yeah?", Tony answered, not really sure what to say to that.

  "Yeah.  I like it when you help me.", he yawned.

  "I like helping you.", Tony said in earnest because he did.  He hated to see the kid struggle and watching him fall apart today had been one of the hardest things he'd ever witnessed.  He didn't know how May did it all the time.   Sighing a contented sigh, he continued, "I like it when you help me too."  Peter just smiled at him and yawned again.  "You should go to sleep, Kiddo."

  Peter readjusted himself on the bed before he answered.  His head was still on Tony's shoulder but now his arm was stretched out across the man's middle and one of his knees were bent over Tony's outstretched legs.  "May says that People who love you want to help you.  Do you love me?"

  The question made Tony stiffen a bit.  He'd never thought about it before.  When they had met it was out of necessity.  When he had started hanging out with the kid it had been out of duty.  At some point, the feeling of responsibility to keep the kid safe had started to tightly intertwine with a completely new feeling.  One that wanted him to be more than safe, but also happy and successful.  He wanted to see him thrive.  He had to take a deep breath to keep these new emotions at bay.  "Yeah, Kid.  I love you a whole lot.", he finally managed to get out.

  "I love you too... a whole lot.", the boy sleepily replied as he pulled himself in a little more closely.  "Ned stays at his dad's house every other weekend.  Can I stay with you every other weekend?"

  Tony couldn't help but smile because it sounded like the kid had basically just asked him if he would be his father.  "Yeah, Buddy.  I would love that.", he whispered.  

  "Me too.  Good night... Dad."

  Tony picked his head up off the pillow and looked down at the head pressed tightly into his collarbone and stared for a moment.  He and Peter's relationship had been evolving for some time now.  They had been slowly building up mutual trust and Tony knew that they had gotten close enough that the boy would meet his eye sometimes when they spoke or would occasionally ask him for things and share secrets.  Their world's had slowly collided into one and this trip must have proven to solidify everything they had been working towards.  Peter loved him... and he loved Peter in return.  He'd called him dad.  The idea was breathtaking.  Leaning in to kiss the top of the boy's head he smiled to himself before whispering to the boy, "Good night, son."

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

The Girl Next Door (Part 13) - Next Steps

Summary: Dean and the reader head out on their road trip and move to the next phase of their relationship...

The Girl Next Door Masterlist

Pairing: Neighbor/Mechanic!Dean x baker!reader

Word Count: 5,100ish

Warnings: language, brief smut

A/N: This is the final part of this series and it was such a nice & sweet series to get lost in. Parts of this series are told from two different POV’s. Dean’s POV are written from limited third person. Reader’s POV are second person (like a typical reader insert). Enjoy!…

One Week Later: Reader’s POV

“Hey Sammy!” you heard Dean shout while you were washing your new car on Saturday morning. “You didn’t tell me your neighbor was so hot!”

You rolled your eyes behind your sunglasses, turning around, Dean putting a hand on his chest dramatically. You crossed your arms and leaned back against the car, Dean fanning himself.

“Enjoy the view, Winchester,” you said.

“Excuse me but who said you were allowed to wash your car in a bikini and short shorts? Gonna give a man a heart attack,” said Dean.

“It’s like 95 out and I know what I’m doing,” you said, wiggling your hips before you spun back around.

“Yes you do,” said Dean. You saw Jack step out of the garage, tilting his head back.

“I’m done,” he said. “Painting. I’ll hang it up tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Jackie,” you said with a grin, suddenly feeling a presence behind you. You spun around, Dean with his hands behind his back. “Hi. I’m almost done with the car and then we got the day to…”

Dean reached around his back, pulling a large water gun in front of himself.

“You going to come quietly?” he asked.

“Oh, not at all,” you said, turning the hose in his direction. “Now the question is are you going to come quietly?”

“Yes mam,” he said, dropping the water gun in the grass.

“I’ll have to remember that,” you said.

“I’m actually here on official boyfriend business,” he said.

“Oh. Is that so,” you said.

“Yes. See, it’s come to my attention, that we have a road trip coming up,” he said.

“Yes,” you said, tilting your head at him. “Something come up?”

“No, no. I know we got our list of places to hit next weekend but...I was curious if you would like to move it up a few days,” he said. “So we’re not in the car so much.”

“She’d love to,” said Jack, taking the hose from you and spraying himself off. “I got the bakery covered along with watching Sam. Go have fun.”

“I really feel like I should pay you guys,” you said.

“Nope,” said Jack. “It’s just a hobby for me.”

“Sam’s cool with covering for a few days and between Eileen and Jack and everybody, they’ll be okay,” said Dean.

“When do you want to head out?” you asked.

“Tomorrow morning? Head for Texas?” he said.

“As long as everybody’s good with it, I’ll go pack my bags.”

“Good morning beautiful,” said Dean, grabbing your duffel from the front porch the next morning. “Jack.”

“Call if you need anything,” you said to him.

“I ain’t calling,” said Jack, giving you a hug. “Have fun. I know it’s a foreign concept to you but like, go enjoy your vacation with Dean, okay?”

“Alright. We’ll go on a trip next month though. I promise,” you said.

“Sure thing. Go on. Your boyfriend’s waiting,” said Jack.

“Jack? Still text me, okay?”

“Okay. Now go eat all the best barbecue there is,” said Jack with a smile. You pulled on your sunglasses and hopped down the front porch, tossing your backpack in the back of Baby, a cooler settled back there.

“Ready?” asked Dean, tapping his hand on the roof.

“Let’s go, Winchester.”

