#i feel like a bowl of spilled porridge <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[ririnpopo]

Hello tai sui fandom have a little snippet of my mental breakdown :)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Frailty, thy name is woman! {1}

Warnings: noncon sexual acts and rape, masturbation, mentions of miscarriage, depression, and suicide.

This is dark!doctor!Steve Rogers and soft!Peter Parker and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You have an illness that can’t be seen or named. Doctor Rogers is your last chance at a cure as your loving husband tries to rediscover the woman he married.

Inspired by this ask

Note: So this went a little long and I split it into 2 but you can just pretend it’s a one shot lol. It’s set in the 1900s so keep that in mind! I hope you all like it.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Another cold morning. It started like any other. You woke in the bed, wrapped in the same woolen blanket, in the same dress you’d been wearing for more than a week.  In the same spot you hadn’t left for nearly as long. You didn’t have the strength to do anything but wallow, trapped in another episode of melancholy.

You wanted to be normal, you wanted to be happy, you wanted to get up and go tell your husband to stop messing around in the kitchen so you could do your work. So you could be the wife you were supposed to be. But that desire could not fill the endless pit you felt deep in your chest.

You listened to the clink of heavy dishes and the bubbling of water over the hissing gas burner. Peter moved around in a series of groans and creaks from the floorboards. You pulled the blanket tighter, sickened by your own odor, and sniffed. You wouldn’t cry again, you couldn’t. You always felt as if the tears would fall at any moment but they never came. You just laid there, staring at the wall, curled up against the drafts that blew through the rattling window panes.

You heard the hinges and winced. Worse than letting down your husband was looking in his face and seeing it. He came around your side of the bed and sat on the edge, just against your stomach. He set down a bowl on the boxy night table, steam curling from its brim as he set a spoon against the side and clinked a cup down next to it.

You turned your face into the pillow and he touched your shoulder as he turned and bent his leg up on the mattress. He rubbed your arm gently but you felt nothing. You shivered and knotted your fingers together.

“Hey, you need to eat,” he coaxed, “please.”

You grumbled and shook your head. “I’m not hungry.”

“You said that last night,” he ran his knuckles over your cheek and bent over you, “you haven’t eaten in two days, dear.”

“I don’t care,” you pouted into the feather pillow.

“Well, I do,” he stretched his fingers over your head and rubbed your cheekbone with his thumb, “I care about you, dear. Even after everything that’s happened.”

“Why?” you asked weakly.

“Because I will always care for you. I love you, you’re my wife and we will get through this together, so please, sit up and eat for me.” His voice was brittle and threatened to shatter in the air. Your heart squeezed and you rolled onto your back. 

You looked at him grimly, “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t need to be sorry,” he pulled open the blanket and hooked his arms under yours to pull you up. He sat you against the metal headboard and took the bowl. “Just eat. I put some cinnamon in the porridge, just like you prefer, and milk in the tea. I promise, it’s not sour this time.”

You accepted the hot bowl and nestled it in your lap. You stared at the oats and wiggled your nose. “I… you shouldn’t do all this. You shouldn’t have to,” you held the bowl with your legs and covered your face, “I want to do it all so badly but--” you blinked away the tears and wiped your cheeks as you dropped your hands back to the dish, “I’m so sorry.”

“I know you want to,” he grabbed the spoon and scooped up some oats, “and I want to help you do that but I can’t unless you help me.”

You let him feed you a mouthful. Just like everything else, it was bland, you barely even felt the heat.

“I’m trying--”

He hushed you and fed you some more. He focused on the task until the bowl was empty and your stomach felt painfully heavy. He placed the bowl back beside the porcelain and handed you the tea.

“I need you to listen to me, dear,” he said, “please and understand this is for your own good. To help you be the wife you once were.”

You held the cup with both hands and watched him over the brim. You gulped. Would he send you to one of those sanitariums where women never came back the same, if at all?

“Please, don’t send me away. You can’t! Please,” you begged and nearly spilled the tea.

“No, no, I… couldn’t,” he touched your elbow gently, “but I’ve been asking around and I’ve found a physician.”

“A physician? Oh, Peter, the last one laughed me out of the room,” you moped, “and the one before him yelled at me so horribly. I cannot do it again.”

“I know, I know,” he played with a fold along his sleeve, “but this one specialises in women’s issues. I’ve heard positive things about him and I think you should talk to him.”

“I don’t know,” you sipped the tea, it was acidic but thin.

Peter was silent as he hung his head. He grasped his knees and his jaw ticked. He heaved and closed his eyes. “I can’t let you die in here. I can’t--” his voice cracked, “please, just try this for me, dear.” He opened his eyes and looked at you, his warm brown irises were desperate, “It would kill me too.”

You lowered your chin and peered into the mug, errant leaves floating in the tea. You exhaled and gulped.

“I’ve made the appointment for noon.”

“I… I’m unready. My hair, my dress… I am unbathed.”

“You have time and I will help you,” he ran his hand up your leg smoothly, “and if you want me in the office with you, I will be there, and if you want me away, I will go.”

You thought and took another drink. You leaned back on the whiny headboard and blinked at Peter. 

“You really think he can help me?”

“I’ve got to hope. It’s all I got,” he said as he opened his hands helplessly, “I believe in you. You’re still the woman I fell in love with.”

🩺

Peter helped you wash and dress. You picked the grey dress with the buttons down the front and the straight sleeves. You hid your hair under a black hat and teetered on the low heels of your boots. You felt like an imposter, like anyone could see through your disguise to the horrid creature beneath.

He drove you uptown in the one-horse buggy and the old steed moved slowly through the mud and cobbles. 

You felt a sudden storm of guilt as he drew up to the brick front of the office and tied up the horse. He did everything, he worked at the laboratory as an lowly assistant, expected only to dispose of the refuse and wipe the countertops, then came home and did your chores for you. He worked hard for the little money you had and now he was spending it on another doctor to fix your irreparable mind.

He helped you out of the buggy with his hand on yours and you pulled your short cape closer as you huddled down against the collar. He led you to the front door of the shared offices and up the three flights to the door marked ‘Dr. Steven Rogers, physician’. 

You wrung your hands as you entered and glanced around as Peter gave your name and the time of your appointment. You were surprised to find that your husband was the only male in the room. He led you to a bench and sat with you, his hand on your arm as he comforted your doubts.

You listened as names were called and after more than an hour, yours finally rose from the nurse’s lips. You stood as Peter did too. “Do you want me here or with you?” he asked.

“I…” your heart raced as you looked between him and the nurse, “I suppose I should do it myself.”

“I’ll be out here. You send for me if you need,” he squeezed your hand one last time and watched you go.

The nurse smiled at you but you couldn’t return the gesture. You were terrified. You had seen so many doctors and each one gave the same answers; there was nothing wrong with you, you were only lazy, you were conjuring it all in your head, you were just another woman without sense.

You were shown into the sterile room and the nurse left your chart on the desk. You stepped up the stool and sat on the metal examination table covered in pure white linen. You waited in suspense, arguing with yourself not to flee and go back to your blanket and bed. When a knock came, you squeaked and the door opened slowly.

A man peeked inside cautiously and cleared his throat as he spotted you. “I’m coming in, miss.”

You nodded and he entered, the door clicking behind him. He greeted you with a handshake and read your name off the chart as he gave his own; Dr. Steven Rogers. He sat on the tall stool by the desk and looked at you. 

His blond hair was as neat as his suit and his blue eyes were penetrating but placid. His white jacket hung from his broad shoulders and a stethoscope rounded his neck as his posture put him above most.

“You can sit on the sofa if your are more comfortable,” he gestured to the leather seat along the opposite wall, “this is just an introductory appointment, I won’t be doing any examinations.”

You pursed your lips and shifted off the table. You went to the sofa and sat, your leg shaking wildly as you tried to still it with your hand. He smiled patiently and dipped his pen in the well.

“So, we will start easy, how old are you?”

Your eyes rounded. You sputtered before you got the answer out and he nodded and scribbled on the paper. He went down a list; an previous health issues, height, weight, current prescriptions. When he finished he set aside the folder and looked at you fully.

“That’s all just formality and I don’t like my patients to feel like they’re being interrogated so we’re just going to talk. Would you like some water?”

“No, no, I’m…” you smoothed a wrinkle in your dull skirt and stared at your lap. 

“You need a moment?” he dipped his head as he tried to catch your eye, “take a breath, I know it’s a lot.”

“No, I’m just… pathetic.” you murmured.

“Now, we don’t talk like that in this office,” he girded, “so why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

You sucked in a breath and your hands crawled over your skirts nervously, skittering like spiders. You could feel the dread rising and the air was thick in your lungs. You began to pant in shallow breaths and gripped the arm of the couch.

“Ma’am, ma’am,” he stood slowly and neared you, “may I sit with you?”

“Oh, oh, oh,” you moaned as you began to shake, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” you wetted your dry lips with your tongue, “yes, doctor.”

He lowered himself lightly onto the cushion. He leaned forward and looked you in your face as you tried to hide from him and struggled to breathe. “I’m going to count and you breathe in time; one, two…”

You focused on the numbers and rocked back and forth until your heart slowed and your gasps petered out. He stopped his count and sat up. He stayed where he was, his hand on his thigh as you felt his gaze on you.

“So, what has been happening in your life, ma’am?” he asked.

“I’m sure my husband--”

“No, I don’t speak with husbands, I want to hear from the women themselves. You see I run a practice for women and their troubles and I cannot treat these troubles if they come from the lips of men. So you explain, in your own way, in your own time.”

You raised your shoulders and exhaled. You folded your hands and nodded. You tried to sort through all your thoughts, the blurred days, and the frightening nights.

“Today is the first I’ve left my bed in more than a week. It’s not the first time, either. It keeps happening and… I just don’t know why,” you’re voice quivered as you shrunk down in shame.

You waited in silence. You peeked over at him as you expected him to speak.

“Go on, just pretend as if you were speaking to yourself. No one else is here, you’re just going through your thoughts aloud. Sometimes when we hear them, they are clearer to us.”

“I don’t understand--” you clapped your hands.

“Close your eyes and keep talking.”

You swallowed and let your lids shut. The room disappeared and you mustered your voice. You didn’t know where to begin. So you went back to the day you married Peter. From the wedding day, to the first episode, the second, the third, you gave a brief map of the three years you’d been together. Then you braced yourself for it, the “I don’t know” and “nothing’s wrong”.

“Hmm,” he stood and you opened your eyes. He paced to the other side of the room and leaned against the table. “That’s not everything. You… have to be honest with yourself. This isn’t about me and what I think, it’s about you. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” you gulped.

He nodded and crossed his arms. He dropped them when he saw you frown and resumed his seat on the stool. He sat straight and watched you but held no anger or malintent in his gaze.

“Alright, then we shall go through some questions and answers. Many of my patients find a dialogue more helpful,” he said. “Now, I might ask some personal questions but remember that your answers do not go beyond these walls.”

You bit into your bottom lip and hummed your agreement. He clicked his tongue and smiled again.

“You said you’ve been married for three years, thereabouts, so when was the last time you were close with your husband?”

“Close?” you stammered.

“Intimate,” he prodded.

“Uhhh,” you squirmed and looked away.

“You are married, there is no shame in it. So?”

“Months,” you confessed, “I don’t know how many. And it isn’t as if he doesn’t try but I can’t.”

“Mhmm, and you said you have no children?”

You tensed and couldn’t answer. Your heart sank and you bent over as you hugged yourself.

“You… you’ve lost a child?” he asked softly.

You nodded and batted away tears with your lashes. You shook and grunted in frustration. You stood suddenly and stomped your foot.

“I need to go,” you hissed as you marched to the door.

Doctor Rogers was quick and held the door closed before you could reach it.

“Did he know?” he asked.

You sneered and shook your head.

“Just one?”

You trembled and tried to push his arm down. “I can’t--”

“Hey,” he grabbed your shoulders and edged you back from the door, “I’m trying to help you. You’re here to repair yourself and your marriage, you need to try and it won’t be easy but it would be worse to wallow in all that grief alone.”

“Please, Dr. Rogers, I have to--” you shoved on his arms as you sobbed, “I… I… he is my husband and I can’t give him the most precious thing he ever wanted. I can’t make him happy no matter how I try. It would be a gift if I were to die in that bed. He would be free--”

“No,” he said sharply and guided you backward, “we don’t speak like that.” He sat you down and knelt to look in your eyes, “you don’t speak to yourself like that.”

He sighed and dropped his hands to yours. He held them gently as you sniffed back the tears and hid behind the brim of your hat.

“When was the last?” he asked cautiously.

“I lost it a month and a half back. I abstained from my marital bed in hopes it might survive,” you quavered, “It did not.”

“Is there pain?”

“Now?”

“Yes?”

“At times, but in my soul,” you said.

He let you go and stood, “and how do you sleep?”

“Not much. I cannot. I only lay and stare and wish.”

“Mm, well, I have some things for you to do but they are easy and I do not want you to stress yourself. If you cannot do all, then some.” He sat on his stool again and picked up a small pad. “I will prescribe you a medicine you can put in your tea, it will aid in your sleep and that it the foundation of healing. Then, there are only small things; when your husband comes to you, affectionately, you will let him kiss you, just on the cheek if you wish, but if he cares as you say, you will let him.”

You listened and fidgeted as he spoke.

“And you will do things for yourself and for your children. If you feel like you can make a dinner, do so, if not, you will take a journal and write. These words are only for your. You will write about those you’ve lost so that they may rest and you will too. For every chore you cannot complete, you will write one sentence, or one page, or as many as you need to.”

“What do I write?”

“Whatever you think. Whatever weighs on your heart at that moment. And you will come back to me in two weeks to go over all you’ve done and I have faith that you will make great progress.”

He stood and tore free a page. He neared and held it out to you. “Take this to the apothecary and they will fill it. One drop in your tea, two if it is an especially bad night.”

You took it and rose. You folded it and tucked it into your handbag. You looked up at him and adjusted your cape.

“I’m sorry, doctor, I will try.”

“You will start by not apologizing for yourself. You have a right to feel and be. And try is all I ask.”

He smiled and turned to stride across the office. He opened the door and bent his head. 

“Now, I hope a peaceful day awaits you and don’t forget, two weeks. You will make an appointment at the desk before you go.”

🩺

The drive through the city was quiet as Peter watched you worried from the corner of his eye. He didn’t dare to ask how it went as you hadn’t yet said a word but to tell him to stop at the pharmacy. With the vial in hand, he took your home and sat you at the table as he made another pot of tea.

He sat with you and sipped his own cup as you stared at the reddish brown brew. You lifted the vial and read the hand-written label. It was too early to sleep. You put it down and looked at Peter.

“It was… not bad,” you said slowly.

He perked up and sat forward on his chair. “Was he nice?”

“Very nice,” you felt the hot porcelain, “he listened.”

“And the medicine?” he looked at the vial.

“For sleep.”

“That’s good,” he uttered nervously, “you’re going back, right, dear?”

“Yes, two weeks,” you said, “I hope. I…” you looked at him glumly, “I’m going to try. I want to try.”

“I know,” he reached across the table and took your hand, “and I can help. I only want to help.”

You nodded and squeezed his hand. It was rough against your dry skin. You felt as if your body was falling apart from neglect. Your nails were peeling and cracked at the tips. You turned his hand so you did not have to see them.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

You lifted your head and searched his face. You tried to smile but it was small. 

“Please,” you whispered.

He came around and bent to kiss your forehead, then your cheek. You stood and shyly looped your arms around him. He held you tentatively and as you leaned into him, he relaxed. You were relieved to find the warmth was still there.

🩺

That night, Peter put you to bed and laid beside you. You wore a proper nightgown and the tincture dragged you down in a deep dreamless slumber. When you woke, you didn’t want to get out of bed but if you stayed, you’d feel worse. You dressed and Peter didn’t hide his joy as he readied for a day at the lab.

You ate together, more porridge and he left you with another kiss. When he was gone, you stared at the wall. You took the dishes and boiled water to wash them in the basin. There were only a few so your work was easy. You thought of wiping down the stove but once more felt the lethargic weight on your chest.

So you went to the bedroom and dug out the old recipe book your mother bought you as a wedding present. You hadn’t used it so the pages remained blank but for a single list of ingredients for stuffed duck. You tore out that page and wrote the date on the next.

You sat at the vanity you never used. Peter bought it after your first episode, thinking it might help you to have the mirror and place to store your toiletries. You held open the pages and dipped the pen into the shallow well. Most of the ink had dried up. You made a blotch on the paper as you tried to think of what to write.

You stayed like that and inked the pen again. Then you wrote the name. The name of the daughter you lost. Peter didn’t know that name and you never dared to speak it. She was the first one, at least, you wanted it to be a girl. You wrote that you wanted her to have Peter’s eyes and his sweetness. You wrote about him holding her and smiling down at her. Then, you shut the book and dropped the pen.

You began to sob and leaned on the vanity. You let out horrible, draining wails. You quaked until you had no strength left. You stood and watched your feet as you went to the bed and fell onto it. It hurt so much.

🩺

You tried to follow Dr. Rogers advice, tried to keep to your chores and your writing, but your renewed vigour faded by your next appointment. That morning wasn’t as hard as the first but Peter had to convince you to leave the house. He couldn’t wait for you as he was due at the lab but he gave you coin for your ride back..

You sat in the hushed waiting room and stared at the wall. The other women chatted with their neighbour or read the penny weekly’s left out for the patients. You rubbed your gloved hands together and counted your breaths. You felt that tidal again, the rising wave of nerves rising within.

When your name was called, you were taken to the same room and the same chart was left on the desk. You sat on the sofa but your restlessness had you back up on your feet and pacing. When the door opened again, you turned and stopped as Dr. Rogers entered with a knock.

“Hello, again,” he offered another stiff handshake and you accepted it meekly as you crossed the room, “and how are you this morning?”

You let out a breath and shrugged, “well as I can be.”

“Please, sit, and we can go over the last two weeks,” he waved to the leather bench and sat on his stool. He ignored the chart as he slung one leg over the other. He waited for you to lower yourself onto the couch and watched your hands you wrung them, “would you like some water? A tea?”

“No, thank you, Doctor,” you tapped your heels nervously.

“You’re anxious,” he said. You nodded and he did the same, “why? Did our last appointment go so poorly?”

You shook your head and stilled your fingers, “I don’t know why I am alight, but I am.”

“Mhmm,” he tapped his fingertips on the desk as he leaned his arm against it, “and your home life, has it changed at all?”

“I… I try to do more but it’s difficult,” you admitted, “I get so overwhelmed.”

“Have you written at all?”

“Some but… it makes me sad,” you explained as you folded a wrinkle in your skirt, “I find myself as I was, in bed with a hole in my heart.”

He considered and scratched his chin, his clean shave smooth beneath his fingers. “Your husband, he is… affectionate?” When you affirmed the question, he continued, “and you have made yourself open to him?”

“Kiss, hand-holding, embraces, but… I cannot…” you squirmed, “I cannot even make him feel as my husband.”

“You have a lot of emotions but speaking of them makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?” he uncrossed his legs and sat up straight.

“They feel like excuses, like a delusion I’ve made up to escape my life,” you stared at the floor, “like I’ve lied not only to myself but the man I love.”

“You’ve seen other physicians for your maladies?”

“Several, yes.”

“And what did they tell you?”

“They told me I was healthy and that my emotions were of my own failure,” you poked your palm with your nail, “and I couldn’t claim they were wrong for I don’t know myself.”

“Do you take exercise?” he asked.

“Not often, not anymore,” you replied evasively.

“You go out in the sun? Open the windows?”

“No,” you muttered, “no…”

“I would suggest thought it is with your own will to take it that you leave the house once a day, for a few minutes, for an hour, whatever you can do, and just walk. You don’t have to go anywhere but I want you to see the sun and keep your blood moving.” he stood and cleared his throat, “perhaps you cannot see it or you will not accept it, but you are doing well. You’ve made progress. If I am being quite honest, I did not expect a second visit and that in itself is a feat.”

You pressed your lips together and shifted. He went to the end of the examination table and looked you over.

“Now, as this is our second visit and we’ve gone over the basics, it is my usual practice to administer a physical exam but if your are unprepared, we can delay it until your third appointment,” he said cautiously, “but as you’ve disclosed your difficulties with conception, I do think it pertinent that I rule out any biological barriers.”

Your eyebrows shot up and you sucked in air. The only man who had ever seen beyond your dress was your husband and even with him you were shy. Still, he was a doctor and he might be able to help. You doubted yourself knowing that if you had time to think on it, you would refuse it altogether.

“If you advise it,” you stood rigidly, “I would permit it.”

He bowed his head and pulled the corner of the sheet taut on the table. He backed away and smoothed his white jacket as he went to the door.

“You only need remove your under garments and I will return in a moment. You will lay on the table and I will do a brief exam of your anatomy,” he guided, “Is this to your acceptance.”

“Doctor,” you said and watched him go, releasing a sigh when he was on the other side of the door.

You removed your leggings and drawers and folded them. You climbed onto the table and laid on your bad, your legs clenched together as your skirts felt thinner. You waited and tried to ease your nerves. The knock at the door spiked your pulse and you assured Dr. Rogers you were ready.

He entered and you listened to him move around. You squeezed your eyes shut and he neared the table. You quivered as he came near and his hand settled on the hem of your skirt. He stood at the foot of the table and his shadow coloured your eyelids.

“We’ll take it one step at a time, I will let you know everything I do before I do it,” he assured you, “now, I’m going to have you bend your legs.”

You nodded and kept your eyes closed and bent your legs. He touched your knees through the layers gently.

“Now part them,” he coaxed.

That was harder and as you obeyed, you felt a rush of air slip up your skirts. Your dress rustled and Dr. Rogers held the hem firm.

“I will now have a look,” you heard metal and flinched, “and I will use a special tool to do so. You will feel perhaps a cold touch and some pressure inside but I will be quick.”

You only nodded and gripped the sides of the table. He lifted your skirts entirely and you gasped. You felt the metal instrument on your most intimate part and he pressed it until it was slightly inside of you. He bent over you as he opened you up with the tool and removed it almost as suddenly as he’d applied it.

“Well, I see no abnormalities,” he set the instrument aside and fixed your skirts, “nothing which would cause difficulty.”

You sat up and turned your legs over the edge of the table. You felt your cheeks burn but he seemed entirely unbothered. You reminded yourself how usual the practice must have been for him.

“I would also recommend smelling salts if you do not already use them for when you feel faint or overcome and I will have a diet plan for you to take with you. Those might help improve your condition as well. I think for now,” he neared the door and paused with his hand on the handle, “that is enough change. It isn’t about pushing yourself, it is about little steps.”

“Thank you, doctor,” you said.

“And if you require anything, you needn’t wait for your next appointment. If you have questions, you may come in and ask,” he turned the handle slowly, “along with all we’ve gone over today, you will continue on with what we established since our first appointment.”

“Yes, doctor.”

He smiled and left you again. You slid off the table and reached for your undergarments. You dressed quickly and as you stepped out, Dr. Rogers bid you farewell. You hoped he could help you, that this wasn’t another lost cause.

[jackrrabbit]

it will come back [pt. 2] /// Yandere Shigaraki x f!Reader

Summary: You have a bad habit of picking up strays, and the half-dead villain you find bleeding out in a dumpster is no exception. [Part 1] [Part 3]

A/N: Title from the Hozier song—“don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ, don’t be kind to it / oh honey don’t feed it / it will come back.”

Tags/warnings: yandere, violence (not directed toward reader), crying, Shiggy REALLY likes you, reader needs a friend and a good night’s sleep, non-explicit sexual content. [In later parts: 18+, sex, other stuff]

He—Tomura—keeps visiting.

At first you think it’s because of the free medical care, and you wish you had the spine to tell him to suck it up and go see a professional. After a couple weeks turn into a couple months and his wounds fade into ragged purple scars, though, you start to think differently.

Within a short time Tomura has figured out your work schedule, and he does a decent job of not showing up after your long shifts. The unavoidable consequence of this is that he ends up monopolizing your precious days off, but you come to the realization about a month and a half in that you don’t actually mind. You like it. It’s like spending time with a friend.

