#he's hot too. like the way i found out today is bc one woman said he's hot and another replied 'yeah all hot men are gay' | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sixofpomegranates · 3 years ago

Note

i am BEGGING for a plus size, anxious reader who is very much attracted to her BAU bestie spencer reid, but she's too scared he wouldn't like her bc of her weight n then one day penelope has everyone going out for drinks and reader decides to wear something more form fitting to get reids attention but is too trapped in her mind to function and spencer helps her feel better. essentially: spencer reid loves me through my daily panic attack

♞𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢 𝙶𝚒𝚛𝚕♘

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Pluse-Size!Reader

A/N: I love this one. Talk about comfort. 🥺 Hope you like it! 💕

CW: slight angst, fluff, comfort | Mentions of Weight/unrequired love, insecurity about body, anxiety, pining, self-hate, misunderstanding,

**********

*picture does not describe the looks of the reader* **********

For all my life I've been plus-sized... Well, not for all my life. I started off as a child with a normal statue, as normal as you should judge the figure of a young girl of course, but when puberty hit, it hit me harder than my pinky toe would hit the coffee table on a regular.

Suddenly I was getting a stomach, boobs, and a butt, and while I waited for the moment I'd finally grow tall enough in high so my weight and bodily proportions wouldn't be as... eye-catching, I had to wear the clothes all chubby little girls had to wear back in the days when we couldn't just simply order cute plus-size clothes online and celebrate the fact that all bodies are beautiful.

I had to wear baggy shirts, mostly from the boys' section in the store, and low-rising flared jeans hanging from my body. The motto really was to somehow cloth this unfortunately big body and hide its size away as good as possible, not to have me dressed and feel confident... or even pretty.

Most of my youth, I, therefore, had spent as the tomboy with a great personality. Only as I got older, finished college, and began working for the FBI, confidence finally came to me.

Yes, I could say it came with the gun I was now holding on the regular, or with the thankful eyes of the people whose lives I saved. But actually, it came with the friends I made along the way.

All sizes, shapes, and colors. No judgment for me, or my clothes, or appearance. It felt incredible to finally be in a safe space where I was not defined by the number on my scale.

I mostly even found my own clothing style. So I had, over time, laid my tomboy style to rest and dressed as girly as I'd like to. Nowadays I could simply go online and order a bunch of cute things in my size, I could dress in the same styles every other woman could.

That being said, I still struggled with my self-worth behind closed doors. That was why I loved the colder seasons so much. I could hide away my body like people had taught me all my life.

Cute cardigans, long jeans, sweaters with sunflowers or mushrooms on them, a tightfitting shirt and a loose one over it so it would hide my stomach... Those articles of clothing made me happy because they showcased my personality and still hid away my insecurities.

But as all good things must come to an end at some point, we had entered the season of summer, sun, heat... and less clothing than I felt comfortable in.

As I finally packed my things from my desk this especially hot Friday afternoon, I couldn't wait to go home and strip from my cardigan and band t-shirt. Air-conditioning only ever betters so much.

I really wished I'd just have the gut to walk around in a tank top like Emily or wear a short skirt as JJ did, but I really didn't like showing my naked upper arms, and don't even get me started on my thighs.

"Hey, you're going home for today?" Looking over the separation between our desks, I nodded at my Spencer, my best friend in the world, and the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.

Not that I was crushing, no, I had given up on that years ago. He was an amazing person and that curly hair, hazel eyes, and sharp cheekbones made him look like he was made by the gods... But that also made him to be way out of my league. That had been while I had – after my initial crushing and nervous giggles had stopped – settled for being the chubby friend... As always.

"Yep, I need a cold shower. Seriously, I feel like a fried fish stick in here," I joked, making him chuckle.

"Yeah, Morgan played with the air-conditioning and I think he broke it," he shook his head, while my eyes wandered down his rolled-up sleeves and veiny hands. "No, I am actually most certain that he broke it."

In all our years of friendship, I had managed to let my guard down quite a bit. Once you know somebody would never in a million years be attracted to you, you stop pretending and trying to look nice for them. And once he had grown accustomed to me as a new team member and I began to understand his little quirks, we started hanging out outside of work a lot.

Going to book stores, having sleepovers in each other's apartments, Dr. Who and Star Trek marathons, Comic Conventions, and watching Russian movies – that always had me fall asleep because I got sensory overloaded by watching, reading, and listening a movie all at the same time – had become our regular thing when we weren't in relationships.

We both didn't date much, Spencer rarely seemed to be interested in anyone and me? Well, I already mentioned the fact that nobody wants the chubby girl, therefore, I sort of stopped trying. So we had a lot of time to pursue our shared hobbies.

"You're coming tonight though, right? I don't wanna come if you're not at Penelope's get-together at the bar."

Fuck. I had completely forgotten about that.

"You forgot," Spencer surmised, looking at my face with a hint of entertainment.

"No, I didn't," I lied, only making him start to giggle and flash his beautiful smile at me.

"Oh, you so forgot about it."

I joined his contagious laugh, admitting, "Okay, yeah, fine. You got me. I forgot about it. Happy?"

He nodded happily, starting to pack his things as well. Most likely would he ask me to drive him home soon. "So, are you going? Because if not, I need you to help me come up with an excuse for me as well."

Playing with the string attached to my water flask, I sighed. "I'm gonna go. Pen is talking about it for weeks now."

"Which makes it even more astonishing that you were able to forget about it." At Spencer's sassy comment I stuck my tongue out.

"Very mature," he chuckled, making me nod proudly. "Hey, do you think you can give me a ride home?" Ah, called it.

"Sure," I smiled, watching Derek sneak up behind Spencer and mess up his hair.

"Pretty boy," he chuckled, "Will we be seeing you at the bar tonight?"

Fixing his hair, Spencer nodded. "Yeah, sure. I was just asking-" Derek interrupted him, looking in my direction. "You coming too, pretty girl?"

I hated that nickname. It always felt like a joke at my expanse, even after Morgan had assured me countless times that it wasn't and he meant it the same way he meant it regarding Reid.

"Yes," I answered quickly, making him clap his hands. "So that's why Reid's coming," he laughed, turning to him. "I was already wondering what pretty little thing got you whipped enough to leave your apartment on a Friday night."

Spencer was quick to throw him an angry look, thinking I didn't notice it. "Don't say things like that," he mumbled, Derek continuing to egg him on. "What? That pretty girl has you-"

Spencer stood up abruptly, exclaiming, "Stop calling her pretty girl and stop insinuating that I'd like her like that."

Ow. Okay, that was painful. But a chubby girl learns how to handle rejection. Teenagers are way less careful in the way they turn you down when confessing a crush.

Ignoring both Morgan and Spencer's nervous looks – both seemingly worried about having hurt my feelings during their brotherly bickering – I stood up, grabbing my bag with a smile. "Okay, boys, that's enough for today. I need to get ready for tonight."

Taking a few steps in the direction of the elevator, I turned around. "Spence, are you coming?"

He quickly nodded, grabbing his satchel, and hurrying after me. Passing by Derek, he slightly hit him in the chest as he chuckled about Spencer following me like a puppy.

*****

The car ride was painfully silent, Spencer only fidgeting with the strap of his bag. I didn't know what to say, either. Like I said, I was used to rejection but he had been so quick and embarrassed shutting Derek down... The thought of being with me or people thinking there was something between us seemed to really make him uncomfortable.

No wonder actually. I knew his exes and his former crushes. He instinctively always went for the skinny, pretty blonde.

While I hadn't ever considered having a type until I had met him, he was an absolute dream to me but I was so not his type, it made me want to cry.

"I- I didn't..." He started shortly before we reached his apartment. "I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?" I smiled. "You did nothing wrong."

He shook his head, fingers starting to become more fidgety. "I shouldn't have said-"

"Spencer, I am well aware I am not a 'pretty girl', okay?" I snapped at him before I had to go through the humiliation of him trying to find something pretty about me.

"Y-You just- I wanted to help because you said you don't like it when Morgan calls you that. I- I never meant that you're not pretty. I think you beau-" I abruptly stopped the car in front of his apartment, smiling in his direction.

"Everything's okay, Spence. Don't think about it because I definitely won't either." Yeah, that was a lie. I was going to cry all night and overthink why I was never going to be the girl he wanted.

"O-Okay," he stammered, opening the car door. "I'll still see you tonight, right?"

I nodded, the fake smile still plastered onto my face. "Sure. See you later."

As he had said his goodbye and closed the door, I drove off so fast I was probably going to receive a ticket in the mail for it. Finally alone in the car, I allowed myself to cry a little, humiliated and broken-hearted seemed to be the way I was starting into the weekend. Just great.

*****

I knew Spencer didn't think I was a pretty girl, he would only ever in my dreams consider being with someone like me. Yet, it didn't stop me from putting on this short, black bodycon dress hugging every curve of my body.

Penelope had talked me into buying it the last time as we had online shopped with wine. She had said something about me going to look hot in it and Spencer falling to his knees for me once he saw me in it.

Easily said by somebody embodying an angel's personality, confidence, and rainbows... Yet, although I envied her for all that, Garcia was the only one knowing about my feelings for Spencer and all my insecurities.

She too wasn't a size 2 and as much as a skinny girl could try, if you've never been in the skin of a chubby one, you don't understand just how worthless you sometimes feel because of it.

Looking into the mirror at home, I swear I had never felt sexier. Maybe I was going to turn Spencer's head tonight, or at least have him notice that I wasn't only the fat friend. But when I turned to the side, my stomach immediately began stressing me out.

Too much, too fat. Not flat. NOT. PRETTY.

That was okay. I was aware of the problem, so I could fix it. There was no time to change again, and honestly, if I'd have to try on another outfit and look myself in the mirror again, I was going to stay at home and cry.

Grabbing a gray cardigan from my wardrobe and putting it on, I quickly felt better. Swallowed by all the fabric, there was no chance somebody would notice my rolls. This was a great solution.

*****

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

The stupidest of them all.

What had I been thinking?

I fucking hate summer.

The evening had started out nice. I had gotten some compliments from Penelope and Spencer seemed no longer to feel bad for stating his obvious disinterest in me as a love interest.

Then the bar got fuller, people started dancing, alcoholic drinks began heating my blood...

The cardigan I had grabbed to hide my way too tight-fitting dress and body, had been made for winter temperatures, and by now it felt like I was melting. But the thought of somebody seeing me in the dress alone was too humiliating and keeping me from taking the cardigan off.

"Aren't you hot?" Penelope whispered over the music, which actually was yelling, making the rest of our friends listen to our conversation.

"N-No. I'm fine," I smile, hoping my foundation wasn't melting off my face.

Emily shook her head. "It's fucking hot in here. You should take off your cardigan before you'll get a heatstroke."

Spencer looked back and forth between me and Emily, agreeing with her. "She's right. You look hot."

He quickly became pale, shaking his head. "I- I didn't mean that. You're not hot. I meant you're looking like you're warm because it's summer and it's warm."

Emily was quick to kick him under the table and Spencer stopped talking, Morgan whispering something into his ear that sounded like a solid scolding. Swallowing hard, I licked my lips and began holding my cold beer as a distraction to how warm I was.

When Derek stopped talking, Spencer quickly tried to establish eye contact with me, looking shocked. "I- I'm sorry, that came out wrong."

I waved him off. I couldn't handle any more humiliation today.

"I didn't mean to say you're not hot," Spencer repeated a little louder.

"I understood it the first time," I answered, having a hard time hiding the hurt in my voice.

"Please just take off that cardigan," JJ insisted, already having a hand on my clothes and pulling it off my shoulder like I was a stubborn child. "I promise you'll feel better."

Shaking my head, I struggled to put the cardigan back on while everyone tried convincing me to just take it off.

"JJ, stop that-" Spencer tried to intervene, leaning over the table to grab her hands and knocking over my beer, drowning me in it.

I quickly jumped up, taking off my cardigan before the beer could soak through all my clothes and I would smell like a distillery for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, JJ and Penelope sponged up the spilled beer on the table with some napkins.

"Fuck." I and the entire table looked at Spencer who stood across from me, staring at my dress.

He rarely cussed, which made me look down to and pray I hadn't been misfortunate enough to have one of those shitty dresses that became see-through in certain lighting. As I saw that that wasn't the case, my heat melted brain also registered that I now had to be seen in my dress.

"That's the dress we bought together, right?" Penelope asked amazed. It instantly felt like everyone in this bar was staring at me.

The one thing every insecure girl in a bar, or a club, or anywhere, is thankful for is the one chubby woman wearing something daring. They always got the attention, good and negative. Unwantedly, this woman seemed to be me tonight.

"Y-Yeah," I stuttered, sitting back down.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Spencer sitting back down too. He was still staring at me with an intensity that made my face become hot and unable to really take in any of the complements our friends were giving me.

"Pretty girl, you're looking fine as hell," Derek chuckled, nudging Reid. "Doesn't she, man? Give the lady some compliments."

"I'm not going to do anything," Spencer hissed at Morgan louder than he'd planned.

I am not into sports, never even having played any of them – excluding the one short period where I thought I could 'Kick it like Beckham' – but I knew that three strikes meant that you were out. So, before anyone could see just how out I was for tonight, I stood up, grabbed my bag, and bolted out of the bar.

*****

After being cat-called and whistled after by a group of guys that were now probably laughing about ever seriously hitting on me, I embraced the cold air on my warm skin.

Of course, it was a nice temperature outside the bar. Chuckling at this like it was an unfair joke, I wiped away my tears. This had all exactly gone as my anxiety-filled nightmares had expected. Those Cinderella moments didn't work for me, I should've just stayed at home, ordering a pizza, and continuing to watch my K-Drama on Netflix.

The worst thing of all, came to my mind as I walked down the empty road. I had no idea how I could face Spencer again. Some silly part of me had stayed stubbornly optimistic that he could one day fall for me and look over the fact that I was a multiplication of his own weight. Today had once and for all shattered that dream and made me painfully aware of just how unattractive I seemed to appear to him.

"Hey, wait!"

Turning around to the person calling after me, I saw Spencer running towards me, my soaked cardigan in his hand. I had totally forgotten about that one, too busy with running away.

"God, you're fast," Spencer mumbled out of breath as he had finally reached me. "You- You forgot your cardigan."

I took the reeking piece of clothing from him mumbling, "Thanks," hoping he wouldn't see that I had cried.

Face turning red, he mumbled, "Y-You look good..."

This compliment made out of pity, made me shake my head. "Look, you really don't need to give me a meaningless compliment, okay? I know how ridiculous I look."

"It's not meaningless," he insisted, making me start to sob. Today had definitely been too much. Spencer immediately closed the distance between us, cupping my cheeks. "I- I'm so sorry. I said something wrong again, right? Please don't cry."

There was no chance I could ever face him again after this stupid, stupid day. So I pulled my face away from his grasp and started walking home.

Over the next couple of blocks, I continued to cry silently, still hearing Spencer walk behind me. As I'd finally reached my apartment, I turned around. He stood there, his big hazel eyes filled with worry, mouth slightly open as if he tried to say something.

"Did-" He swallowed roughly. "Did Morgan tell you to wear that?"

My eyes snapped at him. "Why should he?" I finally said, humiliation eating away at me. "I wanted to impress you tonight."

"Y-You what?" he whispered, having me laugh sadly. "Clearly didn't work because I'm just your chubby friends in a way too tight dress."

"I think you're beautiful," Spencer said, taking a step towards me. "Y- You look like a dream to me. You always do."

As if somebody had pulled the floor under my feet away, I stood there, lifting a warning hand. "You're better not fucking with me, Spencer Reid," I warned him.

"I- I- I'm not- I-" His stuttering stopped and he just looked at me mortified. The phrasing of my words had probably thrown him off.

"I meant that it would be mean if you'd be playing a prank on me," I said in a child-prove manner.

"Why would I ever joke about something like that?" Spencer asked confused, and I shrugged. "People can get really mean to a chubb-"

"Stop talking about yourself like that," Spencer interrupted me loudly. "That's not okay. You're so- You're so- I think I'm gonna throw up," stuttered, breathing out more air than he had to offer.

A sarcastic giggle tore through my chest, "That is really not proving your point."

He joined my laughing and as the silence between us became louder again, he sighed, taking a deep breath. "I like you, you know?" he asked gently, smiling his wide, closed-lip smile.

I nodded. "Sure hope you do. I'm your best friend."

"Not like that," Spencer corrected me. "Not like friends. I- I like you as a woman. A very, very beautiful woman. Derek knows and- and he set me this ultimatum where he would tell if I didn't, so I would finally tell you how I feel because he says that it's been too many years. And if I continue to just be your friend you'll friendzone me and fall in love with somebody else and I don't- I don't want you to do that."

I just stood there, not able to find words to anything he had just said. Lifting his hands, Spencer now began talking as if his life would depend on it.

"I think you're so beautiful that I get dizzy when looking at you for too long and I tried to make sure you're comfortable around me first but then we became friends and you never seemed to like me the same way I like you. And today, every time I wanted to help you – with Morgan calling you pretty girl and then with JJ and your cardigan – I only made you feel bad about yourself. But I knew that I could only fix it if I told you that I like you and that scared the shit out of me and then you wear this dress that makes you look so sexy that I can't even glance at you because I start thinking very inappropriate things-"

Not knowing if this was just a very beautiful, rambling dream right now, I asked, "What do you mean by that?"

Scratching the back of his head, he smiled, "I-I thought I was being pretty clear." I shook my head, needing to hear it before I could even remotely believe it. "I should probably get to the point then, I love you."

"You love me?" I asked, making him nod and I just couldn't comprehend it. "You know you could have any woman, right? You're handsome, kind, the best friend in the world... Why me?"

"Why not?" He asked back baffled, looking down on himself. "Also, I am a scrawny, unhealthily pale guy that can't control his information dumps and has been called a pipe cleaner with eyes before. Not to forget that the only one I want is looking at me like I'm lying right now."

"You could still do better than me," I said, clearly out to ruin this for myself and make Spencer see me as I saw myself.

"Okay. You're crazy," He concluded as I had just insulted him. "You are so pretty! I- I mean, looks don't mean anything but GOD you are so stunning. The way you smile, the way you dress in your cute sweaters and pull them over your thumbs... The way you look in that dress."

The last sentence he had almost growled, licking over his lips and trying not to stare at me. He really thought I was beautiful, just like I had thought it when getting ready. Maybe this little part of me that had felt confident had been right and I really looked good in this dress... Looked good in general.

All this time I had pulled myself down, although Spencer had clearly wanted to be with me and just tried being thoughtful about it.

All this time I was thinking it was better to hide my body and my emotions just because I had a negative belief system going on right from the beginning, instead of deciding to let it be and be happy.

"I wanna kiss you," Spencer said, instantly shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head again before coming to his final conclusion. "No, I'm not. Can I kiss you?"

Instead of listening to the part of my mind that questioned why he would ever want that, I nodded. Yes. Yes, I wanted him to kiss me.

Closing the distance between us, he once more cupped my cheeks, his hands shaking violently.

"You're shaking," I whispered, feeling his breath on my face. "Nervous," he whispered back as we smiled at each other.

I laid my hands on his, leaning closer, and kissed him.

Saying that I, as a chubby girl, knew rejection was wrong if me. Yes, I knew it, yes I knew how it could hurt, but I had let this mindset decide that I never had the chance of being with Spencer before ever even giving him a say in it.

Life and previous disappointments had made me too afraid. In hindsight, I could've been happy so much earlier, if I would've only let myself.

We are to make our own happiness, and let's be honest, what is better? Crying over a person that didn't want you for a few days, or passing out on the love of your life just because you're too scared to take a risk?

As Spencer broke the kiss, he was still shaking but a smile was plastered across his face. "Do you wanna go back to the bar?" he offered, but I shook my head.

"Nope. I'm gonna change into some sweatpants and order some pizza," I announced.

He took a step back, "Oh, okay."

Walking up the stairs, I felt his eyes on me – and definitely on my butt – as I opened the door to my apartment building. Turning around, Spencer still stood at the end of the stairs, looking up at me like this was a goodbye.

I smiled at him, "Spence, are you coming?"

Blinking a little surprised, he nodded, taking two stairs at once so he'd be beside me faster. "Sure, pretty girl," he chuckled, and before I could complain about him using this nickname, he pressed his lips on mine again.

As he pulled away, his knuckles brushed over my cheek and he smile in awe, whispering, "My pretty girl."

And for once, I didn't hate being called a pretty girl because I knew Spencer meant it with every fiber of his being.

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fueledbyapplepi · 3 years ago

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hiii Jen~~ i hope and wish that everything is fine with you ❤️ how about bonten men (anywho that you think would fit in this) crushing, more like being a little obsessed over an mysterious woman that always comes to the same club than them, nobody knows her name but everybody knows her bc she comes and go always by herself, she just comes to drink, dance and have the time of her life. when the boys finally go to talk to her, she says "you did take your time to come to me" or "i thought you would never come" something like that. i hope i make sense hahaha 😅

Hooked Into You | Bonten Sanzu, Koko, and Takeomi

(Female Reader)

- The men getting obsessed with the mysterious Y/N in the club.

genre: kinda fluff but not really

warnings: cussing, mentions of alcohol and drugs, kind of obsessive and possessive behavior

A/N: This request is so hot it's not even nsfw LMAO Must be one of my fav requests so far! Thank you for this anon! I hope you don't mind that I choose these three because they're the most fitting in my opinion.

