#i had a meltdown over those but my friends said they would still buy them so that cheered me up | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

snackhobi · 4 years ago

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pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan.

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve.

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable.

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is.

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church.

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside.

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?”

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement.

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble.

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom.

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised.

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt.

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts.

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless.

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck.

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in.

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres.

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body.

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage.

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe.

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead.

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming.

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class.

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end.

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?”

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading.

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it.

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing.

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.”

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good.

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it.

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm.

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be.

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh.

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent.

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed.

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside.

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil.

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed.

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you.

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you.

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs.

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…”

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon

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citydreamgrls · 4 years ago

Text

a simple favour - part one

fred weasley x fem!reader

summary: it was all in her best interests, fred never meant to catch feelings for her. it had started as a simple favour.

words: 3,371

warnings: swearing , tw: stalking / stalker , smut in later parts (18+)

find part two here

It had started off out of the blue one morning, a letter waiting for me in the great hall when I came down for breakfast. I had been fixing my hair when multiple heads turned towards me, I frowned as I sat down.

“What?”

Hermione held a letter in her hand, passing it over to me with a weirded out look on her face. I shrugged, recognising my name on the front but not the hand it was written in.

I laughed to myself as my eyes scanned over each carefully thought out word, describing my appearance and how ‘entrancing’ I was. Whoever had intended this letter for me was confessing their feelings in an oddly poetic and creepy way, my only conclusion being that it had to be one of the others playing a trick on me.

“Very funny guys, which one of you wrote this? I can’t recognise the writing.” I threw the parchment down carelessly, letting expectant eyes read over it as Ron grabbed it for himself.

“Doesn’t it say?” Hermione asked me, trying to read it over Harry’s head. “It was already here when we came down.”

“Yeah… this isn’t any of us.” Ron scoffed.

“I think you have a secret admirer y/n.” Harry added, handing it back to me.

I squinted, drinking some of my coffee and eyeing up their faces, expecting one of them to snap and laugh. But all I got was stone cold confusion from each of them. If only the letters had stopped there, then I may not have minded. Little did I know, it would only get worse.

The letters came every single day, sometimes multiple times. What once was harmless words of my beauty and desire turned sinister, now whoever was writing also seemed to know my whereabouts every day. He would depict times when I thought I had been alone, or claim he’d watched me go for my morning shower. My every move was documented, all with a perfect description of what I had been wearing even days after it had happened. The most disgusting part was the anonymity, the knowledge that this person was getting away with being a massive pervert and torturing me with it day in and day out. Whoever was obsessed with me was keeping it a secret and successfully stalking me from the sidelines.

The day that I found flowers on my bed I screamed like I’d been stabbed, making Ron and Harry quickly race up to the dorm thinking that I’d been attacked. Both of them had cringed at ‘gift’ with the realisation that he’d been in my room, sat on my bed and possibly done worse.

“Make sure nothing’s been taken.” Ron had said grimly, making me shudder at the fear that they could have something of mine.

“Jesus what a creep.” I’d whispered, stomping over to the bed and throwing the flowers out the window with a furious shout.

Since that day Hermione tried putting a curse on the bedroom door, meaning that only those who knew the counter-curse could enter, and those who didn’t would be blown all the way back down to the common room. Poor Ron had ended up being the test subject, which he wasn’t happy about in the slightest, but we had to make sure it worked somehow.

However, even that didn’t work. The letters kept arriving as usual, and the gifts would still appear neatly in my room every day. Not that it stopped me from discarding them in the most public way possible. My anger was growing by the second and throwing them away didn’t feel finite enough, so one night after watching the boy’s quidditch practice when Hermione and I found a teddy bear on my pillow I finally lost my cool.

I could hear voices in the common room, but that didn’t stop me. With the bear in one hand I stormed down, pushed past the small crowd of people laughing and chatting, and threw it into the fire with a grunt. They all fell into silence, Hermione catching up just in time to see its fur crackle away.

I sighed in relief, it felt good to watch the flames engulf around it. Whispers started up from behind me as my friend came over, her hand holding mine gently as we both just stood there. The bear's eyes began to melt, the plastic dripping down its face.

“Come on,” She murmured, taking me back upstairs where I screamed about how horrifying it all was and whether this ‘sick fuck’ thought he was being genuinely romantic.

“Who do you think it could be?” Hermione asked me the next night, as I ripped up yet another letter. The sight of my own owl was beginning to instil fear within me.

“At first I thought it could’ve been the twins, but even they’re finding this too much.”

Fred and George knew pretty much everything about everyone at Hogwarts, but when Ron had shown them the extent of this person’s doing, they too drew up a blank, mentioning how weird all of it was.

“They’re not like that,”

“This isn’t a harmless prank anymore is it?” I asked the girl, who wanted desperately to help me solve this twisted mystery.

“I don’t think it ever was,” She hummed to herself, sighing in defeat at the knowledge that the letter I was destroying was in no means the last of its kind.

It quickly became common knowledge that I had a stalker after my meltdown in the common room. Professor Mcconagall even offered to help, but there wasn’t much she could do without knowing who it was. Honestly I was weirdly glad she couldn’t, all this frustration had made me determined to deal with the fucker myself.

Hermione didn’t let me go anywhere by myself anymore, with the fear that the creep could pounce while I was without one of them. Most of the time it was fine, I had classes with at least one of them at all times and we had meals together as it was. But it meant that whenever I needed to study, one of them would have to go with me to the library. Hermione also made the rule that she’d sit outside my cubicle every time I showered, especially since the stalker had mentioned it before, keeping watch in case he tried to show up while I was vulnerable.

Despite it making my life a little more complicated, I was glad the others were so willing to look after me. If it wasn’t for them being with me 24/7 who knows what could have happened?

It was Harry’s turn to be on y/n watch, as he and Ron had called it, when Fred and George came running into the common room breathless. We had been looking over the most recent letter and discussing more theories on who it could possibly be when they’d burst in. We let them get their breath back, Fred hunching over as George did his best to get his words out.

“We know who it is y/n..” He’d just about managed. I jumped up, letting him sit down.

“Wh-at? Really? Who- how?” I stuttered.

Fred stood up straight, having finally gotten his heartbeat back down.

“Katie bell said she’d seen Cormac Mclaggen writing some letters this morning, then Lavender said something about him buying a teddy in Hogsmeade last week.”

“But they both saw him coming down your dorm tower last night.” George finished, cutting his brother off from the kicker of the story.

“Oi I was getting to that.” Fred grumbled, but I had zoned them as soon as I’d heard Cormac’s name mentioned.

My fists clenched up with absolute aggression, I could kill him. Now I had a disgusting, smug face to put to all the fear and loathing he’d caused and all I wanted to do was break said face.

“That fucker!” I shouted out into thin air, heading for the door. But Fred was the one to catch me before I reached it, dragging me back again without a second thought.

“Y/n it could be someone else,” Harry tried to reason, but it had to be him. It only made sense. The twins didn’t seem too convinced but argued another point against me going to find him myself.

“Besides Mclaggen is a big guy, if you go alone there’s no saying what he’d do to you.” George nodded in agreement with his brother and, as much as I hated to admit it, Fred was right. Cormac had been keeper on their quidditch team for a while now, and didn’t hide how much he liked to work out when flirting with girls. So why was he choosing me to be so creepy and mysterious to, not that I would’ve appreciated him doing it face to face either.

We decided to have a secret meeting later that night with everyone after telling Hermione and Ron what we’d learnt. Ron was mad, wanting to confront him immediately similarly to how I had reacted, but like the others Mione agreed that we should plan something.

“Guys like that are too proud, he won’t listen to y/n if she rejects him in person,” She had explained, cross legged at the end of my bed. I was propped up against my headboard, my knees tucked up to my body with multiple means of murder running through my mind.

“Not to mention you’d be giving him the satisfaction he’s always wanted,” Fred added, sitting on the windowsill beside me. One of his feet was hanging off the edge near me, swinging ever so slightly. Some weird part of me wanted to reach out, just for something to hold onto.

In the end it was decided that Ron, Harry and the twins would go and talk to him in the morning while they were at quidditch practice. This meant that I could go down to breakfast without the worry that he would be there, watching me from down the table. I tried to hide my fear of him, but with so many of them looking after me that night it was inevitable that at least one of them saw the tears in my eyes, if not all of them.

Hermione, Ron and Harry needed to go to the library to do homework after we discussed Cormac, leaving me with the twins as bodyguards which could have been worse. They did their best to take my mind off of the boy who had been writing to me about his deepest fantasies, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.

George played around with the perfume bottles lined up on the dresser, using his wand to make them dance. He had always been good at keeping himself amused. Fred had remained on the windowsill the whole time, his foot still going back and forth even when I laid on my side and found it right in my face.

He laughed lightly as I poked it away wordlessly, only to push it back into my face again. Admittedly, our little game of him swinging his foot to me so I could gently hit it away kept my mind busy for a while. Obviously it had sent me to sleep too, as I woke up when Hermione came back to let the twins go. Half asleep I groaned a thank you to them, Fred rustling my hair as he passed by and George slapping my leg in recognition.

Breakfast the next morning felt tense, Lavender had told people she thought it was Mclaggen which meant everyone kept coming up to ask if it was true. Some of them even tried to convince me how nice he really was, and that I was lucky to be wanted by him. Hermione of course sent them all on their way, keeping a hold of my hand as I struggled to finish even one slice of toast. All the while, my eyes remained glued to the great hall doors, hoping I wouldn’t see him turn up early from practice. The thought of seeing him at all had kept me away from the common room, a sickly feeling bubbling in my stomach knowing that the boy’s would probably be confronting him right about now.

I felt like throwing up on the spot, my friend’s hand getting crushed in my own as I saw him saunter in, his eyes immediately catching mine and giving me a smug smile. All I wanted to do was go over to where he sat down without a care and break his nose off with one punch. That would stop him from smirking so much like a pervert.

“What happened?” Hermione asked the boys when they finally arrived.

“”He’s a huge git you know.” Ron grumbled, glaring the boy down but the whole time it was me he was watching. I stopped looking after a while, my eyes glossing over as I listened to the twins explain how he’d reacted.

“I don’t think he even cares that we know,” Fred said.

“He’s proud of it really.” George added, making that sickly feeling somehow intensify.

“Even with these two around he wasn’t bothered,” Harry pointed to the older Weasley brothers with a huff.

“Yeah, and we were threatening him quite a lot.” George laughed, no one else really responding to his attempt at a cheery comment.

“We better go,”Hermione said, checking the time and taking my hand “Come on, if we don’t go now he might wait all day.” She whispered to me and I nodded, standing up with her. “Just ignore him.” The girl reminded me as we got nearer to his end of the table, his eyes following my step.

I broke from Mione’s grip, leaning across the table to him with a glare on my face. The fear had turned into anger all over again now that he was in front of me.

“You’re vile Mclaggen.”

“What’s wrong y/n?” He asked, that smirk never faltering. “Didn’t you like my love letters?”

People around him were confused, now learning that he’d been the one to stalk me these past couple of weeks. While some of them were his friends, none of them jumped to his defense.

“You need to get a fucking life, and leave me alone you freak.” I spat, standing up straight again to see a shocked Hermione waiting for me. I just smiled and took her hand again, leading her out of the hall as if nothing had happened.

“Christ y/n..” she scoffed “Well done.” I leant against the windowsill in the hallway, laughing hysterically into my hands.

“God that felt good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, not sure whether it worked or not but glad that I at least got to embarrass him for just one moment.

It was my mistake to let my guard down and expect nothing more from Mclaggen that day. Because what happened that very night still is the very reason people check that every door and window is locked before they go to bed.

The commotion had woken me up first, shouts and panicked scuffling coming from two different people. Then the lights were turned on, dragging me out of my sleep in a single second just to see Hermione standing in the middle of the room with her wand outstretched. At the other end, Cormac Mclaggen was backing away slowly with his hands in the air, finally a frightened look on his face. He looked over at me, now awake and frozen with fear, giving Mione a chance to shout out for help.

“RON! FRED!” she screamed, knowing just one of them had to have heard from their beds. With this Cormac ran off, Hermione shooting stunning spells after him but he dodged every one of them as he descended the tower.

“Oh my god,” I finally gasped, swallowing down hard. I broke out into a burst of tears just before the boys turned up at the door George and Harry with them, all of them with wands out for whatever was going to be inside. Hermione wrapped her arms around me, looking up at the boys but still reassuring me that it was all okay now.

“He was in here,” She said slowly, making Ron and Harry race down to the common room to see if they could catch him.

Fred and George came to my side, each taking one of my hands and holding it tight. They sat with me all through the night, letting Hermione sleep for a while. Neither of them dared drift off themselves, certain that this wouldn’t be the creep’s last attempt to get close to me.

“You can sleep if you want,” Fred whispered to me, my head leaning on his shoulder. I shook it slightly.

“I can’t.”

{third pov}

When y/n whispered to him that she couldn’t sleep, despite all the people there to keep watch for that dick Mclaggen, Fred decided he wanted to see him dead. There had to be more he could do, something that would make him leave her alone for good. Threats hadn’t worked on him, neither had the girl he wanted so badly confronting him. So the boy felt at a loss, yet fuelled to stop the onslaught of fear that y/n felt.

So he waited until his brother was in the shower to sneak off to the courtyard, hoping to catch the pervert on his way to his daily run by the lake.

“Oi, Mclaggen!” He called across the empty bridge, seeing him appear from the castle.

“You alright Weasley?”

“It’s Fred. And I know what you did last night?” He stood tall over the boy, but nothing seemed to waver his confidence.

“And what would that be?”

“You were there, in her room. You sick fucker.” The boy huffed, feeling himself growing more and more frustrated at Cormac’s arrogance.

“You missed quite a party,” he scoffed, raising his eyebrows. Fred reached forward, grabbing his shirt and pulling it up to his chin.

“You listen to me, Okay? Leave y/n alone.” The boy swore that the pervert’s smile grew.

“And what’s it to you Weasley.” He all but hissed.

“She’s my girlfriend.”

The words had come out quicker than he’d really had time to think over their repercussions, but seeing the look on Mclaggen’s face drop in shock made up for whatever he was going to have to do from then on.

“She.. l-likes you?” Fred dropped him again, making him stumble slightly as he thought it over.

“Afraid so buddy.”

“How long has she been yours?” He hated the way it was phrased as if y/n was a possession for one of them to own.

“Two weeks.” Fred lied yet again, the anger he’d felt pushing him continue this story. At least it seemed to bother the other boy enough.

Cormac had sent one last glare at the ginger, before going off in a huff. Finally something had worked, maybe not for good, but it at least had gotten a reaction out of him. As Fred headed back inside the castle he realised that the only way the creep’s obsessive ways could be stopped, was if y/n’s attention was somewhere else.

Now he just had to find a way to explain that to her, without her getting too mad.

My room was now my safe place, somewhere he couldn’t turn up without consequence. Harry had brought me some breakfast from the great hall, and Ron was doing his best to keep what little spirits we had amongst us high. Hermione and George had given up trying to convince me to tell Mcgonagall, as I assured them nothing could be done unless he was caught inside the dorm.

“It’s just our word against his,” I huffed. We were all sitting around wondering where Fred had disappeared to when he appeared at the door, an awkward smile on his face when we all looked over at him.

“So…” He started, his voice wary as if we all might snap at him for what he was abou to say. “I might have done something bad.”

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daily-commission-fear · 4 years ago

Text

So because of everything that’s happened and because I’m Autistic myself I wanna try and write some headcanons of a gn mc with Autism with the brothers. Also please remember this is my first time writing something like this and I also have dyslexia so this probably won’t be the best but this is very self indulgent anyway but still please tell me if I make stupid mistakes anyway let’s go

Lucifer

He saw it on your record before you came to the devildom, told diavolo and barbatos about it so they could set up anything extra that you may need and while he didn’t tell his brother directly that your autistic just in case that would make you uncomfortable he set some ground rules with them on what not to do.

Originally this was just for diavolo and so the exchange program went well. But the More he got to learn and care about you it turned from must make sure they can manage so the program will go well to I need to make sure there not just getting by also comfortable and happy

If you have sensory issues his rooms always open as its chill most of the time and if you are the type of person that needs headphones on as long as you promise not to tell Levi he will get you the newest ones that are wireless so you can were them all the time in public.

If you have a special interest loves to hear you talk about them while he does his work your voice is calming to him although if you special interest is something his brothers love he may direct you to them not because he doesn’t want to hear you just because you might be able to distract them for a while and will probably get a better conversation from them (but he won’t admit that part to you)

If you are non verbal will ask you what you want to communicate in diavolo meetings and will say it for you

Mammon

Guess pretty quickly that your autistic even if your good at masking because of what lucifer said before you came plus because of the witches he’s around humans engouth to pick up on that kind of stuff. Though he won’t say anything to you just in cause it makes you uncomfortable waits for you to talk to him first

If you need/want a stim toys he’s your man as he’s got a couple himself just the small ones that you can use in your pocket in class although if you need one he hasn’t got he would go out and bye you one just don’t tell anyone

Also the first one to start using tone indercators if you need them. He learnt the hard way through upsetting you one day that some of the stuff he says actually comes across as insulting and hurtful and he doesn’t want to ever do that again

If your having a melt down don’t worry your first man is on his way! you two even have a text system set up for him to nab you out of situations if you ever need it.

Even if he doesn’t like your special interest that much if there any updates on it will tell you straight away

Levi

I headcanon Levi as autistic myself so that’s what I’m going for here

Spider man meme. But for real he would be so happy there someone else like him maybe your not as much as a normie as he originally thought

Of course his special interest is TSL and now he knows your not gonna mock him when he info dumps he’s gonna try and get you into it as well so expect a lot of late night binge watching

If you got sensory problems his room is the best. If you need calming music high end stereos everywhere, to many lights it’s completely dark in here he will even turn of his glowing key bored is that’s to much, need to move your hands he has an old XBOX controller that doesn’t work but makes nice sounds when you play with the buttons , Need some visual stim henry is very cute and likes to do loops honestly the list goes on

Communication is so much easier together as you both make sure to speak in ways where it’s not so dam confusing.

“This is just like the anime the new kid from a different world is just like me and know we both helping each other in our differences while slowing becoming closer and closer friends”

Over all you both help each-other out

Satan

If you need any help masking he’s the guy to go to he’s often wonder if he’s autistic himself. But anyway he’s willing to help you if you ask him but makes it very clear that you don’t have to do it around him his brothers or even anyone in the devildom they don’t exactly care about that kind of stuff down here

If you say it’s for the human world and because of the way autistic people are treated there he is 100% ready to throw hands he finds it disgusting what people are saying and doing. Austim speaks is strangely gone the next day.

If you stim with an animal will definitely use this as a way to finally push lucifer into getting a cat for the house. Although the cat is definitely for him will often plop them down on your lap whenever he notices your boarding on a meltdown

Always makes sure what he’s feeling is clear to you as you can’t always pick up on it like his brothers can but instead of making it obvious what he’s doing to everyone you have a hand signal system

Asmo

If you can’t use face masks or certain scrubs because it overloads he will go out of his way to find ones that you can use. Got to keep your skin fresh

If you have certain textures of cloths you can’t wear he finds himself avoiding those as well so he can hug you still if that’s something you okay with

If your not okay with physical touch he will back of may take him a couple of days to remember but respects you

Also if you can’t pick up on flirting will stop doing it as much not because he doesn’t love you (romantic or platonic) but because he doesn’t want you to feel uncomfortable once you realise what he was doing unless you tell him it’s fine

Beel

If you have a same food he learns how to cook it even if the Learning process was hard and he will make some for you to share when he notices your having had a bad day

If you stim orally he has some stim toys to give you back when he first fell lucifer got him a bunch hoping it would stop him eating house from home but of course It didn’t so now he has all these unused ones laying around that he hopes you will love. he would also go out and buy you a new one in the shape of your same food

Nobody messes with a demon that is double everyones height so if mammon isn’t available beel your next best choice if you need to get out a room quickly

He’s e so strong no matter who you are he can easily pick you up and rock you if that’s what you need he does that with belpie a lot so it would be no problem on his end

Belphegore

He hasn’t been to the human world for a long time so when you explain what autism is his reaction is very much “oh humans have a name for that know” it’s called something completely different in the devildom but overall he’s very whatever about the whole thing

Though don’t get me wrong he will do everything he can to help you if you need it. A demon causing an overload it’s alright he’s just got yeeted a hundred miles

Gives you soft toys if you need them for stim he’s got thounds that he sleeps with so no skin of his back

Talking about sleeping if you need weight on you he will just lay on top of you (with permission) if you need it

He also finds your voice calming he has a video of you info dumping about something on his phone and will listen to it to go to sleep not because your boring but because he finds your voice so lovely and now he’s tired

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me writing #I really hope this okay took so long I’m going to bed know hopefully this is still good in the morning lol

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collecting-stories · 4 years ago

Text

Shit Talk - JJ Maybank

Request: Hi !! can i please get a boyfriend JJ Maybank x kook!reader, she decides its time for JJ to meet her kook friends knowing that they’ll like him but they ended up liking him a little too much because all they did was flirt & compliment him and they also kept embarrassing reader infront of JJ to make them seem better than her? Basically fake friends trying to steal your gorgeous boyfriend out of jealousy and reader starts to cry because of this and JJ gets angry!! 😭❤️❤️

Outer Banks Masterlist

JJ slammed the door on your suv as he got out, eyes already on the large plantation style home you were parked in the horseshoe driveway of. Despite the sunglasses he was wearing he shielded his eyes as he stared at the opposing building. “Can we talk about why you’re forcing me to come to this party if you hate all the people here?”

“Cause they’re my friends from school. Sarah will be there too, I don’t hate Sarah.” You reasoned, grabbing the card for your friend’s birthday and making sure you had everything else on you. Keys tossed to JJ over the hood of the car as you slammed your own door shut. He slipped the lanyard around his neck.

“No, but you constantly bitch about everyone else.”

“It’s cause they’re the worst.” You shrugged. And they were truly the worst people you knew. Like all the mean girls from every teen drama rolled into one ultimate evil entity, these girls were literal demons but you were obligated, through school hierarchy and the desire to not ruin your social standing, to attend social gatherings like birthday parties. And you’d been blowing them off lately to spend all your time with JJ.

“But we’re going?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so confused.” JJ confessed, “you know if you don’t like someone, don’t hang out with them.”

“Says the most likable person I know.” You grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the front door.

“Hey, just cause everyone likes me but that doesn’t mean I hang out with people I don’t like. Except you…but I really needed a new phone so-“

You stopped to turn and smack his arm, a fake gasp leaving your lips as if you were truly offended by his teasing. “JJ! Shut up. You’re such a jerk.”

“And yet you like me.”

“Maybe.” You shrugged, “I’m good at faking it.”

“I’ve seen you with people you don’t like…you’re incapable of fake nice.” He replied.

“Prepare to be amazed.” You leaned up, closing your eyes and pressing your lips to his for a kiss only to be interrupted by the door opening and the distinct squeal of your most hated friend. You pulled away and turned around so fast you practically gave yourself whiplash.

“Oh my god you made it!” Scarlett bounced out of the house, wide smile on her face as crossed the threshold and wrapped you in a tight hug. Despite dry hair and skin that looked like she’d just applied a layer of body shimmer her bikini was slightly damp against your cover-up.

“Hey! So sorry we’re late I was halfway out the door when I saw myself in the bathing suit I was gonna wear and had to change…it was not cute.” You lied, returning the hug. You’d pit stopped first to buy a last-minute card and take money from the atm and then to get coffee. As you had reasoned with JJ, there was no way you were surviving this pool party without caffeine in your system.

“Lies, you look good in everything.” Scarlett insisted though she’d definitely sung a different tune in the past. Her eyes landed on JJ as she stepped back and she smiled, “whose this?”

“Oh, duh, this is my boyfriend JJ, I figured when better to introduce everyone than at Ashley’s party.” You offered, stepping aside so you weren’t blocking him.

“For sure,” She did a once over of him like he was merchandise and JJ only smiled, biting his tongue to stop himself from saying anything you would be pissed at him for. He would save his comments for the sanctity of the car. “Well I’m Scarlett, there’s a lot of people here so if you forget just let me know and I’ll tell you.”

“Awesome.” He replied. Scarlett grabbed his free hand, pulling him away from you and beginning to drag him inside the house as you followed behind. He looked back at you, mouthing an ‘I’m gonna kill you.’

‘Airpods’ You mouthed back, ‘and you love me.”

He shook his head, a grim expression on his face but you knew he was only joking.