Mostly you guys talk. It doesn’t seem like Tomura really has anyone to talk to the way the two of you do, but that’s probably just you projecting. It’s usually shallow stuff—TV shows you like, video games he plays, funny stories from patients you treated. Sometimes when you’re cooking for yourself, you make extra for him. (It happens a lot, actually, and at one point you bring up how much his appetite is costing you and the next time you see him he brings a bag of rice and makes you a porridge that crunches between your teeth when you try to eat it. You can’t finish yours, but he eats an entire bowl and insists that you’re being picky.)

Sometimes he sleeps over on the couch, but he’s always gone when you wake up.

The two of you skirt around the heavier stuff, and you know it’s intentional on his part. You have to resist the urge to ask him about being a villain—he’s all but confirmed it for you, and it’s human nature to be curious, isn’t it? In the same way you can’t help looking at a car crash, you want to poke and prod and find out what it is, exactly, that Tomura does for a living. That part of his life is suspiciously absent from your discussions—if you didn’t know better, you’d think he spends all of his time sleeping and playing games and breaking into your place.

On the other hand, you don’t want to know. Plausible deniability. You can accept criminality in the abstract, but you’ve treated too many victims of the bullshit hero–villain battle to be comfortable really knowing why Tomura avoids public places.

So you don’t ask about it, and Tomura doesn’t tell, and you don’t look up his name. And it’s easy. It’s nice. You’d forgotten what it’s like to come back to a home that isn’t empty.

And then one day when you get off a few hours early from your shift, you stop by a convenience store to pick up some snacks for yourself (hey, you’ve been working hard, you’re entitled to binge a little on foods that you’re afraid to look at the fat content for), and you think, Hm, I wonder if Tomura wants some.

[You: 7:49 PM] > Are you coming over today? [T: 7:49 PM] > Yeah why [You: 7:51 PM] > Getting snacks > Want some? [T: 7:51 PM] > No

[T: 8:12 PM] > When r u coming back to ur place

[T: 8:58 PM] > Hey where are you

[T: 9:39 PM] > (Y/N)?

There’s a man with a gun in the convenience store.

It takes you a second to process at first. You’re standing in the snack food aisle seeking out Oreos and debating the merits of Double Stuf vs. Mega when you catch the mumbled demand and the metallic clicking noise you’ve only ever heard in movies before. It’s a gun—you know that, but your mind dismisses it because it’s ridiculous. Guns are rare in hero society. People don’t go around robbing bodegas at gunpoint anymore.

(You should know better. You work in a goddamn ER. But you compartmentalize, and the crimes you see written across your patients’ bodies stay out of the realm of your personal life because you need them to.)

It’s only when you see the muzzle of a hunting rifle pushed up to the cashier’s sweaty neck that you really understand what’s happening.

You drop to the ground immediately, looking toward the exit but it’s shut and there’s some kind of metal…thing holding the door closed. The cashier mumbles a denial and you can hear him fumble around with the cash drawer for what feels like ages.

It’s real. This is real. You’re in the middle of a robbery. Where are the heroes? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

God, you’re a hypocrite, cowering behind the aisle divider and waiting for someone to step up while the robber’s demands get increasingly louder and more frantic. He wants money, and the cashier (who, you remember, is a man in his sixties with hands that shake with Parkinson’s when he holds out your receipt) isn’t being fast enough.

“That’s it? There’s no more? Are you fucking kidding me, there’s gotta be a safe or something—“

“No! No, p-please, I’m sorry, this is all I have!”

You cringe, crushing your eyes closed as if that will make it go away. You’re surprised you can hear at all over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

“Don’t fuck with me old man, I know there’s more! Show me the safe or I’ll blow your goddamn brains out!”

No! You have to do something. You can’t just sit here. You’ve heard plenty of death threats from your patients (not to mention that one from Tomura), and you know the difference between a bluff and a serious warning. Maybe you can catch the robber off guard, try to pull the gun away? You stand up quickly, hoping against hope that you won’t regret this, but in a split second you see that the cashier has the same idea and he’s trying to pull the rifle out of the robber’s hand and—

BANG.

Something warm and wet splatters across your face.

///

Tomura is angry when you get back to the apartment. As soon as he hears your key in the lock he rises from your couch so he can grab your collar with three fingers, jerking your head up to force you to look at him. “Where have you been? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting—“

But he cuts short in the middle of his sentence. Maybe because he sees the look on your face. Or maybe he just notices the traces of blood you haven’t been able to wipe off.

“What happened,” Tomura says. It’s not a question. He adjusts his grip slightly so it’s not quite as punishing, but you hold still anyway.

You have to force your mouth open in order to speak, but when your voice comes out it’s more steady than you thought it would be. “It’s not my blood. There was a robbery at the store. The cashier got shot.”

“Oh.” He releases you and frowns. “That’s it?”

“Fuck you.” You push past him into the kitchen to get yourself a drink with trembling hands. Pantry’s out of shōchū, whiskey will just make you sicker—ahh, there it is. Baijiu. The glug glug glug of the liquor into the glass does nothing to put your nerves at ease, but you pour yourself a double anyway.

“Wait—wait.” Tomura’s hands twitch and rub over his arms like he’s trying to stop himself from grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you. “Calm down. Why are you so upset? Don’t you see this stuff every day?”

You do. You’re an ER nurse. There’s no injury you haven’t seen. But it’s not about the blood. “I...I knew him. The cashier. He was nice. He had a grandkid on the way. I—“ You bite your lip and down the baijiu in one gulp. It burns.

Tomura clearly doesn’t know how to comfort you; probably doesn’t even really know why you need to be comforted. What does it mean that death is so meaningless to him? you wonder. But you need someone to listen to you, clueless or not, and Tomura will have to do.

The baijiu is still bitter and hot down your throat when you speak again. “You know something? Know what they asked me when the heroes finally showed up and pulled us out of there, me and the corpse?”

“…What?” Tomura asks warily.

“They stuck a camera in my face and asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to the hero who saved me. Any words of gratitude I wanted to share,” you spit. Now it’s your turn to feel your hands making fists at your sides. Your fingernails scratch into your palms like the pain can be an outlet for the sudden overwhelming fury spilling over you. “They didn’t save him. They were too late.”

Tomura’s eyes widen, and through your curtain of anger you can tell he’s looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. It’s unlike him to even look directly at you, and when he does it’s usually in disinterest or half-sincere irritation. This, though…this is different. He’s watching you like a believer watches a prophet. You can tell—or at least some deep, ugly part of you that you hope is wrong can tell—that he’s trying not to smile.

“I hate this,” you say, and the first tear drips out of your eye and runs down your cheek. It’s awful. You don’t want to cry in front of Tomura. You don’t want to show him how weak you are. But before you can wipe it away, Tomura’s hand comes up and does it for you, smearing the tear over your cheek in a gesture that—for him—is oddly tender.

Then he hugs you.

It’s stiff and awkward, like he’s forgotten how to do it, but the intention is clear. His arms fold around your back, pulling you into his chest while his chin makes its way to rest on your shoulder. He’s leaning into you so deeply that your spine is arched back, and you stagger away from him only for him to step closer again to make up the distance.

“It’s not fair, hm,” he murmurs into your hair. His tone is the closest thing to sympathy you’ve ever heard from him, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement you can’t ignore. “They’re always too late, aren’t they? The heroes… And everyone will watch that video of you thanking the heroes, and they’ll think they’re safe too. They’ll keep going about their lives and think that nothing bad can happen to them because a hero will always be around to save them…but you and I know that’s a lie.”

It takes you a second to recognize the emotion that’s raising goosebumps over your arms while Tomura rubs circles into your back, but when it clicks you shiver because it’s fear. You’ve never really been afraid of Tomura before, even when you should’ve been. Does he realize he’s backing you up with how forcefully he’s pushing himself into you? The backs of your knees hit the arm of your couch and you topple onto it with Tomura following.

He holds himself above you on his hands, legs tangled with yours. His eyes are wild and he’s not even trying to suppress his grin now. You’re trapped lying on your back under him—pinned like a butterfly under glass.

“Get off of me,” you say as calmly as you can.

“It’s all a lie, all of it…” A hand comes up and strokes your cheek, rubbing with two fingers at a stray fleck of blood on your neck. “I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I’m so glad you understand…”

“Let me up now, Tomura.”

He holds still for a long moment—waiting, thinking, considering—and then sits up, still straddling you but loosely enough that you can scramble back away from him on the couch. Your heart is racing, but you try to slow your breaths so he doesn’t pick up on how scared you are.

“Don’t freak out. You’re no fun,” Tomura says, and you exhale a sigh of relief at how normal he sounds. You never thought you’d be so happy about him looking at you like you’re nothing.

“I think you should go,” you say carefully.

He rocks back on his heels and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you mad? I thought I could stay here tonight, like usual. Since I waited for so long.”

“I’m not mad. I just…want to be alone.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone tonight. Not after what you’ve been through.”

Oh, now you care. “Fine. Okay? Fine. You can sleep on the couch.” You’re too tired to argue any more, and you’ve never really been good at convincing Tomura to do anything he doesn’t want to. It’s a miracle he listened to you when you told him to get off you. Considering how often he breaks into your apartment, it’s not like you could keep him out anyway.

So he stays the night. He doesn’t bother you when you take a shower and go to bed, he just lies on the couch in his street clothes. When you wake up in the morning he’s disappeared like he always does, and for the first time since you met him you’re truly relieved that he’s gone.

///

You always thought it would take some level of courage you don’t possess to actually bite the bullet and look Tomura up. To do so would mean saying goodbye to whatever strange relationship the two of you have built over the months, and you’re just not brave enough to risk it.

Turns out it’s not courage that makes you type his name into the search bar. It’s cowardice. You’re lying in bed under the covers when you do it, and the blue-white screen of your laptop is the only light in the room. Your comforter is pulled up almost over your head like it’s a wall that can block out reality.

“tomura”, you enter into the search bar, but you don’t hit return. Instead, you look at the search suggestions.

> tomura shigaraki > tomura shigaraki league of villains > tomura shigaraki decay

Something about it sounds familiar. But you’re not ready. Still, after everything, you’d rather keep your eyes closed. You backspace and snap your laptop shut, and when you do your room is so dark that you think the emptiness might swallow you up.

///

[T: 5:52 PM] > Are u going to be at home tn

[T: 6:14 PM] > Hey check ur phone

[T: 6:42 PM] > Stop ignoring me > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N)

[T: 6:46 PM] 3 MISSED CALLS [You: 6:50 PM] > I’m at work [T: 6:50 PM] > Don’t lie > you finished an hour ago

[T: 7:13 PM] 1 MISSED CALL [T: 7:14 PM] > You said you werent mad [You: 7:15 PM] > I’m not [T: 7:15 PM] > Then stop being a brat > im coming over > ill bring takeout

You’re nervous about seeing him, but in the two weeks since he pushed you down on the couch you’ve found yourself…missing him. Like it or not, he’s made himself a fixture in your life. So when you get home you’re brimming with anticipation, wondering who you’ll get when you open the door—the normal Tomura you’ve come to like over the past few months, or the one from that night. The villain.

But it’s just him. Good old Tomura, laden with plastic bags and containers of greasy fast food for the two of you to gorge yourselves on. You tease him for being cheap and he argues that you’re just a snob and everything seems so normal that you can almost forget the look in his red eyes when he told you that you understood.

Almost.

///

You probably have no idea how good you look when you’re crying.

Of the couple thousand views on the news channel video of your “rescue” from the convenience store robber, at least a tenth are from Tomura. Eventually he just downloads the video onto his computer so he doesn’t have to read the inane comments that the other viewers leave on the webpage. It seems like everyone but him thinks you should feel lucky that you were saved by a hero before the robber could get to you, too.

As always, the public are a bunch of shit-soaked morons. Reading the comments makes him angry, so angry he’s tempted to look into a few of these brainless sheep and see how lucky they feel when they’ve caught the attention of a violent criminal. But that wouldn’t be productive, so he saves the video externally and leaves the news website alone. It’s for the best. Besides, seeing the “views” counter on the website tick up and up by the dozen every time he refreshes is just another reminder that other people are watching this; other people are seeing how delicate and vulnerable and pretty you are with tears spilling out of your eyes and the cashier’s blood sprayed over your clothing.

Thousands of useless fucking NPCs are looking at you just like Tomura is. They’re probably thinking about how sweet you look, just like he is. And they’re probably imagining all the ways they can take advantage of your fragile emotional state, just like him.

You’re too trusting for your own good. Tomura used to think it was a virtue, and it is, but only when it comes to him. Whenever he thinks about how your face is slapped over a dozen different news websites for the whole world to see, he has to dig his fingernails into his neck to keep calm. It’s better when he can just watch the video and pretend he’s the only one seeing it.

And it’s not like not watching the video is an option. Tomura can’t resist your crying face. There’s a point around the three minute mark where your voice breaks in the middle of your statement, and sometimes Tomura skips there in the video just so he can hear that pathetic little sob and replay it over and over and over. Maybe it’s sappy, but Tomura really does feel his heart skip a beat at the way your eyes and nose are rubbed red from your misery.

How fucked up is it that he gets off watching you cry?

Would you be angry if you knew? You probably would, but you put up with so much from him already. Maybe you’d be okay with it if he told you he really and truly tried to hold out. The first dozen times Tomura watched the video, he refused to touch himself no matter how tight his pants got while you choked out your stilted answers to the reporters’ questions, but at this point he barely has to click “play” on the video before he gets hard and takes matters into his own hands.

At the end of the day, it’s your fault. Everything about you is so erotic, from your shaky voice to your pouty, bitten-red lips. Isn’t it completely normal to be aroused while looking at the person you like? And Tomura likes you, he really likes you. He doesn’t have any pictures of you, and with the high definition of the news channel’s video he can see every perfect contour of your cheekbones, every pore in your skin, every glistening wet eyelash.

It’s not that Tomura doesn’t feel sympathy for how upset you are in the video. He does! Not even just sympathy, even—he’s empathetic. He knows exactly how it feels to be let down by the heroes. How dare they tell you you need to be grateful while you’re still trying to wipe brain matter off your shirt? Always too little, too late. It’s not fair.

But if he’s being honest? As miserable as you are, Tomura is happy that you were in the store when that robber came in and that you had to watch a man you knew get his brains blown out in front of you. You need a wake-up call to lose faith in hero society. If you have to suffer some emotional trauma in the process, that seems like a fair price to pay.

And the fact that Tomura gets to jerk off to it? It’s almost like destiny.

➠ [Part 3]

[prettywordsyouleft]

To Be Continued - Part 1

Summary: As an author, you had created Brian Kang for your current trilogy series to represent the ultimate man that everyone would love, along with Charli Evers - your female protagonist. What you hadn’t expected was for him to find a way out of the story and begin shaping up your world instead

Pairing: Brian Kang x female writer (ft. Park Sungjin)

Genre: writer au / romance / fantasy

Warnings: fictional characters coming to life / a bit of angst here and there / Sungjin as a cop (or does that only affect me?) >_>

A/N: this story idea was created from receiving two prompts for Brian in the YouxIdol drabble game I was completing this year. In this part, you can find prompt #186, “You don’t have to answer right away. I’d wait an eternity for you.”

Word count: 2252

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

Brian cupped her cheek tenderly with one hand, smoothing out any worried lines across her forehead with the other. He smiled encouragingly, tears threatening to spill from his eyes with his heightened emotions. “You don’t have to answer right away.”

“I don’t?” Charli breathed back, knowing that her response to his question was already formed. Yet it wasn’t the right time for any love confessions right now. Despite this, her answer rushed to the back of her throat, where she tried to swallow it back down repeatedly.

Brian already knew and nodded softly to let her know of this. “I’d wait an eternity for you.”

“Isn’t that a bit too cringe-worthy?” you wondered, pausing to read the words upon the screen with a frown. It wasn’t out of character for Brian Kang and Charli Evers. And it certainly wasn’t the first cheesy line you’d thrown into Captivated either. Still, you mulled over the scene a little longer, deciding whether or not it should be removed.

“What would Charli do in response?” you asked out loud to no one in particular, a flurry of action from your fingers taking place immediately. You followed the scene until completion before taking a break, switching out of the word document and over to your Discord server.

Smiling as you scrolled through the new comments about the upcoming sequel you were in the later stages of writing for Brian and Charli, you let out a rattle of a cough from your chest, groaning at your illness dampening your mood.

“I’m trying to finish this final chapter tonight,” you spoke out into the universe, casting your eyes to the heavens for effect. “I’ve battled through this cold for a week now. It won’t take me down just yet!”

Reaching forward for more cold and flu medicine, you swallowed the capsules down with a painful gulp of water and then felt your forehead. It was hotter than before, though you waved it off as you answered a couple of messages and returned to the final part of the story.

Captivated was the second story in your new trilogy series since your last series Destined had become an overnight sensation. When you sat down to pen the soulmate idea into something more than thoughts in your head, you hadn’t expected the tale to touch so many people over the world. Nor had you believed you would follow it up with To Love You, Forever, And Always either.

You originally felt that Destined was the reason why Brian and Charli’s first story Encounter was easily shared around. The protagonists had their own charms though and you could tell the fan base for this series was different from the last. They were just as eager, however, to find out when the pair would shake free from the star-crossed lovers’ trope and finally give in to the evident love they had for one another.

“Part three it’ll be,” you surmised proudly and somewhat exhaustedly after typing The End onto the electronic manuscript. Leaning back in your chair, you finally allowed yourself to succumb to the illness plaguing you. In a moment of disillusion, your mind conjured up Brian standing before you with concern etched in his eyes. You let the novel scene play out in your head, wishing he was actually here to help you out of your writing office, down to your bedroom and tuck you into bed.

Swinging gently from side to side in your desk chair, you hummed with delight. Brian Kang was your biggest self-indulgence character. You had created Park Jinyoung in Destined to infuriate your main protagonist, but Brian was the ultimate fictional guy. He was playful and kind, caring and thoughtful. He knew when Charli needed him to stand up in her weak moments, and he fought for what he felt was right even when all odds were against him. He also allowed Charli to see his vulnerability and his honesty, gaining him many fans around the world. And if all that wasn’t enough, Brian Kang was incredibly attractive.

You had really created the holy grail of a dream man.

Laughing to yourself in your sick-induced state, you smiled lazily. “Dream men are just that, Y/N. Brian Kang would never exist in this world.”

You nodded to yourself, agreeing with the proclamation, feeling more single in the moment as you did so. It was funny really, you were a successful author of Young Adult romance novels and yet you hadn’t experienced the touch of a man, let alone any ardent confessions since your university days.

“Right, it’s time for bed,” you decided before your mood plummeted further into despair. However, your limbs felt too heavy to move and so you simply closed your eyes once more, hoping a little nap would help you regain some energy to head off to bed later on.

When you opened your eyes next, you found yourself in your darkened bedroom, smiling gently at bringing yourself to bed sometime during the night that you couldn’t remember. Sitting up slowly, you allowed your gaze to adjust to the dim morning light filtering through the small gap in the curtain, before reaching onto your nightstand for your phone.

You blinked. Instead of finding the device, you saw a kitchen bowl and face cloth resting over the edge of it.

Did you bring that with you in the middle of the night? Surely if you had been attempting to bring down your own fever, the face cloth would have been strewn somewhere in among your bedding after falling asleep with it, not neatly placed back upon the side of the bowl. Looking beyond that, you found a bottle of water with a third of the liquid missing. You did vaguely remember sipping on some water overnight, and that eased your mind from your initial confusion.

Shaking your head, and swinging your legs over the side of your bed, you placed your feet in your slippers before padding back into the office in search of your phone. Maybe you had help overnight after all, and you wanted to check if your mother had come over at your request. She had done that one year when you caught a nasty virus and couldn’t cope on your own anymore. Motherly love was definitely needed, and now that you had completed your obligations with Captivated and sent it off to your editor Lily, you would have no restrictions on who entered your creative space.

“Huh,” you said when you saw your laptop screen still open. You had a habit of closing the screen every night after turning the device off and approached it now with some confusion, trying to recollect what you last did the night before. Nothing rose to the surface immediately and you reached for your phone, blindly hitting speed dial on your mother’s number. And when her greeting rang down the receiver, you were more than perplexed.

“Hey, did you come by last night?”

“No, why?” she answered and then gasped. “Y/N, you sound awful! Did you keep working even though you were sick?!”

“You didn’t come here?” you repeated, fingertips reaching for the sticky note upon the computer screen. “Maybe it was Lily.”

“Lily is out of the country isn’t she?” your Mum reminded and you blinked several times before focusing enough to read the note you held.

 You shouldn’t have worked so hard to complete it! Your health is important too. How will I cope if you get any worse? Make sure you rest up well and drink a lot of fluids. I need my best writer in tip top shape to see where my world continues.

I made you breakfast. It’s not much, but make sure you eat before you sit down at this desk, hm?

- B.

 Dropping the note, along with letting your mouth fall ajar momentarily, you stuttered out a hasty farewell to your mum before hanging up the phone and looking to the doorway. Cautiously, you walked through your house to the kitchen where you stopped in your tracks at seeing a tea towel covering something on the bench. Gingerly peeling it back when you finally approached it, you gasped when you found several dishes underneath, along with instructions on how to heat it up.

For a split second, your mind conjured Brian up again, imagining him in your kitchen preparing all this. It would totally be just like him to make sure Charli was well fed to regain her energy from any illness.

But, you weren’t Charli Evers.

In fact, you hadn’t even based her off your personality at all, rather, a close online friend of yours who you admired a lot. So, whilst Brian would definitely go to all this trouble for Charli, you sure were clutching at straws thinking of yourself in the same situation.

Who came into your home then?

Distractedly, you heated the porridge and brewed up the tea the mystery person had prepared as well. You carried the tray of food over to your dining table when it was done and sat down before taking your first mouthful.

And then you mulled over who could possibly step into your house that had the initial B.

Maybe it wasn’t a B, you concluded when you realised no one had access to your house with that letter, even as a surname. Climbing back to your feet, you rushed to your office where you had discarded the first note and held it up to inspect the handwriting.

“It could be an R,” you mentioned out loud, then shook your head immediately. Even if the handwriting was looser than most that you knew of, it couldn’t be anything other than a B.

After examining it for a few minutes, you sat down with a huff. You’d never seen the handwriting before.

You didn’t know whether or not to be alarmed.

Had there been an intruder overnight?

Jumping back up, you persevered through the dizziness that plagued you from moving so fast, heading down the hallway to the front door. The chain was still latched and there was no sign of forced entry. Again, making your way to the back door, everything was in order.

As was every possession you owned – minus the kitchen where the food had been prepared. But even then, the dishes that had been used were rinsed and stacked by the sink.

You jumped when you heard a sudden mewl at your feet and clutched at your heart, before stooping down to pick up your cat Binks. The black cat nuzzled into you affectionately before meowing again. “I guess you want to be fed, huh?”

Walking around the counter, you stopped when you found his bowl with some food remaining. You knew Binks wouldn’t leave food overnight. Glancing at the cat, you frowned. “Who did this, Binks?”

The feline merely yawned and settled down to nap in your arms. It certainly brought the saying, cat’s got your tongue, to mind and you rolled your eyes at the infuriating situation.

Sitting down on your couch, you stared at the wall ahead of you as you tried to find an answer to all the evidence. Stroking the purring animal in your arms, you nodded determinedly.

“The only answer is that I did it in a sleep-induced state,” you announced and Binks opened his eyes to look up at you before rolling around to start licking at his back leg. You sighed. “Right, Binks?”

You were certain your cat thought you were insane. However, it was all you could find to be the answer.

“I got up and I took myself to the kitchen and prepared the ice water to cool down the fever. And went to bed. Then maybe I got up again, which is when I placed the cloth on the bowl and prepared the food. I washed my dishes, including the ones I had piling up from being too busy with work and-”

Binks leapt from your lap then, sauntering down the hallway from your side. Getting up to follow him, you ended up back in your home office, where he pounced up onto your desk, standing on the keys to your laptop. “Hey! Get off!”

Swatting the cat away from the device, you noticed that it hadn’t been turned off overnight. That was not like you at all. Logging into your account, you sat down in your desk chair and shifted back suddenly when you found a new document open.

 I bet you’re in disbelief about now, right? I guess I would be too. It wasn’t you who looked after you all night long, and did your dishes. Wow, you get behind in things when you’re focused on writing.