Sanzu Haruchiyo

He pinched the bridge of his nose from annoyance. Sanzu felt his mind go hazy. The blinding lights of the club make him feel disoriented, but not wildered enough as he would please.

It's already his third intake for tonight, but it seems like popping the pills won't work. And the situation has been going like this for weeks.

Is his body rejecting the drugs now? Why couldn't he be fucking high?

Then he looked at the middle of the dance floor. Despite the heavy blast of music, and sweaty bodies surrounding him, there was only one thing that he can pin his focus on.

You. It was you. The person at fault that he couldn't get fucking high enough.

Sanzu watched your movement like a predator. How you swayed your hips like you didn't give a fuck who watches you. How you bite your lips every time you feel like the beat is on fire. How the club lights were nothing compared to the glow you give off on the dancefloor.

It's like every move you make is for him. Just the way he likes it. It's like you know you're being watched.

Sanzu was halted from your trance when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Sanzu, if you're not going to make a move on them, then I fucking will." Ran sat beside him. Gulping down the glass of whiskey that was Sanzu's.

"Shut the fuck up, old man." Sanzu gritted his teeth as he glared at the Bonten executive.

"I'm serious man." Ran laughed at Sanzu's defense. "You've been eyeing at them for weeks now. Nothing's going to happen if you'll just stare at them."

"I didn't ask for a damn advice." Sanzu rolled his eyes and continued to watch you. However, he felt like breaking bones today when he saw you leaving the dance floor with another man.

You've been at the club for weeks. And this is literally the first time you've left the dance floor with a man?

Oh, how he would like to kill that man for disrupting his show.

Sanzu immediately stood up from his seat and followed you and the man. As he squeezed in with the heavy crowd, Sanzu made sure to keep an eye on you. But, as he got into the exit, he only saw a car leave.

Is he too late? Maybe Ran's right that watching you won't do anything. Did you really take a man home? Sure, but how dare you.

He was once again interrupted by his train of thoughts when an unfamiliar, but a sexy voice called out to him.

"I'm right here, pretty boy." You walked towards him. The clicking of your stilettos can be heard against the pavement.

Sanzu smiled. Feeling a sense of gratification wash over him as he finally got to talk at you. "What did you just call me?

You walked even closer to him. He could tell because he felt your breath fan over his ear as you leaned into him.

"I said, congratulations on having the guts, pretty boy."

Feeling endorphins all over the place, Sanzu felt his mind go crazy at what you just called him.

Finally, he found his fucking ecstasy.

Kokonoi Hajime

He chugged down the Vodka, not minding how it burned his throat nor how it churned up his stomach. If this is the key to let out his frustrations away, then so be it.

It's not like he doesn't have the guts to make a move. It's just he loves the mysterious aura surrounding you and he doesn't want to ruin it. He's already content from watching you from the sidelines.

He loves how you just sit on the barstool, drinking your glass of Cognac - a drink fitting for an intimidating person like you. He's obsessed with the way you laugh at how people get fucked up on the dancefloor. Were you just here to drink and judge them?

But every time he's here, you're also here. That isn't just a coincidence, right? Not when you gave him a glance last week. A glance that was enough to make his insides go fuzzy.

He loves how you just seem chill at the bar. How you looked at his direction three times tonight. More than the usual - and yes, he counts it.

But he's not having any of it tonight. Not when you look at him but then have a chat with the bartender that's been going for hours now.

Koko chugged another glass of Vodka. Hoping that the drink will drown him and give him a hint from the way you looked at him.

Were you observing him, the way he observes you too?

"Koko, I've never seen you that worked up." Mikey patted his shoulder, breaking him from his observation of you. "Not with another person, at least."

"Sorry, boss. Uhh... it's just the alcohol kicking in." He ran a hand through his hair, going back to look at you.

Deciding that his frustration wouldn't bring him any good, he stood up from his seat and walked up in your direction.

Those weeks of eye contact, must mean something, right? And fuck it if you reject him. He's going to have you one way or another because he can give you everything.

Koko sat on the barstool next to you, sliding his black card on the counter to disrupt you and the bartender's conversation. "I'll pay for this pretty little lady right here."

You turned to look at him. Fuck, you were even more gorgeous up close.

"I can pay for myself." You smiled at Koko, waving your own black card in front of him.

Trying to hide his smile, he raised his brows at you. "So? Can't I be a gentleman for a pretty lady like you?"

You smirked at the man in front of you. That smirk again. "I'm surprised it took you weeks to be this supposed gentleman that you are."

His smile grew even wider.

So those looks weren't just mere coincidence at all.

Takeomi Akashi

It was you. The apple of his eye that you probably don't even know. But who can blame him?

No one.

Not when you come by this club every weekend and drink like it's your last day. Not when you dance to the beat of the music with your tight dress that highlights every curve in your body. Not when you seem to get the attention of almost everyone, but leave without a man in hand.

Even when he leaves the club or when he attends Bonten meetings, you've already occupied the back of his mind.

And he doesn't even know you.

Takeomi sighed. Lighting another piece of cigarette to keep himself level-headed. He's way too old to think about things like this.

Sure, you're domineering and daunting. Every person in this club is nothing compared to your pretty face and aura. But Takeomi might be too old for you.

Or was he?

Sometimes he can't help but think that you're smiling in his direction. Or was the alcohol and intensity in the club just fooling him?

Takeomi looked in your direction. You're smiling again, but this time, you're about to leave.

Following your figure with his eyes, he felt like he was in a trance as you strode towards the exit.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to try.

Like a dog obsessed with its owner, he stood up and followed your direction.

Maybe he's willing to be a mad dog for you.

When he reached the exit, he saw you leaning against the wall. The sparkly dress clinging to your body reflected against the street lamp. With a cigarette in between your lips, your brows were scrunched as you were finding something in your purse.

He smirked at how adorable you can be when you seemed annoyed. Deciding that staring at you would only make him seem more like a creep, Takeomi walked towards you.

Catching you off guard, he leaned on you and lighted your cigarette with his resting in between his lips.

You let out a giggle at the action. A laugh that he would kill for to hear again.

Blowing the smoke out of your cigarette, you turned in to face the man.

"Well, that took you long enough."

The Bonten advisor smirked. Thinking of the ways on how he'll do anything to keep you around.

It really wouldn't hurt to try.

842 notes · View notes

uncouth-the-fifth · 3 years ago

Text

Pythia - A Supernatural Rewrite. W*ndigo, p1.

read it on ao3. masterlist.

words: 12, 113

notes: I tried to alternate my Sam-focussed episodes and my Dean-focussed episodes, with little moments with the other brother thrown in bc I want to lol. since the pilot is one of my even split chapters, enjoy our first Sam one >:) I have no idea how much i'm going to stick to that, but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

also I did NOT want to divide these episodes into parts, but they are so long that it'd be cruel (i was at 18k at 3/4ths of the way thru) to make you sit and read it all in one sitting/wait a century for me to finish one whole ep. or maybe you're all masochists, what do i know? there's just so much I want to indulge in each episode, and i'm assuming you guys would actually enjoy me talking about teen reader and teen Sam shoving frogs down teen Dean's shirt for a paragraph or two... anyhoo.

and even though this is a silly little fanfiction, the spirit shown in this episode is sacred to Anishinaabe and Algonquin people, and i want to do the best i can to respect the culture and identities of those people. I've replaced the name of the spirit in this episode with a couple different things to help that, and if there's anything else I can do, please let me know! it's no one's job but my own to educate me on this subject, but there will be things that I won't know as a non-native person. thanks for understanding! fuck eric kripke and enjoy ♥

Wendigo! Enjoy!

P.S - rain and wind sounds are rlllllllllly good for this chapter. next part: wendigo, p.2

PALO ALTO - NOV. 9th, midday.

Dean had only texted you the address of the Self Storage place, so a woman at the front desk had to point out to which unit they’d rented. Oh, you’re looking for the two supermodels that wandered in here? She’d teased, and you would’ve snarked back something cute, had you not been saving every ounce of your good attitude for Sam.

You found them easily. Among the rows and rows of rattling metal storage units, you could hear Dean’s music bouncing off the asphalt and echoing strangely in the alien place. He was humming without the usual heat. Other than the bustle of the city beyond, it seemed you and the boys were the only ones making noise. The weather was perfect, which was strange after the bone-clinging cold of that night—the cold that none of you could shake. You’d fallen asleep in the bathroom of your motel two times this week, because Sam’s post-nightmare shivers were medical enough to warrant a hot bath in jeans and layers.

And yet today, the sun was white in the sky, blazing enough to urge everyone into the shade but too sudden to spoil. Car tires whisked and motorcycles rumbled over the baking asphalt. If you stayed in one spot long enough you could feel your skin soaking in the sun, and after the week of thunderstorms and chill you’d had… It was too sudden not to be a gift. Jessica had always seemed—sounded like a sunny girl.

The Impala and Sam’s car were facing a storage lockup trunk-first, which was just far enough away from the adjacent buildings to be outside the shade. When you were close enough to make out Sam wiping the ash off a coffee table, you took your own exhaustion and choked it down where no one, not even you, could find it. Only Dean lifted his head when your shoes scuffed closer, squinting against the light.

“Hey.” He deposited a box labeled Kitchen inside the lockup, then dropped his shoulder against the outer wall to pant in his own shade. Sweat was beading under the aviators on his forehead, but the week Dean had spent on autopilot hadn’t ended yet. After a breath, he was up and searching for another box to carry again.

“There’s my boys,” you sighed, and greeted Dean with a cold soda. His smile was tired, but worrying, so you leaned into the rub he gave your arm and wandered over to study what they’d accomplished so far. “Man, you guys got a lot done.”

Once it was out of your mouth, you were unsure if you should’ve said it. Was it better to get all of this pain out of the way? Or did Sam want one last look at what remained of his normal life? Either way, he didn’t react when you appeared, and turned instead to the pile of ash-crusted belongings he still needed to clean. The broad back of his shirt was baking in the sun like a solar panel, so you pressed another cold soda against his neck and hummed a hello.

Sam stopped furiously grinding ash out of the seams of the table to lean into the sudden cold relief, blinking slow. His hands remained floating over his work, but for a moment he stilled, submitting to the knots in his back and the heat and his exhaustion. You were afraid to meet his eye. The disappointment was probably waiting for you there already.

“Anything?” Sam asked.

“...No. I-I’m sorry, Sam. No visions.” The stress in his shoulders expanded again. “But I did call my mom, and not only did she say that she’ll come get your car so you can keep it at the store, but she said she’d glance over the apartment too. She’s a lot better at it than I am. I-I tried, Sam, I really did, I meditated for two hours where it happened, I-I—”

He ran a ragged, ash-streaked palm down his face. You couldn’t see how crushed he looked. “S’ okay. ____. Really.”

All week you’d stared at the hole in Sam’s apartment from the sidewalk below, like if you planted your feet and waited long enough something might occur to you. Maybe the residual energies… or God, or whatever gave you the visions… maybe something would trigger something else and you could help Sam. You waited. You endured odd looks and the weather. You meditated. It wasn’t often that you were able to force a vision—the one time you’d tried to describe it to Dean, the best you could do was “throwing up on purpose.”

Sam accepted the soda, but immediately set it down and to the side. He squeezed his shaking hands together until they were a blistering white, then started back on the table again. You reminded yourself that Jessica’s funeral had been only yesterday, no matter how many muddy, grainy years seemed to loom between then and now. At the same time, it felt like it’d been just minutes since you and Dean had rescued Sam from the fire, even if it’d been an entire week prior.

(Even just seeing his back, taut and broken in, made the grotesque process of shoveling up visions endurable for you. You’d do it over and over and over again, if it meant Sam would have even a minute without his grief).

Unsure what to say, you cleared your throat, kissed the side of Sam’s hair and retreated over to Dean. He seemed to have a system in place. If he was a master of anything, it was the exhaustive ability to throw himself into hours of labor to avoid a single emotional thought, and come out with his smile shipped and assembled. The two cars had come in bearing three-quarters of an apartment’s weight in furniture, up to the windows in kitchen chairs and books from the living room. The fire had spared everything except what was inside the square boundary of the bedroom—and Sam.

In the few hours you’d been gone, the boys had bit a good chunk out of what was in Sam’s car and completely unloaded Baby. The only evidence that remained in the Impala were the towels Dean had laid down, streaked black and chalky gray with ash. The backseat of Sam’s Prius was probably ruined. He didn’t seem to care.

Before you could offer your help, Dean accepted it: “Get those out of the back n’ the trunk, n’ shake them out over the concrete. Or throw them away. I’m guessing Sam doesn’t want those towels.”

Sam didn’t speak up. You glanced back, to find that Sam had finally given up on the coffee table. With his foot he slid it into Dean’s loading pile, then braced his hands on his knees, took in a shuddering breath, and readied his cleaning rag to start on the next thing. It was a picture frame.

He turned it over to view its face, which had picked up and flattened a layer of ash into it like a filled mold. The debris on it was so thick that flat, papery scraps fluttered free as it was moved. A whole cloud whirled to the pavement when Sam fortified himself enough to clean the glass plate on the cover.

Sam caught a single glimpse at the picture of Jess, and that was all it took. The photo clattered onto the pavement, face-down, and Sam sank with it, resuming the oncoming tears he’d been fighting for days. A back-cresting, choking sob punched out of him. You were scooping him up before your mind could catch up with you, before you could even wonder why he was crying, and then your arms were squeezing him against your ribs and letting him weep there.

The first time this happened, you'd been struck dumb by just how young Sam looked. It didn't help how much he closed in when he cried, hiding his head in his knees and covering his face like he would when he was little. The mannerisms were a strange reflection of a younger boy, who cried about broken toys or being on the road too long—not dead loved-ones.

You fell into your old routine. With that deep, rumbling voice of his, Dean spoke quiet reassurances, and together you ran your fingers through Sam's unwashed hair like you had every night this week. Not a single stage direction had changed since you were kids. Just the lines. Dean said things like we'll get this done and we'll stop it together, but the words floated over your head as you comforted Sam. You'd prayed that things would go back to how they'd been when you were kids, but you hadn't meant this—you and Dean on either side of Sam, promising things you didn't know you could keep. When you glanced at Dean, you almost expected to see his younger, greener-eyed self there. A panic pressed down on your chest as Sam's hands fisted in the back of your shirt. Your heart plummeted with the urge to find someone, to call your mom, like you'd run away from home and gotten lost along the journey.

From over his brother's head, you watched Dean scoop up the picture and the rag.

“N-no, no,” Sam jerked up. Under your hand, you could feel his breath catch in his ribs, “I want to… want to… keep it.” His voice found itself again with strained clarity: “I don't want to forget what she looks like.”

You wilted. It was impossible not to hold tighter to him then, so you pushed into his touch and were gratefully received. He choked for breath into your belly, coating the front of your shirt with tears. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Sam's grip was starting to hurt, but your senses were too far away to feel it.

“Alright, Sammy, we will. We will, s’ okay.”

Dean carefully delatched the back of the frame, and as gently as he could, removed the photo. It looked like a picture Sam had taken of her at the beach. You caught a glimpse of it—and Jess with her curls and those bright eyes—for the first time, and realized that you’d never seen her in person before. That you never would. She reminded you of the girls you drove past on hunts, the ones that grouped together on the sidewalk and giggled so freely, being happy without worrying when it would end. You’d always wanted to be one of them.

Something in your gut told you to look away, but you followed the picture as Dean offered it to his brother. Sam’s grip on you was so white-knuckled you worried he’d crumple Jess’s photo, but instead he shook his head.

“Can you—can you put it in the car for me?” Sam asked, his voice hollow and throaty. He sat there shaking, watching the tears on his chin hit the concrete.

It was the first time you'd seen his face all day. Sam had a habit of hiding it when he cried, in his arms or someone else's (he would even pull the fronts of his shirts over his head in middle school), so you knew better than to try and meet his eye. If you thought about it too long you'd start getting ideas about slashing John's tires, and then that rage would bottle for so long that the boys would need a corkscrew to get you to open up again. But Sam's poor face—his red-rimmed eyes were ruddy from the pressure of tears and his hands, while the rest of his skin was uncolored and sickly. He'd been struck so harshly by grief that his body itself was a bruise.

Dean disappeared to find a good place for Jessica’s picture. To compensate, you laid your cheek on top of Sam’s hair and cooed, soaking up every wound in him like you could take them on yourself. The sun’s light was beginning to burn.

“Let's get you into the shade, Sammy,” you murmured, “your tan’s perfect as-is, and neither of you idiots has sunscreen on.”

Sam pitied you with a wet, choked laugh. “…Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

You wondered if you were being overbearing until he stood, wiped his face with his wrist, and gave you the signature Winchester manly nod of silent gratitude. That was worth more money and time than you’d ever have, so the clamps bearing down on your chest unlatched. He took a break in the Impala’s A/C and obliged your warning about sunscreen. Thank god.

On autopilot, you hauled the ashy towels out of Baby—and sure enough, when you passed Dean, there it was again. Manly nod of silent gratitude.

At the bubbly laugh that burst out of you, Dean frowned. “What?”

“Nothin’, Dean,” you sighed, resigned to being driven crazy, “just…”

You were glad. Blinded by rage, hurt, fear and guilt, but swimming with gladness too. It was clear now that your selfish wish had been granted. Like all gifts, it’d come with a price: you’d prayed for Sam to stay, you’d prayed for the three of you to be together again, but doing so had killed Jessica and brought this… thing to you. Whatever had murdered Mary. If Dean knew, he’d snarl and shake his head and insist that wasn’t a fair trade, and you knew it was awful, but a part of you was just thankful to be here. It was selfish. Unbelievably selfish. But you’d take them over anything.

“…nothin’.”

After the day’s labor, Dean made the executive decision to keep the three of you in Palo Alto for one more night. Every hotel in the city seemed full to bursting, and every room in the one Dean fought to set you up in itched with energy, like the walls would explode into splinters at any second. The people above you were having a noisy, bottle-smashing party with ear bleeding music. Every car took the corner turn on the street with tire-squealing gusto. Your neighbors on either side had their TVs as loud as they could go, in an effort to anger you personally. The boys tuned it out easily, while you tried not to twitch at Sam’s bedside.

He was more numb than neutral, so any comments about wanting to get a headstart on the road—and in turn the mission—were kept to himself. Needless to say, he put a pillow over his head and failed to stay awake past dinner.

You waited for his breathing to even out before you whispered, “He’s asleep. If we’re lucky, he might get more than an hour or two.”

Dean propped himself in the open bathroom doorway, casting a long blue shadow over where you were hunched over Sam and John’s journal. The last entry was splayed open on your lap, so you could keep busy while listening for the telling hitch in Sam’s breath. This week had forced you to find a sixth sense for nightmares. You hoped that Dean slept through his brother’s breakdowns, but most of the time he was hovering in the dark, waiting to see if he was needed. Something about that made your chest tight.

“Alright,” Dean murmured. He plunked his toothbrush back in his bag and floated over to you, voice so soft that he sounded hoarse, and pat your knee. “Whaddya wanna do, then? You need some Zs, a walk, some food?”

You glanced at Sam. He was nothing but a big arm and a bed of messy hair under the blankets, breathing deep. A sigh bowed out of you, and you lifted both wrists to Dean. “Walk, please.”

Dean smiled. With his help, you escaped the bed without waking up Sam (a miracle!), and filled the dark motel room with the soft rustle of beaten fabric. The main jacket you’d taken with you was an ancient one of Dean’s, so it looked stylish in a vintage sort of way. The smell of him in the collar had faded years ago, but studying the curve of his arm as he wrote Sam a note brought it back in full swing, like a gust of wind had bowled you over. You missed Dean. It’d been an eternity since you’d just… talked.

The door shut quietly behind you, but the neighbors weren’t as considerate. A bottle smashed upstairs, followed by uproarious, probably drunken laughter.

“Fuckin’ dicks,” Dean said, just to have something to say.

“I wonder what they’re celebrating,” you hummed. Together, you and Dean left the static-charged bubble of the motel and punctured the parking lot, too exhausted to make anything but idle conversation.

“Bottle Smashing Day?” He guessed, and you snickered. The silence you sunk into was pensive, but you were fine with that. It was easier to think leaning against the Impala with him than alone in front of Sam’s apartment.

You took your spot on the trunk, making a show of patting down your back pockets to avoid scratching the finish. Sam had nicked one of the doors with a jean button once, and now Dean never let either of you forget how pointy and sharp you were. That was what you wanted—to endure Dean’s nagging about the Impala with Sam, like the hundreds of times you had in the past. Why did a wish so simple have to cost so much?

“I’m worried,” you sighed, “that this is going to take longer than either of us thinks it will.”

Dean appeared around the side of the car, beer and bottle opener in hand. He snapped the cap off and sunk onto the trunk next to you, his gaze choosing a car down one end of the street and following it until it was out of view again. The cool fall air fluttered through his hair, compelling you to admire him as he admired the street. You thought you saw the ragged shape of fear or anxiety in his face. But it was gone just as fast, smoothed under the death shroud of Dean’s humor, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. Any support you could offer him with your Gift would be rejected—and helping Sam by connecting was off the table. Without looking he offered you the first sip of his drink, and knowing Dean’s taste in beer was awful, you tried it anyway.