“Okay, what movies have you seen because I can’t fathom how you have not seen The Godfather,” said Dean. “Or Pulp Fiction. Or Tombstone!”

“We watched documentaries,” you said, taking a bite of your breakfast sandwich, holding it out to Dean to eat some while he drove south on the highway. “Mom and dad were polar opposites. She let us do whatever we wanted. He let us do nothing. They actually balanced each other out pretty good come to think of it.”

“Can I ask a personal question?” asked Dean. You hummed, turning down the radio. “You’d gone to school for six years already when you dropped out right?”

“Why didn’t I stick it out a few more and become a doctor?” you asked, Dean nodding. “The gore never bothered me. I did like helping people too. But the hours were horrible, the stress was horrible. I was halfway out the door before the accident and then that happened and I got so angry. At Jack and my parents and myself and I went home the next morning and quit. How could I help people when I couldn’t even help my own brother, you know?”

“Sweetheart. I know I don’t take this advice myself but Jack isn’t your responsibility. He’s a grown man. Even if you knew back then how Jack was feeling, do you think he ever would have reached out?” he asked.

“No. He didn’t trust me then,” you said.

“Y/N. He’s an older brother. I know what that’s like,” he said.

“And?”

“And I can almost guarantee that Jack was looking out for you too. He knew how hard your school was, he knew you were under those same pressures. I got a feeling he was only trying to protect you, not put more on your plate to worry about,” said Dean.

“I…” you trailed off, taking a quiet bite of your sandwich. “I thought he…why wouldn’t he just say that to me?”

“Cause older siblings don’t tell the little ones all the shit we do for them. Some we do but some we just do and then go on with our day,” he said.

“I still should have...he would have lied and it probably still would have happened,” you said, resting your head in your hand.

“Probably. I don’t think Jack ever had a problem with you Y/N. Case and point, he decided to stick around because of you. I think now he wants to make you proud is all,” he said.

“You know if you weren’t my neighbor, my brother would be sitting in an institute right now and I’d still think he hated me,” you said.

“That kid loves you. You love him. You two will be okay. I promise,” said Dean, tapping his finger against the wheel, music filling the air for a few minutes. “Okay but you’ve at least seen The Dirty Dozen, right?”

“Nope,” you laughed, Dean groaning beside you. “Keep going, we’ll hit one eventually.”

“I am starving,” said Dean, the two of you walking down the hall to your hotel room that evening. “I say we crash for a minute and then head out for our first stop?”

“Good with me,” you said. Dean paused about three quarters of the way down the hall, opening a door and flicking on the light. It was plain but clean inside, Dean ditching the bags by the door, plopping onto the bed. “Tomorrow you gotta let me drive some.��

“You can drive to Austin,” he said with a smile, turning his head in your direction. “You ever been to Dallas before?”

“The airport,” you said, sitting down in the other side of the bed, sighing and rolling next to him. “You?”

“Once I think when I was little. I don't really remember,” he said, throwing an arm over you waist. “Thanks for coming on this trip with me, sweetheart.”

“Dean Winchester and barbecue? Best trip ever,” you said. He pulled you closer, squeezing your hip as he kissed you.

“Alright. I’m gonna take a quick shower,” he said when he broke away. He hopped up and wandered into the bathroom, the water going quickly. You stretched and went out to the sink area, washing off your face for a minute.

You grabbed a pair of faded jeans and a light off the shoulder top in your bag. You threw them on and worked on tying your hair back in a braid when you heard the water shut off. Dean wandered back into the room, a towel slung low on his hips, his hands working another one in his hair. He smiled when he pulled it away, biting his bottom lip for a second when he looked at you.

“I’m almost ready,” you said, eyes going down his chest before you turned away.

“Take your time,” he said, grabbing boxer briefs, jeans and a dark button down out of his bag. “You enjoying the view over there?”

“Shut up,” you blushed, tilting your head down as you finished tying your braid. When you raised it again, Dean was exiting the bathroom and rolling up his sleeves. “Someone looks pretty.”

“She sure does,” he said, shaking his head. He held out his hand and you stepped over, slipping yours into it. “Pit stop number one, here we come.”

“That was good. Better than good,” you said, holding hands with Dean as you left the restaurant.

“Those ribs were amazing,” said Dean.

“Yeah they were. I’m stuffed,” you said, Dean turning you down the block away from Baby. “Where we going?”

“Surprise,” he said.

“Sneaky boy. I like it,” you said, leaning your head on him.

You walked a few blocks in silence, Dean coming to a stop all of a sudden halfway down. You looked around, turning left and spotting a bakery.

“Figured we could grab dessert to go,” he said. You wandered inside with him, the place quite active despite it being nighttime. Dean ordered a slice of key lime pie for himself and you got a slice of cheesecake. You found a bench out front to eat on, Dean wearing a grin the whole time.

“I should make key lime more often,” you said.

“I would like to try more bourbon cake,” said Dean, licking his plastic fork clean. “That was yummy, even yummier than this pie.”

“You think everything I make is yummy,” you giggled.

“Cause it is,” he said, pulling you to your feet. He took out his phone and held it up, turning the camera on you. You smiled, Dean moving into the frame to get one of the both of you. “The night’s still young. Let’s go explore.”

That was how you wound up in a bar you didn’t know the name of, dancing in a quiet corner to a song you didn’t know with Dean three hours later. It was getting close to midnight, a quiet hush in the place as some people started to trickle out. You could hear the music more clearly after a large group left, Dean tucking a stray hair that’d fallen out of your braid behind your ear.

“I love you,” he said quietly, turning his head to look at you. You grinned and cupped his cheek, kissing him slowly.