Don’t worry. I didn’t look around - much.

Your fever went down over a couple of hours whilst I moved back and forth helping you out. It’s the least I can do after you’ve spent so much time with me. Well, we’ve yet to officially meet.

One day.

- B (your biggest fan)

PS. I fed Binks. He really does have quite the personality.

 “Okay!” you sounded in an octave higher, laughing a little to yourself at the same time. “Someone was definitely here. Who is B and how does this person know so much personal information?!”

You were too preoccupied to realise the document to Captivated was still open behind the other one.

And instead of saying The End as it once had, it had been deleted and replaced with To Be Continued.

_________________

Part 2

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[7wanderingpaws]

Simply, Yours. (5)

Pairing: Baekhyun x reader

Genre: family AU, hapkido teacher AU

Word count: 3.1K

Warnings: cursing

a/n: Finally I am updating this little story! I havent updated it in a long while for which I apologise, it wasnt my intention :( But there will be a slight twist in their “planned” pregnancy so... I cant wait to have a little fun 😁  I am always eager to hear your opinions.🙌 Stay safe!

MASTERLIST

PARTS: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5

This time, Baekhyun was the first one to be awake. Stirring a little bit around, he turned to his right side where your back was facing him, your hair splayed out on the pillow like a wild willow tree.

Scurrying a little closer, he brought his pillow to yours, his arm finding your sweet middle as he breathed in your fresh scent. He really liked moments like these, when the sun had yet to rise, the clock had yet to struck 6 and  you had yet to wake up, while he could just indulge in looking at you without being interrupted by anything or anyone.

Plus, the fact that few days had already passed since both you and him found out about your state did not mean he got used to the idea of suddenly three people occupying this bed. What a miracle, he thought. What a blessing.

Baekhyun carefully maneuvered himself out of the bed, his feet gently tapping on the wooden floor as he tiptoed to your side to turn off your alarm clock. He wanted to be the one to surprise you and wake you up with healthy breakfast in bed before both of you would have to head out to your work places.

Today he had a hapkido class with university students and as much as he loved the class, he just wanted to spend time with you.

He was just in the middle of pouring thick and rich pumpkin porridge into the last bowl when he heard you open the bedroom door.

“Baekhyun, what are you doing up so early?” you murmured, your voice low and heavy. “Sorry, it seems like I forgot to turn on the alarm clock. I would have done the breakfast myself,” you continued walking to his side to take the big pot out of his hand so that you could do it instead of him.

Baekhyun continued his job, not budging once at your prying hands. “Why are you up if your alarm clock didn't go off? I worked so hard this morning to turn off your alarm, and yet here you are beating the nature clock.”

“You turned off my alarm?” you asked, surprised.

“Of course I did!” exclaimed Baekhyun, as he put the pot back down on the stove and reached for the drawer to take out two spoons. “Now go back to bed, we have a breakfast to eat and you still owe me a face of surprise when I bring the food in,” he said, preoccupied with putting the bowls on the tray.

You held back the giggle that was threatening to spill at his antiques. “Alright, let me just pee real quick.”

By the time you were back, Baekhyun was bouncing on the bed, eagerly waiting for both of you to indulge in the hot porridge that was one of your favourites. You made sure to look completely taken aback when you sat down on the bed, giving him a loud peck on the cheek before making yourself comfortable. “You know this is the food we have after a hangover,” you murmured, taking a big spoonful and swallowing it in one.

“Oho, slow down, hungry cub. You will get a tummy ache if you eat so fast,” scolded Baekhyun gently, making you smile.

“Yes, chef.”

He gave you a wink. “And anyway. You love this porridge, might as well please your taste buds.”

You nodded, devouring a spoonful after another until you were done before him. And that rarely ever happened. “Done!”

he shook his head at you, trying to swallow the last bids of his porridge.

“Look at me! I rock today,” you laughed loudly when he pouted.

“It isn't fair,” he whined, putting down his spoon into now an empty bowl. “I am alone while you guys are two!”

Your laughter halted, melting into an endearing smile. Warmth spread through your insides. “I don't think its the matter yet,” you responded. “It has long way to grow for me to eat for two, you know?”

“No, it doesn't. It still counts.”

Rolling your eyes at him, you reached over the tray to mess up his bed hair. “Alright, whatever you say, mister. Still does not change the fact that I win for today, ha! And now, you better hurry, you need to be at the university in an hour!”

“First a kiss,” he demanded, crossing his arms on his chest.

Smiling, you pressed your lips to his warm ones, tasting the porridge. 

“Love you,” he murmured.

Once Baekhyun was out the door, you rushed to prepare for your work only to end up with your head in the toilet, throwing up all the porridge and more. 

____

You made it your absolute, utmost priority to keep your blessed state as far away from the workplace as possible. Not only was it all so fresh and new, but you also needed to wait till the first trimester was over to be 100% sure the pregnancy was safe and actually happening. Besides, you would lose your job immediately if your boss as much as whifs a baby around you. Thankfully, he was not the smartest man, as much as he insisted himself.

It only got proven when he called you into his office few days later, his meaty index finger pointing at the contract in front of him. It was a deal between yours and a Chinese company, but it was written in English. “I am sure there was a mistake on their side,” he mumbled, frustration slowly, but surely boiling in his facial features as he was gripping the piece of paper. He chuckled bitterly. “And they think I wouldnt find out? Just who do they think they are? I find out everything,” he seethed through gritted teeth as he suddenly snapped his eyes up at you, catching you off guard in the process.

You winced, taking a cautious step back, trying not to give too much attention to the meaning behind his words. “Sir, I believe this is correct,” you tried to explain gently, “the deal does not have any mistakes in English, we have already skimmed through it.”

He frowned. “But the calculations aren't correct. There should be one more zero.”

As calmly as you possibly could, you explained to him that he, indeed, bought much more than he actually thought. Making business was not always rainbows and unicorns, and today this fact seemed to dawn on your boss. “You were in a conference call last week,” you kept reminding him, “and because they offered you a good deal, you decided to buy more. Therefore you had to pay more, and we received less.”

He snatched the paper out of your small hands and gave you an ugly stare. “Whatever. I know my things,” he mumbled, turning his face back to the table.

“That is my job, sir.”

He whipped his head back at you again, but you only bowed at him politely, turning to walk out of his office when he started: “I still haven't scolded you for lying to me.”

Raising your head from your bow, you looked at him with worried eyes. “Lied to you, sir?”

He scoffed. “You lying about having a boyfriend was not the best move. Even if it is a white lie, I don't want any of it in my office. Nor in this company.”

You nodded, fully aware and guilty. You saw this coming sooner or later.

“And,” he started, giving you a side-look. “You plan on getting married?”

Holding back your breath, you knew you could reply to him truthfully. “No. Definitely not anytime soon anyway. As you know, it is a pricey matter.”

“Well, if you keep up the good work here, you might be able to save some money for such occasion,” he replied, his poker face giving you a slight unease. “Besides, I'm sure your handsome boyfriend would earn loads with that face of his.”

To that, you did not want to reply. Baekhyun, indeed, was a handsome man. This was a fact ever since you got to really know him back in the high school days, when he already graduated but still would sometimes visit your school for physical work around the building. The girls would be drooling and swooning in the big hallway windows during break, but he saved his handsome boyish smiles only for you,  always giving you a wink that would swoosh away the unwanted company of other girls.

When your boss realised he wouldn't get an answer from you, he ended the conversation on a very straight-forward note. “Whatever. Just don't get pregnant with him. Or anyone. No pregnancy in this company.”

-

It has been a few weeks later that the battle with the rollercoaster of your emotions had gone downward. There were still no direct signs of a small human being inside of you, but oh my goodness, were your hormones and emotions acting up. Tired of constantly puking your guts out on the morning, then rushing to work, dealing with the moody bastard of a boss, being either desperate for Baekhyun's touch or just plain hating his presence in the same room was driving you up the wall. 

Countless times you ended up bawling your eyes out in the bathroom in your work, or in the shower at home, because you didn't see a way out of this. Plus, the stress of accidentally revealing your pregnancy even to the ever-so-kind Sukyeong left you with a heavy soul. You needed to talk to someone of your age, you needed some help but your own independent self couldn't as much as think of such an option.

Another issue was scaring Baekhyun away from you and him leaving you alone in this mess that HE created… No, scratch that. Your slight change in weight made you feel so utterly unattractive that you were trying not to physically shudder whenever he complimented you about your looks. And the poor boy hadn't even a clue about your internal turmoil.

You sighed.

“You look freaking gorgeous, love.”

He said it again. And he meant it, he honestly did. You saw it in his eyes.

Being now almost past the first trimester, you and Baekhyun were both dressing up for your scheduled ultrasound at the doctor's. Although you were a bit nervous, you were thankful Baekhyun was always there throughout each check-up you had. And yet, here you were pissed at him, but you said nothing.

“Are you alright?” he asked you carefully, knowing how your mood could change within a nanosecond. He came closer to you as you were standing in front of the mirror you had in your tiny bedroom.

Swallowing harshly, you nodded, but did not look into his eyes. Ever so gently, through your tight dress, you saw a gentle baby bump. It could easily be covered up (and you did passionately cover it up for work) but it was there. Solid. A prove that it was real.

“Do we want to know the gender, honey?” asked Baekhyun gently, as he made another step closer to you and he let his hands hold your hips before his wide palms ever-so slowly slid over your stomach where he let them rest. Then his chin came resting on your shoulder as he turned his face to give you a gentle kiss to your neck.

You heart-rate picked up and it wasn't because of the high blood pressure you had been experiencing recently. “I don't know,” you whispered looking at him through the reflection in the mirror, “do we?”

This topic has been on your mind for the longest time. Do you want to be surprised? Or do you want to be prepared? Surely, in the nature of the village life, the answer would be an immediate: yes, we do want to know. Poor villagers always wanted certainty, and it was only understandable. But maybe this unpredictable city life of Seoul made you more adventurous. You might have not wanted to know.

He hummed, the vibrations in his chest sending electric shocks down your spine, causing you to squirm in his arms. He let out an amused laugh through his nose before he whispered into your ear: “So sensitive, my love.”

“You fucking tease,” you glowered, but leaned back into him.

He gasped softly and squeezed your body. “Now there, sweet cheeks, we do not swear with a baby inside of you.”

“Then stop teasing, love” you snapped back and he laughed now with an open mouth. “You know exactly what you are doing. You're sneaky.”

“Sure I am. You know me, hun. And now back to the point,” he emphasized, and you rolled your eyes but smiled anyways. “I don't mind if we get surprised. But if you want the gender to be revealed, I am supporting that as well.”

You nodded as you held his hands on your belly, letting your fingers caress the top of his knuckles. “Alright,” you said, nodding. “I think I will, ehm, see how I feel once we are there?”

He hummed in approval before he turned his head again, waiting for you to turn your face to see him. So you did. And then he gave you the sweetest smile of support before he leaned in and gave you a breathtaking kiss, ending it with a loud smack. “Shall we go then?”

-

Usually it was always an uncomfortable experience to sit in the waiting room of your doctor with other pregnant ladies. When you weren't pregnant, you felt so out of place, despite you having an active lovemaking life. That was why you were sitting there, right? Even at those times, Baekhyun was going with you, just because he wanted to be responsible and also to support you. He knew how much the village ladies didn't go for regular check-ups.

So now, sitting there with your tiny belly as your hands were intertwined with your boyfriend, it was a completely different feeling. You were still shy to as much as lie on that stupid chair, let alone spread your legs in front of a stranger - even though it was a woman and a doctor. But now it just felt right. You were eager. Excited. Happy. Curious. And Baekhyun felt your excitement as your knee was bouncing up and down. He was excited as well. The sparkle in his eyes was proving it.

Once finally inside, you both took a seat opposite your doctor, who gifted you with a kind smile as she also took a seat and skimmed through your papers. “The lovely couple I could never forget,” she noted, briefly looking at you and Baekhyun before diving back into your records. “And the unplanned baby. So!” she exclaimed, folding quickly the papers before she rested her laced hands down on the table. “Any abnormalities?” she looked at you, obviously expecting you to answer her questions.

Squeezing Baekhyun's hand under the table, you shrugged, not sure if what you were about to say was an abnormality. “Crazy mood swings. Emotions are a mess. Throwing up is still on, but thankfully not so often… And my boobs hurt,” you mumbled the last sentence, looking at your hand engulfed in Baekhyun's, a slight blush creeping up your cheeks. This time Baekhyun squeezed your hand, although you didn't notice the affectionate look he sent your way. You dared to look up when you heard the doctor laugh.

“Those are all completely normal signs. Is your blood pressure still acting up?” she asked and as she was waiting for your reply she turned in her chair and grabbed the little machine. “I will check it now.”

You nodded but Baekhyun answered for you. “She had a couple of dizzy moments, but it wasn't as severe.”

The doctor nodded and checked you up, writing down the final results. “It's normal today. But if it will get too high, you need to go to the hospital. You know that, right?”

Not the happiest with her advice, you nodded.

“Good,” she replied cheerfully. “Any questions before we start the ultrasound?”

You were just about to shake your head when your boyfriend cleared his throat, stopping you from doing the action. You gave him a wary look, and he squeezed your hand again when he spoke: “How is it with, eh, sex? As the baby is growing, we are not sure how far we can go or if we should even do it. And I wouldn't want to hurt my girlfriend or the baby...” he trailed off, his ears growing pink. You felt your heart swell with love for him as you smiled like a little high school student.

“Oh my god, please do have sex,” replied your doctor, her eyes worried as she gestured with her hand to you. “She might not be showing it, but the sexual frustration can get out of hand, to put it nicely,” she continued, her stance confident. “Paying attention to your pregnant lady is very important in every phase of pregnancy and it is completely safe. Of course, around the due date you might want to be more careful, however it does not necessarily affect the baby in any way, so there is no need to worry, Baekhyun. It is more than healthy,” she laughed loudly, making you and Baekhyun giggle in the meantime.

“Any more questions? No? Good! Then let's get to it,” she clapped her hands, swiftly getting up from her chair and walking to the bed where you lied down, now familiar with the process. Baekhyun was sitting on a chair just where your head was, and he ran his fingers through your hair, giving you a reassuring smile while you tried not wince at the cold gel touching your hot skin covering your stomach.

“So do we want to find out the gender?” she asked as she spread the gel evenly, now digging into your tummy while she was already looking at the screen.

You contemplated quickly but before you could answer the doctor cut through: “Or do you want to know how many babies you would have?” she asked, but her voice was light but a bit unfocused as she stared at the screen. 

Not seeing Baekhyun's frown, he asked: “What do you mean?”

It was silent for a little longer, your doctor going through the same trail on your belly again, probably to double check whatever she saw there. Letting out a tiny laugh, she turned to look at your puzzled looks. “Well, this is fantastic!” she exclaimed and for some strange reason you had a feeling this might not be the best news, nor the news you were expecting when you were coming there. So when she uttered the next words, you felt your world crumbling down on you, and this time you could be sure Baekhyun wasn't as confident either. “You are expecting triplets!”

[splendidlyimperfect]

chapter 8 - you are enough

Geralt's filled with guilt and Jaskier is trying not to be angry, but when they leave Sayla's farm, all the feelings they've been trying to ignore come to a head.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 Fandom: The Witcher Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Geralt/Jaskier Other Tags: angst, hurt/comfort, major injury, guilt, caretaking, geralt’s an idiot, i hurt jaskier a lot

-----

They stay with Sayla for a week before Jaskier feels well enough to travel.

Stop looking at me like that, Jaskier signs one-handed as Geralt helps him tug a clean shirt over his head and around his injured wrist.

Geralt grunts in response, slipping the sling around Jaskier’s shoulder and helping him shift his arm into it. The healer stopped by yesterday to change the bandages again and show Geralt how to do it on his own. Both wounds are still ugly and red, but the ragged edges are sutured now, and Jaskier is able to move his fingers a little.

Only a little, though. Geralt’s stomach twists with guilt as he stares at Jaskier’s wrist and thinks of him never being able to play again.

Jaskier huffs and kicks Geralt in the shin. Stop it, he signs again. He adds a sign that Geralt doesn’t recognize but refuses to explain it when Geralt raises an eyebrow.

Continue reading on AO3

“I need to get Roach saddled up,” Geralt says roughly. “Can you—”

I’m fine. Jaskier pushes himself to his feet and spreads his good arm out in a ta-da gesture. I promise.

Geralt doesn’t believe it. There’s a half-smile on Jaskier’s face, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which are dark and tired. He’d woken up in the middle of the night again, shoving at Geralt’s chest and trying to scream, and Geralt had nearly cried as he’d held Jaskier close and shushed him back to sleep.

Jaskier hadn’t said anything in the morning when he’d woken up in Geralt’s arms. Geralt’s not sure if he’s pretending or if he truly doesn’t remember the dream, but Geralt’s not going to bring it up.

“Sayla made breakfast,” he says quietly, gesturing down the hallway. “Something soft, for…” He tries not to look at Jaskier’s throat.

Jaskier sighs, reaching out and squeezing Geralt’s hand before limping past him into toward the kitchen.

~

Fine, Jaskier thinks as he heads down the hallway. I’m fine. It’s fine. Fine, fine, fine. Maybe if he thinks it often enough, it’ll become true, because right now he’s the farthest fucking thing from fine and he doesn’t know how long he can hold it together.

“Good morning, love,” Sayla says when she sees him, gesturing for him to join her at the table. He settles down awkwardly, nodding in thanks when she hands him a cup of tea. “Sleep all right?”

Jaskier doesn’t reply, just grips the cup tightly and stares at the way his knuckles go white. He remembers dreaming – blood and teeth and things that hurt. In the dream he had screamed; had called out Geralt’s name over and over, begging for help that never came.

He’d woken to Geralt, sitting in the chair next to the bed, holding his shoulder and saying over and over, “It’s all right, you’re okay, you’re safe.” Anger had burned through the fear and everything had been white-hot, Jaskier’s fists pounding against Geralt’s chest, gasping around a sound he couldn’t make, terrified and trembling.

Waking up later in Geralt’s arms had been both suffocating and a relief.

“Hungry?” Sayla asks. She holds out a bowl of watery porridge and Jaskier does his best to not make a face. “I know it isn’t much,” she says, setting the bowl on the table next to him. “The healer said you can’t eat hard foods, though.”

I know, Jaskier thinks bitterly. He takes a sip of the tea and winces when he has to swallow. It doesn’t burn like the first time, but it still hurts.

Everything hurts.

He absently flexes his fingers of his injured hand and tries not to think about how it had looked yesterday when the healer had peeled back the bandages and re-tightened the splint.

“You’ll play again,” she’d reassured him when she’d seen him looking at his lute case in the corner of the room. “Just give it time.”  

The front door scrapes open and the memory fades as Geralt steps into the house. Jaskier can’t look up at him because he knows that all he’ll see is the lines of guilt and regret that have taken up permanent residence on Geralt’s face, and Jaskier doesn’t know how to deal with that right now. He knows, logically, that none of this is Geralt’s fault, but he’s still bitter.  

This wouldn’t have happened if you’d been there, the angry part of him thinks. I would have been safe with you, but you pushed me away.

“Ready?” Geralt asks. Jaskier hates the uncertainty in his voice. He’s guilty and Jaskier’s terrified, and nothing can make either of them feel better.

 ~

 Geralt isn’t surprised when Jaskier refuses to ride on Roach. He’s stubborn – although not usually this stubborn – so Geralt doesn’t argue for the first hour or so. Instead he walks at Jaskier’s pace, meandering along the road underneath the soft blue sky. Roach doesn’t seem to mind, stopping every once in a while to nibble on flowers or patches of grass.

When they finally reach the crossroads at the edge of the city, Jaskier stops.

“What’s wrong?” Geralt asks, reaching out to touch Jaskier’s shoulder. Jaskier flinches and takes a small step away from him, and a piece of Geralt’s heart splinters.

What are we doing? Jaskier asks. He doesn’t look at Geralt, just keeps his gaze on the rows of houses that mark the edge of the city. There’s a slump to his shoulders that seems almost resigned. He signs something else that Geralt doesn’t catch, huffing at him when he doesn’t get a response.

“I don’t understand,” Geralt says.

Jaskier reaches out and grabs Geralt’s arm, then turns his hand up and writes can’t help across his palm.

“I can’t help?” Geralt says, frowning. Jaskier shakes his head, sighing in exasperation. “You can’t help?” Jaskier nods and Geralt studies him for a minute. “You mean you can’t help me?” Another nod. “I don’t—”

Useless, Jaskier writes, and the letters are almost too quick for Geralt to keep up. Should go. Before he can keep going, Geralt grabs his hand and holds it tightly.

“Stop,” he says, shaking his head. Jaskier looks away from him, staring down at the dirt, and Geralt can see tears in the corners of his eyes. “You’re not useless.” Jaskier huffs and nods at his broken wrist. “I don’t want you to go.”

Jaskier’s jaw tightens.

If life could give me one blessing…

“I didn’t mean it,” Geralt says, but he knows the words aren’t enough. He’s worried that nothing will ever be enough to fix the damage he’s done. “Come here,” he says, pulling Jaskier a little closer and gesturing to Roach. “You’re tired. Let her carry you.”

Jaskier looks like he’s going to argue, but Roach intervenes, swinging her head over and butting Jaskier’s chest. He exhales quietly – a hollow imitation of a laugh – then tugs his wrist carefully out of Geralt’s grasp and brings his hand up to stroke Roach’s forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Jaskier sighs, pressing his forehead to Roach’s and then looking over at Geralt. Where are we going?

Geralt hesitates. “I want… to help.” He gestures vaguely to the bandage across Jaskier’s neck. “To fix things.” The words stick in his throat and he wishes it wasn’t so fucking hard to say what he means. “I don’t mean—not fix. You’re not broken, or useless. I don’t want you to stay because you’re useful.”

Jaskier frowns at him and Geralt sighs, tipping his head to the sky and running both hands over his face.

“You don’t have to be useful,” he says after a moment. “You’re enough. Just you.”

Something hopeful flickers across Jaskier’s face, and it lights a spark in Geralt. He reaches out again, carefully this time, and when Jaskier takes his hand, he exhales in relief.

~

Jaskier spends most of the day riding Roach. Despite his insistence on walking for the first while, he’s grateful to be off his feet. Even after a week of lying about he’s still exhausted, and when Geralt settles behind him in the saddle and murmurs, “Go to sleep,” in Jaskier’s ear, he leans back against Geralt’s chest and does just that.

Thankfully he doesn’t dream.

When he wakes again, the sun is beginning to set, spilling golden light across the fields as it sinks slowly toward the horizon. The air is cool, and crickets are starting to chirp, and it takes Jaskier a second to realize that Geralt is humming.

Jaskier quickly closes his eyes again and focuses on keeping his breathing even as he listens to Geralt. It’s not a tune he recognizes; nothing he’s ever sung, just a simple melody that repeats over and over. Geralt’s arm is wrapped around Jaskier to keep him upright, and his thumb brushes absently across Jaskier’s forearm to the rhythm of the song.

Something aches, deep in Jaskier’s bones, at the simple tune. It tugs at half-memories; little moments of his childhood that dissolve like spun sugar as soon as he tries to touch them. A warm sense of belonging floods through him, and he exhales, leaning back further into Geralt’s embrace.

He feels safe.

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s voice is rough in his ear and it takes Jaskier a second to realize he’s crying. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

Jaskier shakes his head as best he can, nudging Geralt’s hand palm up and carefully writing, What song?

He expects Geralt to brush off the question, but instead Geralt says, “I don’t know.” Jaskier draws a question mark on his palm. “I think my mother used to sing it to me.”

The ache intensifies in ways that Jaskier doesn’t understand, and he’s grateful for Geralt’s arm around him as he continues to cry. He’s not sure exactly why he’s crying, but Geralt doesn’t ask, just touches his arm comfortingly and keeps humming.

Eventually Jaskier taps Geralt’s palm again. His hand trembles as he writes, I’m angry, but not at you. It’s like exhaling, and he suddenly feels lighter.

Geralt sighs. “I know,” he says. It seems for a second like he’s going to keep talking, but instead he pulls Jaskier closer to him. Then he leans forward and carefully presses a kiss to Jaskier’s temple.