Despite the entire crowd being contained to the outside pool deck and yard you lost Scarlett and JJ relatively easily. Or, Scarlett lost you so she could spend quality time cozying up to your boyfriend. While you felt bad leaving him to the wolves while you found the drink table and chatted with Sarah, you weren’t too worried about him otherwise. You had heard all about JJ’s past womanizing from a wealth of jealous pogues but you didn’t have any doubt that he was faithful.

He was a great boyfriend, better than any guy you’d dated before. Too good to be subjected to a round table of Scarlett, Ashley, and their friends. So you grabbed yourself a drink and headed over to save him.

“Oh my god and one time-” Scarlett’s voice died off as she saw you getting closer to them and she smiled at you in faux excitement, “oh hey!”

“Hey,” you nodded at her before turning to look at JJ, “hey there you are.”

“We were just getting to know JJ. You know, vet him and all.” Scarlett replied, leaning over her armrest to grab JJ’s arm. He shrugged her off and shifted in his seat.

“Exciting.”

“You wanna sit?” He asked, tilting his head back to look at you, pleading eyes begging you to sit down.

“Oh I don’t think there’s a chair.” Ashley piped up, looking around the table. Four other girls occupied the chairs around them.

“No problem, I’ll make do.” You tapped on the arm of JJ’s chair, smiling at Ashley when he moved the chair so that you could comfortably sit on his lap. He put and arm around your waist to keep you secured and laid a kiss on the side of your neck.

“Oh, good.” Scarlett forced a smile, jaw tense. “Anyway, I was just telling JJ, do you remember that time in 8th grade when we went on that double date to the ice rink on the mainland.”

You paled almost immediately. She was really going to play that game. “Uh…no.”

“Oh my god!” Scarlett turned more toward JJ, wide smile on her face, “First of all, she was so chubby in 8th grade like thank god for hitting the gym and doing those CrossFit classes cause you looked like a potato. Plus she ate like everything! Do you remember that? You had like a hotdog and fries and ice cream and then we were skating and she said she didn’t feel good and she blew chunks all over the guy! Who was it, I can’t remember his name?”

“I have no idea.” You replied.

“Oh my god I totally remember that!” Ashley laughed. “Someone videoed it and put it up on the school’s insta...it was hilarious.”

“Doesn’t really sound it.” JJ said, grip tightening.

“You’re way cuter than he was anyway,” Ashley mentioned, “I think he was like a family friend or something. And you’ve stuck it out too, how long have you guys been dating?”

“Three months.”

“It’s good it’s the summer. You can get out before you have to experience hibernation weight.” Scarlett added and the other girls around the table laughed at the joke. You smiled nervously, trying to look unbothered by what they were saying. You should have known that the moment you sat down the attack would start, Scarlett had her eye on JJ the minute she walked out of the house.

“What?” JJ was not laughing.

“Oh my god, I don’t know what she does but she always gains like…what is it? Like 15 pounds?”

“Yeah.” You nodded.

“Like 15 pounds in the winter.”

“Yeah get her while she’s still cute cause you are way too hot to spend time stuck with someone who bloats up every winter.” Ashley replied.

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen you around, Ashley’s right you’re super hot.”

Suddenly Ashley smiled, reaching across the table to tap the space in front of you and get your attention. “Oh, oh my god do you remember okay, so this one time-“

“Actually, I gotta go. I got work.” JJ said, cutting her off. He bounced his knee to signal for you to get up, “babe,”

“Yeah, of course, I’ll see you guys later.” You stood, trying to remember if JJ had told you that he had a shift today. You couldn’t think but then your mind was swimming with their insults. You were only vaguely aware of JJ grabbing your hand.

“Seriously? You’re ditching in the middle of the party?” Scarlett asked, offended that he was leaving and even more so that he was leaving with you.

“Yeah well,” JJ shrugged, looking over at her, “if I stay any longer I’ll probably punch one of you in the mouth so, not really in the mood to sit around and listen to you bullshit about my girlfriend.”

“We were just joking!” Ashley insisted, “Weren’t we joking?”

“I wasn’t laughing.” JJ replied. He tugged on your hand when you didn’t move, “come on.”

The two of you excited the backyard and made it all the way to your car, JJ slipping in the driver’s side as you sat in the passenger seat, still trying not to have an absolute meltdown in front of him. And in front of the security cameras they would probably check later just to see if they made you cry.

“Thanks…” You muttered, leaning against the window.

“You weren’t kidding, they are the worst.” JJ replied as he backed down the driveway. In the santity of the car he could say what was actually on his mind and it was extensive.

“I know.” You did know, you’d been dealing with it since you were in kindergarten and Scarlett told you that you had fat thighs. “Scarlett’s known me forever so she has years of embarrassing stories.”

JJ nodded. He took one hand off the wheel and reached over to hold your hand. “You know I think you’re beautiful right?”

“Yes.”

“Yes you know and believe me or yes I don’t want to talk about it anymore so I’m agreeing with you?” He asked, glancing over at you.

You bit your lip to stop from smiling, “if you know which one it is, why are you asking?”

“Cause I want it to be the first one?” He said. “Those girls are seriously the worst.”

“Well I hang out with them less now that Kie goes to school with me but I still have to see them sometimes. I can’t avoid it.”

“Yeah I know.”

“Thanks for coming, and for saying you’d punch them in the mouth.” You said, laughing a little as you recalled the horrified look on Ashley’s face when he said that.

“Them and anyone else who talks shit on you.” He replied.

taglist: @maplelattes22 @poguesrforlife @freckled-and-daydreaming @chasefreakinstokes@millie-753 @fangirlwithme @alex12948 @katherine097 @tangledinsparkles@tragicmisfits @carbonated-beverage @mariofgreengables @damonsalvawhore27@dopedoodes @dolanfivsosxox @belledutchess @poguelifeeee @faded-blue @parkerpetertingle @thebookwormlife @summer-clouds-and-long-days@jellyfishbeansontoast @minigranger @hoewkeye @love-someone-special @tiredfeels @strangerthanfanfiction713 @the-only-nana@tomzfrog @mozz-are-lla @vindictive-hearts @poguestyleskye @ssprayberrythings @jenahbell @beautyandthebleh @lavenderxraindrops @gothackedalready @teenwaywardasgardian @sarahcxmeron @haha-fuck-you-thot @stillbelieve398-5 @rewindlr @queenniccimicci @thedarkqueenofavalon @alytavzla @bqmblebee @linniep @nerdypartytrashpsychic @xxchxrryxx @spencer-reid-is-a-cutie @mirjanak @danielladreaming @obx-saltlife @youngestxhearts @spnobsessedmemes @wowitswondergurl @celestialmaybank @mybnkjj @averagxfangirl@mysterious-adventurer @justawilddreamerchild @rhyetaylor62 @calm-rejects @99sxuxii@oh-annaa @katiaw2 @aiifandomsunite @marteenuhh08 @x-lulu @ceruleanjj @wicked-laugh @obxwriterfan @justkeepdreamingswift @allie-mcginn@pcterparxer @literarycharleton @khiaraaa-in-spacee @crushe-s @teamnick @daydreamlilys @collectiveuniverses @activist-af @mdgrdians @buckys-sunflower @vindictive-hearts @copper-boom @jolomez @timotaychalabae

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namariea · 4 years ago

Text

Devil’s Advocate | I

“So for argument’s sake... let’s just say Do Kyungsoo really is the boring square you say he is..”

“Don’t you want to find out what makes him tick?”

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Words: 4.4k

Genre: Romance, Slowburn, Smut

It started with a knock on your door.

“Jongin is coming over tonight, that cool?”

Looking up from your laptop screen, you stared at your roommate who was leaning against your doorway. Blinking slowly, you processed her words.

“Jongin is coming over.”

“Yes, that’s what I just said.”

“And will Mr. Kim be staying over?”

“That would be a correct assumption, yes.”

“Sleeping in your room.”

“Why, did you want him to sleep here with you? Not what I was expecting, but I’m all down for polygamy.”

With a sigh, you saved the document you were working on and began to close your laptop. Collecting the various papers and books scattered around you, you began to tuck them away neatly into your backpack. Sliding off of the bed, you walked the length of the room and began to rifle through your drawers, pulling out some clothes.

Frowning, Jennie walked over to you and looked over your shoulder as you began refolding them and putting them in a gym bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I have a paper I need to finish proofing for tomorrow and I highly doubt I will get any work done with the two of you going at it like animals.”

Jennie didn’t even look fazed at the comment, shrugging non committedly while throwing some pajama shorts your way. Rolling your eyes you passed through the joined bathroom and threw in your toiletries. As you were zipping up your bag a knock came at the door causing you to pause.

Well, that was fast.

Turning around, you looked at the brunette behind you with raised eyebrows, and only then she had the decency to look the slightest bit sheepish.

“Have I told you how much I love you today?”

With your roommate trailing at your heels blabbering about how you are the greatest roommate ever and how she owes you a life debt, you opened the front door and were greeted with Jongin holding what appeared to be a party sized bucket of KFC. Before he could open his mouth you stuck out your hand, waiting.

Blinking down at your outstretched palm, he gave you a confused look.

“Keys. Since you are kicking me out of my bed I’m taking yours”

Jennie snorted behind you as Jongin’s face split into a wide grin.

“You know, I always knew you were a great person.” fishing out his keys from his pocket he handed them to you.

Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you gave the couple a wave of your hand and began to make your way down the hall. You were halfway to the elevators when Jongin's loud voice stopped you.

“Oh by the way, Kyungsoo isn’t around tonight, so feel free to raid the fridge before he gets back.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jongin’s presence at your apartment wasn’t a new occurrence.

In the beginning, it was just him coming over during the day to help Jennie with her design assignments. Which was ok, amazing actually, since it helped her out a lot and saved you dealing with her stress meltdowns.

Then it progressed to Jongin appearing at your dinner table every Friday to partake in Chinese takeout nights. Which was fine, again, since he picked it up on his way over and pitched in. He also somehow was able to sweet talk the old woman who owned the store and managed to get extra egg rolls. Can’t go wrong with that.

It wasn’t until Jennie gave you the look while the older boy excused himself to use the bathroom after one said dinner that you took the hint.

Now, Jongin occasionally stays over during the weekends, where you would find him in the living room at ungodly hours watching the Pirates of the Carribean all the while eating a family sized package of oreo’s. Which was mildly perturbing on two counts. First, was the fact that this was probably the 5th time you’ve seen him watch that movie, and second, those were your oreos.

The final straw was not until the weekend that just past where you were woken up a loud banging. It was not until you were halfway to Jennie’s door in a frantic scramble that your sleep deprived brain caught up with you and realized it was very much not a violent murder taking place in the room over.

Animals.

It was then you all agreed to establish some sort of door-sock system.

Which in essence was - if Jongin was coming over, it was probably best to just find somewhere else to crash.

You didn’t actually mind leaving as much as you thought you would. Jennie was one of your closests friends and it was clear as day that Jongin made her happy. You didn’t even mind hanging out with the guy, he was fun and always brought snacks in return for practically living at your place. Even if his tastes in movies were highly questionable.

It was just sometimes - like right now where you had a Business Ethics paper due at 7AM - where you needed all the quiet you could get.

Reaching the apartment, you slotted the key into the lock, you pushed open the door to Jongin and Kyungsoo’s apartment. Stepping through the threshold you were greeted by darkness.

Flicking on the lights you took in the apartment. You had been in the apartment a handful of times when Chanyeol threw parties, but this was the first time you had been there on your own, literally.

From the neatly organized coffee table to the dust-less surfaces as far as the eye can see, the state of the apartment very much reflected that of the other owner - there was no way anyone would believe the human tornado that was Kim Jongin lived here otherwise.

Speaking of the other owner -

“Kyungsoo?”

Thank goodness for small mercies.

Do Kyungsoo, best friend of Jongin and probably the biggest enigma you've ever met. Not only was he more reserved and mild tempered in comparison to his flatmate, but he was the only one in your mutual friend group that you couldn’t bring yourself to get close to.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, mind you. And to Kyungsoo’s credit he has never been rude to you, though you wouldn’t necessarily call it friendly either. Cordial at best...maybe. His deposition towards you, and apparently anyone who didn’t know him before the year 2015 was polite but distant. He was so different from the rest of his friends that one day Jennie had asked Jongin how he and Kyungsoo even lived together.

“We met freshman year-” Jongin said while spooning a mountain of orange chicken onto his plate.

“We were paired up as roommates and we just clicked - Kyungsoo is a great guy, he’s actually pretty hilarious”

“Really?” Jennie leaned in, abandoning her lo mein to gape at the man next to her.

“Its true!” Jongin said defensively at her expression, “how do I explain it-"

"You kind of have to approach him first, and then see how he responds. He just needs time to warm up to you, you'll see."

Now, you weren’t sure if Kyungsoo had ‘warmed up to you’ yet, but you definitely saw the man’s look of disgust as he caught you making kraft dinner in the microwave that one time during finals last semester.

Hot tip - never make microwave kraft dinner in front of a Culinary Arts major.

Checking your watch and noting it was half past ten, you settled down cross-legged at the coffee table in the living room. Pulling out your laptop and notes, you organized it all in front of you before rolling your neck and flexing your fingers.

“Now, where was I-”

After what seems like the hundredth time going over the same words over and over again, desperately making sure you didn’t have any spelling mistakes and that your citations were all correct, you finally hit save for the last time. Tapping the screen of your phone you brought it up to your face as you leant back against the couch, squinting as the time appeared.

2:35 AM

Stretching, you lifted yourself from your sitting position and began packing your laptop and papers away.

Exhausted, you crawled your way up onto the couch, pulled the Captain America themed throw blanket over your tired body, and closed your eyes, waiting for sleep to take you.

Which should have been an easy task.

Except Jongin apparently decided to buy the cheapest couch in Ikea.

No wonder the man lived on your sofa, he has never known true comfort.

Huffing, you sat up begrudgingly, groaning as your body objected to the movement. You glanced down the darkened hallway and pursed your lips.

Taking your bags you began shuffling down the hallway and stopped in front of one of the doors that was ajar. Slowly pushing it open you hesitantly stuck your head in. The sight of the various Mangas scattered on the floor confirmed that you had found the right bedroom.

I mean, there are worse places to sleep.

Making your way further into the room, you kicked the door closed as you made quick work of stripping out of your clothes and changing into your pajamas. You all but dove into the bed, not caring that it was unmade or that you probably should have changed the sheets. A content sigh escaped you as you sank into the mattress, sleep taking over.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Waking with a start, you were momentarily disoriented as you took in your surroundings. Blinking blearily around, it took a few seconds to remember where you were and why your bed smelled like Old Spice.

Ah, right.

Groaning, you glanced at the window and took in the darkness still.

You tried to close your eyes in hopes that you would be able to catch a few more minutes of sleep. However, instead of slipping into blissful sleep you found yourself tossing and turning, body restless in any position you put it in.

Pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes you lay there for a few moments. Blindly reaching towards the side table you fumbled with your phone, squinting as the screen illuminated your vision.

5:50 am

There is no God.

Finally accepting that you were not going to get any more sleep, you begrudgingly slid out of bed. Stretching, you began to make your way to the door, stifling a yawn as you opened it.

And immediately screamed.

“WHAT THE F- Kyungsoo?”

Standing in front of you was a hooded figure, looking just as startled as you were. Hand grasping the handle leading to the room directly across the hall, Kyungsoo had turned at the sound of Jongin’s door opening and his eyes widened almost comically at your presence.

As the fuzziness of sleep was lifted you realized that it must have been the sound Kyungsoo entering the apartment that woke you up. And judging from the incredulous look he was giving you, Jongin must not have told him you were there. Taking in his baseball cap and casual attire, you felt your eyebrows furrow.

Did he just get back?

You watched as his eyes slid down and you were suddenly very much aware of the lopsided bun that had come half undone in your sleep and the thin material of your pajamas. His eyes then darted from your own to the bedroom and back, eyebrows furrowing.

Your eyes widened at the silent question glinting in those dark eyes. Your hands immediately flew up as you began sputtering.

“It's not what it looks like!“ you began frantically and he only lifted a dark brow higher in a silent bid for you to continue. “Jongin was staying over at our place last night and I came here to give them privacy, you know how they are, it’s like National Geographic except nobody asked for it”

He shot you a bemused look.

You felt yourself flush and looked at the space of the wall next to his head “And well, I didn't get kicked out of my own bed to sleep on a couch… So I slept... in here" gesturing to the bedroom behind you awkwardly.

There was another beat of silence.

Great. Fantastic. Realll smooth. It seemed that without fail, every time you are in the immediate presence of the man across from you, you feel yourself suddenly tense up. Which is stupid, considering the fact that you are friends (distant acquaintances), and have been around each other for months now and got along great (cordial at best), surely by now you can have a normal conversation at the very least.

Speaking of conversation, you also become hyperaware of the fact that the other person in the hallway has yet to say a single word to you. Palms beginning to sweat, you began to scramble to think of something - anything - to cut the silence. As if your insane ramblings weren’t bad enough. He probably thinks you’re even more of a raging lunatic, compounded with what happened last semester. Why, why, of all things why did you have to crave Kraft Dinner for fucks sake-

“I see.”

Your inner monologue was cut short by a low reply. it seemed Kyungsoo deemed your answer acceptable, nodding slowly to himself.

You almost felt your body sag in relief, shifting your weight on the balls of your feet.

As another beat of silence passed, you fidgeted again as you were regarded by the dark haired man. Kyungsoo had yet to make any move towards his own room and you suddenly didn’t know what to do with your hands.

Someone kill me.

You cleared your throat, “Umm...so now that that's cleared up… I’m just going to... go over...there” gesturing to the bathroom. You didn’t even wait for him to answer you as you powered your way past him and slipped into the bathroom, pressing your back against the door as it closed behind you.

You waited with baited breath as you heard silence from the hallway. Eventually after what felt like an eternity, there was a shuffling of feet, and the clicking of a door closing from down the hall.

Silently making the motion of bashing your head against the door, you let out a deep breath. Shaking your head you flicked on the light and picked up Jongin’s papaya face wash.

I mean, that could have been worse.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Making your way across campus, you faltered slightly as a yawn made its way through you. After submitting your paper to your professor's dropbox you had spent the day catching up on the never ending tasks you had on your to-do list. You had holed yourself up at the campus library and it wasn’t until your stomach decided to do its best impression of a Harley Davidson that you decided it was probably best to call it a day.

Pulling out your phone you pulled out a delivery app and started browsing the menu for the greek place a block down from your apartment. Flicking through the menu, you contemplated between the Pork Souvlaki or the Chicken gyro...maybe Jennie would be willing to go half and ha-.

You halted on the sidewalk.

Right.

Jennie.

Jennie who is currently still at your apartment.

With Jongin.

Well, shit.

Switching to your messages you sent a text to Jennie.

You: All clear?

You watched with bated breath as the three dots appeared at the bottom.

A sock emoji.

Lovely.

Sitting down at a nearby bench, you began sending out a barrage of texts.

After about 20 minutes of asking around you found out that Jisoo was out of town seeing her parents, Rose’s apartment building was apparently being fumigated for the second time this month and Seulgi was having Irene and Wendy over and you didn’t think you wanted to be part of whatever freaky party those three were going to have.

With every text that came in you felt yourself slowly deflate more and more. Placing your hand in your jacket, you grasped the keys that were in your pocket. They felt heavier than they should be.

There was one other option.

Grimacing, you flushed as you remembered the painfully awkward conversation you exchanged with a particular dark haired man this morning. There was no doubt in your mind that he would be home if you went over now, and you didn’t even want to begin imagining how this interaction will go.

You bit down on your bottom lip in worry as you brain tried playing out the various scenarios in your head. All in all, Kyungsoo didn’t seem to care all that much this morning, but then again when have you ever seen Kyungsoo care about anything.

Come on, think. Well, what do we know...

He is a mutual friend (questionable), for starters. If you both are able to get along with the dumperfire that is your friend group you have to have something in common.. Right?

You stopped fiddling with the keys in your pocket as the realization hit you.

Pulling up your contacts you scanned down the list before pressing ‘call’.

“Oi, Jongin. Does Kyungsoo like Greek?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Turns out no, Kyungsoo does not, in fact, like Greek.

According to Jongin, Kyungsoo is obsessed with this weird hole-in-the-wall Italian place that had handmade pasta. What was supposed to be a 10 minute walk ended up taking 45 minutes as you got lost 3 times, and once you finally found the store the doors were locked. What restaurant shuts down from 3 to 5 on a Friday?

Hipster pasta makers, apparently.

It was lost to you what the appeal was, but if there was anything that you learned in the years as a young adult living on their own, it was that there were two sure-fire ways to bond with someone:

Get drunk

Eat good food while drunk

The latter was not necessarily limited to ‘good’ food - after a few shots to you a McNugget is like a Michelen meal. However you had a gut feeling that Kyungsoo wouldn’t be too welcoming if you showed up with tacos and tequila.

So did you wait around for an hour and a half just to order something you could have bought as Lean Cuisine?

You bet your ass you did.

Because nothing says I’m sorry I know we barely know each other but our friends are banging so were kind of stuck together quite like overpriced spaghetti and meatballs.

Adjusting the paper bag in your arms you walked up to the familiar door. Fumbling with the key you finally managed to wedge it open and stepped through the threshold.

Unlike the last time you entered the apartment, this time you weren’t met with silence. The lights were already on and the sound of the TV filtered throughout the apartment. Toeing off your shoes and arranging them neatly next to the pair by the door.

Arms full of take out you were all of a sudden nervous to turn the corner.

You are once again reminded of the fact that you are very much not close with this man and this will probably be the first time you ever said more than 4 sentences to him in one sitting. And now you are about to have dinner together, alone.

"You kind of have to approach him first, and then see how he responds. He just needs time to warm up to you, you'll see"

Kim Jongin don’t you fail me now.

Kyungsoo was sitting on the couch looking at his phone when you entered the living room. He immediately looked up and you watched his eyes widen marginally at your presence, clearly not expecting you back.

“I…” The mini speech you had been preparing during the 12 minute walk to the apartment died in your throat as you made eye contact with the dark haired man in front of you. The look he gave you left you momentarily thrown, it was a look that instantly made you think that he was annoyed with you with the way his eyebrows were drawn and the slight frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

It wasn’t until you saw Kyungsoo’s eyes slide to the bag in your arms briefly, and the slightest flicker of curiosity gave you the courage to push on.

“Jongin is still my place,” you offered, and watched as his eyes flit back to meet your own.

“So,” you continued, shifting the bag in your arms, “I brought some dinner, as a peace offering of sorts, I guess. I hope you’re hungry, because they gave us enough garlic bread to feed a small Italian village.” you let out an awkward laugh.

Kyungsoo looked at you as if you had grown a second head. You didn’t blame him, but you were too far gone to back down now, even if the man was giving you a shoulder so cold it could freeze Sahara.

Making your way into the kitchen you placed the bag on the counter and began taking plates out of the cabinets, trying to keep your trembling hands busy.

Stupid, stupid, this whole idea was stupid.

As you were transferring the food from the containers you heard a slight rustling behind you.

You almost turned around when you didn’t hear anything else, but then a deep voice spoke up, albeit hesitantly.

“Is that from Giulietta’s?”

Stiffening a smile you did not respond to the man immediately when he materialized at your side.

Humming in affirmation you handed him his plate, which he took slowly, eyeing the food suspiciously.

I swear, this guy.

It wasn’t until you had dished out your own plate that you turned to him finally and gave him what you hoped was a friendly smile.

“So, have you watched the new season of Great British Bakeoff?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Have a nice weekend? Actually don’t answer that, I really don’t want to know.” You didn’t even look up from your laptop as Jennie slid into the seat next to you at your morning lecture.

“Jongin has been doing ballet for years, I swear I never knew a body could bend like-”

��Ew. Gross Jennie, it’s 9AM”

“I have no concept of time anymore, the man wouldn’t let me sleep-”

“Jennifer, please, this is a sacred place.”

“This is Introduction to Environmental Science, most of the people here are too worried about cleaning baby ducks with Dawn soap than to eavesdrop”

Groaning you buried your head in your hands and took a deep breath. You really should have stopped by the Cafe next door and got some coffee, you aren’t nearly coherent enough to deal with this.

“Hey,” Jennie started, pulling you from your thoughts.

“Thanks again for stepping out and giving us the apartment for the weekend, I really appreciate it”

“You’re lucky I like you.

“Oh please-”

“-I barely got out of there alive.”

“Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

It wasn’t, actually.