“I love you too,” you said, the song fading away in the background. For a few moments he looked so at peace, like nothing had ever been wrong in his life. “Let’s head back to the hotel, Dean. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Dean,” you giggled, Dean pressing you up against the wall the second the door shut in your room.

“I love you so fucking much,” he said, kissing your neck, rubbing his hands over your hips, pulling you away from the wall and over towards the bed.

“Dean, slow it down, babe,” you said. “I ain’t going anywhere.”

“Okay,” he breathed out, hot air fanning over your skin. His touch turned soft like that, kissing you deeply, hand in your hair, gently tugging it out of the braid it’d been in.

Your hands found his shirt, undoing the buttons quickly and pushing it off his shoulders.

“Shit. Fuck what I said about slowing down. Now. I want you in bed now, Winchester,” you said, placing your hands flat against his chest and walking him backwards.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he murmured against your lips. “Like you said. We got all the time in the world.”

“Dean,” you breathed out, sat in his lap, Dean finally slowing his thrusts and coming to a stop. You leaned back and stared lazily at him, Dean giving it right back along with a soft smile. “I love you.”

He kissed you like he hadn’t just spent the past hour playing with and teasing you, hadn’t just learned about each other in that way you hadn’t allowed yourselves yet, like he was some love struck boy that was only just seeing you for the first time.

“You’re perfect,” said Dean, murmuring his lips over your skin.

“The sex was hot and fun and I definitely want to do more of that...and you believe me now, don’t you,” you said.

“I always believed you that you care about me, Y/N,” he said, pushing a sweaty strand away from your face. “Took a little more time to believe I was worth it was all.”

“You are more than worth it, Winchester,” you said, smushing your nose against his, a tiny smile crossing his lips.

“Why do you like me?” he asked quietly when you moved back an inch. “Not think those things other women have.”

“Well, aside from the awesome hair,” you said, rubbing a hand through it, Dean chuckling when you rested your forehead against his. “You are good. There’s other little things but you’re good, Dean.”

“There are plenty of good guys out there though,” he said.

“You’re one of them. But you...you make me feel not so alone, Dean. You make me happy and look forward to things and get excited about life again and a whole bunch of other stuff. You’re just...a good man. I hope you know that.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. So so much.”

Three Days Later

“Hey,” said Dean when you crossed over the border headed for Memphis. “Guess what?”

“What?” you asked, popping a gummy bear in your mouth.

“You’re the only ten I see.”

You stared at him and let out a long groan, Dean giggling in his seat.

“You need to stop young man. How do you even have this many shitty jokes?” you laughed.

“I don’t know. You know what I do know? What’s brown and sticky,” he said.

“What exactly is brown and sticky,” you said.

“A stick.”

You groaned again and rolled your eyes dramatically, Dean cracking up as he drove.

“You still smiled. I win,” he said.

“Dork,” you groaned, leaning over to kiss his cheek. He stole a handful of gummies while he drove, shoveling them into his mouth. “Don’t ruin your lunch. We’ll be there soon.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” said Dean. “Promise.”

“Dean?” you asked that at your hotel in Nashville that night before bed. You knocked on the door to the bathroom. “You okay?

He didn’t say anything and you knocked again.

“Can I come in?” you asked. You heard a grunt and poked your head in, Dean looking as white as a ghost sat on the floor next to the toilet. “Dean.”

“Well, lunch and dinner taste good coming up the other way,” he said. “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that street hot dog earlier.”

“You doing alright?” you asked. He nodded, giving you a weary smile.

“Yeah. Stomachache is still there but I don’t think I’ll get sick again,” he said. You grabbed a washcloth from under the sink and ran it under some cool water, wiping off his face. “Thank you.”

“Let’s get you in bed,” you said. You helped him to his feet and out to the room, throwing a sheet over top of him and making sure the waste basket was beside him. You fixed his pillows for him, Dean watching with half open eyes. “S’okay. You sleep and feel better.”

“Can you lay down with me?” he asked quietly.

“Of course. Two seconds,” you said. You popped into the bathroom quickly, changing into one of Dean’s tees when you got back.

“Wearin’ my shirt,” he said, smirking when you crawled in beside him.

“Yeah, I’m wearing your shirt, Dean,” you said, reaching a hand up to scratch his head. He hummed and shut his eyes, rolling to his side and tucking back against you. “Alright, you can be little spoon. Wake me up if you need anything, honey.”

“Good morning,” said Dean, face jammed in the crook of your neck.

“Morning. Feeling any better?” you asked.

“Loads,” he said, tilting his head up. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“It’s my job,” you said. Dean nuzzled his cheek against yours, moving in to kiss you when you pulled back. “I love ya but you ain’t getting any kisses until you get with a toothbrush and some mouthwash.”

“Alright, alright,” he said. He got out of bed and you heard the water going, Dean back like that and hopping into bed. “Kisses please.”

“Alright, dork,” you said. “You can have all the kisses you want now.”

Three Days Later

“Home sweet home,” said Dean, parking in your driveway late Friday night. You grabbed your bags and gave him a kiss, Dean letting out a yawn.

“Do you want to stay over?” you asked. He nodded, giving you a goofy look.

“Let me just say hey to Sammy and grab something clean from my room. I’ll be back in five,” he said. He hopped back in the car while you headed inside, dropping your bags by the front door to deal with in the morning.

“Hi,” said Jack, giving you a backwards wave, eating a bowl of cheerios while watching a movie. “How was the trip?”

“Good. You get up to anything fun while I was gone?” you asked.