“Yeah.” Gradually, Dean hiked himself up a little and opened his coat, “I’ve been starting to think that, too.”

“...It’s going to suck. Already, this is…this is…” you swallowed, then met his eye. “But not every part of it has to be bad. You and me and Sam—I keep thinking, at least we’re together again. At least we’ve got each other. Is that… do you think that’s bad?”

Dean was already shaking his head. The trance he’d been wading into all day dragged him out to sea, and for a long breath he stared at you, then through you, deep in thought. “I guess we’ve been having a lot of the same ideas lately.” His brooding turned into a teasing squint, “You readin’ my mind again, girl?”

You stopped worrying the beer’s label with your thumb and passed it back to him. Something rotten crept into your mouth at the thought. “Never. Never without your permission.”

Dean tipped back his head, shook it, and did his best to goad a smile out of you with one of his own. “Oh, c’mon. You know I’m kidding with you. Cheer up, sweetheart—we’ll…” He must’ve realized what a ridiculous request that was at a time like this, because he melted down to a simmer. “Just. Take a breather with me, for a minute.”

“After you give me the gift you’ve been hiding.”

Dean almost looked charmed, if he wasn't pretending to be annoyed. “Maybe if you stop using your cheating powers to cheat. Cheater.”

With a coy, fluttery blink, you hooked your arm through his and prettily laid your head on Dean’s shoulder, because you were a fantastic cheater and you knew it. Dean’s life would only improve once he realized how little he could get past you. The Gift told you plenty, but so did the soft upturn of Dean’s lip.

From the inner pocket of his jacket, Dean shook loose a book. At first glance you would’ve called it a grimoire or a lore tome. The cover was a handsome olive color, with a thready touch and an elaborate gold design that didn’t immediately catch the eye, like any other spine stacked on a coffee table. You realized that must’ve been the point. It showed a queen fairy (the graceful long-legged kind) in the boughs of a tree, offering an olive branch to two tiny fairymen riding a bat. Simple but elegant. Two words that had no correlation to him whatsoever.

“No way!” You gaped. But before you could get your hands on it, Dean jerked it up and out of your reach.

“Don’t get all sappy about this, okay?” Dean groaned, hanging the book over your head, “I-I just saw it, and I knew you need somethin’ to do when me and Sam are off doing whatever, so… yeah. You can write down all your girly stuff n’—”

Years of having tall Dean and taller Sam wiggle your things just out of reach had trained you for this moment. “Ha!”

The second he started to dissolve into his flushed explanation, you lurched for the book and shielded it against your chest, where it was safe under your jacket. Dean seemed too tired to start any wrestling matches over the journal, so the coast was deemed clear and you brought it out to gape. The mental image of Dean slouched in some bookstore aisle was so precious that it must’ve shown in your face, because he immediately defaulted to a glare. Cute.

“You are so good to me, Dean,” you said, knowing full-well it’d crack him. Right on cue, Dean’s collar hiked up to his blushing ears and half his face disappeared behind it. “How’d you even know I needed a new journal?”

“W-we all do,” he replied lamely.

Dean looked like he wanted to be absorbed into the concrete. Among the racing glee of poking at him like this, you felt a touch of pity for your captive, so you moved your glowing grin from his face to the first page of the journal. Losing your attention both relieved him and disappointed him, so he stewed in his confusion there as you started to pace.

It was hard to feel happy or even pleased about anything right now, with Jess dead and John gone and the white whale resurfacing. Being delighted by a small gift from Dean or making a little joke at him felt pathetic, and prickled hot, stifling guilt under your shirt. But it was all you had to hold onto, so you uselessly clung to the last strands of your optimism; they were about to be stressed very, very thin.

“Well…” you flipped through the pages, from start to finish, and breathed in the intoxicating smell of a fresh book. It was a pretty sizable journal. From experience, you knew it’d take more than a year to fill on your own.

The book was in your hands, then it was in Sam’s, then Dean’s, then yours again, exchanged a thousand different times over the next few years. You could almost see the way it would be then: aged, beloved, and filled to the brim with entries and pictures and memories. This journal would transform into any hunter’s journal, its cover dyed lighter by the sun, its spine bent-in and well-used. Images flashed through your mind almost too quick to catch, but the gist was there. Dean’s drawings. Sam’s handwriting. This wasn’t—this wouldn’t belong to you alone.

Words flowed from your mouth like something greater was speaking for you.

“I pretty much never go on my own hunts. I don’t know about Sam, but you and me—maybe we could share this one. Or all three of us.”

Dean’s brows raised to points. “Like how?”

“Here. You gotta pen?” You made your typical grabby-hand gesture, and Dean dug around his pockets for one of the hotel’s monogrammed ballpoints.

Instead of leaning on the Impala, you got comfy on the trunk and propped up your knees. Dean inched in to get a look over your shoulder, maneuvering in a way where he wasn’t blocking the streetlight too much, and curiously pressed his lips together when you cracked open the cover. The face of the first page stared up at you. Already, you knew what would go there.

In spotty ink and bubbly handwriting, you printed your initials on the inside cover. The moment you were done, you turned the journal in your lap, put the pen in Dean’s hand, and prompted him with glittering eyes: “Write your name, then draw me something.”

GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO - NOV. 10th, day.

The drive to Colorado was spent mostly on your laptop, catching up on work from there. Being constantly dragged on hunts by Dean made online work pretty much your only option. Your mother had dropped hints about you picking up more than just the occasional shift at her antique’s place, but that would mean giving readings, and that would mean… Well. For now, your lame excuse was that Sam and Dean had reserved you, and she was better at the whole psychic thing anyway.

Maybe one day you could convince her to just let you work the counter. Anything that didn’t involve opening up your Gift to some stranger.

You knew you were close to John’s coordinates when houses were replaced by forest. A mailbox would jut out of the trees every once in a while, but those winding path-mouths were the only evidence of life out here. Dean had mentioned something about there being a town on the other side of the dizzying rows of trees. It was so vast and so encompassing that you couldn’t imagine anything else but the pines, the road, and the Impala driving on it—which only made you more anxious for what lay ahead. DEAN. 35-111. That was all John had given you.

“Here’s something to start with,” Dean spoke up. In the front seat, Sam barely lifted his head, and all three of you tilted with the car as it crackled into the gravel lot of a ranger station.

After almost a whole day in the car, you hadn’t entirely left your daydream yet and floated around as a result. The woods were dead quiet. While the boys unloaded, you listened, standing on the cusp of the trail like a mite on the back of a massive creature. There was no purr of car motors or traffic. Maybe some sort of rustling, like the whisper of leaves in the wind, but if you listened to it too long you began to feel paranoid. For how quiet everything was, you still felt like you were intruding on something living. Something that was watching. Coupled with the lifeless sadness that’d lived in the Impala for the last week, you were rooted to the spot.

Baby’s trunk slammed shut. You startled back to life at the sound, and whipped around at attention. Good timing too, because Dean flashed a ranger ID at you, “Head’s up, sweetie.”

He tossed it into your hands. Dean was fucking with you only a little bit, so it went a little wide—and you were too bogged down by the roadtrip to jump for it. The ID flopped into a skirt of leaves just outside the safe barrier of the ranger’s station, then skittered down the muddy hill and into the undergrowth. You stared pathetically at it. He was definitely getting revenge for you eating the last of the Impala’s M&Ms supply.

“Come on,” you groaned, “Dean.”

Dean winced, but he was smiling a little too much to mean it. “Sorry. Guess I’m a bad shot.”

“You bet your ass you’re a bad shot,” you started to grumble, and resigned yourself to getting your boots dirty. And maybe being murdered in the creepy forest.

“Don’t worry, I got it.”

Right before you’d take the first step inside the invisible portal of the woods, Sam slid past you, the broad warmth of his palm glimpsing your back. Your breath hitched. At ease, he stepped toward the hill’s bottom with twice the mobility your awkward struggle down would’ve had. Sam plucked up your ID and flourished it overhead. At any other time you would’ve giggled at him, but something in your gut pressed you to get him out of there, like the air on the other side of the tree’s divide was poison and he’d breathed too much.

Sam’s next steps back up seemed to drag on. In reality, he probably hadn’t even lifted his leg before you were extending both hands and awkwardly urging, “Thank you, Sam. C’mere. Quickly.”

Knowing full well you couldn’t haul him up on your own, Sam indulged you anyway and took the closest of your hands in his bigger one. He managed not to slip and faceplant on the way back up, and with his boots slick with mud but on solid ground, you let out the breath you were holding.

When you turned back, Dean was staring.

The tension of the woods was suddenly up in the parking lot. Scrambling to explain your strangeness, you gave Sam’s back a good thump. “Brother of the day,” you awarded him, which immediately replaced the concern in Dean’s stare with shock.

“What! Sam picks up a thing for you and suddenly he’s getting brownie points?” Dean whined. He waited until you’d passed him to properly fish for said points, slouching at the shoulders and pouting. “What about me driving your ass around for 20 hours? What about me getting—hey! ____, Sam’s sticking his tongue out at me! ____!”

The temptation to knock him on the back of the head was too sweet to pass up. You gave Dean a good one, then threw a grin at Sam; he tried and failed to smile realistically for you. Something about it made the barbed wire wrapped around your heart squeeze tighter.

Where neither of them could see, you shoved the hand Sam had touched into your pocket, rolling your tingling fingers against each other.

The only people you passed on the way into the ranger station was a single family, probably here for a camping trip. One of the sons, in tandem with his father, shared an impressed look over Dean’s car, and by proxy it made you feel better. All you had to do was pretend this was any other hunt. You’d investigate the thing, catch the thing, and then kill the thing, so sweet families could enter the woods without fear.

The ranger station was a squat, old cabin at the beginning of the trail, with a fat stone chimney and a front room filled to the brim with hiking and hunting (the normal kind) memorabilia. What was familiar about the station was its tourism aspect; though you and Dean rarely stopped to admire the scenery these days, roadside museums and American landmarks were staples of your decade-long road trip.

Sam and Dean walked shoulder-to-shoulder in front of you. You saw the 3D tabletop map on one side of the room and the wall of hunting trophies on the other, and predicted, correctly, where the boys would go to gawk.

“So, Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote,” Sam said. He quirked his head, honed in on the table and leaned over it with glittering interest, because of course he did. At least it kept him distracted. “It's cut off by these canyons here—rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place.”

“Cool,” you hummed. On the dusty, ancient display, the ridge was about the size of your palm. You traced the mountain-tops with a finger, and the spot was weathered from years of the same touch. “Sounds like a place to really camp… or film a horror movie.”

That felt like something Dean would tack a joke onto, so you turned to him. He was blinking at a colorless photo on the wall, jaw slack, brows furrowed. “Dude. Check out the size of this fuckin’ bear.”

You did, shuffling up behind him. A half-dozen mounted trophies loomed overhead, necks pointed straight, but eyes pointed down, like their bodies couldn’t move but their souls wanted to. If the spirits of men could be attached to their corpses when they died, then what about hunted deer… or wild boar… even cougars? You cooly pretended you weren’t hiding from their watching eyes behind Dean, and glanced over the picture. It was a big ass bear.

“And,” Sam closed in on your other side, arms crossed, “a dozen or more grizzlies in the area. S’ no nature hike, that’s for sure.”

Dean caught your eye with his, then nodded up to the massive buck above your heads. The crown of bone it wore curved elaborately around its face, which was soft and sweet-looking, had it not been for the missing eyes. In unison, you shared a shiver and mouthed to each other: no thanks.

“You boys aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?”

Sam and Dean whipped around, hands snapping into fists in their sleeves. Just the flutter of their clothes brought your hand to the dagger grip in your waistband.

A ranger, Ranger Wilkinson (according to his nametag), appeared from the back room. He cocked a fist on his hip and blew the steam off his coffee. “Ah,” he noticed your head poking out over Sam’s shoulder, “boys and lady.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond with a lie, but Sam was already halfway through one, a polite and gentle lilt to his voice. The ease of his voice was what usually made you relax. This time, it stirred your gut. “Oh no, sir,” Sam said, and you dropped your dagger back into its sheath, “we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper.”

You put on your sweetest grin and slid in front of the boys, bumping Dean’s hip on the way. “You bet. Reduce—”

Dean flicked up two happy thumbs, grinning also, “—reuse, recycle.”

Ranger Wilkinson pitied you with a dry stare, and not for the first time in your life, you were seized with panic at the knowing look on his face. His stink eye passed over Dean then you then Sam, and you wondered what he saw there. A couple of college students? Hardly. You could play the part well, but nothing could remove the ease you entered each other’s space with and the precaution you saved for everyone else. Or the tragedy stringing you all together. Maybe it was just because you’d known the boys so long, but you couldn’t look at them without sucking up every little detail. Hopefully, that was just a you-thing.

He sipped his coffee. “Bull.”

The three of you stiffened all over, a single muscle reacting to stress. You felt Sam peer sideways at you, but like Dean, you strained not to move in case that was what made the trap snap shut.

“You're friends with that Haley girl, right?” Wilkinson asked.

“Um,” Dean said, which put the ranger’s eyes on him.

Your stomach peculiarly dropped. It felt like a sign to go along with it. There was only a split second for any of you to reply and not get caught in an awkward explanation, and no time to explain what was compelling you to the boys. On instinct, you stepped in front of Dean to save him from further blubbering.

You cleared your throat, expression shifting from red-handed to neutral. “...Yes. We are, um, Ranger Wilkinson.”

“Well, I will tell you exactly what we told her.” The ranger moved behind the counter, and in tandem the three of you drew closer to meet him. “Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?”

Dean shook his head like he had any idea what he was talking about. The ranger filled in, “You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine.”

And then the lingering strangeness shook itself out of Dean’s frame, replaced instead by the casual authority you were used to. Either sibling conflict was something he knew well, or he’d been clued in enough to respond, because Dean propped himself against the counter and playfully raised his brows. “We will. That Haley girl’s quite a pistol, huh?”

Ranger Wilkinson snorted, which hid your eye-roll from the conversation. “That is putting it mildly.”

“Actually… you know what would help?” Dean straightened like a business-man, that dazzling smile toned with something that could pry anything out of anybody. “If I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date…”

The woods were still eerily quiet when you left the station. You could tell that your human perceptions were mixing with your psychic ones, which made for an annoying pot to sort through for the sake of the hunt. The boys were snapping back and forth at each other about this Haley girl, but you were too perturbed to follow it very closely, rattled by the pressure in the air. The whole forest was holding its breath. The taxidermy was watching you. Something was definitely up here.

For every two steps you took, Sam took one, his boots crunching noisily on the gravel. He was making very cutting gestures with his hands and frowning into his dimples as he spoke to Dean, which you took as some of the deep-seated frustration he never showed. He was getting angrier. He rarely yelled during serious arguments, but now he was full-on snarling. You wished there was more you could do about it.

“The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad,” Sam grit. “I mean, why even talk to this girl?”

When you started to drag behind, an internal ____-sensor went off in Dean’s brain, triggering his proximity alarm. He paused on the gravel until you safely back in his bubble, and before you could dazedly walk right right past them, Dean dropped a hand on your head, stopping you short. You blinked up into his face. It was flat with concern, then covered with humor.

Dean pointed to you. “That’s why.”

A moment later, you were struggling to lift your head in the backseat of the Impala. When you managed to pull your face out of your hands, and your hands away from your knees, two faces swam in your vision. The air felt a dozen times colder. A big, coarse hand was resting on the back of your neck. Baby’s door was open, and two people were crouched down in front of you.

“Are you okay?” A voice asked, and the timbre of it could’ve been Sam’s. Everything was muddy.

“Ughhh,” you groaned in answer. “Bad. Bad. Not good.”

You blearily reached above you for the hand on your neck, found it by the wrist, and dragged it onto your forehead instead. The angle of the touch was strange, but the cold—the numbing, venomous cold—was worse. An icy metal bracelet glimpsed your cheek and made you hiss. Whoever it was bunched the bracelets higher up his wrist, then brushed his thumb against your brow, knowing, after more than ten years of this, how the Gift leeched all the heat out of you. The warm touch melted you all the way down to your toes. Definitely Dean.

“Let er’ breathe,” he ordered Sam, calmly. “You gonna puke again, ___?”

You swung your head back and forth, cursing, “...Th’ was only one damn time, Dean…”

Dean chuckled, and from where he’d migrated to give you more room, Sam went silent. He was probably giving Dean a funny look. “...Since when can you tell when she’s got a vision coming on?”

“You can’t?” Dean said. Had you not been too dizzy to stand, you would’ve frowned at him for the detached condescension floating in his voice. It wasn’t Sam’s fault he hadn’t been around—well, in a small way it was, but he had every reason to go to school. Still, Dean added, “She gets all dazed n’ everything, then she gets this dorky look on her face… You seriously can’t tell?”

You tilted into Dean’s palm, staring past him to Sam. “C-can I borrow a jacket?”

Sam softened all over, and the change in body language threw an abrupt realization in your face: they were waiting for a vision about John. Both boys exchanged a look. They’d been hinged on bracing legs, like at any moment you were going to spit out some vision of their father dying or being tortured. The rising conviction in Sam’s face was flushed away by disappointment, and you couldn’t help but feel that you’d caused it.

“Of course,” he murmured, tone buttery. While Dean got the heater in the front seat going, Sam unzipped his jacket and helped you get into it. Just getting some extra body heat did wonders on your dizziness, which prompted Sam to ask, “What’d you see, ___?”

As he pulled the collar around your shoulders, you stared into his face in thought, “There was this girl, in some kind of dark place... A cave, maybe? I didn’t see much. She was hanging by her wrists from the ceiling… You were there, and so was this kid. He was calling her Haley.”

From the front seat, Dean’s smirk broadened into a grin.

“Bingo.”

Visions of other people were easy for you to handle. But something about one of the boys—in this case, Sam—getting roped up in one made you anxious. And in your Gift’s case, feverish.

While they interviewed Haley Collins about her missing-not-missing brother, your Gift kept you confined to the car. It could be touchy for hours after episodes like these. Twice you were working on an entry for the journal when the images came over you again, and when you resurfaced from them, ten whole minutes had disappeared. You were grateful the boys had a lead to run off to: when your Gift felt more like a disease than a helpful tool, it was better for you to be alone with it.

You pressed your fingers into your nose bridge until it hurt. The journal stared up at you, open and waiting for you to write something.

Dean had drawn a picture of the Impala with a crappy motel pen. Sam had written about anything but Jess, his sentences short and totally empty of the surgeon-critical details of his old school essays. You wanted to put something meaningful.

When you were little, there was nothing more heroic, more exciting, more fascinating, than being a seer. It was the magical secret your mother kept behind the parlor room curtain. You would sit in the antique shop’s stairwell for hours while she took readings, talking to the portraits of the women in your family like they were your imaginary friends. One day I’ll be just like you. They had to hear you, right? They could see the future and the past, could speak to the other side—so of course they could speak to you, right? Tell you all about the secret? They could do anything. You were one of them, so that meant the same for you. You weren’t just any little girl: you were special and different and brilliant. You could do anything.

But that had been then, before you’d received the Gift. Now, the irony of just what little you were capable of pressed upon you. You could see the future and the past, could even speak to the other side—but only now could you hear them telling you it was too late to escape. You used to stare at the pictures and paintings and the pretty tattoos they had on their palms, counting the days until it was your turn to wear your family symbol. This used to be something you wanted; this used to be a gift, an honor. But the Gift took your health and time and choice away from you.

(When you’d crossed that line between child and adult, between non-seer and seer, you’d laid in the dark with Dean and pretended everything was fine. He’d squeezed your hand and murmured, You do have a choice. And if you don’t, we’ll run away and drive until nobody’ll find us. It’ll be you and me and Sam on the road, n’ everything will be okay. You’d clutched his hand until it’d hurt and said, please. Even if you knew you were lying. Even if you knew that damn symbol on your hand would drag you from him kicking and screaming.)

You passed your pen into your unoccupied hand. Alone, in the backseat of the Impala, you turned over your wrist and stared at the mark there. In the middle of your palm was a simple eye in black ink, stretched and blurred with age. To think, your twelve-year-old self had been squeamish about the pain of the tattoo. The non-physical pain was much worse.

Maybe Dean was right. Maybe there was still a way to run away.

I feel like shit, you wrote, and closed the book.

The uneasy feeling of your Gift and the woods ebbed out by the time Dean drove the three of you into town. Knowing there was something to hunt here settled you some, so the boys’ concerned glances appeared less and less as the night went on. You found yourself in familiar territory: sitting with Sam and Dean at a small town’s only bar, illuminated by neon-lights and anonymous below the clattering talk of strangers.

“...and Haley said that her brother had gone out to the Ridge with a couple’a friends, and kept contact with her with a satellite phone. Emailed them pictures, videos, stuff like that,” Dean explained, leaning across Sam to speak to you. “His last update was three days’ ago, and we’re pretty sure his camera caught something in the background.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What kind of something?”

Sam nodded to John’s journal. “Let’s find out.”

The three of you were squished together on the bar, closed in a circle around Sam and his computer. Dean was laying back with an ankle on his knee, surveying the bar crowd with an idle eye, both relaxed and tense with a job on his mind. Sam had rolled up his sleeves to work, and you watched a scar move on his forearm as he typed. He hadn’t been able to save any of his clothes from the fire, so his flannels, shirts, and jeans had all been bought within the last week—at the very least, he looked freshly minted. But a keen eye could make out the old seams of his stress fractures shredded open again.