Last night you and Kyungoo had sat in their living room and watched the Great British Bakeoff while you ate your dinner. You thanked whatever higher power there was that Kyungsoo was not a stickler for eating at the dinner table. Or maybe he was, but also thought this situation was incredibly awkward and also wanted some sort of distraction to avoid having to make small talk.

It wasn’t wholly unpleasant, you actually found yourself mildly enjoying yourself. He was a man of a few words but every now and again he would sprinkle in some choice commentary here and there, making noncommittal noises when a contestant added a new ingredient.

Odd fellow, this one.

He was polite enough to stick around for a couple of episodes before standing and offering to take your plate.

“Would you like something else? Jongin keeps ice cream sandwiches in the fridge”

“Oh...no, I’m ok thanks”

You were absolutely going to have one later.

Giving a curt nod, he walked back to the kitchen to wash the dishes. After a few minutes he returned to the living room, shifting uneasily on his feet. He had this thoughtful, intense expression, almost searching. For what, you had no idea but it made you fidget nonetheless, breaking eye contact and pick at imaginary lint on your sweater.

You were about to make some excuse about needing to go back to the library - because you sure as hell weren’t going to stick around here - when he mumbled something about having papers to grade before disappearing down the hall to his room without another word.

A few more moments passed before you let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Well, that’s that I guess.

“It went fine. He was...nice”

“Nice.”

“As nice as you can be with a stranger invading your space unnanounced.”

“So dramatic, it’s not like you two are strangers.”

“I don’t even think he knows my name.”

“We have all hung out loads of times before-”

“I have spoken to him more in the last 12 hours than I have in the last 12 months”

“And who’s fault is that? If anything, that's progress, you should be thanking me. Kyungsoo’s a hoot”

You leveled her with a look.

“...have I told you how much I love you today?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A/N: Had this in my drafts for over 2 years. Hoping by posting I’ll be motivated to actually finish it~

#muse: kyungsoo #genre: romance #genre: smut #do kyungsoo #kyungsoo fanfic #kyungsoo imagine #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #exo #kyungsoo #length: chaptered

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ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff · 4 years ago

Text

The Sight of You (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Summary: Spencer’s disturbing dreams about his childhood bring him back to Las Vegas to face two of his childhood’s greatest enemies: his estranged father and his ex best friend.

AN: it’s a friends to enemies to lovers fic! Set in the episode “Memoriam” 4x07

Content Warnings: usual Criminal Minds stuff, mentions of child death, childhood trauma, descriptions of a dead body. Let me know if I missed anything!

Despite seeing Spencer around Pre-k, Y/N did not trot over to talk to him with their brightly coloured rucksack swinging vigorously and violently behind them. They walked faster instead once their parents had dropped them off. Spencer did his best to catch up to Y/N but lost them around the corner in the sea of students seeking their next class. He was meant to be one of them. Adjusting his glasses as they slipped down his nose, Spencer noted that he needed a new prescription before entering his own class and preparing to focus on a subject he was already well-versed in.

It was lunch time when Spencer finally found Y/N. They were sitting at the furthest end of the table in the canteen. But Y/N cowered away from him, his shoulders drawn up defensively.

“Are you OK, Y/N?” Spencer asked before getting to what was more significant to him: “Do you know when you will be free to play again?”

The next sentence out of Y/N’s mouth stung like a nettle. They stood up, their face contorted in their fit, and they pushed Spencer hard on the shoulders.

“Go away! I can’t look at you! You make me feel sick, you and your family!” They cried.

They went silent when Spencer was laughed at by those who heard what was said. Just grabbed their lunch and moved away, leaving Spencer spellbound in the middle of the canteen, heartbroken and with a new opening for a potential chess partner. Maybe that man they saw last week at the park would be kind enough to join him again.

But there was no replacement for Y/N, who now never said a word when they caught a glimpse of Spencer being bullied – only dithering about on the spot before fleeing the scene moments before a teacher would show up.

Spencer was hurt; that hurt warped into hatred when he was next out with his mother and father. They were at the shopping mall and had just bought Spencer his new glasses. Going down the escalator, he saw Y/N. They were smiling and skipping between their parents, a new pair of shoes shiny on their feet.

The second they spotted the Reids, Y/N ducked behind their parents. Spencer could still see their face: brow furrowed, eyes squinting, hands shaking now that nothing was holding them. Their parents didn’t seem to notice. They kept talking and walking even as Y/N stopped in time with the Reids stepping off the escalator.

Sudden footsteps running away was what dragged the public’s attention to a suddenly absent child.

“Y/N!” The parents called out as they chased after the four-year-old. They were quick past the Reids, not stopping to say ‘hello’.

Spencer kept his eyes trained after Y/N’s fleeing form, right until his mother’s face came into view. Diana looked saddened; she too was staring after the L/Ns. Turned to his father. William was composed but his eyes were turned down and watering.

For making his parents react like that to their mere presence, Spencer despised Y/N.

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

The burning hatred from adolescence staled once Spencer reached adulthood. The protective nature that spawned from it for his mother remained.

Which is why, when Diana Reid casually mentioned Y/N when asked about Riley Jenkins, Spencer froze up.

“You remember Y/N?” He said stiffly.

Diana didn’t notice her son’s change in tone, “Of course, you two were opposites but you got on so well. So sad what happened to them.”

The first guess was that she was referring Y/N’s repeated attempts at running away before Reid cut contact with neighbourhood gossip at age fourteen. He didn’t bother with a second attempt to understand what his mother meant.

“I don’t care about Y/N. I want to know if you remember Riley.”

“And I told you: Riley was a boy you made up.”

“No, Mom, he was a real boy who lived in our neighbourhood, and somebody killed him. And, I don't know, I think-- I think that dad might have had something to do with it.”

“He was real?”

“Yes. And...”

“He was on that little league team, too.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

The whole case was surreal - “case” being a very loose term.

When they got into his office, Spencer thought that perhaps things might simmer down a little. Unfortunately, as soon as his father spoke about their history of similarity in appearance, Spencer’s usual comfort of statistics and facts on the elderly and pets failed to conceal his abandonment issues.

William Reid was clearly affected by Spencer’s accusations, calling the idea of fitting the profile thus being Riley’s killer “absurd”. Furthermore, he was confrontational when asked for access to his files and demanded a warrant. Coupled with Lou Jenkins’ absolute certainty that William was not involved in Riley’s murder and Penelope asking him “you sure about this?” concerning invading the aforementioned files, Spencer was very close to snapping.

“I really wish people would stop asking me that.”

Then there was the envelope posted beneath his motel room door. Suspicious timing aside, there was a brand-new suspect basically handed over on a silver platter. One Gary Michaels whom Spencer couldn’t remember him but he couldn’t be sure that he didn’t know him. Uncertainty being the feeling he hated the most.

This man could fit the profile; his previous of exposing himself to a minor was a precursor to molestation. But that wasn’t what Spencer wanted to hear from the shady file slipped to direct his attention away from William.

Garcia reported back about his father’s drives, “No kiddie porn, no membership to illicit websites, no dubious emails, no chat room history.”

“What about his finances?”

Hotch joined the conversation, “We went back ten years. No questionable transactions that we can find.”

Spencer sighed while Emily decided to crack a joke: “Well, he did buy a ticket to see Celine Dion six months ago, but I think we can overlook that.”

“He’s smart. Is it possible he kept things under the table?” Spencer persisted.

“Well, of course,” Hotch answered, “But from what we can tell, Reid, he doesn’t fit the profile.”

“We can tell you other things about him, if you want to know.”

A peace offering on behalf of Emily. Clearly she had improved after her night out and subsequent hangover. Spencer gave the go-ahead and Emily listed her profile:

“He's a workaholic, he actually logs more hours than we do. He makes decent money, but he doesn't spend a lot of it. He has a modest house. He drives a hybrid. He doesn't travel much. He stays away from the casinos. Um, and according to his veterinary bills, he has a very sick cat.”

“He appears to spend most of his free time alone,” Hotch added, “He goes to the movies a lot, and he reads. And from his collection of first editions, it seems his favourite author is-”

Spencer interrupted his boss, “Isaac Asimov, I remember that one.” He pressed his lips together. They were right; William Reid did not fit the profile.

Garcia piped up once more, “He does have one other major interest. On his home computer, he's archived, like, a ka-jillion things on one common subject.”

“What?”

“You, kiddo. He's got, like, everything that's been published online. Every article you've been quoted in, pieces you've written for behavioural science journals, He even has a copy of your dissertation.”

“He's keeping tabs on you,” Rossi said, That's saying something.”

But Spencer smoothly dismissed this attempt to make excuses for his father, “Yeah, he googled me. That makes up for everything. I'm going to get some air.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

After getting said air, Spencer went to the local bar and began playing an computerised poker game. His paying attention was only to distract himself, clear his head with something he knew he could control. And thankfully, a chance interaction with a lady at the bar spawned the inspiration for a sporadic hypnosis session.

Doctor Jan Mohikian allowed them a session. Reminded of the limitations that a four-year old’s memory could provide, not including the bias he already had as a son and a profiler, Spencer lay on the couch. His feet hung over the end so that his head could be comfortable in a pillow. There was no time for self-consciousness with Rossi in the room observing. He closed his eyes and felt his hand be placed upon Doctor Mohikian’s body.

She spoke low and calmingly, “I want you to hold my wrist in your left hand. And if you should feel any fear, I want you to squeeze, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Go back to the night you were just telling me about. You're at home, in your room. You can't sleep because your parents are arguing.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

His eyes were closed still, but the couch shifted into a bed. His bed. A floor below, the faint shouting between his mother and father was heard. There was someone else there too. A child wailing, and it wasn’t him.

Suddenly his father was at his side, touching his arm, saying, “I know you’re awake. Daddy loves you; you know that?”

Spencer didn’t want to be there, and then it was the following morning.

Putting his glasses, the room fell into focus. His mother was there, she didn’t see him because she was too busy looking out the window. Her body language told him that this was not a meltdown, but what she saw was distressing. She’d been crying. As she walked away into the house, she hid her face as if she knew Spencer was watching and she wanted to hide her reaction from him.

Spencer ran to the window the second Diana had left the room.

His father was in the back garden and burning clothes. A bloody shirt, a tiny cardigan, landed on top of the pile already set alight.

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and wake.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

And Spencer was shocked out of the scene, back to the doctor’s couch and gripping her wrist with an iron grip. Rossi was by his side, bringing him back to peace with his voice.

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Derek was clearly disturbed that Spencer was very set on his father being a paedophilic murderer as much as he had been that Spencer was taking something that was said after his mother’s fit seriously. He continued however to assist with Rossi in Spencer’s investigation.

As if everything else hadn’t been hard enough, the captain took some time to agree to holding William Reid in custody. Finally, he settled for twenty-four hours. William was as resistant to the questions as he had been upon the initial reunion. All he could say was that he didn’t hurt Riley. Spencer wore him down, getting him to drop the Gary Michaels bomb plus the threat that he “didn’t want to go down that road”.

Garcia’s search of Gary Michaels’ DNA on the databases brought to light that their suspect was dead. Buried across state lines, beat over the head with a pipe or bat, and the body was discovered in 2001.

“Maybe it wasn’t Riley’s blood on the clothes he was burning.” Derek was about to hang up when Garcia began to speak again, a new discovery ready for her team.

“Also, Todd found something in your father’s finances. There was a standing order for a therapist, specifically a child therapist from 1985 to 1995. I thought it was for Spencer, but William left when you were twelve, and these sessions continue irregularly after he left you!”

“Who was the patient?”

“One Y/N L/N. Local to North Vegas, born 1980 to Shelly and Finley L/N.”

Both Rossi and Derek looked away from the phone to Spencer and he knew. He knew he’d have to face another villain from the past – like a knight in one of Y/N’s stories.

“Still alive?”

“Yep, already pulling up an address. There’s a lot of short leases attached to this name. Lucky for you, they keep going back to live with their parents.”

Spencer wasn’t entirely sure that he could handle two bitter reunions in one day.

“We’ll send off the fingerprint while we visit Y/N. They could have been a potential victim of Michaels before he died. They might know something.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

It was a normal home in a normal neighbourhood. Spencer had never visited Y/N’s house. Their play-dates were always at the park.

“Hello, Mr L/N,” held up their badges, “I’m Agent Derek Morgan, this is Agent David Rossi and Doctor Spencer Reid. May we come in and ask you some questions?”

“Sure. My wife is uh out at work at the moment,” Finley opened the door wider and stepped aside for the trio to enter, “I’m the house husband as it were.”

Looking about the kitchen, Spencer spied several photos of an adult Y/N but very few of them as a toddler and even less as a teenager.

“You have a child, Mr L/N?” Rossi asked.

“All grown up now, Y/N,” Finley smiled with a nod. Then he squinted at Spencer, “You’re not related to William Reid by chance, are you?”

Masking his bitterness, Spencer said shortly, “He’s my father.”

Finley seemed in awe at the prospect, so Derek redirected the conversation back to the matter at hand, “What was Y/N like as a child?”

Nodding still, like a bobble head, Finley looked weary at the notion, “Troubled. They were very young when they withdrew into themselves. Used to run away from home a lot. I don’t know what happened, but Y/N never told us.” He then jumped to protect his child’s reputation at present, “They’re doing better now, went to therapy and they’re doing very well for themselves.”

“I’m glad to hear.” Rossi replied.

Finley continued his defence of Y/N, “They’re a published author, they write fantasy things for kids and young adults. We’re very proud of them.”

“Did Y/N know Riley Jenkins when they were a child?”

“Riley Jenkins, that’s Lou’s kid who died, right?” Finley sought confirmation and, when he had it, he spoke, “Not personally. I think they might have played at the park once or twice. Before he died, Y/N would play with anyone. But you… you know that.” And Finley gestured to Spencer, much to his disgust.

“Is Y/N in the area?” Spencer asked briskly.

“Well, they’re due for a visit in a few hours. They went on holiday.”

“They still live with you?”

“A month ago, they got a new flat in the city. But they’ve got their own room here, for whenever they need it.”

“May we see it?”

The wallpaper was barely visible beneath exam revision notes, posters of Fresh sheets on the bed and the clear space on the floor were the only tidy things about the place. It was a haven of organised clutter.

A chess set caught Spencer’s eye. It sat upon the windowsill, recently dusted. The pieces were not that of a classic set; each was painted prettily but with enough error to indicate it was a personal touch.

“You and Y/N were close then?” Derek was holding up a photo album. Upon inspection, the photograph the page was open on was of Spencer and Y/N dressed up for Halloween as Doctor Frankenstein and the Monster respectively – accurate to the book of course.

“Yeah, ‘were’,” Spencer turned back to the chess set. He didn’t bother to ask when his friends had figured out he knew Y/N.

Rossi decided to further test the waters, “You think that Y/N could have killed Riley?”

“Of course not. A four-year-old couldn’t kidnap, tie up, rape, and kill a boy their own age. No violent history that indicates they would ever do something like this. Do I think that Y/N knows something about what happened and my father is trying to keep them quiet? Yes.”

Rossi moved beside Spencer, picking up the knight. Except it wasn’t a knight. It was a wizard of some kind in purple robes.

“We’ll stay up here for a bit then go down once Y/N’s inside and settled,” He gestured with the knight to the window. Spencer blanched as he spied a cab at the end of the driveway. The trunk was open and someone was retrieving a suitcase from within.

Y/N appeared around the corner, waving off the cab and turning to the house. Mr L/N appeared on the drive and they met in the middle for a hug. Over Mr L/N’s shoulder, Spencer could see that Y/N had grown into their chubby childhood features. They looked genuinely happy.

He would have to go through with it, but he didn’t have to like it. And he couldn’t go hide in the bathroom like with his father.

The trio plodded down the stairs when the sound of the front door closing was replaced with a joyous gathering in the kitchen. It all changed when Y/N went to take off their jacket and caught sight of the three FBI agents standing in the doorway. Taking out his badge, Rossi led the way.

“Hello, Y/N, I’m Agent David Rossi, this is Agent Derek Morgan, and Doctor Spencer Reid. We’re looking into the death of Riley Jenkins, and we were hoping to ask you some questions.”

To the naked eye, very little changed about Y/N’s appearance. To the three profilers, there was a visceral reaction: Y/N’s right hand started trembling, the hard swallow, the dropping of their gaze from Spencer to the floor.

“OK,” They said, a great deal quieter than they had been with their father.

Rossi sat next to Y/N at the dinner table. Derek was beside Rossi; Spencer stayed standing. Mr L/N stayed in the kitchen, at Y/N’s request.

“Can you tell us what you remember about Riley?” Rossi began.

“Not very much, I don’t really remember much about school.”

“Oh, you don’t?” Spencer blurted, “Well, I do.”

Derek glanced back at him with a look that just screamed “shut the hell up”. It seemed to cut down Y/N’s resolve, their jaw quivering.

“Sorry, can you give me a moment?” They stood up quick, the chair legs scraping loudly against the floor as they walked just as fast to the kitchen. Through the open door, Rossi, Derek, and Spencer watched Y/N grab a glass from the open dishwasher. The water from the tap hit the bottom of the glass harsh, crashing out like a wave of the ocean hitting a cliff. Y/N didn’t seem to care. Their hand dripped water onto the surface as they chugged back some of the drink before returning to the table with a topped-up glass.

“Are you alright?” Rossi inquired, leaning closer to Y/N.

They answered wearily, “Fine, just feeling woozy.”

“You’re a writer?”

“Yeah, you’re a writer too. My mom reads your stuff before bed.”

“Bit of an odd nightcap,” Rossi said with a little chuckle.

Y/N shared that smile for the briefest of moments, replying “You’re telling me.”

From their pocket, they pulled out some painkillers, popping them back with a slug of water then speaking again. “I remember Riley was smaller than me. Still figuring out coordination, but he liked to play chase. I know he was killed; I didn’t find out how until I looked into it last year.”

“Why did you look into it?” Rossi gently probed.

Y/N rubbed two fingers back and forth across their head as they spoke, “I was back here, I felt sick so I went for a walk in the park, and I just remembered him tripping over while trying to tag me. No one ever told me what happened, just that he had to go away. I wanted to know what happened to him.”

“Are you sick often?” Derek asked suddenly, his voice soft to match Rossi. Spencer grimaced at the treatment Y/N was receiving but said nothing.

“Headaches and stomach aches mostly.”

“You get them whenever you come home?”

“I do. Figured I was allergic to something but never figured out what.”

That would have to be a very quick response, like a dog allergy. And coincidental, seeing as the symptoms didn’t start until they saw Spencer.

“Y/N?” called their father, “Can you come here a moment please?”

“May I?”

“Of course,” said Derek and Y/N was out of the room. Derek pivoted in his chair to include Spencer in his theory, “I think they know something, but they don’t know they know it. I think they repressed this memory like you did, Spencer. We should take him to the therapist, see if we can jog his memory.”

“You can’t be serious,” Spencer covered his face with his hands, dragging them down with irritation.

Derek was persistent though, “Spencer, like it or not, Y/N’s linked to this investigation. Put aside your differences for a moment, please.”

Spencer all but squawked, “Put aside my differences?”

“You have brought a lot of bias to this case. Let us at least pursue this lead.”

“Sorry,” Y/N interrupted Spencer’s retort, sitting back at the table, “He needed someone to get unhook the loft door. Mom usually does it.”

“That’s alright.” Rossi waved a hand dismissively. Once Y/N accepted that, he moved in with Derek’s suggestion, “You know, some people have strong physical reactions to memories, trauma. Maybe you’re not getting sick. You’re rejecting something.”

“Rejecting?” repeated Y/N. There was no doubt in their voice, more cautious curiosity.

Derek nodded, “A memory, repressing it, and your body has linked the physical responses to your home. We think it has something to do with this case, and we’d like to see if we can retrieve any memories you might have. Would you be alright to come with us?”

“Yeah,” said Y/N, though they didn’t sound too certain, “Yeah sure.”

The resigned, too tired look on their face, and Spencer felt a tug in his chest. A longing to see Y/N smile like they had when they first entered the house. He’d rather hate someone who was happy than someone who suffered the same as him.

Leaving the house, Spencer took a deep breath of fresh air.

“Spencer?”

He ignored Y/N’s voice for a moment, but he couldn’t disregard Y/N standing in front of him and speaking again, “Spencer, can we talk please?”

“I’m busy,” He said, already walking off as he pretended to call someone, “Hey Garcia.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

“Hold onto my hand, use it as an anchor, and squeeze when you feel fear.” Doctor Mohikian accepted Y/N’s hand on her wrist and their silence nod as they lay back on the same couch Spencer had been just hours before.

“I want you to think back to your childhood, back to when you were five. You’re at the park, your parents are on a bench watching nearby to keep you safe. What do you see?”

“Spencer Reid.”

Derek and Rossi glanced at Spencer, who did not react. They kept quiet so that Y/N could immerse themselves in the hypnosis.

“What’s he doing?” Doctor Mohikian continued.

“Teaching me chess.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Sat on opposite sides of the table, Spencer and Y/N’s eyes were glued to the chess pieces that were neatly organised between them. Spencer was thinking strategy. He could not say the same for his companion Y/N. They reached a hand out and hovered over the pieces before finally selecting their last knight.

Their tongue clicked as Y/N trotted the piece on the spot.

“What’s this one again?”

“The knight,” Spencer recited, “It moves two spaces up, down, left or right, and another step perpendicular to the first direction.”

“Brave creatures riding into battle,” Y/N narrated before continuing their clip-clopping to its new position, “Pawns in the game of war.”

Spencer didn’t understand how they were coming up with this whilst playing. Well, actually, he did. Because Y/N was clearly not playing to win. They were playing for the best possible story.

“Where do you think this story will end?” Y/N asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” said Y/N, pushing back the sleeves of their white cardigan, “Come on, you can tell me, with your magic powers.”

“It’s not magic. It’s logic.”

“That’s magic to me,”

Narrowing his eyes, Spencer decided that he should give his friend the information they sought: “I see checkmate in fifteen moves.”

“See? Magic! The gift of sight!” crowed Y/N, clapping their hands together. The cardigan sleeves fell back in place as they did so. Spencer felt his cheeks heat up; he dropped his head so he could smile in privacy while Y/N began to decide their next move.

“How’s your mommy today?”

Shrugging, Spencer said, “Better than normal. But that means a bad day is around the corner.”

Y/N nodded solemnly. “Do you want another ice cream? I got more birthday money.”

“No thank you.” Spencer moved the piece but was immediately intercepted by Y/N, “You’re getting better.”

“Fank you.”

“You’ll have to wait longer to beat me though.” And he snatched Y/N’s knight away, just as planned and much to Y/N’s dismay.

A new voice from their left spoke, “Hey you’re pretty good.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Y/N’s grip tightened on Doctor Mohikian’s wrist, “Someone’s with us.”

“Who do you see?” Doctor Mohikian asked patiently.

“A man. He’s asking us if he can watch us play, listen to the story.”

“Do you want him to stay?”

“No,” Y/N flinched, “But Spencer keeps talking to him. The man won’t go away.”

“It’s OK, it’s OK, you’re safe, Y/N.”

Y/N flinched again, this time letting out a whimper, “He’s on the floor.”

“Spencer is?”

“No, the man.”

“What’s he doing on the floor?”

“He’s,” Y/N began panting, their face tensing and body jerking, “I can’t get to him. There’s glass in the way and the ground is shaking.”

“Y/N.”

“I can’t look, I’ll be sick! Whenever I see them, sick.”

“OK, you’re going to wake up in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!”

Their eyes snapped open with the click of the fingers and Y/N leapt out of Doctor Mohikian’s couch. Their head aimed over the bin by the door and they retched. Nothing came up but their stomach continued to squeeze up

Spencer fidgeted in his seat, trying his best not to look at Y/N. The choice words of the session, three in particular, wrapped around his head.

“Floor”.

Y/N had seen Gary Michaels inside, somewhere that wasn’t the park.

“Glass”.

A window, Y/N was watching what Gary Michaels was doing.

“Sick”.

“Go away! I can’t look at you! You make me feel sick, you and your family!”

“Them”.

It wasn’t just Michaels in the room alone. They had been a witness to his murder.

Derek’s movement to help Y/N took Spencer out of his analysis. Sweaty, Y/N was led back to the couch, the bin between their legs, head lolling forward. Spencer tried to move beside them for questioning, but Y/N winced and began heaving again. He felt that ache in his chest again. He was causing this and nothing he could do would change that. Not until they both knew what happened to Riley and Y/N got help through it.

“What did you see, Y/N?” Derek asked as he replaced Spencer’s spot beside them.