“Work, bakery stuff. Babysat Avy a few times while Sam and Eileen went out. Hung out with Maggie,” he said.

“Sounds like you had a busy week,” you said. “I’m heading up. Dean’ll be over a in few minutes.”

“M’kay,” he said, eating another spoonful. You turned around and caught something new on the wall.

“Jack. You painted that?” you asked. You heard him spin around and swallow.

“Yeah. I know it’s got some color and-”

“It’s gorgeous,” you said, turning back to him with a smile. “You...that should be in like a museum, Jack.”

“I painted some flowers,” he said shyly.

“It looks so real, like a photo almost,” you said, stepping closer. You looked around at all the little things in the long painting, the leaves and flowers and before you knew it, Dean was standing beside you.

“Wow, Jack,” said Dean. “You got serious talent, dude.”

“I really don’t,” he said.

“You really do,” you and Dean said, Dean turning around.

“We’ll talk to Benny on Monday, see about teaching you some more about car detailing,” said Dean.

“But that’s more Garth’s thing,” he said.

“Jack. You are really good. I can’t imagine how well you’d paint a car. You got an eye and steady hand. We’ll talk about it more later,” said Dean.

“You really like it, Y/N?” asked Jack. You nodded and smiled.

“I love it,” you said.

“Hey, you make ‘em for other people? What do they call it?” asked Dean.

“Commissions?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, that. We’ll uh, talk more about that too,” said Dean, throwing his arm over your shoulders. “Let’s head to bed, sweetheart.”

You yawned as you popped down in the kitchen the next morning, Dean still tuckered out in bed. You set about making some coffee when you spun around, looking at the chalkboard where your orders normally were.

It was wiped clean aside from a picture someone had drawn.

“Jack,” you said, twitching your eye. You looked around downstairs, popping out the front porch, Jack on his computer out there. “Jack. What did you and Sam Winchester do to my orders board?”

“Uh, listen-”

“Jack, I use that to plan and-”

“I told Sam you’d murder us,” he said, nodding back to the house. “We we’re having a hard time keeping up on Monday and we honestly were when you were hurt too and we decided to bring the bakery into the twenty first century.”

“What did you two do?” you said, glaring across the yard when you saw Sam and Avy eating breakfast on their front porch. “Samuel! Get your butt over here!”

“You sound mad so I’m good over here, thanks!” he called back.

“Sam!”

“I’ll be over in fifteen alright?” he shouted.

“You better be.”

About twenty minutes later you were scratching your head on the front porch, Sam showing you his computer.

“See? Now every time you get in an order, it automatically updates the calendar so you know when it’s needed and it’ll tell you what ingredients you need so you know when to restock,” said Sam.

“Plus it’ll alert you when you need to buy more of something in bulk and based on cooking times and delivery, when you actually need to make the item. It does all of the organization for you and will help you save money,” said Jack.

“Where did you two come up with this?” you said.

“Sounds like something Charlie would do,” said Dean, munching on a danish, leaning against the railing.

“It took her like half a day once we gave her the info,” said Sam. You raised an eyebrow, Dean taking another bite.

“She’s our cousin. Uncle Bobby’s kid. She’s like one of those geniuses with computers,” said Dean.

“So now everything will pop up on your computer or a tablet and you aren’t doing any rework. Jack and I were able to get stuff done like two hours faster every day with this stuff. I’m sure it’ll save you even more,” said Sam.

“I mean, I suppose it’s useful. Just, ask next time, alright?” you said. Jack nodded, Sam doing the same. “Anything else happen while we were gone?”

“Not really. Been pretty quiet,” said Jack.

“Good,” you said. “We could use with some quiet around here.”

Two Months Later

“Y/N,” said Dean one night after dinner, the both of you sitting on your back deck, a light rain coming down.

“Dean,” you said, resting your head on his shoulder.

“You know I love you, right?” he said.

“Of course,” you said, tilting your head up. “What are you thinking about?”

“You’ve just been quiet today,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” you said. “Sam and I had a long discussion this morning while you and Jack were at work. About the bakery.”

“About?”

“Sam has apparently decided that he won’t be returning to law, not full time anyways. He would like to become a partner for the bakery since he should be cleared for work soon,” you said. “Maybe we could expand.”

“Is that something you want?”

“Sam’s much better at the business stuff than I am. He would focus on that part, I can just bake he said. I told him I’d seriously consider it,” you said.

“What’s the downside?” he asked.

“I don’t make a ton of money from it Dean. I do it for something to do, for fun. I could sit around on my butt all day and have more than I ever needed from what my parents left behind. I don’t think Sam is taking into consideration that it’s nowhere close to what he was making before,” you said.

“Y/N. My brother, I love him, but he was a workaholic. Every single day. He had a nanny, babysitters all the time. Avy saw him a few hours a week at most. He was a mess after Jess died. I basically raised Avy for a year until Sam snapped out of it some. But he threw himself into work still. I hate that he was in that accident and came this close to dying but he wants to spend time with his daughter, with his girlfriend, with us now. Sam’s got money and working part time as a lawyer he’ll still do just fine. If he wants to go in on the bakery with you, I say you let him make that choice for himself,” said Dean.

“I’ll talk to Sam tomorrow,” you said. Dean hummed and you curled tighter against him.

“Benny offered Jack a full time job today,” said Dean. “Jack was really excited about it.”

“That’s great. He’s out on a date with Maggie. I’m sure he’ll tell me all about it later,” you said. “Still excited for school next week?”

“Yeah. Not looking forward to less time with you,” he said, lacing your fingers together.