Jaskier stills in surprise, suddenly very aware of Geralt’s slow heartbeat against his back. His hand hovers over Geralt’s palm, but before he can ask anything else, Gerald slides their fingers together.

“I care for you,” Geralt says softly, lips nearly touching Jaskier’s ear. Then he starts to hum again, rough and quiet, and Jaskier lets the sound comfort him as they continue to ride toward the sunset.

[just-some-random-blogger]

I’m Not Playing | 3

WINNER Gangster!Song Minho x Reader (Mino) | Part 1 2 3 Summary: Through a forced marriage of convenience, you became the wife of the infamous Minho of the Song gangster dynasty. Word Count: 1k+ Warnings: Angst, alcoholism, kinda violent, sadness, slight fluff?, etc.

A/N: inspired by Fiance by Mino which I honestly feel Mino wrote for that song for this series tbh

Mino sat on his big chair behind his big desk in his big dark room in his big empty house.

All the times his wife annoyed him by barging in made up for the deafening silence and loneliness he was receiving now. it had been, what, 79 hours since she left him, and yet he was just as shaken and torn up in the same way she when she walked away... honestly, maybe even worse now.

He didn’t know he was so... so... useless to her. He didn’t know she thought nothing of him.

Didn’t she know that from the moment he saw her, he was absolutely stunned by all of her?

He then found himself laughing bitterly.

How could she know when all of his expressions towards were so stoic and crass?

How could she know when he never made an effort to tell her?

He shlumped down deeper on his chair, replaying what he heard from her. He held onto a bourbon glass that was empt-- woops. Mino shot forward, feeling liquid spill onto his lap. It pulled him back into reality for a moment, making his droop sleep deprived eyes widen temporarily.

Mino then found himself standing and uneasily walking through his large office, then out its door. He bumped into a vase on his way out, but he could not care less. The rest of the house was equally as wrecked anyway.

His unstable legs brought him into the debris ridden living room where he had initially conducted his rampage. He was looking for his car keys, any of them, even if it’s the Lamborghini that has that annoying sound, on the table, on the couch, on the floor, on the wall, on the ceiling, but it was nowhere, and the frustration pulled out a loud guttural sound from him.

“Kure!” he sounded to the wind, “I’ll just walk then, dammit.”

And so Mino went out of his estate and dragged himself out into the city.

He could die, he knew well, and not because his blood had turned into alcohol, and that that could lead impulsively lead him into the middle of the road. No, his rivals could shoot him in broad daylight. Not only was he wasted out of his mind, he was also unaccompanied and heading to the devil knows where.

People threw him looks and dirty stares, but he could not care less.

With a thick purple coat on and Willy Wonka-esque round glasses, he was already a sight to see, but the sharp and undeniable smell of mixed spirits just made him a lot more noticeable.

And after walking for who cares how long, he found himself stopping and turning left. There was a warmth coming from this place that invited him in. He looked up and squinted at the sign. What was that character again?

He swatted the thought away with his hand and walked into the place that smelled like bread. Hmm, was this a bakery? They seemed to be selling bread as well. As the people in the place turned to him, he got a tray and started selecting random pieces of bread.

He moved to select a long one, but it was too hard to the touch. There was one with raisins, but he didn’t like raisins. He placed the empty tray on his head and started patting himself, harder and harder. I don’t even like bread, he thought to himself.

“Song Minho?” a voice cracked from behind him.

The sound was sweet but painful, Mino didn’t want to turn but he did anyway. He dropped the tray when he saw who it was. It was an angel, the angel he had prayed to see.

“W-why are you here?” she muttered, face somber, eyes glossy. Her lips quivered and Mino barely choked out her name in response.

She covered her nose and nodded, “How much have you been drinking?”

Mino wanted to snatch her in his arms, but when he stepped forward, he collapsed onto his knees, making a few people around gasp, including the woman before him.

“Ya!” she scolded, moving towards him, looking down on his figure. Mino’s face was streaked with tears, evident even though his eyes were concealed with large glasses. He didn’t want to, but his body was content with the image before him that it was decided he got the permission to sleep now. 

“Jeosonghamnida,” Mino roughly breathed out, as he closed his eye and felt his mind fly off.

“Minho-ya,” the woman’s voice broke, but he was no longer awake to hear.

“You’re finally awake,” I muttered to the man I was seated beside. I huffed as he looked around, lost. I got the porridge I made him last night and stood from my place, “I’ll just heat this up for you, okay? Porridge isn’t effective when it’s cold.”

Before I could walk away, the man caught my wrist and heaved, “Wh- don’t leave.”

I looked at him and his wet face, “I’m just going to heat this up for you.”

He then jumped out of the bed and grabbed the bowl from me, heading off to the kitchen, quickly walking past me. I watched him zoom off, and with a sigh I followed after him.

He looked at me as he got a pan, placed it on the stove, and poured his porridge in. “Did... did you take me home?” he asked, making me cross my arms and tilt my head.

He pursed his lips at my reaction, “Did you clean up the place too?”

I huffed as I walked towards him, “Who do you think did, Minho?”

Minho coughed, and looked away from me as he buried his head in his hands. I bit my lower lip and sniffled, wiping away the tears that rushed down my cheeks. I let out a breath I held and got a plastic spoon, proceeding to mix the porridge that was beginning to boil.

“Where did you go?” Minho asked.

I looked at the porridge and pulled sharply away when a tear dropped into the mix, “Ah... a hotel.”

It was then Minho faced me, eyes puffy, lower lip trapped between his teeth. “Naega...” he choked on his words and wiped his nose before continuing, “I didn’t look for you.” he admitted, making me feel so many things at once. My chest tightened.

“I wanted you to be free because that’s what you wanted,” he continued.

I looked at him, dumbfounded, unable to utter a single peep.

“I’m sorry I never showed you I loved you.” Minho said, swallowing heavily, “I do though--” his breath hitched, “Saranghae.”

It was at this, I broke down and cried. I left the mixing tool in the pot and covered my face with both my hands. I let out ugly sounds and ragged breathing, “Nado neoleul saranghae.”

Minho nearly fell after hearing the admission that rang in his ears. 

“Mwo?”

I dared to look at him, “I was scared because you didn’t seem to care, but I do... I love you.”

It was obvious Minho couldn’t believe his senses at the moment, and so I moved and wrapped my arms around him. With this, he sealed me in tightly against his chest, lips pressing against the top of my head.

We stayed in each others arms for long enough that I could smell the porridge burn.

I gasped and stirred at it, but Minho kept me in place. “Please don’t ever leave me again.”

I looked up at him, releasing a breath. I placed my hands on his cheeks and placed a kiss on his lips, “I won’t,” I muttered against him, “but right now I have to attend to that porridge unless you want to burn the place down.”

[emospritelet]

I know it’s been awhile, but Christmas etc.  Anyway, last time we left Woven Lace having just had angsty sex following Weaver’s tearing up of the divorce papers.  This chapter is a flashback to just after them having the angsty sex that got her pregnant in the first place...

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9]

AO3 link

Four years earlier

The Greyhound bus drew to a stop with a loud hiss from the hydraulics, and Lacey came out of her doze with a jerk.

“Storybrooke!” said the driver curtly, and her eyes widened as she pushed out of her seat, grabbing her backpack and coat and pulling them on.

She was the only one to alight, the bus stop little more than a single shelter at the end of a well-lit main street.  It was colder than in Seattle, and snow covered the sidewalks, a few flakes drifting down as the bus drove off. Lacey shivered, pulling on her coat and hat and wrapping a scarf around her neck before shouldering her backpack.  She looked around warily, but the street was almost empty, the only figures she could see two people hurrying along with their heads bowed and coat collars turned up against the stiff wind.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she turned away from the main street, taking a side road which she knew cut across town and onto the trail up into the woods.  She wanted to avoid the busier roads as much as she could, preferring to keep to the shadows until she reached her destination. Not that she suspected any threat from the usual residents of Storybrooke, not really, but she had learned that it paid to be careful.

The snow was thicker on the trail, undisturbed except for a single set of footprints, and Lacey hurried along, shivering a little as the cold air bit at her exposed skin.  It was dark, the only light coming from the rising moon, and she stumbled a little on the rough track, arms flying out to steady herself before she hurried on.

Eventually the trail split, and she took the narrower path off to the right, heading over a ridge and down into a valley where the trees met a high fence. Lacey looked around warily, but could see no threat, and so she began to climb, feet ringing a little on the metal links. The fence was built to deter wildlife rather than people, and she vaulted over the top with ease, landing in a crouch on the soft snow beneath.  Hugging the fence, she made her way swiftly around to the north, and a large house loomed out of the darkness, warm lights spilling onto a wide paved area that stepped down to neatly-kept gardens. There was no way to get to the house without leaving a trail, but the snow was falling again, and so Lacey decided to chance it.

She sprinted across the snow-covered grass, arriving at the kitchen door a little breathless, and put her ear to it.  Silence. A brief turn of the handle opened the door, and Lacey slipped inside and into blessed warmth that made her sigh in relief.

The kitchen was clean and empty, stainless steel surfaces gleaming, and she made her way swiftly through and up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the floor above.  The floor creaked a little under her feet, and she moved quickly, stepping on her toes until she reached the third door on the right. Opening it up, she slipped inside a large, high-ceiling bedroom, the walls papered in blue and a thick patterned rug covering the polished floorboards.  A bed was against the far wall, twin lamps sending out a pleasant light, and Lacey heaved a breath as she looked on the figure that lay there.

It had been months since she had last visited, and guilt gnawed at her, but she told herself it was highly unlikely she had been missed.  The woman in the bed had once been vibrant and beautiful, with kind eyes and an infectious smile, but was now gaunt and too pale, her cheeks sunken and her hair thin and brittle.  A machine beside the bed was letting out a rhythmic beep as it tracked the beat of her heart, and bags of fluid hung from a stand, plastic tubes snaking beneath the sheets. Lacey crept nearer, slipping off her backpack and easing into the chair beside the bed.  The woman’s arm was thin, the bones in her hand clearly visible through paper-thin skin, fingers curled into a claw on the white sheet. Lacey reached out, folding her own hand around it, and the woman’s eyes flickered and opened.

“Hey Grandma,” whispered Lacey.  “It’s me.”

Her grandmother’s mouth twitched a little, as though she was trying to smile, and Lacey beamed, hoping to encourage her, to comfort her.  Marie d’Avonlea had been the one force for good in her life, however ineffective, and she owed her some comfort, some love. She owed her that much.

“Doesn’t look as though much has changed around here,” she added.  “You’re looking beautiful.  Does Mrs Potts still make that lobster pot pie I used to like?”

Marie smiled with her eyes, but they were unfocused, and Lacey wondered if she even realised her granddaughter was there.  Perhaps the waking world was like a dream to her. She hoped so. She hoped her dreams were good.

“I know I’ve been away for awhile, but I’ve been working,” she added.  “Busy like a bee, you know me. Never in one place for too long. Except this time.  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed. But it was nice, you know?  It was nice to feel safe, just for awhile.”

Marie’s eyes had closed, and Lacey squeezed her hand.

“Anyway, I’m back,” she whispered.  “I don’t know how long I can stay, but for now I’m back.”

Marie didn’t respond, and Lacey released her hand, letting out a sigh as she settled back in the chair.  It had been a long four days on the buses she had taken, and she had gotten little sleep. She curled her legs under her, hugging a cushion to her chest, and closed her eyes.  It wouldn’t hurt to get a little rest.

x

A clattering noise made her eyes flick open, and almost immediately pain lanced through her hip.  Lacey grimaced, shifting her position to something more comfortable and letting the circulation return to the leg that had been folded under her.  There was a rattling outside the door, and her eyes widened as the doorknob turned. A quick glance around showed few hiding places, but she leapt up anyway, stumbling on stiff legs as the door opened.

The sight of a plump old woman pushing an aluminium frame cart made her sag in relief, and she sent her an uncertain smile.

“Hey, Mrs Potts.”

The housekeeper’s mouth fell open, white hair swept up on top of her head as always, glasses perched on her nose.

“Miss Belle, as I live and breathe!” she gasped.  “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, I know it’s been awhile,” said Lacey uncomfortably.  “Thought I’d check in on her.  How has she been?”

Mrs Potts pushed the cart closer, and Lacey saw that breakfast was on it: a bowl of porridge, buttered toast and tea, and a plate of cut fruit.

"No real change," she said.  "She can eat, but she can't speak.  She seems as well as she can be, other than that.  Smiles a lot, anyway."

"Good."

Lacey chewed her lip, looking at Marie's closed eyes.  Perhaps it was true. Perhaps she was happy in her little world.  Mrs Potts cleared her throat.

“When did you get here?” she asked.  “I didn’t hear the door.”

“No, I came up last night,” said Lacey.  “Didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

“Hmm.”  Mrs Potts gave a knowing sniff, looking her over.  “Well, you look as though you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.  Too thin, besides. I bet you haven't been eating properly."

"Don't fuss," sighed Lacey.

"It's my job to fuss," said Mrs Potts.  "We'll soon have you fed and rested, no need to worry.  I expect you’ll want a bath and a change of clothes.”

“That’d be great.”

“And some breakfast?”

“You’re an angel,” said Lacey.  “I always said so.”

“Flatterer,” she said, with a smile.  “Let me see what I can do.”

“No one can know I’m here,” said Lacey hastily.  “Who’s still around? I mean from the old crowd.”

Mrs Potts pursed her lips.

“Well, Cogsworth is still here,” she said.  “He always did say they’d have to carry him out in his coffin.  And there’s Ashley, who comes in to clean, but it’s a big job for one girl.  I closed up most of the rooms. Other than that there’s Anton, who does the gardens, but he won’t be here until the snows go.”

“Okay.”  Good.  The fewer people to see me, the better.

“Of course the nurses come in once a day,” she added.  “Dr Whale attends once a week to see how things are. Oh, and Felix comes up from the town every three or four days.  To keep an eye on things, he says, but I have to say I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

“Oh.”  Lacey shifted nervously.  “And - and them?”

Mrs Potts pursed her lips.

“Not for a month or so,” she said.  “I doubt they’ll be back before the spring. She doesn’t like the cold.”

“Of course not,” said Lacey.  “Hell’s always warm, right?”

Mrs Potts’ mouth worked, as though she was trying not to laugh, and Lacey nodded.  Maybe I can stay then. Maybe for a little while.

“Right,” said Mrs Potts briskly, patting her broad thighs.  “Well. Let me see about some food for you.”

“I’ll give Grandma her breakfast,” said Lacey.  “It’s good to see you, Mrs Potts.”

The old woman smiled, her eyes twinkling.

“It’s good to see you, Miss.”

x

Feeding Marie took a long time, but Lacey finally finished, and her grandmother appeared to fall asleep again, so she turned her attention to the breakfast she had been given.  Warm fresh bread and butter, porridge with stewed pears and maple syrup, and a pot of tea. She was oddly homesick for the coffee she used to make in Weaver’s apartment, and resolved to ask Mrs Potts to get some, but the food was delicious, and she ate every scrap.

Once that was done, she followed Mrs Potts to one of the three bedrooms that Ashley kept clean.  It wasn’t the room she had stayed in when she had briefly lived in the house, but she didn’t mind that. The room was decorated in a pale, soothing green, with cream sheets and an embroidered, down-filled comforter on the bed. There was an en-suite with a shower and bath tiled in cream and jade, and Lacey lost no time in turning on the shower and washing away four days of dust and grime.

As she pulled out a set of clean clothes - sweater dress and skinny jeans over her chunky boots, she began to plan, her mind running over the advantages of staying where she was for now, along with potential threats. The lack of staff was a good thing; fewer eyes to see her meant fewer mouths to flap about her being there. She certainly trusted Mrs Potts and Cogsworth not to mention her presence in Storybrooke, but as for the rest of them…  She had no idea who Felix was, and decided she had no desire to find out.

Cogsworth was a rotund man in his sixties with thinning hair and round little glasses that gave him an air of fussiness.  He was overjoyed to see her, promising to keep an eye out for any visitors. He repeated Mrs Potts’ claims of there being few enough of those, and the long driveway leading to the house would give Lacey plenty of time to hide herself away until they had gone.  She felt herself relax a little, and ate her dinner that night down in the kitchens with both of them.

“Where have you been all this time?” asked Mrs Potts, passing her a plate of chicken casserole, and Lacey sighed.

“Look, the less I tell you, the less you have to lie if someone asks,” she said.

“Oh, I’m used to lying by now, dear,” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah, and you’re good at it, but Cogsworth sucks,” said Lacey, causing a noise of protest from him.  “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I was in one place for too long. Won’t happen again.”

“Does that mean you’ll be moving on soon?” asked Cogsworth, looking crestfallen, and she nodded.

“They’ll return in the spring, right?” she said.  “I need to be gone by then.”

“At least take some money,” he said.  “I go over the accounts, you know, and I’m well aware you haven’t touched yours in years.”

“Yeah, because an account is a link,” she said patiently.  “I don’t want to give them any way to trace me, okay? I’m not making this easy for them.  Besides, I can take care of myself.”

Cogsworth sighed resignedly, pushing vegetables around on his plate.

“Where will you go?” he asked, and Lacey shrugged.

“I don’t know.  Wherever the bus stops, I guess."

“It sounds a lonely life, Miss,” he said.  “And a dangerous one.”

“Not always,” she said quietly.  “Sometimes you meet good people. There are a few of them out there.  A few good men left in this world.”

“Your grandmother wouldn’t want to see you like this,” he chided.  “Drifting through life, no roots, no future…”

“Yeah, well, I guess my grandmother didn’t want a lot of things that happened to me,” she said abruptly.  “No use crying over it.”

She dug into the casserole, spearing a piece of meat and shoving it into her mouth.  He was right, but she had realised long ago that what someone wanted and what life offered them were two very different things.

x

It was strange being back, and not as comforting as she had expected.  Lacey enjoyed seeing the familiar faces of people that she knew, eating Mrs Potts’ excellent cooking and reading to her grandmother from the library, but the house no longer felt like home.  Perhaps it never really had, and she had simply never noticed. Or perhaps it was the fact that she had had no place of her own with which to compare it, so it had remained the only home she knew. At least until recently.

She missed the apartment in Seattle, with its snug lounge and her bedroom that overlooked the street and the deli on the corner with its scents of fresh ground coffee and bagels.  She missed serving drinks at Roni’s, and the playful banter she had with the customers. And she missed Weaver. She missed waking him with coffee and getting a sleepy groan in response.  She missed arguing about what to put in the grocery cart or curling on the couch with a glass of something and bitching about their respective days. She missed him most of all.

She had thought about calling a hundred times or more, and dismissed each thought almost immediately. Why bother, after all?  It wasn’t as though she would be going back, and he would ask her questions to which she had no answers.  At least none she could give him.  Better to remember it as a brief moment of calm in the never-ending chaos of her life and move on.

It was March before she accepted that that wouldn’t be possible.

She had been feeling under the weather since Christmas, bone-tired and weak, but when she started throwing up each morning, a dreadful suspicion began to take form in her brain.  Her period had come again, but it was much lighter than usual, and although she tried to tell herself it was stress, the ominous suspicion persisted.  She decided to wait until testing her theory, in the vain hope that she was wrong, but the weeks passed and the sickness continued, and eventually she bit the bullet and took the bus to the next town.

She was nervous about going into Storybrooke, even simply to wait at the bus stop, so she picked a day of dreadful weather, when the snow was falling hard out of a iron-grey sky and the wind blew it in sheets across the road.  The buses still ran, though.  It took more than a little snow to stop the residents of Maine getting around.

The next town over was bigger, filled with strangers who took no notice of the girl in her too-big sweater and hooded coat, and Lacey felt herself relax a little as she slipped into the clinic she had called the day before. The test result wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it didn’t stop her swearing like a trooper as she stomped around the consultation room. After her initial outburst, to which the young nurse listened calmly, she slumped into a chair and began to cry.

“I realise this is a lot to take in,” said the nurse.  She had told Lacey that her name was Dorothy, and she had a kind but efficient air that made her feel at ease.

“Oh, it’s not like it’s a total shock,” said Lacey, wiping her eyes with the tissue she was handed.  “Just - just confirmation, I guess. I kind of knew, and I couldn’t face it. I’ve been putting this off for bloody weeks!  I’m a fucking coward!”

“There’s no cowardice in being afraid your life will change,” said Dorothy. “You’re here now, that’s what matters. Do you want to discuss your options?”

“Options.”  Lacey’s mouth flattened.  “Wouldn’t those be nice?”

“Well, you do have them,” she said.  “Remember it’s your body, and your decision.  I’m certainly not going to make it for you, and nor should anyone else.”

Lacey was silent, thinking about Weaver.  He was no doubt going about his usual business, working way too much and self-medicating with whisky, with no clue that three thousand miles to the east, his ex-roommate was pregnant with their child.  How would he react, if she told him?  Would he care?  She thought he would; he had already done more for her than anyone else she had met in the years she had fended for herself.  What would he want to do about this?  She didn’t know, but she thought perhaps he deserved to hear the news from her personally.  It was almost spring, anyway.  It was time for her to leave Maine.

x

It seemed to take an age to walk back to the house from the bus stop, the woods cold and ominous, the snow slipping beneath her boots.  She was glad she no longer had the ridiculous heels she had taken to wearing at Roni’s. There was little call for sexy outfits when one was on the road, and it seemed that that was what she was destined for once more.  She eyed the big house warily, alert for any strange vehicles outside, but the driveway was clear, and so she hurried around to the kitchens, where Mrs Potts was pouring hot water into a teapot. She looked around with a smile as Lacey entered.

“Just in time!” she announced, and her face fell.  “Why, whatever’s the matter?”

She put the lid on the teapot and hurried over, and Lacey burst into tears again.  It took five minutes of gulping and sobbing and broken sentences to explain the reason for her distress, but Mrs Potts was as kind and comforting as ever.  Lacey wept on her shoulder as Mrs Potts stroked her hair and whispered soothing words, and when she was done she felt better, as though some of the weight around her heart had been lifted. She let out a shuddering sigh, and Mrs Potts patted her back.

“There now, dear,” said Mrs Potts kindly.  “You sit down and have some tea. Things never seem quite so bad after a nice cup of tea, I always say.  And a piece of cake, hmm?”

“Guess I need the extra calories,” said Lacey despondently.

She took a seat at the table, slumping in the chair as Mrs Potts poured tea and set slices of ginger cake on a plate.  Lacey felt a little better after eating a piece, and reached for her tea.

“So,” said Mrs Potts, looking at her over the top of her glasses.  “What are you going to do?”

“Go back to—”  Lacey snapped her mouth shut before she could reveal her destination.  “Go back.  He deserves to know.”

“The father?”  She put her head to the side.  “Did it end badly?”

“It was never a thing,” she sighed.  “We were friends, that’s all.  It happened once.  He was sad and - and I wanted to help.  I never thought it would - well, I guess I was stupid.  Reckless.”

“And now?” asked Mrs Potts.  “What do you think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, pushing dark brown crumbs of cake around on her plate with a finger.  “I don’t even know what I want to do.  But he’s a good man.  The best I’ve ever known.  Maybe he’ll help.  At any rate, he has a right to know.”

“Yes.”  She reached out, squeezing Lacey’s hand with her own.  “I think you’re right.  I think you should go to him.”

There was silence for a moment, and Mrs Potts sat back, taking a sip of her tea.

“When will you go?” she asked quietly, and Lacey glanced up.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” she said.  “It’s time, anyway. You said they’d return in the spring.”

“Yes.”  Mrs Potts looked grim.  “And rest assured, they’ll hear nothing of this from me.”

“Thanks,” said Lacey.  “Look - I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.  I hate leaving Grandma all this time, but—”

“Dr Whale says she’s comfortable, and she doesn’t realise what’s going on ninety percent of the time,” she said soothingly.  “Don’t worry about her, Miss.  Or us, for that matter.  You think about keeping safe, and about the decision you have to make, that’s all.”

Lacey gave her a tremulous smile.

“Do me a favour and don’t say anything to Cogsworth,” she said.  “I know he means well, but secret agent he ain’t.”

She smiled at that, eyes twinkling.

“Just promise me one thing,” she said.  “Let me know what you decide, and let me know you’re alright.”