With watering eyes, Y/N looked at Spencer, “The man we played with, he was on the floor. His head – thank you.” They accepted the water from Doctor Mohikian, gulping some back, “It was smashed in.”

The three agents left the room, Doctor Mohikian following after Y/N left to get some air.

“It’s logical to assume that Y/N tied that sickness, that repulsion because of what they thought they saw your mother be involved with, to you and your family,” Doctor Mohikian evaluated.

Interrupting again, Spencer stammered his way through his analysis, “That’s why they avoided me. They associated me with being ill. It’s probably also why they ran away so much; they had to get away from this horrible feeling they had associated with their home.”

Doctor Mohikian shook her head, “We won’t be able to use this in court, I told you when we started.”

Derek’s phone started to ring. As he answered, Spencer somehow managed to slip away for long enough to find Y/N. They were leaning against the ramp’s railing in front of the practice, their body lifting and slumping with each deep breath they took. Against his better judgement, he moved toward them.

“Y/N? Can I have your number?”

The breathing slowed again.

“I need it to call you with an update on the situation as soon as we get one.”

Without looking up, Y/N pulled out their phone and handed it over to Spencer. He punched his number in a new contact, using this time to gather the courage to maybe say something else. The hurt and pain went beyond him now. Y/N was suffering and had been much longer than he had.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Spencer said quietly, hoping that his didn’t add to the illness, “I hope you feel better soon.”

Their head still down, Y/N croaked, “You too, Spencer.”

“Spencer, get over here! We got a match on a print on Michaels’ body!”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

“What makes you think Gary Michaels killed your boy?”

“He admitted it,” Lou Jenkins said, as monotonous as he had been for the last fifteen minutes of the interrogation.

Derek’s quickfire was on Jenkins instantly, “You beat a guy with a baseball bat, he's going to admit to a lot of things. How do you know he was the right guy?”

“I know. He approached another kid in the neighbourhood.”

“And how do you know that?

“I was told by a concerned party.”

“Who? Another parent?”

Jenkins leant back in his chair, “That's all I'm going to say on the subject.”

“Who was it?” Spencer suddenly spoke up.

Caught off guard at his interjection, Jenkins awkwardly parroted himself, “I told you that's all I'm going to say on the sub—"

Reid slammed his hands on the table, getting right up in Lou’s face, “Who was it?”

The door opened, Detective Hyde appeared, “Agent Reid?”

“Do not interfere with this interrogation, detective,” shouted Spencer, “This is not your case anymore!”

Once again, he was cut off. This time, by the arrival of his own mother, Diana, and her admission of guilt: “Spencer, it was me”.

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

Of all the things this case had brought him, Spencer least expected to be sitting in a room with his mother and father together for the first time in years. To have Diana explain to him how she was involved in a child’s murder was also up there with the unthinkable.

But he stayed quiet and listened to her confession.

The reveal that she had seen Gary Michaels playing chess with him and Y/N, that she and got a feeling that something was wrong before anything had even happened, opened the story. Lou Jenkins’ involvement was next on the menu. Two days after the chess game, he drove Diana to Michaels’ house, disclosed his history of child abuse, and demanded she leave while he went into the house.

Upon reaching the point where she entered the house, Diana struggled with her words. William reached over and took her hand.

She described seeing Lou with the bat, standing over the body, slipping in the pool of blood, finding Y/N standing in the window and their face, their little face as innocent as the white cardigan that covered their shoulders and absorbed the blood from Diana’s hands as she shook their shoulders.

“And the rest... It's all dark after that.”

William continued for her. Diana came home and brought Y/N with her. Eventually he came to understand what had happened and decided that nobody could ever know.

“You were burning her bloody clothes,” Spencer concluded.

His father nodded, “But the knowing, you can't burn that away. It changes everything.”

“You paid for Y/N to go to therapy.”

William didn’t seem surprised that Spencer knew this, going straight into explaining: “They went into a dissociative fugue state after seeing what Lou had done. When Diana brought them home, they were just stiff. I asked them for their home number, to call their parents, but they started screaming and throwing up. We had to take them to the police station.” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief, “They needed help, but their parents couldn’t afford it. And they didn’t know what had happened. I couldn’t drag another person into this, Spencer.”

“Is this why you left?”

“I tried to keep us together, Spencer. I swear to you, but the weight of that knowledge, it was too much.”

“You could have come back. Could have started over.”

“I didn't know how to take care of you anymore. When I lost that confidence, there was no going back. What's done is done.”

“At least now you know the truth,” Diana made an effort to smile at her son

Choking on his words and the overwhelming remorse he felt, Spencer refused to look at his parents any longer, “I was wrong about everything. I'm sorry.”

And William said something that Spencer had been waiting for, for a long time, “I am, too, Spencer.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

All of this was repeated when Spencer walked with Y/N through their old park the following day. Filling the final gaps in the memory would hopefully bring some respite to them both. Or at least maybe something to start the recovery process, easing Y/N’s sickness and Spencer’s pain.

“I’m sorry for my behaviour during this case,” Spencer sniffed, “When you said we made you sick, back when we were four, I thought you had seen my mom during one of her episodes and thought she was a freak, like everyone else.”

That stopped Y/N in their tracks, their hands coming up to cover their mouth, their eyes misty, “Oh Spencer, I’m sorry too, I’m so, so sorry I caused you so much pain.”

Spencer’s hands rushed up as if to create belated damage control, “It’s ok! I hurt you too. I made you sick.”

“That wasn’t your fault though.”

“It wasn’t yours either. We were kids.”

Almost pedantic, stropping, like a child again, Y/N moaned, “It’s all been such a waste. We could have been friends all this time!”

“We can be friends now,” Spencer pushed his hands down into his pockets to stop them flailing about anymore. His sentence was phrased more like a question.

One that Y/N gladly answered, “I would like really that.”

Sitting in the reply for a moment, Spencer followed up on his concerns, “How are you feeling? I mean, are you feeling sick again?”

“A bit, but I can handle it.”

Spencer could not see any changes in their behaviour from the day before. So obviously they were lying about that. But he didn’t protest. The lie meant Y/N wanted to stay with him, which was good - Spencer wanted that too.

They kept walking, only in silence for half a minute before Spencer broke it again, “I read your books last night.”

“Yeah?”

“‘The Siege of the Lost Faiths’ in Rogue’s Mask, that was our first game of chess.”

“It had by far the best narrative,” Y/N dragged their shoe a little on the grass before coming to a stop, “Do you still play?”

“All the time.”

They nodded over to where the old chess tables still stood, “Fancy a game before you go?”

Spencer grinned, “Just promise that this is the only setting where we’ll be on conflicting sides from now on.”

“Promise.”

Brushing the debris from the table, they both took their places opposite each other. From Y/N’s bag was revealed a box, spilling their painted chess pieces across the board. Remembering how they had stood in Y/N’s room, Spencer helped to set up the match. They took their seats opposite one another. Y/N was the green side, Spencer the purple.

Spencer moved first. After a second’s deliberation, Y/n moved their pawn.

“Isn’t there a story with this one?” Spencer said, an implicated teasing in his tone despite his shyness.

With an equally bashful eye roll, Y/N started their new story, “First begins the battle with the royals on both sides sending intrepid messengers to meet and pass along their deeds.”

Spencer took Y/N’s pawn. As he lifted their piece away, he spoke quietly, “One not as intrepid as the other.”

A gasp dropped from Y/N’s smile. He had never joined in the narrative telling before, always too taken up in the match to invest in whatever story they spun.

“He’s not a coward,” They said, still smiling, much to Spencer’s delight, “Prisoner’s dilemma, he just couldn’t trust the other with his life.”

“Did they know each other before this battle?”

“Yes,” Y/N moved a knight across, stealing Spencer’s pawn, “They were brothers who once shared a crib and now they share a grave.”

Throughout the game, Y/N continued the story with Spencer asking questions just to hear them talk more. The maturity of the stories had grown just as Y/N’s voice had. They knuckled their eyes a few times, but they didn’t complain about the headache.

“I know what endings you like,” Spencer moved his rook, “Checkmate in five.”

Y/N didn’t seem to mind that little dig, “This’ll have to be a short story instead then.”

Spencer’s next sentence got away from him, trailing off the closer he got to the end of it, “You could write an anthology series, if we see each other again and play more games.”

Where Spencer’s voice disappeared, Y/N’s returned with invigoration, “That’s not a half bad idea, Spencer.”

The checkmate never came. Y/N diverted the ending into a draw.

“A peace treaty has been forged by the survivors, because too many lives have been lost to justify this violence anymore. If only they realised sooner that no blood had to be shed for peace to rule the lands.” And they smiled at Spencer, clearly chuffed as they leaned back in their chair, “Bit of an upgrade from the horse noises, I’ll say.”

Spencer rotated the purple knight – the illusionist – between his thumb and forefinger, “I liked the horse noises.”

“You should have said during the match! I’d recreate them, for you.”

One by one, the pieces were placed back into their box until the last piece remained in Spencer’s palm: the knight or Soren the Illusionist, distractions and deceptions but he loved the tricks that delighted most of all. Just like Spencer with his magic tricks but a little to the left. The character was always one of Y/N’s favourites. Some solace away from the pain of thinking of who he was based on.

Y/N pushed Spencer’s hand away, closes his fist around it, “Keep him. He was made with you in mind anyway.”

The information sank in and Spencer’s nose wrinkled with the little smile on his face as he cupped the little Illusionist, “I’m Soren?”

Nodding, Y/N confirmed, “You’re Soren.”

“But what about your set though?”

“I can always make and paint another knight,” and Y/N tilted the piece upside down in Spencer’s hand, revealing the signature on the underside, “You and him are the originals, it’s only fair you stay together.”

In a moment of pure instinct and nostalgia, Spencer clicked his tongue as he twisted Soren in time with the noise. Y/N let out a burst of laughter that dragged the air out of Spencer’s chest.

“Hey, do you wanna get dinner tonight?” He said, running out of breath very quickly as a result.

It had a similar effect on Y/N, “I thought you – don’t you have to get back to Virginia?”

“I have time for dinner. For you.”

---> ---> ---> ---> --->

The bookstore was packed but the breath of the patrons was held as one. All eyes were watching the mini stage where a crouching figure lifted their head up slowly. A jump as the tension broke with the figure leaping up to their feet with a bang.

Y/N pushed up the brim of their cap. Snatching a deep green hoodie from the purple trunk – silver constellations painted on the sides – they swung it over their back before picking up the page where they had left off.

“Nasima looked up at Mason and said, ‘Well that was just unnecessary.’”

A burst of laughter shot through the pre-teens in the front row, spreading to the adolescents sitting further back who had grown up with the author’s other works, finally reaching the adults at the back where Spencer was fiddling with his cane. He adjusted the sleeve of his costume absentmindedly. He was just like everyone else in the room: captivated by how Y/N was so immersed in their reading.

They had just mimed kicking down a door, plus sound effects from their mouth. Swapping back and forth between the two conflicting characters arguing with one another, changing between the hoodie and the cap with every other line of dialogue and taking both off for the role of the narrator, it was certainly a workout.

An exaggerated breath was drawn into Y/N’s lungs, flopping over in a melodramatic state, which caused another laugh in the audience.

Spencer’s nose scrunched up as he grinned. He knew this was part of the scene; he’d seen Y/N rehearse this story in their sitting room. It was so much better to share this with an audience, for their reactions to fuel Y/N’s energy.

Y/N finished the short story A Battle of Bent Truths with a flourish, leaving the rest of the anthology for their audience to read in their own time. The kids were up on their feet first. Some of them were jumping up and down as they applauded with the rest of the shop. Y/N gave a big grin as they bowed, sweeping their cap off for extra drama.

There was a book signing and a photographer that followed, and Spencer waited patiently at the end of the queue, thankful that the store allowed him to bring a chair along with him. He was happy to entertain his godson and friends with a few tricks to pass the time.

“Another one please!” Henry jumped up and down when Spencer revealed his card.

A minor commotion arose by the photographer’s backdrop. There was a teenager was crying; she was clutching her copy of Untold Tales of Human Nature. Y/N was holding their shoulders, rubbing gently and speaking softly. Only half paying attention to his next trick, Spencer kept an eye on Y/N as they hugged the teenager, looking near tears themselves.

“Spencer?” J.J tapped him on the shoulder and Spencer realised that Henry was looking a little mad to have lost his godfather’s attention so easily.

“Sorry, Henry, can you pick another card please?”

When they reached the front of the queue, JJ went up first and took Henry and his pals up to see Y/N. They instantly recognised JJ and welcomed her with a tight hug. Henry was delighted to see his favourite babysitter and show them off to his school friends, boasting that they had read to him before today.

“They read me bits for bedtime, Mommy!”

“I know!” JJ tickled his cheek, “I read them to you too.”

“Who do you like better?”

“Mommy,”

Y/N gasped, dropping to their knees which made Spencer wince, “Henry, you wound me!”

Rossi approach next, knowing that once Spencer got to Y/N, they would not be left alone.

“You really know how to captivate an audience,” He kissed them on both cheeks, “Though don’t take offence if I don’t use the same tricks at my readings.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it! Thank you for coming.”

Y/N then caught Spencer’s eye and began meandering over to him with a smile they were desperately trying to stifle. Spencer rose from his chair, meeting Y/N in the middle.

“Hi, Spencer.”

With his free arm, Spencer flaunted his cloak, “Who is Spencer? I’m Soren the Illusionist!”

Giggles from his godson, his godson’s gang, his co-workers and friends, they almost caused Y/N to lose their composure. They held on just long enough to continue the banter.

“Oh, forgive me, you look so much like my boyfriend.”

“Hmmm, he must be very handsome,”

And Y/N burst into peals of laughter, waving their hands about, “OK, stop, stop, stop, I can’t.”

“Hey!” Spencer pretended to take offence, pouting as Y/N brought him into a hug.

“Don’t worry,” They kissed his cheek between giggles, “You are so very handsome.”

“To think you were once sick at the sight of me.”

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds x reader #my writing #r: gender neutral #wc: 5k+

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stillebesat · 4 years ago

Text

Christmas Eve (3/5)

Sanders Sides: Janus, Patton, Roman, Virgil Pairings: Past Roceit (was toxic), Familial Moceit (Dad Janus, Son Patton) Blurb: Of all the barriers that Janus expected to have to overcome in order to get his son a pet for Christmas, encountering his Ex, Roman, working in the pet store had never once crossed his mind. Fic Type: Christmas!Eve Fic, Past Lovers to Enemies to ??? trope, Dad!Janus, Kid!Patton, MythicalMin!AU, Frogmin!AU Overall Fic Warnings: Past Toxic Relationship Talk, Manipulation/Lying Talk Taglist in Reblog To Catch Up: Part 1 Part 2

He supposed it was the shock of Roman actually helping him that allowed his Ex to drag him halfway through the store before Janus remembered he didn’t have to be complacent in this.

“Seriously.” He rasped, jerking his arm, finding it difficult to focus on anything more than the burning grip of Roman’s hand around his wrist. “You don’t have to do this.”

It sounded so flimsy soo--so trite. So insincere. Even to his own ears. Roman had to be dissecting his words and tone even now, searching for the trick--the manipulation he had used as easily as a fish breathed water all throughout his--well his entire life, even if Roman had only experienced it first hand for a couple of years during college.

With that sort of bad history between them...of all the possibilities that had flashed through his mind when he and Roman had made eye contact...having him actually help them had never--well it had--briefly. Very very briefly. Crossed his mind. But it had been a fool’s hope. Not when their relationship had ended more explosively than the grand finale of a firework show.

“I--” He swallowed trying again as he adjusted Pattey’s weight on his hip. This wasn’t at all how he’d pictured them meeting again. He wasn’t ready for this. “We really can just leave. He’ll understand.” His son knew all too well about his history with the Prince even if it was just through bedtime stories. “You don’t have to--”

“Shut up, Dragon Witch.” Roman growled, tugging him around a corner. “I don’t want to either. But I’m not heartless.”

“You’re not.” He agreed. Roman was anything but that. He was good. He’d been the best thing that had happened to him before Patton came into his life, and Janus had taken advantage of that in the worst ways possible, using him and then tossing him away like so much trash without realizing what a treasure Roman actually was. “But you don’t have to force yourself on my--” Janus cut off as a small hand covered his mouth, his son’s bright eyes filled with excitement.

“Shh, Daddy.” He patted his lips. “You told me if a Prince offers to help you, you let him help! You don’t say no.”

Yes. But he hadn’t meant that to apply to himself! What he’d done--it could be considered unforgivable. No one should be treated how he’d treated Roman--or well, any of his former relationships. It had taken Patton’s birth to get him to...stop. To want to change. To be better.

Roman had the gall to smirk at him as he stopped in front of a display of cages, letting go of Janus’s wrist so he could fish out a set of keys from his pocket. “Correct, little man. It’s a Prince’s duty to help all those he encounters in distress….even if the fair damsel turns out to be a---.”

“Aaraog!” Patton piped up.

Roman froze, looking nonplussed at the nonsequir. “Aaraog?”

“You can’t trust them. They’re Evil.” Patton said solemnly before bouncing in Janus’s arms as he stared eagerly into the cages. “Daddy says that even though the Dragon Witch is a jerk, he still occasionally helps the Prince! And so they can’t be meanies to each other all the time like Aaraog sooo if the Prince can help the Dragon Witch then you, Prince--”

“Roman.” Janus said softly, the name feeling like he was tasting the forbidden fruit as it rolled off his tongue. He looked away as his Ex shot him a dark look. Yah...he didn’t think they were on first name terms anymore, hence why he only ever called the Prince...well Prince. But Pattey had been upset that the Dragon Witch always fought with the Prince and always lost...so he’d told a slightly different story from the usual, using a giant spider as the villain instead. It’d been... a kind of self wish of his. Where he hoped things would eventually...maybe...work out.

“Prince Roman! And my Daddy can be friends today too as you help!”

Ha. That would be the day. He wasn’t a fool enough to believe them rekindling any sort of...friendship...would ever actually happen. Even if he wanted a redo...he was pretty sure he’d burned that bridge and then buried the ashes in a pit a hundred feet deep back in college.

“I--I--don’t think he’s...uh...I’m sure the Dragon Witch can be...nice.” Roman said, rubbing the back of his neck.

And Janus was a platypus. “Liar.” He mumbled. Roman had only ever known his manipulative nice. Not his genuine niceness. How could he? Janus had only learned how to be so after Patton had said his first word. Years after everything had...ended between them.

“You’re one to talk.” Roman hissed.

“Yes and?”

Pattey looked between the two of them, before deciding that comforting his Dad was needed. His little hands squished Janus’s cheeks. “But Daddy isn’t a true Dragon Witch!” He said firmly, maintaining eye contact before he flashed his hundred watt smile, succeeding in melting Janus’s heart once again. “He’s the bestest Daddy in the whole world! Even if he doesn’t think so.”

Janus flushed. “Liar.” He repeated. He was sure there were plenty of other Dads who were far better than he could ever be.

“Truther!” Patton grinned. “The best best best BEST Daddy!!”

He shook his head as Roman scoffed, hoping his face wasn’t as red as a tomato--this awkward encounter was only going to get much worse if he didn’t hurry this up. Janus quickly set his son down, pushing him towards the cage his Ex had unlocked.

“Go pick one you like.” He encouraged, staying crouched to discourage Roman from talking to him even if it did mean his Ex would be hovering over him like the Sword of Damocles. It wasn’t ideal, but it would hopefully keep himself from saying something he would regret and get them kicked out before he could buy a Frogmin for his son.

After all, Roman had to only be helping him on Patton’s behalf. If his kid hadn’t been here he was sure his Ex would have taken one look at him and thrown him right back out, no questions asked. So the sooner they could get out of here the sooner they both could forget this whole encounter.

Not that Janus would be able to forget. Not when Pattey usually demanded a Prince story for bedtime.

“Oh!!!” Patton pressed his face against the glass where little multi-colored frog-like humans crouched among the branches inside the cage. “Look at them, Daddy!!! LOOK! FROGMINS!! They’re here! AWWWWWW. Look at their cute little spots!!”

Janus let out a slow breath, the tension in his shoulders easing. Finally. After fifteen stores he could finally make good on his promise to his son.

“Careful. You don’t want to scare them.” Roman said, also kneeling down, keeping Pattey between them as he pointed to the half dozen Frogmins inside. “While they have frog characteristics, it’s easier to think of them as mini people. And some of them can get really scared when a giant face suddenly appears in front of them.”

His son’s eyes went wide. “Noooo. I don’t wanna scare them!” Pattey leaned back, wrapping his arms around himself as he twisted back and forth. “They’re just sooo cool! And so Princely! Cus if you kiss one they can turn large and save the day! Like the stories! But I want mine to remain small, so I’ll be very careful in my kisses. And they can hop and climb walls like--” Patton made a face and Janus had to bite back a smile at his son’s reluctance to say Spiderman. “Like superheros!! And they eat bugs! Like...like!!!....like….spiders.” He shivered. “I don’t like them.”

Roman tilted his head, amber eyes flashing with understanding. “So you’re looking for a Frogmin to protect you from spiders?”

Pattey nodded hard enough he looked like a bobble head. “He’ll keep me safe while I sleep!”

Roman chuckled. “A good reason to get a Frogmin. Though not all of them like to eat spiders. Just like some little boys don’t like to eat their vegetables.”

His son grimaced. “But carrots are icky!!”

“And some Frogmins think spiders are icky too.” He said gently, opening a small hatch in the side of the cage where three of the Frogmins had already gathered. “While you can just pick one that you like the look of...you could also come over here and hold out your hands--don’t reach in, but hold out your hands and ask them if any of them would like to come live with you and eat spiders...or well, like to have them as a treat as I’m sure you don’t want to feed them dried ones.” He glanced over to Janus as he spoke.

Ha. No. While he did have some dried spiders waiting at home, there was no way he’d pull out any of the creatures...even dead ones...where his son could see. One meltdown at the first pet store had been enough to convince him why having his Lilypatton see spiders--dead or alive--was a bad idea.

Janus let out a slow breath as Pattey eagerly moved closer, his small hands held out to the opening.

“Do you guys like to eat spiders?” He whisper-shouted to the group. “If you do, we have plenty of them at home and I really really REALLY want you to eat ALL of them. Please? Pleeeease.”

And now Roman was going to think they lived in a haunted house or something. Really, it was more of an issue of all the spiders in their backyard instead of inside.

Janus shook his head, holding up a hand. “I have a variety of other dried insects to choose from at home if the one Pattey picks doesn’t like spiders.” He said, glancing at his Ex before turning his attention back to the cage, watching as more Frogmins crept out of the leaves towards his son.

Sure, he knew that Pattey wanted the Frogmin mostly for their ability to eat spiders--and their connection to Princes--but he wasn’t a fool to expect that to be the only food source.

Though knowing his luck, whichever one his son picked would be extremely picky and want to eat only the most expensive of the bugs.

Roman raised an eyebrow. “You already have everything else as well? The cage?”

Janus rolled his eyes. Nooo he’d just spent months preparing and all day searching for a Frogmin and totally forgot about getting the creature a home to live in. “Yes.”

Roman pursed his lips, an obvious indication that he didn’t like the answer and stood, tilting his head down the aisle to where a variety of cages sat on the shelves. “Show me.”

To Be Continued. Part 4

#Christmas Eve #stillebesat #Sanders Sides #Janus #Roman #Patton #Deceit #Creativity #Morality #Familial Moceit #Dad!Janus #Child!Patton #Past Toxic Relationship talk tw #Manipulation talk tw #Lying talk tw #Frogmin!AU #MythicalMin!AU #PetStore!AU

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script-nef · 4 years ago

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Dating headcanons (iii)

Characters: Iwaizumi, Kageyama, Oikawa, Sugawara

Category: fluff

Iwaizumi Hajime

He’s not very experienced in this department, a shy baby

Blushes too much and is extremely cautious when he’s around you

You know those characters who turn their blushing faces away with a hand on their neck? Yeah, it’s him.

You gave him a kiss on the cheek and he nearly fainted

Hand holding is more common and you hug him after matches as a sign of “well done”

He always tries to protect you even though you promise you can do it yourself

“Hajime, I’m an adult.”

