#he is a tired oak tree

[konohablossom]

Grief

----

Wip

[dngrs-untld-hrshps-unnmbrd]

Mating Season

Halsin x Female Reader | sexual frustration | sexual tension | growly bear halsin | totally adoring halsin | horny bear mating instincts | semi-shifted sex | fluff | smut | nsfw

How Halsin’s romance might have played out if we could have had his kisses, adoration, and been totally railed senseless by Oak Daddy from the end of Act I. An ode to Halsin’s hairy chest, big arms, and the vein that I know stands out so thickly on his *muffled horny noises*

After a long and tiring day of fighting off goblins as you search for the Githyanki Crèche, you groan in relief as you sink into the cool waters of the river. Everyone else is back at camp and you’re able to enjoy the currents swirling around your naked body. 

You float in the water, thinking about how much your party has grown in the past few weeks. First Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion, then Lae’zel, Wyll, and Karlach, and finally Halsin, the wildshape druid you rescued from the goblins. He’s a focused member of the group, a valuable healer, and an unstoppable force in battle. You occasionally feel things turning against you in a fight, and then Halsin is there, supporting the group and laying down swathes of flame, lightning and ice. His bear shape never fails to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. 

Around the fire at night, he talks openly about his quest to free the Shadow-Cursed lands, his admiration for the party, and his praise for your leadership. His gentle words about you have your body prickling with awareness of his. 

That warm smile of his. His large and clever hands. His deep, gentle voice. Everything about this man makes you tingle all the way down to your toes. Whenever you think his gaze is lingering on your mouth, he murmurs goodnight to you and leaves your side. You watch him go, wishing that instead he would reach out and touch you.

An angry, snarling sound fills the air and you sit up in the water. Not far from you, an enormous bear, grunting and breathing hard, walks heavily down the riverbank. It’s huge, and its muscular body blocking out the setting sun, and from the noises it's making and its attitude, it’s a hair's-breadth from lashing out at anything that moves. 

You freeze, not daring even to breathe, hoping with everything you have that the animal will turn around and head back the other way. Instead, it launches itself into the water with an almighty splash. 

As it disappears beneath the surface, you notice a faint scar over the bear’s right eye, as if it’s been clawed. You recognize that scar. 

Wait, is this--

Golden light flashes. The water seethes. A man stands up where there was a bear just moments ago, water cascading from his body. Halsin, and he must have stripped before he changed into wildshape for now he’s completely naked, standing hip-deep in the water. 

He’s partly turned away from you but you can tell his manner is no less worked up than it was in bear form. He swipes his hands angrily through his dripping hair and breathes hard, the muscles of his shoulders and arms clenched in frustration. 

Halsin is one of the gentlest-natured men you’ve ever met, most of the time. Like nature, he too can be wild, his eyes flashing and his voice breaking like thunder over you when he’s frustrated or disappointed, such as when he was remonstrating Kagha for the Rite of Thorns. How magnificent he was that day. 

But what is he restless for now? He stands in the water, looking around at the forest, gripped with frustration, and when he turns a little more your way you can see that the root of his cock is thickened in a tell-tale manner. 

Ah. 

That kind of frustration. 

You quietly make your way to the edge of the river where a willow tree is trailing in the water, moving as carefully and as quietly as you can. This feels like a private moment you’re intruding on. Even though you don’t mean to spy, it feels like you are. The fronds of the willow provide a little cover for you, and hopefully Halsin will cool off and leave the way he came. 

The dice do not roll your way this evening as he approaches you, seeking deeper water. A moment later, your gazes lock, and his eyes widen in surprise.

‘What are you doing there?’

‘I wasn’t spying on you,’ you tell him quickly. ‘I thought you needed some peace, so I was waiting here quietly.’

His eyes run over you, your back pressed against the river bank and cowering amid the willow leaves. 

Halsin heaves a regretful sigh. ‘I frightened you, didn’t I? I am sorry. It’s all right, I am myself again.’ 

He smiles and holds out his hand. It’s a tight smile, like he’s forcing it for you, but you’re no longer worried a bear is about to disembowel you.  

You place your cool fingers into his large, hot ones and let him draw you slowly out of your hiding place. The water is deep enough here that your nakedness is covered, and so is his.

You relax as you gaze up at him, enjoying the sensation of Halsin holding your hand. Quietly enjoying the sight of his bare chest and handsome face. You hope he might walk you into the shallows so you can be naked together, but he remains in deep water, sunk in thought.

‘The river is yours. I’ll leave you to enjoy it,’ you murmur, and glance to where you left your clothes. 

Halsin’s fingers are still tightly twined through yours beneath the water. He seems to be in a world of his own as he gazes at your mouth, your throat, the droplets of water sliding through your wet hair and down your shoulders. A world that includes you. A world where you’re touching one another. 

‘Halsin?’ you ask tentatively. Hopefully. If he wants to move closer and kiss you, that’s more than okay with you. After a long and dusty day, there’s nothing you’d like more than exploring his body in the cool water. That hairy chest of his. His hard muscles. You long to run your tongue over him. Flex your fingers on his biceps. Trace the red tattoo on his cheek.

Halsin comes back into himself with a deep inhale, and he lets go of your hand. ‘Then I’ll see you back at camp.’ He moves away from you through the currents. 

As you push the water from your body and dress in your clothes, you search for Halsin in the river, but he’s disappeared around a bend. 

***

Later around the campfire, you’re hyper aware of Halsin as you talk with Gale about his home in Baldur’s Gate. Halsin is silent, the campfire flickering over his handsome face. You try not to pay him any more attention than you do the others, but your interest in him has spilled over into blazing attraction.

Your gazes lock and Halsin’s brows are drawn tightly together. 

Is he glaring at you? 

A moment later he gets to his feet and, unnoticed by the others, slips away into the darkness. Something’s eating at that man and you wish you knew what.

A short time later, you take a bottle down to the river to refill it with water before turning and heading for your bed. As you round the corner of the ruin where you’ve made your camp, you run straight into Halsin. 

His eyes widen and they flare with heat and surprise, and then he quickly looks away and moves past you.

‘Have I done something to make you angry with me?’ you call after him. 

Halsin stops dead. He stares straight ahead for a moment, and then slowly turns to you, shaking his head. ‘Far from it. I am worked up and frustrated, but not with anger.’

Maybe his frustrations are because of you, and that’s a thought you don’t know what to do with when he keeps avoiding you. 

Not knowing what else to say, you tell him, ‘We will free the Shadow-Cursed lands soon. I know we will.’

He breathes out heavily, his expression troubled. ‘I’m not thinking of the Shadow-Curse right now, even though I should be. It is more important than anything I...’ He trails off, but his gaze lingers on your mouth. ‘...want.’

Halsin steps closer, and you feel the heat blazing off his chest. His warmth and bulk are so welcoming and you crave to reach out and touch him. The backs of his fingers caress your hair. The lightest of touches. Then he takes a handful of your hair and dips his head, bringing the strands to his nose. 

‘You smell wonderful.’ He heaves a deep sigh, and whispers, ‘Can I hold you for a moment?’

That sounds lovely to you, and you nod. 

Halsin wraps an arm around your waist, scoops you against him, and buries his face in your neck. ‘By Silvanus, your scent is sweet,’ he groans. ‘I caught it when we first met, in that foul goblin nest. How it pleased me. Getting to know you these past few weeks has been even sweeter.’

Your hands are plastered against his chest and so is your body. He’s saying everything you hoped to hear. More than you hoped to hear. He has such a beautiful way with words. You turn your head so he can kiss you, but he still refrains. 

Taking a ragged breath, he releases you and steps back. ‘I’m sorry. It’s always difficult this time of year.’

You miss his warmth so much that you shiver. ‘What time of year?’

He gazes at you for a long time. ‘You may laugh, but I’ll tell you. It’s bear mating season.’

You don’t laugh, but your eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

‘I know--I’m no bear,’ Halsin says with a laugh of his own, ‘but I spend so much time in wildshape that bear instincts tug on my heart and...other parts of me. I return to my own form and unfortunately the needs do not dissipate. In fact, they worsen, because it is not a bear I want. When she comes close to me smelling like spring and honey and warm sunshine I can’t help but crave her.’ A smile glimmers on his lips.

Enough being vague. You want to hear him say it. You step closer and put a hand against his chest. ‘A general someone, or anyone in particular?’

He groans softly and captures your face in his hands. He drinks you in and swipes his thumb across your lips. The gesture is soft, and full of the promise of his kiss.

‘You are someone I admire and I think I could grow to care deeply about,’ he murmurs. ‘I care about you so much already. Any little scratch you receive I want to push Shadowheart out of the way and tend to you myself.’

Your heart soars.

‘But this isn’t how or when I wanted to begin anything with you. I have to walk away.’

Disappointment plummets through you. 

He’s still holding your face and his expression is conflicted. It seems he wants to put an end to this for now but can’t bring himself to do it. 

‘I can walk away, if that helps?’

His eyes fill with gratitude and longing. ‘Please. That would be a mercy. Know that when the time comes, I will come to you with more than lust in my heart.’

You nod, trailing your fingers down his chest as you step back, but you fail to see what’s wrong with him desiring you. ‘Whatever you need. Of course.’

‘I hope I haven’t offended you.’

You smile gently at him. ‘Your desire is so far from offensive. Please know that I don’t demand more of your attention than you’re willing to give. The Shadow Cursed lands are your priority and I’m...’ How to put this delicately? I’m here for you and you can rail me senseless in between your duties whenever you want to let off steam. That’s what you want to say, but you’re too shy to say it. ‘...Here. Your friend. Always.’

Halsin seems to catch your meaning anyway as his jaw flexes and he nods slowly. 

You promised him you would walk away, and you do, and though you give him ample time to allow him to pull you back, the next sound you hear is a clash and a growl, and a flare of golden light. When you glance over your shoulder, a bear is thundering into the woods on all fours. 

***

A few days later, you’re returning to camp feeling like you’ve been put through a meat grinder, and your companions haven’t fared much better. Gale is unusually silent and covered in blood. Shadowheart is exhausted and dragging her feet. You’re trying not to limp because she and Halsin have already cast so much healing magic. Something’s wrong with your leg, but you’ll see to it yourself when you’re alone. 

The others bid you tired farewells as they head for their tents, but someone catches your arm and holds you back.

‘Oak Father, you’re bleeding. Why didn’t you say anything?’ 

Halsin is staring at your legs, and you stare with him. Blood is pooling around your foot. Oh, that’s not good. 

‘I can tend to it myself after I’ve had some rest--’

Your words are cut off as the massive druid picks you up in his arms and carries you into a crumbling barn. Automatically, you wrap your arms around his neck and lean against the solid bulk of his chest. Halsin lays you down on a pallet and helps you remove your armour, revealing a ragged gash on the top of your thigh. Your clothes have to be cut away until your legs are bare.

Halsin looks exhausted and has dark circles under his eyes. It seems he’s been taking little rest as he roams the forests nightly as a bear. When he reaches for you to lay healing hands on your wound, you place a hand on his wrist.

‘You don’t have to do this right now. I’ll bandage myself up and someone can heal me after they’ve rested.’

Halsin raises challenging eyebrows at you. ‘You believe I don’t have the strength to heal you myself? That I’ll walk away from the most important person in my life and leave her bleeding?’

You moisten your lips, trying not to show how much his words have affected you. The most important person in his life? Suddenly you don’t feel injured at all, and he hasn’t even healed you yet.

‘I have more than enough magic left for this. Now, lay back and let me do my work, and then you can get back to yours.’

You settle back on the pallet and gaze at the cobwebby rafters. Halsin’s hands hover over your thigh, and a warm, delicious feeling spreads through your leg, and then up between your thighs. Your head falls back in relief and pleasure. 

Even Halsin makes a surprised noise. ‘That felt...’ He rubs your now-healed high, massaging the last of the tension and pain from your muscles. ‘That felt different. How’s your thigh now?’ 

You can’t help but moan and arch your back a little at his touch. ‘Good.’ Your voice comes out in a breathy whisper.

‘Just good?’ He strokes his palm over where there was a cut just moments ago. 

‘Halsin, please, you make me feel heavenly,’ you whimper. The words pass your lips without thinking. You reach up to take hold of his shoulders so you can pull him down to kiss you, but pull back before you can touch him. 

This isn’t what he wants. Your hands clench on the pallet, feeling your core ache with need. As soon as he leaves, you can get yourself off thinking about him. 

‘Would you like me to go?’ he asks softly. 

‘I never want you to go.’

His hand rests lightly on your leg. 

You open your eyes and gaze up at him, and he’s sitting so close to you. ‘But if you stay, you’re going to see me touching myself.’ Then you smile at him, remembering your last conversation. ‘I would love for you to see that. As a friend.’

You want him to see you. You want him to participate.

He smiles and leans down to you, and runs the blade of his nose up your cheek. ‘I can’t think of anything more wonderful after a long, hard day, my dear friend.’

Halsin lays down beside you and props his head against his fist. With gentle fingers, he helps you to drag your underwear down your legs and cast them aside. As your teeth sink into your lower lip, you gently touch yourself, your eyes on his handsome face. Halsin strokes your thighs, your stomach, finds the fastenings on your clothes and loosens them. As he pulls back your bodice, revealing your breasts, he lowers his head to take one of your nipples in his mouth. 

You cry out and flex up into him. Heat is gathering within you. You suck on your lower lip and release it. ‘Please--your fingers--I need--’ you manage between pants. You can barely get the words out, but he understands. Halsin drags two fingers through your sex, making them slippery, and then sinks them inside you. 

Another loud cry from you. Gods, he feels perfect.

Halsin groans and kisses your throat, murmuring, ‘You’re so tight around me. Have you been as frustrated as I am?’ He pumps his thick fingers in and out of you, slowly at first, and then faster.

Yes you have, the godsdamned stubborn bear of man. He should have pulled you into his arms that day in the river and let you suck all the frustration from his body out through his cock. 

‘So frustrated,’ you whimper. ‘Please, that feels so good. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.’ 

He brushes his lips over yours. ‘I won’t stop. You’re always so beautiful, but like this, all of nature pales in comparison.’

You reach down and lay your hand over his wrist, adoring the tension and flex of his muscles in his arm as he moves inside you. Your fingers keep moving on your clit as you moan and cry out his name, and when you come you dig your nails into his flesh, and press your feet into the ground so he can fuck you even harder with his fingers.

When you fall back exhausted, Halsin sits up and spreads your thighs open, trailing his fingers over your sex and drinking in the sight of you as you catch your breath. ‘Your body is wondrous.’ He leans over and kisses you, his tongue caressing yours. ‘Will you rest well tonight?’ 

You nod, feeling drunk from his kiss and your climax. 

He smiles. ‘Then I’ll rest well too, knowing that you’re sleeping soundly. Thank you for sharing this beautiful moment with me.’

As he sits up, you notice that he’s hard inside his tight pants. Excessively hard. Huge in fact. He shouldn’t be leaving, he should be pulling off his clothes and pounding the living daylights out of you until he also gets the release he needs. 

But he’s gone before you can call him back to you. That’s not why he just blew your mind, was it? He healed you, and now he wants you to get some rest. Druid’s orders, apparently. 

You smile and roll over, and fall into a doze. 

***

The next morning, before anyone has arisen, Halsin finds you coming back from the river. You smile at him, thinking he looks so handsome in the morning light, and you expect him to keep moving past you. Instead, he stops and smiles at you, as if basking in the sight of you is all he wants right now. 

‘May I have a kiss?’ you ask hopefully. Perhaps he’s decided not to want anything for himself right now, but he still wants to make you happy. 

Without needing to be asked twice, Halsin grasps you around the waist with his large hands and walks you back against the wall, kissing you enthusiastically. ‘I can still smell you on my fingers this morning. I could smell you all night. You are a delight.’

Your lips part for his so he can kiss you even deeper. With your arms around his neck, you revel in the sensation of his mouth on yours. 

‘I find you irresistible.’ Another kiss. ‘But we have much to do today.’ Another kiss. 

‘We do,’ you say, smiling as he kisses you again. 

He gazes down at you for a moment, a slight frown between his brows. ‘If you need more, know that I won’t be offended if you take another lover. Nature intends for us to roam and be free.’

You have considered that, if not someone at camp, then a handsome stranger at a tavern, but you’d only be thinking about Halsin the whole time. ‘And if I don’t want to?’

‘You must do as pleases you,’ he replies, and kisses you again.

You guess that he didn’t tell you this for idle reasons, but to let you know about his own preferences. You reach up and stroke your fingers through his russet hair. ‘I have always wanted my own person, but to roam with them. Share everything with them. I would miss you too much if I was to roam without you.’

He smiles down at you. ‘Us, with others? I would like that, in time. You’re more than enough for me, but I wouldn’t wish for you to be denied anything. Seeing you with another lover, and participating as well...it sounds wonderful.’ Then he steps away from you. ‘But we are getting ahead of ourselves. My thoughts turn to other things for now. But they will turn back to you.’

With a final warm squeeze of your hand, he leaves you, but your heart is lighter than it’s been in a long time. 

***

Two nights later, you’re awoken by snarling and roaring in the distance, and you sit bolt upright. It sounds like two large animals are fighting in the woods. 

Only Astarion is awake. ‘What a ridiculous racket,’ he mutters with a scowl, before licking his thumb and turning the page of the book he’s reading. 

You look over at Halsin’s pallet, knowing it’s going to be empty before you lay eyes on it, but your stomach drops just the same when you see that it is. You scramble to your feet and set off at a run into the darkness. 

You follow the roaring and snarling and it doesn’t take long to find two bears fighting with teeth bared and swipes of their claws. You recognise Halsin from the scars over his eye.

What can you do to help him? A spell? A cantrip?  

Before you can decide, Halsin swipes the other bear so hard across the snout that it reels back, and then turns and runs away into the woods. 

Halsin paces up and down for a moment, and then golden light ripples, nearly blinding you, and when you open your eyes again, he’s striding toward you. His chest is heaving and blood is pouring from scratches and bites across his shoulders and throat. Nothing life threatening, but he’d be in pain if he wasn’t so angry.

‘That bear was looking for a mate, and I wasn’t having it prowling around her when I haven’t even tasted her myself.’

Halsin when he’s feeling himself wouldn’t say something so uncharacteristically possessive. It must be the mating season instincts overriding his natural feelings. ‘That bear wouldn’t have been interested in me.’ Also, you could have tasted me by now if you’d wanted to.

He doesn’t seem to have heard you as he glares into the darkness. Suddenly, he rounds on you. ‘It’s dangerous out here. You shouldn’t have come. Go back to bed.’

You fold your arms and stay where you are. The big alpha bear can throw his weight around, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to jump to obey his commands. ‘Shouldn’t have come? Would you have ignored me if I was being attacked in the woods?’

Halsin takes a deep breath and some of the anger melts from his face. He pushes his hands through his hair and shakes his head. ‘Of course not, I would never abandon you like that. Thank you for coming out here to help me. I promise I’m not ungrateful. I’m all out of sorts because...’ He gestures vaguely at himself and the woods around you both. 

You smile at him. ‘I know. It’s mating season.’

You help him pick dirt and gravel out of his cuts before he casts healing magic on himself, but you’re not ready to leave him and go to bed. The river is close by and you take his hand and lead him to the water. 

‘Let’s wash the blood and dirt off you.’

At the riverbank, hesitantly you reach for his clothes. He says nothing but he’s watching you with such intensity, and so you find the fastenings and help him out of them. With gentle fingers, he does the same for you. The night air is warm and still. Crickets are chirping and the river makes gentle rushing noises. The two of you are standing so close that you’re breathing each other’s breaths. His massive chest lifts and falls. Your nipples tighten with awareness of him. You don’t want to stare but you can’t help but look at this beautiful man as you undress him. 

Halsin helps you out of your underwear, and his cock bumps against your thigh. He’s so hard that he’s standing to attention, his foreskin drawn back, a drop of pre-cum at the tip. Your mouth waters, and you want to run your tongue along the thick vein that stands out on his shaft.

‘Sorry. Ignore me,’ he mutters. 

You don’t want to ignore the most beautiful cock you’ve ever seen, but you keep your hands to yourself and look up at him. ‘I want to feel flattered. Should I feel flattered?’

‘You know I think you’re wonderful,’ he breathes, caressing your face. 

Oh, by all the gods, then fuck me, please. 

‘Would you want me even if it wasn’t mating season?’

‘Of course I would, though I’d probably be better at keeping that to myself. You wouldn’t awaken to hear me fighting other bears in the woods, or see me staring at you with longing across the campfire. I’d still feel the same way, but I wouldn’t be so obvious about it. Probably.’

‘Do you mind that mating season makes you feel and act this way?’

He smiles and shakes his head. ‘It is who I am, and another connection I have to nature.’

‘Halsin. For a wildshape druid who believes in going with what’s natural, you’re very stubborn about resisting what your body is telling you it wants.’

A smile curves his lips. ‘You may be right. I’ve told myself that focusing on the Shadow Curse is the right and only thing to do, but...’

Halsin ducks his head and slants his mouth over yours. The kiss is so fierce and sudden, and pleasure takes a swan dive through your body. He wraps his arms around you and gathers you to him.

‘This isn’t how I imagined things between us,’ he murmurs. ‘I intended to come to you after the curse is lifted and declare my feelings for you, and tell you that my unburdened heart is yours.’ 

‘Please still do that,’ you breathe, planting soft kisses again and again on his mouth. ‘I would love that. But don’t walk away from me now.’ 

‘You want me, even though my mind is often on things other than you?’

What a romantic Halsin is, wanting to give you his whole heart at once, or nothing at all. ‘Of course I do,’ you tell him, your fingers stroking his bare back. You don’t need that declaration yet. You just need him. 

Halsin lifts you in his arms and carries you into the water, gazing into your eyes. The water flows around your bodies as he kisses you and places you on your feet.

He nods at something over your shoulder. ‘I have to taste you. Turn around and put your hands on that rock.’

You do as he asks, standing thighs-deep in the water and bent over with your hands braced against the river bank. Halsin kneels down in the water and cups your ass. 

‘So beautiful...’ You feel his tongue run up your sex, and you moan and close your eyes. He’s slow and languorous about it. Not trying to make you come, just tasting you thoroughly and enjoying the sensation of you against his tongue. 

Halsin stands up and when you glance over your shoulder you see him gazing at your sex as he strokes you with his fingers and fists his cock slowly up and down. 

‘Can I have you, sweet one?’ he asks huskily. 

‘Please, gods, yes .’ You’ll go crazy if he holds back a moment longer.

You feel him step closer, and the blunt head of his cock slides against your slippery entrance. He feels alarmingly thick and you take a deep breath and try to relax. 

With a muttered oath, he sinks into you. As much of him as he can, anyway. Gods, he’s a lot . You walk your feet apart, trying to accommodate more of him. 

‘Too much?’ he asks, hesitating. 

You shake your head desperately. ‘Not too much. More, please.’

He fucks you slowly, working himself deeper by delicious increments, while your cries fill the night air along with his ragged breathing. His blunt nails scratch your flesh. He roughly squeezes handfuls of your ass. 

You reach down between your legs and touch yourself, and you grow wetter and wetter, allowing him to fuck you in long, smooth strokes. Every single one makes your insides light up. Your orgasm is barrelling down on you surprisingly fast. 

‘Please, fuck me hard, I’m going to come,’ you beg him. 

Halsin groans and takes your hips in a secure grip and slams into you, over and over, hard, brutal and heavenly thrusts. You push against the rock to hold you steady as a wild, untamable sensation crashes over you, and you cry out loud enough for the whole forest to hear you. 

Your head is hanging low and you’re panting as you feel Halsin draw out of you.

‘But you haven’t come,’ you protest, straightening up and turning around. It’s what you want, to see and feel this beautiful man let go. 

He takes your hand and helps you out of the river. ‘I’m not done with you yet.’

He lays back on the grass and pulls you astride him so your thighs are straddling him. ‘I want to see you like this as well.’

Hungry for more, you grasp his cock and sink down his length. Halsin groans and his head tips back, and he squeezes both your breasts in his large hands. His throat is so beautiful, and so is his chest. You draw patterns in his chest hair as you move up and down his length. 

Weeks of frustration and wanting him haven’t been fulfilled by one climax, and soon you feel another one gathering within you. He watches you with a smile as you desperately moan and pant his name. As your cries reach a crescendo, Halsin plants his feet securely against the ground and pushes sharply up into you, over and over, making you shatter around him even harder than before.

You collapse forward on his chest, weakened and helpless, his cock still lodged deep inside you. 

‘That was wonderful,’ you moan, your cheek plastered against his chest. ‘Give me a moment and we can change positions. I’m not stopping until you come.’

He rubs circles on your back. ‘I think I might shift into wildshape if we keep going. I can feel the need getting stronger and stronger.’ 

‘I don’t mind. Your bear form is pretty sexy.’

He laughs softly, a surprised sound. ‘Really? I’m pleased you think so.’

Even sexier is the way he looks while he’s changing, his body even bulkier and hair sprouting everywhere. ‘Can you change part ways?’

His hand stops moving on your back as he considers this. ‘I can. I think it might be easier for me to maintain that, rather than one or the other.’

Halsin rolls you both over until you’re on your back in the grass and pinned beneath him. With a heavy hand on your inner thigh, he pushes your knees up to your chest and thrusts deeper, and then again. 

‘By Silvanus, you feel wonderful,’ he pants.

A ripple goes through his body. His eyes turn fiercely golden. The hair thickens across his chest and spreads over his shoulders and down his arms. His top lip pulls back from his teeth, revealing thick incisors. His cock swells to what feels like twice its size inside you. You gaze at him in wonder. He looks incredible like this. 

As he continues to pump his cock into you, you press your hands against his muscular, hairy stomach, struggling to accommodate all of him. 

‘I’m hurting you,’ he realises, his voice more growl than words. ‘I can change back.’

‘No, don’t stop. Just slow down for a moment. It’s a good problem to have.’ You reach down to the place where you’re joined and wrap your fingers around his slippery thickness. Gods, that’s wonderful. So is his bulk looming over you and the rich, animal scent of his body. He thrusts carefully, watching you closely, his golden gaze roaming over you. 

‘So beautiful, sweet one,’ he rumbles. ‘Are you sure you like me like this?’

‘Yes, oh gods, yes.’

With every thrust, it’s getting easier for him to slide his whole length deep inside you, and pleasure stabs through you every time he bottoms out. 

You reach up and cup his furred cheek. ‘I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re even sexier like this. How does it feel for you?’

He groans and seems to take courage from your words. ‘Like I’m finally free. No longer fighting what I crave.’ The speed of his thrusts pick up, and he devours you hungrily. ‘You’re so good to me.’  

His breathing becomes a throaty snarl. His claws dig lovingly into your thigh. His hips move in a relentless rhythm, long thrusts, and then shorter, urgent ones, and you can tell he’s nearing his peak. You hold onto his shoulders for dear life as his body stiffens and his climax breaks through him, and he throws his head back.

With a groan, he sinks down onto his elbow and buries his face in your throat. As you hold him tight, you feel him shift back to his human form, his skin smooth and damp with perspiration. 

Halsin lifts his head and kisses you. ‘I’ve never done anything like that before. Was it all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

You hasten to assure him that he didn’t and it was everything you wanted.

He smiles. ‘How wonderful you are.’

You stroke his sweaty hair back. Neither have I. You’re so beautiful always, and especially seeing you like that, through wildshape eyes.’

He rolls onto his side in the grass and wraps both his arms around you, keeping you tight against his chest. ‘I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. The world feels so much better now I have you in my arms.’

‘How long does mating season last?’ you ask. You hope it’s a long time, and he needs you often. 

He laughs, a deep sound reverberating through his chest. ‘It’s every moment I lay eyes on you, sweet one.’

‘I hope that I haven’t distracted you from your duties.’

He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead. ‘I’m more motivated than ever.’

You lay like that together in the grass until Halsin feels your cooling body shiver. 

He helps you to your feet and draws you into his arms for one last, tender kiss. Cradling your face in his hands, he murmurs, ‘You are the person I admire most in the world. I feel honoured by every moment I spend by your side.’ He kisses you again. ‘Know that I can’t wait until I’m able to tell you that my whole heart is yours.’

Thank you so much for reading. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Or tell me how the Halsin brainrot is affecting you while playing BG3. I have just about no braincells left by now. Only Daddy Bear remains. 

[elysianightsss]

Mouth watering sundress

Summary: John gives you a ride home from work, and his phone number…

It was the car ride from hell.

John drove with one hand on the steering wheel and one on the clutch, his truck smelled just like him. Oak wood, cigars and spiced oranges. It had a musky undertone that made you shift in your seat, thighs clenching uncomfortably. The Chevy he drove somehow didn’t surprise you and the country music quietly playing from the radio didn’t surprise you either. 

His plaid button up shirt and loose blue jeans had you staring. You could see where the muscles were too big for his shirt when he changed gears it looked like it was going to rip. You wondered what it would feel like to have those muscular arms wrapped around your body.

You played with the hem of your floral sundress, tracing the little flowers while you scolded yourself for thinking such things about your gorgeous neighbour. 

“How was work?” John asked with gentle curiosity, his big hand moving the clutch to change gear.

“It was okay.” You shrugged glancing out of the window only to look back at him and see a frown on his face.

“Just okay?” His eyebrows rose as he watched little old Doris pull out in front of him in her mini with no indication whatsoever.

“Yeah. I mean my job consists of listening to people complain on the phone and trying to fix their issues. It was pretty boring, only gets good when you get the screamers.” You laugh, watching the forest trees pass by as he drives.

“Screamers?” He asks, a small laugh coming out himself, though you picked up the concern dithering there. Tricks of the trade.

“People who start shouting or screaming down the phone as soon as you answer. Mostly cause they haven’t got they wanted from the company yet.” You explain, saying it so casually.

“That doesn’t sound too fun.”

“Maybe not fun but definitely an interesting change. Gives me something to think about on the weekends too. Maybe if I should have responded differently. How can I better my answers for next time it happens.” Your brows furrow slightly realising how pathetic you just sounded.

“No friends to make your weekends interesting?”he cleared his throat hoping he wasn’t too obvious here, “or boyfriend.” He glanced quickly at you out of the corner of his eyes to catch you cracking a small smile making one grow on his face too. So infectious.

“Some friends but they work on the weekends. And I don’t have a boyfriend.” That had John shifting into the wrong gear the car making a loud scraping noise, he scrambled to quickly rectify the situation before the car stalled.

“Fiance? Husband?” He grimaced saying it, if felt like a dirty word on his tongue, leaving a bitter after taste that quickly disappeared when he spotted no ring on your finger.

“Nope. Completely and pathetically single.” You sighed, not dramatic, but simply a deep breath that showed how tired you were from everything. And boy you were tired. Exhausted from the emotional stress of life.

“Oh?” His interest clear, just as much as his curiosity was.

“Every time I like a guy or even think about entering into a relationship, it always fucks up in a monumental way and I always end up hurt. Every single time.” You let out another tired sigh. It was hard to be single when both your friends had partners, always the third wheel. It made you really hate life at the moment. Though you suppose you’d been in worse positions than in a Chevy with your large, handsome neighbour.

You pulled up to a traffic light, John pulling up the hand break before turning to look at you with a deep seriousness gleaming not only in his eyes but on his face, his body language, his entire demeanour had become the embodiment of seriousness.

“I would never hurt you. Ever.” He was so earnest. It made your heart ache, yearn for the kind of man you’d always wanted but never had. Always boys, never men.

The light turned green just as you let out a shaky breath, fingers lacing together in your lap picking at your nails in nervousness. Heat rising on your cheeks when his hand reached over to lay itself on top of yours for a few moments before pulling your hands apart, “Don’t do that. You’ll ruin those pretty hands.” He lets go just as he looks deep into your eyes, “and we can’t have that can we.”

You didn’t know what to say, the glint in his eyes, the way he tipped his head to the side a bit. Fuck, he looked wonderful. You steeled yourself and consumed every bit of self confidence you had, “You think my hands are pretty?” You stared at him, blinking a few times, definitely not fluttering your lashes. Your eyes flickered to where his jaw seemed to clench tightly for a few moments.

The intensity was building as he leaned in closer to you, it had a burning feeling building in your stomach, a fluttering you’d never experienced before the longer he stared into your eyes

Before he could even open his mouth in reply the beeping of horns from the cars behind started going off. You cleared your throat turning to face the front of the car, “The lights green John.”

“Mhm.” It’s short. Sweet. And so fucking sexy. His voice gravely and low, rumbling in his chest as he hums. Prolonging his gaze upon you just a few more moments before he turns back to the steering wheel and begins driving off.