Lacey nodded, reaching for a second piece of cake.

“I promise.”

[theopenbookwigtown]

After booking almost 900 days in advance, and driving close to 400 miles over two days, my mother and I arrived in Wigtown (Scotland's national book town) to take up residence in the world's first Airbnb bookshop, The Open Book.

(Those of you that follow The Open Book blog will already know the score here, so I won't go over the details. But if you’re unfamiliar with the concept, the Guardian do a rather lovely summary: https://bit.ly/2EH9fln).

Driving up the A1, I had butterflies. I knew our mere eight-hour drive was not the furthest people had travelled to stay in this quaint little shop. Residents before us have come as far afield as Canada, France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Taiwan and America. In preparation I had started reading 'The Diary of a Bookseller' by Shaun Bythell. It was my Auntie’s copy. She had loaned it to me under strict instructions I must visit the shop (opportunely named The Book Shop) and ask its author if he would be so kind as to sign it. Noted.

SUNDAY

We arrived around 3pm, when the sun was just beginning its demise into the firs and mountains. It seemed the days were even shorter in Scotland. After parking up and having a good stretch (it was needed) we walked up to the shop and was greeted by George. A lovely, towering man with a soft calming voice. The first words he said to us were, goodness you’re very prompt! Wigtown may have a reputation for being a buzzing hub of bookish activity in the summer and during the September Book Festival, but during the winter months, not so much. I smiled, we had arrived in this sleepy town on the remote coast of Galloway.

George spent some time showing us around the shop and the upstairs flat. He explained The Open Book does not take card, but there is a card machine down by the post office, so really there is no excuse. By the time we had gone through everything, and got our bags from the car, it was coming up to 4:30 and the sun had well and truly set. Too tired after our long drive to open shop, we went for an early dinner in Cobwebs (a charming little eatery just down the road) and ordered two streaming bowls of sweet potato and chilli soup. It was delicious.

Back at the flat we turned on all the heaters and got cosy. I spent the evening making plans for the week ahead and reading more of The Diary of a Bookseller in the rocking chair.

MONDAY

Browsers: 1 Sales: 0

We opened up shop at 10am. I spent the first part of the morning designing and writing a slogan for the shop’s sandwich board. Not as easy as it sounds, all the chalk I could find was broken into small pieces and difficult to grasp. Of course, the moment I finished and proudly set up the board outside, I found a box of brand-new chalk behind the counter. After cursing myself loud enough for my mother to hear, we began making up the window displays. We must have succeeded a group of zoologists because all the displays were animal themed, with no concessions as to domestic or exotic. I took down the Dick Francis display on horses and the comprehensive display on birds and their history, and began creating my ‘New Year’s Resolutions for Fictional Characters’ display. Mum dressed the other two windows. On the left a ‘Spooky Christmas’ themed display, in which she was able to take advantage of the shop’s ample sci-fi, fantasy, crime and thriller sections. On the far right, a ‘Mystery Books’ display, developed out of the festively wrapped books we found in a box on the floor, presumably another thing that must have come from the residents before us.

Shortly into the morning we were greeted by Ruth, a lovely Scottish woman who is the proud owner of the new bookshop next door. She invited us both over before she closed at 3. I came away with a copy of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest', and Mum came away with two Roddy Doyle books (including 'The Snapper'), a Leanne Moriarty title, and 'The Atheists Guide to Christmas', which she bought for my dad as a gag stocking filler.

While I was in the shop, Ruth, who was looking out the window, exclaimed ‘Is that a police man? I don’t think I’ve seen a police man round here in near three months since I been here’. Turns out a huge hay lorry had collided with a utility pole down the street from the shop. The road was closed and the incident was the talk of the town for the rest of the day.

We closed up around 4 and went browsing around the town. Half way down the street we were stopped by Nanette who asked if we were running the shop this week. Her face lit up when we said we were and she produced a small parcel of Scottish shortbread biscuits for us. They were delicious.

That evening mum and I shared a bottle of wine and I made vegetarian Thai green curry with noodles for dinner. We spent the evening and a lot of the night telling stories. Mum reiterated some from her youth in London. Some I knew, others I didn’t, but they were mostly tales of her visiting the Irish dance halls with ‘the usual crowd’, being silly and generally wild. She is a great storyteller, and frequently had me crying with laughter.

TUESDAY

Browsers: 3 Sales: 0

We opened slightly later today as the weather was terrible. Wind had been rattling against the windows of the flat all night, so we chose to stay in the warmth for a little longer. Mum made porridge for breakfast and it filled me with warmth and nostalgia.

The shop was predictably quite, but we didn’t mind. We chose to spend some time rearranging the fairy lights in an attempt to make the place look a little more festive. We made plans to take a long lunch and visit the café bookshop down the road and then pop in and introduce ourselves to Shaun at The Book Shop. I thought about my Auntie and I was sorry she wasn’t here with us.

Around 12, a man came into the shop. I watched him for the tips Ruth had warned us about, ‘you know they won’t buy anything if they walk around like this: with their hands behind their back, casually glancing at the shelves, not touching anything’. I watched. He didn’t touch anything, and he left after about 10 minutes. I think he might have been killing time for the bus.

Another man came into the shop shortly after, and though he didn’t buy anything he was very chatty. He asked if we had the biography of Maya Angelou, which I thought was perhaps a bit too much to ask from the shop’s mild shelves, all of which consist of second hand titles. I was right. He then asked about writing workshops in the area, which I regretfully told him I didn’t know much about. After he left, I googled it. I couldn’t find much other than information on the September festival.

Around 2pm we shut up and walked down to the Reading Lasses Bookshop Café. Mum and I had tea and scones. I bought a book for my uncle titled ‘Cooking for your Cat’. And came away with copies of Alice Walker’s 'In Love & Trouble' and Suniti Namjoshi’s 'The Conversations of Cow' for myself.

We then crossed the road to The Book Shop – we were blown away. Shaun’s shop is a wonderland of towering shelves, with over a mile of shelving supporting near 100,000 books (by Shaun’s estimation). Every nook and crannie seems to be spilling over with boxes and baskets of literature, covering every genre you could possibly think of. I did a full circuit of the place, before ending back where I started. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees, never mind the books, or the words for the ink. It was easy to let yourself feel small and insignificant next to the centuries, and I mean centuries worth of literature before you. My anxieties were not quelled when mum lent over to me and whispered 'I can’t help thinking if there was a fire, this place would burn like anything'. Eventually I turned to the tall, ruggedly bookish man hovering behind the counter. I asked him where I might find his Howard Spring titles, to which, amazingly, he said ‘I don’t think we have any Howard Spring (I had to stop myself from saying ‘really?’) but if we do, they’ll be here’. And he pointed towards the fiction shelves under ‘S’. I had a good look through S, and R and T. I even floated around the surrounding sections, one of which was dedicated to ‘Irish’ literature, which I pointed out to mum. I gave up after a while and picked myself out a book titled 'The Mermaids in the Basement' by Marina Warner. I walked up to the counter and asked the same man if he was Shaun. Which he confirmed, somewhat reproachfully. He seemed to warm to us after I explained we were staying in The Open Book and asked him to sign my copy of his book.

That evening, it was mum’s turn to cook. She made a delicious hearty omelette with chips, which we both devoured, along with another glass of wine or two.

WEDNESDAY

Browsers: 6 Sales: 1

The morning was damp but clear. I got up early and made mum a cup of tea before opening up the shop around 9. When she came down, she spent the first half an hour or so rummaging through the boxes in the kitchenette area. She discovered a box of Christmas decorations, including a rather lovely wooden nativity set, which on first glance seemed to be missing the baby Jesus and include 2 shepherds and 4 wise men.

Me: Four wise men? That’s not right. Mum: Eh, it’s Scotland. Probably a Presbyterian nativity.

Mum spent the afternoon writing postcards to everyone in Ireland. She signed off by saying ‘It’s just like Mountbellew’. We predicted what my auntie’s response would be: 'And you travelled all that way to see it?'

After closing up, we took a walk down to the Martyrs Stake and got caught in the rain. Actually, we got soaked. But we didn’t mind, other than the fact it stopped us going into some bookshops on the way back for fear we’d bring the damp into the shops with us.

Pizza for dinner. Neither of us felt like cooking.

THURSDAY

Browsers: 14 Sales: 8

Mum opened up today and I slept in. Apparently there was a customer waiting outside when she came down. He bought two books. Our busiest morning of the entire week. I spent my morning writing letters to friends and tucking them inside books. I will hand them out as Christmas presents when I get home.

A man came in around 11:30 with his daughter and admired our nativity display, I caught myself smiling. Not least because mum had spent a good 10 minutes fashioning a manger for a make-shift baby Jesus.

Around lunch time, I went to the post office and paid a visit to The Book Shop. I was a bit more prepared this time - I went with a list. I didn’t manage to find anything on the list, but it did give me a bit more direction. I ended up coming away with an Anne Enright title (one of my favourite novelists) and another Roddy Doyle novel, as well as some poetry pamphlets. I got back to the shop a little over an hour later. Whilst I was away, a man came in ‘with his carrier bags’ as my mother described him. Apparently, he stayed all of 10 minutes and most of that was spent helping himself to as many sweets as possible from our bowl on the counter before announcing, ‘I think my bus is here’ and leaving.

We had a few more customers come in throughout the afternoon. It was by far our busiest day in the shop. Before closing we tallied our total for the week. Drum role please:

In four days we accumulated a grand total of just £30.

We had been somewhat prepared for this. George, who welcomed us, as well as numerous other booksellers in the area all informed us this would be a quite week. Christmas countdown coupled with the cold and the wet just meant not many people would be out buying books. But I couldn’t help but reflect on the impact this must have for independent bookshops across the U.K. When we visited Shaun at his shop, he ruefully told us, you can usually survive a bad winter if you’ve had a good summer. He expands on this sentiment countless times in his book.

It is no secret the British high street is in trouble. This year, retailers are preparing for the slowest Christmas sales in a decade. But in spite of this, booksellers in the UK and the US have anecdotally reported an upturn in sales and footfall this year (https://bit.ly/2UYE4qN). I guess those feet aren’t quite prepared to trudge through Scottish weather just yet.

Elaine Mary Stabler Twitter: @EMStabler

[gottalovetheletos]

Missing my girls!

Authors note: I don’t know about this one. Let me know what you think. I’m trying to think of stories from a different perspective, whether I’ve done that here or not.. IDK.. Enjoy lol. x x

WARNINGS: Erm, none really. 

Jared Imagine.

“Right girls family meeting in the den in 5 please” I called upstairs to mine and Jared’s 3 daughters. We had Scarlet 15, Phoebe 12 and Harmony (Mimi) 6. 

The girls gathered in the den and took a seat each. Jared and I facing them. “Girls, I’m leaving to tour tomorrow. I want you to be on your best behavior for your mother” Jared said, looking over towards Scarlet knowing how she can be when he’s away. “Can we help you pack daddy?” Phoebe asked. “Yes, I need my personal stylists to help me” He laughed. Always leaving packing until the last minute. Luckily he was mostly packed just a few bits to put in, but he always welcomed the girls help. They went upstairs leaving me downstairs to finish dinner. 

*Jared’s P.O.V* 

My three beautiful children were sat on the bed with one of my suitcases. Scarlet laying against the headboard with her phone, Phoebe trying to see what she can steal from my case and Mimi actually rummaging through the suitcase. “Girls what do you think of this?” I asked holding up one of their moms dresses and making them laugh. “No daddy that’s mommy’s” Mimi giggled. 

“Scar, get off your phone and get over here” I pouted. I wrapped my arms around my first born secretly wishing she’d stop growing. Or at least stop being a moody teenager. “Now when I’m gone will you please promise to help your mom around the house and not be a pain in the ass” I held her at arms length. “I guess” She replied. “That’s my girl”. 

I hate to admit it but I could see how much my leaving would cause Scarlet pain. She was very much a daddy’s girl. But it’s my job. You’d think she’d be used to it. 

“Dinner” Y/N called. 

*Your P.O.V* 

We all sat at the dinner table for our last meal together as a complete family, at least for a while. General chat filled the air as we tucked into our meal. The girls asking Jared to buy them things from each country. After dinner I cleaned the dishes while they put on a Disney movie. Once I’d finished I walked into the living room where all of the girls were snuggled up to their dad. I sat down next to Phoebe who snuggled into me as well. It always warmed my soul doing things like this. They always say it’s the little things that count in life. They’re not lying. Once the movie was over I woke up Mimi and took her upstairs for a quick wash and to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. I tiptoed out of her room and had a shower myself. I felt the warmth of a body I knew all too well wrap around me in the shower. “Hello handsome, what are you doing here?” I laughed. He smirked and closed the gap between us, gently pushing me under the water which was now raining down on our heads. “Just joining my beautiful wife in the shower” he kissed me again. “I’m going to miss you so much” I confessed. He spun me around so I was facing away from him.  He lathered up the soap on my skin, each touch sent tingles down my spine, knowing this wasn’t going to happen for a while. “I’ll miss you too” he whispered now using the shower head to wash the fluffy suds off of me. His hand moving down in between my legs. “Do you want this Princess?” “MmmHmm..” ....

 Once we were out of the steamy shower, I locked all of the doors in the house and checked on the girls. All sound asleep, probably so they could wake up early to say goodbye to their dad. I crawled into bed next to Jared. His hands found their way around my body bringing me in close to him. I nuzzled in close to his and fell asleep breathing in his sweet scent. Before I knew it the alarm was going off. It was time for him to get up and in about 20 minutes leave. I quickly rose too so I could make us a quick breakfast. When the porridge was in bowls I woke the girls so they could come downstairs and eat. Straight after breakfast a car arrived to pick up Jared. He gave each child a gift whenever he left. Nothing expensive, but something that would mean something to each of them. He gave me a kiss and a small box which contained a Pandora ring. Okay so nothing expensive for the girls, but I’m his wife. All three girls and myself waved off Jared trying to keep brave faces and failing. We shut the door and went inside. Scarlet went straight to her room, Phoebe and Mimi stayed with me. “Do you girls want a hot chocolate?” I asked them both. They nodded their heads. “Go and put on a movie and I’ll make some, yeah?”. Off they went to put on a movie. I boiled some milk and brought out 4 mugs from the cupboard. I poured in the milk to each mug then added the powder. I put extra milk in for the young girls so they wouldn’t burn themselves. I walked in on the girls huddled together under a blanket watching a movie. “Thank you mommy” the both said reaching out for their hot chocolates. I moved back into the kitchen where I picked up Scarlet’s one and brought it upstairs. Knocking on the door I hear her sniffling. “Honey, I brought you up a hot chocolate. As I opened the door she rushed over to me shoving me backwards and yelling at me “a hot chocolate will not make me feel better”, causing me to spill the hot drink down my arm. “Ahh fuck” I shouted in pain. She looked horrified at what she’d done. I rushed to the bathroom to run my arm under the cold water. I’d expected her to come in and apologize but nothing.  

A few days later in the evening Jared called me on face time. Unbeknownst to me Scarlet was just outside my door. She was making her way to the toilet. 

“Hey how’s things?” he asked. “Missing my girls!” he added. “ We miss you too and...Erm, not great” I started to tell him. “I just feel like I’m doing a shitty job as a parent you know. Scar and I used to be so close when she was younger. Now she hates me and not to put this on you but I think its when you leave. She knows just how to push all of my buttons and we just...” I start sobbing. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed in this relationship” That threw Jared over the edge. “Well you know what if you feel that way maybe you shouldn’t have” he’d hung up on me. I was now crying by myself,. Why would I say that to him. Of course I loved him. How stupid was I to say that to him. I heard a soft knock on my door, it was Scarlet crying too. I quickly wiped away my tears. “Mom, are you and dad gonna get a divorce because of me?” “No honey, why would you think that?” I waved her over to me so she could sit beside me. “Because I’ve been horrible to you and you just said to daddy you don’t want to be here anymore”. “Oh no, baby I didn’t mean it. Sometime things get a bit overwhelming. You know you aren’t the easiest kid when your father goes away” I told her truthfully. “I know I’m sorry I don’t mean to take it out on you. I just... It just makes me sad when he can’t come to my performances at school. My band and I are playing this weekend but he’s in Italy”. “Baby, you know that he tries to make it to everything you do. However it is harder for him when hes half way across the world. Don’t you think he misses us every single day he has to be away? We are his life just as much as his band is too” I looked at her. Her eyes were forming big tears as she’s realized it’s not just her who his going away takes a tole on, and her behavior. She buried her head into my fluffy night gown. “Mommy, I’m so sorry and about the other day when I’d pushed you. I didn’t mean for you to burn yourself. Are you guys gonna split up? I’d hate for that to happen. I didn’t think about the bigger picture. I’ll be a better daughter I swear”. “Thank you for your apology. But no daddy and I are not going to split up. Couples fight. But we’ll be fine. Shall we ring him back so we can both apologize?” I asked her. She nodded at me and pulled the laptop towards her and me. My arm was around her soothingly stroking her arm. The face time ringer was going off and Jared’s face popped up. “First of all daddy, let me speak. I’m sorry for being a brat and treating mom like dirt. We’ve had a talk and I’m going to not be a ‘Pain in the ass’” She told him repeating the phrase he used. “I guess its my turn to apologize” I laughed nervously. 

“You’re both forgiven” he smiled. 

[sugarplum-senpai]

4, 5, and 12 for Ereri :)

Thank you so much for your prompts, dear! 

4: “I can never tell if you’re hitting on me or not.”5: Cleaning12: Panicked/Accidental Confession

After writing 11k words of post-war angst, I thought some light crack would be more than appropriate for this. ;) I hope you like it and have as much fun with reading it as I had with writing!

Word Count: 2,1kRated F for Floof (and CCC for Cute Canonverse Crack)

(Read on AO3.)

Mischief, Mayhem, Soap, and Porridge

Eren despised the summer flu. And he absolutely positively hated this day.

Usually he loved cleaning days. They were fun. Today, however, was awful.

Looking back at it so far, Eren thought he should have gotten right back to sleep before he’d even left the bed. But he had left it and now he had to face the music. 

Which seemed to include having to witness Sasha sneaking up on Jean to carefully slip a wet bar of soap into the collar of his shirt, only to instantly flee into one of the shower cubicles.

“Arg!” Jean exclaimed, his hands shooting up his neck and his whole body jerking, his voice echoing through the bathroom and mingling with Sasha’s mischievous cackle. “What is this shit? Fuck!”

“Cleaning day, Jean!” Sasha jeered.

His face was red, but sadly not as much in agony as Eren would have hoped for. Jean had done his best to avoid cleaning anything all morning long and Eren didn’t have any hope that this would change any time soon.

Diligently scrubbing away at a sink that suffered under a nasty case of scale, he frowned. At least Jean’s back would be greasy and gross with sticky soap all afternoon long.

“You know, Sasha,” Jean teased in-between his ongoing efforts. “I can never tell if you’re hitting on me or not. Feels a bit like it now.”

Yeah, Eren huffed to himself with a scowl. It feels icky. Jean, ugh! The mere thought…

He suppressed a shudder.

“I’m not!” Sasha affirmed, still giggling. “Go to someone else for the flirting, Jean!”

“Don’t,” Mikasa said flatly, face completely blank.

Jean, who—much to Eren’s regret—had already managed to get hold the soap without even letting it slip through his fingers, smirked and now threw the bar at Mikasa. “Are you sure?”

She skilfully caught the bar with the half-filled bucket in her hands and Jean looked more than disappointed. “I’ll take over another room,” she said. “Don’t follow me.”

And gone she was.

“Stop trying so hard, man,” Connie said to Jean.

“Yeah, keep on cleaning the bathroom,” Eren agreed, tending to another spot of scale on the sink.

Sometimes he dreamed that he could pull off a scowl like Levi and make them work with just one single look. But no matter how much Eren tried, apparently he wasn’t intimidating enough. He sighed.

Oh, how he wished Levi was here! It would brighten Eren’s awful day immensely.

But Levi wasn’t here. And Eren gave a small, sympathetic frown at the thought.

Levi was sick. The summer flu, had Hanji announced this morning, and ever since no one had seen him. Eren had snuck up to the door of Levi’s quarters a couple of times and heard the nasty cough, the gut-wrenching sniffles, and had been thinking all day long about what could make it better.

Certainly not a filthy bathroom.

Cleaning HQ had already been on today’s schedule, but solely with the help of the other guys, with no Levi nearby to order them around, Eren wouldn’t come far. On the contrary. He’d have to do their work all over again to make it right. As soon as he was finished with this faucet, of course. At least the bathroom should be shipshape when they were done for the day. And the kitchen too.

Eren stilled at the sudden thought, close to cursing.

Shit, the kitchen! Hadn’t someone burnt the porridge this morning?

Ignoring the ongoing bickering between Sasha and Jean next to him, Eren considered his options: He could either finish the job here—and endure Jean’s presence—or he could scrape off dried crusts of porridge and whatnot that were caked to the cooker.

The cooker won.

“Oi, where do you think you’re going, Eren?” Jean sneered promptly.

“Kitchen,” Eren said.

Connie blushed.

And Jean paled. “Oh, fuck. Yeah! Thanks, man! I wouldn’t go in there today if they’d beat me to it.”

Eren rolled his eyes and went.

A few minutes later he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at a battlefield.

Whoever was responsible for this—probably Connie, Eren mused, only Connie could leave behind such a chaos and he and Sasha had been overly frisky all day—had done a great job of leaving behind as much destruction as humanly possible.

The pot hadn’t been scrubbed, the plates, cups, bowls, and cutlery hadn’t been washed. The counter was crowded with dirty dishes.

And the cooker…well. For the first time ever Eren actually agreed with Jean on something one hundred percent. It was bad. Really, really bad.

For the first time that day, Eren was glad that Levi was safely upstairs in his room, far away from what had occurred in here. Because one thing was certain:

Levi mustn’t see this.

Suddenly heavily motivated Eren stepped into the room, gathered his determination, and went to work. He started with soaking whatever dishes the sink could take, putting it all into the big, porridge-incrusted pot before filling it up with water. Then he took a deep breath and fetched a spatula. 

It soon was clear that burnt lactose and gluten was the most evil combination ever. Cleaning the cooker alone took the good part of the whole afternoon. And as he’d scraped and scraped and scraped at a particularly nasty spot, Eren began to wonder what kind of horrible person had determined that porridge should contain milk and oat.

Eren vividly hated that arsehole!

He scraped again, slipped, and banged his head against the cooker. Fuck.

After that he sat down on the floor, and nastily scowled once more at his surroundings.

He truly missed Levi. 

Without him being ill this situation probably wouldn’t even have escalated like it had and Connie would be sitting here on the floor now, pressing his hand against a bump on his forehead.

At least I heal quickly, Eren grimaced.

Despite his well-trained muscles his whole body was sticky with sweat and aching from the effort. It didn’t particularly help that it was a hot day and that it had rained that morning, leaving the air humid and awfully muggy. 

Eyeing the cooker, Eren thought the worst part lay behind him by now, though. All it would take now was a bit scrubbing and some more rough scraping at that one nasty corner. And the dishes.

If breakfast would have had tasted well at least, this whole thing probably wouldn’t have been all too bad either, Eren mused. But it had tasted downright disgusting, even for his rigorously humble soldier standards, and remembering the burnt taste on his tongue as if he was eating it again, Eren suddenly felt double betrayed. He should give Connie hell for this one day.

But then he thought of Levi again, laying in his bed and coughing, and Eren suddenly realised that Levi must have gotten a portion of this gross stuff as well.

No way that he could easily recover like this.

Scrambling up to his feet again, Eren went to check the pantry. There were still a few eggs, some bread and way, way down in its depths Eren even found a small package of ham. Yes!

Freshly motivated like this he set back to work, starting with the dishes.

At least the porridge came off the bowls and plates and cutlery relatively easily after all this soaking. He scrubbed and scrubbed and couldn’t help a confident smile when he’d stored the little stuff back into their rightful places in the cupboard.

After giving the pot another round of soaking he took the scraper back into his hands, refaced his nemesis of a cooker, and couldn’t help but feel an odd sensation of satisfaction when only half an hour of additional scraping later—seriously, Connie!—and another fifteen minutes of scrubbing Eren was finally, finally done, the cooker close to sparkling again, ready for use. And the kitchen itself as well.