“So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found.” Sam starts. There was a rhythm to his voice that reminds you of when you were a kid, going through the motions of hunting with nothing else to cling to.

He picks up John’s journal like it’s made of glass, and splays it open on the bartop with the same gentleness.

“How about before then?” You asked.

“Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. And again in 1959 and again before that in 1936.” Sam raised his brows, enunciating, “Authorities always said it was a grizzly attack.”

Dean snorted. “Sure. Grizzlies with a grudge. Every… what’s that, 23 years?”

“Look at you, Dean,” you cooed, cheeks propped on your hands, “doing big boy math.”

The glare he sent you was positively precious. Dean flipped you off for good measure, but you were protected behind Sam, who would get snappish if any scuffling happened around his million-dollar laptop. You waved back evilly… and suppressed the urge to slam your hand flat to the bar when Dean’s eyes darted for the symbol in the middle of your palm.

Unlike you, Dean was fond of your family sigil. You’d wanted him more than anyone to be there when you’d been marked, but he and Sam were already gone for the weekend. The preceding days were rampant with anxious excitement and fear, so your mom had gone all out, spending the week’s paycheck on your favorite activities, gifts, and dinner out. All you had to do was endure the pain of the needle. The itch grew to a sting which grew to white-hot, excruciating pain, and the only thing that helped was Dean a few days later.

You’d sat on Bobby’s porch swing, just out of the reach of the rain. He’d set your palm on his knee and stared at it in wonder, flattening your fingers with his grime-stained ones. Dean was only two years older than you at fourteen, but his hands had seemed so big in comparison, big enough to bend the tops of his fingers over yours. You could still remember cringing if he pressed too hard—could still vividly recall Dean kissing the iris of the mark.

(There, now you can stop whining. My cooties will cure you. Or maybe you’re immune to em’ now, seein’ as you’re tough enough to take a needle. I’ve never done anything like that before.)

You closed your fist under the bar, which tingled with the phantom kiss from that day. Case. John. Missing hikers. In the messy, untouched attic that made up your life, the trunk you locked the corpse of your Gift in could be buried in the very back for now. Or forever.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Quit it and read this.”

He unfolded an article from the journal, and when it was splayed flat, you read it loud enough for the boys and no one else to hear: “Grizzly Bear Attacks… Up to eight hikers vanish in lost creek area… hikers' disappearance baffle authorities. Well, no surprise there. These poor suckers have no idea what they’re looking at.”

“Then again, neither do we,” Sam said. He switched tabs on his laptop, “I downloaded that guy Tommy's video and—I mean, just look at this.”

Sam opened the video. Tommy’s face was obscured by the night’s darkness, so all you could make out of him was a few touches of lantern light flickering in his eyes and splaying against the wall of the tent. He reminded you of the types you saw heading out of the ranger station. Tommy was just any other adventurous guy enjoying the trails. Your heart ached, and the imaginary sting in your palm faded for good.

With a few taps, Sam jumped through three frames of the video. It appeared to be nothing but a flicker of the lantern light when the video played at normal speed, but on pause you could make out the black shape of something living. Something hunting. You glanced at Sam, impressed—he’d caught something the human eye could barely trace. If Stanford couldn’t make him rusty, then nothing could.

Dean leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Do it again.”

Sam played the three frames over again. It was quick, but the way the shapes beyond the tent moved almost mimicked a wolf shifting from hindlegs to forelegs. Or a human mid-run. Sam went to the frame the creature was the clearest in. “That's three frames. A fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move.”

You thought about the taxidermied buck, the picture of the downed bear. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t the kind of creature you mounted on a wall—it had room above its mantle for your head, too.

“What do you think, Mean Swing?” Dean lifted his head in your direction, scratching his chin. “This feel familiar? Like what you saw earlier?”

You stared at the image until all you saw was the pixels that made its figure behind Tommy. The watching eyes of the woods felt sticky on your skin, and you twisted your carnelian ring on reflex.

“Somethin’ in the woods has been bothering me all day. Whatever it is that John sent us here for… I get this feeling that it’s there. And when the ranger brought up Haley, there was this push telling me to pursue it. S’ definitely got something to do with her… and this creature.”

Dean waved to you in a there ya go sort of gesture, and between you Sam sighed in defeat. “Yeah. Maybe this is what Dad was leading us to… But why?”

“Well, our woman in white,” you were careful to mention the events of last week, “that was a case he couldn’t finish. Maybe this is another one? Something he found but couldn’t check out himself?”

Dean frowned into his beer. If that was true, then John had a reason for putting this hunt on the boys instead of one of the other hunting connections he had. He kept Dean—and by extension, you—on a short leash these days, employing you both for bigger, more research-intensive hunts and then pointing the two of you toward a smaller fish when he was busy. This felt like a big hunt to you—the kind of three-person job John would keep you around for.

And there was only one thing, one white whale, that could make something like this into a little fish. A white whale that you had your own reasons for hunting, now.

“Maybe,” Sam murmured, talking to fill the sudden gap your suggestion had left. “But, uh, I got one more thing.” He shut the laptop, producing yet another article. Again, that selfish hole burned into your chest gushed with affection—Sam had always loved the research aspect of the job, so of course he’d looked into everything already. “In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive.”

Reading the article over his shoulder, you spoke at the same time as Dean: “Is there a name?”

Sam tapped a surname on the page. Shaw. Satisfied, Dean dropped his beer on the bartop, stood, and stretched, purposefully giving half the room a good look at the freckles on his midriff. “I say we check into the area a bit more n’ then go bother the guy,” Dean chuckled. With new-found cheer, he threw the two of you a grin, “See you in a minute. M’ gonna go take a leak.”

“Have fun,” you snorted.

Dean bounced his eyebrows at you over his shoulder, said, “Watch my beer,” and dissolved into the crowd.

Per his request, you spun on your stool to steal sips of his bottle. Sam started unloading his laptop bag between you, dropping maps, articles, and obituaries where they wouldn’t get wet by drink stains. He pat a napkin and a pen down in front of you, and without further prompting you slid the closest obit in front of you to continue the cross-comparisons he’d made between the victims. At least, you were going to, until Sam went stiff.

“Oh god,” he hushed through his teeth.

You started writing. “Yeah, Sammy?”

“Those girls,” he paled, “I think they’re gonna come over here…”

You lifted your head: first, to Sam’s flushed, panicked expression, gluing him to his seat like a buck in headlights, and then the trio of giggling girls throwing looks at him. The most assertive of the three was really fishing for a returned glance across the bar. Given enough time and sips of strawberry daiquiri, she’d definitely slide on over. You envied her confidence, but cursed it in the moment.

Sam ducked his head, hiding behind his bangs. “I can’t—not, n-not yet… God, what should I do?”

This was yet another case of you being discounted as a third Winchester sibling. Not for the first time, you wished the opposite was assumed. You spun your stool so you were between him and his admirers, trying to calculate a way to shoo them off without being rude, or broadcasting that Sam was… That Sam was mourning.

“Here. Can I hold your arm?”

Sam’s face flared with confusion in the most interesting way. Thinking quickly, you put on a mushy smile and spun again in your chair, giggling for the whole bar to hear, and folded both hands in the crook of Sam’s bicep. For additional effect, you squished your cheek into his shoulder and kicked your legs under your stool, girly and pleased. Peculiarly, Sam relaxed.

“Oh,” he said, daring to take a glance at the rowdy women again. They looked disappointed; their token of interest appeared to be taken. “Smart.”

“We can add it to my business card,” you reassured him with a teasing pat. Freeing a hand, you began to count your titles: “Eye-candy, team morale, psychic, and fake girlfriend for hire. This girl does it all.”

A ghost of his dimpley smile flashed in your peripherals, and with arduous effort, Sam unfolded an article about Blackwater Ridge and pretended to read it. After a moment of simmering in your touch as you melted in his, Sam choked from the air the first thing he could think to say. He sounded genuinely close to tears.

“...I’m sorry.”

You wanted to tell him that everything would be fine—but nothing was right now, so the only life-raft any of you had was, ironically, the hunt. You’d all fallen victim to its desensitizing routine one way or another. Dean had learned it from his father, and you and Sam had learned it from Dean, because everything in the hunt was generational and cyclical. It would be useless and hypocritical to tell him that he didn’t have to hide his feelings under the pretense of this job. But a part of you had hoped that this transition wouldn’t be so easy for him, because the easier it was the harder it would be to escape again. Sam had been loading shotguns and memorizing hexbag ingredients since he was eight. But compared to psychic powers that didn’t scrub off your skin… shotguns and hexbags were something you could run from.

And god, it killed you, it gutted you, but you want Sam to run. You want him to be happy. You want to kill the white whale, and forget these selfish feelings.

“There’s nothing you’ve got to apologize for, Sammy,” you whispered into his sleeve. “Let’s get to tracking this thing, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs.

You slide the napkin in front of you. Sam unfolds a map. Together, you lose yourself in the names and dates and locations until it’s 1997. You’re sixteen, John and Dean are off hunting; you’re huddled at the bar, wet from the rain and dizzy from researching; you’re sixteen and duty-bound, but all you have to your name is a fake ID and Sam Winchester. Sam’s leg is bouncing under the table because his Dad won’t pick up the phone, and you’re all he has and he’s all you have and you both want out of the hunt.

But Sam’s the only one with the legs to run, and it’s been a long time since 1997.

“Look, ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a—”

“Grizzly?” Sam smoothly leads the way into Mr. Shaw’s apartment, casting another long shadow across the dark kitchen with his height. His voice had this base innocence to it, so maybe it was your imagination overlaying it with a note of significance. “That’s what attacked them?”

Shaw’s silhouette paused halfway to the closest lamp. He took a slow draw of his cigarette, ignored the lamp, and padded over to open one of his windows, like he was comfortable in the dark. After what he’d witnessed, he probably felt like he’d seen the worst of what was in it. He was an old man, far older than the boy he’d been in 59’, but something told you that nothing could make him forget that night. Dean had only been four, and you knew he remembered every frame of his mother’s death. Both of Shaw’s parents had died.

Dean dropped his hands into his pockets. “The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?”

Shaw paused. You winced, wishing there was a better way to approach this. Interviewing victims never felt right, but this time it was worse: all of you knew about the threat you were dealing with.

Again, Dean pushed. “What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?”

Shaw remained silent, blowing smoke out of his kitchen window.

“Mr. Shaw,” you spoke up, twisting a ring on one finger, “If you can help us understand what it is, we may be able to kill it.”

Shaw pulled his cigarette from his mouth, and despite the roughness of his already coarse voice, the flicker you got of his expression in the moonlight was pained and earnest. “I seriously doubt that.” He sunk down at his kitchen table, one wrist pointed out the window. “Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make.” Shaw cupped the mug waiting on the tabletop for him and stared into it. “You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did.”

The little space behind your ribs where you stored that pain—the kind of pain Shaw was talking about—cracked open along a seam, and you almost opened your mouth to utter the forbidden words: I understand. I understand so much it makes it hard to breathe. There was no way to describe it. Knowing the truth about this world was simple on paper, but knowing that you were lying to everyone you ever met was not. It was like you lived in a world where fire was fictional, and yet you knew it was real, had put it in your crosshairs, been charred to the bone by it. But still. You could do nothing to stop the whole world from putting its hand on the stove.

A vision fluttered behind your eyelids, flashing so fast between frames of memory that it barely showed in your face that anything had changed. You saw Shaw standing at the cusp of the trail to the Ridge, hands trembling, begging a family he’d never met to go home go home please go home you haven’t seen it you can’t see it—s’ real, oh god, s’ real, please…

You moved past Dean and Sam to take the other seat at Shaw’s kitchen table. Some of the raw emotion rolling around in your chest must’ve made it to your eyes, because he finally lifted his head. You tried to bolster some honesty into your voice. “I believe you. Just, please—tell me what you saw.”

“...Nothing,” Shaw said. Before you could deflate, he continued: “It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like… no man or animal I ever heard.”

Sam and Dean hovered closer, and stood behind your chair like twin doberman hounds, so still and soundless that you hadn’t known they’d moved until Sam spoke. “It came at night?”

Shaw nodded. You tried to marry his story to the creature caught in Tommy’s video, and didn’t like the mental image you ended up with. “This thing got into your tent?”

“Our cabin,” Shaw corrected. “I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It… It didn't smash a window or break the door.” He leaned forward, struggling to croak around a trembling lip. “It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming.”

You sat back, an uncomfortable pang clawing into the meat of your legs. Feeling Dean’s stare, you exchanged a silent look with him: this just got a lot harder.

“Your parents,” Sam gently probed, “it killed them?”

Shaw closed his eyes. “Dragged them off into the night.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, shakily, “I know words aren’t worth much, but…”

Shaw shook his head. He seemed to stare right through you, beyond you, to where he’d been in the woods that night. “Why it left me alive… been asking myself that ever since.” Giving the three of you his last skeptical stare, he brought his hand to his t-shirt collar, “Did leave me this, though.”

Shaw opened his shirt collar. The moonlight cut oddly against his collarbone, and then in the shadow of his neck you saw it: four long, shredded scars, raised and gnarled into his flesh. After forty years the mark had softened and healed, but just looking at it told you exactly what it’d looked like the night he’d been given it.

Sam and Dean exhaled slow, in shock or understanding, and your hands pressed flat to your mouth on instinct.

“There’s somethin’ evil in those woods,” Shaw warned. “It was some sort of demon…”

As far as hunting went, the few twenty-four-year-olds that had passed through your mother’s parlor swung one way or the other. Either they were stupid enough to be joining in fresh out of some terrible circumstance, or purebred into it like you and the boys—and the only thing that evolved greenhorns was luck. You hadn’t made it here on luck.

Still, for all the skill that nine years of hunting had possessed you, you hadn’t yet pinned down what Shaw’s “demon” was. On the walk from his apartment back to the Impala, you summoned the list of forest creatures that experience had branded into one wall of your mind. Skinwalkers, black dogs, ozark howlers, even certain forest spirits could act like this. You opened the journal without much thought and started cross-comparing traits to your mystery creature: bear-like, intelligent, dark cold habitat(?), west US forest region, 23 year cycle. But nothing stuck. After staring at it for a little while longer, you got the impression there was a gaping hole in your profile.

A step or two in front of you, Dean and Sam were wearing the same pensive shoulders, performing similar examinations in their own minds. The clouds of their breath floated skyward. Being on the edge of town, the only light on the side-road you walked was from the half-mast eye of the moon. The loud jostle of Dean’s boots was comforting; especially since being the caboose made you all-too aware of the void of dark street behind you, which clung to your back with a sentient silence.

“Maybe one of our points is wrong, or this is an unusual hangout for the thing we’re dealing with… Either way, we have to figure this out soon.” You closed the journal with a snap. “Haley is going out to the woods tomorrow. How are we supposed to protect that poor girl if we have no idea what this thing is?”

“We unload the whole trunk, that’s how,” Dean spoke. “Like Sam said—thing’s corporeal. That means we can kill it,” he dipped his head in your direction with a teasing smile, “likely with something pointy.”

Your eyes jumped to Sam in the dark, tongue in your cheek. “Corporeal? You’ve never failed a vocab test, have you?”

Sam’s growing anxiousness loosened enough to give you a dry half-smile. He didn’t spit back one of his own jokes or give you a teasing push like usual, but anything was better than nothing. He hadn’t spoken much today. He hadn’t spoken much this week.

Either Dean got tired of turning his head or he preferred you next to him, because he lent you some room to walk between him and Sam. It was a small gesture, but one that the boys did often. They could barely fit shoulder-to-shoulder on a sidewalk alone, and yet they made room for you every time, like two halves of a bascule bridge letting a little boat through.

Dean had parked the car further down the road, so Baby was a glossy white highlight against the spider-webbing of tree branches covering the night sky. The night was blue and foggy. You absently laid your hand on the metal when you came close, just to have something to touch that wasn’t groundless air.

Before he opened the trunk, Dean deferred naturally to you for the all clear signal. The separation between your senses and your Gift was thin today, so you drew closer to the Impala, blinking at the shapes your eyes were imagining in the fog. Eventually, you murmured, “We’re good.”

Dean tilted his head with a dangerous readiness, because even a second’s pause was enough to clue him in to your exhaustion. “Are we?”

“Sorry,” you sighed, “We’re good. I’m still a little bogged down from earlier. There’s no one around, don’t worry. My Gift—my thing is just a little tired today.”

“Haven’t slept much,” Sam commented.

Dean yanked open the trunk with its usual friendly creak, punctuating the sound with an unspoken order in his eyes. He quickly made it spoken: “Well, ‘soon as we get back to the motel, you’re going to, girly.”

“We’ve still got to figure out what this thing is,” you reminded. Considering you hadn’t yet found a way around Dean’s elder-sibling authority, it was a little foolish of you to think today would be the day. You put a drop of sweetened nonchalance into your voice anyway. “I’ll be alright, Dean—I’ll sleep on the drive to the ridge tomorrow. A little overnight research won’t kill me.”

Dean’s smile pinched into his cheek. He sucked in a breath like he was about to say something funny—and though Dean wasn’t exactly gentle, he never pierced you. Just prodded. “I think you’re forgetting it’s not just you n’ me anymore.”

That stopped you in your tracks.

You hadn’t forgotten. For two years, a tear in your life had grown into an absence, in the Impala’s backseat, in the empty air guarding your six on hunts. But the worst part was that sometimes the absence called you or mailed you pictures. Sometimes it would write you letters with his half-cursive handwriting, or ramble about Stanford and pre-law until you fell asleep with your head between the pillow and the phone. Sam had left an unfillable space in your life when he’d escaped, and without him in the middle you and Dean had tried everything to close the gap.

From the moment you’d picked up Sam, there was not one breath where you weren’t aware he was back. You could sense him like a limb, without looking, like you were connected to him by a million nerves.

But you and Dean had made a life together. For two years, there had been nothing but you and him and the rain-slick road. There were days driving between states where neither of you said a word, because hearing you breathe and feeling him drive was enough for the two of you. You sang your way through whole albums, Dean on drums and you on lead guitar; you fell asleep beside him; you wept over Dean, fingers hot with his blood; you fed him and poked fun at him and lived him, while Dean did the same for you.

“Hey.” Dean’s hands were suddenly there, settling warm on your shoulders. The night was blue but his eyes were still so green. “Sam’s here to help out now, okay? Me n’ him will do our damndest to figure out what this thing is, and you’ll do me a favor, n’ rest up for tomorrow. If we can’t figure it out, I’m not all that worried—”

A pleasant, charming smile gleamed on his face. “...We’ve got our secret weapon right,” he poked your forehead, “here.”

You let indecision play dramatically across your features. Then, with the air of a tradesman, stuck out your hand to him to shake.

“Only…if you hug me.”

“Why?” Dean squawked.

You shot him an evil little smile. “I enjoy watching your fragile masculinity squirm.”

Dean considered, humming. “...You’ll go to bed? As soon as we get back?”

“I’ll even sleep in,” you added loftily, just to sweeten the pot.

He stared at you for a moment longer, the rounded lines of his face briefly drawn hard with conviction. An unspoken clause was added to your contract. I’ll watch out for Sammy, too. That was all that mattered to you.

Promptly, Dean opened his palm, spat into it, and stuck it out to you.

“Fine. Deal.”

Per tradition, you spat as well. With a gross smack, you slapped your hands together, and using his grip you dragged him into a tight hug. Because Dean was a fair player, he squirmed and flustered in the same way that laughed you into stitches as a kid. Sam was witness to all of this, so it surprised you when Dean dropped the act halfway through and squeezed you around the middle; he gave excellent, cozy, leather-scented hugs, which of course were only shared at the grave cost of his masculinity. After the week the three of you’d had, it was high time you fulfilled your role as the mushy one.

(But then again, Dean was the one rubbing your back).

“Aw,” Sam said, being a very loyal minion.

Dean broke out into a hoarse coughing fit, scuttling away to safety and glaring at his brother. You wiped your hand on the sleeve of his jacket, which sent him into further hysterics, and somewhere under the yelling and raving about real leather, ___! Sam covered his mouth and giggled boyishly. Whatever argument he’d been revving up for had lost its power over him awhile ago.

That was all that mattered to you.

taglist: @seraphimluxe @cookiemumster1 @lacilou @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @williamstop @duchessoftheheart

NEXT PART: w*ndigo, p.2

#uncouthspn #sam winchester x reader #dean winchester x reader #sam winchester x y/n #sam winchester x you #dean winchester #dean winchester x y/n #dean winchester x you #sam winchester #supernatural rewrite

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writingtoforgetreality · 4 years ago

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The Way You Make Me Feel (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

[Marvel-Masterlist]

Summary: Steve sent Bucky & you on a mission together. Nothing special, you worked well together, after all. This time, you had to go undercover. Pretending to be a couple. Your frustration after an unsuccessful night needed to be released. Bucky had something in mind.

Words: 3,137

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, smut, oral sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, protected sex bc Buck’s a responsible person, this is pure filth, I don’t know what else you want me to say…, language, undercover mission gone wrong, I wanted to write angst??? What happened? …oopsie? I’ll go take a cold shower now.