You quietly let out a breath you hadn’t realised had built up, it did nothing however to ease the fluttering in your stomach. Only seemed to make the nausea worsen. You made a point of not picking at your nails, instead you lay your hands over your thighs, the feeling of your skin and the material of your sundress distracting you enough to not see smirk that graced John’s lips.

John lips, those luscious kissable lips that seemed almost hidden away by the full beard that had grown around his mouth. Like some forbidden fruit hidden just enough in the garden of Eden. He seemed like some forbidden fruit.

He stopped the car just outside your house, getting out to open the car door for you to get out. “Thank you for the ride home.”

“Anytime sweetheart.” He gazed down at you, his height even more daunting now that he was standing. His whole being was just large. That was the best way to describe him.

-

Honestly, you thought about him for the rest of the evening and all night. You thought about his muscles, the way they stretched the fabric of his shirt over the skin. The way his hands seemed to dwarf everything, you wondered how big they would look holding yours. You thought about the way he smirked after calling your hands pretty. You thought about the way his blue eyes glistened when he gave you his phone number.

It was all you thought about. All that was on your mind with no way to get rid of it, no sign that the brazen thoughts would ever leave you. It was like your own personal brand of torture.

Even when you finally managed to drift off, you dreamed of him. Dreamed that he would touch you the way you wanted him to. That he would kiss you desperately, achingly. You were hungry to be touched by him, so hungry that even the very thought of tasting him made you feel nauseous. It had been so long since anything had touched you, that your body had grown accustom to the emptiness that gnawed at you day in, day out.

But maybe it was just what you needed, to push past the sickness. To hold on tight to the warmth that wanted to cover you, that wanted to wrap itself around you. But you couldn’t help but push it away, say no in cruel anticipation of the inevitable. Love is a tender kiss for most people. For you she saves her sharpest axe.

Waking up was humbling, how groggy and unhinged you felt after a night of thinking and dreaming of John. Rolling over in bed you unplugged your phone and began to scroll through your notifications. Your heart jumping in your chest at the sight of a new text; from John.

John: Hey pretty girl. 7:36am. read.

Holy shit, he’d text you this morning. Was it when he first woke up? He was he thinking about you all night too? This man is something else.

John: No reply already? I thought I would’ve had to say something stupid first before you ignored me sweetheart. ;) 9:41am. read.

You: Sorry, got distracted. How’d you sleep? 9:42am. read.

John: Like a log. You? 9:42am. read.

You: Could use a couple more hours honestly. 9:43am. read.

John: What do you have planned today sweetheart? 9:45am. read.

What did you have planned today? Rolling around in bed thinking about a well built beast with thick mutton chops. So enthralled with the simple idea of John.

Fuck you’d never met a man so….well manly. His big muscles and his thick musky scent that screamed masculine in the most primal way possible. In every circumstance, in every part of the world and every century, he would be the ideal mate. To protect and provide-

The ringing makes you jump, the phone vibrating in your hand as you see the unfamiliar number only just added to your phone. You breathe in sharply for a moment, blowing out shakily, hands beginning to sweat. And it’s not even him in person, it’s just a phone call.

“It’s just a phone call. You can press the end button at any time.” You tell yourself, reassuring yourself before sliding your thumb along the screen, the answer swipe turning green. You put the cold screen to your ear. “John?”

“I got impatient.” His voice sounded so low and deep, must be that its first thing in the morning.

“Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts.” You mumble picking at the sheets surrounding you.

“Anything you wanna share? Or is it too soon to be prying into that pretty head of yours.”

“God you’re forward.” You breathe out a little laugh, a hot feeling fluttering in your stomach.

He laughed, heartily. “I’m just wired that way love.”

“I’m not sure if I like it.”

“Oh?” John voice was light and soft, if you were really leaning into it you’d notice the tinge of disappointment in the sound.

“It’s catching me off guard. I like to keep my cards close to my chest.” You swirled your finger along the pattern of the crocheted pillow in front of you.

“I’d happily let you play me.”

“John.” You breathe out another laugh, your heart skipping a beat.

“Like that,” he huffed low and wild, “like when you say my name. Sounds so nice coming from you.”

“It does?”

“Well with a pretty voice like that, I’m sure you can make anything sound nice.” He chuckled. And fuck you had to mute with how you giggled, kicking your feet with giddiness.

“So you want to go for lunch?” The rumbly bearish throaty sexy voice melted your knees until they felt like jelly.

“Again with the forwardness.” Your flushed cheeks hurt, couldn’t wipe the grin off your face, and he could hear it.

“I’m a man who knows what he wants and goes for it.” John answered without so much as a thought, the answer coming so naturally.

“I’ll consider it.” You pressed the red button and jumped in the shower, cold and brisk. It was the only way to bring your burning body temperature down.

John was unlike anybody you’d ever met, definitely better than an of your exs and you hadn’t even gotten to the deep stuff yet.

You wrapped a towel around your body and began to dry your hair with your other towel when you noticed your phone light up, a nervous grin tugging at your lips as you picked up the device and read the text.

John: Considered it yet? 10:02. read.

You shook your head, teeth biting into your smile. He was so unashamed and so bold. It made you question yourself, made you want more than you had once had. Made you want him.

You: I’d love to have lunch with you. 10:04am. read.

John: I’ll pick you up in an hour, wear that mouth watering sundress again ;) 10:04am. delivered.

Mouth watering sundress? Fuck, no one had ever said that to you before. Hell no one had ever offered so many compliments in one conversation before. He was truly a man of different breed. You giggled again falling into your bed and kicking your feet in the air, he was such a flirt. You loved it.

[karinasbaby]

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍 — BED 박성훈

"strawberry lingerie, waiting for you strawberries, lingerie."

PAIRING: fiance!sunghoon x fem!reader (17+)

WARNING: pool sex, breath play, unprotected sex, creampie, marking, make out sessions, hickeys, cursing, petnames, lots of praising cuz he's in love, semi public sex?, slight shower sex, jealous & possessive hoon, jake makes a mini appearance, so does winter (aespa), and so does hee, my miserable attempt at angst & fluff, food play, oral (f), breeding, mentions of pregnancy and slight lactation kink, just nasty stuff.

WORD COUNT: 7.8k (what.)

SYNOPSIS: your fiance, sunghoon insisted on a "mini honeymoon" before your wedding preparations took over your time, so how would your day go now that you're on an island thousands of miles away from home with sunghoon?

A. NOTE: hey y'all.. surprise ! idk what this is either all that i know is that i've had this idea for months, anyways this is for all my hoon stans and babygirls i love you. (i apologise from the bottom of my heart for making jake a a fucking CREEP but someone had to be sacrifcied :( i love u jake <3)

"got a kiss with your name on it,"

you and sunghoon have been in a relationship for the past four years, being with sunghoon truly was a blessing as he was an incredibly understanding, attentive, caring and a very loving boyfriend.

to put it short he is a real sweetheart,

your personality mixed and clashed with his perfectly, time spent with sunghoon flew by without either of you noticing, it felt like you've known each other for decades though its only been a handful of years,

so when sunghoon finally proposed to you, practically everyone saw it coming from miles away, to the point where sunghoon had some 'finally!'s thrown into his congratulations from his friends and family after you broke down the elating news,

both of you were over the moon after his proposal as you two were officially together and were on the gates of being a newly wed couple where you both vow for life to each other,

and before both of you got distracted by the big day preparations, sunghoon so generously insisted on a 'mini honeymoon' before the stress and tiring days of the preparations swooped both of you away from each other for weeks, maybe even months.

which is how you found yourself in this predicament, pushing inside your suitcase after sunghoon's on the dark oak floors of the forest facing house that sunghoon rented for the rest of the week, taking in the dark and wooden interior along with the floor to ceiling windows that exposed the kitchen accompanied by the living room to the forest, you could also see a mini pool placed right outside the balcony,

before you could bring back your attention to your suitcase and explore the rooms, you felt a familiar pair of hands snaking around your waist, sunghoon's arms wrapped around you delicately, keeping you in a strong hold as he whispered into your ear, "like the view baby?"

"i love it," you whispered back, your eyes entranced by the view of the sunrise peeking behind the dark green leaves of the massive pine trees decorating the vast land of the forest in large masses, the sky being painted in multitude shades of pink and orange, each colour reflected off your face beautifully as sunghoon's loving eyes gazed at your pleased expression,

smiling happily at your words and satisfaction, he loved making you happy.

"go into the pool first, i'll join you in a minute, angel." he spoke against your ear before placing a gentle kiss onto your temple, his warm embrace untangling from around you, nodding at his words before walking towards the glass door, as you slid it open to allow the warm breeze to brush against your skin, you stripped completely before advancing into the lukewarm water, soft crystal ripples surrounding your frame while you edged towards the corner of the pool,

peering at the sunrise from the parted branches as the light mirrored against the surface of the water around you, your heart drummed against your chest as this was the first of many upcoming vacations that you were to venture out on alone with sunghoon, excitement bubbling in you at the possibility of all events that could unfold with your lover,

before your thoughts and imagination trailed further, you heard his footsteps approaching you, walking next to the pool as you took in his larger frame gazing at you, "what a sight to walk into," he breathed out while you chuckled at his words, signaling him to join you with a motion of your fingers making him waste no time in stripping himself bare, his hoodie and sweatpants along with underwear discarded carelessly around the balcony as he allowed your eyes to take him in all his glory,

the sight of his sculpted body bare for your eyes never failed to make you blush, sunghoon dipped into the water his body approaching yours in a blur, arms wrapping around your body as he closed off all possible space between the two of you, he breathed out a sigh of relief at the calming feeling of your body so close to his,

"i can't wait to spend the whole week with you, baby" he spoke out amidst him placing his head on your shoulder gently, your hands on instinct trailed around his shoulders, softly massaging his skin beneath your fingers while his lips brushed against your neck with each word,

his body heat making yours warmer in the cool water as you smiled at his words, "yeah? what are your plans?" replying back to him while you busied yourself with pulling at the shorter hairs along his nape faintly, "i'm keeping them as surprises" he responded while smiling, you paused your touches making him blink up at your faux pouting expression, "at least tell me one?" you asked, blinking through your eyelashes at him in hopes of convincing him, sunghoon rolled his eyes playfully before his gaze darkened,

his hold on your waist tightening whilst he pushed ever inch of his body against yours, "hold your breath for me, angel," he spoke lowly, inching his face closer to yours making you close your eyes as his lips brushed against yours, you breathed in a deep breath, following his words, "let's see how long you can last" was the last thing he spoke out before he dragged both of your bodies beneath the slightly cooled water,

goosebumps arose on your skin at the feeling of the colder water engulfing your body entirely contrasting the feeling of sunghoon's warmer body that he pressed against you, the moment both of you had sunk down, sunghoon dipped his head towards your lips, you held yourself from gasping out as his soft pillowy lips pressed firmly against yours,

sunghoon going far enough to teasingly lick your bottom lip, the lack of oxygen had your head spinning while he still held you beneath the water, clearly testing your limits as one of hands untied from your waist and began to delicately fondle your breast, his fingers brushing against your hardened nipple as he continued to taunt your body while you began to squirm in his hold,

seconds marched by as you felt a burning sensation spread over your chest while sunghoon's hand dipped lower, brushing pleasantly at your soaked folds, the feeling of his hands caressing and fondling your skin combined with the absence of air made your head spin, your dizziness increasing at the feeling of sunghoon's lips part from yours only to lower and bite at your neck whilst his finger was poking teasingly at your entrance,

with the burning sensation on your chest increasing, you pinched his arm as you felt your chest constricting, sunghoon hastily loosened his hold before he allowed both of your bodies to float towards the surface, gasping in desperation as you heaved in air, sunghoon himself breathing heavily against you as he grounded himself from his own lightheadedness, "didn't last that long, huh?" he mockingly asked as if he wasn't breathing in heaves of air,

"didn't expect your 'plans' to include murdering me" you replied back, closing your eyes in attempts to regulate your breathing while sunghoon chuckled against your neck, before sucking in a breath through gritted teeth, "i have other plans now, baby," he spoke lowly,

not giving you the chance to speak, sunghoon pushed his body against yours completely for a second time, this time allowing his hardened length that was standing proudly against his lower stomach to press against your abdomen, gasping quietly at his movements, sunghoon's hands loosened from around you, "come help me with my plan now, angel," sunghoon said as he leaned against the wall of the pool, resting his elbows in the edge behind him as water droplets cascaded down from his dark wet locks down to his broad chest,

the sight of his hooded gaze peeking at you through his strands almost made your knees buckle, you followed after him, sunghoon's love filled eyes following your every move as you stood in front of him, his frame towering over yours once you wrapped your hands around his neck to kiss him properly this time,

connecting your lips to his tenderly made sunghoon's hands drop from the edge to grip on your hips, nails digging into your skin when you began to suck on his bottom lip, altering from gently biting his lip to swallowing all of his low moans, whilst you busied yourself with his mouth, sunghoon's hand went lower to hold onto the back of your thigh,

lifting your leg to wrap around his hip, the change in position allowed his rock hard length to land directly against your dripping folds, both of you moaning at the feeling of his tip pressing against your entrance, "let me hear you, darling," he spoke against your kisses, dizzy by your continued suckling on his swollen lips, you parted from his mouth to allow all of your pretty sounds that he adored to fall from your lips the moment he pushed in his tip further against your welcoming soaked walls,

lustrous half lidded eyes studied all of the expressions painting across your face at the feeling of his length invading your walls, sunghoon's jaw dropped as he mimicked your expressions, breathing heavily at your tightness engulfing him when he bottomed out completely,

his other hand wrapped around your waist to keep you in place while his other tightened around the plush skin of your thigh, frailly beginning to rock his hips against yours while moving yours to match with his soft thrusts, his lips lazily locked around your shoulders, marking the skin sweetly whilst all your groans and moans landed perfectly on his ears, his length rubbing against all of the spots that had you seeing stars before thrusting out with only the tip remaining, he repeated this routine as both of you felt your lower stomachs tightening,

impending highs creeping up on you, while sunghoon quickened his pace, his mouth now occupied with sucking dark marks along your neck, beautiful blueish red marks decorating the expanse of your chest up to your neck, occasionally biting to make you gasp adorably against his ears, he swiftly moved your other thigh to wrap around his waist, your legs easily floating and wrapping around his waist beneath the rippling water, his tip pressing against your cervix deliciously in this position making you cry out his name,

"i'm right here, angel," he spoke against your neck, hips pressing against yours harshly, sunghoon was fully hugging you now while he pounded into you, ripples gradually turning into small waves travelling across the surface of the pool as both of you neared your highs, your cries fell into his ear while his continuous praises fell against yours, your body jerked in his hold, thighs trembling around his waist as you felt your orgasm right around the corner,

"h-hoon, i'm so c-close," you mewled out as his thrusts only began to turn rougher, almost pushing him over the edge with your weak voice crying out his nickname oh so sweetly, his own body shook as he felt his climax impossibly closer, his nails digging onto every inch of skin they touched whilst you desperately held onto him,

"i've got you, angel, i'm right here, baby," he croaked out needily into your ear, his weak voice combined with his nails clawing in despair whilst he held onto you as his thrusts became sloppy and his hips trembled against yours were enough to push you over the edge, the familiar tightening of your walls when you gushed around him dragged out his climax from him in a breathtaking manner,

sunghoon instantly locked his lips onto your swollen red ones as he dipped you below the water yet again, thick ropes of white, warm cum pushed out right against your cervix as your walls clung almost painfully around his length, the sudden loss of air made both of your climaxes take entirely over your body,

clutching onto his shoulders when he continued thrusting, his tongue riskily pressing inside of your mouth as you felt dizziness take over your body from your orgasm and the cold water engulfing you, lungs burning when you felt yourself seconds away from blacking out, slipping further from reality when sunghoon's hand sneaked downwards to toy with your clit, prolonging your dizzying high even further, relishing in the way you bit down harshly at his bottom lip,

sunghoon made you both ride out your orgasms, mouth still pressed against yours while tears prickled in the corners of your closed eyes, before you could pinch him again he quickly made you rise to the surface, your weak body slumping against his as he held you up, having the audacity to chuckle breathlessly at your fucked out expression, "darling, we haven't even started yet," he spoke out as he attempted to regulate his breathing, too tired to respond you only left his comment with a harsh pinch onto his shoulders that you were holding onto, earning a pained laugh from him,

sunghoon quickly walked towards the other edge facing the house, grabbing onto the towels he discarded once he walked into the balcony, he carefully walked out of the pool with your body wrapped around his, using a towel large enough to cover your slightly shaking body to shield you from the cold breeze along with his,

"let's go shower then we'll take a nap, alright angel?" he whispered softly into your ear, hands loosening around you when you nodded against him, he walked into the shower, dark interior extending into the bathroom, he gently placed you down after he removed the soaked towel, arm wrapped around your waist in support as he stepped beneath the large rectangular shower head,

warm water cascaded down both of your cold bodies, the slight numb feeling in your fingers disappearing whilst the water poured, sunghoon's larger frame wrapped around yours, love-struck eyes entranced by the sight of your blissed out face, with your eyes closed you wrapped your arms around his waist, his length remained between your thighs as he hold you close to him, allowing your bodies to warm up,

"'did so well for me, angel" he praised, loving gaze still stuck on you as you completely clouded his thoughts, "my pretty, perfect, angel" his voice continued to spill out praises lowly, squirming in his hold at his sweet words his hold on you tightened, holding himself back from moaning once your thighs brushed against his sensitive length,

you stopped your movement once you felt his semi hard length pressing against you, frozen as you looked up at him to see sunghoon's sultry gaze already locked on yours with his face flushed, "you're so needy today," you lowered your face, chuckling against his chest, when he grumbled, "you drive me crazy, angel" he groaned out, "i can tell," you responded, sneaking your hand between your bodies you grabbed his length before placing it between your folds, "baby-" sunghoon began, wanting to protest as he didn't want to tire you out, you shushed him your your finger, rocking your hips slowly against his allowing his cock to slip against your soaked folds,

sunghoon moaned lowly at the feeling of his cum dripping out from your cunt to rub against his length, your warmth gently stroking him whilst pearly precum dripped out from his reddened tip, mixing with the water, "fuck- baby, just like that," he moaned out once you began to move quicker, clenching your thighs to squeeze his cock perfectly,

"so fucking perfect for me, angel" he began to babble out once he felt the tensing feeling in his abdomen, "every part of you is so perfect," he breathed out needily, you stared at his expressions before he threw his head back, the hot droplets landing directly on his flushed face, cascading to drip down his neck, through the dim lighting you could see the expanse of his chest revealed entirely before your hungry eyes, without a second thought you dipped towards his neck, trailing soft kisses along his pale, smooth skin making him moan breathily, "i'm so c-close, angel, keep going," he choked out, imminent climax tightening in his lower stomach familiarly, his body trembled against yours as you continued to stroke his length,

sunghoon was in pure euphoria, you continued your ministrations, completely pushing him over the edge, his grip on your hips became firmer, he began to quicken your pace even further once he felt his high wash over his shaking body fully, breathy moans echoing throughout the bathroom as his cum trickled down your inner thighs before mixing with the water, you continued kissing and sucking along his neck resulting in goosebumps appearing along his skin, his thrusts slowing gradually, his grip on you loosened while you looked up at his dazed expression, "i'm so glad i married you."

"love me good, love me down, don't turn me down,"

after your mini marathon with sunghoon, he kept his words of letting you both take a rest before doing anything else for the rest of the day, it was way past the afternoon now, the evening approaching slowly as you and sunghoon were sitting on a small towel on the beach, the sunset's colours ahead of you mirrored on you both stunningly,

vibrant lights glowed from the numerous food stands placed around the side of the beach, carrying twinkling fairy lights from all colors while on the other side you could spot bodies swaying with other bodies as the loud speakers from the stage of a mini platform blared the song of the band performing atop of it,

your eyes occupied with gazing at all the scenes unfolding ahead of you, the chatter of the small crowds from the passersby accompanied by the singing of the dancing crowd, your ears also picked up the echoing laughter of children whilst they raced away from the waves, you felt at peace in such a happy place along with your lover who was gazing at your pleased expression with his heart soaring, every color from the fairylights and the fluorescent lights reflected from your twinkling eyes that he oh so deeply adored,

sunghoon shifted your attention back to him when he laid down gingerly and placed his head on your lap, chestnut strands contrasting your white dress that you wore as they spread out graciously, tempting you to run your fingers delicately throughout his hair which you began to do subconsciously, he hummed in satisfaction at the familiar feeling of your fingertips massaging his scalp gently,

"feeling tired?" you asked him quietly as you stared at his gorgeous profile, the slope of his nose seeming to be carved by a deity, his moles decorating his pale skin elegantly, his usually furrowed eyebrows relaxed with his eyes closed, breathing in the salty air around him deeply, he looked serene as he was in a state so calm and tranquil he almost felt drowsy, "a bit," he replied,

truth is, he felt himself slipping further into his drowsiness, mere seconds away from completely disconnecting and falling into pure slumber as your fingers continued to work through his strands, the sounds of the crashing waves lulling him deeper,

he, however held himself back from falling asleep, especially not when you're in a good mood and you weren't even feeling sleepy like he was, he wasn't going to allow his plans to suddenly have the opposite effect on him with you awake and him asleep, fighting against his own body, he opened his eyes, his tired gaze meeting your expectant ones, "want me to get you a drink?" you questioned,

pointing into one of the stands that appeared to be serving cocktails to the group pf adults lining as other servers leaned down, smiling as they handed a bunch of kids what appeared to be colorful drinks from all types of fruits, sunghoon quickly nodded before he pushed his body off, "don't take too long," he grumbled whilst you began to walk away from him, you only chuckled at his grumpiness,

arriving before the welcoming server who happened to be a girl slightly younger than you, you hastily ordered a non-alcoholic beverage for sunghoon knowing that him getting drunk when he's sleepy was not the best idea, as the last time it happened it somehow ended up with him sleeping on the balcony without a blanket after he refused to listen to you in his intoxicated state, which resulted in him dealing with a cold for the rest of the week, and you for sure didn't want the trip to end so quickly,

the brunette— minjeong who told you her name sweetly during your small chat with her, "you're engaged?!" she questioned, bewilderment and shock evident on her face, "but you're still so young!" she continued as you laughed at her adorable expressions before you shrugged helplessly, you still had difficulty at fully digesting and processing the fact that you were engaged as well, everyday with sunghoon passing by as a mere blur yet it was something you grew accustomed to over time, "is that him?" minjeong asked you, looking behind you at an approaching figure of a young guy,

you turned around, thinking maybe you had taken too long hence why sunghoon could possibly be behind you right now, but instead you came face to face with a guy who appeared to be around your age, blonde hair sleeked back, slightly messy from what you guessed- him running his fingers through his strands as he was literally doing it in front of you,

he was a gorgeous man, curious dark brown eyes quickly travelled your figure before he revealed a breathtaking smile, he swiftly stood besides you, facing minjeong as he blurred out a random order, after minjeong's confused eyes flickered between the both of you, she walked towards the back, momentarily disappearing from your sight, the taller man next to you accepting this as an advantage turned his body to face you,

once he met your gaze, he smiled once again "you're a new face here," he spoke with a thick accent as he chuckled, eyes studying your face,

"you're for sure new around here," his voice low and smooth, awaiting for your answer while your heart drummed in your chest, you pushed the idea of sunghoon seeing you with a random guy, because besides avoiding getting him sick again on this trip, you truly didn't want to anger him- or worse, make him jealous on this trip,

opting to fix your hair with your engagement ring clad hand in hopes of him noticing and returning to wherever he came from, yet it seemed that it flew completely past by him as he continued, "you gonna respond to me, doll?" he leaned his body further towards you, provoking you even further whilst you backed away, "i'm here for a trip," you replied,

eyes ignoring his playful gaze, desperately searching for minjeong to arrive with sunghoon's drink so you can go back into his comforting embrace, "really? i can show you around then, doll" he smiled at you once again, eyes drinking you up, god you were gorgeous.

seeming to get no response again from you, your anxiousness growing worse with each second as did your discomfort, tapping your foot on the sand beneath you, "i'm jake by the way, what kind of trip are you on, doll?" he winked at you, his arm brushing against yours finally making you snap-

"a honeymoon trip."

a deep, familiar voice rasped out from behind you, sunghoon's arm snaking around your waist protectively and his figure towered behind you, almost in a scary manner, the comically funny sight of jake's face falling at sunghoon's appearance and words almost made you laugh, sunghoon's heavy breathing fanning at your neck forced goosebumps to arise on your body as his body almost shook with jealousy and at the sheer audacity of this random dude approaching you, was the diamond on your ring finger not big enough?

"you don't seem too happy about it, jake." sunghoon pressed on, now holding your hand and waving the diamond ring directly in front of his face, the irritation on jake's face becoming more visible with every passing second, before he sucked a deep breath in, "nah.. totally the opposite, congratulations." he replied through gritted teeth,

"so you were saying.. about showing her around?" sunghoon asked, eyebrow raised as his face remained stoic, his intimidating, glowering gaze raking over jake multiple times, while your heart only thumped at the increasing tension, part of you wishing minjeong to not come back and have the young girl witness whatever was going on between jake and sunghoon,

"you don't really find beautiful girls all alone around here.. they're usually with someone," jake began, his own challenging gaze holding sunghoon's angry one, "i knew she probably isn't from here, so that's why i approached her, she was standing all alone after all," jake kept bringing up the fact that you were alone, with each word coming out of his mouth sunghoon's grip tightened around you, you cursed at yourself for somehow managing to end up in this situation, sunghoon and jake felt like they were seconds away from jumping at each other as the latter kept spewing words to rile sunghoon further,

you held onto sunghoon's hand, his knuckles white and cold as they trembled beneath your hold, "you seem a bit experienced at approaching 'pretty girls' , jake." sunghoon replied, jake's eyes visibly darkening at his words, tilting his head yet before he could respond, a taller guy, clad in rings and chains, with jet black slightly wavy hair approached both of you,

his hands wrapped around jake's shoulders as he pulled him back, "woah! gentlemen, let's calm down a bit, yeah? there's still a lady here," the man with captivating round brown eyes smiled at you sweetly before his gaze switched between the two men who were breathing heavily, jake stumbled back into the guy's arms, huffing in frustration as his gaze softened in realisation once he saw your worried gaze, sunghoon's demeanour never wavered, his eyes still stuck on jake's face who seemed to be yet again distracted by you,

breathing out in relief, your shaky breaths finally caught the attention of sunghoon who stepped away from jake as he was getting scolded by the other guy, noticing the tight grip you had over his hand, sunghoon's racing heartbeat due to anger suddenly raced due to worry, guilt seeping through his veins when you closed your eyes in relief, face stricken with worry,

"baby.." he began, hands carefully reaching upwards to hold gently onto your face, before you held onto his wrists, jake and the other guy seemed a far distance away as the taller one seemed to be explaining something in an overly dramatic matter to another dark haired guy who looked at jake with a disapproving look, his frown only deepening when jake's only response was to roll his eyes and wave them off,

sunghoon's heart momentarily stopped when your weak hold wrapped around his wrist, "i'll see you at the house," you spoke, voice quiet though it rung in sunghoon's ears once you walked away from him, heading towards the house which was a few streets away, leaving him all alone in the beach,

he fucked up.

you fucked up.

if only you had been able to tell jake from the beginning that you were engaged, maybe that could've stopped him from continuing his questions which resulted in sunghoon almost getting into a fight if it wasn't for the bambi-eyed guy stepping in and dragging jake away, now both your and sunghoon's mood was ruined entirely, especially sunghoon's— which was way worse.

all scenarios and daydreams that you kept thinking of, how magical this trip would be and how special it'll be for only the two of you got ruined as you managed to fuck it up.

how were you going to make it up for sunghoon?

not only did you anger him, you left him alone at the beach as well, who knows maybe he got into a fight with jake after you left? or he sat down and sadly drank his drink minjeong handed him as he decided that giving you some alone time would be the best decision for now,

just how were you supposed to make it up for him?

slumping against the bed once you finally arrived into the house, the memories of the morning earlier overtaking your thoughts, what a turn of events.

and as you wallowed in worry and guilt, an idea popped up in your head so sensibly, praying to all deities and gods above that sunghoon would follow along to what you were thinking,

"got a bed with your name on it,"

and after what seemed to be an hour or maybe a half, maybe even two, sunghoon lost complete track of time as he sat down at the beach, his glass empty infront of him, memories from the previous hours kept repeating in his head, great, it was only the first day of the trip he insisted on and he managed to ruin it by almost breaking one of the main promises you begged him for, to never get into fights because of you, or possibly end up in a situation that hurt him because of you,

the promise went both ways, and you so politely kept yours throughout the four years, whilst he on the other hand always ended up in situations where he either broke it or almost broke it,

his anger was one of the main things he despised about himself, he hated how out of control his emotions could get sometimes to the point of worrying you like today, his possessiveness and jealousy were different factors that he also disliked, but he couldn't help it.

not when he got so miraculously lucky and was blessed with you as his lover, he loved and adored you so much, you were his entire world, his entire universe revolved around you, you were such a pure hearted and kind soul, your breathtaking beauty another bonus making you an angel in his eyes,

you attracting the hungry eyes of other men should be no surprise to sunghoon, turning heads in every room you walked was something he had to grow accustomed to, holding back his anger from punching any and every man that stared at you with nothing but lust in his eyes,

yet when he saw jake so carelessly hitting on you, even though you did every possible movement to get your ring in his vision along with jake's ministrations continuing though you were clearly uncomfortable, anyone could tell from miles away that you didn't wish to continue whatever jake was insunating and it had sunghoon seeing red, like stated before, he can't help himself.

and now after a short conversation with the guy who dragged jake away, who he learned to be heeseung, seeming more mature than jake, he apologised for his friend's actions which he unexpectedly received an apology from sunghoon for,

"i acted on my anger as well, i'm sorry, i should've just told him we're engaged and ended it there," he spoke out, voice low in exhaustion and guilt, heeseung only smiled at his changed demeanour, witnessing a contrasting side of sunghoon that seemed like a complete different person than the man who he distanced jake from in fear that this might be the time that jake will end up hurt,

his fiery eyes simmered down to eyes filled with regret and shame at his childish behaviour, heeseung quickly reassured him that it was alright, understanding sunghoon's perspective entirely, "it's cool man, you only did what you had to do as a man, to protect your woman." heeseung smiled comfortingly at him, sunghoon smiled slightly at the way heeseung referred to you, it wasn't anything new to him, but it never failed to make his heart skip a beat whenever people mentioned your name around him let alone called you 'his woman',

"which- congratulations on the engagement by the way," heeseung added, his twinkling round eyes gazing at sunghoon gently, before sunghoon smiled back at him in appreciation, "thank you."

"we could still.. show you around the island you know.. i'll keep jake in control, i promise," he spoke, awkwardly scratching at his neck, preparing his response for sunghoon's rejection, his words made sunghoon chuckle, nodding in agreement at heeseung, resulting in the older's eyes brightening, "you better get going now, i'm sure she's waiting for you," he spoke while wiggling his eyebrows in a kid like manner, his actions made sunghoon shake his head as he chuckled before he decided to finally head back home, apology memorised and prepared in his head throughout his time at the beach,

"see you tomorrow, sunghoon! goodnight!" heeseung shouted from the opposite direction of sunghoon as he waved his hand, sunghoon responded with a 'goodnight' before they both disappeared from each other's sights,

sunghoon's heart was thumping against his chest, thoughts of your reaction and responses clouded his anxious mind, he hoped and wished that you both will be able to talk this out and not fight, he could feel small sweat droplets roll below his neck, his head almost aching from his worry and fatigue, all he wanted to do was to hold you tight in his embrace and sleep comfortably, but it seemed like the universe had different plans,

you had completely different plans.

walking inside of your house to see all the lights turned off, no traces of you in the balcony nor the kitchen, sunghoon's stress worsened as he dragged his feet into the bedroom to welcome a sight that'll easily knock the breath out of his lungs,

maybe he was overthinking with your 'reactions and responses', especially since every scenario in his head consisted of negative emotions followed by negative outcomes, that completely contrasted the sight of you, clad in nothing but a light pink— strawberry coloured lace lingerie, laying on your side cozily on the bed, facing the forest, seemingly awaiting your lover's arrival,

sunghoon swallowed thickly, heart thundering once you turned around, dazed eyes meeting his gaze making his breath hitch, he took in your appearance for a second time,

"angel.." he breathed out heavily, he could feel the apparent tightening in his pants increasing, you blinked at him innocently, before you turned your whole body towards him, the sight of your breasts barely covered by the see-through lacey bra had him biting the inside of his cheek, he came here to apologise, so what the fuck was he going to do?