Eren beamed. Time to cook Levi some food.

Lost in dazzling daydreams about earning Levi’s gratefulness and having him fully recover and back among them soon, Eren made some tea, then heated a pan, greased it with first melting the fat of the ham in it, and—bless his mother who had taught him how to fry eggs when he’d been only five years old—cracked in two eggs, that instantly began to sizzle and spread a wonderful, buttery scent. 

Eggs must be healthy, Eren thought, marvelling at the solidifying, clear whites and the sunny-yellow yolks. After a short consideration, he added a third one to the pan. 

“Levi will love me for this,” he mumbled to himself, turning away from the pan to cut the bread into slices so Levi could load it with ham or eggs as he liked. “Well,” he added. “Hopefully.”

“What.”

Eren froze, the knife halfway through the last piece of bread, his neck prickling in alert, every single one of his senses up in arms.

A pitiful sniff came from the doorway.

Eren turned around, and every single thought fell out of his head in blank panic as he recognized the intruder.

Levi stood in the entrance of the kitchen, his skin looking awfully pale and waxen, eyes red-rimmed and his nose bright red as well, probably sore from blowing it excessively, going by the handkerchief in his lifted hand.

I want to hug him! shot through Eren’s head, completely unhelpful.

“What did you say?” Levi rasped. “My ears are plugged.”

His nose sounded ‘plugged’ too.

“Um…I…” Eren blushed. And before he could stop himself, it all spilled out. “I wanted to make you a second breakfast, Sir, or lunch…dinner! I wanted to make you dinner, since the porridge this morning was so terrible, you see? So I thought you might be hungry and decided to cook and maybe make you smile, because I love yo–” he redirected his speech at the last second, “–your smile. 

“Haha!”

Well. He was fucked.

Levi stared at him, his eyes glassy and blinking just a bit too often.

Eren wanted to die.

And just as he thought he couldn’t keep up with this staring contest any longer without scorching to ashes right on this spot, Levi sneezed. And Eren dared to breathe again.

After blowing his nose and giving another heart-rending sniff, Levi stepped over to the hearth. His legs were a bit wobbly, Eren noticed, even though the scowl on Levi’s brow said otherwise.

“Is this for me?” he asked, gesturing at the eggs still sizzling in the pan. They looked done now.

Still utterly flustered, but apparently saved from the immediate danger of imploding any moment now, Eren nodded. “Um…yes. Yeah. The bread and tea too.” He pointed at the counter.

“Who goofed up breakfast? It was an experience.”

“Connie, Sir,” Eren stammered, slowly composing himself again. “I guess.”

“Thought so. Kitchen a mess?”

“Yes.”

“Mm.”

Lifting the pan Levi transferred its contents onto the plate Eren had already prepared, turned around to add the bread to the eggs and take the tea pot as well, but instead of just leaving the kitchen with his dinner, he looked up with his slightly unfocused, swollen eyes, stepped closer into Eren’s private space, and—to Eren’s utter shock and delight—gave him a warm, scratchy peck on his cheek.

“Thank you.”

Completely awestruck and blushing fiercely all the way up to his hair roots in an instant, Eren stood there, rooted to the floor, and could only stare and gape as Levi wobbled-definitely-not-wobbled out of the kitchen, while his hand slowly reached up to press against the spot where, just a moment ago, Levi’s lips had been. 

God, Levi had smelled absolutely breathtaking.

What a beautiful day!

He should give Connie a hug. 

Eren still stood there, elated beyond hope, when Mikasa found him five minutes later.

“What happened to you,” she asked, frowning at his expression. 

“What? Nothing, wha–what happened to you?” he managed, barely noticing through his love-crazed haze that she was soaking wet.

And…actually seething?

“I am going to murder Jean. You in?”

“What?” Eren mumbled. “Oh no, I guess he’s alright. I’ve got to go now.” He snuck past Mikasa. “Mop that floor, yeah? You’re dripping.”

“What.”

Completely immune to her wrath, Eren left her, already wondering about if Levi would kiss him again one day.

The sun set over HQ in stunningly glowing colours that night. And when it rose again on the next morning Eren awoke to a sneeze, alongside a murderous headache between his eyes.

And a besotted grin.

He still grinned when the sniffles set in around breakfast time, and he still grinned when the coughs began to shake him at noon. What was this flu? He was a Titan. She shouldn’t get sick!

Totally worth it, though, he thought.

He still thought so, when a knock came on his door and Levi stood there, looking much too healthy and wonderful again and offering Eren a plate with eggs and ham with a little smirk, that made Eren grin even wider.

Stepping aside he let Levi in. 

Eren really loved the summer flu.

[thekuroiookami]

scenarios for Midorima, Nijimura, Kagami, Kasamatsu with a female s/o who is clumsy and childish and cause more trouble than necessary (but who they love anyway :P) thank you, I love your blog so much and you write really well!♡♡♡

I realize I disappeared for a bit, I was just finishing up some work. Here you go, anon. I tried to keep things interesting. Tell me if you do or don’t like it. And thank you, I love you too

Midorima

The contrast was sogreat as to make day and night seem like a blurred stretch. Midorima was allsharp angles, orderly stacks, words and movements honed with precision. Youtended to create paths where there were none, couldn’t predict who you would bein the next moment, much less what you’d do. That’s how everyone knew it wastrue love.

But even love cansometimes creak under the weight of extreme ineptitude. Though extreme was amild word for what you managed to do, Midorima thought. He looked down at theshattered remains of a lucky item in his hand.

“I’m so sorry, Shin-kun!”You stammered at high speed, words tripping over themselves. “I didn’t know itwas so delicate- the teacup just jumped out of my hand, I swear- and oh no, I’mso sorry, I’ll get you another one!”

He grabbed the back ofyour blazer before you could run out of the classroom, presumably to grabanother teacup from who knew where. He discreetly nudged the bag you had nearlytripped over out of harm’s way. For the bag’s safety, of course. “Calmyourself, nanodayo. I have a spare in my desk.”

You froze and pivoted toface him. “R-really? It’s really fortunate you just happened to bring an extra onetoday.”

He gave you a look heavywith cynicism. “It is foolish not to be prepared for the inevitable. You have atendency to dispose of any plans I propose. I merely calculated the odds,nanodayo.”

Your face flushed andyou ducked your head, embarrassed. “Wow, I do mess up a lot, don’t I? Sorry,Shin-kun, you’re going through a lot of trouble because of me.”

“No more than any otherday, nanodayo.”

You stepped back, smile tense.“I’ll just stay out of your way for today. If the spare cup breaks, we’llreally be in trouble.”

He reached out, eyeswide. “Wait, ___-“

You turned, heartbreaking a little, and walked into a solid wall of person. The boy you bumpedinto gasped as three buckets of paint toppled over in a spectacular crash, andyou with them. Midorima took a deep breath as you blinked in bewilderment onthe floor. Red, green and purple streaks dripped between your surprised eyes,irreversibly ruining your shirt. You felt hysterical laughter bubble up in yourthroat.

You covered your facewith your hand, feeling utterly hopeless. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Midorima pushed hisglasses up. “It’s disastrous, nanodayo. Here.”

You found yourselfpulled up and ushered into the girls’ locker room. You came back out of theshower in gym clothes to find a pair of green eyes regarding you steadily. Yourshoulders slumped, expecting a reproachful lecture on being more careful.

Instead, a towel begandrying your hair in gentle strokes. “You’ll catch a cold,” said Midorimaquietly. Your heart warmed under his careful treatment, lifted from yourprevious dejection. You stared at him adoringly until he became uncomfortableunder the scrutiny. “What is- Oomph!”

You tackled him in ahug, feeling uncommonly blessed. “Thanks for putting up with me, Shin-kun. Ilove you.”

He choked, cheeks firedinto a startling scarlet. “D-don’t just say that so thoughtlessly! It’sembarrassing!”

You giggled and huggedhim tighter. “Whatever you say, Shintarou. Are you sure you aren’t going to sayit even once, though?”

His face became evenredder. “I lo-love you too, nanodayo.”

Nijimura

Some people, Nijimurathought, needed to come with their own bubble wrap so they wouldn’t die a quickdeath. You weren’t one of those people. What you needed was your own personaltherapist, to soothe whoever was accompanying you at the moment. Because youwere slowly but surely driving him mad.

Like now for example.The day had started off well enough as you both wandered around town on acasual date. Nothing had happened in the café. The movie had gone by withoutincident. At the arcade, Nijimura had thought to himself it was too good to betrue. And he was right, because you had decided to compensate for the lack ofdisaster earlier in the day with one big score. He sighed as he turned thecorner.

“Oye, get out of theway, little girl. Or you won’t know what hit you.” The thug-like teenagersneered at you.

You narrowed your eyesat him. “An idiot of your size would be hard to miss. And of course you’d bethe type that hits defenceless people.”

The two otherdelinquents scowled and stepped forward menacingly. The leader stopped themwith a shake of his head. He smirked, bleached hair shading his eyes. “Missgoody-two shoes over here thinks she can take a fist to the face, I’m happy tohelp.”

You scoffed as he flexedhis knuckles with a pop. “What are you going to hurt me with? Your IQ?”

Nijimura stifled aninternal groan as he made his way over to you. Why were you aggravating them? Wherewas your sense of self-preservation?

Things took an abruptleft turn. The blond guy snarled and slid something out of his back pocket. Nijimurafelt a shiver of pure fear go down his spine when the knife glinted in thelight, terrifyingly close to your face. He started jogging, silently cursingyour unparalleled ability to find trouble.

You didn’t particularlylook perturbed by the appearance of a blade. The gang leader loomed over you,face twisted in rage. “I’ll carve your pretty little face up until you don’tknow what you looked like.”

He didn’t get to makegood on that promise, because Nijimura’s hand yanked the knife out of his hand,pulling down on his wrist painfully. The boy barely had time to register whatwas happening before he was flipped onto the floor and pinned there with afoot. The two cronies blinked in bewilderment.

Nijimura’s slate greyeyes looked down on the younger males from his considerable height. “Leave nowwhile I’m still playing nice. Or you’ll be leaving with more bones than youstarted with.”

The trio hesitated, butNijimura stared them down. They seemed to realize that their numbers wouldn’tcount for anything, and sprinted away. The blond gangster give you a look ofpure hatred as he limped off. You jerked back as Nijimura whirled on you, furypouring off him in waves.

“Tell me, is there someother guy that you really want to date? Are you tired of me?”

You frowned. “Of coursenot.”

“THEN WHY ARE YOU TRYINGTO KILL ME?”  

Your eyes openedheartrendingly wide. “I-“ You both looked down as the bundle in your armswhined. The puppy pawed at your sleeve. You gulped and looked back at him.“They were hurting him, and I couldn’t just leave.”

He suddenly looked verytired. “You and your soft heart. Come on, let’s get you home. Both of you,” headded, before you could ask about the puppy.

You grinned and stood onyour toes to brush a kiss over his cheek. “You’re the best, Shuu.”

Nijimura smiled wrylyand tapped your nose. “I know I am.”

Kagami

It was horrible andhellish and Kagami just wanted to die for some relief.

“It’s only a cold, Kagami-kun,”you crooned. “It’ll pass soon.” You patted his back comfortingly.

He looked up at youblearily from under the blanket. “I feel like death warmed over,” he croaked.

You made anappropriately pitying expression and pushed his damp hair away from his forehead.“Well, your fever has come down, so it won’t take much longer.” Your expressionbrightened as you had a thought. “Tell you what, I’ll make you some porridge.You’ll feel much better when you eat something.”

Kagami barely heard youin the haze of misery, so he made a bobbing movement with his head signifyingagreement. It wasn’t until you had started humming to yourself happily in thekitchen that the true meaning sank in. He sat up with a jolt, throwing thesheets off of him. He almost tripped in his haste to get out of bed.

Kagami skidded into thekitchen just in time to see it happen. “___-san, look out-“

You lost your alreadyprecarious balance trying to reach for the salt, and fell down with a resoundingclatter. You opened one eye warily, expecting a wave of pain, but felt nothing.Kagami groaned from under you, face flushed with exertion. You flailed inhorror, forgetting the fine powder now spilled all over you. “Oh my goodness,Kagami-kun, are you alright?”

He emitted a breathlesssob that you took a minute to understand. You scrambled off him, helping himsit up. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, it will make things worse.”

He gave you anincredulous look. “It’s because you said you were going to cook. Remember thelast- ACHOO!”

Kagami sneezed with somuch force, the pans rattled. You frowned at him. “See, this is what I meant.”

He peered at the grainsglistening on your clothes. “____-san, what were you trying to get out of theshelf?”

“Salt for the porridge.”

He sighed. “That’spepper you dropped on us.”

You blinked. “Oh.”

He pushed himself up wearily and held out a hand. “Maybe I should I justcook for the both of us. That’d be safer.”

“No, no, no. You can stay on the sofa and watch, but I’m not letting youcook.” You crossed your arms stubbornly.

“But it really isn’t a good idea-“

“Kagami-kun!” You stamped your foot, making him flinch. “Let me justtake care of you, okay? It will be fine.”  

He was hustled out ofthe kitchen without further ado, and reluctantly settled for listening from adistance. He cringed as several crashes sounded from the kitchen, followed bythe shattering of glass and a swift curse.

“It’s fine!” You calledout before he could investigate. “I’ve got it, no need to worry.”

After an eternity, youemerged from the kitchen, hair in disarray, clothes singed in places and facesmudged. Kagami tried not to heave a sigh when he saw the gelatinous mass inthe bowl. You watched him anxiously as he took a cautious bite. He blinked insurprise.

“Oh.” He looked down atthe porridge. “This isn’t bad.”

You clapped your handstogether and beamed at him. “That’s great.”

Kagami couldn’t help butsmile back. He took one of your bandaged hands in his larger one and gentlykissed the fingertips. His voice was rough when he spoke. “Thanks for takingcare of me, ___-san.”

You flushed and lookedaway. “It’s what anyone would do.”

He continued like hehadn’t heard you. “Though I have to say…you still forgot the salt.”

Kasamatsu

Having a fairlystraightforward personality, Kasamatsu was used to judging a book by its cover.Not that he discriminated anyone by looks, but he assumed that if a personlooked serious, then they were serious. Then he met you. Kasamatsu quickly learnedthat the book could have a sober-looking cover, but it was also an anthologywith the occasional odd story in there.

Sometimes he wonderedwhy he was the one fated to look after so many children. Kise and his siblingstested his endurance on a daily basis, but you were a different kind of testaltogether. He swallowed hard as you swivelled for his inspection.

“Well?” You tilted yourhead at his pink face. “What do you think, Yukio?”

The answer was that hecouldn’t think. The swimsuit had frills in all the right places, dipped in allthe wrong ones, and dear god, whose idea had it been to come to the beachanyway? It was the most dangerous place on earth.

“I-I, err…it’s good, Iguess.”

You pursed your lipsbriefly in dissatisfaction. “So you’re saying it looks terrible.”

“W-what? That’s not itat all.” He struggled for the words, wishing someone had run him over with atruck instead. Or pulled out his guts with a hook. That was probably lesspainful. How did other people do this? “Y-you look great. Yeah. Like ice-cream.”

He mentally punchedhimself as your brow furrowed in confusion. “Okay, I don’t know what thatmeant, but I’ll take it as a compliment. Speaking of which, shall we find thesnack shop?”

Kasamatsu becametongue-tied for another reason as you began walking away. Wondering how onearth you managed to do these things looking so grave, he pulled your arm beforeyou could get too far.

“It’s in the oppositedirection, ____.”

You blinked once andobediently followed him down the beach. At the stall, Kasamatsu tried to keepone eye on your wandering self as he placed the order. Sure, the beach was astraight line, but you could get yourself lost in a cardboard box withouteffort. He turned around with shaved ices to find you missing. He groaned andset off to find you.

You were next to ashady-looking shack, chatting to a very interested looking young man. Kasamatsu’sgrip on the ices tightened as the stranger’s gaze drifted down your form. Hedrew closer just in time to hear you answer a proposition.

“Go to the cave withyou? Hmm, I’m not sure Yukio would be okay with that…”

His temper snapped asthe guy flashed you a dazzling smile. “Aww, c’mon, it’s only for a bit.”

You were prevented fromanswering as a foot landed squarely in the flirt’s face, sending him flyingback a few meters. Kasamatsu glowered at the idiot, who was moaning in pain. “Keepyour paws to yourself, baka.”

You found yourself beingled off in a firm grip. Kasamatsu grumbled the whole way. “Less sense than Moriyamaon Valentine’s Day, I swear…Are you really that oblivious?”

You were confused. “Areyou talking about me?”

He exploded. “Who else?Is there any other girl here so pretty that she’s getting hit on by any sharkin a three-mile radius?”

Kasamatsu got yanked toa stop as you stilled. Your eyes shone with pleasure. “You think I’m pretty?”

He abruptly realizedwhat he’d said and blushed crimson. “Ah, I meant- Yeah, well, you are!Obviously!”

His rant got muffled asyour lips fitted over his, moving against his mouth in soft thanks. He wasstaring in complete bewilderment as you pulled away. Your quiet voice brushedover his spine. “You look handsome too, Yukio.”

Kasamatsu stood frozen,still in shock as you led him away this time. “Let’s just call it day and gohome.”

“___.” He seemed to havereturned to himself.

“Yeah?”

“The bus-stop is theother way.”

[violecentstrs]

Our True Love - Chapter 14

A/N: Okay! So close. One more chapter after this, then a bonus chapter! We are closing up this series. But I have a feeling I might write a sequel to this series. I don’t know. What do you guys think? Would you like me to? Let me know! Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter. The longest in the series!  (Sorry in advance for any grammatical errors in my stories!)

Previous Chapter(s): Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: Sweet, angst and smooch (huehue still) Word count: 5,540 Summary: Reader and Bucky doesn’t get along well after his marriage to Rosaline. Will her friendship with Bucky last or will they crumble and fade?

★ ★ ★

I lay in bed while staring up at the ceiling. I am so exhausted.

The sun peeks out from between the curtains of my window. I turn on my phone to see the time. I see messages from my co-workers on my screen popping up, asking me where I was. I sigh out. I have three days off, man. I just came back from a business trip.

They must have brought in new files then if they are that desperate for me. I weakly get up from the bed feeling my head spinning painfully. I sniff in. My nose is blocked. Great. It was a fever after all. I felt it coming last night.

I must’ve caught them over the trip. It was probably caused by the exhaustion. I barely got any sleep last night because of what happened too.

My mind plays back the memory when Bucky and I kissed. It was so passionate and slow. I never felt anything like it before. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I enjoyed every second of it. But it was wrong. So wrong.

I brush my fingers weakly over my lips, still remembering the way his lips moved on mine. How gentle it was. How quick it was. How passionate it was. It is as though Bucky had left a print of his lips against mine.

I hear the buzzing of my apartment doorbell. My head throbs at the noise. I didn’t want to get up, but it buzz once again after 30 seconds. I rub my temples before forcing myself out of the bed. The doorbell continues to buzz again. I’m going to punch the face of whoever it was.

“I’m coming! Geez.” I say while approaching the door and coughing out. I open the door, keeping the sliding on my door intact. Bucky’s figure stands outside of the door. My heart drops. Why didn’t I check the peephole first just now?

“Y/N.” He says.

I close the door back, but his metal arm got in the way. I bite my lower lip, leaning myself against the door. I don’t want to face him right now. Not when my head is throbbing like crazy.

“Y/N, open the door, please.” He pleads to me. I close my eyes, trying so hard not to think about the kiss.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

“I want to see you.” He says quietly. “Please.”

I sigh out. I can’t argue with him even if I wanted to. My head is spinning. He can even just bust the door down without hesitating if he wanted to.

“Remove your arm.” I say. When he did, I close the door back and remove the slider. After Bucky enters, I lean against the door to support myself as I lock the door. He looks over at me with concern in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” He asks. I wave him off while wobbling my way to the kitchen.

“Yeah, a little fever.” I say. My vision blurs a little. I lean on the counter to catch my breath. I suddenly feel hands wrapping around my arm.

“You have a high fever, Y/N. Let’s get you to bed.” He says, feeling the temperature of my body. I shake my head.

“No no. I’m fi—” I let out a cough from the itch in my throat. He sighs and without a word, swoops me up in one motion. I gasp. He carries me towards my bedroom.

“Bucky! Bucky put me down!” I try to yell out, but my coughs kept getting in the way. He lays me down in my bed gently before putting the covers over me. He places his flesh hand over my forehead.

“About 103. That is quite high, Y/N.” He says before disappearing out the door. I hear him opening several cabinets in the bathroom followed by running water. He comes back with a small damp towel. He places it over my forehead, pressing his wet hands against my neck.

“Why didn’t you tell me you have a fever?” He asks worriedly.

You showed up unannounced after kissing me last night and you expect me to tell you that I have a damn fever the next morning, thinking that I have no guilt whatsoever? How are you here and not with your wife? Then I’m still pissed at you for keeping me in the dark for over a month. Suddenly, when I try to talk to you, you tell me to go home. After that you…

I rant inside my own mind, but my voice isn’t anywhere to be found.

“I’ll be back. Get some rest.” He says.

I don’t know what to make of this. He doesn’t act like anything had happened last night between us. Did he forget about the kiss? As he disappears out the door, I close my eyes. There’s a little hint of lavender scent in the room.

• • •

“Y/N?”

I hear his voice calling out for me. I flutter my eyes open to find Bucky back. What time is it? I can smell something that is quite nice too.

He supports my back to help me sit up. I rest myself against the headboard of my bed with a pillow on my back. Oh the splitting headache. Is this what Bucky felt during those times he gets them?

“Eat then drink this medicine.” I look at the bowl of porridge on a tray. Bucky places it on my lap carefully. I raise an eyebrow before looking at him.

“Did you make this?” I ask him.

He blushes a little before running his finger through his hair. There were little stains on his shirt. I manage a weak smile. That’s very sweet of him to cook for me. But, I can only imagine what kind of mess he left in that kitchen.

“I tried. I looked it up.” He says. I take the first sip of the porridge. A little too salty, but good nonetheless. I nod, liking the taste. He breathes out a sigh of relief. I take another spoon of the porridge, forcing the food down my itching throat. I wasn’t in the mood to eat, but Bucky didn’t leave until I was done.

“Oh yeah…” I say to him. He looks up at me.

“What did you need to see me for?” I ask, looking at him. He gives me a warm smile. I was surprised to see it.

“Later. Right now you aren’t well. You should get all the rest you need.” He says lovingly while running his hand down my hair.

I nod slowly agreeing him. Whatever he does need to discuss might give me another splitting headache anyways. But that tone. That tone was too sweet for me to process. It did made my heart flutter, but, why is he being so sweet to me?

After he gives me the medicine, he lays me back down on the bed. Before I knew it, I dozed off once again.

• • •

I had a rather odd dream.

I don’t know what time it was, but it felt as though it was getting dark. My arm is hanging off the bed. No, not hanging. Someone was holding it. Holding my hand in theirs. I feel something rough brushing over the palm of my hands. My thumb twitches a little at the sensation. Then I feel something warm and soft against my palm. It feels so familiar.

I don’t know what that was, but it made me feel so peaceful, so loved.

• • •

I woke up to the sound of a yell. It sounded like it came from the living room. I look at the time on my phone: Half past 2 in the morning. Damn. How long was I asleep? My strength had returned a little from the meal Bucky gave earlier. I force myself from the bed when I hear the yell again. It was a yell I’m all too familiar with.

My body shivers as soon as I step outside of my room. It is freezing cold in this house. I walk into the dark living room. Bucky is sleeping on my couch. No pillow, no blanket. How is he not cold? I look closer. I can see sweat dripping from his forehead. His shirt was practically soaked from all the sweat.

Bucky groans and tosses on the couch again. His sweat soaking into the cushions. He grips onto the fabric of the couch before letting out another painful yell. I lean down quickly and shake him awake.

“Bucky, wake up!” I call out weakly.

His eyelids flew open and his eyes were dilated again. He grabs my hand quickly before pinning me down tightly onto the couch. Ow. My head spins and I felt the contents of my stomach threatening to spill out.