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

Bucky Barnes. Used to be the Winter Soldier. Now the White Wolf. Muscular body. Broad shoulders. That metal arm of his that did unspoken things to you. Basically, he had ruined every other man for you. Unfortunately, he was not yours. He never would be yours. Coworkers. You were coworkers. Nothing more, nothing less.

The teasing was a given. Both, Bucky & you, had personalities that made it impossible to not flirt with each other. It was all playful, of course. Nothing would ever come out of it. Though, you would have lied if you said that you did not wish for it to change. His strut so manly, so strong. Thank God he was oblivious to how your body reacted whenever he was around. Those accidental touches. His hand touching your lower back. Everything set your body on fire. If it was not enough for him to be so hot, of course he had the most charming smiles to top everything off. It was unfair.

It was even worse that the entire team had picked up on the way you eyed Bucky. How whenever he entered the room, your eyes could not fixate on anything else. How your smile got wider whenever he talked. No matter how hard you tried, you fell for him. Harder & harder each day. The chemistry between you guys was no secret. Which was why you usually got teamed up with Bucky to complete missions together. But that was all there ever was. Constant flirting, teasing. Anything beyond that did not exist.

Another mission with him. Undercover. Your absolute favorite. You would have been fine with Sam or anyone else for that matter. But Bucky? Things were bound to get complicated. It was inevitable. Posing as a couple? Really? As if things were not bad enough already. A couple usually shared a room. You understood that. The thing was that you guys were not together. Not outside of this mission. So you had to deal with your emotions for him while being in the exact same room. With one bed. Yeah, things were starting great. After finishing up here, you would kill Steve for sure. He knew about your crush on Bucky. Probably the reason he liked to send you somewhere together. Apparently, it was incredibly exhausting to watch you guys dance around your feelings. You were a lot of things. A dancer was not one of them. More like an observer. Watching from afar to avoid stupid mistakes. That was more fitting.

Gala number one was over. Without any luck. There was no new information & nothing that brought you closer to your target. Just hours of unnecessary pretending & fake laughing. That was exhausting. Especially if Bucky had to be close to you all night long. Always an arm around your waist. A kiss on the cheek for effect. If it were not for this stupid mission, you would have enjoyed every single second of it. Sadly, it was an act. That thought alone broke your heart into a million pieces. Not even you were sure when your feelings for Bucky started. It was like you were thrown into ice cold water all of a sudden & now you had to deal with the aftermath.

Unsuccessful missions always left you frustrated. This type of frustration that let you overthink every little detail. What if you did this? What if you did not do that? What if, what if, what if. Mind being filled with so many thoughts, it was barely possible to stay sane. Even worse, you still had a couple of nights ahead of you. If you did not finish this job then you should not head back. Great. If all nights turned out like this, you would throw yourself out of a window. No, really. You were exhausted.

His body language revealed how stressed he was as well. Completely tense, clenched jaw. He did not like it any more than you did. Truthfully, he was even angrier than you. While the two of you worked well together, when things did not go your way, it could get pretty heated real fast. Words thrown at each other’s heads. Blaming the other one for that particular thing because if that did not happen, then you would have finished this mission already. It took a few hours until the tension died down again. An apology later & you were back to normal.

Not today, it seemed. The two of you were worse after that gala. Maybe it was because you felt uncomfortable all night. Maybe it was because you had to stay here for however long. Maybe it was just him. Him acting like a shy gentleman. Like the husband obsessed with his wife. Wanting to show her off whenever the chance was given. Tonight, you were her. You were his wife. You were the one he wanted to show off. But you were not really her. Just a fraction, if anything. He pretended & so did you. At least that was what you told yourself. Deep down, it was so much more than just pretending. It was like giving in to a craving you had had for years. And while it was not much, it had to do. Had to be enough. Because that was the most you would ever receive. The most he would ever give you. How you wished this were not the case.

So why the hell was he staring even more intensely than usual? Why the hell did he eye you up & down like a hungry animal waiting for the perfect timing to attack its prey? Why the hell did his hands clench into fists? And why the hell did it affect you so much? So much, in fact, that your thighs pressed together involuntarily. An action that did not go unnoticed by him. Standing up, flexing his muscles. Eyes that looked darker in the barely lit room. His never leaving yours when he approached you carefully. He took his time. You knew he did it to give you enough time to escape this situation if you really wanted to. You did not, though. For once, you wanted to give in. For once, you wanted your body to fully feel. Feel him. All of him.

His body was only mere inches away from yours. The exposed skin on your back pressing against the cold wall of your hotel room. The dress did not cover much. Enough to keep the others interested. And apparently to keep him interested, too. Both of his arms came up to rest next to your head. By now, he was caging you with his entire body. An action that let goosebumps appear. You breathed the same air. It seemed like the time stood still. Everything that kept on was you & him. In that hotel room. Against the wall. If he decided to lower his head just a little, your lips would be touching. He did not. No. If this was about to happen then he wanted to take his time with you. Tease you. Hear you. Feel you. Your breathing picked up its pace. He had not even touched you yet but you were already reacting like this. His smirk showed you how much he truly enjoyed having you putty in his hands. One of his legs moved slightly. Until his knee opened your legs slowly. His thigh pressed against your center. Barely, barely enough pressure to give you any form of satisfaction. Yet, you could not help but whimper at his touch. To shut you up, he pressed his soft lips against yours in a passionate kiss. There was no hint of gentleness behind his actions. Just purely heated with a desperation that made you weak at the knees. You melted into his touch, your hands roaming all over his chest. Any way to bring him closer to your body. His metal hand found itself at your waist while his other one cupped your cheek. An almost tender action that balanced out his rough & relentless kiss. It was like he was your drug & now that you got a taste of him, you would never let go again.

When his hands brushed over your shoulders to push the straps of your dress down, your breath hitched in your throat. His mouth went down to your neck, sucking & gently biting every now & then. You moaned when he reached a certain spot. Staying at this place, he focused solely on it all while pushing your gown further down your curves. The moment it reached the floor, he took a step back to take in your full beauty. To him, you were the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on. Not wasting another second, he dropped to his knees in front of you. So close to where you wanted him the most. Where you needed him. His hands grabbed your hips tightly. It would sure leave bruises but you knew you would love looking at them after waking up. Because he did that to you. Kissing his way down your belly, he made sure to focus on his task. His eyes opened when he reached your panties. Silently asking for permission. You were too far gone already so you eagerly nodded at him, threading your hands through his soft locks. A slight push earned you a groan. One, that went straight to your pussy. But he would not give in that easily. After all, he had waited so long for this to happen. He would savor it in great detail. His flesh hand kneaded one of your breasts, rolling your nipples between his fingers. You were in a state of bliss & he had barely touched you. That was enough to let him know what he did to you. Before you could even process what he was doing, he pulled your panties off in one swift motion & slid his metal fingers through your slit. The coldness of it made your excitement grow even more. Usually, you would feel embarrassed by how wet you were. But this was Bucky. With him, it was different. An approving hum coming from him was enough confirmation. You had no need to be ashamed.

His fingers worked slowly, almost lazily. He knew how to push your buttons. By the way he touched you, so skilled, with such certainty, it was like he knew your body better than you did. Bucky encouraged you to be noisy, he wanted to hear you. The sweet moans, the whimpers, that he caused. He was the reason for them. Finally, he found your clit & put more pressure on it. Rubbing it in a steady motion. You could feel your orgasm building up already. You wanted to warn him, wanted to let him know that you needed a tiny bit more. He got the message when you pulled his hair tighter. While his finger stayed on your bundle of nerves, his head dipped lower, using his tongue to eat you out. And holy shit. That man knew what he was doing. He was so skilled, you assumed he had had tons of women before you. Right now, you could not care less. Your entire focus was on his ministrations & how his tongue entering you mixed with his fingers on your clit brought you higher & higher. Gripping his hair harder made him groan into you. That was all it took for you to let go. Your thighs shook & if it were not for Bucky steadying you, you would have fallen to the floor. For a few seconds, your vision was all blurry. That had never happened before. All the people who you had been with had never managed to satisfy you quite like this.

Again, his lips met yours. This time, you could taste yourself on them. And if it were possible, it turned you on even more. Both of his hands went to the back of your thighs, lifting you up with ease. He walked over to the bed & laid you down gently. All while his lips stayed locked onto yours. He propped himself up on his arms in order not to crush you with his weight. It was only then when you realized that he was still entirely dressed. Which was not really fair, considering that you were completely bare in front of him. Your hands went to open the buttons of his shirt but since you were still shaky after that first mind blowing orgasm he gave you, you could not quite succeed with that. A low chuckle escaped Bucky & his face left yours to help you out. His frantic actions showed you how he did not want to waste any more time. You barely had enough time to appreciate his body in its full glory. His muscles. His soft skin. Bucky knew what he wanted & he wanted it now.

He topped you, this time you opened your legs for him to slip in between. The kisses grew more & more passionate. But before you could get lost into it once again, he pulled away from you entirely. Your eyes opened, concern written all over your features. Bucky shushed you before you had the chance to ask if you did something wrong. Crossing the room in no time, he came back with a condom in his hand. The wink he sent you made you breathe easier. So he was not about to leave you. Opening the package, he took one of his arms to stroke over his thick cock. Sitting up, you kissed him while taking the condom from him. Your hand grabbed his wrist & you replaced his with yours, mimicking his previous motions. He groaned lowly & you smirked at his reaction. Twisting your hands just right, you picked up your pace. By the way his breath got heavier, you assumed that he was enjoying it. Suddenly, he pushed you away from him. Not hard, just so you would get the message. You knew what he was getting at. Giving him another short peck, you rolled the condom on & laid back down on the mattress. He followed your motions & set himself between your legs again. One arm on each side of your head as to not hurt you. His tip teased your entrance. Slowly sliding up & down to gather you slickness. Whenever he touched your clit, a moan left your mouth. That went on for a while. After all, Bucky made it his job to tease you. When the whimpers got too much, he asked you a simple question. In that deep, lust-filled voice of his.

“What do you want, doll?” you knew what he was trying to do. He wanted you to beg for him. But you were not that type of person. Not usually. Bucky was the exception. And he only had to ask that question twice before you gave in, the frustration clearly audible.

“Please, Buck. Please, I need you.” that did the job. In one swift motion, he entered you, filling you up so painfully right. That familiar, delicious sting. He stilled for a second. While he knew that he wanted to make this rough, he did not want to hurt you in any way. So he let you adjust to his size. Only when you moved your hips slightly & when you moaned out his name did he start his thrusts.

At first, he set a steady pace. Long, deep thrust that made your breasts bounce in the sweetest way possible. Not once did he close his eyes. No, he wanted to remember everything about this. Everything about you. You being under him. It did not take long for you to beg him for more. Giving in, he quickened his thrusts. Now, much deeper than before. He reached places inside of you you did not even know existed. The entire bed was moving & for once, you did not care if anybody heard you. All that mattered was the man on top of you. The man who made you feel like this. Like you were a goddess that needed to be devoured. During this moment, you felt like the prettiest woman on Earth. Bucky made you feel like that. You hated your body’s reaction to him. Because you could already feel your second orgasm building up. You did not want this to end so soon. You did not want to let go. But you knew you could not hold it back. Not much longer. Not if Bucky kept going like this. Somehow trying to signal that you were close, Bucky got an idea. His entire weight was now on his right arm while his metal one made its way between your bodies. Before he touched you there, he gave you an order. One that you could not help but obey.

“Open your eyes, doll. I wanna see you cum for me.” he said it in such a sexy way, barely above a whisper, but loud enough for you to understand that he was serious. So you did. You opened your eyes, locking them with his. That was when his metal fingers started rubbing fast circles around your clit. The noises coming from you got louder & louder. You were so close. When his thrusts did not slow down, you knew you would be there soon. The last bit it took came from Bucky, lips brushing your over your cheek, breathing another order in your ear.

“Cum for me. Yeah, that’s it. Cum all around me.” you had never heard something so hot coming from him. His words brought you over the edge. For the second time tonight, you saw dark spots clouding your vision. Bucky watching you cum under him made him reach his high as well. He bit your shoulder when he did. The pain mixed beautifully with the ecstasy you were currently experiencing.

He stilled inside of you, the two of you breathing heavily. You had never felt this satisfied after sleeping with someone. Slipping out of you, he rolled onto his side, propping his head onto his arm. There it was again. His charming smile. While he was a shy, polite gentleman outside of this room, he sure as hell did not hold back in bed. And you were glad that he did not. Smiling at him, too, he leaned in one more time for another kiss. This time, it was soft. Delicate. Not like the ones you shared only a few minutes ago. This sweet, romantic moment got interrupted when Bucky gripped your hips & rolled you on top of him so you were straddling his lap.

“I’m not done with you, doll.” yeah, it was about to be a long, tiring night.

Published (04/07/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @sweetserendipity65, @buckysleftarm420, @longinusfilibuster, @kathsheaven, @your-local-awkward-barista, @xfeliciahardyx (thanks for your support <3)

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buckaroosboogara · 3 years ago

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911 week - Day 4:

“It’s always been you.” + love

(1700~ words, Buck and Eddie, blackout fic.)

@911week

"How long have we been here? Are you okay?" Buck asked, his throat begging for water.

"We have been here for," Eddie looked at his watch, the only source of light in the elevator. "3 hours."

"Are you okay?" He asked one more time.

Eddie's silence dragged for almost a minute before Buck spoke again.

"I need to know if you are hurt."

"I'm fine... physically." He finally said, taking air sharply. "The darkness and tight space... it reminds me of..."

"The well accident. Fuck."

The first thing Buck noticed when he woke up was that he was in a dark place.

It was hot, closed, and pitch-black. Tight.

He didn't like the implications of that.

He tried to move from his laying position only to be stopped by a stabbing pain in his skull.

Buck hissed as he laid on the floor again and a voice sounded in the dark, quiet but worried.

"Hey, hey, Buck, you are awake," The voice said out of breath. Buck felt a hand come to his shoulder clumsily and pat him. "Welcome back."

Buck grunted. His throat was dry and his mouth felt like sand, contrary to his skin which felt soaked in sweat. At least the pain was more bearable.

He turned on his back to sense the voice's owner, Eddie, sitting next to him on the floor. "What happened?"

"What happened was that we were helping a woman out of this elevator when the lights went off again and the elevator went down some stores before I pressed the emergency button." Eddie explained, with his breaths still shaky. "You hit your head pretty bad and I bandaged it with what I could. The radios don't work here, so I'm hoping Bobby will notice we are not out there with them."

Buck's hand climbed to his wet forehead where a piece of cloth was held to his skin with two pieces of tape. Rough but it would work.

"What happened with our coats' flashlights? And our helmets?"

"They ran out of battery, we used them for 8 hours straight Buck." Eddie yawned. "I took mine off as well as yours, this place feels like an oven. And the helmets... they are somewhere here."

"I kind of became desperate when I couldn't see or hear you. I haven't been able to look for them." Eddie huffed.

"And how long have we been here? Are you okay?" Buck asked, his throat begging for water.

"We have been here for," Eddie looked at his watch, the only source of light in the elevator. "3 hours."

"Are you okay?" He asked one more time.

Eddie's silence dragged for almost a minute before Buck spoke again.

"I need to know if you are hurt."

"I'm fine... physically." He finally said, taking air sharply. "The darkness and tight space... it reminds me of..."

"The well accident." Buck said with a huff. "Fuck, Eds I..."

"I am fine." Eddie forced out through his gritted teeth.

"Eddie-"

"No. I'm fine. End of conversation, we need to keep the oxygen."

Buck nodded although Eddie couldn't see him.

So he would of course avoid the topic.

He heard Eddie place his head against the metallic wall and breathe with difficulty.

Buck rolled his eyes, he knew how stubborn Eddie could be and he didn't need that in stressful moments like that one.

"Have any news about Chris?"

"Nope. My phone died like an hour ago," Eddie answered. "I couldn't find yours."

"Well, that's because mine is..." Buck muttered as he looked for the device on the back pocket of his pants. "Safe on my ass."

Eddie snorted a laugh and Buck smiled, mission accomplished.

The phone almost slipped from his hands and the air was taken from his lungs.

He turned it on and the light made him hiss. He could now see the elevator - it was indeed very small - and he could see Eddie, who was very much shirtless. His shirt was on his shoulders, missing the piece that was on his head.

"I-I guess I'll have to buy a new one. Great." He said, avoiding to look at the man by his side.

The device buzzed with a notification of very low battery, only 5%, and Buck noticed the screen had cracked in the fall.

"I could buy you one, after all, it's my fault that it's broken. Now give me." Eddie spoke and Buck did as told.

"So, what's the diagnosis doc?"

The former medic proceeded to turn the flashlight on and crouched in front of Buck to check his pupils.

"Pupils are matching, but you will need a CT scan once we get out of here."

Buck groaned again. He hated those.

Eddie passed Buck his phone but stayed still in front of him for some seconds.

Apart from being very much shirtless, Buck noticed he was very much pale and shaking. There was fear in his shiny eyes, which were scanning him in detail.

A hyperfixation.

Buck closed his eyes as he sighed, he should have known.

"Are you having a panic or anxiety attack?"

Eddie went back to his side feeling embarrassed and huffed a humorless laugh, "Honestly... I don't know. It just feels bad."

Buck shifted positions to look fully at Eddie. "It's okay. I'm here Eddie, I just need you to breathe. Will you do it with me?"

Eddie nodded, the world went black again.

His phone had died.

Eddie's breaths went faster.

"No, no, don't do that. You are going to hyperventilate and we don't want that." Buck grabbed Eddie's hand and squeezed it. "I'm here okay? I'm here with you. We are going to breathe together, how about that?"

"O-Okay."

"Inhale, one... two... three... four... yeah like that, and exhale, one... two... three... four..."

Some minutes later Eddie could calm down, the shudders went away with the cold sweat and they stayed in silence. Buck's hand was still tangled with Eddie's, on the other man's lap.

That encouraged Eddie to voice his thoughts.

"I... I hadn't remembered what it felt like until today. Not for years." He whispered into the air.

"I could have died. But I remembered a promise I made Chris once." Eddie turned his head to watch Buck. He found pitch-black that somehow made it easier to talk. "That I would always fight to come back to my family."

Eddie looked at the front again and simply said, "You are my family."

He felt Buck's body tensing by his side as he started stuttering. "I- I Eddie-"

"Why did you think I changed my will? I trust you more than I trust my own parents." He scoffed bitterly, squeezing his hand.

"I... I thought you only saw me as your best friend."

"If you knew..." he shut his mouth quickly. He had gone too far.

How could he have gone that far? Voicing his thoughts didn't mean telling Buck the truth about the things he felt for him. About the warm wave of happiness that washed over him every time they locked eyes. Every time Buck smiled. Every time Buck was with Chris.

The feeling of home never faded whenever he was with Buck, instead, it gained strength every time they saw each other.

"If I knew... what?" Buck asked and Eddie could feel his look on his side. His cheeks started to burn.

"Eddie-?" Buck was cut by hot lips on his cheek, giving him just a sweet short peck and going away. He gasped and Eddie tried to untangle their hands but Buck grabbed him tighter.

With his heart running wild on his chest, he reached a hand into the darkness and found a chest, he went up until he found Eddie's chin and clumsily made their lips meet halfway.

The kiss turned to be as good as a kiss in the darkness could be.

So unexpected, so romantic.

It was a mess. Both were a hot, sticky mess - in the good way, not the horny one - in a dark elevator at 5 am, sealing their mouths in their first kiss.

Buck loved it.

Eddie loved it too.

They separated to catch up with their breaths and smiled to the dark.

"If you knew," Eddie started, feeling Buck's head resting on his chest. "That it’s always been you, Buck.”

"I always saw you, Evan Buckley. For who you are, your good things and your bad things. I've seen your worst and your best, and I wanna be there for and with you in them for the rest of our lives."

"Ever since I saw you in the firehouse for the first time, since I saw you smiling in your car when we went to look for Christopher after the earthquake, since I saw you pinned under that truck... I have always known it's you. You who I want to experience life. You who I wanna watch Chris grow. You who I wanna marry someday. You who I wanna grow old with." Eddie answered with a smile.

"I love you too."

"Eddie... Oh god, all this time you... Fuck, I- I want that too." Buck chuckled, placing his hand carefully on his jawline and pulling him for another kiss.

"I love you."

The last thing they expected next was to hear the 118 outside the doors, having heard half of the conversation.

"As much as I love listening to you two getting your shit together-" Hen's voice cut through the elevator's doors. "And I really love it, we need to get you two outta there so, Albert! Bring the jaws!"

Then cheers were heard as both were freed from the elevator, coming out half hugging the other.

"You should have told me it would take you some hours in a sauna to get together! I would have gladly paid!" Chimney teased them.

"Amen, you said it, Chim." Hen agreed, making Buck seat on the gurney and transporting him down with the rest of the crew.

She checked both of them once they were in the parked ambulance and exclaimed to the street, "You all owe me 20 bucks each!"

The couple heard the whole 118 groan before they closed the ambulance doors and started making their way to the hospital, the light of the sunrise illuminating the city which was slowly recovering the electricity.

"You had a bet on us?" Buck whined from the gurney.

"Yup, and I just won. Took you three years and a month, but who's counting?" Hen smirked.