"join me?" you spoke out, drawing him out of his conflicted thoughts, once he registered your words he quickly wiped his sweaty palms into the fabric of his pants, walking towards you and noticing a small strawberry in your hand, the bowl of strawberries placed onto the bedside table also coming into view accompanied by a can of whipped cream,

he really did get ridiculously lucky with you.

his feet dragged him towards you in no time, body crawling over the bed to tower over yours, you looked at him through your lashes once he began to move, grabbing the strawberry from your hand before reaching out for the whipped cream, removing the cap to press on the nozzle and cover half of the strawberry with the icy frosting, he inched his hand towards your mouth, never breaking the eye contact when he fed you the strawberry,

his hand flicked into the corner, landing a bit of the frosting onto the side of your mouth, "sorry.. let me help you," he spoke with faux sympathy, his lust filled eyes barely visible with his hair strands falling graciously, obstructing his vision yet his eyes never left your mouth, your heart hammered in your ribcage once he licked his lips before he leaned in to lick the frosting from the corner of your mouth teasingly,

whilst he had you distracted, his hand held the can above your chest, tilting the top lower to drip the remaining bits of the cream onto your chest, and once you hissed at the cold droplets landing against your warm skin you heard him gasp in shock, "oops, i don't know how it's getting everywhere," he chuckled, not giving you the chance to respond he dipped lower to caress your skin with his wet tongue, humming in delight once the sweet frosting melted in his mouth, relishing in your low whimpers,

he shook the can in his hand whilst he busied his mouth with softly suckling on your supple skin, dragging the cream over your rib cage then going lower to your stomach, "sorry baby.. i just can't help it," he breathed out, licking up all the whipping cream from your rib only to land kisses along the expanse of your skin when it got clean, you whimpered once he dipped lower to lick your belly button, before he stopped at the hem of your panties, you sat up on your elbows to see sunghoon discarding the bottle onto the bed, attaching his teeth onto the hem as he held your gaze, hauling the thin fabric to your knees then yanked it off below your ankles,

you fell back against the bed, lightheaded when he lifted your thighs gently to wrap them around his shoulders, face descending lower, allowing him to inhale your sweet scent, he felt slightly dizzy at your closer contact that he had been impatiently waiting for,

"you're dripping baby.." his voice lowered, sunghoon ran the tip of his tongue along your soaked folds, eyes closing once your nectar bursted with flavour on his tongue along with your breathy moans falling onto his ears divinely,

one hand coming up to rub slow circles over your aching clit as he began to carefully push his tongue into your drenched entrance, you gasped out in surprise once his tongue began to lick all over your walls, waves of pleasure electrifying your spine as he continued to please you, his tongue and finger never faltering in movement while you gripped the sheet, the coil in your stomach constricting from your building up release, voice increasing in pitch when he began to fasten his actions, "hoon- i'm cumming!" you warned before your climax crashed onto you quicker than you could've processed,

sunghoon only moaned lowly against your cunt while you gushed around him, he licked every drop of your nectar whilst his finger never stalled, aiding you in riding out your high as you continued to moan beautifully for him, sunghoon slowly stopped and finished off with a small kiss onto your clit making you squirm before he crawled towards you, allowing you to take the heavenly sight of his face glistening, his gaze almost seeming intoxicated at your flavour, "so much sweeter than that stupid cream," he spoke out amidst him connecting his lips onto yours, groaning slightly at the taste of the sweet strawberry still on your tongue all the while you tasted yourself and the cream on his,

sunghoon's hands restlessly tugged at your lace bra, his mouth still latched onto yours as he impatiently ripped the fabric off easily, you mewled into his mouth once his hands began to fondle your breasts, fingers pinching and pulling at your hardened nipples while his mouth sucked onto your bottom lip,

sunghoon pulled away momentarily to discard his own clothes in a blur, each item landing in a different location in the room, he crawled back to you eagerly, your hands instantly lifting up to caress his smooth skin, running your fingers down his shoulders to his waist as you stared at him lovingly, his body warming yours, your tender gaze making butterflies erupt in his stomach, he quickly reconnected your mouths with his tongue running along yours, lifting your legs up carefully to rest on his shoulders then he moved to push your knees onto your chest,

his rock hard length fitted snugly against your folds, teasingly resting his heavy weight over your pulsing clit, sunghoon pulled away to reach into the bowl, pulling another strawberry, placing the fruit into his mouth with half of it protruding, he leaned towards you, enticing you to take a bite,

you pushed yourself forward, connecting your lips shortly until you took a bite of the fruit, sweet flavour exploding to your mouth whilst sunghoon stared at you, gaze half open and glimmering as his length twitched against you, he hastily dipped to capture your lips again, in the meantime his hand went lower, positioning his tip along your entrance before he slowly pushed himself deeper, inch by inch stretching you open on his thick length, deliciously filling you up all the while licking needily into your mouth,

you moaned into his mouth once he bottomed out, tip pressed snugly against your cervix whilst your walls were accommodating to the burning stretch, sunghoon mouth worked sloppily against yours, swallowing all your sounds when he began to slightly move, drool dripping from the corners of your mouth yet it bothered neither of you, his hands held the back of your knees roughly, keeping you in place as he began to pound into you,

his mouth kissed along your jaw, allowing your moans and whimpers to reverberate throughout the room, you helplessly clawed at his biceps, digging your nails into his skin resulting in him hissing in pleasure, sunghoon's hips pistoned into yours, his cock running along and hitting all of your sweet spots, his hands moved towards your breast, caressing the skin before he latched his mouth onto your nipple,

the feeling of his teeth slightly biting your skin had your eyes rolling back, your hands pulling at the sheets once squelching, wet sounds echoed throughout the room followed by both your and sunghoon's moans, "i'm gonna fill you up so good, angel," he groaned against your skin, "you'll feel my cum throughout the entire week, he continued,

nuzzling his head into your neck, he pressed his mouth onto your ear, hips never faltering against you, "gonna let me breed this pretty cunt, yeah?" he grunted, breath hot on your ear, his body jerking against yours, small sweat droplets rolling off from him to land against you, the smell of sex and your mixed arousal filling the room, "fuck- yes! please, baby," you whimpered in his ear, abdomen tightening for a second time causing your walls to clamp around him, he groaned in pleasure as he sloppily thrusted into your heat, "please what, angel?"

"please fill me up," you whispered weakly, throat hoarse and your voice almost disappearing, his mind was spinning once he felt his approaching release as his cock was practically moulding your walls to his shape, his length was continuously jerking inside of you at his orgasm, your wetness mixed with his precum now dripping below your thighs to stain the mattress, "gonna let me fuck my baby into you, hm?" he teased with his cock drilling inside of you, "god you'd look so gorgeous carrying my baby," he continued babbling whilst you nodded dumbly at his words, too distracted by your release, sunghoon's hands fondled your breasts, "gonna look so pretty with these filled with your sweet milk," his hands squeezed your tits at his 'these' word, finger pinching at your nipple before he sucked it into his mouth,

his own hips began to uncontrollably convulse while your legs trembled on his shoulders, your eyes rolling back for the nth time once your orgasm washed over you, jaw going slack all the while sunghoon's gaze never left your face, his mouth still latched onto your nipple as he whimpered at the tight feeling of your walls clamping on his length, he lifted his face to pepper small kisses all along your jaw and cheeks, your breath uneven as sunghoon helped you to ride out your orgasm, eyes closed tightly in pure bliss, "such a good girl, creaming all over my cock" he praised, softly brushing loose strands away from your face before he pecked your lips, "my perfect good girl,"

in the blink of an eye he switched your positions, holding you on your side while he laid behind you, his sweaty chest pressing against your back as he held your leg open before plunging his cock back into you, both of you groaning at the feeling of your wetness gushing out more when he thrusts back in, his other hand swiftly landed against your clit to rub slow circles on your puffy nub whilst his length thrusted into your warmth in deep and steady strokes,

his hot breath fanning your shoulders, kissing the skin of your neck every now and then while his eyebrows furrowed, his mind in a frenzy as his climax felt mere seconds away, "come on angel, cream all over my cock again. come on, baby" sunghoon whined from behind you, each word going straight to your needy cunt making you clench around him, you felt like you were on cloud nine with his constant overstimulation, his hand never slowed against your clit while his cock ached inside of you,

"h-hoon i c-can't-" you stuttered out, he moaned at the feeling of you tightening at his words, your cunt sucking him in entirely, "yes baby, you can, come on. i need to feel it, baby" he blabbered, you couldn't tell if you were being overstimulated or if sunghoon dragged another orgasm out of you as you cried, your body shaking entirely once you began squirting all over his length, sunghoon's breath hitched, a chain of fuckfuckfuck- spilling from his mouth as his climax washed over him, pressing his hips against yours to push his tip to your cervix, allowing his warm load to shoot into your womb while your walls milked him fully, both of you panting in overstimulation and fatigue as he filled you up,

sunghoon carefully placed your sore leg down, length still buried deep in you to keep his load in place, you were exhausted, already slipping off to a deep slumber whilst you began to feel sunghoon press kisses along your shoulder,

"so.. am i forgiven?" he asked quietly,

"yeah- yeah i think so."

then you heard him whisper a sweet 'i love you.' before completely surrendering to sleep,

BONUS:

and here you were on your fifth day of the trip, indulging in a conversation with heeseung as he explained all the other different games to you, all with captivating colorful lights that easily distracted you,

on the other side of the arcade you could spot minjeong and jay sitting down at a bench together, each holding a cup that contained god knows what as they were both already tired with their social batteries empty,

while your dear fiance- there really was no need to look for him once you heard him yelling at jake, a few feet away from you while jake shouted a 'cheater!' to his face,

"how the fuck can i cheat when i'm literally playing a claw machine?!" sunghoon yelled back in bewilderment,

"seriously how did you marry him?" heeseung questioned as he covered his ears for the nth time due to their shouting, you only laughed at his frustrated expression since you, yourself didn't know how you managed to marry sunghoon.

A. NOTE (pt2): this took like more than 4 days i'm not gonna post till next year atp. also this is proof read but it's also 7k so pls ignore any sentences that don’t make sense <3

[vanesycho]

Can you do Cold bf jeno who only acts close to his gf please🙏

ofc i can!!! thank you for your request🤍🤍

im sorry but nerd jeno...thoughts in my mind right now- ANYWAY

Cold boyfriend Jeno who only acts close to his girlfriend.

𐐪ɞJeno always shows his more playful and childish side when he’s with you. His more competitive side comes out when you play video games together or walk around the park.

A quiet, small park. You were sitting on a bench with Jeno. You closed your eyes for a moment as the light breeze caressed your skin.

"I missed days like these. It's so peaceful here."

"Yeah, it's nice to just relax sometimes."

A brief silence fell between you. You felt Jeno’s eyes on you and turned to him. He was looking at you with a playful grin. You asked with suspicion.

"What are you thinking about?"

"What? I’m not thinking about anything."

Before you could even speak, Jeno quickly got up from the bench and grabbed your wrist, pulling you off as well.

"Jeno, what are you doing?" Jeno just smiled at you.

"Race you to that tree over there! Loser buys ice cream!"

Without giving you a chance to object, Jeno started sprinting toward a large oak tree. You taken by surprise, laughs and starts running after him.

"Hey! That's not fair, you got a head start!"

Jeno turning his head back with a playful smile. "You snooze, you lose!"

You speed up and tried to catch up with him. Just as you about to pass him, Jeno playfully swerved in front of you, blocked your path.

"No cheating, Jeno!"

Jeno laughed but let you pass, slowed down on purpose. You reached the tree first, breathless but victorious.

"Ha! I won! You owe me ice cream now."

"Alright, alright. A deal's a deal. But only because you’re cute when you’re competitive."

You got embarrassed, playfully shoving his shoulder. Jeno smiled, his usual cold demeanor melted away as he watched your happy expression.

"Come on, let’s go get that ice cream. I know a place nearby."

𐐪ɞJeno deals with you in a softer and more caring way when you're feeling down or having a hard day. Although he's not usually good with words, he'll do his best to comfort you; he'll stroke your hair, hug you tightly, and let you express yourself.

It’s a rainy evening, and the sound of raindrops tapping against the window fills the room. You were sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the TV that’s playing softly in the background. Seem lost in thought, your eyes were tired and your were posture slumped. Jeno entered the room, noticed your quiet demeanor. His usual calm expression softened with concern.

"Hey, you okay?"

You didn’t respond immediately. You've been feeling overwhelmed lately but didn’t talked about it. You forced a small smile.

"Yeah, I’m fine… just tired, I guess." Jeno isn’t convinced. He knows you too well to believe that. He walked over, sit beside you, and without a word, he wraped his arm around your shoulders and pulled you closer to him.

"You don’t have to pretend with me, you know."

You sighed deeply, leaned your head on his shoulder, your eyes started to well up.

"It’s just…Everything feels so overwhelming lately. I don’t even know where to start."

Jeno held you closer, his thumb gently strokes your arm in a comforting motion. He doesn’t rush you to speak; he just let you take your time.

"You don’t have to go through it alone. I’m here, okay? Always."

There’s a moment of silence as you take in his words. You felt a tear escape and fall onto his shirt. Quickly tried to wipe it away, embarrassed.

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to cry all over you."

Jeno gave you a small smile, his eyes filled with warmth and understanding.

"I don’t mind. If crying helps, then cry as much as you need. I’ve got you."

He shifted slightly, pulled you into a more secure embrace, rested his chin on top of your head. You closed your eyes, felt the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. For the first time in days, you felt a sense of calm.

"Thank you, Jeno."

Jeno pressed a gentle kiss on your forehead, his voice a quiet whisper.

"I love you."

𐐪ɞJeno prefers to give you special and meaningful gifts instead of ordinary ones. For example, he will make a playlist of your favorite songs and write a note next to it saying what that song reminds him of.

“Check your email.”

Curious, you opened your laptop and clicked on your inbox. There was a new email from Jeno with the subject line “For You.” you smiled softly, tiredness momentarily forgotten. You opened the email and found a link to a playlist. Underneath the link, there was a short note from Jeno.

'I made this playlist for you. Each song reminds me of a moment with you or something about you that I love. I hope it makes you smile.'

-Jeno

Your heart fluttered. Clicked on the playlist link, and as the first song begins to play, you noticed a few more lines in the email, descriptions from Jeno about why he chose each song.

Jeno’s Descriptions:

“Song 1: This song makes me think of that time we got caught in the rain. I remember how you laughed and danced, even though we were soaked.”

“Song 2: The lyrics here remind me of how strong you are, even when things get tough. You always find a way to smile, and that’s something I admire.”

“Song 3: This one just makes me think of you. I can’t explain why, but it feels like you in a melody.”

𐐪ɞJeno loves spending quiet moments together. Value moments like reading a book, listening to music, or just sitting together and thinking. Jeno doesn't find this silence disturbing, on the contrary, he finds peace in your presence and feels at home next to you.

𐐪ɞHe is very distant towards other women. He always keeps this distance to show his loyalty to you. Other people may misunderstand this attitude sometimes, but for Jeno, the only thing that matters is that his girlfriend feels special.

"Hey, Jeno. Have you seen that new movie that just came out? It definitely sounds like your thing, maybe we could go together?"

Jeno’s expression doesn’t change, it was cold and distant. His eyes flicker to you for a moment. In response to her offer, he responded politely but briefly, “No. Thanks.”

But the girl didn't give up and approached Jeno and lightly touched his shoulder.

"Ah you sure? I think you should watch it, maybe this weekend I..."

He immediately broke contact by pulling his shoulder back. His tone was serious and cold. “I said no, thank you.”

He quickly grabbed your hand and didn’t let go for the rest of the day, giving you his full attention and doing everything he could to not let the incident affect you.

[crystallinestars]

Comforting you when you're sad

Headcanons about the Genshin boys comforting you when you're feeling down for whatever reason.

I don't know what I wrote but I hope it's enjoyable nonetheless.

Characters: Venti, Lyney, Kaeya, Alhaitham, Wanderer, Kaveh

Venti

🍃 When Venti first sees the sullen expression on your face, his cheerful smile wanes into concerned curiosity as he asks what happened to make you so sad. He doesn’t want to force you to answer if you would rather not talk about it, but he can tell the sadness is weighing heavy on your heart, so he takes you home and asks one more time what happened. His words and voice are gentle, his gaze tender as he cups and strokes your cheek, hoping to make you comfortable enough to open up to him.

🍃 His gentle coaxing works to make your guard crumble and the tears you held back come streaming down your cheeks. Venti isn’t used to comforting crying people, but he hugs you, letting you cry into his shoulder while stroking your head, letting you know it’s okay to cry. He doesn’t say a word until your crying fit subsides into hiccups and sniffles, and only then does he let his voice be heard as he softly hums a lullaby he once overheard a mother sing to a crying child a long time ago.

🍃 When you’ve calmed down, Venti asks what you want to do. He'll stay with you if you would rather stay home to keep you company, however, he thinks it would do you some good to go out instead of staying cooped up in these four walls. If you agree to go outside, Venti will stroll around the city market, trying to entice you with this item or that. Do you want to check out the knickknacks at Marjorie’s? Or the new potions Timaeus is brewing? Or what about that one dish at the Good Hunter you’ve always wanted to try but never got around to? Venti would buy them all for you—his treat! He would even brave his cat allergy and stop by the Cat’s Paw so you can try one of Diona’s special concoctions. Venti acts peppy and cheery throughout the impromptu date, hoping to lift your dampened mood with his enthusiasm.

🍃 If the little date doesn’t do the trick to cheer you up, then Venti drags you outside the city walls. Leading you by the hand, Venti brings you to the open grassy plains of Windrise and beckons you to take in the world around you. Look at that beautiful blue sky and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. Feel the wind play with your hair and hear the rustling of leaves in the great oak tree. Walk along the beach with him while smelling the salty ocean breeze and splashing water at each other as if you were little children. Climb the oak tree at Windrise and watch the squirrels and birds that call it their home scurry about in the branches. Lay in the grass and watch the starry sky with him while he strums a soothing song on his lyre that he composed just for you.

🍃 It's not a guarantee his method will work, but Venti hopes this outing can help you feel free from whatever burdens you. Despite his youthful appearance and demeanor, Venti is an old soul who has seen and experienced his fair share of suffering. He is aware that sadness sticks around far longer than joy, for such is the human condition, but he also knows that it shouldn’t overshadow everything in life. Though life can beat you down and Venti may not be able to solve your problems, there is so much more to the world than the little bubble you confine yourself to.

Lyney

🎩 Lyney’s expression lights up when he sees you from afar, but the tired look in your eyes and the weak smile you give him tell the magician you’re feeling down. He looks at you in concern and gently asks if something is wrong to make you so down. He attentively listens if you want to share the reason, and lets the conversation go if you don’t want to talk about it, but either way, he wants to distract you from your negative feelings.

🎩 Lyney has the most experience dealing with Lynette’s sour moods, so out of habit he brings you to a café and lets you order anything you want from the menu, offering to pay for it. He lets you talk if you want to vent or if you want to stay quiet, he fills the silence with funny stories about people he saw in the streets of Fontaine.

🎩 Though he appears his usual chipper self, in reality, he’s worried about you. If spending time with him isn’t enough to brighten your mood, Lyney drops his cheery façade and gently takes your hands in his. With a concerned look, he persuades you to at the very least stop bottling up your emotions and depend on him. As an older brother, he feels a lot of responsibility to care for those he loves, and that responsibility also extends to you.

🎩 Once he sees that his words touched your heart and you’re on the verge of tears, he escorts you to a private alleyway where you can cry freely without the prying eyes of passersby. Lyney hugs you close and whispers words of comfort in your ear, letting you cry into his shoulder. He has a lot of experience comforting Lynette and his siblings at the orphanage, so Lyney knows what to do to support you during your most vulnerable moment. His reassurances help calm you down, and he wipes your tears away with a handkerchief. Though it saddens him to see you so upset, he’s also grateful that you opened up to him about your feelings.

🎩 Afterward, Lyney offers to take you to play with his animal assistants. He teaches you how to feed them, and watches you play with his animals, seeing you gradually relax and give a small smile as a pigeon coos and cuddles into your hand.

🎩 Alternatively, Lyney might invite you to a private magic show; one he designed for your eyes only. The magician brings you to his room in the orphanage where the two of you can be alone and he has access to his props. With a cheeky smirk and flourish of his hand, Lyney materializes a Rainbow Rose from thin air and hands it to you, telling you to keep your eyes on him. He begins his performance, narrating it like any regular show even though you’re the sole audience member. Lyney shows off all the tricks he is certain you haven’t seen before, even mixing in some new ones he hasn’t quite perfected but included anyway. He injects a dramatic and comedic flair into the performance in the hopes of making you laugh. Once you do, Lyney grins, pleased he could make you feel better. In his mind, laughter is the best cure for sadness.

Kaeya

❄️ When Kaeya catches a glimpse of you, he is instantly able to tell you’re out of sorts. Though you smile at him, it’s weak and does a poor job of masking the sorrow in your eyes. You’re clearly not as okay as you try to seem, but Kaeya is unsure of how to help you feel better. He’s not used to comforting people. His only experiences are helping crying children find their parents during crowded festivals, and clumsily bandaging Diluc’s scrapes when they were little. But you are neither a child nor his sworn brother, so he momentarily feels lost about how to help you.

❄️ Such delicate situations are not Kaeya’s forte, but as your boyfriend, he wants to help you feel better. So, he steels himself and, in his usual teasing lilt, inquires what happened to make you look so sour. Though he sounds playful, Kaeya takes your feelings seriously, so when you look like you’re about to cry, he quickly escorts you somewhere private.

❄️ When you break down, he’s at a loss for what to do since he’s never had to comfort anyone like this before. Then, a memory surfaces in his mind of when Adelinde hugged him as a crying child, so he hesitantly wraps you up in a loose embrace, mimicking her hug the best he could. It’s a foreign feeling, holding you while you cry into his shoulder. He feels helpless just standing there with your shaking body in his arms, but he also knows it’s the best he can do for you right now, so he gently rubs your back the way Adelinde did for him all those years ago and hopes it helps you the way it did him.

❄️ Kaeya stays quiet until your crying fit subsides. He’s unsure of what to say as you slowly collect yourself, but he softly asks if you want to go drinking. Perhaps some alcohol from the Angel’s Share can help you feel better? If you agree, Kaeya takes you to the tavern where you share a drink and watch a bard perform a heroic epic about an adventurer. Alternatively, if you like cats, Kaeya brings you to the Cat’s Paw to play with the cats there and get a specialty drink from Diona (his treat). He also coerces you into a few rounds of TCG and pretends to play fairly but purposely loses to give you the wins in the hopes that the little victories would brighten your mood.

❄️ If you don’t want to drink, then Kaeya invites you over to the Dawn Winery. It feels strange to bring you to his childhood home when he hasn’t lived there in years, but he’s hoping that Adelinde could help. Ever since the head maid found out that Kaeya had a lover, she had asked for details about you, but Kaeya refused to disclose much of anything. Questions about his love life from someone he saw as a mother figure made him shy, so he avoided talking about you.

❄️ As he expected, Adelinde was overjoyed to finally meet you and she welcomed you inside just as warmly as she did Kaeya. She whips up a delicious dinner for your pair and spends the evening chatting with you, asking you about yourself and sharing all of Kaeya’s childhood stories that he never told you about, especially the funny ones much to his chagrin. The homey atmosphere and fun conversation do the trick to take your mind off of whatever bothered you, and though it came at Kaeya’s expense, he was happy to see you smiling like your usual self again.

Alhaitham

🎧 Upon your arrival home, Alhaitham’s brows pinch together in concern when he sees you looking down. He doesn’t pry into what happened, preferring for you to tell him what was wrong when you were ready to talk about it. However, if you don’t share the reason behind your sadness, and your mood doesn’t improve or grows worse, the Scribe gently calls out to you and tactfully asks what happened in a calm and gentle tone.

🎧 No matter how small the reason, Alhaitham hears you out without judgment, understanding that people can have a bouquet of reactions to situations he may not perceive to be as worthy of his concern. Even if he wouldn’t feel the same as you in your situation, he still tries to understand your point of view and help you deal with your emotions. If Alhaitham finds it applicable, he will offer advice for your situation. However, he is perceptive enough to tell when mere advice won’t help resolve your current mood, and that you require comfort. 

🎧 Alhaitham’s eyes soften, and he gently pulls you into his chest with a simple comment: “Don’t hold it all in. Cry if you need to.” Sometimes, releasing pent-up emotions is what a person needs to feel better, and the Scrobe doesn’t want you to wallow in your misery all alone. He holds you to him while you cry, placing his chin atop your head and lightly stroking your back in comfort without saying a word. 

🎧 His usually calm expression turns somber and his hold on you tightens a little as a dull ache surges through his heart. Alhaitham is not one to become influenced by the emotions of others easily, but despite what some people may think, he is not immune to others’ distress. He doesn’t like seeing others suffer, and seeing you so upset is no exception. Your suffering affects him a little more because he loves you and wants you to be at your best, so he will do everything in his power to help.

🎧 Once your crying fit subsides, Alhaitham lets you choose what you want to do next. If you want some privacy to deal with your emotions, he lets you go and occasionally checks up on you to see how you’re doing. If you say you want to stay with him, Alhaitham fetches a blanket knitted by his late grandmother that she used to wrap him up in and drapes it over you. He brews you a cup of tea before inviting you to read with him on the sofa. Should you choose to join him, Alhaitham will keep an arm around you while reading a book, not interrupting your reading but letting you feel he’s here. 

🎧 If you’re not in the mood to read, then the Scribe cuddles with you on the sofa. He lets you rest your head on his chest, running a hand along your back while holding a book with the other. If you want to hear the sound of his voice, Alhaitham will read the book to you out loud. If you prefer the silence and the sound of his heartbeat, then he stays quiet and holds you until you fall asleep, kissing your forehead once you doze off.

Wanderer

☂️ As soon as Wanderer sees you, he instantly realizes you’re feeling down. Even when you smile and say you’re fine, his perceptive nature makes it easy for him to tell you’re not. As a frank person, Wanderer prefers you to be straightforward about your feelings and wants, so it’s frustrating when you keep things to yourself like this. He frowns and asks what made you act like such a wet blanket, but despite his unfriendly scowl, he remains patient and hears you out.

☂️ What he’s not prepared for is your tears. When you start crying in the middle of your explanation, Wanderer’s frown melts into surprise and then concern before quickly pulling you into a hug. He’s not used to comforting crying people, but a part of Wanderer urges him to comfort you, so he follows his instincts. Soothing words and caresses are not his forte, but Wanderer quietly murmurs for you to stop bottling everything inside and confide in him. Cry if you need to, it’s fine. He’s got you.

☂️ Wanderer’s embrace is both tight yet careful as if he were holding something precious and fragile. The way you felt in his arms was certainly fragile. Shoulders hunched and shaking, muffling your sniffles against his shirt and soaking the fabric with your tears. Something in his chest feels tight when he sees you this broken, and it sparks a desire in him to fix whatever happened to make you this upset. Even if the cause is outside of his power to fix, Wanderer at least wants you to stop crying and go back to your annoying and yet endearing self.

☂️ When you calm down, Wanderer acts more mindful around you. He chooses his words carefully and keeps his tone soft as he tells you it’s normal to be upset in this situation, but you shouldn’t lose hope so easily. Usually, he would be blunter with his words, but with you in such a precarious state, he wants to be careful. He knows his bluntness can sometimes upset people, and the last thing he wants is to make you more upset.

☂️ Wanderer lets you choose what you want to do: do you want to stay home or come with him to a secret place? If you choose to stay home, he tells you to clean yourself up while he busies himself in the kitchen. He whips up a few delicious and hearty dishes and tells you to eat and stop moping when he serves them up. When you point out that these are all your favorite foods, he scoffs and says that it’s all he could make with the ingredients on hand, but reluctantly adds that he thought your favorite foods would help you feel better. If you thank him, he grows flustered and tells you not to because he didn’t do anything special, but it makes him feel happy inside that you appreciated his efforts.

☂️ If you choose to come with him, then Wanderer takes you to a secret place of his. It’s a little vantage point he found in the Lokapala Jungle that looks especially pretty at night, and he wanted to bring you here one day but figured today was as good a day as any. He flies up there with you and lets you take in the view. Surrounding you are various bioluminescent flora that disperse the darkness with their soft glow. Fireflies softly float about your pair as you sit on the soft grass and look up at the star-filled sky. There’s an ethereal beauty to the place that distracts you from your depressing thoughts and lifts your sunken spirits. He stays here with you for as long as you want, chatting about various topics and weaving you a flower crown to remember the occasion by.

Kaveh

🍷 When Kaveh sees your sullen demeanor, he immediately realizes you’re feeling down. He knows what it’s like to suffer from sadness and depression all alone, and he doesn’t want you to deal with such feelings on your own. Though it’s hypocritical of him, the architect wishes that you would confide in him, so gently prompts you to share what happened. Even if you tell him you’re fine, Kaveh won’t buy it but won’t pressure you to tell him.

🍷 However, he worries deeply about your mental well-being, and if he sees no improvements or even a worsening of your mental state, he takes your hand and leads you to the sofa. Kaveh cups your cheek and pleads with you to confide in him. Tell him what’s wrong because he wants to help you feel better so badly, and it frustrates him that he can’t.

🍷 His efforts pay off in making you give in and tell him what happened to make you feel this way. Even if there’s no particular reason for your sadness, Kaveh takes your feelings seriously. He wraps his arms around you in a gentle yet firm hug when you start crying, his expression solemn because seeing you in pain like this makes his heart ache. Kaveh holds you close until you let out all your sadness, whispering reassurances and kissing the top of your head. He strokes your back to comfort you, not caring that you’re soaking his shirt with tears and snot. Your well-being is far more important to him than his clothes.

🍷 Once you calm down, Kaveh dotes on you. He gets you tissues, some water, a blanket—you name it, he’ll bring it. With a gentle smile, Kaveh asks if you want to go out and do something to get your mind off whatever made you sad. If you want to stay home to recuperate from your crying fit, then Kaveh will spend the evening cuddling you and making sure you’re okay.

🍷 If you accept, Kaveh will take you out to Lambad’s Tavern. When life beat him down, he turned to heavy drinking to forget his troubles, and though he doesn’t want you to get plastered the way he did (because it’s bad for your health! He says) he offers to buy you a drink, hoping a light buzz could take the edge off your grief. Even if you don’t drink alcohol, Kaveh buys you a non-alcoholic drink and keeps you company. From his personal experience, sometimes a drink and good company are all you need to feel better, so he chats about various topics and gives advice if you need it. He also listens if you want to vent, offering a sympathetic ear and supportive words.

🍷 If you don’t want to drink, Kaveh takes you out on a stroll around Sumeru city. He surmises that a change of scenery can help take your mind off things, so he takes your hand and walks along the streets, showing you all the spots with pretty views. He comments how each location looks especially beautiful during sunset or at night when the stars are shining in the sky and offers to bring you here later if you want to see that breathtaking view. Afterward, he takes you out for a delicious meal at his expense. Kaveh is more than willing to spend his meager savings on you if it means making you happy. He won’t be able to rest easy unless you feel better, so he pulls out all the stops to try and cheer you up if only a little.

[teencopandthesourwolf]

edited version can be read on ao3 HERE

.

“Need a hand with that?”

Derek didn't drop the tire he was carrying, but it was a close thing. He'd recognise that voice anywhere—would know it in a sea of a thousand others.

He slowly turned on his heel to find its owner sat in Derek's favourite tree.

Stiles.

“You're here,” he breathed, not bothering to hide the mix of shock and relief that coloured his own voice and features.

Stilesʼ lips twitched. “I'm here,” he confirmed, just in case Derek needed to hear it.

“Hey,” Derek said, eloquent as ever.

“Hey yourself,” Stiles grinned back.

Shifting his weight on the tree branch, Stiles then pulled himself up to standing. He wiped his hands on the ass of his jeans before proffering one towards Derek.

“I'm Mieczysław Stilinski. It's really nice to meet you, dude.”

Stilesʼcheeks flushed an overwhelmingly pretty shade of pink, and Derek wanted to eat him.

Reaching out to take the hand in one of his own, the pads of his fingertips brushed the familiar Jack rabbit pulse at Stiles's wrist, for just a second, and it was both a calling card and like a huge sigh of relief.

He turned the name around in his mind.

Mieczysław. Mieczysław Stilinski.

It was unexpected, and very Polish, and Derek sort of adored it.

Looking a little antsy, Stiles said, “It, uh, means 'sword' in Polish. If you go in for that sort of thing.” He blushed some more and then snorted at himself. “But yeah, I know it's kinda... ʼSʼobviously why I go by Stiles—which was my Grandfather's nickname too, by the way.”

Derek's heart swelled in his chest.

This was what they could've had if things had gone differently for them.