“Oh, it’s only a little less time together during the day. We’ll survive it and we got the weekends and nights and you live literally forty feet away,” you said.

“You’re still gonna help me study?” he asked. You gave him a kiss, Dean smiling into it. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

One Month Later

“Hey, Y/N,” said Jack, nodding while you and Sam were reviewing the orders for the next week. “Got a sec?”

“Sure,” you said. You grabbed your cardigan off the couch and followed him outside, Jack giving you a smile. “What’s up?”

“I know I didn’t discuss this with you or anything but...I’ve decided I’m moving out, into a townhouse about a few minutes away. It’s that one four streets over so it’s close. I know you gave me access to my inheritance awhile ago. It’s something I want to do now though,” he said. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay, Jack,” you said.

“Cool. I think it’s time. I mean, you’re great to live with but I want my own space, bring over my own girlfriend without interrupting you and Dean and all that. I’m in a place now where I’m good with that,” he said. “I promise.”

“I know,” you said, giving him a hug. “You can always come back.”

“Not like I’m not going to see you all the time or talk to you everyday anyways,” he said. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

“Always,” you said, giving him a hug.

“I do have a surprise for you,” said Jack with a smile. “A painting.”

“Can I see it?” you asked.

“It’s over at the Winchesters place for safe keeping. I’d go pop over there,” he said, nodding next door.

“Right now?” you asked.

“Yeah. Now’s a good time,” he said with a smirk.

“You boys are up to something,” you said.

“Us? Never,” he said. You shook your head and walked across the yards, popping up the steps of the porch in time to see Dean open the door.

“I hear there’s a painting over here,” you said.

“There is. I asked Jack to paint it for me,” said Dean. “It’s in my room if you want to check it out.”

“Sneaky boys,” you said, following him upstairs only for Dean to cover your eyes before leading you into his room. “Alright, what’s the surprise?”

“Stand right there,” he said, settling you into a spot. You waited and waited and waited, Dean moving around. He peeled his hands away and you opened your eyes, Dean right in front of you, standing in front of the wall.

“Well I do like this surprise,” you said. “But I am a bit confused.”

Dean moved to the right, a small white square of canvas with a red heart painted in the middle on the wall. Dean took it off and handed it to you, a tiny D.W. written on it.

“You’re giving me your heart?” you asked, smiling as you stared at it.

“Well you already had it. Figured you could hang that up in the kitchen, always be reminded that you got it,” he said.

“Do you want to move in?” you asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a soft smile. “I’d love to.”

“I mean, you practically live there already,” you said. “Might as well.”

“It really is the responsible thing to do. I mean, the walk home from your place to mine is pretty dangerous after all and with Jack moving out, somebody should be around to keep an eye on you,” he said, a smile tugging on his lips.

“I love you,” you said, throwing your arms around his shoulders and giving him a kiss.

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

One Month Later

“Mmm,” you hummed, curled up on the couch with Dean after dinner under a blanket, watching a few leaves float through the air out the front window. “I love the fall. Perfect baking weather.”

“It is very beautiful,” he said, brushing his thumb over your cheek. “What’s on that gorgeous mind of yours?”

“Nothing at all. Just enjoying the moment, how warm you are...how peaceful you make everything,” you said, nuzzling into his side. “Every day you do that.”

“You too, Y/N,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Every day.”

Dean’s POV

Y/N grew quiet, resting her head on Dean’s chest, slowly falling asleep with his arms around her.

“Someday I’m gonna marry you,” he said quietly.

“I’m good with that,” Y/N mumbled.

“You were so not supposed to hear that,” said Dean, his cheeks flushing.

“Should I pretend I didn’t?” she mumbled.

“Didn’t what?” questioned Dean.

“Didn’t what?” mumbled Y/N, sitting upright, rubbing her eyes. “Did you say something?”

“We should head up to bed I said.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile, grabbing Dean’s hand. He let out a sigh of relief, letting Y/N guide him up the stairs.

Y/N kept on smiling, content to pretend she hadn’t heard what he said. Not that it was a complete surprise what his intentions someday were. She knew Dean Winchester started falling for her the moment they met and had never quite stopped.

That was okay with her though.

She’d never stopped falling for him either.

[joshslater]

The Cupbearer

This is a relay, doing a continuation of tamed-jock’s continuation of jd07201990′s story. Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

Infection+2:25

Let's write a captains log, like Tyler and I used to do, only this time I have actual observations and events to record. It is now approximately 2 hours and 25 minutes since he placed the cup on me. I immediately went home, and have done some preliminary studies of the object.

My most immediate concern is the attachment mechanism. I can really only think of three, suction, adhesion or some sort of mechanical attachment to my... thing. Observations are a bit limited as the object responds to stimulii. In the first instance when I grabbed it in the rest room there wasn't much of a response. The feeling was similar to that of a vacuum pull in the whole area, but I'm not feeling a constant force as I would expect from vacuum. Also, when the cup was applied it felt like it was filled with, or quickly filled up with a gel of some sort.

Wanting to rule out vacuum, or in best case break the vacuum and remove the object, I attempted to insert a narrow tube from my model steam engine in between the skin and the object. That did provoke a response. It felt like the contents of the cup was rapidly replaced or infused with icy-hot gel. This entry has been delayed by approximately 40 minutes, as I have been lying on my bed and desperately trying to avoid touching it. Every time I fail I get like a pulse of renewed icy-hot in the cup.