Eddie rolled his eyes fondly and took Buck's hand. "You can have all the bucks you want Hen. I already have the one I love."

(Tagging: @perfectlynervousbeard bc they asked me)

Chimney cried from the front, "Ugh, they are going to be that type of couple."

...

#911week2021 #:)#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck and eddie #buck x eddie #911 the blackout #911 speculation #blackout fic #911 on fox #911 fox #soft #love #my fics

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beann-e · 4 years ago

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hi I was on u-tube and saw a bakugou playlist for when he can’t sleep and I thought well , since I just hit 200 followers ( tysm;3 I love everyone who even took the time out of their day to press follow ) why not bring them this idea of y/n not being able to sleep & bakubabe lending his beautifully different services

also abt the sero line I have in here— I personally think it’d be cool if he just learned Spanish because, he has an interest in other cultures and languages but I don’t really see him being actually hispanic

also I really like writing baku bc he’s so rough with everything he says & I kin him so he’s the easiest so, I hope no one thinks I write him too much

Reader with bad mental health & bakugou lends a hand in his own way

No one cares and no one ever asks. Or at least that’s how you felt while standing here in your last period class your hands balled up in fist tightly held at your chest

Your head was pounding and body was aching you couldn’t describe why you were feeling so horrible all of a sudden but

you just were

maybe it was from all the nights you couldn’t fall aleep due to overthinking

maybe it was the way you got stuck on your phone or even your head dropped low eyes trailing over words in a book just trying to find something to take your mind off the fact that you were struggling

whatever the case was

right now in this last period class this wasn’t helping

“ look shitty woman “ you heard the boy huff “ I want to get a good score on this paired project and right now your fucking this up for me “

his anger was visibly present even if his voice was low to where only you could hear the annoyance that sat in it had everyone looking around for the culprit of the sudden change in the air

“ and I don’t like fuckups so get whatever you have going on together and let’s do this —ok? “

you shook your head and let out a soft ‘ok ‘

the fight ending quickly with bakugou staring down on you his hands on his knees face made up in anger “ you keep finding a way to fuck with me “

“ I didn’t even do anything to you “ your voice was soft and tired

his eyes squinting before sighing

“ I didn’t do anything to anyone “

“ cut this shit out right now “ he pulled you up off the ground hands in fists gripping at your shirt standing you up with his muscles alone “ get to your room — sleep off whatever the fucks going on with you “

His eyes dead set on you as you walked off everyone from the class watching as you failed to gain the strength to open the big doors that led you to your shared dorms

“ sero plea— “

“ got it hermosa “

“ really dude “

“ look it’s hot — and just cause we’re in japan doesn’t mean I can’t show off my online spanish lessons “

“ whatever “ denkis voice whined as he shook his head holding the other door open for you “ gonna get some sleep y/n ? “

you ignored the two boys head hung low as you walked to your room door

the strength appearing in your body as you opened it but, quickly dispersing when you found your bed.

Your face hitting your favorite pillow hand coming up to cradle underneath it as you sat on your knees butt high in the air tears coming out pouring into your blankets “ I won’t show — I won’t show it — I won’t get bad again “ you repeated like a chant

The light from outside disappearing as the day grew into night

several footsteps heard departing from your door when you didn’t answer the knocks . Their low calls of dinner was done , lunch was in the microwave , that you’d missed movie time , that you missed denkis attempt of asking jirou out , and todorokis miss understood question of what ‘ cuddles ‘ were when denki offered her his body to do so

“ and you assholes didn’t just think to open the door? ”

your bedroom door swinging open in a crash as the knob hit the wall behind it creating a hole

“ fucking assholes bothering me with this shit “

“ we didn’t even call you out of your room “

“ you came over to her room on your ow— “

bakugous hand moved swiftly to slam the door in their faces

“ bakubro we’ve been trying to get in there all day and your just—“

“ gonna close the door on us “ denki finished in annoyance “ seriously I just know y/n needs my charm right now “

he pouted behind the door “ it always cheers her up and I like her lau— “

“ didn’t ask to hear your fucking crush story charger base “

“ ass — kiri let’s go “

“ so no sleepy boob pics?“

bakugou stiffened hearing the purples freaks voice

“ so I came with you guys because you said she was sad and usually when girls are sad they don’t dres— “

bakugous voice was guttural as he put his forehead to the door voice loud enough for the boy to hear

“ hey — hey purple nurple “

“ I-uh — yes bakugou “

“ come here “ he could hear the small shuffle of feet to the door as he smirked softly

“ put your tiny head to the door — actually press your whole body up to the door —all the way “

“ are you trying to help me get one of y/n’s bras god —- of all people to help I never thought it’d be bakugo—“

“ hey just shh ok — you don’t want to ruin it right and make her wake up right “ he groaned inside his mind

“ she’s slept this long and through all of this— I can’t get you her bra if your loud right purple zit “

“ so so smart “

“ ok so here it is “

the room grew silent as bakugou pressed his palm as low as he could placing it on the door away from his standing body breathing in to suppress his anger so , he didn’t let out a major blast due to his mood

sighing before he felt his hand grow sweaty tiny pops coming out

“ hey bakugou —is my princess ok ? sounds like popcorn in there are her tit—“

it was quick as the door had a hole in it the newly created circle having black burn scratches on it as mineta laid burnt on the floor once purple body now black and smoke wafting off it

Bakugou squatting as he put his left hand above the hole to steady himself and his right one reaching out through it as he grimaced in pain at the stretch his fingers finally wrapping around minetas short body fingers interlocking around his neck as he looked through the new hole in the door eyes piercing into the boy he held

his voice low and dominating “ you ever come back to her room on some creep shit — and I blow your fucking brains out do you hear me “

“ y-yes sir “ mineta let out dazed “ I will stick to yao-“

“ that goes for all the girls you hear me — guys included I know your a little pervy fuck you can’t get your hands on girls underwear you’ll move on to dekus shitty tidy whities”

mineta was silent as bakugou threw him back on the floor watching as he crawled off

his body relaxing as he shook his mind burning.

head in his hands before wiping his face in exhaustion and standing up and turning to you when he felt the air in the room shift , his hands out in jazz hands and a fake smile on his face.

“ ta da “ he was met with your sitting body your pillow covering him from seeing you .

your face dropping in shock moving from his tall figure that stood inching over to the now huge hole that he was trying to hide from you

“ k-katsuki “

“ I told you about that “

“ s-sorry “

“ again I told you about that shit “ his gaze was hard on you

“ do it again and i’ll tell shitty hair to harden in the next hug he gives you — since you and that crappy puppy boy are always touching “ he mumbled

“ bakugou why are you — why does my door have a hole in it “

“ don’t worry about it “

“ h- w-how can I not worry about it my doors black“ you screamed in confusion “ it used to be brown bakugou “

“ bakugou it used to be this — bakugou — katsuki oh my gosh i’m sorry — god do you ever shut the fuck up and just be thankful “ he mocked you soon converting back to his anger ridden voice

“ and whats with this pillow take it away from you — I wanna see your fucked up face “

you sighed bringing the pillow from in front of your head his eyes having a look run through them that you couldn’t figure out but you knew it had something to do with how puffy your eyes felt . Even if they weren’t puffy or couldn’t get puffy you’d never known for a fact because it still felt like they were .

You two stared at each other as the silence grew louder him shoving his hands in his pocket before taking out the packet of pills he’d gotten for you shaking them to show you it wasn’t a weapon like Mr.Aizawa thought after finding him returning to school late and shaking him down like a police officer

his hand putting them on your desk

His other one throwing the water he found in the kitchen to your bed “ not throwing you the pills — need you to move around so you gotta come get em‘ “

your face showed no emotion as he nodded understanding the new tense and uncomfortable emotions thats were present “ ... ok — well got a green headed vegetable to go bully so “

you watched as his hands gripped the door swinging it open as you dropped your head eyes moving to the water in front of you “ why can’t I do anything right “

you cried “ why can’t the world — the days — the stars fucking align for me to feel good for once huh “

you felt even more tears prickle your eyes as your voice grew louder “ why can’t I talk to people without having this voice in the back of my mind screaming — raging like its having a party — why can’t I sit in silence without having to stand up every five seconds and move around because my body screams for attention — for movement because i’ve been sitting still for 5 seconds “

you heard the faint click of the door mouth still moving as if he were still there

“ why can’t I speak what I feel when people ask me“ you laughed shortly “ not like they do — because they can’t tell I just mask so well “

you let your face start to feel heavy and tense as you continued your crying rant into the empty room “ and most importantly why was I so bad at everything “ your eyebrows furrowed

“ why am I so bad at today ? “

“ just a day really ? “ you heard the taller males voice came out questioning

“ just today that’s what your worried about “

“ well I “

“ tch “ he shook his head before turning to face away from you his face dropping into a look he didn’t want you to see.

“ I-i’m sor— “ you knew he didn’t like you saying sorry or even using his first name you two had established that when he finally accepted your friendship or in his words

‘ you can hang around —like shitty hair but one sniff of blabber mouth and your gone ‘

“ I didn’t mean to spill to you I just — I — you can go —no one gives a shit anyways “

“ I will “

your body grew sad at his quick response

“ tell me what your most upset about “

your answer came quick as you let your brain take over “ I wake up in the middle of the night and can never fall back asleep when I do “

he moved to your door for a second time opening it to leave before pausing for a second speaking something to where you couldn’t hear much less make out

“ just knock “

he shook his head before closing the door softly to rival his usual mood.

Your body shaking when you finally realized you’d spilled out your mental thoughts to bakugou letting your body calm down before you grabbed the pills and silently thanked your friend before feeling yourself at some time finally fall asleep

It’s been days since you last felt that horrible it never stopped but you were able to hide it even more and live out your life the happiest you could

until one night you found you beating yourself up surprisingly not in real life but in your dreams

a loud gasp leaving your mouth as you sat up calming down only to bring your knees to your chest arms wrapped around them in a hug

your back moving to the wall to feel comforted after only feeling your cold hands and body wrapped around yourself

“ what I would give to have something warm “

‘warm ‘

your mind raced to bakugou trying to push the thoughts out your mind of him actually being a caring boyfriend who could help you like he did nights ago with bringing you medicine, a boyfriend who would let you snuggle into him and take all his warmt—

stop the track cause that song will never play you thought as you started to think about him again face made up in determination and focus as you tried to remember what he said that night feeling stupid when you finally remembered your quirk

the quirk that brought you pain and contributed to your mental health

your quirk allowed you to take pictures of everyone’s last moments you’d spent together with your thoughts

it was good in some aspects like right now when you could finally remember where sato helped you hide your candy bars from yourself so you wouldn’t indulge in them 2weeks ago

at the same time you can see your problem with it when the last moment you had of your mother was her kissing you goodbye before shapeshifting into a fire extinguisher and landing in your fathers hands as he screamed at you to run out of your home and get more help the last image you seeing of your father was him spraying the fire extinguisher all over the stove in hopes to calm it down before it spread but he couldn’t

it didn’t help when the pictures replayed in your mind like video home movies that you didn’t want to watch

whenever your quirk was used everything spun in your head like a movie reel the downside was it made you watch every single picture you’d taken until you found the one you were looking for

it didn’t take long before you finished your mom and dads memory and got to bakugous last moment you two spent together

you zooming in reading his lips turning up the volume on the moment as he spoke “just knock “

“ just knock ? “ you sat confused in your spot on the bed shaking off your quirk taking as long as needed to process his words only to be even more confused and just knocking on the wall twice between your two shared dorm rooms.

You never paid much attention to him being your neighbor it’s not like you needed him for anything so right now you were a bit curious in why he reminded you that you two shared walls

Eyes closing while you waited for whatever was supposed to happen

“ guess he didn’t mean it like th—“

your body softened when you heard music fill his room and overflow into yours

You heard the drums kick in as the lyrics played muffled through your wall

‘I listened to the cure

I listened to the cure

and then I cried ‘

your eyes widened before you felt your body relax against the wall eyebrows made up in content

eyes watering when you heard your two soft knocks returned on the wall behind you

you let your body go tenseness leaving as the song played moving to grab your phone with shaky hands seeing his name light up on your screen

Godzilla wannab

‘ no one gives a shit about your life right ? ‘

you cried even harder when you saw the message fit the song perfectly the words you spoke a couple days ago as if your were singing the lyrics

you looked around your room before falling on the dent he left in your wall grabbing your phone and zooming in on it to take a picture and sending it to him

Godzilla wannab

sorry your room was just so ass you needed some redecorating be thankful people tend to cry when I redecorate—just ask deku

you laughed as you seen him prepare to send a new message your heart swelling when you read it

Godzilla wannab

look this is gonna sound sus as fuck but

you bit your lip at the new message

‘ if you can’t sleep come over — your rooms cold as fuck and I know that pillow your hugging’s not doing shit ‘

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scintillasofbeomgyu · 4 years ago

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-ˏˋ⋆ ̥ 𝗳𝗼𝘅'𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗲𝘁𝗵 – part one: the beginning (cyj)

pairing: choi yeonjun x fem!reader x kang taehyun

genre(s): fantasy, period!fic, nine-tailed fox!yeonjun, crown prince!taehyun, angst, fluff here and there

word count: 4,1k

the spirit who had been guarding the south side of the mountain, a nine-tailed fox, is requested by the crown prince of Joseon to make an appearance before his betrothed. though reluctant at first, he agrees on condition that their meeting is fleeting and under the guise of a mask.

an: this was inspired by the kdrama ‘tale of the nine-tailed’, hence the similar elements. events may or may not be historically accurate. ++ i’m really anxious about how this fic will be taken, but i’ve put too much effort in to let it sit in my drafts ksks. might post the part 2 if you want! let me know what you think!

(finally posting this as a gift for the immense support i’ve been receiving! thank you! ❤️ and low-key bc sumi has been thinkin about kitsune yeonjun)

Sealed by the promise of two youths many moons ago, your betrothal to the crown prince of Joseon was something which was not unbeknownst to anyone in the country. Many young ladies, noble and common alike, coveted your fortune and would make desperate pleas to the gods to have half the luck you did. And perhaps anyone else would have boasted about how fate had favoured them, but you didn’t.

“(Y/n)? Are you listening?” his highness asked, raising an eyebrow as you continued to flip through the pages of a book you had picked up from his desk. You placed the book back where you found it and turned to look from the pavilion, out across the pond and above the canopy tops to the mountains in the distance.

What had intrigued you about the palace was not the status, nor the riches, nor the people who dwelt within it. After all, you preferred to be neck-deep in books of history and literature, poetry, and volumes which questioned which was myth and which was reality. Your father, though, was as open-minded as anyone else was about the education of women at the time – not at all. So you had resorted to killing two birds with one stone; appeasing your father by agreeing to meet with the prince meant getting your hands on books you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.

But today, you had an entirely different motive.

“Do you believe in mythical beings, your Highness?” you asked, turning to face the prince who stared back at you, wide-eyed.

The seemingly sudden question had him taken aback.

From the very first meeting, you had puzzled Taehyun. Like you, although he knew he had to do it some day, the topic of his marriage hadn’t interested him. Or rather, it was more important to him that the person he would one day wed had the same interests as he did – the good of the people and the flourishing of the country.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t expect you to be as crazed about love and titles as the other noblewomen of Joseon were, at first. So he was pleasantly surprised when you had arrived at Gyeongbokgung, not batting an eyelash in his direction. But when he had attempted to open discussions about politics and solving the exorbitant taxes expected from the people, he’d find your nose buried in one of the books from the pile you sifted through by his desk.

Taehyun was already struggling to figure you out, and now you asked him this.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he cocked his head to the side, folding his hands behind his back. “have you come across something thought-provoking?”

“It’s quite straightforward; a yes or no question.” you shrugged, smirking as your eyes caught the not-so-discreet glances his personal guard and the eunuch had given one another.

Ultimately, to have relations with the throne was not all sunshine and roses. For your own protection, and to ensure you were not used as leverage against the king, your father had sent you very far from home – to Southern Jeolla. And it was upon your arrival back in Hanyang, after many years away, that you had come to hear the rumours which had surrounded the royal family.

A gumiho. A nine-tailed fox. The spirit which protected the forest. A being which could not be trusted. The one to whom the country owed it’s prosperity. The one at whose hands the country could fall into havoc.

You knew better than to believe the words of storytellers and self-proclaimed chroniclers. It was the fact that they had all said the same thing which had perturbed you. It left this unsettling feeling, which just wouldn’t fade away. So you read book after book, folklores and retellings, each and every documented account of those who had insisted they had seen the man with ‘eyes which glowed like hot embers even in the light of day’. It nearly drove you insane.

That was, until just this morning, when you had overheard the court ladies chattering away in hushed tones about how so-and-so had come to see the prince again, how much so-and-so frightened them, and how they wondered for how much longer the king would leave the future of the kingdom in the hands of such a wild-card.

You turned to look out beyond the trees again, a sudden gush of wind rattling their branches and sending their leaves sailing through the air. “Let me meet him. This... friend of yours, your Highness.”

“No.”

Taehyun nodded, taking a leaf from the shrub in front of him between his fingers, “I thought you’d say that.”

Yeonjun huffed, taking a bite out of one of the freshly picked apples the prince had brought along with him on his visit (as some sort of incentive, he supposed). The scowl he had adorned etched deeper into his face as Taehyun’s proposition crossed his mind a second time. He should have left the boy to the wandering spirits all those years ago, is what he thought. The fact that Yeonjun had allowed him to follow him around and meet with him must have made him cocky.

In the beginning, he trusted them. Yeonjun had spent thousands of years cultivating the forest and protecting those which lived beneath it’s canopy. He had taken an oath to never allow any harm to come to it, and as a sort of by-product, had taken up an arrangement with the king to hand over to him any miscreants who chanced into his territory. And for hundreds of years, this agreement was honored. King after king had revered the spirit who protected the people, throwing grand festivals in his honor.

Until humans did what they always do. They became consumed by greed and corrupted by power. They feared that the existence of a powerful being, and the esteem in which the people held it, threatened the very authority of the throne.

On a night which felt like yesterday to Yeonjun, the then king had convinced him to appear before the people, reasoning that he deserved to be celebrated and loved; not lurking in the depths of a forest where he wondered alone. His yearning for family provoked, he had left, only to return to enormous crackling fires which devoured everything in their path.

Now he was being asked to entertain the likes of one of them again? An insolent, entitled woman who was probably the daughter of some power-hungry government official nonetheless? He wouldn’t allow himself to be made a fool out of again.

“I’m aware you cannot leave the forest unguarded for long periods of time, especially at night,” Taehyun said, brushing the bits of earth from his hand onto his silk garment. “which is why I want to bring her here.”

The half-eaten apple hit the forest floor with a thud.

“What did you just say?” the same incredulity written on Yeonjun’s face, embedded into his voice.

Taehyun grinned sheepishly, “Hyung, can’t you do me this one favour?”

Quickly taking a seat beside him, the crown prince of the Joseon dynasty grabbed onto the sleeve of Yeonjun’s black robe and tugged at it. Yeonjun sucked a sharp breath of air through his teeth and slapped his hands away. The memory of a scared little boy in disheveled clothes, sobbing as snot ran down onto his lips crossed Yeonjun’s mind. He bit back the grin which fought to pull at his lips.

“I thought you weren’t interested in love? Why all the effort then?”

Taehyun dropped his hands from where they had been grappling at Yeonjun’s robe and stood up, clearing his throat before folding his hands behind his back again. Yeonjun smirked. “It’s not by choice, the woman in question is frightening. Only the gods would know the lengths she would have gone to had I refused her.”

Many minutes of back and forth bickering had passed before Taehyun managed to convince Yeonjun to appear before you. This reluctant agreement came with conditions, however. Leaving the mountain for even a moment during nightfall was out of the question, but that didn’t mean that he was okay with some suspicious woman wandering into his home. So, they had settled on the foot of the mountain closest to the north side. Yeonjun had also made sure to point out that although he had agreed to let you see him, he never agreed to introductions.

“You never struck me as the type to attend parties in the evening, your Highness,” you hollered from your palanquin which lagged behind his. When no reply came, you seethed, biting back the urge to punch a hole through the expensive wooden barrier in front of you. He had suddenly appeared at your father’s estate just as the sun had dipped beyond the horizon, not bothering to give an explanation before your father had the guards stuff you into the tiny varnished vehicle. “You haven’t yet answered me, your Majesty. The question from earlier.”

You cried out in pain when the palanquin was suddenly set down, tossing you up in the air like a shuttlecock. Hand still pressing down on your head from where it had hit the roof of the palanquin, you glared at Taehyun’s outstretched hand when the door folded open. You violently slapped the hand away and pulled back your skirt, nearly kicking his shins as you climbed out. Accidentally, of course.

Your behaviour amused Taehyun, a smirk finding its way to his lips. He whispered something to Soobin, his personal guard, who had given him a distressed look in return. He sighed as Taehyun placed a hand on his shoulder, giving a quick nod before returning to the entourage. You raised an eyebrow when Taehyun offered you a smile, gesturing his hand to the left of where the road forked into two.

The evening air was brisk; the various flora emitting a plethora of unique smells which blended together as they crawled into your nose. Leaves rustled as the forest creatures scurried across the floor; the occasional flapping of wings and hoots of the wide-eyed, mice-eating predators filling the otherwise eerie silence. The pale moon, which shone like a great halo in the sky, casted it’s light through the trees, creating beautiful natural skylights and mysterious shadows. The breeze was ever-so gentle, seemingly caressing your cheeks as you followed Taehyun down the path filled with earthy soil.