He cleared his throat, took a deep intake of woodsmoke-laced air into his lungs, then said, “Broderick Seth Rodman Hale, third son of Talia and Seth Hale of the Hale Pack of Beacon Hills county, North California, and I'm very pleased to meet you're acquaintance. Oh, and do not call me dude, by the way.”

“Broderick? Are you shitting me right now?!” Stiles blurted, trying and failing to not laugh.

Derek rolled his eyes and it felt like breathing. “Seriously? I think you'll find you don't have even half a leg to stand on, Mieczysław.”

“Actually, I have two, Broderick Seth Rodman Hale, and I diligently used the both of them to come out here to Bumfuck nowhere to find you.”

He shot Derek with ridiculous finger guns then blew away imaginary gunpowder smoke, and if it wasn't for the kid's beard it could've easily been thirteen-years ago.

Not a kid anymore.

Stiles looked amazing. A little broader, and a little fuller in the face, and the beard really, really suited him. At once, Derek had the desperate urge to sink his claws into it and paw at the pale skin beneath. He wanted to back Stiles into the bark of the tree and bury his nose in that long, mole-peppered neck he still had dreams about, to breathe in pure unadulterated Stiles.

He swallowed thickly, licking at his dry lips and wishing they were Stilesʼ. Had to force himself to unclench the fist not currently grasping Stiles's hand.

Derek had to try his best to pretend that he wasn't very aware of the fact that they were still very much holding onto each other.

“Broderick means 'brother' in Old Norse, if you go in for that sort of thing,” he offered, borrowing Stiles's banter.

Stiles's smile was easy, albeit tainted with a hint of sadness for that piece of information. He was sort of—looser. More relaxed, and definitely less agitated than he used to be. Though he smelled exactly the same as he always had: Of strong coffee and Bath & Body Oak shower gel and wild cinnamon and lemon sherbet dip, and that particular warm smack of something that Derek had always struggled to place—the very essence of Mieczysław 'Stiles' Stilinski.

The familiar tang zinged over his taste buds like popping candy, and his wolf took up its routinely impatient pacing at his core as if they had seen Stiles only yesterday.

“I'm—uh, I don't—you look good, Stiles. Really good.”

This human was the only creature on planet earth that had Derek Hale fumbling his words.

Stiles was smirking his signature smirk—only there was something new pulling at the curve of that life-ruining mouth of his.

Unerring confidence.

Derek sniffed at the air and licked at his lips again so he could taste that, too.

“You're look pretty fine yourself there, Sourwolf,” Stiles divulged, mirroring Derek again by licking his own lips. He shamelessly looked Derek up and down and said, “Your edges aren't quite so sharp, and you're little softer ʼround the eyes, like maybe you're—I dunno. Something closer to being happy?” His eyes shone like the full moon in the dark when he told Derek, “And, dare I say it, maybe not even all that sour anymore?”

Derek huffed a breath out through his nostrils that was in the proximity of a laugh.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Looks good on you, man. Really good.”

Stiles was borrowing Derek's words, and if he kept saying things like that to Derek while looking at Derek the way that he was, Derek would have to restrain himself from picking the guy up by the scruff of his very nice sweater and kissing the words right out of his mouth.

Then everything sort of stilled, somehow, including the wind, and the birds, and them, as if the whole world had just halted for something incredibly important.

They stood there, just gazing at each other. Like there wasn't anything else they could or would possibly be doing right now.

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty.

It was obvious to even the blades of grass on the ground that they both still felt it.

Slowly, slowly, they caught back up to reality.

Derek took a breath and found his voice again.

“Might've taken a few pointers from a kid I used to know,” he smiled, eyes never leaving Stilesʼ.

Then he thought in for a penny and admitted, “I hoped you'd come looking for me—and I want you to know that I'm really, really glad that you did.”

Stiles squinted at him through the sun's afternoon rays that broke through the Colorado cloud cover like the heavens had suddenly appeared. In that moment, he reminded Derek of the beautiful golden Aztec Sanvitalia shrub that grew down by the little stream behind his cabin. He wondered briefly if that was the missing base note in Stiles's scent, and felt a little insane with it all.

“Well, I knew I'd find you,” Stiles shrugged, “because one: I'm like a dog with a bone, and two: You left a trail of breadcrumbs so fucking vague only a genius like yours truly would be able to follow.”

He then shielded those big brown doe eyes of his from a particularly bright sunbeam with a still-bony hand, and the squinted look on his face was so fond Derek had to sink his canines into his lip to hold in the pitiful whine that threatened to climb up and out of his chest and escape him.

He stepped closer to the tree; closer to the boy who runs with wolves, who was definitely not a boy any longer.

“You make it sound as if we're in some sort of fairytale, Stiles,” Derek said as he attempted to blink Stiles's beauty from his eyes, knowing it would be a fruitless endeavour.

Finally, Stiles reached out to pull Derek down and into his lap, and Derek went like a force of nature.

He dropped the tire this time.

Stiles smelled like love when he said, “Weren't we always, Der?” right into Derek's mouth.

And Derek knew.

As Stiles leaned in and kissed him softly, and he kissed Stiles softly right back, he knew they both understood that although they had to travel far from Beacon Hills to find it, they had both—at long last—made it home.

.

on ao3 HERE if you'd like to leave me a comment <3

i saw the new dob shoot and my brain remembered the hoech one and went ping! this is for @wulfnerd seeing as they came up with the wonderful Broderick as Derek's full first name in the tags of a post of mine who knows how long ago...

unedited, please be forgiving <3

[the0doreslover]

Stuck forever by the... glue? | t.n x fem!reader

summary: you and theodore are quite literally “stuck together”

warnings: a few innuendos

a/n: so i’ve been MIA for a little while but i hope this 4k piece makes up for it 😬😬😬

‘just make it to friday’

‘just make it to friday’

‘just make it to friday’

These were the five simple words that played in your mind since the beginning of the week.

Maybe it was because your mother had been sending you a letter every day, reinforcing the importance of your success in any exam you are to partake in, or because your professors had seemed to be putting extra pressure on you at the moment, or maybe… just maybe it was because you were simply tired, that every day seemed to be getting harder.

Your friends weren’t much help, it wasn’t their fault, they just couldn’t understand the pressure you had been going through over the past few weeks. You had unintentionally pushed them away.

Friday morning at last.

You had a little while to kill before your first lesson of the day and had decided on sitting in the courtyard.

You were walking towards your usual seat behind the large oak tree when you noticed

a rather peculiar looking sketchbook in its place

You picked it up, and opened the first page, and there in the neatest writing was the words; Property Of Theodore Nott

Great.

You were just admiring the pattern on the front of the book when a hand on your wrist startled you.

Looking up, in all his glory was Theodore Nott.

You didn’t have a chance to fully clock him, when he snatched the book from your hands.

“Did you open the book?” he asked, seeming to be catching his breath

“What?”

“i said did you open the book?” he urged, louder this time.

“No… Nott i didn’t” you answered

“right… well your blouse is undone” he nodded towards your chest.

You gasped slightly pulling your fingers towards the buttons, you felt around for a second until he started laughing “i lied”

“why do you have to be such a dick” you groaned noticing he tried to change the subject away from his sketchbook

“i guess i was born that way” he shrugged, with a slight grin on his face “why do you have to be such a prat?”

“i guess i was born that way” you huffed before walking away from him

Seeing as you had only a few minutes before your lesson, you had decided on going a bit earlier.

Professor Flitwick's classroom was already half-full, the usual chatter filling the air as students settled into their seats.

After what felt like an eternity, Flitwick clapped his hands together, drawing everyone's attention. "Alright, today we're going to practice some partner work. Pair up and choose the most interesting charm you can think of, the winning pair will be free from the assignment i am giving out later”

You groaned inwardly. Partner work meant having to socialize, something you didn't feel up to after the morning's events. You stayed seated, hoping someone would approach you. Instead, you felt a presence next to your desk. Looking up, you saw Theodore standing there,

"I’ll partner with you” he said taking the seat next to you

You blinked in surprise. Maybe he was trying to sabotage you in revenge of the morning…. but seeing some of the other options for partners, he didn’t seem so bad

"fine"

The two of you moved to an empty corner of the classroom, while you grabbed a study guide to charms.

“We’re not using that” theodore laughed

“well unless you’re secretly a charms dictionary i’m not sure what you think we should use”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a thick grey book, labelled “A masters guide to charms”

“Sorry Nott i didn’t know you were a master” you mocked him bowing your head down

“yeah yeah funny” he rolled his eyes opening the first page to its contents

“how about this one?” you asked pointing to a picture of a beautiful ocean

“no way i don’t really want to drown today”

you glared at his reply

“let’s do this” he hummed

“no way, i’m not turning everything edible”

“boring” he sighed

“lets do this” “we’ll do this”

you both said at the same time pointing to a photo of a man appearing to be stuck to a tree.

After agreeing on the spell and practising it without wands for a little while, You decided you should try it out.

“i have a pencil and a sharpener. Try on them” you said pulling both out your pocket and placing them infront of him

Stepping back you watched theodore perform the spell.

one

two

three

“nothing happened?” you sighed

“i think i can see that myself” he grabbed the pencil and placed it closer to the sharpener

“let’s do it at the same time. That way it might be stronger” you suggested and picked your wand up.

“one” you looked at him to ensure he was doing it correctly

“two” he watched your hands to ensure you had placed your wand at the right point”

“Three!” Just as you both cast your charm, a sudden jolt sent your wands askew. You glanced up in surprise to see Fred and George Weasley barreling past.

"Watch it!" Theodore snapped, but it was too late.

The spell went haywire. You felt a strange pull on your hand and looked down to see your fingers stuck to Theodore's. His eyes widened as he tried to pull away, but your hands were firmly glued together.

"Fred! George!" you called after the twins, who had stopped and were now doubled over with laughter. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, love, it seems we just gave your charm a little nudge," Fred grinned, winking at you.

"we are very familiar with this charm" George added, chuckling.

"So you can fix this?" Theodore demanded, his usual cool demeanor slipping into frustration.

"Afraid not, mate. You'll have to wait it out," Fred said, still laughing. "The charm wears off in a 24 hours."

“Even if we performed it at the same time?” you asked

This seemed to make the twins laugh even harder

“let’s say an estimate of 48 hours then”

As the twins walked away, still laughing, you turned to Theodore. "This is your fault," you accused, trying to free your hand but only managing to make the bond tighter.

"My fault? You're the one who suggested we practice that spell," he shot back, though there was a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

“You said it too!” you argued

“Okay stop pulling! it’s my hand too!” he said

"Well, now what?" you sighed, looking at your joined hands.

“we need to find Hermione"

Theodore sighed "why?"

“because she is literally smarter than you”

Navigating the crowded corridors of Hogwarts with your hand stuck to Theodore's was an exercise in patience.

Students cast curious glances your way, and whispers followed you down the halls. You kept your head down, focusing on getting to the Gryffindor common room as quickly as possible.

As you entered the common room, heads turned, and the chatter died down. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting by the fireplace, deep in conversation. They looked up simultaneously, eyes widening at the sight of you and Theodore hand-in-hand.

"What in Merlin's name?" Ron blurted out, almost dropping the chess piece he was holding.

Hermione stood up, her brows knitting in confusion. "What’s happening?"

You cleared your throat. "We had a bit of a mishap in Charms. Fred and George decided to 'assist' our spell, and now we're stuck like this."

Harry snorted, trying to hide his laughter. "Of course it was Fred and George."

You felt your cheeks flush with embarrassment as Hermione approached, examining your joined hands. "Hmm, let me see," she muttered, pulling out her wand and waving it gently over your hands. "It's a strong charm. They must have amplified it somehow."

"Can you fix it?" you asked, desperation creeping into your voice.

Hermione bit her lip. "It might take a bit of time. This isn't a simple charm to reverse, especially if they boosted its strength. Let's sit down, and I'll see what I can do."

You and Theodore awkwardly made your way to a nearby table, still joined at the hand. Hermione began leafing through her Charms textbook, occasionally glancing up at your hands.

"Are you sure it wasn't intentional?" Harry teased, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Shut up, Potter," Theodore shot back, but there was no real malice in his voice.

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the heat rising in your face. "Can you please just help us, Hermione?"

"Alright, alright," she said, waving her hand to shush the boys. "I think I found something. It says here that a reversal spell should work, but it needs to be performed perfectly, or it could make things worse."

"Perfectly?" you echoed, feeling a pang of anxiety. "And if it goes wrong?"

"Well, we might end up with more than just your hands stuck together," Hermione admitted. "But don't worry, I've got this."

“Okay i’m ready… let’s do it” you breathed in

“Wait… i can’t do it now, i need some time to practise it. As i said, it could go very wrong of not performed perfectly”

you groaned and fell backwards onto the sofa.

Theodore glanced at the clock on the wall, then at you, his expression shifting to one of mild panic. "I have to cut our despair short. I have Quidditch practice now."

You blinked at him, still processing the absurdity of the situation. "Okay, go then."

He raised your joined hands, giving you a pointed look.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione burst into laughter. Ron clutched his side, gasping for breath. "Good luck at practice, mate!"

Harry smirked. "Maybe you can use the bonding time to strategize."

Theodore rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed. "Yeah it’s all fun and jokes now potter, but we have a match against you tomorrow."

Hermione cleared her throat, trying to stifle her giggles. "Alright, you two. I’ll need some time to figure this out. Why don’t you… well, make the best of it?"

You groaned again, feeling the weight of the situation. "Great. Just fantastic."

Theodore tugged gently at your joined hands, pulling you toward the door. "Come on, i don’t have all day."

As you approached the Slytherin locker room, you felt a sinking feeling in your stomach. Theodore seemed to sense your apprehension.

"I need to get changed," he said leading you into the locker room. The room was empty, the rest of the team already on the pitch.

You looked around, feeling incredibly awkward. "Um, how are we going to do this?"

Theodore glanced at his Quidditch uniform hanging on a nearby hook, then back at you. "We'll have to cut the sleeve of my uniform."

You stared at him, unsure if he was serious. "Cut the sleeve? Are you sure?"

He nodded, his expression resigned. "It's the only way. Unless you have a better idea?"

You shook your head, feeling a bit guilty. "No, I guess not. Do you have scissors?"

Theodore rummaged through his locker, producing a pair of small, sharp scissors. He handed them to you, and you took a deep breath, trying to steady your hands.

"Alright, hold still," you instructed, carefully cutting through the fabric of his shirt sleeve. The sound of the scissors slicing through the material was oddly loud in the quiet locker room.

Theodore watched you, his expression unreadable, but you could feel his gaze burning into you. His breath hitched slightly as you drew closer to his skin, "You're surprisingly good at this," he said

You glanced up at him, surprised. "Really? I feel like I'm ruining your shirt."

He shrugged, "It's just a shirt. Besides, you can sew it back together later, right?"

You smiled, feeling a bit more at ease. "Yeah, I can do that. Don't worry, I'll fix it."

With the sleeve cut, Theodore carefully slid his arm out of the shirt, keeping your joined hands steady. He then reached for his Quidditch uniform

"Now for the hard part," he said, looking at the uniform's sleeve.

You repeated the process, cutting the sleeve of the uniform with as much precision as you could muster. The fabric was tougher, but you managed to make a clean cut. Theodore slipped into the uniform, and you couldn't help but admire how the green and silver suited him. His muscles flexed under the tight fabric, and for a moment, you found it hard to look away.

He smirked teasingly "stop checking me out."

You rolled your eyes, your face flushing. "you’re insufferable… i’m trying to make sure the sleeve fits right," you retorted.

The reality of your situation hit you again as you exited the locker room, your hands still firmly stuck together. Navigating the hallways and the field together was awkward, to say the least.

As you approached the Quidditch pitch, the rest of the Slytherin team was already in mid-practice, flying through the air, tossing Quaffles, and practicing their Beater drills.

The sight of you and Theodore hand-in-hand drew immediate attention.

Draco was the first to approach, a sly grin on his face. "whats happening here?" he laughed, "Nott, I didn't know you needed a babysitter for practice."

Theodore shot his friend a warning look. "Shut up, Draco."

Draco chuckled, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “i thought you guys hated each other? when did you make it official?” he laughed louder this time

"You are the only one laughing" theodore said chuckling at him

“i feel sorry for you” draco said towards you “anyway, let’s continue with practise”

You did your best to stay out of the way,

draco had allowed you and theo to simply sit in the stands while someone threw a bludger at him to try and hit.

he clearly didn’t try hard enough as you got hit in your head twice.

A few of the players couldn't resist taking jabs at you and Theodore as they ran past.

"Hey, Nott, maybe she can be our good luck charm!" one of them called out, laughing.

"Or a distraction for the other team!" another added, snickering.

You clenched your jaw, trying to ignore the comments.

“they’re all stupid” theodore would say

Finally, one player took it too far.

"Hey, Nott, why don't you just sleep with her already? Maybe that'll break the spell!"

Theodore stopped dead in his tracks, his face flushing with anger. "That's enough!"

a few members of the team fell silent, taken aback by his outburst. The player who made the remark, Marcus Flint, sneered. "What's the matter, Nott? Can't take a joke?"

Theodore scoffed. "Shut up you tosser, yes, she is a girl, but she didn’t ask to be surrounded by you idiots, so the least you can do is respect her"

You could feel the tension radiating off him, and it was clear that his patience had reached its limit. Flint opened his mouth to retort, but before he could say anything, you stepped forward.

"It’s okay," you said, "We didn't ask for this to happen, but we're dealing with it. So if you're done acting like children, maybe you can focus on your practise."

"Alright, enough," Draco said, his tone firm. "let’s end here today yeah, let’s just hope today was enough to get us our win tomorrow”

As the Quidditch practice ended, the players dispersed, heading towards the locker room.

"I can't go in there," you said, tugging on Theodore's hand to stop him from entering. "I don't want to see anyone...you know, changing."

Theodore paused "Fine, we'll wait out here until they're done."

You both sat on the bench outside the locker room, Silence hung heavily between you, neither of you wanting to break it. Finally, Theodore spoke.

“you should of punched flint, no one would’ve of said anything”

“well, i’m not one to start fights, that would make me reckless” you sighed

Theodore’s smirk widened. “well you did suggest we do this spell” he lifted up your hands “together, that’s pretty reckless.”

“Oh, please,” you retorted, turning to face him. “Like you didn’t push for it too. That ‘I’m a master of charms’ act? Such a joke.”

Theodore’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned in slightly. “well you’re always whining about how hard life is. If you’re so tired, maybe you should’ve stayed in bed instead of trying to impress everyone.”

“Impress everyone?” you shot back, your faces inches apart. “Nice try, but your house is all about being superior, right?”

“Well, if we’re talking about superiority,” Theodore said, his breath warm against your face, “maybe you should look at your own house, the loudest bunch of show-offs.”

“Loud?” you challenged, your fingers brushing against his arm. “At least we’re not sneaky and backstabbing. I’d rather be loud than be a two-faced snake.”

Theodore’s eyes flashed. “Better sneaky than a blabbering idiot. At least I don’t go around pretending to be perfect.”

“Perfect?” you scoffed, leaning in so close that your lips nearly brushed his. “You think you’re so high and mighty. Well, you’re not.”

“Yeah?” Theodore’s voice dropped to a low murmur as he leaned even closer. “Maybe I’m just tired of you acting like you’ve got it all together.”

“You mean like you’re tired of being a pompous jerk?” you spat, “I’m tired of your attitude.”

Your faces were so close now. Just as it seemed like something might actually happen, Theodore suddenly pulled back.

“Honestly, can’t we just have one conversation without it turning into a drama?” Theodore said, crossing his arms and turning slightly away from you.

“Oh, so now you’re the expert on handling disagreements?” you retorted,

“Well, you’re not exactly making it easy to like you,” Theodore snapped, turning towards you for the tenth time. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re a complete—” you began, but your words were cut off as Theodore’s lips almost touched yours again.

you both sat back

“Let’s just get this charm sorted and go our separate ways.”

You nodded, your jaw clenched.

“your blouse is open” he said staring at the pitch

“yeah nice try”

“i’m not joking” he urged

you discreetly looked down to see that your two buttons were, in fact undone.

you slowly dragged your hand towards your top, pulling theodore’s hand with it.

Your fingers failed to do the button with his hand in the way.

“Nott, please flatten your hand” you said lowly

he cleared his throat “if i flatten it… it would be on your chest”

you breathed out and closed your eyes slowly, before flattening his hand yourself.

Theodore shifted, his hand still pressed awkwardly against your chest. His eyes met yours, and for a brief, unsettling moment, the anger seemed to dissolve into something else.

“You’re such a...” Theodore started

“Don’t start,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

“You make me feel... things I don’t want to deal with.”

After visiting Hermione, who delivered the disappointing news that you and Theodore might be stuck like this for another day, the reality of the situation set in. The idea of spending an entire night with your hands stuck to Theodore's was less than appealing.

After agreeing on it, you both reluctantly made your way to the Astronomy tower. The tension was high, and you could feel every small touch between you—whether it was Theodore adjusting his position or the slight bump of your hands against each other.

“I guess we should figure out where we’re going to sleep,” Theodore said

“Right,” you replied, trying to sound collected despite the discomfort. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Theodore shrugged, glancing around the tower as if searching for an escape route. “We could just sit here until morning?”

You sighed, feeling the exhaustion of the day catch up with you. “Fine. Just... let’s try to make this as bearable as possible.”

You both found a quiet corner of the tower and made yourselves as comfortable as you could, given the circumstances.

“So,” Theodore began after a moment of silence, “since we’re stuck together, we might as well talk.”

“Talk?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

“Plenty,” Theodore said with a shrug. “We’ve been arguing nonstop. Maybe it’s time we actually had a proper conversation.”

You considered this for a moment. “Alright, fine. What do you want to talk about?”

“Let’s start with why you always act like the world is out to get you,” Theodore said, leaning back against the wall.

You stared at him, taken aback by the question. “What makes you think I act that way?”

“You always seem so stressed and ready to snap,” Theodore explained. “It’s like you’ve got this cloud hanging over you.”

“maybe i do”

A brief silence followed, during which you both seemed to be lost in thought.

“So,” Theodore said, breaking the silence, “what annoys you the most about me”

You laughed slightly. “Your carelessness.”

Theodore chuckled softly. “i care about a lot of things actually”

“yeah? like what”

he stared at you in a comfortable silence, leaving that question unanswered

You smiled faintly

As the evening wore on, you both found it increasingly difficult to ignore the closeness of your situation. The moonlight made even the smallest touches feel more significant.

Eventually, you both fell asleep, leaning against each other for support.

You rubbed your eyes, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep. “Oh, this is just perfect,” you groaned, pushing yourself up and realizing just how tangled up you were. “We need to get to our dormitories and change. It’s almost time for the Quidditch match.”

You glanced around the tower, feeling the urgency of the situation. Theodore sat up, still a bit dazed, and ran a hand through his messy hair. “Then we need to find hermione”

You both maneuvered to stand up, your hands still firmly attached. It was a delicate balance, trying not to trip over each other as you made your way out of the Astronomy Tower.

The corridors of Hogwarts were quieter at this hour, but you still drew curious glances from early-rising students who whispered and pointed as you and Theodore hurried by.

Once you got to your dorm you instructed theo to turn around while you changed.

after you had gotten ready you both sprinted to the locker room and sighed in relief at hermione waiting there you.

You both lifted your hands infront of her ready to be freed

“i can’t perform the spell”

“what?”

“it’s too dangerous, i even consulted with mcgonagall, she said that we will just have to wait it out”

You sighed, feeling frustration “It’s okay, Hermione. Thank you for trying.”

Hermione gave you both a sympathetic smile. “I’ll head to the stands and watch the match. Good luck”

As Hermione walked away, you turned to Theodore, “I’m really sorry about this, Theo. I know how much this match means to you.”

He looked at you, his eyes softening. “It’s okay. We’ll have to try and manage.”

The tension between you seemed to dissolve slightly as you both stood there

The Quidditch match was about to start, and with the stands starting to fill up, you found yourselves standing closer than you had all day. The space between you seemed to shrink and In a moment of impulsive decision, Theodore leaned in, and before either of you could second-guess, your lips met his.

When the kiss ended, you pulled back slightly, feeling a rush of warmth spread through you. You noticed, with a jolt, that Theodore’s hands were now resting comfortably on your waist. The realization hit you, and you looked at him in surprise. “Theo… your hands are on my waist.”

Theodore blinked, confusion crossing his face, before it dawned on him. “Wait—” he started, looking at your hands which were now free.

You both stared at each other, “I guess we really did have to kiss to break the spell,” you joked with a light laugh.

Theodore chuckled and a genuine smile lit up his face. “I suppose so.”

“Well,” Theodore said, “I’d better get changed before the match starts. I’m sure the team’s been waiting for me.”

“yeah” you said, smiling slightly. “good luck.”

he quickly leaned forward to kiss you one last time before fake saluting you with a smile on his face and turning towards the locker room.

“wait theodore”

he turned around

“your buttons undone” you pointed to his trousers

[godihatethiswebsite]

Tethered Bonds

✽ Poly 141 x f!reader (Omegaverse AU)

A lucky stroke of fate led you right into the arms of your alpha soulmates. But is it everything you dreamed it would be or just the continuation of a nightmare?

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

✽ Part One - A twisted fate

I'm gonna be honest: this came to me in a tired, period induced haze and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing but the bunnies would not let me stop until I finished it. Was supposed to be a oneshot... until it wasn't XD Hoping this is just gonna be a short little pet project on the side. Lemme know if I missed any triggers!

Trigger warnings: SA (not by the 141), biting, claiming, angst, depression, self harm

[Edit 7/16/24: updated relationship tags]

The parking lot was a certified mess to navigate, a veritable winter hellscape with the continual snowfall keeping the pavement slick and churning around spinning wheels to create a thick dirty slush. Packed cars fought for spaces towards the front of the store, wanting to avoid the headache of trudging through sloppy sleet, heavy carts overflowing with expensive gifts and last minute groceries.

Parents loaded up their trunks for their upcoming banquets. Little ones chattered in youthful exuberance about brightly wrapped packages and a jolly fat man. Festively dressed bell ringers exhausted their muscles for the cause of charity, offering joyous smiles to those passing by gracious enough to offer a token. Even six inches of heavy wet snowfall were not enough to deter shoppers from their mood. Coupled with the obnoxiously boisterous music that met you at the door it was almost impossible not to get swept up in the infectious holiday spirit.

Almost.

You hadn’t bothered joining the chaotic dominance for prime parking, opting to choose the very last row towards the street instead of wasting precious minutes yelling profanities out the window to an uppity pack trying to steal your spot. The harsh wind burned your face and nipped at your skin, pulling the woolen scarf tighter around your neck and up over your bitten nose. You avoided eye contact with the chipper lady at the front, not wanting to feel guilty for not donating when you barely had enough to scrape by as it is.

Normally you avoided venturing out this close to Christmas unless absolutely necessary. Holidays haven't meant much to you in recent years since your parent’s untimely passing and you hated the constant reminder of ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. Sure, there were still your other two alpha fathers, but they’d opted for someplace warmer in their age and visitation was difficult with your busy work schedule. Your younger brother wasn’t almost worth mentioning with his new prissy family somewhere up north. That bridge was burned the day he called you a harlot.

Needless to say, you’d become something of a grinch.

You’d been miserably sick the week prior and ate through most of your stockpile of hoarded food, not enough remaining to keep blowing off shopping with the bustling crowds. If you wanted to last past New Years then a trip into town was unavoidable.

The intense blast of hot air from the overhead heaters thawed your aching bones upon entering the store, shaking the accumulated dampness from your head and shoulders but leaving the thick cloth covering the lower half of your face. It would help you in your endeavors to get through the aisles expediently without irritating your delicate omega olfactory senses. 

It got harder to distinguish the source of fragrances this time of year, when folk spent their days burrowed away from the bitter cold surrounded by the comforts of the season. A chilled glass of rich subtly spiced eggnog, smokey cedar logs crackling in the hearth, sweet woodsy pine wreaths and garlands wrapped around thick oak banisters, trees decorated with peppermint candy canes and dried strings of popcorn. 

Gingerbread, mulled wine, cinnamon, orange, clove; a bountiful buffet of complementary aromas. Your own father had smelled of cranberry sauce once upon a time (it made the holidays that much harder when he was gone). And with so many people filling the space - even with the heating fans working overtime trying to filter out most of it - it could get difficult trying to figure out whether a boozy scent originated from a lovely beta or the soaked rum cake she was placing in her cart.

Honestly if it weren't for the outrageous delivery fees you would've had the groceries dropped off instead of enduring the aggressive pheromones floating through the air. Alas this was one of your few exceptions to your hermit lifestyle.

Truthfully, it wasn’t just December that had you hesitant to leave the sanctuary of your meager apartment. 

For the past few years, you’d been battling a severe case of agoraphobia, something you’d been working on wholeheartedly with a therapist since the accident that made you so. It had crippled you to the point that even daring to have the blinds open on your windows sent you spiraling into that dark abyss of cackling distress, panic consuming every last ounce of breath until you found yourself minutes later curled up on the bathroom floor, lightheaded and queasy.

Nausea was a constant in your life, along with the cold sweat that had you sleeping on a towel just to keep from ruining your bedsheets. Lethargy was embedded in your muscle fibers. A searing ache in your throat. The painful deep tugging in your chest an ever present reminder of the uphill battle you fought each time you opened your crusty sleep filled eyes. Depression was your best friend, curled around you in a false sense of comfort where it was easier to slip into a maladaptive headspace than face the truth of your harsh reality.

But despite the physical manifestations of your trauma, you’d made good strides so far with your weekly sessions. It had been a difficult road getting to this point and your therapist praised you for your dedication to not letting it hinder the life you had ahead. You weren’t sure what it looked like, but you tried all the same.

Like a hound that heard you calling, that ominous presence that filled you with dread came crawling into the back of your skull, mittened hand discreetly itching at the wool around your neck and scratching the irritated skin beneath. Forcing yourself to take a few deep breaths until it settled, you grabbed one of the many baskets available and began the trek weaving down the rows of food.

Christmas was about a week away and the mobs were out in full force. Thankfully the items you were on the hunt for were not the same ingredients needed by everyone else. There was the occasional overlap of things like milk, eggs, bread, etc. But there was no call for a full sized turkey or spiraled ham; no sweet potato casserole or chocolate yule log to bake. Just some bologna, shredded cheese, a couple packs of ramen, and a few other household things here you were running low on. 

Maybe for the hell of it you’d stop in the frozen section and find yourself a mini cheesecake to splurge on for when you inevitably opened that bottle of fireball sitting on the shelf come next Tuesday, forced to listen to your upstairs neighbors' horrendous attempts at Christmas caroling.

Halfway through the store, your browsing was interrupted by an alluring scent swirling somewhere nearby.

Citrusy. Acidic. Sweet. Airy. 

Your scarf had slipped off your face when you bent down to grab something off the lower racks, exposing you to the freshly baked goods across the way. Someone nearby was carrying a batch of lemon cupcakes, your mouth watering as the scent invaded your tastebuds and forced a pleasant hum from the back of your throat. 

Something curled in your chest like a finger beckoning forward, begging for an acknowledgement that had you standing at rapt attention. Your body seemed to move on its own, head swiveling like a rickety chair, scanning the nearby vicinity - for what, you couldn’t say. The inner omega that prowled just underneath the surface vibrated restlessly, choking back a needy whine while your eyes swept over the closest individuals. Something primal had called out to you, throwing your hormones out of whack, piecing together invisible clues so obviously standing right in front of you. 

The summery concoction felt so out of place in the harsh winter months, swirling and nagging at the base of your spine, urgent and loud and taking up too much space until you felt like you could drown in its tang–

Your muscles locked in place, gaze affixed to something - someone - at the end of the aisle. 

A big someone. An alpha.

And he was massive.

There was a natural musculature that came with the inherited alpha genetics. Beta’s could grow to a similar size if they worked at it, but there was a casual arrogance that was impossible to mistake with the former designation. Even still, this man towered over most others in the vicinity, lesser alphas giving a wide berth to the intimidating figure currently staring down at his phone screen. Thick grey hoodie pulled up over his head, a black military jacket layered over top. Dark wash jeans led down to warm boots hefty enough to stomp a man’s skull in. Messy dark blonde hair peeked out from up top, a black surgical mask covering the lower half of his face from view.

He couldn’t have given off any more ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibes if he had it tattooed across his forehead. There was nothing sinister about his bearing per se - one hand casually shoved into a coat pocket as he leaned back against one of the dessert displays - but there was a coiled alertness that gave you the distinct impression he was more aware of his surroundings than he led you to believe.

One thing was for certain: you were never more sure of anything in your less than perfect life that that man was your scent match.