“Yes, but there’s no harm in extra precaution”

Poking at his biceps and thighs, enjoying how he splutters in embarrassment

You try to exercise with him, but always give up halfway because it’s way too hard

You’ll be lying boneless on a bench and he’ll carry you back princess-style

And his face would be burning up even after months of dating

After that, he asks you to just help him on his routines

He can do push-ups with you sitting on him (kinda hard to stay on though)

Makes small dates to cafés, especially ones with animals

They just flock around him for some reason and you take hundreds of photos, sharing them to his friends

Tries to cook for you but isn’t that good at it

He once made chocolates for White Day and it was delicious

Turns out Oikawa, Matsukawa and Hanamaki had to eat all of his failed/previous ones and nearly couldn’t come to school

(He’s only talented in the desserts section, his cooking still sucks)

If you want to see him break, wear his clothes

He'll drop everything and freeze, face turning into a tomato

Also will scoop you into his arms and snuggle into your neck

You’ll be surrounded by warm muscles with affection, and if that isn’t the dream then what is?

Kageyama Tobio

Because he didn’t go to uni, your time is spent with phone calls and messages

Studying in university while he's off dazzling the world

He bought you a couple ring and keeps his on a necklace

He kisses it on his matches as a good luck charm and cleans it daily

It nearly broke once and he had a meltdown but calmed down once others said it can be fixed

Someone once asked about it and he said “My support and strength” with the most love struck look in his eyes

When he comes back to Japan, all his time is either spent on volleyball or you

Will sometimes come to pick you up when your classes finish

Having a buff 188 cm dork as a boyfriend is amazing

But he kind of gets jealous when you have to be in presentation groups with other guys

He does his best not to show it but man, a child could act better than him

He lets you practice your presentations on him and actually pay attention, asking questions to the point where it’s nearly interrogative

Tentative kisses are gifted while you’re trapped in his arms

In the beginning of your relationship, his arms were stiffly frozen around your body. It’s gotten better with time

Tries to be very gentle with you (*cough* Power: 4 *cough*)

Is absolutely smitten with you and will do anything you ask

Expensive items? Done. Day spent lazing around and cuddling? Done. Selfies with couple hoodies and uploading them? Super embarrassed and will die soon but also done.

Trying to help him soften his glare so that he can approach animals (haven’t been successful so far though)

Whispers how much he loves you every night as you fall asleep in his arms

Oikawa Tooru

Is so damn expressive and loud about his feelings for you

Every time you see him:

“[Name]-chan, I love you!”

“How’s my amazing soulmate doing today?”

“I bought you this huge plushie because it reminded me of you!”

Sends good morning and good night messages every day

Asks for cute selfies and cherishes them

His photo album is 95% you or you and him on dates

Starts distancing himself from his fans after your relationship starts

A lot of them are supportive of his relationship but some aren’t

Once saw you get harassed and nearly lost his shit

Cried because he’s the reason you were being hated on

You comforted him saying it's okay and they can't stop your love for him

He's now convinced you're an angel (which leads to your most used nickname)

You help him with his self-confidence by reciting all of his amazing achievements and little quirks you love

Buys matching key rings (related to volleyball) and flaunt it at every chance he gets

Drama QueenTM but in the best way

Will never let you feel down or unloved

Video calls despite the time zone difference when he’s in Argentina

Once took a vacation there (without telling him) and surprised him at practice

He cried so much and never let go of you for the month

Daydreams about proposing to you in the most cheesiest and romantic way

Sugawara Koushi

Softest boyfriend and the most caring lover ever

Always remembers anniversaries and special dates

Discusses his tiny students with you, gushing about them

Sometimes his “baby voice” that he uses to speak to his students slips out

He loves kissing you on the top of your head while you kiss the moles under his eye

Dates are usually to the park or museums

Tells you titbits about various instalments he learned to tell his students

He reads you books to help you sleep, usually classics

Makes sure you’re either warm or cool depending on the season

Once celebrated your birthday by creating a scavenger hunt

It took you all over the city; libraries, Karasuno High, a shrine, his school and then an amusement park

Rode the Ferris wheel at night so he could show you the glittering lights underneath

Y’know those jinxes of relationships lasting a lifetime if you kiss at the peak? Yeah, he tells you that

Soft kisses are exchanged and he vows to never let you go

Constantly checking up on you, not to the point where it’s overbearing though, to make sure you’re well and nothing’s wrong

Cried when he had a nightmare of you breaking up with him

For like half an hour even when you were saying that you would never do that

Had to watch a sweet and cute movie to help him calm down

Cannot think of a life without you in it

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pikapikabishes · 4 years ago

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It's Okay Now(Kirishima x gn!Reader)

Disclaimer: all characters rightfully belong to their original creators, only thing that is mine is the plot. Also do not copy my writing. Thank you

Summary: Class 3A's Y/n was having a jolly day hanging out with the BakuSquad, including her amazing bf of over 6 months, Eijirou Kirishima, even with all the stress piling up, like a shaken soda bottle ready to burst, until said explosion finally happened. Triggered by the littlest, probably stupidest event

Warnings: anxiety (?), panic attacks, not eating for days, mentions death, suggestive themes, a bit of swearing

Mentions: mental breakdown, overworking oneself, starvation, hyperventilating, ugly crying, kiri being absolutely biggest sweetheart, daddy!Kiri breifly

A/n: this is my first fic on Tumblr so please be nice, and if you enjoyed it, like and comment

Everything hurt. My head, my eyes, my chest, my mind. I don't even know what happened. One minute I'm perfectly fine, having a good time with my friends, the next I'm in this situation.

Im sitting in the middle of my dorm on the floor, crying and sobbing over the smallest thing. I admit being stressed with everything going on in my life; with upcoming school exams , training every single day to improve my ultimate moves, and the biggest clicher... my dad's passing a couple months prior.

This whole time I've just been bottling it all up, trying my hardest to put up a brave front as to not worry my mom, who already has a lot on her plate, my friends and boyfriend, Kirishima. To be frank, I haven't even told my class or Kiri, keeping a bright smile as to not hint them in on my life crashing down around me. Some days are easy to keep up my smile, to let my mind focus on something else, and then there are harder days when everything reminds me of my dad.

I was real close to him, we did a lot of fun stuff together; going to amusement parks, going out to see movies we both were really excited to watch, going out to eat at our favorite restaurants.

It still doesnt feel real after all this time. It felt just like yesterday he was perfectly fine, we were celebrating my grandma's birthday, and literally the next day, I find him stiff and eerily still in his bed. And then everything crashing down on me as the paramedics regretfully tell me that my dad was no longer of this world, when I sob into the phone to my mom that my dad was gone, when I listened to my grandma's wails as my mom told her of her son's passing.

It all felt so surreal, like if I go over to see my grandma at her house, I'll see my dad sitting there in the living room, greeting me with his smile and warm hugs and kisses.

I sob harder as I remember all the times we watched Disney movies and me crying at some scenes as my dad happily comforts me. Buying me a toy from one of the movies I adored at the time. Him gifting me a puppy when he moved into a new neighborhood and I didnt have anyone to play with.

My head's pounding, a deep pressure in my brain, as I clutch tightly to the same doll he bought me all those years ago. My screams silent as I try to keep my classmates from finding me in such a pathetic state and worrying about me, my brain not processing that everyone was still at school. I fought to take control of my emotions again, wanting to be strong for my mom, grandma, and my friends. Unknowning of the pace of my breathing as I desperately tried to grasp my emotions.

My stress and anxiety climbing higher with each panicked breath. All those late nights I stayed up studying as much as I can for the midterm exams, catching up to me. I even forsaken eating as to study so I can at least get a passing grade. And the times I didnt spend studying was spent training to try and get my mind to focus on anything rather than fully face the reality that I no longer live in a world with my dad in it.

When was the last time I had a fulfilling meal? Three days?? And the time before that?? I dont even remember, the pounding in my head preventing me from thinking too much. All I can think about is what caused this stupid meltdown in the first place, my frustrations climbing higher with my stress and anxiety.

~~~

Today was one of those days where it was hard to keep up my smile for people. In an attempt to cheer myself up, I made myself the same lunch my dad and I used to make together for later, excited to eat as this was my first actual meal in days.

As I stroll down the hallways to meet up with Kiri and the rest of the BakuSquad, someone in a rush, bumps into me full force, causing me to fall and drop my lunch on the floor. I only had a moment to grieve as I see my precious lunch splattered all over the floor before the person that bumped into me uttered a measly, rushed "sorry" before hurrying on their way, stepping my lunch in the process.

I stayed there in my position on the floor, looking at my lunch with grief. I know it was stupid to start crying over something that can be replaced with something else that Lunch Rush made, but there the crocodile tears were. My heart and mind had wanted that lunch.

Without thinking I got up and ran out of school and towards the dormitories, deaf to the calls of my fellow 3A classmates and the incoming call on my phone.

~~~

I was brought back to the present by the sound of pounding coming from my dorm door. I was still fighting for control, not able to send a reply without my sobs mixing in with my voice.

"Y/n? Are you okay?" A familiar voice sounded through the door. Of course it would be Kiri to be checking up on me. "I tried calling you to see where you were, but you didn't answer. Tsuyu told me she saw you running off upset when I went to go looking for you."

For some reason I sobbed harder, barely able to keep quiet.

"Princess/Prince, please tell me what's wrong, I'm getting really worried."

He stayed quiet for a moment, anxiously waiting for my response. And of course my body betrays me when an ugly sob wracks through my very being, unable to quiet it down.

"Princess/Prince, are you crying?!" Kiri's voice carried his panic and worry. "I'm coming in!" He warned before slamming the door open.

I barely raised my head to meet his worried crimson eyes as his giant frame took up most of the doorway, frozen. His expression falls at the sight of the giant crocodile tears running down my face, distress written all over my expression.

Without saying anything, he rushed over to my side, his big, warm hand landing on my back, immediately rubbing gentle circles as to comfort me.

"Baby, what's wrong? Tell me," he asked, voice trying to soothe me. I shook my head, unable to say or utter a word and I dropped my head again, breathing erratic. "You're hyperventilating, baby. You need to try and calm down a bit."

More sobs was the only thing I responded with. Hearing some shuffling, a moment passed before a soft calming melody sounded through the storm in my mind, along with the sound of gentle falling rain. It was the same several hour music track that I would usually listen to when something was bothering me.

I've always loved the sound of falling rain and ocean waves.

Kiri dropped his phone to the floor, letting the music wrap us in its soothing melody. He brought his hand to my cheek to gently bring my face up and face him. His expression sad as he gets a better look at my distraught, of the crocodile tears streaming down my face, of the deep sadness in my eyes.

Letting his other hand to join my face, he gently wiped away my tears as I tried to control my breathing. "Baby, you have to calm down. It's okay now, I'm here," he said in a gentle voice, bringing me up onto his lap, and wrapping his strong arms around me.

I clutch onto his uniform jacket, burying my face into his chest as I sobbed away, ruining his uniform with my tears and snot.

He gently rocked the both of us, bringing one of his hands up to my head as he softly brushed his fingers through my hair. "Shhh, baby. It's okay. It's okay," he whispered in my ear.

I don't know how long we sat there, listening to falling rain, Kiri rocking us, whispering calming words into my ear before my breathing was back to normal and my sobs turning into sniffles. Even long after I've calmed down, Kiri still held onto me tightly, grounding me from the storm whirling in my mind.

Only when I lifted up my head from his chest to look up at him did he give me a soft smile, reaching up to brush away strands of hair from my face and eyes. Then, Kiri reached over to his phone, pausing the music before turning back to me.

"Feeling better?"

I slowly nodded my head, my voice hoarse as I finally managed to give a reply, "Yeah, a little bit."

"What happened back there?" Kiri asked, his brow furrowed in worry.

Tears were already welling up in my (e/c) eyes, my bottom trembling as I fought to hold back the tears. Kiri reached up one hand to hold my chin, his thumb softly brushing my bottom lip.

"Please baby, I hate seeing you so distraught," he told me, eyes full of concern as he continued to stroke my bottom lip, as if trying to coax the words to come out, to explain what was paining me so much so he can fix it.

"I-" I stuttered, sniffling back the tears. "I miss him."

"Miss who, baby?" Kiri asked, confused.

"M-my dad," I said, voice now shaky as the tears started falling again. "I m-miss him so much."

Kiri seemed to come to the conclusion that I might have only been extremely homesick. "Why dont you go visit him today then? It's Friday, so you can just stay with him for the weekend."

I violently shook my head. "I-I can't."

"Why not, baby?" He started stroking my back again to try and comfort me.

"H-he died! Two months ago!" I sobbed, pressing my face to his chest again.

"Oh fuck. Shit, I am soo sorry baby. Why didn't you tell me?" Kiri asked, hugging me tightly to him. "I would've been there for you."

"I-I didn't w-want to w-worry y-you," I cried.

Kirishima started rocking us both again, his grip on me tighter as if trying to hold me together. "Of course I'm going to be worried baby. I have been worried about you. I noticed you've been distancing yourself for a while now, but I didn't want to make you talk when you weren't ready. God, I'm so unmanly, not realizing that you were in so much pain all this time." He placed his hand on top of my head. "I am sooo sorry, baby."

I sniffled, shaking my head. "D-Don't be. I w-was the one who d-decided not to t-tell any of you g-guys. I-it's not your f-fault."

"But why didn't you tell us baby? You know we all would've been here for you."

I shrugged. "I-I just wanted to be s-strong for y-you guys. I d-didn't want to w-worry any of you."

"Oh, babe." He pulled back enough to look at me. "You are strong. But it's okay to lean on us, on mee. Just because you're crying, doesn't make you weak. You're mourning, and its okay to cry when you're mourning. It just shows how close you are with your dad and how much you're missing him."

"But... But it feels like my fault though," I cried.

"What do you mean?" His brows furrowed again in confusion.

"I... I was there that night. The night he passed." I wiped at the tears even though it was fruitless with how the tears continued to fall. "We were all happily celebrating my grandma's birthday. We were all laughing. And I went to sleep a bit late that night. I noticed how his was position in his bed when I got up to use the bathroom, but I didnt think any of it. My dad sits in that position sometimes, and I know that he goes to sleep way later than me. And when I woke up at 11 the next morning because of my grandma calling for me, I got up to see what she needed. You remember, that my grandma cant really move around that well anymore?" I asked him.

Kiri nodded his head, remembering that I helped my grandma when the two of us had dinner with my dad and grandma. "So when I got up and headed towards her room, I saw my dad in the same position. But figured he must've just fallen asleep... Then I went to use the bathroom after helping my grandma, and when I looked closer, I noticed how swollen his feet were. I... I knew my dad was always sick and his legs getting swollen all the time, but... I-I just didnt think I'd find him like that." I cried, covering my mouth as another sob wracked threw me. "Vomit... All over the blankets and his bierd... A blood clot hanging from his nose-"

"Shhh, its okay, baby" Kiri hushed me, rubbing my back, "If it's too much for you, you don't have to explain anymore."

After waiting for my breathing to stabilize again, I continued, "I... I just feel like if I had checked up on him before I went to bed... Maybe... Maybe the paramedics would've been able to save him..."

Kiri grabbed onto my shoulders to pull me away so as to look me dead in the eyes with a stern look. "Y/n, listen to me. It is not your fault," he said firmly. "Okay? It is not your fault. Sometimes these things happen."

"But-" I started, but he cut me off.

"No but's. Okay? I know I havent known him as long as you, but I could tell from the first time I met him that he was soo proud of you. And probably still is." His words made me cry harder, my bottom lip trembling again as I tried to pull myself together in front of this amazing man in front of me. "There's no need to beat yourself up over this," Kiri said, pressing a kiss to my forehead as I started bawling my eyes out again. Kiri started rocking us again, holding me tight as I let out all my sadness and anguish.

"Shhhh... It's okay... Everything's will be okay..." He mumbled in my ear. "Let it all out."