Infection+2:50

I've decided to avoid further experiments and focus on observation and external research. The cup itself appears to be mix of carbon fiber, titanium and some other fairly high tech materials. This points to high tech origin, but beside the logotype I find no other markings like brand, manufacturer, patents, serial number etc. My first attempts to Google this kind of product or stories from someone with similar experience come up short. I took a picture of the logo, cleaned it up and sent it through USPTO image search to see if anyone has a trademark on it, but came up empty as well.

It sure smells bad. I need to come up with an excuse for mum.

Infection+6:00

I told mum that I'm having my scent-month, as if every teenage boy has one. I said Tyler just had his, so if she checks with his parents they will confirm it. Why does it smell so bad though? It is clearly the cup that emits it, since the smell came on pretty strong only seconds after Tyler attached it. Is it distraction? Is it to mask something else? Is it to make the wearer body conscious or odor conscious and avoid contact with other people? Is it to acclimate the wearer to the smell? I don't see how I can answer any of these questions purely from observation though. Something to sleep on perhaps. How do you pee with this thing?

Infection+6:15

So the pee just kind of filters out in the lower part of the cup. If you want to use a toilet you have to basically sit on it reverse, do you thing, and then wait a few minutes for it all to drain out. A big drawback is that you have to step out of pants and boxers to even sit reverse on a toilet.

Infection+10:20

I think the damn thing just woke me up. Or I'm just have a restless night because of all that is happening, and more importantly what will happen. Fuck you Tyler!

Infection+12:05

It's definitely the cup that woke me. Just as I was waking up I could feel some sort of vibration down there. What other crazy shit have they packed into the device. My bedroom smells like a locker room. Thanks Tyler!

Infection+13:55

Fuck it, I'm getting up. I'll pee in the shower.

Infection+14:20

So that didn't work as well as I hoped. I could pee fine, but when I turned on the shower it was like pouring water in a gym shoe. If it smelled bad before, it absolutely reeks now. I think I'm gonna steal one of mum’s pads and tape it to the front, since it is still leaking God knows what and then wrap it in plastic and hope that contains the worst of it.

Infection+17:30

I didn't think of mobility enough. Jeans are clearly out of the question, so I went to school in chinos. It's bad enough that the cup is rigid, over sized and fully attached. Add to that some extra padding and cram it in chinos that aren't exactly lose to begin with, and you have something that looks funny stationary and awkward/hilarious when moving.

If I walk slowly I think I might come up with a gait that might be described as exaggerated jock sway, which would be step up from whatever ludicrous I'm doing now. Damn, I should have practiced yesterday.

I need to find some better pants, because these are too tight and restrictive.

Infection+21:30

My efforts to contain the smell isn’t fooling anyone, but I hope it just smells like I have a bad hygiene day. My crotch is a sauna though. The plastic wrap needs to go. Tyler kept his distance. I wonder if he is ashamed, or if he doesn't give a shit. Perhaps they have some sort of protocol he adheres to.

Day 2, 4:40 pm

Let's stop fucking around with the childish infection timer. This is serious. I found something sobering when doing some online patent search.

I was just blindly trying to find patents for any of the different things this cup does, and managed to find a description on "bio-polymer adhesion complex and application for individualized restriction control". I don't understand more than a fraction of what is written, but in the schematics there is a drawing of EXACTLY the cup I'm wearing. The list of example uses in the description includes prison inmates and persons under house arrest. This is a retrofitted fucking ankle bracelet.

It's originally designed to never come the fuck off through tampering. Fuck.

Day 2, 6:30 pm

Mum gave me some Vichy Laboratories excessive odor control deo roll on she bought at the pharmacy. Roll on to what, exactly? Well, she can only solve problems she knows about I guess. Should I tell her? Would she mind having a sports jock son? She would probably tell me to do whatever makes me happy. Would I be happy? Tyler certainly looks pretty fucking pleased.

Day 2, 8:20 pm

I've not spent that much time on wanking before. Like once or twice a month. But now that I can't my mind kind of wanders to it all the time. I've done some, let's call it research, that you can orgasm pretty well by putting something in your ass. Not doing that.

Day 2, 9:46 pm

Got some weird hot flashes in the cup while taking a shower. Smells as bad post shower as the last time. I don't know if it is the smell or I'm tired, but I went to bed early. I'm too hot and sweaty to fall asleep though.

Day 3, 2:12 am

Can I go to the police? This is clearly some sort of assault. Tyler would be the first one under the bus. Perhaps the coach. Probably not further than that. This is backed by serious money after all, so they will just protect themselves and their IP. Does it really matter though? By the time they've forced any action I've had this thing on me for a month, I've grown a donkey dick and gone completely mad. Much good some cash compensation will do then. And do I want to punish Tyler? Fuck yeah I want, but not like that. He's a victim too.

Go directly to a hospital then? If I can't figure out what this thing is or does, how would hospital staff be any better. They'll probably start cutting around it, and there is no telling how it will respond. It was designed to never come off, at least not without a fight. Probably horribly so, to set an example.

Day 3, 2:28 am

I'll try to sleep in the garden. It's cooler outside and doesn't stink.

Day 3, 4:51 am

Dozed off a bit I think.

I've been thinking about the construction of the cup. There are a some design details that has been nagging me. For something that small it appears to be almost magical in abilities and power storage. But then it hit me, it's not crammed packed with batteries, electronics, vials of chemicals and all other stuff you might need to build something like this.

It's biological. Perhaps not in the "alive" sense of an organism, but "alive" in the sense a virus is alive. It's a biochemical robot following instructions encoded in DNA, or something like it. If you consider it a manufactured parasite it all makes sense. It has access to the resources of a full human body and can leech heat energy and pee chemicals off the body indefinitely. The "bio-polymer" attach to the skin, and perhaps even have direct access to nerve impulses. There is really thin membranes in the dick, so it can probably send stuff directly into the blood stream as well.