Your lungs expanded in your chest to drink in more of his scent. Palms turned sweaty, hair on the back of your neck prickled, the weight of the basket on your arm all but forgotten. Your throat parched at the prospect of getting to shove your face against his scent gland and taste the delectable lemony goodness right off his skin. 

People went lifetimes never meeting their perfect scent matches. The odds of you ever encountering one wasn’t even worth holding out hope for. Over seven billion people on the planet and you had to win an epic fucking lottery to get as lucky as you just did. Bonding ceremonies like that made the news for how rare it was. You’d never even dreamed of this happening, making peace with the idea that mates only existed in fairytale romance.

You just about dropped your groceries when he was joined shortly thereafter by another gorgeous male, slightly shorter by a few inches and not as broadly built. Rich dark skin, effortlessly cool street style, short black curls, and a dazzling pearly white smile.

This new alpha didn’t seem to flinch in the presence of the other, lemon cupcake glancing up only briefly to acknowledge the newcomer whose toasted coconut aroma barrelled right into you, colliding like a runaway freight at an unguarded intersection. Gulping down mouthfuls of air like a fish heaving on dry land, your head spun wildly at the nutty intrusion; smokey yet sweet, conjuring images of a warm evening bonfire on a lush sandy beach. 

Hope bloomed in your chest something fierce and bright. Your omega preened in unbridled delight, pawing at the surface, eager to get her hands on the two beautiful specimens whose every atom screamed ‘mine’. Tears stung behind your eyes, a mixture of relief and elation, vibrant like bursting fireworks and twinkling Christmas lights. 

What would you say to them? Do you approach them first? Should you wait for them to scent you back or try to pretend you didn’t smell them yet? What did their voices sound like? You could see their lips moving, even if the ones’ were hidden behind a surgical mask. Tenor, baritone, rumbly bass? What were their names? Where did they live? Was this really happening right now?! 

Something twisted and gnarled sunk its claws into your subconscious, rearing its ugly head in protest at the newfound revelation, but for the first time in years you didn’t fucking care. 

They were here. Your alphas. Your pack. Your salvation.

“Babes!” 

Decadent chocolate floated past you, a small apology from her lips as the omega brushed by, bumping her arm against yours on the way to her intended destination. You’d hardly noticed, too caught up in your own inner monologue and girlish fantasies to barely manage a quiet ‘no worries’.

For a split second, your eyes met coconut’s beautiful luscious brown, breath catching in your throat as the object of your desire finally seemed to take note of your existence. It was like gazing into the threads of the universe, pulling taut between you in a cosmic symphony that brought your stardust back together from whence it scattered at the dawn of time. 

A perfect part of an incomplete whole.

…until those shimmering umber pools shifted left, aimed at the bubbly figure headed right towards them. 

Huh?

Confusion as both alphas turned their full undivided attention to the dark haired omega, holding out a box of something for them to inspect and smiling when it met their approval, an affectionate pat on the head from lemon for her success that left her beaming with pride. 

That’s when you noticed it - peeking out underneath the collar of her elegant peacoat. A faint white crescent moon shaped scar, standing out against her lightly tanned skin, a matching one a little farther down. 

Mating bites. A bonded omega. 

And your scent matched alphas were gazing lovingly at her as if she’d hung the stars. 

She was theirs. They’d already found their mate. 

And it wasn’t you.

Something died in your chest, a broken scream torn silent from your soul as it condensed into a burning black hole. Agony unlike anything you’ve ever known, piercing your fragile heart and burrowing like a plague into your veins until the sickness had spread to every corner of your being. Your omega clawed at her eyes, willing the visions in front of you to vanish like a twisted mirage, begging for a bullet to erase the image of coconut planting a soft forehead kiss before wrapping an arm around her waist and turning to leave. 

A dejected whine ripped from your throat as you took an unconscious step forward, hand vaguely outreached, instincts screaming to chase after them and make them choose you instead of her. But you did no such thing. You watched helplessly as the alphas who were supposedly destined for you by the stars turned their backs on your pathetic existence.

This couldn't be happening. Why was this happening?! Please turn around!!!

With the same circulating air that had guided their scents to you, the wind in the store shifted.

Lemon cupcake went ramrod straight, whipping his head around so fast you were worried it’d go flying off his shoulders. It was uncanny the way he immediately zeroed in on your poor trembling figure, standing in the middle of a crowded aisle, uncaring to the concerned glances of the other shoppers as he unknowingly ruined your life. 

Recognition sparked deep behind voided irises before going completely neutral, steeling his expression but remaining unmoving as stone. It’s like the two of you were locked into place, orbiting each other by an invisible tether, watery eyes begging the ones staring back to please… please not leave you behind.

Coconut halted in his own step at the end of the aisle, sniffing the air for a moment with a furrowed brow, glancing over his shoulder at lemon, asking him something too far away to overhear. You can only assume the contents of his reply, the slightest shift of his mask the only tell he’d responded before coconut turned to face you as well.

This time garnered more of a physical reaction than the last, jaw dropping while staring just as unabashedly as his alpha companion. Eyes swept from head to toe, cataloging every minute detail the same as you’d done to them. Pupils dilated exponentially, nostrils flaring taking in the crisp pear scent you exuded, memorizing every facet and swallowing it down like a ravenous predator.

What a sight you must’ve made; eyes red and puffy from the tears that now flowed freely from suffering instead of the earlier jubilation, meek and sheepish and falling apart at the seams. What a piss poor impression to give the men fated to be your mates.

There was a brief moment where coconut seemed to match your initial energy, a flash of something saccharine and longing, only for it to collapse under the grueling weight of our fatalistic reality. There was an internal struggle in the crease of his brow, the downturned expression souring behind clenched teeth and tight fists. But more than that there was pity - pity at how you couldn’t have met sooner. Pity that you’d had to discover them like this, a woman on their arm and bite marks on her neck. Pity that they hadn’t had faith that they would be the lucky ones in a packed society.

You can make out a question on the chocolate omega’s perfectly pouty lips, trying to put the jigsaw together as to why her alphas were suddenly acting this way while glancing between the three of you.

Ignoring her, coconut takes a half step forward; you take two steps back. There’s an apology in your watery eyes, a hushed ‘merry christmas’ too strained for their ears. Your heart’s beating too loudly, your breath comes too shallow. You don’t even realize you’re sucking in heaving sobs until a gentle hand of a passerby lands on your shoulder, snapping you out of the chaos of your psyche. 

You can’t take it any more; the shame, the embarrassment, the gut wrenching defeat. 

The basket falls to the floor with a loud clatter, startling the people nearby who let out shrieks and gasps of surprise as the spilled contents inside break open and shatter. Eggs crack, milk pours onto the mud trekked tile, a fragile jar of strawberry jam splatters across someones pristine boots with an indignant shout.

A smooth tenor voice calls out ‘WAIT’, but you’ve already rounded the corner, barreling through the crowds of happy smiles and ecstatic giggles, too torn up inside to feel anything but desolation at the future so cruelly ripped from your fingers.

The crisp frigid air smacks the breath from your lungs, winter boots slapping on the slushy frozen ground. The squeal of brakes accompanies you as you sprint uncaringly through the bustling traffic, horns honking and voices shouting, muffled and far away as you drown in the whirlwind of your mind. It’s a miracle you’re not hit by a car, an even bigger one that you make it back to your own unscathed.

Slamming the car door shut, you smack your padded palms repeatedly against the steering wheel, banshee wailing your vocal cords raw in despair. The dark presence creeps in once more, a mocking chill down your spine as it caresses your fractured soul. The nausea comes back full force, the tugging on your chest, the burning in your throat. There’s a desperation as you tear your fitted mittens off, reaching under the woolen scarf and incessantly scratching at the irritated skin until it shreds under your nails. The pain doesn't register through your emotional torment, blocking out the inner voice until it inevitably slinks back into the shadows after its bitter lick of victory.

Panting hard, your head slumps back against the cloth headrest, stewing in the silence of misery and defeat, the distant joyful bells of Christmas the only company you have on this cold winter’s night.

It takes a few tries to fit the key in your deadbolt, blinking through tears now frozen to your eyelashes. There’s no recollection of how you even made it home in your brittle mental state. For all you knew were twelve civilians flattened like pancakes on the side of the road and a warrant out for your arrest. 

Wouldn’t that be nice? A break from having to pay bills and function like an adult.

Stumbling through the door, the sparse furnishings of your minimal studio glare at you, flipping them off as you shuck the damp outer layers from your frail form. A mess to be cleaned up another day.  

It wasn't just the rejection of your fated mates you were facing. It was the knowledge that your entire future had been ripped away and no amount of hot glue could piece it back together. Today’s revelation was the final nail in the coffin for the rest of your life.

The bathroom lights flickered with dying bulbs, something that had been on your shopping list tonight and was now being swept off the floor along with everything else you’d left behind. It didn’t stop you from locating the first aid kit under your sink, setting it on the ceramic counter and pulling out the well loved supplies inside.

You avoided staring at your gaunt reflection, not wanting to see the person looking back as you tugged at the thick scarf looped around your neck. The constricting material tore away with ease, falling into a discarded heap on the floor, revealing the torn mottled flesh hidden underneath. 

Your own set of crescent shaped scars - where the line of your neck connected to the meat of your shoulder, long since healed over and faded with time. The area surrounding it was now swollen and inflamed, raised angry red lines dotted with scrapes like a bad case of road rash, bloody from where you'd furiously clawed at your neck on the car ride home. The only time the fucker in your head shuts up - the connection tethering you emotionally gone silent once he got tired of feeling physical pain across the bond.

Memories came unbidden. Flashes of that fateful encounter coming home late from work, dragged into a sequestered shadowy overhang a few meters down the darkened alleyway. A feral alpha hopped up on something illegal, tearing into your clothes and violating the virginal space between your thighs. The muffled cries as he overpowered you, panting through a rut with his greasy fingers shoved down your throat to silence you, gagging on the musky taste. The scream as his teeth pierced your flesh, the bond snapping taut and stealing your future from you without a thought to your own wishes.

He’d fucked you ragged that night, waking up with your cheek pressed into the damp pavement and his arm slung around your waist from hours earlier. There’d been no one to turn to, no one who would care. By law now you were his - no matter the means it had been done. 

A mating bite was binding. 

You’d crawled away from him, your outfit in tatters hanging loosely over your bruised form, dried blood stuck to your neck and a stabbing pain at your apex. You felt dirty and used and wanted nothing more than to strip the skin from your bones. The unconscious form of the– your alpha flopped prone on his back, crimson stains around his mouth and his flaccid cock still half out of his trousers. The pinpricks on his arm told the tale of a junkie. It’s possible he hadn’t even been fully aware of the crime he’d committed. 

You didn’t stick around to find out.

But you paid for that decision harshly, opting for a life not attached to your abuser, at a steep tormented cost. Bonds weren’t meant to be strained for so long. It starts to cause negative impacts on the pair, the omega bearing the worst of the brunt. Nausea, sweating, pain, dizziness, fatigue. The chronic illnesses you endured day in and day out would stay with you for the rest of your life. So long as he was up and walking free - alive somewhere on the other side of the country - his greasy claws strumming your senses through the connection tethering you eternally.

Only a perfect scent match could override the original bite and free you from the oppressive bonds that shackled you to an invisible alpha - the last remaining hope you had at any semblance of happiness.

And you just lost it.

>> ✿ Next ✿ >>

[starrieangel]

🎮Mouthwashing Crew playing Minecraft with you🌾

I said I was gonna write it.. well here it is

Features: Curly & Reader, Anya & Reader, Daisuke & Reader, Jimmy & Reader

Tags: Could be read as Platonic or Romantic, Normal!Jimmy (lol)

rb if you like ♡!

Curly

Does Not understand

He's such a dad, he has no idea how to work this thing or why everything is blocks..? but you told him it's really fun, so he'll give it his best shot!

First thing he does: "Whats this thing?" *runs directly up to creeper*

"Why did he do that to me !!? I was just saying hi D:"

He gets the hang of it pretty quickly after that, though. You get distracted mining and when you come back he has a double chest full of nothing but oak logs (He thinks the game is just about chopping trees)

Gets uncharacteristically excited about seeing a fox for the first time; spends next 30 minutes trying to make it his pet

Eventually gives up, and you don't even end up building anything out of the logs, you guys just end up watching a movie afterwards. He's says next time, you guys are gonna build a big house! (Spoiler: he builds a giant cube house out of nothing but wooden planks)

Anya

A thousand times worse than Curly, except she's played this game so many times before she. really has no excuse to be this bad

Gets scared because she's only ever played on peaceful mode...

Spends the whole time gathering animals. Let the woman farm!!!

Would also probably build pixel art out of the wool from her sheep farm

Long story short, there is a funeral, eulogy, and headstone for her late cat. You swear you dont know how that lava got there...

Ends up noping out of the game after you make her go to the nether for the first time XD

Daisuke

Grew up with this game, has beaten it more times than he count

He lets you build the base and decorate it while he mines, or you both go on epic cave adventures..!!

Soo so many funny moments involving falling into giant pits, burning in lava, being exploded... etc.

Daisuke screams into the mic a loooot. Like, a lot. Look up perfectly cut minecraft screams, that's how he plays this game

You end up playing. FOR HOURS

Daisuke is still finishing up his nether hub, its almost 2 am, and you are so so tired... he tells you to get some sleep, while he finishes building..!! When does this guy sleep..?

Jimmy

Does anyone else get the feeling Jimmy plays COD with his headset plugged into his xbox 360 controller or is that.. just me ???

Yes he's tried the game a few times, but he's always thought it was more for kids. Plus he hasn't seen any of the updates since the original console release, so he gets on and is like "Wtf is this shit"

Tries to fight the warden ... does not pick up on the sound mechanic at all ... tries to collect honey ... insta killed by swarm of bees ... and other similar misfortunes befall poor Jimble

You guys don't even make it to the nether before he decides maybe you should play something else XD

Ends up waking you up from rage quitting CS:GO (You fell asleep after he forced you to watch him play)

🎮🌾⛏️

Let me know what you thought in the replies and if u liked it !! or send me an ask with your mouthwashing headcanons ♡♡

[unabashegirl]

the cover | part 2

Y/N and Harry, lifelong best friends, pretend to be a couple for a family wedding weekend in Edinburgh. As they navigate the event, old feelings resurface, and what starts as an act turns into something real, leading them to confront their true emotions for one another.

Author's note: hello everyone! I hope you are doing as good as expected. Liam's death has been a tough pill to swallow. I can't begin to imagine how his close friends and family might be feeling. I honestly feel like I haven't assimilated. It's just so sudden and unexpected.

check out my patreon (starting at $2) and get full access to all of the one shot (+8K) and exclusive scenes, various one shots and much more :)

word count: 3.3K

The hum of the car engine and the rhythmic sound of tires on the motorway created a comforting backdrop as Harry and Y/N cruised along, leaving the city far behind. The sun dipped low, casting a warm glow over the landscape. The scent of takeaway coffee and crisps filled the air, with the windows cracked open just enough to let in a cool evening breeze.

Harry, who insisted on driving first, had one hand loosely on the steering wheel, his sunglasses perched on his nose. Every now and then, he glanced over at Y/N with a teasing grin.

“You’re quiet for someone who signed up for a whole road trip,” he teased, nudging her with his elbow. “Thought you’d be the one keeping the conversation going.”

Y/N smiled, sinking back into her seat. “Just enjoying the peace before the chaos of my family.”

Harry laughed, the sound warm and comforting. “You act like they’ll eat us alive.”

“They might,” Y/N muttered, earning another chuckle.

Soft music played from the speakers—an eclectic playlist Harry had made, full of road trip classics. When Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac came on, Harry grinned and cranked up the volume.

“Oh, this is a good one,” he said, tapping the steering wheel. “You have to sing along. Road trip rules.”

Y/N tried to hold back a laugh. “I’m not singing.”

Harry, undeterred, started belting out the lyrics dramatically, completely over the top. Y/N couldn’t help but laugh, eventually caving and singing along—though much less theatrically.

“There you go!” Harry said, laughing. “Now it’s a real road trip.”

The moment slipped into a comfortable rhythm—the music, the open road, and their easy companionship making the miles disappear. Y/N found herself relaxing, but the weight of the upcoming wedding lingered in the back of her mind.

After a few hours on the road, they pulled off at a small roadside diner nestled in the countryside. The fresh air was a welcome break from the car.

“This looks like a good spot,” Harry said, stretching as they got out. Y/N couldn’t help but glance at him, the sun catching the sharp angles of his face, making his curls look effortlessly perfect.

They walked into the diner, greeted by the soft chime of a bell over the door. The woman behind the counter didn’t seem to recognize Harry, and it was a relief—just two people grabbing a bite, no fuss.

“This is nice,” Harry said, sliding into a booth by the window.

Y/N smiled, knowing what he meant. “It must feel good to just be normal for a minute.”

Harry nodded, leaning back with a content sigh. “No cameras, no pressure… just us.”

They ordered burgers and fries, and Harry insisted on getting milkshakes to complete the meal. The conversation flowed easily, laughter breaking out as Harry joked about the wedding and Y/N’s family.

“You’re terrible,” Y/N said between laughs, wiping her eyes.

“I’m just preparing for what’s ahead,” Harry replied with a smirk. “Perfect fake boyfriend mode.”

After eating, they wandered around the small town nearby, snapping photos of the countryside. Harry held up his phone, grinning. “Stand by that tree,” he directed, and Y/N rolled her eyes but obliged.

“Why are you taking photos of me?” Y/N asked, half-heartedly posing in front of the sprawling oak tree.

“Because,” Harry said with a grin, snapping away, “you’re part of the adventure. Gotta document it.”

Y/N laughed, shaking her head. “Fine, but I’m taking one of you too.” She grabbed his phone, snapping a quick photo of him standing with the tree and hills in the background. His goofy smile made her heart warm—Harry, carefree and happy, just her best friend, far from the pressures of fame.

They lingered a bit longer, soaking in the calm before Harry checked his phone. “We should hit the road if we want to make it to Edinburgh before dark.”

Y/N nodded, feeling content as they climbed back into the car. The road trip was turning into something more special than she’d expected. She glanced at Harry as he drummed his fingers along to the music. There was something unspoken between them, as if a shift was happening, slow and subtle, yet undeniable.

As they approached the castle, the setting sun cast a golden glow over the estate, its stone walls and ivy-covered turrets straight out of a fairytale. Y/N’s stomach flipped, nerves kicking in as the car bumped along the gravel driveway.

“We made it,” Harry said, parking the car. “Ready?”

“Not even a little,” Y/N muttered before her door was yanked open, and she was pulled into a whirlwind of hugs and greetings. Her mom was first, squeezing Y/N before pulling back to critique her hair. “Sweetie, a haircut before tomorrow might be good, don’t you think?”

Y/N forced a smile as her aunt chimed in agreement. Her heart sank. Her family always had something to nitpick. It didn’t take long before her cousin brought up a dreaded subject: “One of the groomsmen is single. We thought you two might hit it off.”

Y/N’s stomach clenched, ready to politely deflect, when Harry’s voice cut through. “Hey, love, what did I miss?” He strolled over, all confidence, slipping his arm around her waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I’m Harry,” he introduced himself, leaving her family speechless.

His presence immediately eased the tension, and Y/N leaned into him, grateful. “You alright?” he asked quietly.

“Better now,” she whispered back.

Her mom’s eyes darted between them, clearly surprised. “Harry! I didn’t realize you were coming with Y/N.”

“Yep,” Harry replied smoothly, shaking hands with the rest of her family. “Thought it’d be fun to make a weekend of it.”

Her family exchanged glances, mentally recalculating their plans to set her up with anyone else. Y/N could only smile, leaning into Harry’s warmth, thankful for his perfect timing.

Y/N hesitated for a moment, clutching the edge of her oversized t-shirt as she padded over to the bed. The atmosphere between them was still light, but there was an undercurrent now—an unspoken awareness that lingered with every glance. She climbed into bed, sitting cross-legged as she pulled the covers over her lap.

“This is surreal,” she admitted, running a hand through her hair. “My family, this place… us pretending to be something we’re not. It feels like I’m in a weird dream.”

Harry looked over at her, his phone now abandoned on the nightstand. “It’s not that weird, is it?” he said with a soft chuckle, his voice low in the quiet room. “I mean, we’ve been through worse, right?”

Y/N snorted. “True. But this is different. There’s more at stake here. My family’s already plotting wedding dates for us in their heads, I just know it.”

Harry grinned, shifting to prop himself up on his elbow so he could face her more fully. “Well, let them plan away. They don’t need to know the truth, and if it helps you get through this weekend without the endless setups, I’m happy to keep playing along.”

His words were casual, but the way he looked at her, his eyes soft and reassuring, made something stir in Y/N’s chest. She wasn’t sure if it was the weight of the day, or the strange intimacy of being alone with him in this room, but she felt the pull between them more intensely than before.

“Thanks for that,” she murmured, her voice quieter now. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here.”

Harry’s gaze lingered on her for a beat longer before he shrugged lightly. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

Friends.

Y/N nodded, trying to shake the feeling that there was something more beneath the surface, something they hadn’t yet addressed. She laid back, sinking into the plush pillows as she stared up at the canopy overhead, trying to quiet her racing thoughts.

“Goodnight, H,” she whispered.

Harry turned off the light, settling beside her as the room plunged into comfortable darkness. “Goodnight, love.”

But long after the room had gone still, Y/N found herself wide awake, her thoughts spinning. The warmth of Harry’s presence beside her was impossible to ignore, and though nothing had changed between them in any outward way, something deep inside her knew that this weekend was going to shift things—whether they wanted it to or not.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat as Harry’s arm remained wrapped around her, the subtle weight of it grounding her in a way she hadn’t anticipated. She had always known Harry was protective, the type of friend who would go out of his way to make sure she felt safe. But this—this was different. This was intimate, a closeness that blurred the line between friendship and something more.

She swallowed, trying to focus on anything but the way her body was responding to the warmth of his presence. “You always this smooth?” she asked, half-joking, though her voice wavered slightly.

Harry’s chest rumbled with another quiet laugh. “Only when I’m with you.” His voice was soft, almost teasing, but there was something underneath it that sent a shiver down her spine.

Y/N shifted slightly, feeling her pulse quicken as she let out a quiet sigh. “It’s going to be a long weekend, isn’t it?” she murmured, unsure if she was asking him or herself.

Harry’s hand tightened just a fraction on her waist, his thumb brushing the edge of her ribcage. “It doesn’t have to be,” he whispered, his breath warm against the back of her neck.

Her heart hammered against her chest as she lay still, the weight of his words hanging in the air between them. It felt like an invitation, a choice she didn’t know she’d have to make. She wanted to say something—anything to break the tension that had started to build—but the words caught in her throat, too heavy to speak.

Instead, she stayed silent, her mind spinning with possibilities she didn’t dare entertain.

The moments stretched on, the castle’s wind whispering through the cracks in the stone, a reminder of the world beyond this room. But right now, none of that mattered. Right now, it was just the two of them, wrapped up in a situation neither had prepared for, pretending to be something they weren’t—yet somehow, it felt more real than it should.

Harry’s voice was a quiet hum in the darkness when he finally spoke again. “If it gets to be too much, just let me know. We’ll figure it out together, like we always do.”

Y/N closed her eyes, feeling the weight of his words settle over her like a blanket. “Yeah,” she whispered. “We always do.”

And despite the uncertainty that lingered, she allowed herself to lean into him just a little more, letting the steady rhythm of his heartbeat lull her into a fragile sense of peace.

The next day arrived with the welcome party in full swing. The castle grounds had been transformed into a lavish setting with fairy lights strung between trees, soft music playing in the background, and long tables covered in elaborate floral arrangements. It was all as grand as Y/N expected, but she had other things on her mind.

As they approached the group, Y/N could feel the familiar sense of dread creeping up on her. Her family had always been a bit overwhelming, but with Harry by her side, the stakes felt higher. The weight of their fake relationship loomed over her, making her hyper-aware of every glance, every whispered comment.

Her mom was the first to make the introductions. “Everyone, this is Harry,” she said with an exaggerated flourish, as though presenting some sort of prized possession. “Y/N’s boyfriend.”

The group’s attention shifted to Harry, and Y/N braced herself for the inevitable barrage of questions. Sure enough, her aunt—one of the nosiest people Y/N had ever met—jumped in first.

“So, Harry, how did you and Y/N meet?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Y/N opened her mouth to respond, but Harry beat her to it, his voice smooth and confident. “We’ve been friends for years,” he said, glancing down at Y/N with a soft smile. “But recently, things just... fell into place.”

Y/N blinked, surprised by how effortlessly he lied. His voice was calm, his words so convincing that even she almost believed them. The way he looked at her, like she was the center of his world, made her heart do a strange little flip.

Her aunt nodded approvingly, clearly buying into the story. “Well, it’s about time, isn’t it? Y/N’s always been too focused on work. It’s nice to see her finally settling down.”

Y/N resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Settling down? She wasn’t sure she even believed in that, let alone the idea that her family thought it was long overdue. But she plastered on a polite smile, not wanting to create any tension.

Harry’s hand found its way to the small of her back again, and she felt the warmth of his touch seep through her dress. “I wouldn’t say it’s about settling down,” he said, his voice laced with a teasing edge. “Y/N’s too ambitious for that. She keeps me on my toes.”

The group chuckled, clearly charmed by his response, but Y/N’s mind was racing. The way Harry was handling the situation, so calm and collected, made her realize how deep into this charade they really were. And while it was supposed to be fake, there was something about the way he was acting—protective, reassuring—that made her wonder if it was more than just a performance.

As the conversation drifted on, Y/N found herself stealing glances at Harry, trying to read the expression on his face. Was he just playing his part, or was there something deeper behind the way he was holding her so close, speaking about her with such genuine affection?

The party continued, with more introductions and obligatory small talk, but Y/N’s mind kept returning to that moment—the way Harry had looked at her, the warmth of his hand on her back, and the weight of the unspoken emotions hanging between them.

As the sun began to set, casting a golden glow over the garden, Harry leaned in close, his breath warm against her ear. “Want to sneak out of here for a bit?” he asked, his voice low, meant just for her.

Y/N glanced around at the sea of relatives, the endless chatter, and the forced smiles. The idea of escaping, even just for a little while, was tempting. “I thought you’d never ask,” she whispered back, a grin tugging at her lips.

With a quick excuse to her mom about needing some air, they slipped away from the crowd, making their way toward the quieter part of the castle grounds. The noise of the party faded as they walked down a path lined with tall hedges, the soft glow of the fairy lights barely visible behind them.

Once they were far enough away, Y/N let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Thank God,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. “I thought I was going to lose my mind back there.”

Harry chuckled, his hand still resting lightly on her back as they strolled further from the party. “You held up well,” he said, glancing down at her. “Better than I would’ve.”

Y/N shot him a sideways look. “You? Mr. ‘I can charm anyone’? I don’t believe that for a second.”

He grinned, but there was something in his eyes that softened as he looked at her. “It’s easier when I’ve got you by my side.”

Her heart did that strange flip again, and she cursed herself for letting his words affect her so much. This was all pretend. It wasn’t real. But as they walked together in the fading light, the castle looming in the distance, it was getting harder and harder to remember that.

As the evening drew to a close, the soft glow of fairy lights gave the garden a warm, magical feel. Guests had settled down at their tables, and the soft clinking of glasses quieted as the groom stood up, ready to give his speech.

The crowd hushed, eyes turning to the head table where Y/N’s cousin sat, beaming at her soon-to-be husband. He cleared his throat, his voice steady but emotional as he began to speak about the woman he was marrying.

“When I met her,” he started, looking lovingly at Y/N’s cousin, “I didn’t know what I was missing in my life. She has been my best friend, my confidante, and my greatest supporter. She pushes me to be better every day, encouraging me in everything I do.”

His words hung in the air, and Y/N, sitting beside Harry, shifted uncomfortably. As much as she was happy for her cousin, the familiar ache of longing settled in her chest. This kind of love, this partnership, felt so distant—something she admired but never experienced herself. Her thoughts drifted before she even realized it, thinking of Harry beside her.

She glanced at him quickly, wondering what was going through his mind. He seemed lost in thought, eyes forward but a subtle frown tugging at his lips, his fingers absentmindedly tracing the rim of his glass.

The groom’s voice cracked slightly with emotion as he continued, “In my hardest moments, she was my rock, my stability. I’ve never had someone I could lean on like that until her.”

Those words cut through Y/N like a jolt. Leaning on someone... having that kind of trust, that connection. Her mind swirled with the memory of the night before, of Harry pulling her close in bed, his arms steady around her. For a second, she let herself feel what that could be like if it wasn’t just a game.

She was about to push the thought away when she felt something warm brush her hand. She looked down and saw Harry’s fingers, tentative at first, before gently intertwining with hers. Her pulse quickened as his thumb slowly grazed the back of her hand.

She looked up at him, her breath catching slightly, and saw him already watching her, an unreadable intensity in his eyes. It wasn’t playful or casual like it usually was. There was something else—something that made her heart pound harder in her chest.

“You okay?” he asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper, as if the world around them had faded away.

Y/N swallowed, nodding, but her throat felt dry. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she murmured, not entirely sure if she was telling the truth.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Harry’s grip on her hand was firm, his gaze unwavering. The air between them felt charged, thick with the weight of unspoken things.

He didn't say anything else, but he didn’t need to. His hand remained clasped in hers, a silent reassurance, and maybe something more. But they weren’t there yet. Neither was willing to take the leap into what that more could be—at least, not tonight.

The groom’s speech concluded, and the applause broke the moment. Y/N reluctantly pulled her hand from Harry’s, though she could still feel the warmth lingering on her skin. As the attention shifted back to the celebration, she stole one last glance at him, her heart racing for reasons she wasn’t quite ready to admit.

But it was becoming harder to ignore the way Harry’s touch felt like something she’d been missing all along.

--> part 3

[jjkamochoso]

Quit Bugging Me

Fluff

Sanemi Shinazugawa x gn!reader

You find Sanemi taking care of his Japanese rhinoceros beetles!

Warnings: descriptions of bugs, bugs crawling on characters’ bodies, light cussing and talk of violence

Part 2 can be found here!

You walked along yet another stone path at your fellow Hashira’s house, intently listening for any sign that he was currently residing there. You would say you and Sanemi were friends (though he wouldn’t). Over the years you’d known each other, you became one of the only people he didn’t find incredibly annoying and that was a good enough relationship for you, though you wouldn’t be opposed to growing closer to him. It seemed like he now felt that way about you as well, surprisingly, since he periodically sent his crow to check on you and make sure you were doing alright. You never mentioned that gesture to his face, something Sanemi was extremely grateful for, because there was no way he’d be able to explain his reasoning behind it without his head literally exploding from embarrassment.

It was oddly quiet at his house with none of the screaming or fighting happening that you were used to hearing from the Wind Hashira.

“That’s strange,” you muttered to yourself, “he’s usually training in his time off. Where is he?”

Your crow had never led you astray with wrong information, but it seemed like this time she was mistaken—Sanemi wasn’t home. You turned another corner and decided to try one more path before leaving. This one was unmarked by stones but showed signs of frequent usage due to the way the plants had given up growing there, tired of being trod on. After many twists and turns, it eventually led you down into a clearing surrounded by large oak trees and a wide pond. You finally spotted Sanemi’s spiky white hair and you made your way toward him. He appeared to be kneeling on the ground, his attention solely focused on the task in front of him.

“Sanemi,” you called out, “it’s y/n. May I approach?”

You were trying your best to be as respectful as possible so you didn’t immediately enrage him. Sanemi raised his head at breakneck speed, his purple eyes almost bulging out of his head in surprise.

“Y/n?! What the hell are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

You took a step forward, leaves crunching underfoot. “I just came to check on you. I hadn’t heard from your crow in many moons and I wanted to make sure everything was fine with you both.”

“I’m gonna kill that idiot bird,” he said under his breath before acknowledging you in a louder tone. “I’m good. Why did you waste your time coming here? You should be training.”

“Shouldn’t you be, too?” you asked, trying to hide your smirk at his now angry face. “Instead, I find you playing in the woods like a child. What are you doing anyway?”

So much for not riling him up; he was just too fun to mess with!

“Nothing! It’s none of your business. Get out of here.”

He turned his back to you once more but you both knew he couldn’t scare you off so easily. You kneeled next to him, his broad shoulders nearly brushing against your own. In front of him laid open containers, some empty while others held beetles of some sort.

“Japanese rhinoceros beetles,” he explained, shaking the container with the bugs ever so slightly to get them to move. “I raise them.”

He looked up and pointed to the left of you. “Which of those rocks is your favorite?”

“Huh? Um, I guess this one,” you said, indicating to a certain medium sized rock.

“Good choice. That’ll be the rock I use to bash your head in if you tell anybody I do this.”