“Y/N!” He yells out letting me go. I take a deep breath, calming myself down. That knocked the wind out of me since I was still a little sick. He leans over the couch a little, placing a hand on his forehead.

“Which dream was it?” I ask looking at him, still lying down on the couch. My eyeballs feel like they are spinning around so much. I take another deep breath and feel a little better. His gaze finds mine, but he says nothing.  

“I’m so sorry…” Out of nowhere, he picks me up, holding me against his chest with my head resting on his shoulder. My heart races. I can feel his cheek pressing against the top of my head. I froze. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

“I’m so sorry.” He repeats as he takes me back to my room. I didn’t even answer. I just closed my eyes and leaned into him. It feels nice to be close to him like this again. He lays me back down before wetting the towel in the bowl of water.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He says, still feeling guilty. I shake my head. He wrings the towel and fold it wide enough to cover my forehead.

“It’s ok, Bucky.” I say weakly.

“Get some sleep.” He says, brushing the wet strands of hair away from my forehead with his metal hand before putting the towel on it. Despite the nature of it, it felt gentle and warm against my skin. As he is about to leave, I grab onto his hand. He looks at me surprised.

“Sleep here.” I say simply with my eyes closed.

I don’t know what made me say that, but all I know is I don’t want him to sleep alone out there. Nor do I want to sleep alone in here. I can feel his eyes on me as his hand wraps around mine in return. He moves to sit down on the floor, still holding my hand.

“No.”

I pat to the space next to me. There’s more than enough space on my bed for him to sleep on. Even though my eyes were closed, I can feel the intensity of his stare towards me.

“Are you sure?” He asks with a gentle voice. His flesh hand gently brushes over my hair. I nod slowly, feeling myself drifting off a little. The bed shifts under his weight as he lays down next to me. His hand never losing that grip it had on my own hand.

I don’t know what happened after that. All I know is that I woke up the next morning to Bucky’s bare chest right in front of me. His arms are coiled around me while my arms were around him. He had nuzzled his face into the crown of my head. My heart beats fast at the sight before I quickly pull myself away from him. I sit on my bed to watch him still sleeping. His sweat soaked shirt thrown onto the floor.

I feel a lot better than yesterday. The headache is gone, but the sniffs and itchy throat are still there. I watch him shift around in the bed, sleeping rather peacefully. I cover my face in my hands as I press my back into the wall.

“Again, Y/N? With another woman’s husband? Are you serious?” I whisper to myself. Cursing at the fact that I am taking advantage of Bucky’s kindness.

I run my fingers through my greasy hair. I must look like a mess. I look back at his topless body. I blush at the sight of his chest. My eyes trail down to his pecs then back up to his metal arm. He’s so beautiful…

My breath caught in my throat. Wait, w…we didn’t do anything did we? Why was his shirt on the floor? I was still fully dressed, so that must mean we did nothing, right? But why was he half naked when it is snowing outside? Is he not cold? I am and I’m fully dressed.

I glance up to his face. His eyes are open and staring right into me.

“B…Bucky.” I say nervously and embarrassed. I hope he didn’t catch my wandering eyes just now. Bucky brushes through his hair with his fingers as he yawns.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, reaching over and holding his fingers against my neck to feel the warmth of it. My heart beats rapidly against my chest at the sensation of his skin against mine.

Just two nights ago, he had kissed that very same spot.

“A lot better. Thank you.” I answer.

“I’m sorry to trouble you.” He sits up while keeping his eyes on me.

“Next time tell me when you get sick.” He says seriously as he sits up on the bed in front of me. I blink confused. Seriously, I got it overnight, how was I supposed to tell you if you showed up first thing in the morning? Besides, how can you think I’m able to even face you after kissing you when I know you’re married?

“I can manage on my own. I’ll be fine.” I say. A brief hit of dejavu. Didn’t Bucky say what I just said that night as well? His eyes shift around in mine before he sighs out, irritated.

He tilts my face up with his metal hand before pressing his lips against mine. I widen my eyes and pull myself away, banging my head against the wall. Ach, back to the head spinning. What on Earth is he doing? I couldn’t even properly process what just happened.

“That sounded painful.” He says while rubbing the sore spot where I hit my head. I push him away from me, nearly knocking him off the bed.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask straightforward, looking at him. Tears clouding my eyes. I don’t want this. I don’t want him ruling over my emotions again. His expression doesn’t change; still that same concerned but caring face.

“Y/N, I—”

“You have a wife of your own. You can’t do this.” I say to him, reminding him of his marital status.

My feelings are mixed. Angry at him for kissing me. Happy that he finally did. Confused that he even did it. Angry at him because of what he said to me before. Happy that he is here with me. Angry at him for cheating on his wife. Confused if he even cares about his marriage. Hate that I am feeling sick. Just, everything.  

“This is wrong, Bucky. You can’t do this to Rosaline. I know your marriage isn’t that well, but that doesn’t mean you need to find someone else. You can still make it work.” I say, hurt at the fact that I may just be used by Bucky because of his loneliness. Bucky keeps his eyes fixed on me. Not saying anything.

“I want you to be happy. I know you love Rosaline and it could still work. She is very beautiful and kind and just the perfect one for you. Okay?” I say. I wait for him to say something, but he only responds by brushing the back of his fingers against my cheek. My heart flutters at the sensation of his skin against mine.

I take my pillow and press it against his bare chest to keep him away from me. He’s playing around with my emotions again. This is only hurting me more. He’s making it difficult for me to help him out with his marriage.

“Do you hear me, Bucky?? Don’t you want that happiness that you’ve always talked about?” I ask him. Nothing but silence from him. I couldn’t read the emotion on his face. A few moments of silence pass us.

“Are you done?” He asks. I blink several times, surprised at the response. He lets out a small sigh before lifting his metal hand up. The machine within his arm whirs as he spreads his fingers open. I look at it; there is no ring on his finger. I gasp.

“Bucky, wha—”

“Let me explain this time.” He says. I bite my lower lip, concern written all over my face. He takes my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over it. What kind of explanation he has for that missing ring, I’ll listen.

“Rosaline and I have divorced.” My heart drops. My face must have too but he put his metal hand up to keep me quiet.

“We have been talking about it. We were emotional and lost in memories of the past. We rushed into marriage without thinking. Unfortunately, her return also triggered new nightmares from when she was around. It was too much for me. For us.” He continues, looking down at my hand. Okay, that explains the worsening sleep pattern.  

“After that night I came over here, Rosaline decided to properly give me the help I need. But she also asked that we go through with divorce.” He says looking up at me. So, he does remember that night after all. I watch his eyes, trying to find any hint of sorrow in them.

“I agreed.” He adds. I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off.

“She’s a psychologist after all. She knows that my heart doesn’t belong to her. And she also realizes that hers doesn’t belong to me either.”

“But, Bucky. Why? I thought you were really in love.” I say sadly. I was sad that Bucky’s one chance at happiness had slipped through his fingers.

“I wasn’t. We weren’t. We were desperate. You know that.” He says, eyes lingering around in mine. I look down, feeling a little sad that this was the aftermath of their marriage.

“Bucky… I’m so sorry.” I say genuinely. He shakes his head.

“So as we went through the divorce, she helped me out to seek the help of a specialist. The specialist put me through a treatment. It did helped me a lot. My memories improved. I started remembering more of other people that were in my life. My actual life. Not the life of Winter Soldier before. Though, his does still appear in my dreams.”

I watch him. I can see the joy in his expression. But I was still upset that they have divorced. Bucky had a chance to build a family with her, but it’s gone now. Though, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. By the fact that he just lost that chance of having his own family. What didn’t he fight for her? Fight to keep their marriage going?

“But the problem was, my memories of you were still hazy. Remember that time in the park?” He asks while continuing to hold my hand. That pulled me out of my own thoughts. I nod slowly.

“My memories of you were confused with memories of Rosaline. I mixed them up myself and thought that it was Rosaline. So I asked her about it those dreams. She said, with a smile, that it was you, not her. She hears me call your name out in my sleep.” My heart races again in my chest.

“He calls out your name in his sleep. I hear them.”

Steve said the exact same thing the other night. Bucky gives me his smile. The sweet smile I had seen him give Rosaline during their wedding. How am I supposed to feel right now after hearing that? Really, what am I supposed to feel right now?? I’m so confused. I’ll just listen to his explanation first.

“After that, I focused more in getting the treatment for my mind. The specialist brought me over to Canada for about a month to continue with my treatment. I had only returned last week.” My eyes widen. The anger I caged within me finally bursting free again. I pull the pillow away from him, raising it before hitting him with it as hard as I could.  

“What?? You were in Canada and you didn’t tell me?? You left me in the dark for over a month without telling me that you were out for a treatment. Then come back and telling me to ‘go home’?!” I shout at him as I hit him hard with my pillow. Nope, I still didn’t forget the terrible things he said to me a couple of nights ago.

“Then you tell me to go home when I see you! How could you?? If you think I was going to forgive you so damn easily, you’re wrong! Do you know how hurt I was??” He shields himself a moment, letting me let my anger out on him as I hit him over and over again with the pillow. Fresh tears spilling out from my eyes.

“Let me explain.” He grabs the pillow and pulls me towards him with it.

My face inches away from his. The memory of our kiss flashes through my eyes again. I pull myself away from him and letting my back press into the wall. I cross my arms over my chest. I watch him, interested in listening to his excuse. I can still feel that burning anger in my chest.

“During my stay in Canada, I realized how horrible I had been to you. Memories of our fights, my jealousy and my outbursts. I was embarrassed. So embarrassed that I prepared myself for your rejection when I get home. I saw your messages and missed calls but I didn’t dare to pick it up. So I… pushed you away.”

I raise an eyebrow. That is the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.

“But when I heard that you and Steve were in Canada, I had to see you. I didn’t approach you though. I was still burdened with that guilt, but I’ve never felt so alive when I saw you again.” He says quietly. It clicked. The man I saw once during our visit. He was that man.

“You were the creepy guy??” I yell at him. He blinks before furrowing his brows.

“Creepy? I wasn’t being creepy.” He answers a little irritated. I clench my fist.

“Yes, you were! Standing from far to watch me. Then staring me down at the lobby. You were the one walking in that hallway that night, weren’t you??” I yell at him again. He sighs out.

“The first two I can understand. That one in the hallway I was going to see Steve, but you beat me to it. I was flying home that night and wanted to see him. I’m sorry.” He says with a little laugh. That got me quiet.

How am I supposed to feel? Angry? Sad? Why watch me from far like a stalker? If he ignored me for a month, then why did he want to see me if he doesn’t plan on saying anything to me? If he is pushing me away, why see me in the first place?

“Anyways, I stayed over at Tony’s when I got back and been thinking about what to do to make it up to you, but didn’t know how. I felt ashamed. When I came over yesterday, I was yet ready to face you. That’s why I reacted the way I did. I let my ego take over this time, clouding my memories of you.”

“So instead of talking to me about it, you decided that it is best that you just continue to push me away and not deal with it at all?” I say a little angry. He ignores that anger in my tone.

“After you remind me of our memories together, I was overwhelmed with them. Memories after memories. Feelings come flooding through my chest. It was so much and so sudden that I lost it. I couldn’t let you slip through my fingers again.” I blink. His eyes shift up to mine as his fingers laced around mine.

“Steve came and talked to me that night after you left. He whacked me on the head once for kissing you before encouraging me to make things right with you yesterday.” Bucky pulls my face close to his.

“But when I saw you got sick, I felt guilty. I decided to take care of you first before explaining everything to you.” He brushes his metal hand through my hair, holding on the ends of it gently. I remain quiet. What should I even say?

“He told me to not let things be anymore. To let it out instead of keeping everything hidden from you.” He chuckles. It made my heart jump hearing that. It was so gentle and sweet.

“Steve knew all along that my heart was with another. All this time the real love I’ve been feeling was for the one right in front of me that I had turned a blind eye to because of my unreliable memory. And he reminded me of her.” He continues.

My heart skips a beat and I widen my eyes. Wait, does that mean…?

“I kept my feelings in before because of how she always seem to like it being on her own. I didn’t want to lose that comfort I have with her. I was afraid that if I tell her how I felt, I might lose her.” My heart aches.

“Bucky, I—” He moves his hand down to mine, making sure that my eyes were locked tight in his gaze.

I didn’t realize that’s how Bucky had seen me. Is it because I always kept my own feelings hidden too? Kept my problems to myself and not sharing them with anyone? Have those traits of me the cause for Bucky to push his own feelings away just so he won’t lose me? I feel like such an idiot.

“But now, after all these time, I can’t keep it in anymore. I saw with my own eyes of what true love can do. And I don’t plan on losing her ever again.” His eyes locked in tight with mine. His hand runs through my hair once before he pulls me into for another kiss. Soft and quick. I freeze against his lips.

“Steve reminded me the things she had done for me. He reminded me of our conversations we would have about her in secret. The nights when I would always come to her instead of him for comfort. The times when I get jealous just watching her talk with other men than myself. The moments I would have with her that shows how much I really love her only to be taken away by her respect for my marriage.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Her love had brought life back into my heart when I thought the ice had frozen it over. The love that caressed me when I wake up panting. The love’s gentle voice that soothed out my troubled heart. The warm glass of honey milk love would give to put me into a blissful sleep. The sincerity of love to keep me happy. The open heart love have to listen to my dreadful past…”

My head feels heavy.

He lifts my hand up to kiss the palm of it down to my wrist. My voice is stuck in my throat. My chest tightens. My stomach flutters.

“…and love’s hands that caringly held mine when I needed the comfort of knowing I was no longer alone.” I look at him.

I can feel my lips quivering at his words. My heart racing in my chest at the way his lips move against my skin.  

“The love that has never stopped even after I betrayed her. The love that is still willing to accept me even after I had been blind towards her. The love that I continue to rip apart without realizing, but still remains standing strong. The unconditional love that still wants my happiness instead of her own.”

“Bucky… stop, I…” I choke on my voice, but he silences me by kissing my lips tenderly. I hesitate for a moment, but return the kiss nonetheless. The other night’s kiss was passionate, but this one was filled with love. So warm, soft and kind. He pulls away from the kiss, eyes staring deep into mine.

“You are ‘her’, Y/N. The one who I truly love…” He says against my lips. Tears spill from my eyes as I pull back to look at him.

“I love you, Y/N.” He says it again.

My breath caught in my throat. I instantly feel the world coming to a stop. My voice is nowhere to be found and my mind is completely blank. I can feel myself melting down into the sheets. I couldn’t feel my heart beating anymore. Am I hearing that right?

He smiles at me, watching my blank reaction to his statement. I really didn’t know how to react. The pain, anger and sadness I felt before completely disappeared from within me.

“I’m sorry. I know it is all so sudden for you, but, I need to make that clear with you.” He places a soft kiss on my forehead. I lean myself against him, suddenly feeling tired from it all. My mind remains empty.

He holds me tightly against him, burying his face in my hair. I take a deep breath, trying to get my thoughts back so I can respond to him. But what kind of response is appropriate at this time? After he said all of those? Should I apologize for being angry at him all these time? Should I stay angry at him for not being straightforward? Should I—

“I love you too, Bucky…” I answer without finishing my own thought.

It was what I was feeling. The love beating inside of my chest was real. The one I had tried so hard to forget. All those time I had fought to keep our friendship alive weren’t in vain after all. I never expected him to return my feelings. Being friends with him was good enough.

But now that he finally returned my feelings, why should I push it away? My conservative nature had intimidated Bucky enough to keep his feelings quiet. My humbleness and quiet nature had been the reason why I choose not to tell him my own feelings. We were both idiots in this case.

I can feel Bucky’s body stiffens just before he buries his face into my shoulder. I let out a laugh. Bucky pulls himself away from me to look at me. I was crying and laughing at the same time. To think that all of these heartbreaks, all of these fights and all of these problems would have easily been avoided if either of us had the guts to tell the other how we feel in the first place.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” He asks worriedly. Of course. From sweet and loving to crazy laughing. I wipe my tears away before shoving him playfully.

“It took you four years, one marriage, a thousand fights and one fever to make you realize of what true love is?” I ask teasingly, knowing well enough that it isn’t true.

“You’re 104, for goodness sakes. I thought you’d know better.”

He manages a smile, holding my hands in his again. I squeeze it gently, the same way I would to remind him of his no longer present loneliness.

“No matter how long you live, it takes the right time and person to show you what true love really means. Some never find them either. I’m just lucky enough to live this long to see it with my own eyes. And to feel it as well.”

I run my thumb above his gently.

“Not true. You know true love with Steve as well.” He raises an eyebrow.

“Of course. But our bond is brotherhood. Different kind of love.” I smile at him before kissing his cheeks.

“Yes, it is. But you are lucky to see true love twice.” I say smiling.

He pulls me up into his embrace, holding me tightly against him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, feeling the love beating inside my heart. A love that had shattered so many times yet remains within no matter what. A love that I never thought would be returned but now that it finally did, it felt more wonderful than what I could have ever imagined.

A love that sparked over a warm glass of milk and honey.

★ ★ ★

A/N: So cute. So cute. So cute! I love this chapter so much. I enjoyed writing it and I hope you guys enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much for all the likes, reblogs and comments from my previous posts. Reading the comments made my day so much. I didn’t ignore them, I’m just not sure how to reply on my posts, but if you don’t mind me messaging my responses to your comments, then I’ll start doing that for my future stories. I really appreciate you guys reading and enjoying my stories. Makes me so happy. 

Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned. There will be two more chapters after this! Much love. <3 

Next chapter coming soon!

P/S: If you’d like to be tagged in the next chapter, message me and let me know!

Tag(s): @ipaintmelodies  @goldwanderer  @hairdye-enthusiast  @bexboo616  @chipilerendi  @typical0001  @damnbuckyishot   @mrsnegan25  @minstrel-axx  @axelinchen   @find-the-new-adventure-barryc  @38leticia  @bluewaves997  @buckybarnesbestbabe  @panda-reads-stuff

[swtltlmrvlgrl]

Love and Let Love (Part 3)

Love and Let Love Masterlist

Warning/s: Angst (?), Mentions of Death, Language

A/N: (Y/N = Your Name; L/N = Your Last Name) PART 3 GUYS!!  I planned to post this last Valentine’s day, but I was not able to finish it. Heh. (SORRY!) So for this part I wanted to focus more on Steve and why he’s so kind. Something along the lines of  “Behind those kind smiles are tragic stories.” I think the reader needed to know where Steve’s kindness comes from so that she can open up to him. I needed to insert a character to tell Steve’s story.

Number of Words:  1, 803

You are awoken by the cold weather, with a weary soul. The realness of everything that happened yesterday is slowly creeping into you.  It wasn’t a dream

Steve’s room smelled like the waves, the ocean and the sand. It reminded you of his kindness and his warm smile. The warm bed and the soft blankets made you think of the worst things that would’ve happened if it weren’t for Steve.

When you were about to get out of the bed you hear someone coughing from the living room.  You walked briskly towards the sick man.

“Steve?” you whisper as you slowly approach the long sofa, where he’s resting.  As you come closer, you can see him shivering – but it isn’t the same shiver from last night. You hasten your pace.

No, he isn’t shivering. He’s SHAKING.

Steve is sweating profusely and one touch on his forehead was enough to know that he has fever. You step back to get the blankets from the bedroom. You also searched the cabinets for things that he might need – medicine, face towels, thermometer, and a few bottles of water.

This is my fault.

You carry everything, and walk towards Steve. The layers of blankets that you carefully wrapped around him were not enough to conceal his uneven breathing pattern.

“Steve?” you whisper again, using a dry towel you attempt to remove the sweat pouring from his face. Slowly, he opens his eyes – the azure marble peeking under his eyelids. His lips form a half-smile, and then he closes his eyes again.  

“Can you move up for me, Steve? You need to take your medicine.”

Steve pulls himself up and you assist him – your left hand holding the back of his left shoulder and your right hand holding his right shoulder. You let go of him, and grab the fever medicine and bottle of water from the center table. Steve swallows the tablet. To avoid the water from spilling, you cup his chin with your left hand and carefully let him drink from the bottle of water. Steve slides down and makes himself comfortable on the sofa.  

“Do you want to go to the bedroom?  I can help you go there.”

Steve shakes his head - left and right.

The towel that you previously soaked on a bowl of cold water is now on Steve’s forehead – a method your mom used to do whenever you’re sick. You sit back down and brush his hair with your hands – his trembling seems less now and breathing pattern more stable. The fever meds is working quite effectively, because his sleeping face looks more peaceful, compared to what he looked like a few minutes ago.

You are staring blankly ahead when you suddenly hear a few knocks from the door.

“Steve?” The person knocking from the door calls out.

You jumped off of the chair. What should you do? You are definitely not expecting this – first, a sick Steve and now a person knocking on the door of the apartment that you don’t own. Panic ensues, but then you realize that you could ignore him, and he’ll just go away.

“Steve? Are you there?” He calls out again and twists the locked doorknob a few times. “Steve?”

He’ll just go away.

But, you were so wrong.

To your horror, after a few more knocks, doorknob twisting and shouting out Steve’s name, you heard a new type of noise – the sound of keys and then a few seconds after, you can hear the door unlocking.

“Steve?” he calls out, his stoic voice clearer now, because he’s INSIDE the apartment.

You freeze up - you don’t even have the luxury of time to hide and process what just happened.  The man peers to the kitchen and then to the living room. At that moment you wished you had the ability to be invisible, and that him looking you from head to toe is just a fragment of your imaginations.

Is he going to kick me out of the apartment? But I have nowhere to go... How do I explain everything?

Just when you are about to explain the situation, he spoke up.

“Have you eaten?” he asks.

What?

The man walks straight towards the kitchen after putting down the paper bag that he was carrying. You blink twice.

What did just happen?

What the hell is happening?

You clear your throat.

Is he misunderstanding the situation?

“Hi. I- uhm.” You make your voice loud enough to overpower the noise that he was making in the kitchen

“James.” He interrupts. “But you can call me Bucky.”

“Okay. Yeah. Bucky.” You started.

“You see, Steve’s sick and I’m – I mean, you might be misunderstanding. I’m not -  ”

“Stop.” He cuts you off. “Before you start explaining this... situation, you can sit here first.” He points at one of the stools, “And I’ll just assist Steve to his bedroom. ‘Cause, you know, he might wake up from the noise or something.”

After huffing an ‘okay’, you immediately followed suit. While he’s carrying Steve to the bedroom, you can hear inaudible murmurs, but you know better than to listen to the two of them. It took him a while to get Steve to the bed room, so you introduced yourself to the kitchen – you washed a few used plates, and check the pot of boiling porridge.

“Thank you for that.”

Surprised, you look back to him - you didn’t even feel him coming closer.

Bucky smiles at you – his eyes were blue like Steve’s, but it was a deeper shade of blue – almost like steel. You went back to the chair and he did, too. You are now sitting face-to-face with the second man that you met for the first time within the span of 24 hours.

“So, here’s what I know.” He starts. “One. Steve is sick. Two. You are a complete stranger wearing my best friend’s jogging pants and sweater and, three” His face tenses up. “You... look broken.”    

Broken.

The word echoes into your mind, as you clench your fist and look down. You avoid looking straight into those steel blue eyes, with the fear that he might discover the extent of your brokenness - the secrets etched in your soul. He might’ve noticed your internal conflict because he starts talking again.

“Let’s start talking about what I don’t know. Your name, for example.”

You look up to him. You take a deep breath, and try to inhale all the strength that you can get.  Because, these people, these kind people – they deserve an explanation.

“I’m Y/N, Y/N L/N.”

He extends his hands and offers you a handshake. “Hi Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

I have to tell him the truth.

You let go of his hand look down and start to tell the story of how you ended up in Steve’s apartment. You didn’t include the part before the park, because you feel that it would be unfair to Steve. You told him about how Steve found you soaking wet in the middle of a park, one rainy night and how rude you were towards Steve. You told him about how much you want him to leave you alone but he never did, he never left. You told him about the panic attack and how you woke up in the morning and discover that Steve was sick. During the whole narration of the story, there were moments where you wanted to cry but instead, you swallowed that urge and continued with the story.

“This is my fault.” You finally said.

Bucky was silent the whole time, but you know he’s listening – his eyes were fixated on you. But after the last sentence he stands up, and turns off the stove. He then pours in a few cups of porridge into a bowl and place it in front of you.