“You’re going to kill me aren’t you?” He chuckled at the question you had posed. He took a firm hold of your hand as he helped you cross the stream you had encountered, squeezing it a little tighter as your shoe glided off some algae, smiling when he heard the under-the-breath cuss.

When you had both safely crossed over into the field of long grass on the other side of the bank, he caught his breath for a moment. “My men say there came a troupe from Jeonju in Northern Jeolla a few days back,” Taehyun started, motioning for you to follow behind him as he stalked through the vegetation.

You groaned. Just how much torture was he planning to put you through? Did he find out you had ‘borrowed’ some of the books from his shelf?

After another few dreadful minutes of walking, an enormous tree came into your sights. It’s trunk looked as if it could house a small population, and it’s branches spread far across the open space; a meadow. Taehyun smiled in satisfaction and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, before placing his hands on his hips. Was this what he wanted to show you? You were far too tired, and your feet hurt way too much to enjoy the sentiment.

“Right, as I was saying,” The prince continued. You took a seat on the soft blades of grass and began pulling the shoes off your aching feet. “Despite journeying across the country to perform in gisaeng houses, I’m told the productions of this troupe were rather enthralling – ”

The sound of your snorting earned a glare from the prince. You shook your hand, “I find myself in constant surprise this evening, your Highness,” you laughed. “Hearing the term‘gisaeng’ from your mouth would send chills down anyone’s spine.”

The distant strumming of a zither whispered in your ears and your body froze. Slowly, the field, which had been lit only by the silvery hues offered by the moon, glowed in shades of green and yellow as fireflies hovered in the air. Then the zither stopped. Your neck snapped in the direction of scuffling feet by the tree trunk. Figures dressed in black placed paper lanterns varying in size at the base of the trunk, before scaling up to the branches.

A gasp slipped from your lips when the zither had suddenly started playing again; much louder this time. Ribbons dropped from different branches around the tree, carrying men and women who spun as they unravelled. Sporting white masks in the form of a fox, they danced around the tree, twirling and swinging back, dipping low before soaring through the air with such delicacy it gave you goosebumps.

“This performance is called the Fox’s Hiraeth,” Taehyun whispered, eyes fixated on the scene before of him, “you asked the other day did you not? About gumihos in Hanyang.”

His Highness’ attempt to throw you off was painfully obvious in that moment, and it did not go unnoticed. But just before you could make the remark that you had been carefully curating for exactly this situation, the zither had come to a stop once again. Leaves rustled above you and you lifted your head into a pair of the prettiest eyes you had ever seen.

They were a shade of light brown; little flecks of green and amber peeking from in-between when light passed through them. Bewilderment swam in those sparkling orbs behind the mask, it’s wearer holding his breath, not looking away for even a moment. The feeling in your chest drew a smile onto your lips, so big, it pushed up the corners of your eyes.

“Hello.”

He pulled back suddenly, and a strong gust of wind blew right through you, making you squeeze your eyes shut. The wind seemed to blow harder and harder – Taehyun had to press his hands onto your shoulders to prevent you from being gone with it. When it had died down and you opened your eyes again, you shot up, shoving his hands away.

The lights had gone out and the fireflies were nowhere to be seen. The lanterns and the troupe too had vanished into thin air; leaving not a trace. But that was not what was distressing you.

Hands clenching fists into your satin skirt, your eyes searched desperately, “where did he go?”

“Who?” Taehyun questioned, tightening the black cloth strings of his gat. He blinked, feigning innocence so professionally, it antagonised you. “The performance is over; we should leave.”

Pulling your lips between your teeth, the agonizing feeling of having lost something important tearing at your chest, you made a decision. You were positive that Taehyun knew exactly what was going on, but you weren’t about to waste any more time trying to force an answer out of the tight-lipped prince.

Where the meadow under the peculiar tree ended, the forest started again, and spread all across the mountain. You could have been mistaken, and that man may have just been another one of the performers. But it was the forest. It felt as if it was calling out to you; screaming. Every one of your limbs ached to dash into its depths.

Taehyun cleared his throat and turned away instantaneously when he noticed you hurriedly tearing off your blouse. You tossed the garment carrying the golden emblem to the ground, and slipped your shoes back on, ignoring Taehyun’s voice which bombarded you with questions.

He grabbed onto your hand before you left and you stopped, peering down at where your bodies were joined. “It’s dangerous.” he said; his voice as firm as his grip, yet eyes pleading with you like those of a child.

Despite your fathers’ lasting friendship, you had never met Taehyun until a few days ago. And if you did, you couldn’t recall. The confounded stares he had thrown at you upon your arrival had amused you; they were not contrary to that of the other noblemen and their sons whom your father had introduced you to. You didn’t act like the prince’s woman – they had probably expected someone who they could easily manipulate and bribe to their liking – but you were very much the opposite.

It was his behaviour in the days that followed which had taken you by surprise. He’d have books stacked up all around his desk which varied in genre, and were organised by author and publication date, whenever you visited. He seldom spoke and never forced conversation with you, but he’d call for tea and sweets then leave them at a certain place on the tabletop untouched. You’d catch his eyes glancing up at you every once in a while in your peripheral vision, and a smile would find itself to your lips.

He cared for you and you had grown to care for him as well. But you knew that if you left with him right now, your insatiable curiosity would only grow and you’d just end up returning here anyway.

Placing your hands over his, eyes asking him to forgive you, you slipped out of his grasp.

“I’ll be okay.”

Yeonjun paced up and down the cliff once more. He glanced over his shoulder at the mask resting against a boulder behind him, then slapped his hands onto his face and lamented. He couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Everything was happening exactly as he had planned – the dokkaebi had put on their show, relishing in the fact that they were pranking humans; the trees, the breeze and the critters had agreed to set the mood for what he had intended to be your heart being won over by the Taehyun.

He peeked through the spaces in his fingers at the wooden guise, and proceeded toward it. He knelt down and picked it up, eyes fixating on the slots where they were housed previously. He was certain he had prepared for everything, but that all changed when his eyes met with yours.

They stared back at him in surprise, but that surprise slowly transitioned into a warmth which enveloped him; the light of the lanterns which reflected from them, inviting him closer. They scared him, too. Under the mask he had given himself the appearance of one of the lumberers who frequented the forest, but your eyes seemed to stare right through him. They reached into his depths, baring him before you.

Yeonjun glared, irritated with how foolish he had been. He should have trusted his instinct and refused Taehyun no matter how much he insisted. It was absurd that after all these centuries he still let himself fall prey to the ludicrous fantasy he would ever be able to live and feel as they do – he knew that was the real reason he had gone along with this preposterous idea.

His grip on the mask tightened before he hurled it into the bushes. Your voice exclaimed an ‘Ow!’, making him topple over in surprise. The golden rays of sun spilled over the summit just as you stepped out from the flora, bathing you in it’s warmth and highlighting your features as it chased away the night. You rubbed your head profusely where the mask had hit you, pausing when you noticed Yeonjun’s figure on the floor.

Hands on your hips, smiling in triumph, you blew the stray strands of hair from your face. “Found you.”

He had never in his life met such a vivacious woman. Your hair looked like a bird’s nest; tiny twigs and leaves buried within the now tousled black locks. There were tears in your hanbok. Stains of dirt, grass and mud soiled the skirt. Alas, you still had a stupid smile plastered across your mucky face. He caught himself before he started grinning like an idiot too, shuffling amongst the earth before rising with his back turned towards you. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest. Was he looking down on your intellect?

“You’re not very clever for an ancient spirit,” you remarked, tossing the mask at his feet. His frame froze, making you scoff.

The hair cascading down his back was a pale shade pink which shimmered under the light. It contrasted the pitch black robes he adorned, which were embroidered with silver. When he turned around to give you a look of wry amusement, you noticed the bangs which framed his face were more washed out in colour compared to the rest of his head. His slanted eyes were mono-lidded, and they glistened as beautifully as the night before. His lips were plump; it’s colour reminded you of the strawberry tanghulu you had seen in the market.

He stepped closer to you, smirking at the way you were entranced by his beauty, until his face stood only inches away from yours. You cast your eyes away from him, gulping as you took a step back. His eyebrows furrowed when you cringed, staggering before you fell to the ground.

“Are you alright?” he fretted, the role of the charismatic flirt quickly abandoning him as he helped you to your feet. He wrapped his arms around your waist, lifting you into his arms, and carried you to a place where you could sit comfortably. You gripped only his garments tightly, eyes still refusing to meet with his; the scent of flowers lingering on your clothes as he set you down. “His Majesty did not accompany you?”

He knelt down beside you and pulled off your shoes. Blood had soaked into your socks from all the hiking you had done the night before – the back of your shoes had cut deep into your heels; climbing over boulders and through thick vegetation had made the soles of your feet sensitive and prone to cuts and scratches. He pulled his lip between his teeth, eyes shooting daggers into yours.

He poured some of the alcohol he had been storing over your wounds, and massaged in the compound he made of medicinal herbs he had momentarily disappeared to go and find. He tore pieces of his robe to bind them when he was finished, then folded his arms over his chest. “I’m taking you back to the palace.”

You jolted up from where you were seated; Yeonjun pushed your shoulders back down. “None of my questions have been answered, I’m not leaving until they are.”

“Don’t you have a prince to marry?” he contended, tapping a finger on his chin, “they’re not going to be impressed when you return looking like this.”

“What’s your name? Are you really a nine-tailed fox? How old are you? Do you eat human livers? If so, why? Is it true that you are only able to receive titles like the ‘Spirit of the Mountain’ when you don’t feed human on livers? Are you actually a woman? Do you really want the best for this country? Do you wish to bring it to ruin for your own pleasure? Is it true that – ”

He took a step closer to you, and lifted your chin with his finger, closing your mouth. You held your breath as his eyes flickered to your lips, and he smirked noticing the blush spread across your face. He reached behind you and pulled the jade pin from your hair, the tresses falling gently down your back. Bringing the hairpin before you, and his lips to your ear, he whispered, “I dare not rob the future king of his woman, my lady. You should return home for your own safety.”

His hand travelled down the length of your arm, trailing goosebumps and setting fire to your skin. He placed the pin into your hand and lifted it, brushing his lips across your knuckles. His eyes locked with yours and you gasped as they glowed like a setting sun.

A horse whinnied as it strode into the area, making you tear your eyes away from Yeonjun’s. Taehyun slid off it’s back, rushing to your side. He grabbed onto your shoulders brows furrowing as he examined you from top to bottom. “Are you alright, (Y/n)?”

You nodded absent-mindedly, searching for where he had gone. Taehyun led you to his horse, and lifted you onto the saddle, sighing as he found you still trying to see past the trees and their leaves. You squeezed onto your chest as you rode away, an inexplicable feeling overtaking you. You had to see him again. Not out of curiosity. No, you – you just had too.

Yeonjun held onto the trunk of the pine tree and swung his body around from the backside. Watching you ride off into the distance, eyes still set on finding him, he sighed, twirling the ring he had slipped off your finger around his.

“(Y/n), huh?” he muttered under his breath, exhilarated by the way it rolled off his tongue.

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seriouslysnape · 4 years ago

Note

Hi i wanted to request snape x reader where they meet again after not seeing each other since their school days (they were bffs) and severus gets all cute and flustered bc he still has a crush?

STOPPPPP THAT’S SO EFFIN CUTE!

Reconnections

Severus Snape x Fem. Reader

Warnings: None.

Word Count: 2,005

“I had no idea you were coming. How long have you been here?”

He thought about you more than he’d like to admit. Severus hadn’t really had any other friends over the course of his life, so it was only natural that his mind often drifted towards the one person who was consistently there for him. He was devastated when he lost contact with you after graduation. He had known that the two of you would go your separate ways, leading different lives with different goals in mind.

At first, the two of you stayed in touch through writing letters. You absolutely adored receiving letters from him, hearing about how his first year teaching at Hogwarts was going was the best part of your day. Severus began teaching at Hogwarts very shortly after graduation, and hearing about his adventures were thrilling...and sometimes a little boring.

He felt relief every time he received a letter from you. He was always happy to see how you were doing, and what was going on in your life. He would read your letters two or three times, picking apart every sentence and word. He’d try to pick up your tone in every paragraph. He’d look for implications of a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband. A hint or a crumb of detail leading to the idea that you were in a relationship.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss your school days together. He missed pulling all nighters with you to study for a big Potions exam. He wished he could have one more Charms class where the two of you were trying so hard not to laugh that you felt like you were going to pass out. He longed for the occasional nights where you would sneak to the Slytherin tower and the two of you would stay up late telling stories and enjoying each other’s company.

He missed you.

He had always been attracted to you. His schoolboy crush as a child didn’t really go away into his teenage years. He still found himself yearning for you, but he never made an attempt to seek you out. He was too shy, too reserved and insecure to ever go after the most beautiful girl in the world.

Even though it was his biggest regret.

Over time, the two of you became busier and busier, and the letters were less frequent. Eventually, the letter completely stopped coming in. You and Severus lost contact about five years after graduation, and now you had gone over a decade without seeing or hearing from one another. He still thought about you all the time.

He missed your smile, your laugh, your hair, your eyes, everything. He didn’t know how much he loved those things until he didn’t have them anymore. He often wondered if he’d ever see you again.

And then he did.

Severus had been passing down a hallway when he saw a very familiar face. He had to do a complete double take, stopping dead in his tracks and staring blankly. You had been walking alongside Headmaster Dumbledore, the two of you in a very cheerful conversation. Surely, that couldn’t be you. He hadn’t seen you in almost 15 years and suddenly you turn up at Hogwarts?

He felt like he was dreaming, half convinced that he wasn’t awake. But he saw you more clearly as you grew closer, and his heart did a joyful leap. He knew that smile anywhere. His best friend had returned.

“Severus?” You called, questioning and excitement in your tone when you noticed him standing at the end of the hall.

His pale cheeks went fiery red at the sudden use of his name. He hadn’t heard his name fall from your lips in a long time. It was music to his ears. You practically ran up to him, throwing your arms around him with a gleeful squeal. You smothered him in a hug, and he awkwardly returned it with one arm.

It was just like old times.

“Hi.” He replied meekly, but his mind was racing and his eyes were wide.

“Oh, I was hoping I’d get to see you today!” You shrieked.

Dumbledore was watching intently. He had known that the two of you went way back. He was tempted to bring up how flushed Severus looked now, but didn’t say anything about it.

“How nice it is to see two of Hogwarts’ brightest students together again.” Dumbledore declared.

You offered him a sweet smile, but Severus was still shell shocked.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, unable to look away from you.

You had both obviously aged some since the last time you had seen each other. You were still just as beautiful as the last day he saw you. You weren’t surprised that he looked about the same way he did before. Black robes, long hair, and a sour look on his face. Just the way you liked him.

“I’m taking over for Madam Pomfrey for a while. Just until she’s back on her feet.” You said.

Pomfrey was out with a nasty bout of the flu, something that even magic couldn’t fully cure. You’d be covering for her for a few weeks, but were hoping to possibly land a more full time gig at Hogwarts.

“I had no idea you were coming. How long have you been here?” He questioned.

Severus’ heart was beating so fast that he was afraid it might give out. The very person he had been dreaming of for so many years was now standing right in front of him. He was almost scared that you’d vanish if he did look away.

“I arrived this morning. Albus was just showing me around,” You explained; “The castle really hasn’t changed much since leaving...you’re looking well, Sev.”

You pushed some strands of hair behind his ear, something small that you used to always do when you were younger. It never failed to make his whole body feel a flutter at such an act of care. His mind felt foggy now, he could barely form a single thought other than the fact that he couldn’t believe you were there.

It became very clear that Severus was still sweet on you. He was still crushing like he did when he was 13.

“You look good now...uh, I mean, you looked hot before- you were fine before,” He stuttered, mentally smacking himself for his poor choice of wording; “You look great, [Y/N].”

Dumbledore fought the urge to burst into laughter. Severus had never been very flirtatious. You looked sheepishly at your feet, hiding your blush at the compliment. You had always found his shyness rather endearing, it gave him an innocence that was pure and lightening.

“I will leave the two of you to catch up.” Dumbledore said, gauging that it would be best if he moved on.

He left the two of you in the hall. You had a lot to talk about. Severus continued to walk with you slowly, savoring every moment. The two of you chatted, catching each other up on the last 15 years. It seemed as if Severus hadn’t really done much outside of being the Potions professor. As sad as it was, you weren’t really surprised to learn that he hadn’t found anyone to settle down with. He was almost in a vicious cycle that consisted of work, sleep, and eating. He didn’t realize how dull his life had become until you started telling him all the things you had done.

You traveled for a year or two after graduation (which he did know due to your letters in the beginning). You studied wizards and witches in other areas of other communities, learning from their differences and comparing similarities. You totally dove head first into the wizarding world, totally enchanted by how complex it really was. You had seen and done things that Severus could only ever dream of.

He was happy though. He was happy that you had done all of the things that you had always said you wanted to do. You were vibrant, successful, and taking full advantage of any great opportunity that came your way. He was so proud of you.

“How long do you expect to be here?” Severus asked you, hoping that it would be longer than just a few days.

The two of you had far too much to catch up on in such a short period of time.

“It’ll be at least three weeks. Pomfrey found where I lived and sent a letter as soon as she realized she’d have to be out,” You told him; “You know how she is. She doesn’t trust many people to handle her work.”

Severus smiled lightly, and nodded. Poppy Pomfrey was a VERY professional woman and never let just anyone take over her job. He at least knew that he wouldn’t lose contact with you this time. Severus didn’t want to flat out ask the one question that was really on his mind. He was dying to know what your relationship status was.

“I’m sure your husband is thrilled that you’ll be gone for so long.” Severus said as more of a hint than anything else.

He saw the way you awkwardly chuckled, rubbing the back of your neck bashfully. You shook your head.

“Oh, I’m not married.” You admitted.

“No?” Severus asked to confirm casually, but his stomach was doing excited flips.

While you hadn’t been shocked that he wasn’t married, he was totally shocked that you weren’t. He had always thought you’d find someone straight out of Hogwarts and be married within a few years. When the letters stopped coming, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever know how your life turned out.

“You sound surprised,” You noted; “But I suppose I just haven’t found the right guy yet.”

You knew that was a lie. You knew that you never settled down because you had been hanging on to a sliver of hope that you and Severus would reconnect one day. After losing contact with him, you had always said that if you were given the chance to even possibly see him again, you’d drop everything and take it.

You were so glad you had taken that chance.

“I must say I am surprised. You’re so beautif- so kind that I always thought that you’d get married soon after graduation.” He said, covering up another one of his stutters.

“Well, you know. Life has its ways of getting the perfect timing, doesn’t it?” You suggested.

Before he could answer, you took notice of the time, knowing you needed to get back to Dumbledore to finish getting acclimated before the new school week began.

“I need to go. It’s been so nice seeing you. We need to catch up more,” You said, taking a leap of faith; “I’ve missed you...”

He felt his heart speak before his head, but it was the full truth.

“Oh, I’ve missed you tremendously. I’ve thought about you every day since your letters stopped coming.” He blurted out.

Your eyes sparkled at that, you smiled genuinely.

“You have? You really mean that?” You queried.

He was a little embarrassed that he had sputtered it out like that, but he was glad you knew it.

“I do.” He confirmed.

You stroked his cheek gently with your hand, tempted to kiss him. You knew that this was your professions of love for each other. Awkward and forward. Just like the two of you were.

“How did we go so long without seeing one another?” You asked him, inching closer together.

“I have no idea.” He said, closing the gap and kissing you softly.

It was a tender, appreciative kiss that was full of want that had been built up since you were young students. It felt fresh and like a new beginning. A beginning that would actually be the start of Severus’ life. He would have someone to look forward to everyday, someone to share his passions with. But there was one thing that was most important.

He’d have someone to share his heart with.

#severus snape #severus #severus snape x you #severus snape x reader #severus snape x y/n #professor snape #professor snape x you #professor snape x reader #alan rickman #Harry Potter #harry potter snape #seriouslysnape

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eloves-writes · 3 years ago

Text

102 degrees

[spencer reid x reader]

summary : spencer gets a little flustered by reader on a particularly hot case

a/n : i hope this makes sense bc i have a really weird feeling that it doesn’t lmao anyways hope you enjoy & as always, requests are open! <3

couple - spencer reid x (she/her) reader

content warnings - mentions of bodies/victims (not graphic) , very brief reference to a knife (also not graphic)

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

florida was always hot, and always an unpleasant place to be sent for a case in mid-july. heat made things difficult; difficult to keep a level head, difficult to solve the case when the bodies decomposed twice as fast, and difficult for spencer reid to concentrate when his beautiful co-worker was wearing such little clothing.

you were dressed that morning in loose fitting pants and a white spaghetti strap tank top that made it far too easy for the boy genius’ eyes to wander over to your chest. you had noticed a few days ago (of course, spencer knew a lot of words but clearly subtle wasn’t one of them) the level of his eyeline, and had decided to tease him with your favourite selection of tank tops. usually if a man objectified you, you’d make a point of shifting your gun holster just to remind him it was there, but with spencer it was different. the way he couldn’t stop himself from watching you with the sort of innate curiosity expected from a young child walking by a candy store, the way he turned his head and scratched his cheek when you went to meet his eyes. you didn’t mind it too much.