“Don’t worry, I promise I won’t tell anyone you’re an interesting person,” you teased, earning an eye roll from Sanemi. You two sat in comfortable silence as he continued trying to get the beetles to leave the container and explore their new home outside, but they wouldn’t budge.

“They’re just as stubborn as you, I can see why you like them.”

“Shut up.”

Sanemi then reached his hand into the box and plucked one of the beetles out before gently placing it on a tree. You smiled, enjoying seeing this sensitive side of him come out.

“Do you raise them from birth?” you questioned, wanting to know all about the process. It was a very unique hobby to have and you craved to learn more details.

“Sometimes. I’ve had a few mate and then I’ll raise the larvae until they’re adults and then send them back into nature. Other times I find older ones that are hurt so I keep them until their strength returns and put them back here as well. But don’t go thinking I’m getting soft or somethin’. I just think they’re cool, that’s all.”

You could tell he was feeling bashful about his hobby and the dedication he showed to his little friends by the way he wouldn’t meet your gaze. You tried your best to help him relax and show you weren’t judging him.

“That’s actually really neat, Sanemi. I think it’s amazing that you have the knowledge to take care of them in every stage of their lives.”

He picked another beetle up, this time letting it crawl all over his hand. “They’re simple creatures, ones that are easy to understand. They fight and reproduce, that’s it. There’s no need for feelings or other stupid things like humans. Must be nice.”

You hummed in agreement. “That’s true, but I don’t mind the whole emotions thing we have to deal with. It’s what makes us humans unique.”

“It’s what makes us weak.”

You playfully raised your eyebrows. “Ah, so you do have emotions like the rest of us, then?”

“I do. Like right now, the emotion I’m feeling toward you is great annoyance.”

“And the emotion I feel towards you is satisfaction,” you laughed, leaving Sanemi shaking his head. The truth was, he was feeling an opposite emotion than annoyance or his trademark anger. He was feeling excitement and a little bit of fear.

He was feeling love.

“Would you like to hold one?” he inquired, looking at you with such a rare sincere, almost hopeful, expression there was no way you could turn him down.

“I would love to,” you responded, feeling the tickle of insect legs in your outstretched cupped palms. You were so enthralled in the beauty of the beetle that you didn’t notice the way Sanemi was looking at you. As much as he tried, his eyes couldn’t pull away from your figure. Your kind eyes, your big smile, your relaxed body language around him—it was all so foreign to the Wind Hashira and he found himself intoxicated with your presence. Seeing you, the person he found himself head over heels for, having such a good time indulging in one of his most precious hobbies was a luxury he never thought he could afford and yet it was happening in front of him and he could barely believe he was this lucky.

“Like I said earlier, you’re not so different from them. Hard exterior but soft on the inside.”

Sanemi was pulled from his daydreams by the sound of your voice.

“You’re so weird,” he sneered, but he couldn’t bring himself to add any malice behind the words. You let out another laugh, the joyous sound being enough to bring Sanemi to his knees if he weren’t already on the ground.

“Hey, uh, Sanemi, the beetle is crawling up my arm,” you said, nervousness apparent in your tone. You were fine with the bug in your hands, but anywhere further up was too much for you. This time it was his turn to laugh, his arms crossed in front of his toned chest.

“He won’t hurt you, you know.”

“I know,” you said, trying to get your urgency across as the beetle raced up your limb, “but I’m getting really freaked out right now and I would love if you took your friend off me.”

Normally Sanemi would relish in seeing others get squeamish and scared, but not you—never you.

“Just relax, I got you.”

He quickly leaned over, grabbing your upper arm to steady it as he caught the beetle in his other hand. At first your heart rate calmed when you felt his large hand come in contact with your arm because you knew he would come to your aid. Then, when it registered that Sanemi just touched you, you felt your breath hitch in your throat and your heart beat faster. When Sanemi walked over to place the beetle on another tree, you took the time to breathe in deeply, trusting the fresh air to calm you.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing well, Sanemi, so I think I’ll take my leave now as I don’t want to overstay my welcome. Thank you for having me and sharing your hobby with me, I can see why those creatures bring you happiness.”

You didn’t want to leave so soon, but you certainly didn’t want him to get sick of you so you began to retrace your steps from earlier on the winding path.

“I’ll walk you out. I don’t want you to get lost.”

The scarred slayer had taken up a spot next to you, matching your walking pace. You both knew that was a lie since it was a fairly straightforward trek to the front gate, but neither of you mentioned it, wanting to soak up as much time together as possible. You were in the midst of a conversation about different fighting styles when all of a sudden, your foot caught on a gnarled root sticking up from the ground. You were ready to fall face first when a strong grasp appeared on your waist.

“Tch. Watch where you’re going, idiot,” said Sanemi, his hands not moving from their resting place on your body. You two locked eyes for a long time, no one daring to break the intimate moment you were sharing.

“Found them! Found them! Found the Hashira you care about!” cried Sanemi’s crow from above you. You both pulled away from each other as fast as possible, not wanting to get caught in a compromising position by the loudmouth bird.

“You good for nothing bird!” shouted Sanemi, throwing pebbles in the general direction of the crow. It just cackled at him, completely unbothered before flying away. You finished your ascent up to his house, an awkward silence falling between you this time.

“So, I guess this is goodbye for now?” you questioned, nervously wringing your hands together in front of you.

“I guess.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.”

“Later.”

You waved one last time, small stones flicking behind you as your feet hauled yourself away from Sanemi. You were doing so great in your mission to get to know Sanemi better and felt like you made huge strides today, but you assumed that after that strange interaction at the end, he’d never want to see you again. You couldn’t wait to get somewhere he couldn’t see you so you could hang your head in shame at the fact you ruined your chance at potential love. You had just reached the gate when you heard a yell from behind you.

“Hey! Y/n! Wait!”

You were shocked to see Sanemi jogging to you.

“It’s hot out here today and I don’t want to be responsible for someone finding your dehydrated body on the road. Come inside for a drink.”

Before you could answer, he quickly continued. “Please. If you want. Or don’t, I don’t care.”

He looked away, his arms once again folded in front of his chiseled chest.

“That sounds wonderful,” you answered, excited to spend more time with him, “I would love to. Thank you.”

His attention was on you again, not expecting you to actually take him up on his offer.

“Oh, yeah, uh, don’t mention it,” he said, and you could’ve sworn you saw a blush show up on his cheeks. As he opened his house door for you, you knew this would be the start of something good.

PART TWO

[shotmrmiller]

The cool air that sweeps over your skin once you board the train feels like a gentle splash of water on a sweltering summer day. The sudden temperature change sends a shiver down your sweat-slick back, the hair on your arms standing on end in sharp relief. You press a hand to your chest, feeling the drumming of your heart against it.

You almost hadn't made it.

Everything had gone awry from the moment your alarm went off. First, you'd snoozed the clock. Half an hour later, your eyes snapped open, the horizon that'd just started to blush with the first hint of dawn giving way to a vibrant, limpid morning blue.

Shit.

You had called a cab while you were hastily getting ready, brushing your teeth, washing your face, only for it to arrive within 5 minutes. Five.

With the honking outside, you quickly threw on the first piece of clothing you found.

As you sat in the car, deliberately ignoring the driver's heated glare through the rearview mirror, you'd patted down your crinkled dress before crossing your legs, and realized—

You've got no knickers on. Double shit.

Whatever. It'll be fine. You were taking an overnight train across the country and even got yourself a private little room to sleep in. All would be well. But you had to get there first and boarding would start in 15 minutes.

Navigating through the aimless crowd of people had been excruciating. Children weaving in and out coupled with elderly folk stopping to chat up their friends with zero regard for foot traffic. Agony.

(You're fully aware that no one is at fault here but yourself.)

Almost hadn't made it but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Your heartbeat's still pounding in your ears as you walk down the narrow aisle, arms burning with the weight of your luggage bag and the tote slung around your shoulder. The thought of settling into your cabin and finally taking a breather propels you forward, albeit sluggishly.

The metronomic clatter of the wheels on the tracks smothers that burning sense of urgency you've felt since you woke. Weariness seeps into your bones once your cabin door comes into view. There's no other thought in your head apart from putting your stuff away and getting off your feet as you fumble for the handle.

In your fatigued haze, you hadn't noticed someone already inside. The world, once fuzzy around the edges, sharpens to cutting clarity in your shock. He's a big man. Very big. He looks like he's been carved out of oak— broad and solid. His shoulders are wide, stretching the seams of his shirt. His thick arms are draped along the backrest of the seat. The breadth of his chest— should, probably does— defies anatomy.

He's got legs like tree trunks. And they're sprawled outward, taking up a lot, if not most of the room. There's a bag resting against your seat even though the overhead space is empty. A bulky, grey jacket lays about.

You're tired, not blind. This is definitely the cabin you paid for with your measly income. But you're scared witless at the mere thought of trying to kick him out. He'll eat you. Gnaw your bones with his molars to dust for the offense.

You tug on the ends of the knot that is lodged in your throat, hoping to get some words out, but it only seems to tighten. The man's keen eyes lock onto yours, unblinking. Heavy with a weight that presses down on your back, your shoulders. Even the air itself.

The gentle click of the sliding door shutting behind you has your heart trying to crawl out of your mouth. (Possibly your arse, too, but you're not sure of anything right now, other than you're about to burst into tears because his gaze followed the motions of you shakily hoisting your bag up higher on your shoulder.)

His voice is a deep rumble— rich and resounding. You swear you could feel the air vibrate as he spoke.

"Sit down 'fore ya hurt yourself." It startles you into action, like a starter's pistol before a swim race. Quickly rising to the tips of your toes, you put your luggage bag away, giving it a couple of smacks to push it all the way back.

You mumble out a garbled 'scuse me as you traipse past his outstretched legs, carefully stepping over them, only to brush against his knee. You flinch, he doesn't.

"Sorry." Heat blooms beneath your cheeks. Embarrassing. You shove your tote into a little corner, its humble size dwarfed by his frame. With trembling fingers, you pull the back of your—very thin, now that you think about it— dress down, trying to compose yourself, before taking a seat.

Directly in front of him.

And he's still staring. Vaguely, you wonder if he can see your fluttering pulse beneath the delicate skin of your neck.

There's a lot of people on the train. That unbearably long line you had to stand in to board it was the proof. Yet it's unnervingly silent. Not one distant tinkle of laughter. No gentle hum of murmured conversation. Clinking of spoons against coffee cups.

Just a sharp, high-pitched whistle of the wind outside the window. Even he isn't making a sound. No rustling of clothes, no shifting around. Motionless.

You nervously grab at the skirt of your dress, clammy fingers curling, fabric bunching within your tightened fist, white staining your knuckles. The hem of your dress is frayed, like your nerves at this moment.

Oh no.

You flash your eyes to the guy's face but he's no longer paying attention to you. He's now looking straight at the apex of your legs. Your very naked apex. Amusement dances across his rugged features. His ash-blonde eyebrows quirking slightly, corner of his thin-lipped mouth curling.

The room tilts slightly, a dizzying sensation that leaves you momentarily unbalanced. Mortification pricks at your nerves, gathers in the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill. An ear-grating squeak escapes past your clenched teeth as you jerkily tug down the skirt, the hem settling against your shins.

A tiny hiccup punctuates the moment.

His mud-caked boot taps the outside of your foot, demanding your attention. "Now, now. Nothin' to be ashamed of, birdy," he grunts. Then, with casual ease, he slides it in between yours, this time nudging the inside of them.

A recognizable gesture.

Open up.

(there's no getting a staff member to remove him. they're all half his size. and can he at least shut the blinds on the window????)

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 12: Skip The Bagel Next Time

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 11.7K (I know it's a big boi, but so much happens)

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it) and because there is an ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT that the reader stops. Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Dark Themes, Dark Thoughts,  Kidnapping, Torture, Blood, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF DEATH, DEATH, BLOOD, GUTS, Threatening, Denial, A whole lot of denial,  Manipulation, Self deprecating thoughts, Talks about weed, Super Manipulative Creepy Trash Man, Sexist Comments, Kinda awkward situation, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I'm serious y'all this one is BLOODY, the show is too, but really this one has got A LOT. There is an attempted SEXUAL ASSAULT and there are SEVERAL graphic deaths. If you do not like that or if that will hurt you, please don't read this. I love you all and I don't want anyone to be hurt from this.

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

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READER POV

The cold was oppressive, seeping through flesh and bone and scratching along your soul. A chill travelled along the bare plains of your face and fingertips to freeze whatever it could, clawing at your clothes to find the skin hidden beneath. You'd never known cold like this, even in the winters when the snow drifted and swirled overhead, glinting in the streetlights as you shuffled home after a long day you were able to keep it at bay, but now there was little you could do to protect yourself.

For you, cold was deadly, just like the early frost that crept along greening leaves in winter, you too felt the effects of the temperature when it dropped.

You thrived in the sunshine and absorbed the rays like a tree raising it's arms to worship the rising sun, but in the cold you were hollow, like the weathered trunk of an old oak long lost to frost and snow.

The dark and cold surrounded you in a shroud of chill and ice, making you feel tired and alone. And this time you didn’t know how much longer you could go on before you succumbed to the frigid embrace.

You didn't know how many days had passed since Darren left you with Elijah, there weren't any windows in the freezer and no way to tell the passing of time.

That's what you decided to call it.

There was no light in it, but you'd walked the perimeter on shaky legs feeling along the ice covered walls while trying to avoid the pieces of meat hanging from hooks above you.

At least, you hoped it was meat. There was something else that seemed too dark to consider, but after being in here as long as you had, your mind began to inch along the edge of the cliff that beckoned you to leap into the churning water below.

No one had come since you woke up in the darkness and you’d given up counting seconds.

No Elijah, no Darren, no team, and no Ben.

 hat last one you weren't sure why you added it to the list or why you separated it from thoughts of your team, but you were starting to believe what Elijah said to you in his office, that Ben hated you and now he wasn't going to come help you.

He said he didn’t care, of course he's not going to come.

The thought wasn't unfamiliar, but it was just as unwelcome. You wanted to believe that your team would come for you or at least Annie. She was your best friend and you knew that she would figure out something was up, but you were worried that Darren had figured out how to keep everyone off his trail. He did have your phone and he was your brother which meant he knew most of what to say if someone texted you. But you tried to remain optimistic that Annie would be able to smell the imposter.

You’d tried talking and shouting at the frozen walls for someone to hear you, screamed yourself hoarse, but there was no one to answer.  There's a dull throb in your limbs that won't leave and a hollow in the pit of your stomach. No one had brought food or water, and you'd taken to relieving yourself in the opposite side of the cell.

I guess that's what this is. Elijah put me a cell.

You couldn't hear anything outside, no rumble of the expressway, no splash of water against the rocks, no honking of traffic, and no low murmur of people speaking outside.

It was just you alone in the darkness waiting for whatever came next.

The shudder that works it's way down your spine has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with Elijah. What he said to you in his office worried you. You weren't one to give in, but the superhuman strength he possessed in was troubling you. And without plants nearby you weren't sure you could fight off someone who was so much stronger.

Not to mention you could feel the weakness of your body beginning to close in on you. Being in the cold was quickly becoming unbearable and you weren't sure how much longer you could take this before it caused permanent damage.

You would cry again if you had anything left. You couldn't believe that Darren would do something like this, that he would allow Elijah to take you and that your brother was so desperate to pay off a debt that he used you as a bargaining chip. You wondered if Darren knew what Elijah would do to you or if he didn't care as long as it settled his debt.

After all these years of me paying off his debts, he probably thought that I'd be happy to do something like this. I've been giving up parts of my life so he could go off and live his. I never said no. I never turned my back on my brother and look where it got me.

You'd thought that you were showing your brother how much you loved him by bailing him out as many times as you did, but now you felt stupid and used. You now saw that your brother didn't care about you, the only thing he cared about was how willing you were to give him money and support him for nothing in return.

You huddle further into a ball in the corner of the room, your back pressed against the frozen wall trying to reach out for some kind of plant energy, but there isn't anything. There wasn't a single seed, vegetable, or piece of plant in the freezer or anywhere nearby and it made all of this worse. It made you feel unsettled being away from them and you're reminded of the cruise Annie and you spent together where you were isolated from land in the middle of the ocean and couldn't leave the cabin.

You couldn’t even feel the sickness of the marijuana plants anymore. That was the only welcome part of all of this, that you couldn't feel them anymore, not when it made you dizzy to be that close to them.

Then again, I'll take what I can get. If I get out of this I'm going to start carrying seeds in my pockets everywhere.

You press your lips together, feeling the chapped flesh that was dry and flaking flushed red. Your cheeks and the skin of your face were the same way. You felt tired and you knew it was your body telling you to shut down, slowing your heart rate to save your life, but you fought it.

At first you'd tried to keep moving around the cell, rubbing your left arm up and down your right to keep warm the best you could, while avoiding the large pieces of meat hanging from the hooks above, and distracting yourself with how bad it smelled instead of the cold. But you gave up walking around and decided to conserve as little heat you had left by crouching down and shivering in the corner. Your could feel your mind going a little bit cloudy, as if you couldn't focus on anything. You hadn't slept and you weren't sure if that was why you were confused or if it was your body beginning to shut down.

It scared you to think that if you fell asleep, you wouldn’t wake up again.

Of all the things that Darren had done this was the biggest betrayal, that much was obvious. Telling Elijah that you were a supe who could control plants was one thing, but telling Elijah that you don't do well in the cold was unforgivable, especially because Darren knew how dangerous it was for you to be in cold for a prolonged time.

I wonder if he ever cared for me, or if this has all just been a game to him from the beginning since our parents died.

You had thought that you were doing what your parents would have wanted you to do in supporting your brother, thought that you were showing him the love they would have given him, but now you wished that you'd turned your back on him years ago. 

You move slightly, but wince with the pain that comes streaking down your right arm. It was a bad break and you knew that it probably needed to be set, because it had swollen up beneath your sleeve and was now an ugly purple color in certain places. You couldn't straighten it at all without screaming so now you kept it contracted and against your chest. You would have made a make-shift sling for it, if you didn’t want to keep as much skin covered from the cold.

Maybe the cold is helping it.

You think to yourself gently probing along your right sleeve, but wince when you get to your forearm and lean your head back against the wall while gritting your teeth together to keep from screaming. You had left your hair down as a way of protecting your ears and the skin of your neck, but now the strands were dry and brittle. You worried that they would snap off at any second.

Fuck, Ben where are you?

The thought was surprising. You hadn’t meant to think of him again, hadn’t meant for your mind to drift to him, but it did. You’d be lying if you didn’t imagine Ben barging in and saving your life. When you imagined your team doing a big rescue, Ben was always leading it with Annie close behind him.

You would kill for a hug from him right now, he was always so inhumanly warm and it was such a comfort. The memory of him laying on top of you comes back and you imagine it, feeling the weight of his body, feeling the warmth that curled through him and into you, but then you remember what you yelled at him.

Are those going to be the last things I say to him? All those terrible things about his team and his son?

You frown at the thought. You didn’t want it to be. Now you were more upset that you hadn't listened to him about Darren, that you hadn't seen the things that Ben had. If he were here you might even let him say "I told you so." 

Maybe, and only once.

You wondered if this was how Ben felt when he was trapped in Russia for forty years, if every day he waited for someone to come get him who never would. If every day he remained hopeful that Countess would break down the door and save him. It was cruel of her to leave him there with that hope and you could never imagine doing that to him. You could imagine how alone he must have felt, how small and helpless he did, and how much it probably broke him when he figured out that she wasn’t coming for him.

He's not going to come save me. You think to yourself remembering what he yelled to Darren before he slammed the bathroom door. He doesn’t care about me. Everyone else will come, but he won't. 

The thought made it feel like you were going to cry. Then again you kept having that feeling come surging up, but it never brought any tears. The only way you hadn't dehydrated was that you kept having to break some of the ice off the wall and sucked on it, trying not to ignore how much colder it made you.

But if he didn't care, then why did Ben try to warn me about Darren?

It's not the first time you’d thought that. It was the truth. You didn’t understand why Ben was acting like he cared and yet he said those things to your brother, why Ben shouted things just as bad at you that you'd shouted at him.

He called me stupid. He insulted me. He's just always so damn stubborn and rude and annoying and-

You sigh and press your head into your knees. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing does.

The door handle jingles as if someone is trying to open it and the lights of the freezer flare to life, temporarily blinding you. You blink to clear your vision, squinting at the two large men dressed all in black who enter. One of which you identify as Joe, the man who had been outside at the gate, the other you have no idea who he is, but suspect that he's probably another part of Elijah's security team.

Standing seems like too much effort, so all you do is glare at them from your seated position.

"Come here often?" You cough out a laugh, your voice more of a rasp.

Neither of them laugh.

Annie would have laughed. Maybe Ben.

Joe grabs you by your left arm and hauls you up off of the ground, the motion of your body bending feeling like each joint is creaking and cracking, breaking through ice as they move.

He practically drags you from the room and you don't fight him. If anything you understand that you’re going to need to conserve your strength for wherever it is that you're going.

Your legs don't really work as he hauls you down the hallway, your feet stumble and try to catch against the solid ground, but not quite correctly.

You can feel your skin flaking away under your blouse where Joe is holding you by the arm, the other man following silently behind with his hand in his jacket as if prepared to pull out a gun. You figure that Elijah sent two men as a precaution if you had found some kind of plant in the freezer.

Maybe I should be flattered that he's not underestimating me. You frown. Yeah, no not gonna do that, the asshole locked me in a freezer.

The warm air in the hallway is a welcome change from the freezer, but it almost hurts for your body to be abruptly put in a place so different than the place you'd been inhabiting for who knows how long.

Joe shoves your body forward into a door in front of you and as you move towards it, the door opens and you fall onto the floor directly onto your bad arm.

This time you do scream when the white hot stab of pain shoots through your right arm as it makes contact with the floor. And Joe laughs.

"For a supe you're pretty wimpy." He chortles to himself, yanking you up from the ground again by your left arm. "Then again what a waste of a power, making the flowers grow."

Your teeth grind down. "Keep talking and I'll shove some of those pretty flowers up where the sun don't shine."

"I don't think you're in the position to make threats." Joe smirks. He shoves you deeper into the room and your body stumbles back, but you catch yourself on a plush highbacked navy armchair.

"Oh really? How do you know this hasn't been my plan all along? To get you and tweedle dum over there alone." You clear your throat glancing around the room for something you can use as a weapon.

The room is smaller than the office was, more intimate. With two navy high backed arm chairs, a leather couch that looks more decorative than comfortable and a fireplace where a fire roars, sending a wave of heat through the back of your shirt.

You scramble forward to try and melt your frozen fingertips, but keep the two men in your line of sight.

"I'd be nicer if I were you sweets. When the boss is done with you and he gives you to me, maybe I'll be a little gentler than he is." Joe's eyes trace down your body, making revulsion rise in the back of your throat like bile.

You were already feeling a little better, but you still couldn’t use your right arm and there were no plants that you could draw from. The good news was that these two men weren't supes, which meant that you might be able to take them with just your strength, but your arm was the problem.

"Joe." Elijah sighs as he enters the room behind the two men. "Are you being rude to our guest?"

"Just telling her how it is boss."

"Hmm." Elijah looks you up an down with a sad smile. "You look tired honey. You didn't find your vacation relaxing?"

"Oh it was paradise darling." You seethe, standing up from the floor. You refuse to back down from him.

If he's gonna do something he might as well do it. I'm sick of this tough guy mafia bullshit.

You could sense what was coming, it thrummed through your veins, and sent electrical impulses over every synapse of your body as you prepared for the coming fight. The fog was still hovering in your mind, but the adrenaline beat it back with a stick.

"Usually the cooler makes people more docile. I see it's made you more heated." He looks pleased, and makes a motion with his hand to Joe and the other man, who leave as soon as they see it. "Good. It’s always more fun that way anyway."

The energy in the room shifts for a moment as Elijah approaches you before he runs his large hand over the back of the high backed chair drawing your eye to the thick steel ring on his right fourth finger. It catches in the light of the fire, but you longer feel the warmth of the blaze. It’s worse now that it's the two of you alone, not to mention with Elijah being a supe and no plant in sight, your odds of getting out of this went from 50/50 to 40/60.

Fuck.

You fight the shudder that threatens to shake through you when you see the glint in Elijah's eye, hoping and praying that you have enough energy to take him down. Butcher had made you spar with him every chance you got so it wasn't that you weren't trained, it was that you could feel what little energy you had left draining from your body.

But that didn't mean you weren't going to back down.

"I'd be happy to show you just how wonderful it is to be locked in a freezer with no light. Just say the word." You take another step back eyes searching the room for something to use as a weapon.

"Tempting." His head tilts to the side. "But I can think of more fun things the two of us could do."

"Chess?" You gesture to the board on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"You could call it that." His smile turns more into a smirk.

Elijah flashes forward so fast your didn't see him move, knocking you backward onto the uncomfortable couch. One of his hands is fastened to your throat, the other pins your good arm above you head as his entire weight knocks the wind out of you. Nothing about his weight is comforting or is anything like how Ben laid on you the other night. It's oppressive and heavy, and the thick cloud of his cologne stings your nostrils as you gasp for breath. Everything in your body screams WRONG as you feel his hand squeeze down on your throat so tight you’re sure that it's leaving a mark.

His lips bite against yours, teeth cutting through the thinly chapped and flaky skin. You scream into his mouth and bite down hard until you taste blood wiggling beneath his weight. Elijah roars, the sound of his crescendo vibrating through your body and he backhands you so savagely you see stars.

"You'll pay for that." His eyes are wide and dark like two soulless pits that wish to drag you under and his teeth are bared in a snarl more animal than human. It reminds you of a rabid dog that rips and tears in a savage rage.

Your eyes drop to his mouth.

Is that what I think it is?

The pull is there, small, just barely a throb, but it's there, because between Elijah's two front teeth is your salvation.

"You really should floss more." You spit into his face, feeling your eyes shift to green focusing on the poppy seed caught beneath his gums. You assume he ate a bagel earlier and forgot all about it, but you don't give yourself time to speculate on exactly why it's there, only that it's your chance.

"What are you-"

Elijah doesn't finish his sentence, instead he gags as the stalks and roots begin to pour from his mouth. Poppies bloom from the outstretched stems that hang daintily past his full lips. He coughs and stumbles back from you, blood dripping around the flowers, as the roots begin to thread themselves into the soft skin on the inside of his mouth and twist and tangle down his throat.

Elijah's screams are muffled into the buds and leaves that sprout from his open mouth, eyes wide and staring at you with a mixture of horror and pure hatred. The vessels in his face burst until the blood flows from his eyes and skin freely and the roots breach through bone, vein, and flesh as if searching for earth outside of his body. The plants suck every nutrient they can from what you've given them, breaking Elijah's body down into what they can and cannot use.

The flowers do not hear his screams, the petals do not show remorse and the gentle bend of each bud before it blooms is not sinister, but beneath your hands they are deadly.

Turning someone into a tree you'd never done, sure you'd threatened it, but you’d never done it. You'd locked Newton your ex-boyfriend into a tree years ago, but that wasn't a transformation or a death, that involved the tree cocooning him inside, but it was nothing like this. You stand from the couch watching Elijah writhe in pain and confusion, trying to stop the plants that continue to feast on him.

His hands grasp at his face, ripping away the flowers that sprout from his lips, but he tears away pieces of flesh loosened by the roots away from his skull until chunks of muscle and tissue are mushed into the rug at his feet. There's a terrible snapping sound as the roots continue to expand outward and the flowers stems and stalks continue to unfurl beneath his skin, shattering through bone. Elijah's hands scramble down his chest, tearing away his shirt, the scream in his lungs lost to the crimson blooms that block air from coming in to his chest. He claws at his skin, falling to his knees, the inky black of the tattoos that cover his chest vanishing beneath the roots and stalks the peel away from his flesh and burst from his ribcage, the poppies the final bouquet laid on the casket.

And as you stand there, your un-ruined arm outstretched towards him, feeling the healing ebb and flow of energy from the poppies strengthening you momentarily, you have no remorse. Elijah Black is the first man you've ever essentially killed outright with your powers and yet you feel nothing. The men on the street the night that Ben saved you would have done the same thing to you, you'd spared their lives, but this time you didn't spare his.

He makes one more attempt to scream, the blood from his chest spurting upwards in an arch and splashing against your body, but then he falls silent. The poppies spreading along the plush rug at your feet covering his body, burying it beneath their beautiful petals, smiling at you.

He deserved this.

The little voice at the back of your mind whispers and the feeling of him on top of you comes roaring back, sending revulsion through your body. You didn’t want to think about what almost happened, what would have happened if he hadn't eaten the bagel.

You stoop down to pick one of the flowers before you lay it against your right wrist and manipulate the vines and roots to form a make-shift sling for your broken arm. The exhaustion was back, tugging at your body, but this time you ignore it, knowing that you had a long way to go before you earned your freedom.

At least now my arm is stabilized. You think to yourself. How the hell am I going to get out of here?

"Hey boss are you done yet-" Joe says as he enters the room, but he stops mid-sentence. His eyes trace your body again, but not in the lewd way he'd done earlier, instead you see horror flash in his gaze when he sees the blood flecked across your cheeks and the bits of flesh and muscle that sit in clumps, smashed into the plush rug at your feet.

You feel your eyes shift to green once more, the poppies that cover Elijah's body begin to stir as if an unnatural wind has begun to wisp into the room. "You should have been more worried about getting on my good side Joe, because the flowers might be pretty, but you won't enjoy them as much as they'll enjoy you."

He tries to draw his gun, but it's too late. They'll be nothing left of him or anyone who stands in your way.

Soldier Boy POV

Blood stained Ben's ungloved hands, soaked into his supe suit, and splashed across his cheeks, but he didn’t care. He would bathe in it every day until he found you if that's what it took.

He didn't understand why he felt this way, felt unsure and antsy at the thought of you being trapped somewhere, but he did, and it was almost too much to bear. With each passing hour on the long drive from Boston to New York, Ben could feel himself slipping further and further into a feeling that he couldn't place, a feeling that he'd never felt before in his entire life. His hands had curled into fists where they rested on his thighs with each mile that the car inched closer to you and to whoever the fuck had hurt you. He hadn’t spoken since he threatened Butcher at the motel, well, except for the occasional "Can you drive any fucking faster?" he shouted at Butcher every few minutes.

Even Annie seemed unnaturally quiet where she sat beside Ben in the backseat, her hand clasped tightly in Hughie's. She had been upset since she figured out what Darren had done and Hughie was trying to comfort her. Hughie had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and was whispering gentle things into her ear while she leaned into his chest and hugged him.

It annoyed Ben.

In the past Ben would have mocked a man for doing that, would have made an offhand comment about the man being pussy whipped, but as Ben sat there and listened to Hughie try his best to bring Annie some peace, Ben couldn’t help but remember the night you had a nightmare.

The scream you'd let loose was what jolted him into consciousness. He'd never heard you scream like that before. In that moment he hadn't cared about what you'd said about him not going in your bedroom, all he knew was that he had to be in there and he had to make sure you were okay. When he'd found you sitting on your bed crying and gasping for breath he hadn't wanted to leave you, for the first time in his life Ben had wanted to do exactly what Hughie was doing for Annie. Ben didn't know the first thing about how to do that, but he'd wanted to sit there with you until you calmed down.

He'd never done that for anyone before. Countess had been distressed once because she'd lost an earring her mother gave her, but Ben had just told her to "get the fuck over it."

You were different and as much as Ben hated to admit it to himself, he was starting to realize that as well. He just didn't know why.

When Butcher finally crashed his car through the front gate that surrounded the warehouse Ben jumped from it while it was still in motion, leaving the rest of them to squawk and squabble over a plan like a bunch of fucking chickens.

Ben had a plan, save you. He didn't need to hear Butcher come up with a plan of action when Ben was a man of action.

"Where is she?" Ben snarls to the man he's pinned to the wall of the cool concrete hallway, his voice shaking the foundations of the building.

The dim lightbulbs that line the hallway flicker and flash a yellowed light that curves cruelly over the sharp edges of Ben's face, but he does not back down from the man he has pushed against the wall. The bodies of the other men who stood in Ben's way lay in a trail of blood and bone behind, and the man in his arms would join the fray for wasting his time.

"Go to hell." The man spits in Ben's face.

"You'll go first." Ben says in a murderous growl as he pulls apart the body easily as if the man is made of tissue paper, the sound of the man's screams no more than a memory as they ring down the desolate hallways.

Ben trudges on through the dim light with the sticky smell of blood following behind him. He was hoping that he wasn't too late. Sometimes he forgot how fragile other people were, how easy it was for an accident to occur and for someone like you to get hurt or killed, but Ben didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to consider that possibility.