Fuck.

Day 3, 9:36 am

I just realized I can't remember a thing that has been said so far in school today. I need to cum!

Day 3, 11:23 am

Becky spent her presentation on "Manspreading". She probably started working on the talk already last week, knowing her, but she clearly directed a lot of the points directly at me. Looked directly my way for most of the talk. No, Becky, I'm not subconsciously asserting dominance.

I CAN'T PHYSICALLY CLOSE MY LEGS, BECKY!

I found a different pair of chinos that works better, Becky. No matter what I do, there will be a pretty sizable bulge down there though, Becky.

Day 3, 14:02

God Dammit! The inside of the cup just went super cold 10 minutes into math class. I couldn't finish a single thing. Just not jumping and screaming was hard enough. It's mostly back to normal now, I think.

Day 3, 15:14

This is what I think happened. They started to test the cups on inmates. By mistake it started to leak chemicals or active DNA from the device into the inmates. They had tested the cup technology artificially before, on pigs perhaps, and hadn't seen these effects. But they didn't put it on the pig’s dick, did they.

So suddenly their inmate control device has turned into the worlds best slow release injector for men. Perhaps even the original formula made dicks grow. They just made the minimal needed changes and paid coach to start human trials on teenagers.

Then why the fuck do I need to keep this log? They must have so much more data on what is done to us to have a useful trial. I guess this might come in handy in the inevitable court case.

Day 3, 16:40

I'M SO HORNY ALL DAY.

I went to have a cold shower. If anything things just went even worse. How is this happening! FUCKING FUCK TYLER FUCK

Day 3, 20:18

Why do I have to do this? I know what the end point is going to be. A fucking dumb, arrogant jock dick. Assuming it is inevitable, and I don't see any way out, why not have it over and done with tomorrow. Just walk to the gallows and submit. Whatever that thing is doing, physically and mentally, is minimized the sooner it's off me. Back when Becky would speak with me she told me a rumor that the nerds gone jocks all had monster cocks. She didn't say anything about the regular jocks, so it probably is specific to this procedure.

And if they, the old jocks, are not joining up hand over fist to get such dicks, the procedure itself, or the side effects, must be pretty discouraging. Otherwise they would just cram the cup down their own pants.

Let's get rid of this thing first thing in the morning.

Day 3, 11:49 pm

Fuck, it vibrates.

I've been sweating balls, trying to sleep naked without any sheets. I was just sort of tugging at it, to see if I could feel anything in the dick, when it started to vibrate. It's been going for like 15 minutes now.

Day 4, 2:11 am

I smell.

The cup stinks, but I smell. While trying to ignore the humming dick I noticed that my armpits smell like moist gym bag.

I showered like 10 hours ago. That's never been a problem before, so it's definitively changing me somehow.

I fucking need this thing off me ASAP!

Day 4, 2:20 am

fucking god dammit it went ice cold again

Day 4, 7:38 am

So I went to the locker room. Once inside I realized I didn't really have a plan. What if they were not all in on it? I would appear like a lunatic, ranting about sci-fi balls cups. Turns out I didn't need to worry. First guy who saw me, Derek or Devin or something. Big guy, short buzz, looks intimidating. Anyway, he saw me and started shouting "You are not supposed to be here." I was like "I need to get something removed".

He walked up right into my face. "You are not on the list. Tyler fucked up so someone has to be punished. Fuck off!"

I hesitated to leave. He took one step forward, physically pushing me backwards and almost had me trip over. "GET OUT!" he shouted right in my face.

Day 4, 9:16

I've been locked inside the disabled toilet and crying since leaving the locker room. How long can I go with this thing on? You physically die after about a week without sleep, but it is letting me sleep in short bursts, so perhaps it could keep up indefinitely. I can't. I won't. Why shouldn't I just tell everything to mum, have her call the school, the coach, the press. Whatever is needed for someone to get this thing off me.

I should think this over carefully. But how is that possible if you are sleep deprived, horny AF and your dick is on vibrate mode? I can't stay here though. I'll walk home and tell mum first thing she gets home.

When I open the door, the first thing I see is Tyler, leaning against the opposite wall and smiling a smirk.

- Sup bro? - FUCK YOU! You ruined my life! - It was a shit one anyway. You should get another one. - That's not happening either, is it?

Suddenly I was bawling my eyes out. Exhaustion, sleep deprivation, rejection, horniness, anger. It was all coming together.

- Heyyy bro, come here.

I fucking hated him, but somehow I didn’t just bolt. I walked right into his arms and let him hug me. I realized that his change in appearance and personality had obscured his bodily changes. Just feeling his arms around me, I could tell he had gotten a lot stronger.

- You know Steve O'Conner in the chess club, right?

It was such an odd non-sequitur. I had to struggle a bit, but yeah, I'd helped him with a science project last year.

- A little bit, why? - I talked things over. Give him this and you are back on the list, second place.

He handed me another cup, packaged in a sealed, tearable plastic bag. I know I should feel sorry for Steve, but the only thing I could think of was my vibrating dick.

[lettersofwrittencollective]

Caught

Author @lettersofwrittencollective

Pairing: Stiles x Sarah (OC)

Word Count: 1103

Prompt/kink:  Masturbation (annon prompts: #10 “are you touching yourself” and #13 “friends don’t do that” )

Summary:  Stiles and Sarah have been friends for years when Stiles comes over to her house one day, Sarah finds an unexpected boost of confidence

Warnings: Masturbation, mutual masturbation, getting caught

Masterlist || Teen Wolf Masterlist

Moving her camera to get a picture of her best friend during lacrosse practice,Sarah tried to get the best possible shot. She wasn’t sure if she was blessed or cursed today because Stiles had somehow decided that today would be a good day for him to train shirtless and it was a sight to behold.