“can i get anyone a coffee?” hotch asked, his customary suit jacket hung over the back of his chair.

“i’m alright thanks,” emily replied. you noticed jj shooting her similar looks to the ones reid was giving you and you smirked to yourself.

“could you get me a soda?” you asked. “it’s too hot for coffee.”

there were various murmurs across the room of “yeah, a soda sounds good,” before hotch left and you all went back to the case. when he returned, he brought news on the case.

“a body was just found a few miles west of palm beach, appears to be the same M.O. and victim type as our unsub. y/l/n, reid, can you go and check it out? garcia’s already sent you the location.”

you took a single sip of your soda before standing up. “come on then spence.”

he followed you out of the police station like a lost puppy, handing you the keys to the SUV. it was a shame he didn’t like to drive- he looked pretty hot in the driver’s seat if you could admit it. still, he climbed into the passenger side and began to talk about some statistic about summer temperatures in florida. you took an unwonted interest in the way he spoke; he seemed nervous, and he kept pausing as if he expected you to interrupt him. you didn't. he only stopped when you stretched your arm to the back of his seat to look behind you as you parked the car. you were suddenly a lot closer to him than you had been previously, and the position allowed spencer to get a waft of your perfume and an eyeful of your chest. he froze up until you moved back and then hurriedly exited the car. you snickered to yourself as you momentarily watched him stand on the pavement blushing and fiddling with the strap of his bag. you thought he was cute when he was flustered.

hotch had been right, the body that had been found definitely was of your unsub and the local police deputy was waiting for you as you walked up to the dump site.

“fbi right?” he asked, glancing you both up and down. “you look fresh out of high school.”

you and spencer exchanged a certain type of look before heading to inspect the body. the deputy could identify the body so you sent the name to garcia, bending over to get a better look at the victim. reid wasn’t looking at the victim though, rather at you as you tied your hair. he followed your fingers as they traced up your sweat-covered neck to pull the hair into a ponytail and he couldn’t help but imagine you doing it over him and not over the dead body of a young woman. he realised the thoughts were completely inappropriate, but you somehow sent his self control out of the window. eventually you finished your inspection and headed back to the car.

once you were both sat down, you turned to face spencer as the engine started up. he looked at you puzzled.

“are we .... going?” he asked hesitantly, aware of you in such close proximity to him once again.

you leaned over, resting your elbow on his seat so you were face to face. “not yet, pretty boy. for the brains of the team, you’re certainly making me do all the work today.”

“i am?”

“yup. you let me do all the work whilst you stood and ... admired me,” you flirted. you weren’t usually so bold, but he was like putty in your hand and you simply couldn’t resist.

he gulped, his face flushing a shade of pink. “i was?”

“something interesting about me this week, reid? can’t seem to take your eyes off me.”

“no, no nothing interesting. not that you’re not interesting, you are interesting- not more interesting than usual. you’re pretty! erm, i didn’t mean to say that- why are you laughing?”

you took a minute, then started to drive. spencer sat in silence, wholly unsure of what to say in the situation he found himself in. the tension in the car was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. you were biding your time, waiting until it was almost unbearable to answer his question. the moment came as you pulled back into the police station parking lot. you dramatically looked over to him and he nervously gulped once again.

you held back another laugh, thoroughly enjoying yourself. “so you think i’m pretty, huh.”

his pitch noticeably increased in his reply. “yeah, yeah, i guess you’re pretty, yeah.”

your face was again unsettlingly close to his, and his eyes kept unconsciously flicking to your lips.

“you want to kiss me, pretty boy?”

his eyes widened, but no words came out of his mouth. prentiss wasn’t kidding when she said pretty girls slashed his IQ to 60.

“because i’d quite like to kiss you,” you said, bringing your voice down to a whisper. “would that be ok?”

“mhm, yup.”

you both lent in to close to gap between you, so close you could almost feel his lips on yours- but you pulled back at the last minute.

“very unprofessional spence, keep your eyes to yourself,” you smiled cheekily, winking at him as you got out the car. you immediately began to walk into the precinct but an arm firmly caught yours.

“can’t get enough of me can you pretty boy-” you began, cut off by spencer kissing you, hard. his sudden dominance caught you off guard and you couldn’t stop yourself getting lost in the taste of him, and the feeling of his hands in your hair untangling your handiwork.

“oh. my. god,” a voice came from behind you both. you quickly pulled away to reveal a cocky looking prentiss and a shocked looking hotch.

“wow,” she started sarcastically. “i simply never saw this coming. what about you boss?”

hotch gave her a disapproving look, then reluctantly brought 2 $10 bills out his back pocket and handed it to her.

“were you betting on us kissing?” you exclaimed, your cheeks the same colour as emily’s red shirt.

“absolutely not,” hotch answered seriously. “we were betting on who’d catch you.”

“and you called me unprofessional,” spencer laughed uncomfortably as you headed inside.

“hey! you were staring at my tits all week that definitely qualifies!”

“agents, behave.”

#spencer reid #criminal minds #emily prentiss #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #hes so cute pls

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extremelyblackandwhite · 4 years ago

Text

august

pairing: sheriff lee bodecker x younger! reader

warnings: cheating, age gap

a/n: i wanted to write this chapter to show how y/n’s and lee’s affair began and to show how y/n shaped lee or his point of view. this song is mostly based off august from taylor swift (bc we all know at this point that i’ll just write fanfics based of any folklore/evermore songs) and war of hearts from ruelle. this one is not smut, the next one (illicit affairs) is gonna be. additionally, i’ve come to the conclusion that knockemstiff y/n dressed like betty draper and after-knockemstiff y/n dresses likes meg draper and that is canon. btw if you’re interested in what she’s wearing in this chapter here [x] p.s.: lee’s not captain yet in this chapter

> ILLICIT AFFAIRS

Salt air and the rust on your door, I never needed anything more. Whispers of are you sure? Never have I ever before. But I can see us lost in the memory, August slipped away into a moment in time ‘cause it was never mine

August was an odd month this year; the godless and sunless town was going through the biggest heatwave anyone could remember. Most habitants were in the parks and outside their homes in plastic chairs enjoying the heat, however, in Y/N’s house, they were baking apple pies with the apples leftover from the little apple tree farm they had a bit south from the town centre. Y/N had suggested they just gave away the apples but her grandmother, ever the traditional woman, believed the best way to show appreciation would be to bake something. “It shows you care, Y/N” as if she cared about anyone in this god forbidden town. She couldn’t wait to pack her bags and go to the big city where she can be something other than a trophy wife. Besides, it wasn’t like there were any available suitable husband options around.

She wiped the flour out of her forehead as she placed the last pie in the oven. 24 pies, surely that would account for a high electricity bill at the end of the month. Not that it mattered anyway, her grandmother could more than afford it after all she was the woman right now sat at the kitchen table, giving out plates as if they cost nothing.

- Y/N, sweetheart, can you go and deliver the pie on the living room. It’s already cold and I don’t want it to go stale.

- Yeah, sure.

- To Captain Bodecker’s house. Promised Jane I’d send her one.

- Captain Bodecker’s? But that’s in town. - she scratched her elbows. She’d rather not go to Captain Bodecker’s house yet again he probably wasn’t even around, always busy in the station. - Can I take the car?

- It’s a 20 minute walk, it’s sunny outside and you’re young. Save on gas.

- But ...

- Y/N, you better be outside with that pie in 5 seconds or we’ll have a problem. - she interrupted.

Y/N sighed, unlacing the back of her apron and placing it on the hook. Just great, that’s all she needed today, to walk to the town centre to deliver one of the pies she had just spent the whole morning preparing. She guessed it could’ve been worse, she could’ve had to go deliver it to the police station then Captain Bodecker would’ve definitely been there. It wasn’t that she disliked him, quite the opposite. Back when she volunteered at the precinct he was the only one who was nice to her or at least the only one who wouldn’t try to put his hand under her skirt. He’d even memorised her name which not even the Sheriff who had hired her knew, to this day whenever he saw her he still called her Bella. He was nice to her and she couldn’t say she hadn’t developed a little school girl crush on him, despite the fact he was married. He’d even stood up for her when her manager started screaming at her. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stand being in his presence, feeling like whatever she said would get her in trouble. His wife wasn’t someone she enjoyed either; Jane Bodecker was known for having quite the sharp gossiping tongue. Most of her friends commented their “men friends” would comment how she used to have quite the reputation while at high school and whenever she saw her at the shop, she’d always call her Little Miss Perfect or make some side comment about how she was occupying a job that someone else needed. Still, Y/N could deal with Jane, a little smile, a nod and she was ready to deal with the devil.

The sun scorched her skin as she walked her last minutes til the Bodecker residence. It was a nice home, recently painted with some nice flowers in the front garden yet there were rumours of Captain Bodecker wanting to move to Brewer Heights. Y/N didn’t know how she’d react if during her morning walks she passed by him, so she counted it only as rumours. Standing in front of the red door, she held the pie in one hand and knocked against it with the other one. She stood there waiting for someone to come in until footsteps made her wake up from her dream-like state and prepare to deal with Jane. However, as the door open, a familiar silhouette had her heart racing.

- Y/N, what brings you here? - she watched him dressed in casual clothing, something she barely saw if she had ever seen; jeans and a white t-shirt.

- Captain Bodecker ... I ... I was looking for your wife. My grandmother sent this. - she held up the pie in front of her. - She said Mrs. Bodecker wanted one.

- Jane’s ... out. Come in. - he opened the door wider for her but she remained in the same place like a statue. - Come on, it’s too hot out. Don’t want no fainting lass complains on my day off. ‘Sides, don’t you want a slice of pie?

- I really shouldn’t.

- You can say no if you want to. No need to be afraid of me, Y/N. - he leaned against the doorframe. - Thank you for the pie, though.

- I guess I can stay a bit. - she tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. Lee couldn’t help but shamelessly check her out as she walked inside his home. It was no secret she was a beautiful woman, heck, Lee thought her to be the prettiest little thing to ever arrive into town, with her sunny smile and pretty dresses. This one was no different, lavender which complimented her so well with a little white rope tied around her waist into a bow, like a little present. Nevertheless, he kept it under wraps he was a married man besides every man in town shamelessly harassed her, despite the side eye he gave them.

He watched as the fabric of her dress swung with the movement of her hips. Lee surely didn’t expect such a pretty girl to walk into his home, had he known he would’ve made an effort to fix the mess that was his house. Normally Jane tended to keep that sorted as he usually spent the day and night at work, but with her staying with her mother after their last fight. It wasn’t anything new, she always did that whenever they fought and then would return after Lee made a fool of himself by begging her to return and that he was wrong during the fight. Still, she placed the pie on his kitchen table with a gentleness and posture which mirrored her privileged upbringing. He couldn’t lie and say his mind hadn’t wandered around how she would look when she eventually got married, after all that was the future of all Knockemstiff women. He also couldn’t lie and say he hadn’t wondered how she would look as his wife. She was sweet, with a sharp mind which definitely had not been appreciated in the precinct. Despite this, productivity seemed to raise whenever she called out any officers who had their feet on top of their desks instead of doing paperwork. He still remembered having to always keep an eye on her, were any officers to get too rowdy with her. Yet, she didn’t care and she held herself and believed herself to deserve the same respect as every working man in Knockemstiff. Although he imagined how she would be as a wife, he had to admit he couldn’t see her ever being some Knockemstiff’s man’s wife and with the example from her grandmother, she was surely on the path to be a rebellion starter.

- Big fan of apple pie, Y/N?

- My grandmother refuses to sell the apples so instead I woke up at 6AM and have been baking apple pies nonstop. She says it shows I care.

- Never thought you to be found of Knockemstiff residents.

- And I am not. - she spoke as if the mere thought of it offended her. - She said she promised Jane one.

- Don’t think Jane will be back for a while. - he leaned against the kitchen door, watching her place the pie onto his kitchen table. - You can take half that pie, if you want.

- Trust me, I have my share of apple pie at home. - she folded her hands on top of her stomach. - Uhm ... Do you want me to cut you a slice of pie? I normally take mine with a bit of vanilla ice cream on top. It’s gorgeous, the warmth of the pie and the cold of the ice cream. You should try it?

- You’re just full of ideas, aren’t ya? - he sat on the wooden chair as she sliced the pie to the best of her abilities. - Shouldn’t you be at university, or someth’ng?

- Well, grandma had the stroke and she’s not as motile as she used to be. I’ve been taking some classes at Ohio University but it’s not the same, it’s ...

- It’s not the big city, ain’t it? - he added.

- It’s not that I dislike Knockemstiff, Captain ...

- Yeah you do. - he interrupted her. - Just don’t let the Sheriff hear it. He already ain’t too found of ya.

- Nobody in that precinct liked me. - she rolled her eyes. - Well, they did but I did not like them in that way.

- I liked ya. Whenever you screamed at Leroy it always made my day.

- Leroy’s the most incompetent person I know. All he does is pimp girls out as if he discovered prostitution. I feel sorry for the girls.

- He does a good service.

- Of course you’d know. - she pushed her hair away from her shoulders, feeling the sweat roll down her neck. God it was, too hot. Lee furrowed his brown, laying the fork onto the porcelain plate. She caught his look, brow raising over in a playful, smug kind of way, before she laid her hands on the table. - I’ve seen it before.

- You’ve seen it before?

- Don’t worry, I didn’t see IT, but I saw Jenny get in the car with you just after graduation. I know what she does, she would call me all the time whenever Leroy was being an ass.

- Oh ...

- Don’t worry, I’m not gonna say anything. Everyone in this town cheats, mostly because everyone in this town marries someone just because they think that will save them from Hell. No one is saved if they’re born in Knockemstiff, not even me.

- You mean to tell me you’ve done bad things, Y/N? ‘Cause I don’t believe it.

- I’ve never done it but I’ve thought bad things. All the time. - her gaze lowered from his face to his waist before returning back to his eyes. It was a millisecond gaze, something she herself knew but he didn’t notice, no matter how observant he was. There were no perfect men in Knockemstiff, but in Y/N’s mind he was her perfect man. After all, there are no perfect men anywhere, even Saints sin and then die heroically to get into heaven. Y/N would rather sin than die for people who would’ve had her accidentally killed many times if it weren’t for her grandmother’s name and status in town. What’s the fun in being good? Every time she was good she got yelled at, someone put her hand under her skirt or tried to pin her against a wall. She was good, she would just rather sin so people wouldn’t taint her goodness. It’s a question of self preservation, at least that’s what she told herself.

- That doesn’t make you bad. If so there wouldn’t be good people.

- There are no good people. - she added, ever the negative person she was, something she had inherited from her mother and which everyone who knew her could trace back to. - All people are born so they could be buried. Everything you do ... in a 100 years they won’t remember everything and all that be left of you is your burial site. That’s your legacy.

- Such negative views for someone who wants out of Knockemstiff. I thought you’d have a better outlook on things.

- I’m never getting out of here. - she sighed, almost used to the idea that she was going to stay no matter how long she fought it. - I’m gonna die here.

- Dying ain’t so bad. - he leaned against his chair. Y/N smiled at him, looking around his home. It was messy yes but it was still a good home yet that wasn’t what she noticed. Looking out the window, she saw a built in pool. She didn’t remember hearing the Captain had a pool. Sure, he had a the better salary compared to everyone else in town except for the Sheriff, Mayor, and her grandmother. Yet she had never heard of him having a pool, not even she had one.

- You have a pool?

- Yeah, built it back when Sandy used to come over to wind up from the dinner job. She’s married now so I don’t think she wants a pool at her big brother’s home anymore.

- I don’t think anyone in town has a pool. - she rose from her chair and walked to the window in a lavender rush. - It’s gorgeous.

- You can come over whenever you want, Y/N.

- Can I go now? - she looked over her shoulder to him. The idea of being able to swim while the boiling august heat continued to shine down onto the hellish town. Somehow it made sense yet it didn’t. Lee cocked his head to the side, wondering if he’d misheard her words or if she was really considering swimming into his pool. Unwanted feeling stirred south of him and he punished himself mentally for imagining the lavender flower girl in such ways.

- Well, uh ... you don’t have a swimming costume. - he babbled like a confused, stunned child.

- I can swim on my undergarments. It’s pretty much a lace embroidered swimming costume. - Lee merely nodded, not knowing exactly what to do but knowing he was flirting with sin, looking at an abysses and seeming not to fear that he was going straight into it.

Y/N walked from the window up to the kitchen door which led over to the garden. The once white door had withered with time, turning slightly yellowish with rust on the borders, the glass of the small see through windows cracked yet remaining its shape. The door seemed to be a small reminder of what was still wrong in the Captain’s life but she chose not to dwell over it, no to think about it. She felt the cobblestones against her feet covered by an old pair of white ballerina slips as her mirrored image became clear in the crystalline pool water.

Lee on the other hand watched like a hawk, from the rusted door he’d broken so many bottles of liquor against, as her lavender fabric fell to the dirty cobblestones. The contrast of the prim expensive dress against the cobblestones which had aged as badly as he had done was telling. At least it was telling enough for him and he wondered if this was a gift from God or if the devil was toying with him. The devil is in the details, his mother used to say, yet as she emerged from the water, hands pulling down her hair, he was almost entirely sure the devil was the girl in his pool, the same girl who had worn white dresses until her 18th birthday. Yet again, the devil was once an angel and to him, she was closer to becoming a fallen one than continuing to wear shades of white.

- You don’t swim, captain? - she asked as she swam to the border of the pool.

- I don’t enjoy doing it. - he stayed glued to the door, a good distance from her to ensure he didn’t get tempted. - You gonna just swim around like a mermaid, huh?

- It’s better in the water than on the cobblestones, I tell ya. - she dipped into the water once again only to return to the surface, water droplets rolling down from her plump skin. - Come on, captain. You’re gonna leave me swimming by my lonesome? During the hottest day in Knockemstiff?

- You’re a trouble stirrer.

- Maybe I’m just bored. - she smiled at him. He knew she wasn’t tempting him, he knew Y/N. She liked to tease around, she enjoyed the freedoms which she imposed onto herself and as such she was much different from the women he knew. Not that he knew any women outside of Knockemstiff. He’d been born and raised here and all the women he saw from out of Knockemstiff were on his television screen. - Come on, Captain. It’s your pool.

- I don’t want you to see my belly.

- I don’t care, besides, if it’s that bad then come into your clothing. - her arms rested upon the pool border, wondering eyes tempting even the saint of all saints. Lee looked at the cold water reflecting the afternoon sunlight beams, trying to avoid the thoughts that crossed his mind before turning around. He let his jean trousers pool to the ground along with his shoes before entering the water using the ladder. He was almost sure he’d make her laugh if he were to jump into the water.

The water was cold and dripped from his skin in crystal like drops. Y/N offered him a playful smile, swimming close to him with that wide eye child naughty fun look only she managed to still hold intact. She held her hands slightly back before pushing the water towards him.

- You tellin’ me you invited me in for a water fight? - he chuckled at her actions.

- Afraid I’ll win?

- Kid, you’re much too tiny to win against me.

- Wanna bet? - she threw water again at him, swimming closer and closer to him before anchoring herself against him, hands on his shoulders. - I bet you as many apple pies as you want.

- Yeah, I’m trying not to gain any more weight, kid.

- You have beautiful eyes, I’ve never noticed. - she made eye contact with him, seeing her own reflection in his light blue eyes. Maybe she’d never notice because the uniform was so dark blue his eyes reflected it like mirrors, yet they were light. - They’re gorgeous.

- Trying to make me blush, kid?

- Just never noticed.

- Well huh ... - he could listen to his heart beating and drumming against his chest along with the soft movement of the water. All his eyes could see was her, her hands holding onto his shoulders and her angelic face looking at him. - Thanks, you have nice eyes too.

- You can’t take a compliment, Captain. - she teased.

- I don’t think I’m deserving of any, specially coming from you, kid.

- What is that supposed to mean?

- You know what the men say in town. They think you’re the prettiest thing in a skirt to ever pace around here. Pretty sure they’ll kill each other trying to get your favour.

- My favour? Is that what you think I’m good for?

- No ... I ... That’s not what I meant. - his face creased. - I’m just telling you what I hear.

- You seem to know a lot of gossip about me, captain. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been asking around.

- What if I have? - Lee watched for the first time her mouth shut close. She didn’t know what to say next, eyebrows furrowed together as she inspected his face, slow blinking. Her eyes left his to look at the water back at him. - Just looking out for you ... not a lot of people like you ‘round town.

He hands gripped his shoulder as she swam closer to him. Her intention was to hug him thank you. Of course she didn’t expect no one to look out for her, she didn’t care about what a bunch of housewives and hopeless alcoholics thought of her. She knew he didn’t inspire adoration in them other. As she got closed to him, he leaned down, capturing her lips into his. Her hands slide from her shoulders to his chest, almost as if she wanted to be the good one and push him away. He was married after all. However, as his lips moved against hers she found herself incapable of pushing him away, hands relaxing just resting against his chest as she found herself acting on her sinful thoughts for the first time.

So much for summer love, for saying us, ‘cause you weren’t mine to lose.

taglist: @lookiamtrying

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