It's only been 4 days. Ben's jaw clenches together. It would have been no days if she had just fucking listened to me!

Ben frowns. Or it would have been no days if I had followed her.

Ben didn't know why he felt guilty, just that he didn't like it. A part of him kept flashing back to the years he spent in Russia, when he hoped that Countess would come get him, when he thought she loved him as much as he loved her, and when in reality it was her that put him there.

After that happened Ben had decided that it was stupid and unmanly to care about anyone, to love anyone, because it only fucked everything up. But Ben didn't want you to go through what he had. You were so different than he was, softer, kind, and way too trusting. Sometimes he didn’t like that you were doing this kind of work. It didn’t seem like you. When he saw you in the plant shop working it was different, you seemed to be in you element.

But he didn't want you to think that no one was coming to save you, because he was and like hell he was going to let anyone stand in his way.

This is taking too long.

The hallways were twisting and turning and Ben hadn’t seen another soul in at least two minutes. He listens with his hearing hoping to hear you talking or someone talking about you, but he doesn’t all he hears is a heart beat. It's faint, but it's there. The room where it comes from is torn to bits, chairs are laying on their sides stuffing falling out onto the blood stained carpet and covered in a field of red poppies, the smell of blood is thick in the air, and the bodies that lay on the ground are cleaved open with the plants tangling in the organs within, spilling out onto the floor.

Truthfully, Ben hadn't thought that your powers could look like this. Sure, you would make an offhand comment about turning him into a tree or shoving a watermelon up his ass, but he didn’t actually think that you would ever do it. Again, Ben didn’t see this side of you very often. He did piss you off and annoy you, but Ben didn’t actually think you’d ever try to attack him.

Not to mention that Ben thought that being able to make flowers grow seemed like a woman's power, and truthfully he liked watching you walk to work and place your hand on a bouquet or a small cluster of flowering plants to make them perk up, or watch you move around the apartment and see how the plants seemed to turn towards you, but this was surprising. He didn’t think that you could do something like that to someone's body and he wasn't disgusted, in fact he was a little impressed.

Ben raises his gaze from the bodies to see you.

You're on the ground, curled into a ball to protect your right arm that's also covered in poppies, but Ben can tell that it's broken, by how swollen it is.

Your breath is coming in shallow gasps and you heart beats faintly. You're covered in so much blood that Ben is worried that he's too late.

"Petals?" Ben drops to his knees beside where you lay, gingerly picking you up off the ground so that your left arm is resting against his chest. "Petals?" Ben says again, his heart seizing in his chest, throat thick. His hand gently pushes back the hair that sticks to your bloodied cheeks as he checks you over for wounds. Ben feels his jaw tighten when he see the bruising handprint around your throat, the blaze of heat from his anger coming back when he realized that someone had touched you.

"Come on Petals wake up." Ben murmurs, as he brushes your hair back. The strands are dry and brittle against his fingertips. "Come on sweetheart, say something annoying."

"Ben?" He hears you murmur, it’s more of a shallow breath than his name, but it’s something.

Ben exhales the breath he didn’t know that he was holding. "Yeah it's me."

"You came." You whisper and turn your head into his chest, weakly pressing your fingertips over his heart the motion making something stutter inside of him.

Your skin is flushed, veins shimmering beneath, body colder than Ben has ever felt it and he can see the flecks of skin that flake from your lips. Ben’s gaze falls on the mark over your right cheekbone that has already begun to bruise and drop back down to the handprint around your throat. Ben feels the tendrils of his rage beginning to spill over into the cavity in his chest screaming for blood. Ben's eyes flick to the bodies in the room momentarily hoping that they suffered for what they did to you and regrets not getting here sooner to make them suffer for touching you.

"Of course I came Petals." Ben replies his rough hand gently tracing along your cheek. "Did you think I was gonna leave you behind?"

"Thought you were mad." You breathe not opening your eyes. "I'm sorry for-" Your voice breaks as if it’s too much effort to finish the sentence, but he understands what you're about to say.

The feeling in Ben’s chest is not unfamiliar. It was the one he’d felt when he was in Russia every day, the loneliness that drove him mad.

Ben wonders if that's all you’d thought of the past four days. If you really believed that he wasn't going to come save you because you'd yelled at him and said what you did.

What I said wasn't better.

He remembered shouting at Darren that he didn’t care and he felt a twinge deep down when he realized that you must have been thinking that he was going to leave you in all this shit because of it.

"You can make it up to me later sweetheart." Ben stands with you close to his chest, but accidentally jostles your broken arm.

You whimper in pain and Ben freezes, adjusting his left arm under your knees and his right around your waist to secure you to his chest. "Shh it’s okay. I'm going to get you out of here." He reassures and takes a moment to press a kiss to the top of your head at your hairline where your head is turned into him. Ben clenches his jaw together and swallows. He hadn't meant to do that and didn't know why he did, just that he didn’t have the ability to touch your face with his hand and it seemed like the next best thing.

His mind flashes back to Hughie in the car with Annie, the things that Hughie said to her the way Hughie held her close and kissed her head to make sure she knew he was there.

"Okay." You breathe, cuddling further into his chest and pressing your face into his collar bone with a soft sigh as if you don’t know what he did.

Ben was glad, because the last thing he wanted was for you to accuse him of coping a feel when you weren't up to snuff.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Reader POV

A rhythmic beeping noise lulls you from sleep as you sigh softly, but you don't open your eyes. It feels like you’re swimming through tar, as if your limbs are being bound to the soft bed beneath you with cement. Everything hurts and yet you're here and you're alive.

Well, I think I’m alive.

You blink your eyes open, squinting in the oppressive unbroken sunlight that bathes the entire room in a brilliant glow from the un-curtained windows to the left of the bed you're laying in. The room is white, a blank slate,  and unfamiliar. There’s teal couch underneath the large left window and a small cabinet pressed into the corner between the couch and the opposite wall, a tv mounted on the wall across from the bed and a large pale blue curtain hanging to the right of your bed behind a collection of monitors that beep and squabble with one another. The room would be unremarkable if not for the plants.

There are buckets of monstera that unfurl leaves as big as your face jammed into the corners of the room and tangles of jasmine hanging from the top of the cabinet. Cacti line the windowsill absorbing the healing light from the sun, while a cart of honeysuckle, lavender, rose, and more flowering plants than you can name sits at the end of your hospital bed. The smell of gardenia is strong, floating lightly through the air to kiss you on the tip of your nose and you look to your left at the small bedside table to notice the gardenia plant you had on your bedside table back at you apartment blossoming in the warmth of the room.

Bouquets of flowers are shoved onto all other possible surfaces, some big some small, but all of them colorful and beautiful to look at. The healing energy of the plants is everywhere, absorbing into your body and strengthening you, the sweet smells of the flowers masking the stale clean smell of the hospital, and making you feel at home for the first time since you left your apartment with Darren.

Your eyes shift to the teal couch under the window and see that it's not empty, Ben is laying there on his back, his arms crossed over his dark t-shirt, sound asleep. His soft snores a comfort over the sounds of the beeping monitors so close to your bed.

The memories of what happened however long ago come back muffled and slurred through the haze of the drugs the doctors have given you, but you remember the final ones you had before you fell into the abyss.

You remember feeling Ben pick you up and hold you close to him, begging you to answer him, while the warmth of his body was like a soothing soak in a hot bath after a cold day. All you could do was cling to him and try to get as close as you could to absorb some of the heat. You didn’t believe that he would come for you and he did.

Tears glaze your eyes while you watch him sleep, all the sharp edges of his face smoothed in his slumber, all the frown lines you knew all too well no longer there while he slept. He looked different like this, peaceful.

You could feel your heart warming to think that Ben actually did care about you and that was why he came to get you.

"You’re awake." A familiar voice says.

Diana Moore, your grandmother, looks cheerfully at you from the teal rocking chair to the right of the bed, working on a purple knit blanket in her lap.

"Gran?" You clear your throat as you adjust yourself to sit up. "What are you doing here?"

She stands and nears the bed, tucking the granny square blanket she must have covered you with, further under you as she does. "Annie called and said you were hurt in some sort of accident." Your grandmother frowns. "And when I got here she told me what happened."

"Everything?" You say with a grimace.

"Most of it." Her frown deepens around the edges of her mouth. "But it was easy to fill in when she mentioned Darren."

Your grandmother knew everything about your life, there were no secrets between the two of you, and as much as she discouraged you working with Butcher, she pretended that she didn't care. Despite you being a supe, she always seemed to want to keep you away from the hero lifestyle. That was always odd to you, especially when you saw how proud Annie’s mother was of her abilities. Your grandmother although supportive of your abilities, never wanted you to become a hero. Whenever you’d ask her why she’d always say that “the grass looks greener on the other side.” It wasn’t an answer, but you never pushed her for one.

"I'm-"

"What your brother did is not your fault, and if the next words out of your mouth are an apology I will pack up everything you own and make you move back home." She raises an eyebrow.

It was an empty threat, you loved being in Illinois with her and you both knew it, but you let it slide.

Your grandmother looks the same way she did as when you first went to live with her when you were twelve. Not to mention for someone who was just over eighty years old, she looked pretty good. Whenever someone mentioned that to her she’d only say that “time had been good to her.”

Her gray hair is wavy and pinned back away from her face in an elegant twist that makes her look classic and poised. Her clothes are stylish, clean blue-jeans with a floral blouse that is covered by a thin cream colored sweater she knitted herself and a pair of black flats.

She was the reason you started knitting and crocheting. The love she instilled into each handmade item she delivered to her neighbors, made you love your grandmother's gentle spirit all the more. She'd always been like that, a shoulder to cry on, the person who always baked and filled the house with warmth, the person who took care of her neighbors when they were ill and made sure that they were well fed, and all the people back home loved her almost as much as you did.

She became the mother you’d lost and you didn’t realize how much you’d missed her until this exact moment.

Tears burn against your eyes as the events of the past few days surge up in a lump at the back of your throat. The memories of Elijah said and did, the freezer, the deaths, and the betrayal from your brother all too much to bear.

"Oh sweetie." Your grandmother whispers gently sitting on the edge of the bed and lets you hug her. You cry into her shoulder, holding her tight, the smell of her perfume familiar. "It's okay." She rubs your back. "Let it all out."

You do. It's the hardest you'd cried in weeks, but she sits there with you and continues to hold you close to her the way she'd done since you were twelve.

"Better?" She cups your cheek, her blue eyes tracing your face. They were the same as your father's and it made you miss him more.

"Yeah." You sniffle.

"Good. I brought you some fudge."

"What?"

"And some meat-pies and I stopped by your apartment and put a few frozen lassagna's in there for later. You look thin. Have you been eating?"

"Yes I have." You roll your eyes, but smile, because even when you thought you were all grown up she was trying to take care of you.

"Hmm." She presses her lips into a tight line looking you up and down.

"Fine, sometimes I skip a meal." You admit.

"You shouldn't. Especially with how often you use your powers." She squeezes your left hand because your right one was now in a bright green colored cast.

You wonder if they chose that color randomly or if Annie told them to pick that.

"I know Gran. Where's Annie?" You ask. It kind of hurt that she wasn't here when you woke up, but you couldn't fight the happy feeling knowing that Ben was here. That one also hurt a little bit, especially when it filled you with the hope that Ben wanted to have a relationship when you knew he didn't.

"She just went to get some dinner with Hughie. He's a nice boy, good manners. A lot like your boyfriend." She gestures over to the couch where Ben is snoring.

Ben having good manners? She's kidding right?

"He's not my boyfriend-"

"No?" Your grandmother gives you a knowing look. "He sure seems like it."

"He's my roommate. And well-" You bite the inside of your cheek feeling your cheeks flush bright red in embarrassment. "I think we're friends."

I mean he carried me out of the warehouse that's gotta be a friend thing right?

"He hasn’t left that couch since I got here. Not to mention he keeps harassing the doctor whenever he comes in, keeps asking him when you're going to wake up. Made one of the nurses cry-“

"He what?"

"You didn't tell me you knew Soldier Boy."

You pause looking up at your grandmother. "What?"

"He's Soldier Boy." She says it matter of fact.

"How did you-"

"He looks just like him." Your grandmother examines Ben's sleeping face again. "Plus I met him a few times before, but that was a long time ago."

Your mouth drops open. "You met Soldier Boy. When?"

"Story for another time dear."

"Oh please tell me that you didn’t go out with him." Sometimes you forgot how old Ben was and the thought that he and your grandmother had a thing made you feel nauseous.

I swear if Ben and my grandmother fucked or made out I am going to go crazy and I'm taking him down with me.

"No of course not." Her cheeks flush. "I was dating your grandfather when we met."

"Oh."

I guess that's a little better, but still weird.

"But he was certainly trying his best." She snorts.

"Please no more." You cringe back from her trying not to imagine Ben hitting on your grandmother.

"I'm just teasing sweetie." She kisses you on the forehead with a smile. "Not really."

"Oh my sweet goodness, please do not tell me anything else." You groan blocking out the mental images of Ben with your grandmother.

She sits back down in her chair with her knitting smiling to herself, the subtle scrape of the needles together reminded you of the quiet nights the two of you spent back home sitting in the living room and watching TV.

Guess I won't be able to crochet for a while with this thing. You frown at the cast on your right arm more disappointed at the prospect of not being able to crochet than what had happened to you.

"He was with Crimson Countess anyway." Your grandmother rolls her eyes when she says her name.

"Wait a minute, you knew Ben when he was with Countess?"

How in the fuck did I not know this? Why didn’t she tell me that she knew famous supes? Why did she know them?

She nods not looking up from the purple mass in her lap. "She was a real piece of work, very callous, and uncaring whenever the cameras weren't flashing." You watch her eyes slide to where Ben is laying. "I always hated the way she seemed to treat him. She was manipulative, very good at getting whatever she wanted. She was possessive when it came to Ben, fiercely jealous of anyone who got near him. Weird given the relationship they had" The thought makes her frown and for a moment you see something slide across your grandmother's face that was unlike the woman who'd raised you.

"But why were you around them in the first place?" You ask her.

Your grandmother had never said that she was around supes, never said that she was a part of any of that. All you knew was that she met your grandfather who was a retired veteran turned doctor and settled down in Illinois so he could open a private practice, but to know that she knew Ben was making your head spin.

"Another time. You need rest."

"But-"

"Please sweetie. I don't want to talk about the past right now. Not when you need to sleep."

“But-“

She looks up at you with the same matronly look she always had when she told you to go to bed and you were being unruly.

“Okay.”

The doctor walks into the room, his smile brightening when he notices that you're awake. "Hello, I'm Dr. Martinez. How are you feeling today?"

"Good I guess." Your eyes were still focused on your grandmother who has begun to knit innocently as if the last few things that she'd mentioned hadn't happened.

"Well it’s reassuring that you're awake." His eyes skate to where Ben is sleeping and you see just a glimmer of fear behind them. "We were all eagerly hoping that you would wake up soon-"

Did he threaten the doctor with bodily harm? Because that feels very Ben-like.

"How long have I been asleep?" You ask taking a sip from the cup of ice water on your tray.

"Three days."

"Three what-" You shriek, spewing water all over the bed.

Ben jolts upwards from sleep to his feet, looking around the room with narrowed eyes like he believes that someone is in the room about to attack you.

"Ben it's okay." You say with a cough to clear the water that came out your nose. Ben's gaze flicks to where you're laying in the bed.

You weren't prepared to see the tension leave his shoulders and to see relief flash through his eyes, before they harden once more to his usual expression.

Was he worried about me? I mean my grandmother said that he hasn't left the couch and that he's been harassing the doctors…

"Yes." Dr. Martinez looks at where Ben is now standing over your bed, but Ben hasn't looked away from you. In fact you see his eyes shift over your face, down to your throat, then to the cast on your right arm and see his frown grow by the minute.

"Sorry I wasn't ready for that." You clear your throat with a forced smile.

"It's alright. But the good news is you're awake-"

"No shit sherlock." Ben snarks. "Did your big fancy degree tell you that?"

“Sir-“ Dr. Martinez starts, but Ben interrupts him.

“Because-“ Ben begins to say something else but you reach out and touch his arm with your left hand before you can stop yourself. His gaze focuses back on you.

“Ben, it’s okay. I’m okay. Let him talk.” You squeeze his warm forearm to reassure him.

His green eyes flick back to your face, something flashing through his eyes that looks very different than the man you usually saw. He doesn't apologize, but he nods his head in the direction of the doctor to let him know that he could continue. Ben also doesn't move your hand from his forearm, in fact, he steps a little closer to you.

You miss the smile your grandmother hides behind her hand when she sees Ben’s reaction.

"As I said you're awake and it looks like you're doing much better now that we've given you fluids. You were dehydrated when you came in and had a touch of hyperthermia which is unusual given how warm it's been lately." Dr. Martinez gestures to the sunny day outside. "Your right arm is broken, but we set it and it should be about 6 weeks until you're fully healed. As for the black eye and the-" The doctor clears his throat, eyes looking to Ben for a moment. "Marks around your neck, those should be gone within a few weeks or so."

Does he think Ben did this to me?

The thought makes you angry. As mad as Ben had gotten at you in the past, you didn’t believe that he would ever hurt you. Sure he'd hurt you the first day you'd met, but you weren't afraid of him, you couldn’t be. Even when his temper flared you didn't fear that he would hurt you. Yeah he had a bad temper, but Ben always seemed to stomp away when you pissed him off, not attack you.

"And how long do I have to stay here?"

"Well, now that you're awake I want to keep you one more night for observation and do blood work again, but I'm not worried about sending you home." Dr. Martinez looks at Ben again before he looks at you. "Unless you want to stay longer?"

"What the fuck are you trying to say doc?" Ben growls, realizing exactly what the doctor is insinuating.

Your hand skates down Ben’s arm and entwines with his fingertips. Ben looks at it surprised.  “I'd like to go home with Ben as soon as possible." You say it to the doctor with a frown, not liking what the doctor is trying to say, but then you realize exactly how it sounds.

It wasn't a lie, you wanted to go home with Ben, wanted to go back to your everyday life and forget that all of this happened. You didn't mean to hold his hand, but it just seemed like the only way to get your point across.

"Alrighty then. I'll just have the nurse come in and take a little more blood." The doctor replies and backs quickly out of the room, casting one more look at Ben.

The three of you sit there for a moment in the silence that follows, Ben's eyes still on you, your hand still holding on to his. You quickly let go.

“I'm going to go down to the cafeteria before it closes. Do you want anything Ben?"

"No thanks Di. I'm good." He replies rubbing the back of his neck as if he's unsure what comes next.

"Di?" You turn to look at your grandmother with a frown.

"Do you want something sweetie?" She doesn’t look phased at Ben's use of the nickname.

"No I'm fine Di." You emphasize the nickname, but she doesn’t react.

"I'll bring you back some tea. That always seems to help you relax." She winks and places the mass of purple yarn onto the chair before she leaves the room with an elegant flourish.

The silence grows.

"Please tell me that you didn't fuck my grandmother. Because that wasn't on my bingo card this year and I really don’t want to have nightmares about the two of you."

Ben snorts. "Jealous Petals?"

"Oh fuck, just get out of here." You cover your eyes with your hand. "I can't even look at you right now. You're such a slut Gramps."

Ben only laughs at you and sits down on the side of your bed. His fingers gently pull your hand away from your face so he can look at you again.

"I didn't fuck your grandmother. We knew each other forever ago." He's still holding on to your wrist, his thumb smoothing against the soft skin on the inside of you arm. "But I will say that she is just as beautiful now as she was then. Really aged like fine wine-“

"You're not making this better."

"You look a lot like her." Ben says quietly.

Did he just call me beautiful?

You sit there for another minute, eyes focused on where Ben is holding your wrist. “I’m really sorry for what I said about Homelander and your team. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You already apologized.”

“When?”

“When I found you.” His jaw tightens at the memory. “You apologized.”

“Oh.”

“Are you-“ He clears his throat, eyes raising from your wrist to look at you. “Are you feeling better?” You watch his eyes trace the bruises around your neck, the black eye, and the cast again.

And for a moment he almost looks guilty.

Why is he guilty?

“Yeah. All the plants are really helping. It always makes me feel better to be surrounded by so many.” You smile at him, but Ben doesn’t return it.

“Plant boy brought them by.” Ben grunts. “You probably should call him. He was fawning all over you like a fucking pussy, thought he was going to cry.”

You thought that was ironic given that your grandmother had just told you that Ben hadn’t left the couch since you were brought in, but you didn’t want to tease him about that. Not now anyway.

You look at the gardenia on the small bedside table, the one you know that’s from home. “Not that one.” You glance back at Ben.

“No. I told Annie to bring that one.” Ben says as if it’s difficult for him. “I figured if it was on your bedside table in your room it must be important.”

“It’s my favorite. Thank you.” You squeeze his hand with your good one. “Really Ben, thank you for everything.” 

“Sure.”

Ben isn’t really holding your hand, your left is laying on its back cradled in his right where his thumb continues to rub along the thin skin of the inside as if he wants to trace along the veins.

“How long was I with Elijah?”

“Four days.” Ben grits his teeth together.

It was a surprise to hear how long you’d been there aloud, but a part of you knew in your heart how long it had been. 

“That feels about right.”

“I should have come sooner.”‘Ben murmurs it more to himself than to you. “I shouldn’t have let you go-“

“You tried to stop me remember? I should have listened to you instead of insulting you. I just-“ The tears were coming back. “I wanted to believe Darren. He’s my brother I thought-“ Your voice breaks. “And then Elijah-“

The memories of everything that happened were coming back tenfold now, worse then they had when your grandmother was there. The monitors to the right of the bed are beeping frantically now as your heart rate begins to spike and you begin to sob.

“Fuck.” Ben says under his breath. “Look Petals it’s okay. It’s alright-“

“No it’s not. My brother sold me to Elijah because he had fucking poker debt and Elijah wanted me to fix all those fucked up plants and then he-“  Your can't finish the sentence. You pull your hand from Ben's grasp to rub at your eyes, trying to make the tears stop but they don't. Memories of Elijah holding you down against the couch come surging up followed by the anxiety ridden question "What if?"

Ben's entire body goes stiff. "What did he do?"

You level your gaze at your left hand where it lays in your lap not wanting to answer. Ben's hand comes to cup your chin raising your eyes back to his. His green eyes have hardened, a murderous fire burning behind them that makes you worry about anyone who would ever get in his way. You'd never seen him so mad before, not even at you when you pissed him off.

"What did he do?" Ben says again in a low growl.

"He broke my arm-" You swallow the sob. "And then he put me in a freezer for a few days and when he took me out he tried to-" The memory of his oppressive weight and expensive cologne fills your nose, followed by the feeling of his hand fastened around your throat.

"He touched you?" Ben spits.

"I stopped him." You say in a whisper.

"How?"

"He had a poppy seed in his teeth."

The look in Ben's eyes shifts to surprise. "Really?"

You nod with a sniffle as another round of fresh tears comes out of your eyes.

"I saw the aftermath of it." Ben sighs retracting his hand from your chin. "Didn't think you could do something like that."

"Me neither. Guess it was a "desperate times desperate measures" sort of situation." You swipe the back your hand across your eyes. "But I really do want to go home, forget any of this happened-" Your voice cracks a little.

Ben's hand comes down on your shoulder in an awkward patting motion. "It's okay, Petals."

It enough to make you cough out a laugh. "What are you doing?"

"I don't fucking know. I just-" He drops his hand from your shoulder looking angry. "I don't like it when you cry." Ben says it more to himself than to you, as if he's ashamed he admitted it.

The admission makes something flicker to life in the center of your chest, a pilot light to some furnace that you'd blown out a long time ago.

"And I don’t fucking know what to do when women cry! Because y'all are always so damn emotional and-" He continues looking frustrated.

When you pull him into a hug, Ben stops mid-sentence. It's difficult with one arm, but you try your best. It's the first one the two of you have ever shared, given how much Ben hated showing affection that made sense, but you wanted to hug him. He had saved your life and maybe you could be friends despite everything else.

And you wanted to hug you because even though it made Ben uncomfortable, he had tried to comfort you. You weren't sure why, all you knew was that it made you smile.

Ben doesn't move, he goes completely tense in your arms, not accustomed to this and unsure what to do next. A part of you thought it was kind of cute how awkward he was when it came to something like this, but another part felt bad for him. You liked hugging people and were accustomed to doing just that, but it hurt you to think that Ben hadn't had any experience with someone giving him a hug that wasn't attached to anything else.

"Thank you, Ben." You whisper, pressing your face into his t-shirt. The smell of his spicy cologne burns your nose in the best way, the feeling of his warmth taking away the residual chill you feel when you think of the memories from a few days ago.

This is better than I remember.

You think, remembering how it felt to wake up in his arms and feel how his body molded around yours as if he was made for you.

"You're welcome, Petals." He says tightly, the pleasant rumble of his words vibrating against your cheek. He's not hugging you back, but you didn't expect him to. Not when he was awkward when it came to things like this.

You pull back from him, wiping your eyes again with the back of your hand. The longer you sit there together, the longer the silence grows between the two of you, but it's not uncomfortable. It's filled with an energy that you can't describe, hovering in the space, alive and charged.

Ben slowly raises his hand to your face, brushing back a strand of your hair with a surprising gentleness, the roughness of his hand is a comfort and you weren't prepared for how his touch burns against your skin.

“Did you really think I’d leave you there?” Ben murmurs, his eyes are a light green in the sunlight, like the budding grass on a summer day.

“You were mad at me. I-“ You look down at your lap.

“So?" Ben raises your chin with his hand.  "I said some shit too."

It wasn't an apology, but you were sure it was as close as he was going to get. What was weirding you out a bit was how often he was touching you and how gently. Not that you thought he would hurt you, just that he'd never tried to be this open to touch before. 

“Yeah, but it’s different. You might have pissed me off but I would have come to get you anyway because I know how much what happened in Russia hurt you.” It was the truth. You wouldn't have let anyone stop you if you knew that Ben was trapped somewhere, even if the two of you had been in a fight. He was your friend, sort of anyway. And you took care of your friends.

Ben’s body tenses at the mention of Russia, the memories that flash through his eyes are not pleasant. “Then don’t you think I’d want to come get you if I understand how fucked up that is?”

You blink at him surprised. "I didn't think about that."

Ben smirks. "And I thought you knew everything Petals."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Never." His hand is still cupping your cheek, his thumb brushing just barely over your cheek.

Electricity charges through the air and you feel your lips begin to tingle. You want to kiss him so badly, to pull him close and allow yourself to finally fall into him. The memory of the two of you on the couch the other day resurfaces when he almost kissed you, when he looked so different than he usually did, when he looked at you differently in a way that you weren't sure what it meant, the same way he was looking at you right now. The gardenia plant on the bedside table explodes with fresh blooms and Ben glances over it with a chuckle. It was embarrassing that he knew your deepest darkest secret and it caused a flush to creep into your cheeks.

Ben smiles the same way he did the morning you were curled up against his chest on your couch. His thumb dips to brush along your bottom lip and you inhale in surprise. It seems to jar Ben back into reality.

"I'm going to go feed Bean." Ben drops his hand and stands from the bed, but he's still smiling at you the same way he was a few seconds ago. "I'll be back in an hour."

You try not to feel the loss of his skin against yours and try not to focus on how good it felt for him to touch you so tenderly.

"You don't have to come back." You begin to say, trying to make the flush fade. "It's only one more night and-"

"It's not that bad." Ben shrugs. "I mean my butt isn't as comfy on this couch as the one at home." He cracks another smile repeating what he said when you took him to IKEA, but then something flashes in his eyes. "Besides, the apartment's too quiet without your bitching. Rather be here and witness it first hand."

Is he trying to say that he misses me? No. There's no way that he'd ever admit that.

"Get out of here, you ass." You try to push him, but he catches your hand.

"Be careful Petals, you don’t want to break the only arm you have left."

"I'm gonna break my foot off in your ass if you don’t get out of here." You groan rolling your eyes.

"Didn't think you’d be into that, but I'd be willing to try whatever you want Petals. As long as I get you all to myself" Ben is still holding on to your hand. "Do you-" His smirk shifts into something softer and he swallows. "Want me to bring you anything from home?"

You imagine that his voice changes when he says the word "home." But you don't imagine the way it sticks in your chest when he does.

"No, I think I'm okay." You frown down at your cast mournfully. "I'm never going to be able to finish any of my crochet projects with this thing."

"Yes, because that's why most people are upset when they break an arm."

"I thought you'd know by now that I'm not like everyone else."

"Trust me I noticed." Ben chuckles with a smile that makes your heartbeat stutter.

"Don’t knock it til you try it Gramps. I thought you'd be old enough to appreciate the quality of handmade goods. Didn’t your generation still do that or whatever?"

Ben rolls his eyes, but then he squeezes your hand so quick you think that you imagined it. "I'll be back. Try not to give your grandmother a hard time while I'm gone."

"You think that me giving her a hard time will ruin your chances with her?" You snort.

"I already tried years ago." Ben shrugs. "Then again she might give me another chance. It's been a while"

"You couldn't handle me then Benjamin and you can't handle me now." Your grandmother says as she re-enters the room holding a steaming cup of tea for you and a cup for herself. "But hurry back. I want to beat you at poker one more time before I go back to Illinois."

"I let you win." Ben grouses.

"Whatever you say sweetie." She sits back down on the chair to resume knitting, but you catch a glimmer of her smile quirking the ends of her lips.

Ben only rolls his eyes and throws you one last look filled with an emotion that you can't place before he vanishes out the door. And you try not to think about how empty the room is when he's gone, how the hell he knows your grandmother, and why your heart was skipping like a kid frolicking in a field full of sunflowers.

A/N: I know Darren didn't get got in this chapter, but he is going to come back into play next chapter. But this one was definitely bloody... Kinda was horrified with the place my mind went when she was killing those men with those poppies, but I like to think that people really do underestimate what she can do because they think she "just makes the plants grow" when in reality it's more complicated and way more powerful than people think. And I know, a lot of more denial, but we are starting to see the walls beginning to crumble and the unraveling between the two of them as they both begin to come to terms with their feelings.

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Likes, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love to hear what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know :)

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[giuseppe-yuki]

come over, baby!

rancher!oscar piastri x city girl!reader

w.c.: 4.3k

warnings: curse words, heavy allusions to sex, a little bit of ooc!oscar

summary: oscar sneaks you onto his family's ranch. it doesn't go as smoothly as he planned.

a/n: merry christmas to those who celebrate! :) i know i haven't uploaded a real fic in a hot sec so i decided to whip this up real quick!

picture credits from pinterest :)

your trusty mini cooper gives a sharp beep as it locks behind you. its taillights flashes bright, causing the branches of the surrounding eucalyptus trees to cast a looming shadow over you and the dusty road. once the lights dim into nothing, you glance around the dark dirt driveway that was apparently the entrance to your boyfriend’s family’s ranch, according to the text from him on your phone.

you let out a sigh- you could have easily been snuggled up in your bed in your college dorm, facetiming him on your phone, but no- he decided that you should become a top secret spy and drive two hours to his conveniently “close” family ranch at 9pm on a tuesday evening and sneaking into his bedroom on the first floor because he felt clingy and wanted to see you “in-person.” 

it honestly only took a few “no one will knowwww!” and a sprinkle of “come on, baby, pleaseeeeee i want to see youuu!” until you found yourself tiptoeing down the pitch black driveway towards the looming two story family ranch house that was seemingly where your boyfriend was located for fall break. anything for love, you suppose.

you squint your eyes at your phone’s bright screen depicting a lengthy message depicting exactly where to “break in” under the contact name “osc 💕” . park underneath the line of trees outside the metal gates- check. sneak through the broken fence three posts next to the main gates- check. walk down the dirt road towards the main house- currently doing so. 

the ranch house is stunningly pretty, with a big patio that housed a few well-worn rocking chairs, a spattering of wildflowers all around, and a big oak tree with a tire swing framing the whole thing. if you weren’t currently on a mission to break into the house itself to see your boyfriend, you would have stayed to admire for awhile.

you locate the window that your boyfriend mentioned further down in the text- the second one on the left side of the house without a window screen (he broke it playing cricket when he was 12, he said). bingo. it honestly wasn’t that hard to find, considering it was only one with the lights on on the first floor. 

sliding your phone, the only light source that you had, into your pocket, you curve your fingers underneath the window pane and slowly slide it up, making sure to make zero noise. 

the first thing you see when you maneuver yourself all sneakily through the window of the quaint little ranch house’s first-floor bedroom is decidedly not your boyfriend, with his swoopy brown-gold hair and polite-cat smile. instead, a pretty young woman with brown shoulder length hair, cowboy boots, and a silver belt in one hand stops and gapes at you on her way to exit the room. 

shit. 