We stayed like that for the next hour as I let out all my suffering, the scent of his cologne, the comforting words, and the sound of the music track all lulling me to sleep, my mind and body too heavy to fight it off.

~~~

I woke up to a dark room, the sun long gone over the horizon. I blearily blinked my eyes open, feeling my tears dried over the skin of my cheeks. All of a sudden, a warm hand slides under my shirt, rubbing a thumb on my stomach. A face was then buried into the back of my neck, a soft pair of lips kissing at the skin.

"Morning beautiful/handsome," came Kiri's sleep filled voice

"Mmnn what time is it?" I mumbled.

Kiri pulled away for a moment, turning to reach behind him for presumably his phone on my nightstand. Squinting at the glare of the phone, Kiri gave me an answer, "7 o'clock at night, so its just about dinner time." Dropping his phone back onto the nightstand, he resumed his position of spooning me, completely dwarfing my body with his giant frame. "You haven't ate lunch right?"

I shook my head. "Or breakfast. Or dinner last night. Or any meals for the past few days."

"What?" Kiri shot up, glaring down at me. "And the time before that?"

I shrugged, my brain too drained to think of a solid answer. "Couple days."

"Y/n!"

"I know, I know. I shouldn't be skipping my meals everyday. I should eat at least once a day."

"Is that why you look thinner? Cause you've been skipping your meals??!"

I shrug at him. "I was busy studying for the midterms. Besides I never went 3 days without eating something."

"That's not the point!" Kiri rubbed his hand down his face before looking at me with worry. "You shouldn't be skipping any meals or overworking yourself like this." He reached over to brush a lock of hair away. "Babe, my heart hurts at the thought of you not taking care of yourself."

I place my hand on top of his, leaning into his touch. "I know... I'm sorry. I didnt mean to worry you like this. I just... couldn't come to terms with reality so I busied myself to make me forget the pain. On the bright side I came up with this new, awesome ultimate move I've been dying to show you," I said with some excitement, trying to cheer him up.

He scowled sternly at me for a moment before sighing, shaking his head, any trace of worry and frustration gone from his face as a small smile took over his lips. "Alright fine." But then the stern look came back as he firmly told me, "But I'm not letting you skip any meals anymore, even if I have to force you to eat. And you're not doing no studying or training this weekend."

"Wait, but-" I tried to counter, stopped when the stern look in his eyes intensified.

"No if's, and's or but's. Unless its yours up in the air as I fuck you so hard you wont be able to do anything this weekend but relax."

I blushed and swallowed loudly. "Good, now wait here while I go get you a plate. Bakugou's supposed to be cooking tonight." He leaned down to plant a kiss on my lips. Then another. Then another and another before pulling away only slightly to look into my eyes with that familiar dark look in his eyes, a smirk forming on his handsome face. "Maybe I should grab you two plates. You're going to need it for fuel for tonight."

My faced burned as I realized what he meant. He chuckled darkly before standing up and walking towards the door. "I'll be back in a few. And you better be stripped down to nothing by the time I get back." Turning back towards me with a seductive look. "Don't you worry about a thing, baby girl/boy. Daddy's going to take real good care of you this weekend." Then he opened the door and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

I gulped loudly, already feeling that familiar heat down below.

It was going to a long weekend.

#gender neutral #anguish #daddy kirishima #mentally drained #kirishima eijiro x reader #my hero academia

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marvel-mistress-padawan · 3 years ago

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Lady Fair

Darcy Lewis was more than a little nervous for her first day working as Tony Stark’s assistant. She had only met Mr. Stark two weeks ago for the interview and it had gone terribly, or so she thought, and then she had been hired. Maybe Thor had influenced his hiring decision or maybe Tony Stark just wasn’t thinking so clearly without Pepper there to assist him anymore. No one was thinking clearly after Thanos...Darcy only hoped she didn’t mess this up. This job was the only hope she had of getting her life back together.

Darcy parked her car at the big parking lot next to the complex, shouldered her gypsy style oversized purse, and made her way to the double doors. She swiped her security badge, entered the code that she had written on a post-it note, and entered the building. Her instructions said to take the elevator to the third floor and look for the room marked 3-C. She stepped off the elevator, passed 3-A then 3-B. She could see 3-C ahead when a noise further down the hall got her attention. Darcy followed the sound to an open doorway and found herself on a balcony overlooking a gymnasium. Below her, several of the Avengers were training. She watched them for a few minutes and then turned and went back to the room that was to be her office.

The office was sparsely decorated. She tossed her purse into and empty desk drawer, plunked down into the wheeled chair which she spun in a circle a few times before turning her attention to the DVDs on the desk marked, “New Hire Orientation Packet.” With a sigh, Darcy put the first disc into the player.

By lunch time, Darcy slipped out to watch the Avengers train yet again.

“Darcy Lewis!” Thor caught sight of her a called out. “I was not aware you would be here today! Come down and I will introduce you to my friends!”

She found a set of stairs to her left and soon crossed to where Thor stood. It was good to see him again. It was good to see someone familiar, and safe. The past few months had been anything but safe and that had nothing to do with Thanos and everything to do with Ian. After everything she had suffered in childhood Darcy had always had a weakness for men who would “rescue” her. Ian had not been what he seemed, not once he got drunk. Taking a job in another state had been the simplest way to leave him but she hadn’t officially broken it off yet. She’d been too afraid he would show up at her door drunk when she did. The anxiety of knowing what was coming had been following her for three days since she moved out. Now, as she approached Thor, she felt safe for the first time in months.

“Darcy this is, Steve Rogers, Nebula, Rocket, Bruce Banner, Natasha...Darcy used to work with Jane Foster. Now she works for Tony,” he told them after he had listed off their names. Then he turned to Darcy. “I thought you would not arrive until next week. It is good to see you here today.”

“I wasn’t gonna be here until next week,” Darcy admitted. She had done everything she could to get there sooner, or rather to get away from home. “But I made some calls and Mr. Stark let me come early.”

“Well I am glad he did. It is good to see you,” Thor said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s good to see you too,” Darcy leaned into his touch just slightly and had to force herself not to start crying. “You changed your hair. It’s a good look.”

“Are you moving into the complex?” Natasha asked her. “Or are you commuting?”

“I’m moving in. I have a few bags in my car and the rest of my stuff is getting sent at the end of the week.”

“Then let us assist you with carrying in your bags,” Thor offered. It was not a request.

“Thor she’s gotta eat lunch,” Nat protested. “We can help her with her bags this evening.”

“Or I can order lunch while you guys grab the bags,” Bruce offered.

Darcy led the way out to her car, followed by Thor. He could manage her four bags easily enough. She reached her car and realized she had forgotten something. “Shit. I don’t have my keys. They’re back inside at my desk.”

“Then I will go get them for you,” Thor said.

He took only one step away before Darcy grabbed his arm. “Wait!”

Thor stopped moving and looked down at her with concern and curiosity. “You seem on edge,” he commented. “Is everything alright or do you have something to fear?”

“I don’t really know,” she said. She was on edge every moment wondering when Ian was going to realize she had left for good and knowing there was a very good chance he would take up stalking her. He fit the profile anyway. Then she looked down at her hand and realized she still had a tight grip on Thor’s arm. She made herself let go. “I’ll go with you to get the keys.” She headed in the direction of the facility entrance but Thor didn’t follow her.

“Darcy?” he called after her.

She stopped walking but didn’t turn to face him for fear that if she did she’d just fall apart. She wished she had a bag of skittles about then. A candy rush might be enough to get through the next few hours without a meltdown. Thor approached her and stood at her side. He reached over to her arm and pushed aside her long bell sleeve revealing a bruise she had been careful to keep hidden, apparently not careful enough.

“Who gave you this bruise?”

“My boyfriend,” Darcy admitted.

“You have left him behind and you fear he is searching for you?” Thor asked, understanding her situation more quickly than she had expected.

Darcy nodded again, this time unable to stop a few tears from escaping.

“If he finds you, he will not harm you,” Thor said firmly.

Darcy let out a sob and then impulsively she turned and threw her arms around Thor, hugging him tightly. He quickly got over his shock and hugged her in return. She didn’t really cry. Darcy wasn’t one for tears very often. Life had been too hard for too many years for her to be bothered with crying. But she did hold on tightly. Thor could protect her but more than that, he wouldn’t hurt her. Not ever. He couldn’t have been worthy of the hammer of he had been that kind of person. The fact was that for the first time since she was eight, she was hugging someone who truly wouldn’t harm her. It made her unwilling to let go anytime soon. It wasn’t that she was attracted to Thor. Sure, he was hot, but she had set aside her crush on him when Jane started dating him. No this was something more basic, a need for a protective family that she’d never had before. Or maybe it didn’t hurt that he was hot. She couldn’t be sure. She only knew that they needed to go back inside and get her keys, and she just couldn’t let go.

“Darcy?” Thor spoke up after what must have been three minutes.

She shook her head, still holding onto him. “Nope. I think this breaks the record on the longest safe hugs I’ve ever had. Can’t let go now.” She rattled off the words.

“Safe hugs? Are there other kinds?” Thor asked, a little confused.

“Sure there are. There are hugs from your creepy stepfather who only wants to hug you because he’s a pervert. And hugs from your real father only when your mom is watching just so he can prove he’s not a deadbeat. And hugs from three boyfriends as an apology for beating the shit out of you.” Darcy told him more than she’d meant to but she couldn’t help it.

She felt Thor sigh on hearing her words and his arms tightened around her a little more firmly. “Then stay a while longer. I have plenty of time.”

Darcy only stayed another minute and then she made herself pull away from Thor and return to her office for her keys. They went back to her car and carried her bags to her new apartment within the complex.

“Yours is right across the hall from mine,” Thor pointed out as she unlocked the door.

“Are you gonna be one of those neighbors I can like borrow baking ingredients from because I always forget to buy stuff?” Darcy asked him as she dropped the smallest of her bags, the only one she had carried, into a nearby recliner.

“You may borrow from me whatever you wish if I have it.” Thor offered generously. “If there is something I should keep a supply of…”

“I don’t actually do that much baking. The only supplies I need are stuff like gummy bears and skittles.” Darcy said, leading the way back out of her apartment to join the others in the lunch room. They had almost reached the others when Darcy stopped once more to say something to Thor. “If you could...not say anything about what I said about Ian and hugs…” she began.

“I will not speak of it,” Thor told her.

***

The knock on her door at well past 11PM startled Darcy. She put aside her pint of ice cream and went to the door. Thor stood on the other side.

“Your light was on. I brought you this,” he held up packages of gummy bears and skittles.

“Wow,” Darcy said. “The god of thunder is bringing me gifts now?”

“Even gods can use a few friends. Besides, you know I am only an alien and not truly a deity.”

“I know...you wanna come in? I’m just watching My Fair Lady for the fiftieth time..”

Thor entered a little hesitantly and then joined her on the sofa, surprising her by taking the seat in the center so he was sitting next to her. Darcy couldn’t say that she minded that. “I am not familiar with this, My Fair Lady. Is it an important movie that you’ve watched it forty-nine times?”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it really. Only that it was a lot. It’s probably not that important to most people but it is a classic. I just happen to like it a lot.”

As the film wore on, Darcy leaned a little closer to Thor, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Some part of her hoped that he would put an arm around her. He didn’t. Even so, it was enough to sit as they were.

“Why did Eliza return to Higgins in the end? It seemed he was rather harsh with her while he taught her,” Thor said as the film came to an end. “Or what I mean to say is, why do you like this film?”

“You think I like men who are controlling?” Darcy asked, a little defensively.

“I did not say that,” Thor replied.

Darcy sighed, “You didn’t have to. It’s probably true. It’s not like I do it on purpose though. But it’s like Eliza. She cared for Higgins because he offered her new possibilities. She got to wear fancy dresses and not have people look down on her anymore. She got to dance at the most beautiful parties. People can say that’s shallow but a life of poverty with a dad who would sell her out is pretty crappy too. Higgins was an upgrade. Maybe I just look for guys who have something better to offer.”

Thor remained silent for a short while and Darcy was afraid it was going to start getting awkward.

“I am sorry Darcy, that I frightened you on the day I arrived on earth. I frightened you enough that you felt you needed to use your taser on me. I had not realized the significance of that until now.”

“And what exactly is the significance?” Darcy wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.

“Only that you have not been treated with the kindness you deserve and I did nothing to help you when I could have.”

“I don’t...I don’t know that there’s anything you could have done…” Darcy said.

“I might have at least checked in on you when I was with the Avengers these past few years. You were Jane’s closest friend and it never occured to me that you could be in danger.”

“If I was in danger it was my own fault because I make stupid decisions,” Darcy said bitterly.

Thor turned towards her just slightly. “Darcy, you bear none of the blame for what others have done to you. None. The fault is theirs alone.”

“Thanks,” she said in a near whisper. “Maybe I needed to hear that...and maybe if it’s not too much trouble I’ll need to hear it again sometime.”

“Then I will tell it to you again and if you wish it, I will offer you a hug from time to time.”

“Yeah…” Darcy said, emotion in her tone. “I wish for that.”

He moved his arm so that he could put it around her and she leaned closer and rested her head against his chest. The hour was already late enough that she might have fallen asleep alone but this time Darcy was more than thankful that she didn’t have to. Thor stayed where he was and let her sleep in his hug.

#marvel #darcy lewis #thor odinson #fanfiction #fluff #crush #hugs hugs hugs

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rosemaidenvixen · 3 years ago

Text

A Secret’s Worth

Chapter 17: Jim

Ao3

Content warning: Things get pretty intense in this chapter in a lot of ways. I can't be detailed without spoiling the events of the chapter, so I'll put more the general warnings in the tags. If you want more specific warnings you can click the link above and go to the Ao3 page where I’ve posted the spoiler filled warnings in the bottom notes. And if anyone feels like I didn’t tag/warn about something that I should have please let me know. This is your warning, here be dragons, proceed with caution.

There was a stain in the carpet, from coffee if he had to guess. A dark brown spot glaringly obvious against the beige. It looked just big enough for his hand to cover.

“Jim, are you listening?”

He jerked his eyes up from the floor towards the desk in front of him.

“Sorry what was that?”

Her lips turned downwards into a tiny frown “We were discussing your goals Jim,”

“Oh, right….” he drummed his fingers against his knees.

A goal. Jim had still been trying to think of one when he zoned out looking at the carpet.

Couldn’t do any kind of job or college, those weren’t happening for him. She’d said their goals could be as long term or short term as they wanted, so maybe--

“My goal is to buy my own Vespa,” Jim said, giving himself a mental pat on the back as he did.

Owning his own Vespa. Nice, realistic, normal. A good, solid goal that no one should look twice at.

The frown melted away into a wide smile “That’s great, do you have anywhere you want to go in your Vespa?”

His face blanked, stomach dropping no less than two inches.

Stupid.

People wanted cars and Vespas and stuff because they wanted to go places in them. Unlike Jim who was never going to leave his hometown.

“Ummm…..not sure, all the places I normally go I guess,” he forced his voice to stay even despite the squirming in his belly.

Her porcelain smile remained fixed in place “I think that sounds like an excellent goal, but how about you try to think of a more long term goal before the end of the school year?”

Jim nodded along, digging his fingers into his jeans to distract himself from the hot, fluttery feeling sweeping over his entire body.

Was she suspicious? Did she pick up on how he wasn’t actually planning on going anywhere? Was she going to call Dorrie the second he left her office?

“Ok, long term goal next time, I can do that,”

Beaming at him, she pulled a packet of papers off the top of the pile sitting on her desk “You don’t have to use the guide to pick a goal, but if you have trouble thinking of one these should give you some ideas, now do you mind sending in the next student on your way out?”

Jim forced himself to stand up slowly and not just bolt out the door “Ok, no problem,”

“Thanks, have a good spring break,”

He managed to smile and give a half hearted ‘You to’ as he accepted the papers and stepped out of the office. Heading down the hallway back to the main waiting room, the jittery feeling crawling through his muscles diminishing but not completely going away.

It never did.

Glancing around the waiting room, he spotted the next person in line.

“Eli, you’re up,”

Eli fumbled with the magazine in his hands before popping up out of his seat “Oh, thanks Jim,” he grabbed the magazine along with a stack of others from the floor before rushing down the hall. Jim craned his head to try and read the cover before Eli vanished around the corner.

Keep So-Cal Weird.

Jim rolled his eyes as he exited the main office. At least his goals wouldn’t be as weird as Eli’s. Although quite frankly he’d rather live in a world where they didn’t make freshmen discuss their goals with the guidance counselors.

It wasn’t like Jim didn’t have enough on his plate already.

He had no idea if guidance counselors and social workers talked to each other on a regular basis, but he had to play it safe and act like they did.

Especially since he was like 99% sure that all the teachers knew. He knew that Strickler knew, and he was pretty sure that Strickler had told all the other teachers. So it was more like he was 99.999% sure they all knew, and the 0.001% was just him kidding himself.

So now he couldn’t even come up with some kind of goals to give the guidance counselor without his anxiety going through the roof.

Jim all but threw his bag into the locker and slammed it closed with much more force than was needed, unable to stop himself from getting worked up.

This past month had been the absolute worst of his entire life.

It had started when he’d walked in on Dorrie and Charles going through their house and it hadn’t really improved since.

When he and his mom had gone over their game plan that night after the initial panic it hadn’t seemed all that bad. Be extra vigilant about making sure that no one saw anything weird and otherwise pretend that everything was normal. If they kept on top of it the investigation should fizzle out to nothing.

Simple enough.

And the first week hadn’t been all that bad, tense but not bad. Week two had been nerve wracking but doable. Week three was when he really started having trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t like he got tons of sleep to begin with. That snowballed to him starting to forget late night meals and nod off during the day, having to work even harder at keeping up the act during school.

Although if Jim was honest with himself he forgot most of those night time meals on purpose.

On top of that, week four was when he developed a stomach ache that wouldn’t go away, not to mention learned that his hair was falling out. Now it was the end of week five and Jim couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t stressed out, dead tired, and constantly felt like rats were chewing on his insides.

Grimacing, Jim pressed a hand to his stomach as he turned and headed to the cafeteria. Feeling sick and exhausted all the time sucked, but that was nothing compared to the everpresent, unrelenting, blood curdling dread.

The fear that he’d somehow let something slip. That right at this moment someone was coming to arrest his mom and take him away. All because of something Jim said or did.

Forget walking on eggshells, this was more like crawling through a minefield.

Every second that Jim was outside his house he had to be on guard; keeping himself under complete control at all times. Making sure that anyone watching, teachers, nurses, other classmates, wouldn’t see anything worth reporting. No outbursts no meltdowns no nothing.

As far as anyone else knew the Lakes were a normal, happy family. And Jim had to act like it.

But after five weeks he knew that was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

Jim couldn’t be sad or scared or angry any more, even about regular things. With so many people watching he couldn’t afford to let them get the wrong idea. So regardless of what he was actually feeling at any given time, he forced himself to stay calm, plastered on a happy face, and continued along like everything was fine.

But he wasn’t fine. Underneath his plastic smile Jim was coming apart at the seams.

He felt like a nerve with all the skin and muscle ripped away. Exposed to the cold air and completely vulnerable, ready to go off at the slightest touch.

Constantly keeping himself under control in front of all the teachers and every other adult in school was was bad enough, even without--

Jim stopped short as he stepped into the cafeteria, instantly spotting them sitting at a corner table. Five weeks ago the sight would have been somewhat soothing, now it was enough to make his heartbeat triple and intestines knot up.

Pulling in a shaky breath, Jim forced down the sudden bout of nerves.

He was in the middle of school in the middle of the cafeteria surrounded by other people. Now was not the time to lose it.

Five in. Hold for five. Five out.

Repeat

After a minute of deep breathing the full body shivers finally diminished to a much more manageable fluttering in his chest. Confident that he’d successfully gotten his emotions under control, Jim raised a foot and slowly resumed his approach.

Jim had been going back and forth about doing this for weeks, but this morning cinched it.

He was doing this. Today. Right here right now. Even if the idea of doing it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Because the worst part of the past month hadn’t been constantly being on guard or always being tired and nauseous. It was not knowing who’d he had to be on guard from.

A month ago, when he’d walked in on CPS in his house, Jim instantly knew one of his friends had blabbed.

While his immediate response had been to call Toby and demand answers, it didn’t take very long for Jim to shift gears to shoving the thought into the back of his mind and keeping it there. Couldn’t do anything to change it so there was no point to shoving his foot into that hornets nest. A with the way things had blown up when their problems with his mom first came out, forcing the issue might put him on the odds with all of them, and cost Jim the one part of his life that didn’t actively suck right now. The only thing to do was let it go.

So Jim let it go.

But as the weeks went by, despite how much he actively tried not to think about it, small doubts kept sprouting up in the back of his mind like weeds.

Did Mary really mean it when she asked how he was doing or was she fishing?

Was Toby trying to be helpful by offering to help carry groceries in or was he looking for a chance to spy inside the house?

His heart shot up into his throat, pounding as he closed in on the table.

And while Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them that called, he still had no idea who it was. That meant he didn’t know who it wasn’t either.

So as much as he tried, as much as he wanted to, Jim could never completely relax around any of his friends.

It was bad enough being on edge with every single adult in his life, but not knowing which one of his friends had stabbed him in the back, and worse not knowing if they were waiting to do it again…..

Jim stopped in his tracks, table just inches away. The four of them chatting away, his presence still unnoticed. Heartbeat hammering in his ears.

This was going to be ugly but Jim just couldn’t take not knowing any more. One way or another the truth was coming out today.

“I know one of you called the cops on my mom, so who was it?”

The four of them practically jumped in their seats before whirling around to face him. Claire was the first to find her tongue.

“What?”

Her eyebrows were knitted together in confusion. An expression shared by all the others sitting around her.

Somehow that made the lump of coal sitting in his ribcage smolder hotter even as his heart was threatening to beat out of it.

One of them knew exactly what he was talking about. One of them was only pretending to be confused.

“A month ago someone called CPS on my mom and I know it was one of you,” he made a show of narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms “So don’t try to deny it,”

They all turned and looked at each other, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Jim stood his ground, mouth set into a firm line and prickling doubts shoved down into the bottoms of his feet. There it was, the accusation out in the open. Whoever it was might try to deny it, but Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them, and he wasn’t going to let them weasel their way out of--

“Jim….” Toby spoke slowly, briefly meeting his eyes before looking away “We….all did,”

His heart stopped.

For a moment Jim wasn’t sure how to respond, wondering if he’d actually heard Toby correctly, then the world slowly started to turn again and the words sank in.

“.....you what?”

“It’s true,” he snapped his gaze over to Darci, she flinched but didn’t look away “After we tried...talking to you, the three of us went to my dad and showed him the photos,” she glanced over to Toby at her side “It was only after that we learned Toby also talked to someone about--”

Jim whirled on Mary “I thought you said you deleted those?!”

“I-- uh-- umm…” she squirmed in her seat “I....made…...copies,”

Jim’s jaw fell open, unable to form words.

Out of all the possibilities, all the theories and ideas he’d had on who might have called, he’d never even dreamed that they’d all been in on it together.

His head was spinning, insides frozen and a roaring sound in his ears. Both hands rising up and fisiting through his hair, in a distant part of his mind he knew he shouldn’t be doing that since it was still falling out.

Just when he’d thought there couldn’t be anything else. That life couldn’t possibly throw anything worse at him--

Things became worse than he ever could have imagined.

He was faintly aware that the four of them were glancing around at each other from across the cafeteria table “Ok,” Claire laid both hands flat in front of her palms down “You have every right to be mad at us, but…”

Jim tuned her out, he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to whatever Claire was saying when his world was going to pieces right now.

He thought that when he figured out who had been the one to call CPS he could call them out for lying and get the rest of the group to back him up. That he’d figure out who he could actually feel safe with and finally be able to fix at least one part of his completely messed up life.

But it hadn’t been one of them, it had been all of them. They’d torn his life apart and kept it a secret. They lied to him. Every day. For over a month.

Heat shot through him, flooding through his whole body until it felt like every ounce of blood in his veins was boiling.

It was his friends all along. All of them. They threw him and his mom under the bus and then they lied about it.

All the fear, all the worry. His inability to sleep or keep food down, the fact that his hair was falling out.

It was all because of them.

For the first time in weeks Jim wasn’t scared, he was pissed as hell.

“I can’t believe you guys!”

They all jerked back, eyes wide, shocked at the volume of his outburst.

“All of you knew about this,” Jim felt nails stabbing into his palms from the force he was clenching his hands “And you lied to me about it for over a month!? How could you!?”

He was spitefully glad to see them all flinch and look deeply ashamed at that.

“Look Jim,” Toby started to speak “I know you must be angry, but--”

He shriveled into silence under the glare Jim gave him.

How dare he. How dare he try and pretend like any of this was ok. The girls he could sort of see, but Toby was practically family. His mom had done more for Toby than anyone else would have in the same situation.

And Toby had still sold them out, with Claire, Darci, and Mary giving a helping hand.

Jim slowly turned to glare at each of them, the heat rushing over him blazing even hotter as he saw their pained faces and slumped shoulders.

Had they had secret meetings talking about this without him, had they laughed, snickering about being able to keep him fooled for so long.

Somehow a cold dribble of guilt managed to seep in past the white hot fire in his belly.

Even as blindingly furious as he was, for both himself and his mom, deep down Jim knew that wasn’t true. The reason they made the call was because they felt they had no choice.

They hadn’t done this as a joke, they were worried, they’d done this because they were scared for him. They’d done this because they wanted to help.

But despite knowing that, despite knowing that he was taking this too far and was going to regret everything he was saying as soon as he cooled off, Jim was too angry to care.

“I told you guys. My mom. Doesn’t. Hurt me.” he got louder and louder with every word, until he was practically shouting, the raging inferno inside him demanding to be set free “Don’t you get it? She could get arrested because of this, I could get taken away. Did you even think about that at all!?”

Toby shot up out of his seat with a bang, cutting off Jim’s tirade. Glancing up at him out of sheer reflex, he saw that Toby had the edge of the table in a whiteknuclekd grip, every muscle in his body taut and trembling, eyes sharp as knives.

“No Jim. You don’t get to do that.” his voice was cold and harder than steel, harder than anything he’d ever heard coming out of Toby’s mouth “You don’t get to drop bombs like your mom locking you in the basement and expect us to pretend like everything’s ok. And you don’t get to act like we’re the bad guys for trying to help you,”

Jim found himself taking an involuntary step back. He’d never heard Toby this angry. Ever.

Prying his hands free, Toby stomped around the table towards him, Jim pinned in place under his molten gaze “You don’t get to talk about lying when you were the one who’s been lying all along. When you’ve been lying to me for years!”

“Tobes I--”

One look from Toby shut him up.

“But now you want to play honesty hour? Fine, we’ll play honesty hour. How did you really get those scars on your ankle?”

The bottom fell out of Jim’s stomach, taking every remaining drop of anger with it.

“.........what?”

“Well?” Toby stopped two feet away, green eyes boring holes into him “Go on, tell me, where did those scars come from?”

Jim couldn’t do anything but gape at him. The rehearsed answer, they came from a fox bite, sat in the back of his throat withering.

He couldn’t know. It was impossible. Only two people in the world knew the truth. The act done in the dim of the early dawn in the middle of a remote forest.

Don’t worry sweetie, it's a sterile blade. A few quick cuts and a bandage on top should get you all the shots you need, no questions asked.

There was no way for Toby to know, but the look in his eyes told Jim that he did.

“How-- how--” he struggled to get the words out “How do you--”