“For a second there, I thought that punk finally got himself a girlfriend. And didn’t even told me about it” He hands you a spoon and sits down. “Steve’s a good guy.”

You nod your head, as you scoop a spoonful of porridge. “Yeah.”

Bucky takes a deep breath.

“His mom died from overwork when he was a kid. Steve was a sickly kid, so she had to work her ass off for meds and food. Steve was well-aware if this situation so he would do side jobs, but he can only do so much with his frail body.” It’s like Bucky is struggling for the words to come out –like the pain that Steve felt was real for him too.

“Then one day, he woke up and saw that his mother didn’t go to work. He was happy, because as kid, it felt like; finally he can have more time to spend with his mom. But – when he entered her mom’s room, he saw her body, with a bunch of pills and tablets scattered all over the floor ... The reason her mother died – whether from a disease or if she... killed herself, is still a mystery up until now.” He takes a sip from his bottle of water.

The porridge in front of you is turning cold as you hold the half-empty bottle of water beside you. You just stared at Bucky – surprised and dumbfounded. A flood of emotions rushes inside of you. You never would’ve known that behind Steve’s bright smiles hides shadows of his dark past. Truly, the most damaged people have the warmest hearts.

“Either way,” he continues. “He still probably blames himself for letting her mother die ... alone.”

Your grip on the bottle tightens – just thinking about being alone, with no one to talk to. And it wasn’t just about being alone and being lonely, it was also about losing the person you love, the only person you had.

Then it came to you, you were in a similar situation, just a few hours ago. You felt lost, having been betrayed by two of the most important people in your life. You felt like the whole world turned its back on you. You were broken, devastated and hopeless. You were lonely, but... you weren’t alone.

I had Steve.

Bucky’s voice cuts you off from your thoughts. “He probably saw his mother in you. Or maybe... he saw a reflection of his past in you. He probable couldn’t leave you, because he knows all too well what it means to be truly ‘alone’. You might be his attempt to save his mother or his past self.”

You can feel the weight of Bucky’s words on your shoulders. Drops of tears are now falling from your eyes.

“He’s so strong.” You mutter.

“He really is.” He pauses, a sad smile forming on his lips as he drinks from his water bottle.

“But he can’t be strong for too long.”

Next 

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Masterlist

[cqfox-blog]

Hotpot is the most famous delicacy associated with Chongqing nationwide. No matter where you travel in China, you will almost certainly find a ‘Chongqing Huoguo (Fire wok) 重庆火锅’ restaurant in town.

There are countless avenues for us to explore with hotpot; the history, key ingredients, utensils, varieties, specialties, brands, social culture, homemade versions, entertainment, games, Chinese and local dialect terms, way too much to cover in a single post without making the reader’s head spin!

In light of this, I’m going to break down the culinary phenomenon of Chonqing hotpot into a series of bitesize themes, today’s being a matter of huge practical concern for overseas visitors, dealing with the menu!

For simplicity, I will picture the scenario where the tourist wanders into a common streetside hotpot restaurant, doesn’t know much Chinese, and isn’t familiar with ordering process.

You shouldn’t have any taxing issues with the upmarket brands, or at least they won’t give you much cause for headaches, so I intend to put these aside for today and focus exclusively on the ‘street’ hotpot experience.

Hang around through to the end, where I will share the most common hotpot menu items in both Chinese and English. I’m sure you will enjoy reading them, as perhaps one day turn them to practical use.

  Basic Steps

  On the surface, at least, the process of ordering hotpot itself is remarkably straight forward.

You walk in, then first tell the staff how many are in your party, since you might have more people coming to join you, for which you’ll need the right size of table and position.

Once a group of patrons have sat down, they will hand you one tickbox menu for the whole group to choose from. Depending on the occasion, a good host will allow the beneficiariesof his goodwill to select first. In a friendly gathering, there are no major formalities to worry much about.

Whilst you’re busy pondering over the menu, the chef will prepare your wok, then carry it through the aisles to your table, and heaven forbid drop or spill the contents! They will light the gas stove there and then, as it’ll take a while before it’s hot enough to cook anything.

You might find the waiting staff standing around to take the order if they’re not busy, and lots of foreign tourists may naturally feel a little uneasy, as if under pressure to hurry up.

The truth is you needn’t feel this way, it’s just the done way. They will wait for you, and might poactively recommend some dishes that you’re free to accept or decline. If you really feel uncomfortable, you can politely try out this phrase ‘请给我们几分钟考虑吧 Qing gei women ji fenzhong kaolv ba.’ Please give us a few minutes to think about it.

Once you’ve chosen, you hand the paper back, and they’ll do the rest. You can order extra later if you want, and they’ll just add it to the bill, no problem.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, yes, but with one almighty catch, being able to read and understand Chinese!

As well as enhancing cultural awareness, I hope my post comes in handy for the intrepid traveller one day!

  Back to the Past

  On my first independent ventures with fellow British friends back in 2003, the days before I knew Mandarin well, we were at a complete loss with the menus, and unable to communicate with the staff.

The only two solutions available at the time, apart from not going, were pestering strangers from another table for potential help, or have a waitress follow you around the restaurant and tick the menu as you point saying ‘I want one of those!’

Trying your luck at random choice is a highly risky tactic. Hidden among the palatable options are the likes of tripe, brains, duck intestines, gums, tongue, chicken’s feet, coagulated blood, plus a few exotic plants and mushrooms that foreigners aren’t necessarily used to eating.

Funny as it seems looking back, I expect you’ll want to avoid making a spectacle of yourself, or providing other patrons a source of great amusement. So, in my case, one of the top priorities after my arrival in Chongqing was to master the hotpot vocabulary. I took home a copy of all the menus, then painstakingly searched out the characters in a dictionary, one by one!

My efforts soon paid off. Though it took a while to memorise all the characters, I quickly managed to steer clear of the undesirable options by focusing on key words like Du肚 (Tripe), Xue血 (blood), Zhao爪 (Feet), Nao脑 (Brain) ecetera.

As in English, there a number of colloquialisms for the good old potato in Chinese, so you’ll have to learn a few alteratives for the same vegetable. The most common is ‘Tudou土豆,’ but menus often list them as ‘Yang-yu洋芋 (Foreign taro) or Ma-ling-shu马铃薯.

Interestingly, don’t always expect every Chinese member of staff to know each of these words for potato. I have known of people ordering ‘Tudou,’ only for the waiter to say there aren’t any, when in fact they’re on the menu under a different name!

Likewise, the popular and tasty lotus root slices are usually called ‘Ou-pian藕片,’ but are also known sometimes as ‘He-xin河心 (River hearts!).

Thankfully, most other foods tend to go by the same Chinese word, so potatoes are really the exception, not the rule, here.

  Translations of popular hotpot food

  Here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for!

The list below may be rather long, but I’m sure the sense of curiosity and and reactions to some of the more unusual items will carry you through to the end!

Waiting staff bring all of these dishes raw on plates, and the customers cook them in the boiling spicy wok.

There are a few Chinglish sounding expressions, so I have altered a few details to make them easier to understand.

Let’s see how many you’d like to try!

  火锅中英文菜单 Chinese-English Hotpot menu

  精品鹅肠 Special goose intestines

精品鸭肠 Special duck intestines

精品毛肚 Special tripe

(精品 jing-pin means special in the sense of high quality or house special)

麻辣牛肉 Spicy beef

香菜丸子 Meatballs served with cilantro

鲜牛鞭 Fresh ox penis

鹌鹑蛋 Quail eggs

美国肥牛 American fatty beef

鲜鹅肠 Fresh goose intestine

(Fresh as in not from the freezer)

鳝鱼 Eel

午餐肉 Spam meat/Luncheon meat (spam 是美国俗语)

无骨鹅掌 De-boned goose webs (Feet)

耗儿鱼 Corydoras

脑花 Brains

羊肉串 Mutton kebabs

羊肉卷 Sliced mutton

黄辣丁 Pelteobagrus fulvidraco fish

现炸酥肉 Deep-Fried Pork Fingers (Great as a starter)

鲜毛肚 Fresh tripe

腰片 Sliced kidneys

鲜鸭肠 Fresh duck intestines

鲜猪黄喉 Fresh pork trachea

千层肚 Thousand-layered tripe (Piled like lasagne in strips 千层面)

鲜鱼头 Fresh fish heads

虾饺 Shrimp dumplings

脆皮肠 Crispy intestine

鲜黄喉 Fresh trachea

白菜 Chinese white cabbage

豆芽 Beansprouts

鲜豆腐 Fresh Tofu

冬瓜 Winter gourd

藕片 Sliced lotus roots

土豆 Potatoes

木耳 agaric fungus

香菜 Cilantro

土豆皮 Potato skin

鲜鸭血 Fresh duck blood curds (A bowl of coagulated blood)

海带 Seaweed

青笋头 Green bamboo shoots

平菇 Shitake mushrooms

香菇 Champignon (Mushrooms)

贡菜 dried ballonflower

四川金针菇 Sichun Needle mushrooms

方竹笋 Square bamboo shoots

蛋炒饭 Fried rice with eggs

牛油火锅 butter hotpot

秘制全白锅 House special white hotpot

清油鸳鸯锅 Clear-oil double-flavoured hotpot

牛油鸳鸯锅 butter double flavoured hotpot

(The above four are different kinds of bases for the wok soup. My suggestion is the partitioned spicy broth and bland soup, as meant by ‘double flavoured’)

香油碟 Sesame oil

特色菜 House special dishes 

荤菜 Meat dishes

素菜 Vegetarian dishes

小吃 Snacks

锅底 Soup base

油碟 Oil dish

火锅 Hot pot

茼蒿菜 Crown daisies (Plant)

莲藕片lotus root-pieces

冬瓜片Chinese watermelon-pieces

青笋片lettuce-pieces

鸭血 duck blood

平菇 Even mushroom

粉条vermicelli

牛百叶 stomach of the cattle

小羊羔肉 Lamb

肥牛 Fatty beef

肥肠 Pig’s colon

鱼丸 Fish meatballs

虾丸Shrimp meatballs

鳝鱼片 Eel strips

午餐肉 spam luncheon meat或spam

爽口嫩牛肉 Tender Beef

牛肉饺 beef dumplings

猪肉饺 pork dumplings

虾米饺 shrimp dumplings

龙须面 Fine noodles

麻花 fried dough twist (Hemp flour biscuits)

火腿肠 sausages

精品:House Special(意思是本店特色,言下之意就是精品了)

鹅:goose;

肠:intestine;

鸭:duck;

麻辣:spicy;

牛肉:beef;

香菜caraway;

牛肉丸:beef ball;

手工house-made(意思就是本店亲手制作),

里脊fillet,

嫩牛肉tender beef;

鲜fresh;

墨鱼仔cuttlefish;

美国肥牛:American beef,

蟹肉crab meat,

鳝鱼eel,

无骨:boneless;

火腿肠:sausage

猪脑花:pig brain,

羊肉串:lamb stick,

带鱼hairtail,

鳕鱼ling,

酥肉,fried pork,

腰片:sliced kidney,

无骨凤爪 boneless chicken paw,

大白菜cabbage,

豆芽bean sprout,

鲜豆腐fresh tofu,

冬瓜chinese watermelon,

藕片lotus root,

鱿鱼:squid,

虾饺shrimp dumpling,

土豆,patato,

黄瓜:cucumber,

木耳agaric,

血汪red tofu (Soup with blocks of coagulated blood)

海带seaweed,

年糕rice cake,

花菜cauliflower,

蘑菇mushroom,

竹笋bamboo shoot,

脆豆腐 crispy tofu,

蛋炒饭 egg fried rice,

八宝粥 Mixed porridge,

特色菜:Chef specialty,

荤菜:meat,

素材:vegetable,

小吃:snack

   Here are some more!

  1、红油锅底 Hot pot soup base (red chili oil)

2、清汤鸳鸯锅底 Dual hot pot soup bases(red chili oil and clear soup)

3、土鸡汤鸳鸯锅底 Dual hot pot soup bases(red chili oil and village chicken soup)

  4、野生菌锅底 Hot pot soup base (wild mushroom)

5、麻酱碟 Plate of sesame paste

6、香油碟 Plate of sesame oil

7、椒盐碟 Plate of pepper salt

8、鳝鱼 Short eel

9、尚席方竹笋 Square bamboo shoot of ShangXi

10、特色毛肚 Sepcial beef omasum

11、猪黄喉 Pig trachea

12、重庆酥肉 Chongqing fried pork

13、鸭胗花 Duck gizzard pieces

14、鸭胗片 Duck gizzard slices

15、腰花 Pork kidney pieces

16、腰片 Pork kidney slices

17、老肉片 Marbled meat slices

18、牛眼肉 rib eye beef

19、肥牛 Fat beef slices

20、内蒙羔羊肉 Inner Mongolia kidlet slices

21、羊上脑 Fillet of lamb

22、手切鲜羊肉 Fresh mutton slices

23、手切鲜牛肉 Fresh beef slices

24、牛毛肚 Beef omasum(black)

25、牛黄喉 Beef trachea

26、火腿肠 Ham sausages

27、泥鳅 Loaches

28、鱼丸 Fish meatballs

29、虾丸 Shrimp meatballs

30、牛肉丸 Beef meatballs

31、鹌鹑蛋 Quail eggs

32、猪脑 Pig’s brains

33、蟹肉 Crab meat

34、脆皮肠 Crispy sausages

38、带鱼 Frost fish

39、马面鱼 Horse-faced fish

40、花鲢鱼头 Spotted silver carp head

41、牛百叶 Beef omasum (white)

42、猪肉香菜丸子 Pork and parsley meatballs

43、羊肚 Lamb tripe

44、牛骨髓 Bovine bone marrow

45、无骨鸭掌 Boneless duck feet

47、黄辣丁 Yellow cartfish

48、午餐肉 luncheon meat

50、九尺鹅肠 Goose intestines (long)

51、肥肠 Pig’s colon

52、鸭舌 Duck tongues

53、竹荪 Bamboo shoots

54、草菇 Straw mushroom

55、金针菇 Golden mushroom

56、香菇 Black mushroom

57、平菇 Cap fungus

60、白菜 Chinese cabbage

61、圆白菜 Cabbage patch

62、粉丝 Vermicelli

63、土豆片 Potato slices

64、豆芽 Bean sprouts

66、宽粉 Wide Vermicelli

67、海带 Kelp stripes (Seaweed)

68、红薯片 Sweet potato slices

69、龙须面 Fine noodles

70、豆苗 Mung Beans

71、菠菜 Spinach

72、白萝卜片 Radish slices

73、冬瓜 Chinese watermelon

74、菜花 Cauliflower

75、茼蒿 Garland Chrysanthemum

76、年糕 Rice cakes

77、地耳 Nostoc commune

78、青笋叶 Asparagus leaves

79、油麦菜 Lettuces

80、腐竹 Bean curd sheet rolls

81、豆皮 Tofu skin

82、冻豆腐 Frozen tofu

83、白豆腐 Fresh tofu

84、蒿子杆 Garland chrysanthemum

85、鸭血 Duck blood

86、黄瓜 Cucumber

87、青笋条 Fresh Bamboo Shoots

88、藕片 Lotus Root slices

90、鲜山药 Fresh Cinnamomvine

91、四川麻圆 Si Chuan Sesame Balls

92、家乡叶儿粑 Cakes wrapped in leaves

93、香煎糍粑块 Fried Glutinous Rice Cake

94、鸳鸯小馒头 small buns in two flavors

95、香芋卷 Taro Rolls

96、醪糟小汤圆 Glutinous Rice Balls in Rice Wine

97、酱香蒸饺 Steamed Dumplings Seasoned with Soy Sauce

98、扬州炒饭 Yang Zhou fried Rice

99、担担面 Dandan noodles(top with chopped meatin soybean paste )

100、家乡泡菜 Pickled vegetables

101、米饭 White rice

103、鲜豆浆 Fresh soybean milk

104、柠檬茶 Lemon tea

105、鲜橙汁 Fresh orange juice

106、西瓜汁 Watermelon juice

107、青瓜汁 Cucumber juice

  Fun with Hotpot Menus Hotpot is the most famous delicacy associated with Chongqing nationwide. No matter where you travel in China, you will almost certainly find a 'Chongqing Huoguo (Fire wok) 重庆火锅' restaurant in town.

[wayneooverton]

A winter adventure up to Brewster Hut in the snow

Ohh winter. How conflicted I feel about you.

One the one hand, a little part of my soul lights up when I think of cozy fires and hot cocoa and bundling up. The other part of me, of course, enters a mild state of depression that slowly increases every day after summer solstice.

Where did the sun go? Why am I always freezing? What happened to all the summer energy and motivation I had? This happens to me every year.

Each April I make a goals list for winter in New Zealand. I tell myself this is the year I’ll become a better climber through my many indoor climbing sessions. Or perhaps this is the year I’ll become a major book worm and hole up next to the fire while I digest book after book. Maybe this is the year I’ll learn how to pickle things or bake extravagant desserts.

Sigh.

And every year I get all the way through June and wonder what exactly I’ve been doing with myself.

How have I let two cold weather months sip by so easily? After weeks of making excuses, I finally decided on a weekend in the mountains. We have them in abundance here in Wanaka.

An experience to slap me in the face and bring me back to life, to give me some inspiration and recharge my batteries.

It didn’t matter that it was cold. It didn’t matter that daylight is limited. All that mattered was finding a mountain that made my lungs burn again and a cozy little hut far from civilization, a place where I could take a brief break from my never-ending mental to-do lists.

And there are plenty of mountains still accessible in the wintertime in New Zealand for hiking.

10 of the most iconic backcountry huts on the South Island

After much debate and contemplation, I chose the iconic Brewster Hut, a picturesque red hut not far from Makarora, perched on a flat plateau hanging over the valley 1,000 meters below.

It was a hut I’ve been to many times before but unlike all the other times, this time I’d be treated to the hut while it was cloaked in white.

I knew it’d be the perfect adventure to make me fall in love winter again.

Disclaimer: Snow, ice and avalanche conditions are possible to Brewster Hut in the winter – winter alpine skills and equipment are required if you are considering completing this track or visiting this hut in the winter. It’s a good idea to check in with the local DOC office for an update on conditions (and river level for crossing) and register your intent and plans with someone before you go. 

New Zealand Mountain Safety Council Plan My Trip is a great tool for the backcountry here

After a leisure breakfast of coffee and crepes at home, we set off for the mountain around mid-morning.

The drive from Wanaka isn’t long and the hike itself, while insanely steep and tiring, is actually not that long. Having lost our summer fitness, we knew the climb would be strenuous despite being a short 3 kilometers.

First step: crossing the icy Haast River.

Crossing a river is never a pleasant experience for me, someone who loathes any water colder than a tepid bath. The river crossing is only 50 meters from the carpark so I knew we’d at least get it over with quickly but this also means we wouldn’t have time to work up a sweat so we knew the water would feel extra cold. To our surprise, the river was low and only threatened to reach our kneecaps. We took off our shoes and hobbled across the freezing water, trying our best to ignore the piercing aches shooting up through our bones.

With fresh socks and dry shoes, we headed up the track.

The Brewster Hut track is a classic New Zealand approach to hiking. Why bother with switchbacks when you can just go straight up a mountains?

The climb is relentlessly steep, climbing over 1,000 meters in just 3 km. I tried to ignore the feeling of being completely unfit and instead tried to focus on the crisp air filling my lungs and the warm sunshine on my back. We were surprised to have been treated to such a warm day, hiking in t-shirts and shorts and still sweating our asses off.

After a few hours, we popped out of the bush and were greeted with our first steps of deep snow. The entire mountain was covered but there were ample footsteps to lead the way. A short walk from the bush line put us eye to eye with the ever-stunning Brewster Hut.

A red beacon of comfort and warmth, waiting to be our home for the night. I could already feel my spirits lifting and that joy I knew in summer returning.

We spent the first few hours like kids in a candy store: running around in the snow, throwing snowballs and snapping photos.

The western facing deck, normally the best spot for sun bathing, was covered in a few feet of snow so perched ourselves on the railing, face to the sun, soaking up that much-needed vitamin D.

Eyes closed. Deep breaths. Nothing but the sound of a gentle breeze and the distant squawk of the keas.

No tourists. No noise. Just us and the mountain. A necessary reminder at what brings me inner peace and what makes my heart happy.

Despite the sun, the air was still frigid and brisk so we soon headed in for my favorite part of hut life: kicking off the heavy boots and crampons, putting on your granny slippers and warming up with a cup of coffee and hot meal.

Honestly, nothing ever tastes as good as a big feed after a huge effort. Luckily, the hut was empty so no poor souls were subjected to my savage feed.

There was once a time when I stressed about hiking food.

My first ever backpacking mission was a food disaster, filled with canned beans, cooked potatoes, large sticks of salami, jars of peanut butter and jelly. Can you imagine carrying the weight of that on your back?

I had no idea what I was doing and focused only on a lot of food that would give me lots of energy. (I know, I know, keep your criticism to yourself, nothing you say could ever be as bad as my own self-criticism on this!)

One day, someone told me about freeze dried meals. I don’t know why these weren’t on my radar. Perhaps I was trying to be cheap ($2 noodles, anyone?) Perhaps I didn’t think they’d taste that good. For some reason, I never thought seriously about it until after one of my many hikes with an overwhelmingly heavy pack. I decided I was done with heavy food and promised to treat myself to dehydrated meals on my next trip.

I haven’t looked back since. Seriously, you guys. The amount of weight I saved in my bag was incredible and the little forethought it required was unmeasurable. I now feel like a weightless fairy, bounding up the hills.

If you haven’t used dehydrated food before, let me break it down for you.

Dehydrated meals in New Zealand come in 1 or 2 people serves. Since I have the appetite of an elephant, I can usually manage a 2 person serve on my own but really, they’re quite adequate for two people. These metallic pouches weigh only a few ounces and are completely self-containing.

All you have to do is boil your water, open the pouch, add the water, give it a stir and reseal for 10 minutes and pull on the bottom of the bag to open it flat so it stands on its own . Once it’s rehydrated, you can rip the top half of the package off to make it into a bowl. Too easy.

Fun fact, for winter missions, stuff the sealed packaged underneath your sweater for a hot water bottle effect.

REMEMBER: most huts in New Zealand, especially in winter, don’t have fuel sources, so you have to bring your own. We love jetboils.

Like most Kiwis, my go-to is Backcountry Cuisine meals because they are literally readily available almost anywhere in New Zealand and because they are super affordable. With a mission to produce fast nourishing food that’s lightweight and tastes good, and based down in Invercargill, New Zealand, it’s an easy choice.

Breakfast scramble in the morning, creamy mushroom soup for lunch, beef curry for dinner, apple crumble for dessert. Every meal is covered and it all weighs practically nothing, which is much appreciated when you’re hauling everything you have up steep rooted hiking trails. Having an instant, warm and delicious meal is no non-negotiable for me when I go on overnight missions.

On this particular night, we had beef curry along with wild mushroom and lamb risotto. It was like a Christmas in July. But winter since we’re in the southern hemisphere. Have I confused you yet?

A few ski tourers arrived back at the hut around 6 but only stopped in for a few minutes so they could pack up their bags and head back to their cars, leaving us to an empty hut.

Snuggled in our sleeping bags with a cup of tea, we read through the log book of the adventurers before us who called this hut home for a night. What a mecca for adventure lovers.

One of the best parts of being in the wild is resetting your internal clock to work with the sun.

It’s a return to a simple life: wake up, walk, rest when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry, sleep when it’s dark. It’s uncomplicated life, perfect for clearing the mind. It wasn’t long after the sunset before we were tucked into our cots and snoozing away.

The clouds had come in overnight making for a lackluster sunrise.

With some hot coffee and porridge in our bellies, we packed up camp and slowly began making our way back to the car. We made quick work of the descent and before long were back at the car, indulging on our car snacks, completely satisfied with the trip.

It can be so hard to get yourself outside in the winter but if you can get out of your own head and make the first steps towards an adventure, you’ll be well rewarded.

What an adventure, now, where to next?

Are you a fan of hiking in the winter? Have any good spots to share in New Zealand? Spill!

The post A winter adventure up to Brewster Hut in the snow appeared first on Young Adventuress.

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