“w-w-who are you?” she asks shakily, shuffling around the bed in the middle of the room and extending the silver belt in front of her like a weapon. she gives the air a few experimental slashes as if telling you- back off, i have a weapon.

you start to rethink your decisions. this was oscar’s house…right?

scrambling out of your awkward position sprawled halfway the window, you scoot nervously away from the rather dangerous-looking belt before speaking. 

“er, hi,” you say in the most non-threatening tone you can muster up after breaking and entering what you assume is this random lady’s house at an inappropriate time of night. 

she doesn’t even give you a chance to explain that this was all a misunderstanding before she yanks the door next to her open and gets ready to, most likely, call the police on you. 

however, before she is able to bolt out the door, a familiar boy steps into view in the doorway. 

oscar.

he takes a second to take in the situation- you standing awkwardly like that meme of robert pattinson in the kitchen, and the woman holding out the silver belt towards you in a menacing way- before he jumps into action. 

“okay…hattie- i can explain,” he exclaims to the woman, slamming the door closed behind him. oscar runs up between you and the still-stunned hattie, which you assume is his sister. 

“do not tell mom, but it’s just my girlfriend, okay?” he pleads. then, looking at the belt in hattie’s hand, he wrinkles his brow. “-and is that my belt?”

hattie hides the belt behind her. 

“um…no?”

with a single eyebrow raise from oscar, hattie sighs exasperatedly. 

“fine, yes, it is. i came into your room to get it for my outfit tomorrow when i caught your-” she peers around oscar,  “‘girlfriend’ literally breaking into our house!” 

“okay, pause!” your boyfriend says, scooting over to the left a little bit to block hattie’s view of you next to the wide-open window. “first of all, why would you take my belt without asking? second of all, she is not breaking into the house if i invited her in first, and third, again, please don’t tell mom.” 

hattie stares at her brother for a second, then peers over his shoulder to look at you, before crossing her arms. “al-right. i won’t tell- only if you do my night duty stuff for the ranch and i get to keep the belt.” 

your boyfriend doesn’t even hesitate before spitting a quick “okay, fine” before shoving his sister out of the room. 

“fuck. you. i. am. never. doing. that. again!” you whisper-shout at oscar, repeatedly smacking him with the hoodie you stripped off moments ago. screw his puppy-dog eyes and his oddly cute bunny-rabbit smile- you were never trusting him again. 

he laughs between the soft smacks from your college-logoed hoodie and pulls you towards him on the bed, effectively halting your attacks.  

“come on, baby!” he drawls, wrapping his arms around you. “it’s fine!”

your hoodie is abandoned on the side as he slides you towards him. your head automatically slots into the crook of his neck like it was made to be there, and you practically melt into his warm body, effectively dissolving the bigger part of your embarrassment and anger away. 

even when you purposefully cross your arms and face away from him after the hug, oscar knows he has already won the way from the fact that you still crawl underneath his blankets with him like you both always did in your dorm back at college. 

he prods you with a finger when you both are snuggled half-way in the blankets and you know that you can’t turn around to face him or else he’s going to press kisses to your face and then your “i’m a bit pissed” facade will surely be broken. you stay back-towards him, but then, he pulls out the ultimate weaponized piece of knowledge that he knows: your ticklish spots. oscar jams his fingers into your side, giggling, and pokes you until you have no choice to squirm back towards him. 

the way you wriggle around the bed ends up with you slotted underneath him. oscar gazes down at you, head tilted. you blink back at him slowly, watching how his brown eyes follow your tongue as you lick your chapped lips.

“you know,” he whispers in that lilting australian accent of his, “this is more what i was thinking we could do when i told you to sneak over into my room.”

“yeah?” you say, teasingly. “well, i’ll be glad to recreate whatever you are thinking of.”

a shy grin spreads across his face, and he sits up to strip his old faded sleeping shirt off his body. 

you just about salivate, seeing the sight of what you have seen what seems to be hundreds of times- his slightly muscular chest dotted with a constellation of stars that you loved to trace- either during a soft night curled on your dorm room bed, or when you lay, spent, on his chest after a lust-filled night.

before you can stop yourself, you reach out on instinct to trace your fingernail down his torso.

just a millisecond before your finger makes contact with his skin, footsteps sound outside his shut door, and the doorknob rattles, resulting in both of you to snap your heads towards the sound.

with some unbelievable reaction time that should probably get him a seat in formula 1, oscar shoves you underneath his stupid blue bedspread, and throws a couple comforters over your covered body- just in case.

are. you. joking. 

you were never trusting oscar again. what the hell were you gonna say to his parents if they found you underneath his blankets? there’s no way in hell they were gonna be easily persuaded like his sister was with a simple belt. what were you going to say? 

oh, i’m sorry mrs. piastri, for  breaking into your son’s bedroom at 9pm on a tuesday night because your son was feeling a bit frisky. 

absolutely not. you would rather die. 

instead, you settle for freezing as still as you can underneath the pitch-black insides of oscar’s pile of blankets and wait for what just be your impending doom.

the door squeaks as it opens, and you hear the scuffling of house shoes, then a pause. 

the person entering the room speaks first. 

“oscar.” a pause. “who were you talking to? and what- what are you doing with your shirt off? why are you kind of sweaty?”

you clock it as a female parental-type voice, which confirms your suspicions that- fuck- it’s probably his mother. 

your boyfriend shuffles nervously above you.

“mum, what?? talking? i wasn’t talking to anyone- i was talking to myself! also, you can’t just, like, break into my bedroom!” he exclaims a little too quickly. “you have to, like, knock! that’s an invasion of privacy!”

“wow, okay, calm down, oscar!” the woman’s voice shoots back. “why are you so defensive? i just heard voices, and i thought- maybe someone had broke in?” 

another pause.

“were you having some…” she trails off. “some- special alone time? a bit of oscar’s happy time?”

oscar’s mother’s insinuations hit both you and your boyfriend at the same time, and you can’t help but clap your hand over your mouth to muffle the laugh that was bubbling up in your throat.

your boyfriend lightly kicks you underneath the covers, which you could directly translate to shut up right now.

“special alone..?!” oscar stutters out, outraged. “no, mum, i was not having some special alone time! please! mum, i’m fine!”

“alright, alright,” his mother remarks, defeatedly. 

the scuffling sound heads towards the door, but stills before you can hear the door open. 

“by the way, your sister said that you were going to do her nighttime chores for her. i don’t know what kind of silly deal you guys struck up, but i expect it to be done by tomorrow, okay?” she adds.

“okay, okay, i got it, mum,” oscar replies hastily. 

“okey-dokey. goodnight, oscar!” his mother says brightly, before you hear the tell-tale sound of the door squeaking shut.

after oscar makes sure the door is completely closed and his mother’s footsteps have disappeared from his bedroom, he yanks his blankets off of you. 

the cool air flows over you, and you take a breath of fresh air. even if you only spent three minutes, tops, inside the stuffy blankets, it really felt like forever. you are sure your clothes are all rumpled from being squished underneath all that weight. 

“sorry, sorry, sorry,” your boyfriend repeats, grasping you and pecking a kiss to your cheek each time. “that was not part of the plan.”

“mhm,” you mutter back. you didn’t mind, honestly, you were just glad mrs. piastri didn’t notice the suspiciously college-girl shaped lump on her son’s bed. 

when oscar pulls off of you, he flashes you a devious grin. 

“you wanna..?” 

he uses his head to gesture towards the bed.

under normal circumstances, you would have thrown oscar to the bed and done multiple inappropriate things to him, but alas, 1) his mom coming in kind of killed the mood, 2) how could you, when his poor sister was likely, like, down the hall? and most importantly, 3) oscar had promised to do his sister’s chores, and you weren’t about to get mama piastri angry the next morning.

“oscar…” you say, trailing off. “don’t you have to do your, you know, chores?”

the gleam of mischievousness in your boyfriend’s eyes immediately falls flat, and his lips turn into a slight frown. 

letting out a rather exaggerated sigh, he slumps forward for a second before slinking towards the door. 

“leave my own mother to cockblock me…” he mutters, throwing on a black hoodie and green cap. 

you are about to let out a giggle, and pull him back on the bed for looking so cute being forlorn, but then, you realize, no, you have to be the voice of reason. 

“come on, oscar, i may be a city girl, but it can’t be that bad, right? i’ll be here all night!”

you are met with your boyfriend’s classic blank stare. 

“o-okay…what if…i went with you?” you suggest, reveling in the way that his gaze lights up.

“sneak out of the window, and meet me at the front of the house in 5,” he remarks, giving you a soft smile. 

what you expect to see at the front of the house is oscar with a shovel or whatever ranchers use to do their nightly chores, but instead, oscar waves at you from inside an entire fucking glowing atv. it has two seats, and entire mini flatbed trunk area, and to top it off, a covered clear canopy over the entire thing. and you thought the usual ranchers’ method of transportation was a freaking horse?? oscar’s family must have really modernized. 

you whisper a quick what-the-fuck before launching yourself into the atv next to your boyfriend. he flashes his usual bunny-rabbit smile at you, before fiddling with a few knobs on the front of the control panel. to your surprise, an entire heating unit starts blasting warm air towards you out of absolutely nowhere. 

huh??? when did atvs have heaters?? 

you don’t even have chance to formulate your thoughts before oscar starts revving the atv like he’s a freaking formula car driver and takes off into the darkness. 

even if you knew close to zero about being a rancher, you trail behind oscar to make sure he doesn’t half-ass his chores. the first task is checking the lights, which doesn’t seem too hard. 

your boyfriend basically speedruns around the barn that you arrive at, flicking at seemingly random places to turn on floodlights that surround the area. 

“for ‘safety’ reasons,” he had said when you asked. 

you take the time to do a 360 around the barn, noting the goats that glance at you curiously from their fenced off area outside in the chill night air. 

when oscar finishes sprinting around, he grasps your hand and leads you back towards the atv. 

“alright, back to my room!” he gasps breathlessly, as he starts the atv back up. 

your mind drifts to the poor goats outside. 

“er, oscar- are the goats supposed to be outside? i would think they deserve to be inside the barn, warm and toasty, no?”

your boyfriend freezes, hand halfway to the wheel. it’s obvious the cogs in his mind are turning. you blink at him once, before he groans and twists the key into the ‘off’ position for the atv. 

typically, you knew your boyfriend as someone who was really hard to irritate, but god, this was really doing a number on him.

oscar bolts toward the gated area that you saw earlier, and easily jumps the fence into the goat’s area. you can’t help but watch in wonder as he herds all the stubborn animals towards the barn’s entrance. most of the goats bleat at him once in annoyance before charging into the warmth of indoors, but you see a few stragglers still in the outdoor pen. a giggle bubbles up in your throat as you see a goat purposefully wedge itself between the fence and the water trough- just enough so oscar couldn’t reach him easily- leading to your boyfriend exclaim in frustration. 

it was funny- if you saw the shy, introverted oscar that was typically shown to others at the college that you both went to together, you were sure that they would have never guessed he was the type to get pissy, curse at goats, and shake his fist at the sky like an old grampa in the dark of night. 

while he was busy with the stubborn goat, you take the chance to climb over metal rungs of the fence and venture into the barn. it was quite cozy looking, with a thin layer of straw-like bedding covering the floor, round bales of hay lining the walls, and, of course, bunches of goats milling around. sitting on an overturned bucket, you watch as the cute goats settle down for the night, bleating happily. 

all of the sudden, a baby goat, (a kid, you find out they are called, later) runs up to you and nibbles at your sleeve. it’s quite adorable, the way it shoves its head under your hand, urging you to pet it. you comply, of course. 

it kind of reminds you of the way oscar often shoves his head under your hands during a long night study session. when he was almost at his breaking point, too tired to shove any more vocab words and formulas into his head, he would lie on you and beg for you to thread your hands into his hair and massage his head. oscar would probably go mental if he saw you give the baby goat treatment that was typically reserved for him.

speaking of the devil, the second your hand lands on the baby goat’s head, oscar storms in with the stubborn goat from earlier squished to his chest. half of your boyfriend’s pant leg is soaking wet, and judging from the way his eyes are drawn to the spot where your hand was softly petting the goat’s head, he was not too happy. 

“are you…okay, osc?” you ask, already knowing the answer. 

after gently letting the offending goat back towards its mates, oscar stands like the standing man emoji in front of you.

“i would like to go.” he responds, face completely deadpan. 

although the goats were pretty cute, you would pick oscar every time. lightly scooching away from the baby goat, you stand up and brush off the pieces of straw and dirt that it knocked into your lap. the goat, probably slightly peeved at the fact that you were leaving, decides to do a gravity defying (?) leap at the shelf behind you, which contained a small square block of hay. 

much to your amazement, the goat jumps off your bucket, and lands nicely on the shelf a good meter above you. 

“don’t you fucking dare,” oscar warns behind you, apparently already guessing the goat’s next step. he runs towards underneath the shelf and pushes you behind him, all the while keeping a eye on the goat as it steps closer and closer to the bale of hay.

it bleats, and pushes the hay with its nose.

the block explodes in midair, completely covering oscar.

for the second time in the day night, you fight to cover your laugh. the poor hay-covered oscar was just about trembling in anger. you hurriedly drag him towards the exit, all the while thanking the gods that what you thought was a darling little goat didn’t just squish your boyfriend.

“come on, baby,” you comfort, parroting the words he had said to you earlier in the night back to him. “it’s fine.”

he huffs, twisting the key of the atv, allowing the heater to effectively blast half of the hay on him straight into your face.

“oh my god, baby, are you okay?” oscar says, eyes wide. he quickly turns the heater down and brushes a few strands of hay off of your head. 

you pretend that you didn’t just feel a strand of hay go down your throat. 

“y-yeah, no problem,” you cough out. “we can just um, head back if that’s what you’d like.”

“right,” he affirms, voice going back to monotone. 

the atv rumbles quietly as he navigates back to the house.

trying to lighten up the mood and fill the awkward silence in the small space of the vehicle, oscar attempts to crack the world’s worst joke using his lust-craved brain. 

“after all that fiasco, i think i deserve the world’s best hea-”

before he can finish (hehe get it?), you cut him off, pointing outside to a potentially dangerous situation for his ranch’s chickens. 

“oscar,” you say pointedly, “i don’t want to burst your bubble, but was bringing the chickens in one of your sister’s chores? ‘cause they’re currently flapping around in an outdoor area, and i’m afraid there’s like foxes or something that are going to eat them.”

your boyfriend slams on the brake pedal, and peeks over your shoulder, confirming the worst news in his head right now- there was yet another job to be done. 

he just about flies out the vehicle, and before you know it, he has wedged himself into the chicken coop. if there is an award for the fastest time to shove like, 15 chickens inside the line of nesting boxes, he would definitely win first. it’s kind of an insane sight.  you even hear a few “get the fuck in,” which is decidedly out of character for oscar to ever say.

every chicken actually makes it indoors, and oscar doesn’t hesitate to slam the chicken coop door shut with a loud bang.

you wish you can say the actual ride back to the house isn’t tense, but then, you’d be lying. by the time oscar pulls up to the side of the house where the only window still has its lights on is the second one without a window screen, you can feel each breath that he takes thrumming its way into your core. 

he barely has a chance to shut off the atv before you cast a sly glance towards him. 

“do you wanna-” 

the way his brown eyes glaze over in want does all the answering for you.

all you know is that after spending an undisclosed amount of time inside of the atv fogging up the plastic cover of the vehicle, you both stumbled back through oscar’s stupid little window on the left side of the house, where you continued your little escapade within the confines of his bedroom. 

the first thing you realize when you wake up is oscar’s bare skin underneath yours. you’re tucked underneath his arm, and one of your legs is entwined with his. 

you shift in his arms, tilt your head, and use a little bit of force to launch yourself upwards to press a kiss on his cheek from your position wedged next to him. 

oscar mutters a “mmm,” with his eyes closed, but you can tell from the many times of waking up next to him that he’s obviously awake. 

poking his bare stomach with a finger, you giggle. 

“i know you’re awake, oscar.”

“nuh-uh,” he shoots back, eyes still closed, grasping your offending finger with his hand and holding your arm away from him.

you untuck your other hand from under the blanket, and move to boop his stomach again. 

however, before you are able to, the footsteps come to the door and the doorknob jiggles.

oh. my. fucking. god. not this again.

oscar, like the night before, strategically shoves you under his blankets roughly. 

this time, you wedge yourself in a way where you can see the doorway through a crack in the blankets before the door swings open.

a nice-looking woman with straight brown short hair and a white sweatshirt with big block letters that spell out, “y u k i” walks in. his mom, you suppose. behind her stands the girl you saw the day before, hattie, who has her hand clasped over her mouth, trying to stop her giggles from escaping. 

oscar’s mom speaks first, clasping her hands together. 

“good morning, oscar!” she exclaims, placing her hands on her hips. “did you want some breakfast?”

“er,” your boyfriend says, staying very still. 

then, you see oscar’s mom approaching you. 

she neatly pulls off the part of the blanket covering your head, effectively blinding you from the bright light from the window, while also turning you into the surface of the sun from the way your cheeks heat up from embarrassment of being exposed literally out of nowhere. 

“and maybe your girlfriend would like some breakfast too instead of being shoved underneath your dirty blankets?” 

when oscar doesn’t answer, his mother shakes her head and sighs. “wow, oscar, i thought i taught you better than treating guests this way.”

you wrap oscar’s blankets around you, thanking god that his mother had not decided to yank all the blankets off your entire body.

hattie decides this is the moment that she cannot hold her laugh anymore and flees the doorway. you can still hear her little giggles in the hallway.

your boyfriend stutters out angrily, “b-but hattie promised-”

“no, don’t ‘hattie’ me. she didn’t out you.” his mother states calmly. “i was a teen too, once. do you really think i wouldn’t see the footsteps in the mud? your giggling at 3am? the quite honestly- nasty- handprints on the fogged up atv plastic? also, the quite obvious lump that was on your bed-” 

she shakes her head, wagging a finger at her son.

turning to you, however, she brightens up significantly. “anyways, i don’t blame you a smidgen for oscar’s actions, darling. call me nicole. now, how would you like your toast and eggs?”

a/n: bonus points if you can recognize what movie + scene i referenced when mama piastri walks for the first time 🤭

[obsessedwithceleste]

Daisy Chains and Kept Promises

George Weasley x reader

Based on this request🫶🏽

Summary: George Weasley was never one to break a promise. Especially not one sealed by a daisy chain ring.

word count: 3.2k

©️ obsessedwithceleste. all works posted here belong to me and should not be reposted or copied in any way or form.

It was the first sunny afternoon in what seemed like forever, but in reality had only been a few days, and the residents of the burrow were eager to escape onto the vibrant, green lawn.

“Fred, George you stay out of trouble now!” Molly shouted from the kitchen as you run out the door with the twins.

“Come on now, it’s our last summer before they ship us off to Hogwarts! We gotta make the most of it!” Fred replies, sprinting out to the shed where the Weasleys stored all their brooms.

“Hurry up Georgie, or I’m taking the good broom!” You tease as you race past the other boy, snatching the best broom from the rack before he has the chance to protest.

“Aw c’mon! Why’s she always get the good one?” Ron complains as he catches up with you all.

“Oh shut it Ronald,” George retorts, not bothering to give his youngest brother a second glance.

The four of you spend the afternoon zooming across the field, a beat up quaffle tossed between you in carefree bliss as the sun shines down on you and Ginny watches from the ground below.

Eventually you all tire and you find yourself lying in the shade of the old oak tree that loomed over the garden. Thankfully the rain had scared off the gnomes that had a habit of sneaking into the garden for a tasty treat.

“Show me how to make those daisy crowns? Like the muggles?” Ginny asks, bringing over fists full of the little white flowers.

“Not now Ginny,” Fred sighs, rolling his eyes at the young girl.

“No, no, we can do it now,” you argue, patting the ground next to you, gesturing for the younger girl to sit beside you.

“Yeah, let her stay,” George agrees, smiling fondly at you.

Fred snorts at his brother, eyes rolling once more.

“You always side with her, you’re supposed to be my twin! How are you two going to survive without each other?” Fred retorts, leaning back against the tree.

“It’ll only be a year, then y/n can join us in the fun,” George replies happily.

“Oh at this point you might as well just marry her,” Fred responds with a huff.

You feel your cheeks begin to grow red and you turn to focus all your attention on the young girl beside you, showing her how to intricately wrap the stems together to form a chain of daisies.

You’d known the twins for as long as you could remember. You’d practically grown up with them. Your father Remus did the best he could raising you on his own, he really did, but it was hard. Especially on full moons. The Weasleys always took you in on those nights, often resulting in you staying for days while Remus recovered.

George had had a soft spot for you since the beginning, always being the slightly softer twin while Fred was more severe and brash. You could remember a particularly bad night when it had been storming, the loud thunder making you shake with fear. George had stayed up with you all night, making sure the storm didn’t get you. You had been seven at the time.

It had started back then you supposed, your little crush. It had confused you at first as you had thought of all the boys as your brothers, but now, at the ripe old age of ten, you could tell that Georgie was different from the other Weasley boys.

“There!” George announces excitedly, shaking you from your thoughts as he brandishes a single daisy up into the air, its stem tied rather roughly in a small circle.

Without warning, he grasps onto your hand, sliding the makeshift ring onto your finger, looking rather pleased with himself.

“There. You’re my wife now,” he says proudly as you stare at the little flower adorning your finger.

“You didn’t do it right! You have to ask her to be your wife. Everyone knows that!” Ginny exclaims, watching the two of you with a dopey little grin on her face.

“Oh. Right. Y/n, will you be my wife?” Georgie asks, batting his eyes dramatically at you and sticking out his bottom lip.

“Yes I will,” you reply with a laugh, admiring the pretty daisy that now sat on your finger.

“You two are so gross,” Fred says, making a face.

“Oh, oh! Do the promises! The ones where you say I do!” Ginny urges excitedly, clapping her hands.

“Alright. Do you promise to always laugh at my jokes, always be there for me when I need you, and always take my side when we argue with Fred?” George asks.

Fred begins to make dramatic gagging sounds.

“I do.” You reply with a giggle as Fred just glares at you. “And do you promise to always make me smile, always protect me, and always make me hot chocolate when I can’t sleep?”

“I do.”

It was dark. The whole house was dark really. All the time. Dimly lit and constantly smelling like mold and rotting wood. And the furniture seemed to be permanently damp, the coldness settling into your bones.

You hated it here at Grimmauld Place. The constant shrieking of decrepit, old portraits, the eerie feeling of constantly being watched. The only positive attribute about living in this wretched place was the fact that Remus had never been happier.

It had taken months to do it, but after Harry had been able to help Sirius escape the dementors, Dumbledore had inconspicuously been able to move Sirius into Grimmauld place where you had been staying ever since.

It had been strange at first, no doubt. You had only just met the man, but he grew on you quickly. Like a fungus. You loved seeing how comfortable he made Remus who visibly softened whenever the other man was near. And you hadn’t seen Remus smile as wide or as often, well ever. You could tell that the two of them were just meant to be side by side, and honestly, that was enough for you. Especially in dark times like these.

“Lighten up love, we have a surprise for you before dinner,” Remus announces, entering the drawing room where you sat wrapped in a pile of blankets, a book in hand as you tried to ignore the screeching bag lady in entry way portrait.

“Is it another one of those horrendous sweaters that Sirius keeps digging up from somewhere?” You ask, nose scrunching at the thought of another one of the putrid smelling things being presented to you. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that you detested the nasty things, so you had been giving them to Kreacher to dispose of rapidly. “I know I keep telling him that they’re lovely, but how many of the things does he think I need?”

Remus just laughs, shaking his head. “I’ve told him to move onto something else, but he’s determined to fill your wardrobe I think. But no. It’s not another sweater. For now at least. No, I do believe you’ll quite enjoy this little surprise.” He tells you before leaving you to your book and your thoughts.

Dinner time couldn't come fast enough as you eagerly eyed the clock every fifteen minutes, only to be disappointed by how little time had gone by.

About thirty minutes before the three of you usually ate dinner, you began hearing a chorus of voices coming from the entry way. And not the familiar voices of the Black family portraits.

"Well where is she then?" a loud voice asks.

Hearing the voice, you immediately perk up, not quite believing you'd heard correctly. This place might be driving you mad.

"Oh bloody hell mate, don't seem too eager now," comes the sarcastic response.

You'd know those voices anywhere. Practically throwing yourself from the couch, you eagerly scramble to the door and down the staircase to be greeted by the whole Weasley family grinning up at you.

"Look Georgie, there's your wife, don't get your knickers in a twist now," Fred scoffs.

You fly into George's arms, sighing contentedly as his arms wrap securely around you.

"Well hello to you too," you hear him laugh as he gives you another squeeze before releasing you.

You hadn't seen him, or the other Weasley's for that matter, in what felt like ages. He and Fred had grown their hair out, and you didn't quite remember them being so tall last you saw them. His smile never changed though.

Bashfully, you greet the rest of the Weasley bunch, even Fred giving you a quick hug, before rubbing the top of your head affectionately and effectively tossling up your hair. You stick your tongue out at the boy in response, batting his hand away.

"I missed you all, so much! I've been going absolutely bonkers being here alone for so long," you tell them.

"Well not to worry love, we'll be here all summer. Hermione too, though she's not coming for another few weeks." George tells you.

Feeling eyes on you as you laugh with the boys, turning to see both Sirius and Remus gazing at you intently, eyes flickering between you and George.

Sirius silently points at you, then George before drawing a line across his neck with his finger before giving you a wink. You feel heat creeping into your cheeks as you turn back to the boys.

"What are you all doing here?" you ask eventually as the adults begin to file into the kitchen.

"Came to be used as house elves of course," Fred replies, earning him a nudge from George.

"Mum said that Sirius volunteered the house to be headquarters for the Order," Ron butts in.

"Yeah, then mum volunteered us to help clean the place up," Ginny adds.

You make a face at that.

"We have a lot of work to do then, this place is disgusting," you tell them, leading them up the stairs to the room you'd been staying in. On your way up the stairs, George's hand never leaves yours, fingers intertwined as you guide him up the dusty staircase.

"Long as there aren't any spiders," Ron replies, eyeing the spiraling stairs with suspicion.

You just look back at the boy with concern, pity overtaking your face as his own face turns pale.

For once Grimmauld place was silent. A rare luxury you'd found, especially since the Weasley's had moved in. Not that you minded, the red headed family made the grim, old place feel alive and vibrant. Something you thought the it needed desperately. But you liked the quiet too.

It had been a strange couple of weeks as everyone, the adults especially, seemed to be on high alert. And who could blame them? Hermione had just moved in, sharing a room with you and Ginny. You could hear their breathing now as you stared up at the dark ceiling above.

After the Weasley's arrival, you had all spent countless hours decluttering Grimmauld place. Sweeping, dusting, banishing the more mouthy portraits to the attic. It was hard work, but you had loved every second of it with George making you laugh until you keeled over, tears streaming down your face. His presence just made everything better. You thought so at least.

In the darkened room, your mind drifts to the conversation you had heard between the adults just hours ago. It definitely wasn't a conversation you had been meant to overhear, but Georgie had given you a pair of extendable ears that he and Fred had developed, and you just couldn't help yourself.

"Oh really Sirius, they've all practically grown up together, George would never do anything to hurt her," Molly had said.

At the mention of George's name, you just had to find out what they were talking about.

"We never said he was going to do anything malicious, we just don't want to see her get hurt," Remus replied with a heavy sigh.

Her?

"They're practically adults, you can't protect her forever. So what if they fancy each other? They're not children!" Molly retorts.

"Oh that's rich coming from you. Just the other day you were going on about young witches and wizards rushing into marriage during the first war. And how many times have you told the twins that they're forbidden from joining the Order hmm? They're adults, Molly, you can't protect them forever," Sirius responds.

"Oh but at least I've done all I can to protect them up to this point. What have you done for y/n? Nothing. Because you've been locked up!" Molly spits. You can hear the fury in her voice.

Your fists ball up in rage at her comments. None of it was Sirius's fault. He didn't do anything wrong. How dare she?

"That's enough!" you hear Remus cut in, a sharpness in his voice that you hadn't heard before. "We weren't coming to attack George, or the way you raised any of the children. We were simply raising our concerns, as any good parents would. Now that we've made our point, if you don't wish to interfere, fine. We won't either."

After that the only thing you had heard was the shuffling of feet as they abandoned the dining room. They had most definitely been talking about you. No doubt about it. You hadn't realized they were concerned about you. They never said anything. And it was only Georgie. The two of you had been married for six years now. In all the ways that mattered to you at least. He would never hurt you. In fact, he'd made it a promise.

Mind racing and unable to sleep, you slip out of bed, careful not to make a sound as you slowly creep to the drawing room that you so often took refuge in. To your surprise however, a dim light was already flickering inside when you approached, and a familiar head of red hair sat facing away from you on the sofa.

"Georgie?" You whisper cautiously, not wanting to spook him.

His head turns in surprise, but his face lights up when he sees you.

"What are you doing this up this late, love?" he asks.

"I could ask you the same."

"Fair enough. Just a lot on my mind I suppose."

"Me too," you reply.

A silence falls between the two of you as you stand, watching mesmerized as the light flickers on and off of the boy's handsome face.

"Want me to make you a hot chocolate?" George asks finally.

A smile grows on your face and you instantly perk up at the mention of your favorite treat. George always knew how to put you to sleep, and he always made the best hot chocolate. Nodding enthusiastically, the two of you make your way down to the kitchen where George begins gathering supplies.

One thing you'd always admired about him was that he never minded doing things the muggle way. While Fred was always quick to magic his way through things, George was content taking his time.

"Help stir the milk so it doesn't burn?" he asks, gesturing to the pot now on the stove.

You silently take the wooden spoon from his hand, fingers brushing ever so slightly, before focusing on the task at hand. George sets out two mugs on the counter before helping you melt in the chocolate.

It all felt terribly domestic. As if there wasn't a sociopathic murderer on the loose. Like it was just the two of you.

It isn't long before George is pouring the dark liquid into the mugs, sprinkling in a few little marshmallows and a cinnamon stick or two and the both of you are retreating back up to the drawing room.

The first sip sends shivers of satisfaction down your spine as you lean into George who wraps his free arm around you. You pull a blanket over you and revel for a moment in the comfort.

"Care to share what's been on your mind?" George asks, breaking the silence.

"Only if you go first," you reply, not quite sure how to explain that he was really the only thing on your mind these days.

George just sighs. "It's nothing you we haven't told you before," He tells you. "Mum is just fighting for her life to keep Freddie and I out of the Order, but Moody agrees with us. We're of age. There's nothing she can do to stop us."

"Will you be safe?"

"Safe as can be. Mum has made sure they don't give us any real missions. Just patrolling Diagon Alley since that's where we set up shop."

You simply nod your head, letting it fall against the boy's chest as you feel his even breathing and let it overtake you. You'd never admit it out loud, but you were grateful for Molly to an extent. The twins had an abysmal lack of self preservation skills, and you didn't know what you would do if you lost Georgie.

"And what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?"

You feel your shoulders shrug as you think carefully of what to say.

"I overheard our parents talking today," you mumble, not exactly sure where you were taking this.

"Oh?"

"Dads are worried about us," you tell him, hiding your face in his chest.

"Worried?"

"I dunno. They said something about your mum talking about how a lot of wizards and witches rushed into marriage during the first war, and there was a lot of talk about you being of age and what not. It got intense. There was a lot of yelling."

You feel George's chest rumble with soft laughter at your words.

"Well that's a silly thing to be worried about considering we've been married for years now at this point," he says.

You're not sure if he's joking or not. Maybe the exhaustion was finally getting to you.

"I'm being serious Georgie. I didn't know they were so worried about me. And Sirius sounded so upset," you reply, sitting up to take another long sip of your hot chocolate.

"So am I." he responds, looking you dead in the eye. The usual mischievous gleam is gone this time and you know he's never been more serious about something. "You know I'm not one to break a promise."

The air grows heavy as you feel yourself freeze for a moment at his words before you sink back into his warm embrace.

"I still have it you know. Your ring. Your mum charmed it for me so it wouldn't wilt. She knew all along," you tell him.

"She tends to have a sixth sense when it comes to these kinds of things."

Another silence falls between the two, but this time, the silence brings comfort as you feel your eyes growing heavy. George tries to stifle a yawn, but it escapes anyway. It was later then you had realized.

"I'm glad it's real for you too," you murmur, leaning further into the boy as your eyes flutter close. Something about being in George's arms provided a sense of security you couldn't find anywhere else.

"It was always real. I'd never break a promise to you, love."

bby's first non-slytherin boy fic🫣

don't ask me if I edited this- the answer is no and I don't want to talk abt it💀

tag list: @sol-lupin-black @breeistired