Having grown up with Stiles she had always known that he was vastly more attractive than most people realized. Not only was he physically attractive but he was also just an overall great guy. He cared deeply and wore his heart on his sleeve if you knew how to look for it. 

Lacrosse had been good to him, as had running from the supernatural world trying to murder him, and now she was watching as his skin rippled as his muscles moved. They were much more defined than she had ever seen them. Moving about to find the perfect picture, Sarah had just found it and was about to snap it when a voice surprised her.

“More pictures of Stiles?” came Lydia’s voice, pulling Sarah from her trance and she almost dropped her camera. 

“Damn it, Lyds!” she scowled, “I had the perfect shot!”

The redhead simply chuckled before crossing her arms and shaking her head, “You know most friends take pictures together. Not pictures of just one of them.”

“We take pictures together,” Sarah points out. 

“Yes, but both of you tend to take obscene amounts of pictures of the other one as well. Mostly when they’re not paying attention,” Lydia tells her and Sarah can’t help but scoff and roll her eyes. “Look I’m just saying, the amount of pictures that you and Stiles have of each other - friends don’t do that but couples do.”

“Whatever you say Lydia,” Sarah muttered, trying not to let on at the excited thrill she always got whenever someone made a comment about her and Stiles being a couple. 

“You know, for a werewolf, you’re pretty oblivious,” Lydia chuckled before joining her on the lawn.

Sarah just shook her head and set down her camera. With Lydia here, it was unlikely that she was going to get many pictures in anyways. Working with Lydia, the two girls began to study for their upcoming biology test. 

It felt like hours went by and Sarah had to keep herself from staring at her best friend like a loon but she’d hear his grunts whenever he was hit slightly harder than expected and she must have been nearing her heat or something because each one of those shot a jolt of arousal straight to her core. 

 before Stiles was calling her name and it was time to head home. One of the reasons Sarah and Stiles were so close was because they’d grown up next door to each other. Grabbing her books, she walked with Stiles and Scott to Roscoe. 

Scott needed to work on some pack stuff with Stiles but Sarah had decided that they, as the leaders, could handle it on their own. She, personally, wanted to take a nice hot shower and then relax for the rest of the night.

The idea of being around Stiles right now and not getting to fuck him was insanely troubling. 

Stiles watched as Sarah walked into her house, telling himself that he was just making sure she made it okay. 

“Dude you’ve got it bad,” he hears Scott laugh before the two of them make their way inside. 

It’s a few hours later when he decides that he’s going to head over to Sarah’s house and spend some time with her. With any luck, he’ll work up the courage to actually tell her how he feels. 

Opening the door to her house, he makes his way up the stairs when he hears a soft moan. Quickly thinking he realizes that her parents cars aren’t in the house and that means that Sarah has the place to herself. 

He knows he should stop. He should turn around and walk out the front door and pretend he was never here but then he hears Sarah moaning his name and he has to swallow as he makes his way up the stairs. 

He made it up the stairs and found Sarah’s door just partially opened as she was sprawled out on her bed. A hand between her thighs as he watched her rub at her clit furiously, while the other hand worked on her nipples. 

“Stiles, please,” he heard her whimper as her back arched and she inserted two fingers. 

Sarah moved her fingers inside her pussy as she dug the heel of your hand into her clit. She’d already come twice, imagining Stiles but it hadn’t felt like enough. She was still desperate for a release. 

Her fingers moved in and out at a brutal pace, they weren’t long enough to reach where she needed them to but she were bound and determined to get another orgasm out. Just as she was about to come, a strangled moan caught her attention and she looked up to see Stiles falling into her room. 

A small shriek escaped her lips and she moved to cover herself when she realized what she was seeing. Stiles had quickly scrambled to stand and there was a prominent bulge in his boxers. His boxers that were more obvious than his pants and she realized his pants were low on his thighs.

Clearing her throat and licking her lips, she asked him tentatively, “Were you... are you touching yourself to… to me?”  

She watched as Stiles face flushed further and he didn’t answer her but she watched as his cock twitched in it’s confines. 

Feeling a sudden surge of confidence, Sarah leaned back on her bed, into the very position she’d been in just a few moments ago. 

“It’s okay you know,” she told him as she spread herself out further, “I don’t mind you watching me… I was… I was actually thinking about you.”

She heard Sitles groan softly as she trailed her fingertips along her thighs. She looked at him and couldn’t help but smirk when his feet moved him towards her and she watched as he almost fell on top of her. 

Stiles knelt at the foot of her bed and Sarah was confused for just a moment until he pulled her towards him. His head between her legs, Sarah could feel her breath hitch as the warmth of his breath on her sensitive skin when the front door opened loudly. 

“Sarah can you come help me with the groceries sweetheart?” her dads voice echoed through the house...

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Masterlist || Teen Wolf Masterlist

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taglist:  @stiles-o-dylan24​ @nicole-lynne​  @lucifersnipnips​ @all-will-be-well-love @n0rdicstar @mummybear @fandom-princess-forevermore​ Do not copy and paste my writing anywhere without my consent. This work is the property of lettersofwrittencollective . Associated characters belong to MTV and are being borrowed for this work, all OC’s are the property of lettersofwrittencollective. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

Posted 15 October 2019