Darci gingerly slid out of her seat to come stand next to Toby “Ok let’s all just take a deep breath and relax for a second,” she glanced over, her expression cool and professional, no longer holding any trace of guilt “Jim, I’m sorry we lied about what we did but I’m not sorry for doing it,”

“Darci’s right,” Mary stood and approached, Claire at her side “And we all agreed, what’s going on with your mom….that’s not ok, and we couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. I know your mom was probably really messed up when your dad walked out, but that doesn’t mean--”

The words hit him like a fist to the gut “How do you know about that!?”

Mary shut her mouth, cheeks pink.

By now everyone in the cafeteria was turning and looking at them. And who could blame them with all the yelling. Jim knew that this was exactly the type of scene he needed to avoid, but all the emotions boiling up in his chest were too enormous and tangled and turbulent for him to make space to care about their audience.

Claire took half a step forward “Look Jim, I’m sorry we lied to you about reporting your mom, that was messed up and we shouldn’t have done it, but...” she inhaled, drawing herself up to full, regal height “But we wouldn’t have had to report her behind your back if you had just let us help you in the first place,”

“Yeah, you don’t get to talk to us about lying,” he spun back towards Mary. Hands on her hips, eyes narrowed into diamond hard points “If you had been honest with us from the beginning we wouldn’t have had to lie about anything,”

Toby stepped to the front of the group, arms folded in front of him “To more tricks or lies. We need the truth Jim. The whole truth, about everything. The scars, the basement, your curfew,” his expression was granite, voice flint “Right here, right now.”

Jim staggered back, furiously glancing at each of their faces. Claire and Darci were stern and unmoving as statues, while Toby and Mary were full on glaring daggers into him.

How was this possible? How did they know all this?

He couldn’t get enough air, chest tight as he shrunk under the weight of the four sets of eyes on him.

What else did they know? If they knew about the scars and his dad and the basement, what else did they know? And how close were they to learning….the rest?

The one tiny, microscopic flicker of hope Jim had was that he knew that they still didn’t know about….his real secret.

If they did they sure as hell wouldn’t be quiet about it.

But how close were they to figuring it out? They’d figured so much out already, it was probably only a matter of time.

And if this was how they responded to everything else, how would they react to learning that Jim was really a--

Icy daggers twisted in his gut.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

He needed out now.

Jim turned and bolted, running out of the cafeteria as fast as his legs could carry him. Barely aware of his friends’ shouts from behind him. But he couldn’t outrun the panicked screaming in his skull.

They knew about his mom locking him up, they knew about how his dad left, they knew how he really got the scars on his ankle. Sooner or later they would figure out that Jim was the monster all along and when they did--

Throughout the years ideas of what would happen if people learned about his transformation had always flickered at the edge of his thoughts. Jim had done his best to force them out of his head and keep them from taking full shape, but now every horrible, twisted thought he’d had over the years surged to the front of his mind and refused to be buried.

If anyone learned his secret it was only a matter of time until the government found out, and when they did they wouldn’t just let him run free. Jim’s blue form was an unknown; wild, dangerous. At the very least they’d lock him in a cell and throw away the key. Or maybe they would send him off to some secret lab to get dissected and analyzed piece by piece.

His breath became choppy and ragged as he raced down the hall.

Or maybe Jim was too dangerous to leave alive at all, maybe they’d drag him away for a long drive into the desert that ended with a bullet to the back of his skull.

And his mom--

A jagged lump spouted in his throat.

Would they lock her up to? For keeping his secret as long as she did. But she hadn’t broken any laws, maybe they’d just leave her alone? But then would they even tell her what they did with him? Or would she be left sitting alone in their house not knowing what happened to him while Jim sat in a prison cell, or got chopped to pieces in a lab, or rotted in an unmarked grave.

He could barely see the lockers rushing by him as heat built up behind his eyes. He was trembling all over now, blood rushing in his ears and scream building in the back of his throat.

Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together.

Jim was going to break down, he knew that. But he couldn’t let it happen in the middle of school. Not now, not again. Had to get out, go home, get somewhere safe.

Right now his secret was still under wraps, and the only way for Jim to keep those horrific ideas from becoming reality was to keep it that way.

And that meant not having another public meltdown.

Ignoring the sound of the bell, signalling other kids to start streaming into the hall, Jim scrambled up to his locker and started fumbling with the lock.

Despite his badly trembling hands he managed to get the locker open and pull his bag free, but in his haste to grab it the bag started slipping from his grip. Jim just barely caught the side in time to keep it from falling, but in doing so accidentally pulled the bag open, causing everything inside to spill out.

Jim could only watch in horror as textbooks clunked to the ground, papers scattering all over the floor, pens and pencils rolling in every direction. Insides curdling as he stared at the mess.

Why now? Why today of all days? On top of everything else--

His eyes stung.

Why couldn’t he just get a break?

Trying and failing to force himself through his breathing exercises, Jim got down on his knees and struggled to gather the contents of his bag.

Somehow his efforts to gather the papers just spread them even more, the task made impossible by how badly he was shaking all over, breath coming in quick, quivering pants, teeth digging into his lip until he tasted copper, a storm roiling just beneath his skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing a textbook and clenching his fingers around it so tight they hurt.

Get it together. Get it together. Get it together.

“Oh my god are you crying again?”

Jim froze, inside and out, eyes shooting open to stare down at two of his pencils and the textbook he’d just grabbed off the floor. Familiar snide, smarmy voice coming from behind him.

“Dude he totally is!” Seamus said with a laugh “This is too good,”

Jim couldn’t move, nerves paralyzed. Every drop of emotion he’d had to deal with today, shock, anger, fear, and guilt, surging through him.

“Awww what’s the matter baby?” Steve jeered “Do you want a bottle?”

Seamus and Logan’s laughter echoed in his ears. From the corner of his eye he saw the traffic around them slowing as other people stopped and stared. He couldn’t feel his fingers any more, curled into rigid claws around the edges of the book.

And just like that Jim was done.

He threw his textbook against the lockers as hard as he could, unleashing a thunderous boom into the hall.

“Fuck off Steve!”

Steve, along with Logan, Seamus, and everyone else milling around in the hallway behind him, froze “What did you just say Lake?”

“You heard me Steve,” Jim growled, stomping to his feet “Fuck. Off.”

Normally he would never lose his cool with Steve, the guy just wasn’t worth it, but after everything that had happened today, everything that had happened over the last month, he just couldn’t take it any more.

And Steve thought he was such a hot shot; popular, spot on the basketball team, grades good enough to keep it but not so good to be considered a nerd. But Jim knew a lot more than Steve thought he did.

Recovering from his surprise at Jim’s outburst, Steve gave him his best sneer “Alright Crybaby you got about ten seconds to get down on your knees and apologize before I break your--”

“Oh can it Steve, like you have any business calling me crybaby when you were the one bawling in the locker room about how your daddy couldn’t come watch your big game!” Jim practically spat the words.

The smug look on Steve’s face vanished, eyes going wide and the color leeching from his skin “Wha-- how-- how did--”

“Since you can’t seem to figure it out I’ll spell it out for you, your dad doesn’t give a shit about you or your basketball games! And if you really want to make him happy go play in traffic so he doesn’t have to pay child support!”

A hush went through the crowded hall. Semus’s eyes were bugging out and Logan looked absolutely petrified; Steve himself was wearing the most hang-jawed expression Jim had ever seen.

More and more people were gathering around now, drawn by all the commotion. Jim knew it was bad to be drawing this kind of attention, especially after the stunt he just pulled on the cafeteria, but the dam inside him had burst and it felt so so good to finally let it all out.

Let someone else have the rug pulled out from under them. Let someone else feel exposed and vulnerable. Let someone else have their deepest darkest secrets thrown back in their face.

Let someone else be afraid for once. Someone who actually deserved it.

“Face it Steve you’re not special,” Jim’s voice practically dripped venom “You’re just some moron who thinks that if they dribble a basketball good enough they can get an even bigger moron to give two shits about them. It’d actually be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic,”

Even as he said the words, felt the thrill of finally being able to take Steve down a peg, a tiny trickle of guilt managed to creep in. For saying something so horrible, so wrong. That no one deserved to hear, not even Steve. But what little guilt he had was easily drowned out by the massive ocean of vindictive glee he felt now that Psycho Steve was getting to experience a tiny piece of what it was like to be Jim Lake.

The crowd around them was deathly quiet now, everyone stunned into silence by Jim’s words. Shocked that he actually went there. With one exception.

Steve’s face had gone from ghost white to purple, the veins in his neck bulging, hands balled into fists as his sides “You’d better shut your mouth Lake,” his voice was soft but dangerous. Everyone, even Logan and Seamus, nervously edging away from him.

Unfortunately for him Jim just didn’t care anymore.

“Or what?”

He stepped forward, unable to resist poking the bear “You gonna punch me in the face or something? Well go on, do it! You’re only mad because I’m right!”

Another rush of spiteful satisfaction coursed through him when Jim saw the purple flush on Steve’s face darken even further at his words, so much that he didn’t even care that some of the onlookers had started to pull out their phones.

“Well what are you waiting for? Hit me, punch me, it’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not going to change the fact that you’re a loser who’s life has fucking peaked!” he jabbed a finger into Steve’s chest, getting right up into his face “That the only thing you have going for you is a spot on the basketball team. And after that all you have to look forward to is a dead end job at the gas station and at least two divorces!”

Steve was practically quivering with anger now, nostrils flaring, teeth clenched so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked, but Jim could still see the flash of genuine hurt in his eyes “I’m warning you Lake--”

“Because that’s all you’ll ever be, a loser! Maybe the real reason your dad left was because he finally figured out how much of a loser you really--”

The blow took him by surprise, more than it probably should have. A dazzling flash of pain in his temple that snapped his head back into the lockers with a deafening bang as more pain flared in the back of his skull. Hot stars danced in his vision, the world around him spinning,.

Jim vaguely registered that he wasn’t on his feet anymore, felt the linoleum under his back, the cool metal behind his shoulders and neck. Dimly heard the panicked shouts coming up from around him, even though he couldn’t make out the words.

Blinking past the throbbing pain in his skull, and the warm trickle of something in his eye, Jim’s sight cleared just long enough for him to see Steve’s face, twisted into a mask of primal rage, and another fist rapidly approaching.

#tales of arcadia #Trollhunters #A Secret's Worth #fanfic #rmvwrites #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #darci scott #toby domzalski #mary wang #language #violence #death mention #dissection mention

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httpsaiki · 4 years ago

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hi, I saw requests were open and had to send one >//< hope im not bugging you too badly eheh. anyways, may I request a teruhashi x fem!reader fic? maybe on a first date to a shopping district or mall. and reader is semi nervous and has slight doubts about dating someone like teruhashi, in which teruhashi reassures her.

Hi! You most certainly may! I loved this so much, I think Teruhashi is honestly a really great character and this idea was far too cute to pass up. That being said, this is very self-indulgent and I really hope you like it! Teruhashi deserves all the love! If this isnt’t what you wanted, please let me know and I am more than happy to redo it! Thank you for your request!!

----

Reader is female! There are mentions of insecurity of things like self-worth, social status and offhandedly body image, so please don’t read if you are sensitive to that.

WC: 1627

Kokomi and the reader have never had a proper date and today seems like a great day! But, the reader is nervous as Kokomi is just so perfect in her eyes (and everyone else’s). She of course picks up on this, and comforts her beloved girlfriend.

—————————————————–

You had been adding the finishing touches to your outfit, getting ready to head out. Were you ready for this, though? A date? With Teruhashi? While you were close enough to her to know a bit more of her true self - you are dating after all - it was always at least a little nervewracking being in public with her. Normally, your dates would be stay at home things, like study dates or a simple dinner, nothing out of the ordinary from before you started dating. You opted for the small things as Teruhashi got constant stares and her fans could be over the top sometimes. It could be very stressful, as you both usually just wanted to relax together. Today, on the other hand, you’d made plans to go out shopping It was finally summer vacation, so why not give it a shot? You two always talked about looking for clothes together and walking around cute shops and sightseeing.

The thing was, Teruhashi looked perfect no matter what she wore. You adore that about her, of course! But it did make getting yourself ready rather stressful. Every time you got dressed to see her, you’d always ask yourself how you’re so lucky. Before you got together, you’d been friends for a good while, and eventually, it evolved into more. You were both happier this way, and you knew she did care deeply for you. Still, you needed to find the perfect outfit for this outing, and the one you were wearing just wouldn’t cut it. This would be what you both classified as your first date, it was a big deal and you felt you needed to look your best.

You really had the best luck, huh? Right as you were about to change, the doorbell rang. Teruhashi was here already! This outfit would have to do. Running over to the door after quickly checking everything over, you opened it to see Teruhashi standing there, a polite smile adorned on her face.

Oh wow. She's stunning. Even more so than usual, she just looked perfect. Feeling your nerves come back even stronger, you tried your best to match her smile, greeting her, to which she excitedly echoed the greeting. It was time to go shopping, and you would just have to see how this works out.

On the way there, you both managed to make small talk. Whether it be talking about each other’s day or small things, like how nice it was that school was out for a bit. Nevertheless, this part was nice. There was little to no public pressure, save for the occasional stare from some random person, but that was something that you’d gotten used to by now. Once closer to the mall, you became quiet. It would be busy today, a lot of people would see you. You still believed your social status was so far from Teruhashi’s, and she would be embarrassed to be seen in public with you. You continued to make your way to the mall, despite being lost in thought. You managed to hide your doubts from Teruhashi for the time being.

The first shop you entered was a clothing shop. Despite it being generic, you and Teruhashi had a great time picking clothes for each other to try, whether they be purposefully horrendous or genuinely good-looking clothing. Both of you walked out with something new, but nothing that you had picked for yourselves, choosing to favour the clothes the other had picked out. It was a wonderful time, and that continued for a few more clothes stores, both of you giggling and smiling the whole time. You’d also visited some book stores, browsing various selections and enjoying each other's company (albeit, a bit quieter now). You held hands as you browsed some novels with Teruhashi, trying to find something you could read together on a future date.

Your worries had been long forgotten until you walked through the doors of the shop you dreaded the most. It was summer, so it only made sense she’d want to visit a shop like this. A swim shop. You hesitated to enter the door, and the change in your personality was almost immediate. You became more reserved, knowing Teruhashi would outshine you here no matter what you did.

“Y/N?” Teruhashi turned towards you, grabbing your hand, “Is everything alright? You’ve gone quiet…”

Of course, she’d notice, this is Teruhashi, the most wonderfully observant person you know. She’s always worried more about the people around her rather than herself.

“Sorry,” you apologized, “I’m fine, though.” Well, that wasn’t very convincing. It was hard to lie to her, and the rush of nervousness and doubt didn’t make it any easier. Teruhashi looked at you in the eyes, you’d never seen her so unimpressed.

“I know you’re lying. Let’s go out to that bench. Please tell me what’s wrong.” She pulled you out of the swim shop, to the bench she’d pointed out earlier. She sat down and looked at you with the most serious expression she could muster. She was genuinely concerned, that much you could sense. It was easy to see in her eyes how much she cared, and you knew there was no way she’d give up on this.

Looks like you had no choice but to tell her, She’s worried about you, and there was no resisting that. Once Teruhashi got her mind set on something, she always saw it through to the end. And you being upset on your first date? She cared about you far too much to watch it any more. She wanted to help you feel better, more than she’s ever wanted to help anyone before.

“Okay. I’ll tell you.” She gave you a reassuring smile, holding one of your hands in both of hers as if to tell you that it’s going to be alright and she would be there to help you through this. With a sigh, you explained your feelings of inferiority, how you knew she could do better, and how you felt you would only ever hold her back. Her smile never wavered. It wasn’t happy, no, it stayed reassuring and supportive, communicating she had listened attentively to all of what you said.

“Y/N..” She trailed off. For once in Teruhashi’s life, she had no idea how to reply. How was she to tell you just how much you mean to her? How she thinks you might very well be the most beautiful girl in the world. You were everything she wanted in a person. Supportive, understanding, caring, and someone who’s able to see her as more than just a pretty face. She leaned in a bit closer, hugging you briefly before deciding on what to say.

“Thank you for telling me. I want you to know that I really don’t see you that way, and even if I know I can’t change how you see yourself, I want you to trust me when I say there is nobody else I want to be with. You’re so perfect for me, and I could never be happier with another girl in my life. I’ve had an amazing time with you, and you are so so much more than you think you are. I know I can’t fix it, but please let me support you and help you feel better for the time being.”

By the end of her little speech, you both had tears in your eyes. You’d never cried in front of her, but this time you couldn’t help it. She hugged you again as those tears fell, rubbing your back to comfort you until you felt better.

Once you calmed down, you offered to go back into the swim shop, if Teruhashi didn’t mind. You wanted a second try to have fun with your girlfriend. That’s right. Girlfriend. The word hit you harder than it had before, she picked you and it really wasn’t a joke. You smiled next to her, walking back into the swim shop.

“Hey, Teruhashi-” You were interrupted by her before you could finish.

“Call me Kokomi.” To that, you just about screamed. Your smile widened greatly (and in her head, Teruhashi had a mini-meltdown and how cute you are).

“Okay. Kokomi, do you want to get matching swimsuits?”

She clapped her hands together, practically jumping in excitement. “I do!”

Hurrying further into the store, you both searched the walls of swimsuits and accessories until you landed on a swimsuit that was just perfect. You showed it to Teruhashi, who thought it was the perfect one too. Buying them, along with some shoes and sunglasses that Teruhashi picked out, you headed out of the store. It was getting late anyway.

You would both say today’s date had been a success. Feeling closer to your girlfriend, and getting the reassurance that you had no idea how badly you needed, you felt a lot better than you had this morning. You would never know how nervous Teruhashi had been this morning, either. Maybe someday she’d be brave enough to tell you how you made her heart stop and managed to make everyone else disappear. You’re really something special to her. You dropped her off at her house, placing a goodbye kiss on her cheek, never having seen her face so red. She promptly did the same, thanking you for such a wonderful day, and telling you how she hopes you two can do something together again soon.

And who knows, maybe you guys would have to go to the beach sometime soon. Those swimsuits need use, right? No matter what you did, as long as it was together, you and Teruhashi would be able to rock this world. With her, you knew you could do anything.

#the disasterous life of saiki k #saiki no psi nan #saiki k #kokomi teruhashi x reader #teruhashi x reader #kokomi teruhashi #my writing

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daydreamingatnight209 · 4 years ago

Text

Hi guys! I did have a post before I this one but I loved it so much I wanted to share it with you! The still used for this one is what I envisioned the last part of this but with later Spencer seasons so just pretend 😅😂.

Feedback is always welcome ✨💞

“I will Love You, Forever and Always”

Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Warnings- Angst (but with a fluffy ending!) 💕

Prompt- “Maybe I don’t want to be just friends!”

��—————————

“I don’t believe they are just friends” Derek ponders as him and Emily walk into the BAU that Monday morning.

“Morgan seriously we have been here before, they are just friends” Emily explains for the 100th time to her friend, but he wasn’t buying it.

“I mean come on, look at them” he huffs, looking straight at your desk.

Truth be told if the people around you didn’t know of the dynamic between yourself and Dr. Spencer Reid it would look like you were indeed more the friends. Currently you were sat upon the top of his desk, swinging your legs laughing at something he was discussing. His hand rested over the top of yours while he used the other to explain his point.

That wasn’t the only scene that was up for debate, over the past years there had been many moments exactly like this one, hence Morgan’s suspicions.

Like how he would give you piggy back rides to your car after a long day. Or like how you two never failed to have lunch together, case or no case.

No one questioned it when you would always find reasons to be in each other’s presence or how you would both end up at one or the others apartment for movie and a take out.

It became standard procedure for you both to be seated on the sofa in the jet, either napping or reading together and how Spencer was always the one to take you home after a night out with the girls.

You had all the makings of a wonderful young couple, and yet.... you weren’t.

This hurt you especially as you were head over heels for your best friend but your past experiences made it extremely difficult for you to act upon these feeling, scarred by multiple rejections from others.

You told yourself that it’s better to have him as a friend, then nothing at all.

It had broken your heart every day since the day you had met him.

You struggled with it but hid it well. Until the this week. It was becoming unbearable. You’d avoided him the weekend that just passed, needing time for yourself yet it felt awfully strange. To avoid suspicions you rode into work with him on that Monday but your pretend persona was breaking and over the week everyone was aware. including Spencer.

He hated the sudden shift in your behaviour and it confused him greatly.

He needed answers and he would confront his anxiety to do so.

It didn’t go as planned, he confronted you and got answers, just not the ones he expected.

You loved him and he missed it.

————————————

You were in tears and at the end of your tether. Spencer had found you and your walls had been broken down.

“Maybe I don’t want to be just friends Spencer!” You cried out.

“I had to watch for years, girls flirting with you in bars, you fall for JJ and you be broken in two with Maeve. It broke me seeing you like that Spencer, I wanted to take away all and any pain and wouldn’t” you take a breath, wiping the tears. It wouldn’t matter, they just kept falling.

Spencer went to speak but you didn’t want to hear it. You couldn’t.

“I know you love her, I know you have loved, and that’s okay but Spencer I love you and I can’t keep doing this. I’m sorry”

You rush out of the room, ignoring the reactions of those present. Hotch granted you a week of personal time of which you spent lay in bed, attempting to sort through what you were feeling. You didn’t leave your apartment once.

———————————

You resurfaced into society exactly a week later, not by choice but by request. The team was worried about you and Rossi had demanded that you come over. The weather was nice and you although you didn’t want to you needed to get away from staring at the same four walls that held your bedroom together.

You thew on some clothes and tied your hair into a messy bun before setting of to the location your presence was requested. You tried your best to prepare yourself for who you were about to face.

Spencer.

Yes the team would be there also but it was being tasked with seeing Spencer that was creating the nerves. You hadn’t spoken to him since your justified meltdown in the bullpen. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. At first he had tried calling and texting but you couldn’t bring yourself to respond.

He would arrive at your apartment for 3 days straight and beg for you to talk to him before he gave up. You sat on the other side of that door, silently crying.

Contact stopped after that.

You arrive at Rossi’s faster then you had liked and had to calm yourself before ringing the doorbell.

You put on a smile and greet everyone. Spencer was nowhere to be found.

You decided to sit by the pool. You wasn’t aware of how long you had been sat there inside your now head, but soon, one by one the team filtered inside and the sun begun to set. You were so focused on the wheels turning aimlessly in your head you didn’t notice Spencer stood beside you, he caught your attention with a small hesitant cough.

You jump and look up in his direction with a faint sad smile forming.

He copies your actions before sliding down next to you.

The tension in the air made no effort to disappear.

It felt like an eternity before either one of you spoke.

“You were wrong you know”

You look to at him with confusion clouding my features.

“Yes, I loved JJ, but not in the way you think. Yes I loved and will always love Maeve but she wouldn’t want me stuck in time, wallowing in grief. She’d want me to move on and be happy”

Your lips tremble. You weren’t ready for this but you knew in reality if you didn’t confront this, you would lose your best friend.

You let him keep talking as you couldn’t even form a sentence.

“I’m happy with you, and I don’t want to be just friends either. In fact right now? I really would like to kiss you. Would you let me do that?

You felt as if time had stopped when you processed what he had said. Shock almost paralysed you but you managed to command your head to nod ever so slightly.

Spencer didn’t waste any time he closed the gap immediately and let his lips catch onto yours. It felt as if the star were aligning and everything was alright in the world.

Too caught up in the moment, you slide in your seat on the water that surround where you were sat and fell into the pool casing Spencer to follow you in.

You laugh, happiness returning as you swim back towards your one and only.

You couldn’t help but stare in his eyes and take in his features. The way his eyes crinkled as his grins and how his eyes tell a story or wonder and pain. The tips of your noses touch and you take a moment to remember. You never wanted this night to end. You kiss him once more, you could feel his passion as his finger tips grip your face ever so gently. He pulls apart once more and says,

“I will love you forever and always, my love”

Tag List - @purple-scarf-mistress

#criminal minds #fanfic #mgg x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #writing #criminal minds x reader #mgg imagine #angst #criminal minds cast #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler imagines #matthew gray gubler #dr. spencer reid #fluff

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winterrose527 · 3 years ago

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person a is afraid of flying, person b offers to hold their hand. for robbcella?

Oh my gosh sorry for the delay on writing this. It was so fun and obviously turned out far longer than expected as always.

***

Okay. It’ll be fine. It’ll totally, one hundred percent, be fine. There is nothing to be concerned about. You’re just going to put your things above the seat, in the overhead – ooh nope you’re not. Too heavy, too high –

“Do you need help with that?” a voice cut into her sad little slow motion panic attack.

“Oh, no, that’s alright,” she said, the way she always did when men offered the taxis they’d just hailed for themselves to her, “I’ve-I’ve got it.”

She went to lift her carry-on, but someone must have filled it with rocks because when she tried to lift it over her head it ended up hitting her in the face.

“You uh… sure about that?” the man asked. “Please.”

“Okay, thank you,” she agreed.

The suitcase was out of her hands in a moment and settled safely in the overhead bin.

When it was no longer in front of his face she saw that it was… quite a face. Piercing blue eyes framed by thick, long lashes. A strong nose, square jaw, perfect pouty lips.

She realized after a moment that she’d been staring at him, and her embarrassment was only slightly mitigated by the fact that he’d been staring at her too.

“Can you guys move?” an exasperated traveler asked behind them.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed.

The man gestured to the row of seats, “I’m the window, unless you’d prefer it.”

She shook her head, “No, no, aisle is better for me.”

He looked at her as though he’d heard the nerves in her voice but he nodded and went and sat in the window seat, putting his backpack underneath the seat in front of him but pulling out one of those books by an author that was always sold in airports and train stations. She settled in next to him, taking her bottle of water, headphones and cell phone, and her own weathered paperback out of her bag before pushing it under the seat in front of her.

She buckled immediately, taking a sip of water and then checked her phone. She had a text from Shireen.

Everything will be fine, I’ll see you soon!

She smiled and typed back: I think that’s supposed to be my line, you’re really failing at this whole bridezilla thing. See you soon, xo.

Myrcella put her phone on airplane mode and tried to open her book to distract herself. Instead she read the same sentence of the same paragraph six times without retaining any of it so she closed the book, drumming her fingers on it lightly.

She saw the man glancing at her and realized she was probably being annoying.

“Sorry,” she said, sitting on her hands so that she’d stop.

“That’s okay,” he shook his head, “I like that song.”

She smirked and nodded, taking another sip of water and then looking around. It looked like everyone had settled in and unfortunately it didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with the engine so they’d likely be taking off soon.

This was proven true when the captain started making his announcements and she heard the propellers start going.

She thought about the exercises her mother’s life guru Luwin had tried to teach her. Imagining herself as the pilot.

But I don’t know how to fly a plane!

She stopped that and just focused on her breathing and trying to think logically. Realistically, they were going to be fine. She understood that.

But while she could mind over matter practically anything else, this was the one exception.

“Afraid of flying?” someone broke into her thoughts.

It wasn’t the guy who’d sat next to her, but a kindly looking older woman across the aisle.

“A little,” she agreed.

“Do you want a diazepam?” the woman asked, holding up a little bottle and shaking it slightly.

She heard the guy sitting next to her cough, though it sounded more like he was disguising a laugh.

“No, thank you though, ma’am,” she said and then turned away.

“You know um, realistically the chances of our plane going down are-,” he started.

“Well my grandmother died in a plane crash, so,” she interrupted him.

She leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes, as she felt them starting to move down the runway. She gripped the armrests.

“Oh shit I’m so sorry,” he said, “Really?”

“No,” she grimaced, her breath coming less easily now, “That’s just what I always say to people when they pull out statistics. Apparently it’s my way of offsetting my own discomfort.”

“Or maybe it’s just your way of telling people to mind their own business,” he suggested.

She opened her eyes and found that he was looking at her in concern.

“I won’t pass out or throw up or anything,” she promised him.

He nodded, “That’s good, why don’t you drink some water?”

“You don’t have to help,” she told him, “You can just um… read that book and ignore the hyperventilating woman beside you. I’ll be okay when we’re in the air.”

He looked at her again and then turned to the book and then back to her, “The only problem with that is that I really don’t want to read this book.”

She couldn’t help but laugh, “Then why did you buy it?”

“I always buy one when I’m getting on a flight for more than an hour so I can pretend to read it and ignore the person sitting next to me,” he noted.

She nodded and then pointed out, “You shouldn’t have told me, now you can’t use that trick on me.”

He scratched his cheek, smirking down at the book, “Yeah well maybe I don’t want to.” She realized absently that he was hitting on her but that was sort of overshadowed by the fact that the plane was speeding up, “Look um, we’re about to take off here. Do you want to close your eyes or um… I could talk you through it or… I don’t know, I could at least hold your hand? Mine’s clean, I promise and um… well I had to help my sister in the delivery room so it’s really used to being squeezed.”

She looked at him, and her voice was small when she asked, “You did?”

He nodded, resting his hand on the arm rest, his palm facing upwards and open, and he glanced at it and then back at her, “Come on, I’ll tell you all about it.”

The plane was really speeding now so she slipped her hand into his. Which was large and warm without being clammy. She should have wiped her own on her pants, she realized but he didn’t seem to mind as he interlaced their fingers. She felt the wheels start to lift and her knuckles went white she was squeezing his hand so hard.

“Okay so my sister, Sansa is married to one of my best friends, Jon. They wanted children right away,” he shook his head, “Which we were all pretty surprised about. Anyway, Sansa is about eight months pregnant and they find out that Jon’s mentor – honestly more of a father figure than anything else – who lives up on Bear Island – is sick. Like really sick. He’s telling Jon not to go, that he’ll be fine, and Jon doesn’t want to leave Sansa, but Sansa being Sansa convinces him that he has to because you know, it’s his Dad basically, right?”

“Right,” she nodded, because it seemed like he wanted to make sure she was still with him.

“So anyway,” he went on, “I’m at the office in a meeting late one night and I get a call from Sansa, telling me that she thinks her water broke. I’ve got like, twenty junior employees looking at me as I have a full blown meltdown -,” she hadn’t realized that she’d giggled until he stopped and grinned at her, “It wasn’t pretty. But I’m running out of there like a bat out of hell and calling Jon on my way to go get her. At this point, Mormont’s really bad, but he and Jon have said the things they needed to say and made their peace with it, but of course there is a huge storm.”

“Every good story needs a huge storm,” she noted.

He grinned at her, “I agree. And this one was a doozy. So it became pretty clear that Jon was not going to make it home, and of course he is freaking out because it’s only been a little over eight months and you know um, you don’t know him but this is not the sort of guy that like… handles not being able to be there for Sansa well? Like if he could have given birth he a hundred percent would have and I know that’s easy to say since like… he can’t but he seriously would have. The man loses his mind when she’s got a slight fever. So you can imagine that he was just… anyway. I go get Sansa and take her to the hospital. And it’s early so you know there’s um, a lot of attention on her and everything. But she’s just… calm. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s just calm. She’s listening to the doctors and she’s telling Jon that everything’s going to be fine and then for a minute it’s just us in the delivery room,” he shook his head and it almost seemed like his eyes were smarting and she squeezed his hand. He looked down at it for a second and then squeezed it back and went on, “And she looked at me and she said, Robby, it’s time to call in my big favor. And I realized then how scared she really was and after that it sort of um… became easy? I guess, to be calm. Because she needed me to be so… anyway, she squeezed the shit out of my hand for five hours and then my nephew was born.”

“Happy and heathy?” she wondered.

He smiled, “Happy and healthy and howling… do you want to hear the weird bit?”

“Has anyone ever said no to that question?” she wondered.

His eyes smiled though he didn’t and he said, “We called Jon to give him the good news, and after the appropriate celebrating, he gave us the bad news. Mormont had died minutes – we later found out a minute – before the baby was born,” she felt a shiver run down her spine and he squeezed her hand, “I know. So, when it came time to name him, Joer was the only option, really.”

“Wow,” she agreed, “That is quite a story.”

He smiled at her and rubbed her knuckles with his thumb, “How are you doing?”

She looked around and realized that they were in the air securely. The fasten seatbelt sign was even turned off.

“Oh I’m sorry!” she went to pull her hand back.

“Don’t be, you’re far gentler than Sansa,” he told her and she bit her lip to hide her smile, “And I’ll let go if you promise to grab it if you need to.”

Now that they weren’t barreling down the runway, she was able to notice just how blue his eyes were.

“Promise,” she said.

He didn’t let her hand go right away, and she didn’t let go of his so quickly either. Their fingers relaxed against one another’s, and she dragged her hand ever so slightly against his. He shivered and she looked at him.

“You alright?” she wondered.

“Fine,” he nodded, looking down at their hands briefly, “And I’m Robb, by the way.”

“Myrcella,” she introduced herself, “Thank you, I know I said you didn’t need to help, but you really did.”

“My pleasure,” he told her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to pretend to read that book?” she asked, “I won’t be offended.”

He looked at her and then at the book and then placed it in the pocket in front of him.

“So what brings you to Dragonstone, Myrcella?” he asked.

“Wedding, my cousin’s,” she told him. “How about you?”

“Engagement party,” he answered, a slight shake of his head. “Sansa and Jon and baby Joer will be there, too.”

“That’s exciting,” she smiled, “I can’t wait to be an Aunt. Not sure how good of a mother I’d be, but I feel like I could really excel at the whole Auntie thing.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked her, “Are you going to be the fun aunt –“

“Obviously,” she interrupted.

He chuckled, and nodded, “Obviously.”

And so it went. They talked about the different things they wanted to do with their respective (mostly hypothetical) nieces and nephews. How long they’d each lived in the Riverlands (since university, for him, two years, for her). She told him about the beach he had to get to while on Dragonstone, where he could eat the best lobster roll of his whole life.

When it came time for their descent, neither of them said a thing about it, but his hand took hold of hers and they kept talking.

“Look, um, Myrcella,” he started, “Don’t feel any pressure or anything, I mean, this could just be the most enjoyable flight of my life and leave it at that but I’d regret not asking so… is there any chance I could take you out when we both get back?”

She’d been hoping he’d ask, but she shook her head, “No… but I’d love to take you out as a thank you for getting me through it.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and laughed, “That was meaner than the dead grandmother thing.”

She grinned, “I’m sorry,” and then pulled out her phone and handed it to him.

He put in his number and now that she could take her phone off of airplane mode she texted him so that he had hers. It was unlike her, usually she’d play harder to get.

Then again, usually she was less interested in being caught.

***

She was still thinking about him as she straightened the hem of Shireen’s gown.

When she stood up, all thoughts escaped her apart from one.

“You are the most beautiful bride this world has ever seen,” she told her.

“By a very wide margin,” Gendry agreed at her side. “And the most mischievous. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Shireen giggled, “We wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You told her,” Gendry reminded her.

“Well duh, she’s my maid of honor,” Shireen said, looking at her with tears in her eyes and holding out her hand, “And the closest thing to a sister I’ll ever have.”

“Don’t,” Myrcella pleaded, squeezing her hand, “Your make up is perfect.”

Shireen laughed, though in truth she cared little for her make up. She really was the worst bridezilla ever. Low maintenance was the only way to describe her.

She hadn’t wanted the hoopla that went with planning a big wedding, so instead had invited everyone for an engagement party which in a few minutes they’d all learn was actually the wedding.

Shireen looked up at Gendry, “You’ll give me away, right?”

Gendry glanced at her before nodding at Shireen, “Of course I will.”

Neither of them said what they wanted to. That her Dad should have been there. Even if it was a surprise wedding, even if he didn’t know, he should have been at her engagement party.

“Perfect,” Shireen said, looking in the mirror and fixing her veil, “Alright, I’m ready. Myrcella you can head out as soon as you start hearing the music, and then we’ll follow. Ooh and remind me afterwards that I wanted to introduce you to Theon’s best man.”

Myrcella laughed and kissed her cousin on the cheek, “Why don’t you focus on getting yourself married and then you can work on me getting married.”

Besides, what are the chances that his best man will be a better one than Robb?

Shireen agreed and Myrcella grabbed the bouquet of wildflowers that she never would think to use for her own wedding but which were beautiful and perfect for the laidback, seaside wedding this was.

The music started, a single violinist playing an instrumental version of the old school hip hop song that Shireen had declared was her and Theon’s song, as it was playing on the radio in the car right after their first big fight.

Someone else had told the guests a few minutes earlier that they were actually here for a wedding, so they were standing on either side of an aisle, though it was clear there was no rhyme or reason to it, no bride’s side or groom’s side, exactly as it should be.

She walked down the short aisle and smiled at Theon as she settled across from him. Out of curiosity she glanced behind him at his best man, who was grinning at her from ear to ear.

Because of course it was him.

She’d almost asked, the name of the person whose engagement party it was, but there’d been so many other things to talk about and it had slipped her mind.

Only Shireen walking down the aisle could have torn her gaze from Robb’s blue eyes and she fought tears as she saw the way Theon’s heart seemed to stop when he saw her.

Their vows were simple, and sweet, and funny, and fifteen minutes later, Shireen Greyjoy walked back down the aisle on the arm of her husband.

Robb should have offered her his arm, but instead he held out his hand which she took readily, their fingers interlacing as though well practiced in it.

“I thought you were here for an engagement party,” she teased.

He chuckled, “If I wasn’t so happy to see you, I’d be pissed that clearly you made the cut for knowing it was actually a wedding and I didn’t.”

She smiled, “If it helps, Shireen is dying to set us up.”

“Yeah, Theon assured me that there was no way the chick I met on the plane was hotter than you,” he grinned. Then his eyes wandered over her, “You look beautiful, by the way.”

“Thank you,” she looked up into his blue eyes, made brighter by his navy blue suit, “So do you.”

And it was clear then, as clearer than anything ever had been though it made little sense at all, that one day this would be a part of the family lore, just like him holding his sister’s hand in the delivery room. Over the years they’d perfect it, this story, that they’d have to tell over and over again that night, interlacing parts of it as seamlessly as their fingers.

When he pulled her out onto the dance floor and into his arms, it seemed like he knew it too.

“So I know I said I wanted to take you out when we were back home,” he noted, “But I’ve heard there’s a pretty good lobster roll around here… It’s not the most glamorous first date or anything but…”

She laughed, “Well then this can be our first date. A lobster roll feels like a perfect second one. When do you fly back?”

“Sunday night, the seven o’clock flight,” he told her.

She smiled, “Me too. So that can be our third date.”

“Our third date on an airplane, hmm,” he mused in a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.

She wondered if he was thinking what she was. All those expectations that came with a third date.

Though in truth given that they were at a wedding where the alcohol was flowing freely and he was looking at her like that while he was looking like that, she doubted she’d be following the three date rule.

Even still, the mile-high club lingered in the air between them.

“Well,” she looked up at him, “You’ll have to find some way to distract me. I’m terribly afraid of flying, you know.”

He grinned, and pulled her closer to him, his lips against her ear, “Oh it’d be my pleasure to help.”

#fanfiction #modern au #robbcella #strangers on a plane

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rmtndew · 4 years ago

Text

Begin Again ~ Chapter 6

Summary: Walter Marshall is a dedicated homicide detective doing his best to balance his work life with being a single father to a teenage girl. Fiona Sparks is a woman doing her best to take care of everyone and everything around her, except for herself. Neither has had the best luck with relationships, but once they meet, they’re willing to give it another shot, this time with each other. (It’s basically just romantic fluff)

Pairing: Marshall and OFC.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Mentions of death, cancer.

A/N - This is a sequel to ‘All I’ve Ever Known’. I started writing this because I needed an escape for some personal stuff going on and my coping mechanism included giving Marshall all the love that man needed, and imagining him being the softest boyfriend to me, then passing those details on to Fiona (my OFC).

Tag list - @hollydaisy23, @alyxkbrl, @onlyhenrys, @omgkatinka, @speakerforthedead0, @gearhead66, @thethirstyarchive, @oddsnendsfanfics, @littlerinoa, @agniavateira, @aaescritora, @justaboringadult, @beenthroughalot, @seriouslygoodlookinggents, @xxxkatxo, @musicartmayheminmyheart, @lilliannaansalla

If you want to be added/removed from the tag list, let me know!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

The next week started out well. Marshall’s closed case meant paperwork - which I knew he wasn’t a fan of - but it gave us the ability to spend more time together. After his court appearance on Monday, he stopped by the shop so I could see him in his suit. He was insanely handsome - he really did clean up nicely - but I preferred him looking like a big cozy bear in his thick sweaters, so I gave him the go ahead to change into something more casual for our date that night. Darcy, being the wonderful friend that she was, let me leave a few hours early so that Walter and I could meet up sooner. We had dinner and picked up everything he’d ordered for Faye’s room. Then we went to his house and he assembled the new furniture while I painted the old. Tuesday he picked me up and we had Chinese takeout before finishing the room. It took all night - I didn’t get home until close to one in the morning - but we both worked to get it done in time. And it was well worth it. I may have been an adult, but even I was a little jealous of how cute it had turned out. Faye’s birthday was the next day, Wednesday, and Marshall picked her up from school, then surprised her with it before taking her home. That evening while I was on the phone with him, she sent me a sweet text thanking me for helping him out and telling me how much she loved it.

Unfortunately, things started falling apart for me after that. Mom spent Thursday getting ready for her trip with my aunts that weekend, and despite how much I tried to convince myself that she would be okay, my anxiety wasn’t buying it. Since Dad died, I hadn’t spent a single night away from her. And with her cancer still feeling fresh in my mind, knowing that I wouldn’t be there with her if something were to go wrong made my anxiety worse. It came to a head Friday morning when I had a panic attack. I was having coffee when it hit me. The chest pains, the heart palpitations, the tingling in my arms, the numbness in my fingers and toes. I felt dizzy, my vision swimming. I knew what it was, I’d had them for more than half my life, and yet I was always scared it was something more. A heart attack usually. My mind could never comprehend how something like anxiety could cause such an intense physical reaction. But it did and when it was over, I was exhausted. I was thankful that I didn’t have to go to work - Darcy had closed the shop for the day - because the most I managed to do that morning was take a shower and put on sweatpants and an oversized sweater. By that afternoon, I felt torn between being too tired to do anything useful and needing something to distract me from dwelling on Mom going away. She wouldn’t let me help her with anything, so I finally settled on cleaning out the fridge. That’s where I was, trying to identify the contents of a container that had gotten pushed to the back, for who knows how long, when I got a text from Marshall.

Marshall: I wanted to see if you had plans for dinner? I know your mother is leaving this evening and didn’t know if you’d cook for yourself. I can take you out, or cook for you, if you’d like?

I wanted so badly to say yes, but I didn’t have the energy. Cleaning out the fridge was as much as I had been able to force myself to do, and even that was pushing it. There was no way I could manage to get ready for a date.

Me: I don’t have plans. Unfortunately I’m not feeling well. Do you take rainchecks on dinner?

I hated turning him down for several reasons. One being that I loved spending time with him, no matter what we did. But another was knowing that he wasn’t always going to have free time to spend with me. That these few weeks we’d had were rare, at least by his admission, and I felt like I was squandering it.

Marshall: I do take rainchecks. And I’m sorry that you’re not well. Is there anything I can do for you?

Me: No. It’ll pass. But thank you for offering. I promise I’ll make it up to you when I can.

Almost as soon as I sent it, he replied, like he’d anticipated what I was going to say and was waiting, his thumb hovering over the send button.

Marshall: You have nothing to make up for, Fi. Just let me know if I can get you anything.

Reading the text, I felt like crying. He was wonderful and there was no reason why I shouldn’t have been able to go out with him, except my brain decided to have a meltdown and destroy my whole day.

Me: I will. You’re too sweet, Walter. Thank you.

Marshall: That’s not possible.

Me: For you to be sweet? I highly disagree, mister.

Marshall: No. For anyone to be too sweet to you, love.

My heart fluttered for a moment, touched by how wonderful he truly was. But it was over quickly, replaced by tears. I’d finally found someone that I adored and that treated me better than anyone ever had, but even still, my anxiety fought it and that afternoon, it won.

A few hours later, June came by to pick up Mom. I carried her suitcase to the car, then made sure she had everything important in her purse.

“Fiona, I’ve got it, sweetie. I’ve got my medicine, my wallet, and my phone. Anything else I need, we can pull over and get.”

“What about your phone charger?” I asked.

“In the suitcase.”

“Your car charger?”

At that, she looked a little sheepish. “I did forget that one.”

“I’ll go grab it for you. Where is it?”

“I think it’s on my vanity. If not, don’t worry about it, Bird. June will have her phone, too.”

“I know, but I’d feel better if you had it. I’ll be right back.”

I ran upstairs and looked at Mom’s vanity. The charger wasn’t sitting on it, so I went through the drawers, searching for it with no luck. I didn’t know where else she would keep it, but I knew that if I asked, she would tell me to forget it and try to leave before I could find it. So I decided to give her mine to take instead. I had a backup one with a shorter cord in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.

“You’ll have to take mine. I can’t find yours,” I called, starting down the stairs.

“Well, I found something,” she called back. “There was a surprise on the doorstep.”

“Mom, I swear if you brought the neighbor’s cat in again, I’m telling. It’s not inhumane to have an outdoor cat,” I said. But when I reached the bottom of the staircase, I saw who she’d ‘found’ and couldn’t hold back my smile. It wasn’t a cat, thankfully. It was Marshall. He smiled back at me.

“Are you still going to tell on me?” Mom asked.

“I’ll consult with Detective Marshall here and decide,” I said, walking over to her.

Marshall was standing with one hand behind his back, the other holding a bouquet of wildflowers. “I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Well, we have to get on the road, so we’ll leave the two of you to it.” Mom turned and gently pulled my head down for her to kiss my forehead. “I love you, sweetie. I’ll call you when we get there.”

I handed her my charger and she put it in her purse. “I love you, too. Be careful and have fun, okay?”

“I will.” She looked up at Walter. “Would you do me a favor and keep an eye on her this weekend? She could cut one of her limbs off and wouldn’t tell me because she wouldn’t want to ‘bother’ me.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

She patted his arm. “Thank you.”

Mom and June gave me hugs before leaving. June told Marshall that it was nice to ‘finally’ meet him. I rolled my eyes but he smiled and said it was nice to meet her, too. I stood in the doorway and watched them leave. Once they were gone, I closed the door and turned back to Walter.

He rubbed his neck, looking a bit bashful. I didn’t think I could ever get used to him looking that way. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you sending her off.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she was happy to have you here to be a buffer. I think she was half afraid that I was going to cling to her leg like I did when I was a kid and try to keep her from going.” I went to him and brushed a curl back from his forehead. I squinted at him playfully. “Now that I’m thinking about it, that was pretty convenient for her. Did she call you?” I joked.

He smiled enough for me to see the sharp end of his canines. “No. I was on my way home and wanted to check on you since you said you weren’t feeling well.” He held up the flowers. “And bring these to you.”

“That was sweet. Thank you.”

“Are you worried about your mum leaving?” he asked. I nodded. He put his free hand on my hip, drawing me closer. “I figured that may have been it, instead of you being ill.”

I put my hands on his chest, feeling the soft texture of his cable knit sweater under my palms. “I know she’s a grown woman, and I know she’s a lot healthier now than she was, and I know she’s going to be with family, so I really shouldn’t be worried, but I can’t help it.” I chewed my lip for a moment. “I had a panic attack this morning. I didn’t tell her, because I knew she’d know it was over her leaving and I didn’t want her to feel guilty,” I said. “But that’s why I asked about a raincheck for dinner. It drained me and I didn’t think I’d have the energy to go anywhere. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that. It’s understandable to be worried about her. You’ve taken care of her the whole time she was sick,” he said. “I’m sorry it caused you to have a panic attack, though.”

“I’m used to them. I’ve had them half my life.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I shook my head. “It just drained me. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Would you like me to stay and keep you company?”

I looked down at my hands. “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to. Do you want me to?”

I took a deep breath. “Please,” I whispered.

He kissed the bridge of my nose, then put his forehead to mine. “I’ll stay as long as you want.”

I smiled. “Then you may never leave.”

“I wouldn’t complain.”

I looked up at him again. “Have you eaten? I could make us dinner.”

“Would you let me order take out for us instead?”

“You don’t trust my cooking?” I joked.

He smiled back. “It’s not that. I promise. But I would feel better if I felt like I was taking care of you, not the other way around.

I bit my lip for a moment, thinking. “Okay.”

“Good girl,” he said, then placed a kiss on my forehead.

A flush instantly pinched at my cheeks, the heat spreading to my ears and neck, just from two simple words. “We should get those flowers in some water,” I said, moving back and taking them from his hand. I didn’t want him to see how flustered I was.

I walked to the kitchen and he followed. I found a vase in one of the cabinets and filled it with water, then I took the flowers from their wrapping and placed them inside. Marshall took the wrapping from me and put it in the trash while I arranged the flowers. Once I had them how I wanted them, I carried them to the table and placed them in the center. Marshall came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, and kissed my shoulder. I wasn’t a petite woman, but he engulfed me, making me feel dainty for the first time in my life. I closed my eyes and melted into his touch.

“Thank you again for the flowers. They’re beautiful,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” He kissed my shoulder again, then kissed a trail from there up to my neck. I sunk further into him with each kiss. He finished with a soft, lingering kiss behind my ear. “What would you like to eat?”

“Do we have to eat? I kind of don’t want to move from right here.”

He laughed and I felt it rumble through me. “I assure you, I plan on resuming this as soon as dinner’s taken care of.”

“Promise?”

He nodded. “Yes, darling.”

“Keep calling me stuff like that and I’m going to be too weak in the knees to do anything else.”

He laughed again. “Is that so?”

I turned my head to look at him. He looked amused. “Yes, it is. Don’t act like you don’t know what kind of effect you have on me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a slight smirk.

“Oh really?” I asked. He shook his head. I took his right hand away from my waist and moved it, placing it over my heart, and held it there with my own hand. “Call me darling again.”

He looked confused, but he did it anyway. “My darling, Fiona,” he said. Then I watched his eyes widen as he felt my heart rate pick up. “That’s because of one word?”

“It’s because of you. Because of how you say it. Because of how you make me feel when you say it.”

He gave me a kiss, soft and gentle, then smiled as he pulled back. My heart was beating faster and I knew he could feel it under his palm. “So it’s not just words,” he whispered, sending shivers through me. “My beautiful -” He kissed behind my ear. “Sweet -” He kissed my neck. “Smart -” My head tilted for him naturally. He kissed the underside of my jaw. “Darling,” he said, then pressed a kiss to my exposed collarbone.

Never in my life had a man made me feel the way Walter did. Especially right then. He surrounded me, crowded every one of my senses, and made me feel weak and strong at the same time. I could be vulnerable with him, let him know exactly what he did to me, and I wasn’t afraid he’d exploit it. I wasn’t afraid of him at all. He was protection. I knew that he would protect me, protect my heart, and so even though I could feel it beating so fast it almost hurt, I kept his hand pressed against it, wanting him to feel some small part of how he made me feel.

He let his lips linger on my collarbone for a moment, and then, to my surprise, he blew a raspberry on it. I squealed, my knees buckling at the sudden tickling sensation. He caught me, his arm around my waist tightening to keep me from falling. I burst into a fit of giggles and he laughed, too, moving his hand from my heart to circle around my waist, joining the other one.

“Are you ticklish?” he asked, still laughing.

“I didn’t think I was, but no one’s ever done that,” I said, my cheeks starting to hurt from how wide my smile was.

“Hm...this could be an interesting experiment, then.”

“No, sir!” I said, still laughing.

“Fine.” He kissed the side of my head. “It’s better when it’s a surprise anyway,” he said. He loosened his grip on me, then turned me to face him. He looked very satisfied with himself as he smirked at me. “Do you still want to do this, or will you let me order dinner now?”

I shook my head at him. “You sneaky bear,” I said, my smile never breaking. “Yes, you may order dinner now.”

“What would you like?”

“I think...a deep-dish pizza, please.”

He smiled. “Then pizza it is, love.”

Marshall ordered pizza, then he and I cuddled on the couch until it arrived. Then we ate it straight from the box while watching baking shows. After dinner, we got comfortable. He sat on the couch and I sat beside him, stretching my legs out and leaning my back against his chest. He wrapped me up in a blanket and held me. His hand occasionally playing with my hair, running his fingers through it. We didn’t talk very much, but we didn’t have to. Just him being there was enough to make me feel better. Eventually, my anxiety melted away, leaving me relaxed. My eyes were growing heavy when Mom called, the sound startling me.

“Hey Bird, did I wake you?” she asked.

“No. I’m watching TV. You’re fine.”

“You didn’t stay up for me, did you?”

“No. I’m watching a show with Walt.”

“Oh, is he still there?”

“He is. You’d be proud of him. He’s looked after me very well tonight.”

“That makes me feel better. You’ll have to tell him I said thank you.”

“I will. How was the drive? Did you guys get there okay?”

“We did. We ran into some snow, but it wasn’t too bad.” There was a pause, then I heard her yawn. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know we made it.”

“Thank you for letting me know. I’m glad you got there safely and I hope you guys have fun this weekend. Try not to get too crazy.”

“No promises, Fi.”

I laughed. “Alright. Go get some sleep, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetie. Goodnight.”

We hung up and I put my phone back on the coffee table.

“She made it to their hotel?” Marshall asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t realize they’d been gone that long.”

He looked at his watch, then raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t, either. It’s nearly midnight.” He rubbed his hand up and down my back. “I should probably go and let you sleep.”

I didn’t want him to leave, but I knew he must have been tired. He’d worked that day, then spent all evening taking care of me. I couldn’t ask him to stay any longer.

“Okay,” I said.

He helped me tidy up the living room, throwing away the trash from dinner and cleaning up the few dishes we’d dirtied. I walked him to the door. He gave me a hug and a kiss and I tried not to linger with either, not wanting him to see how reluctant I was to let him go. But he must have seen it or sensed it because as he was about to leave, he paused and turned back to look at me.

“You know, if you’re nervous about being here alone, I could stay with you,” he said. “I could sleep down here, on the couch, if you want.”

“I couldn’t ask you to sleep on the couch.”

“You’re not; I’m offering.”

I chewed my lip and looked down at my feet. “I could...I could ask you to sleep somewhere else, though,” I said quietly.

I watched his feet turn as he walked back to me. His hand gently lifted my face to look at him. “Do you want me to stay tonight, love?”

I nodded. “Please.”

He stroked my jaw softly with his fingers. His blue eyes were the softest I’d ever seen them. “All you ever have to do is ask.”

“Will you stay with me, Walter?”

“Yes.”

We locked up, then he followed me upstairs. I gave him the pair of sweatpants he’d loaned me when I’d painted Faye’s furniture because he was worried I’d ruin my jeans. I’d washed them, intending to return them on our next date. He changed into them while I was getting the pillows from the guest room. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I arranged the bed so we could share it, trying not to be shallow and stare as he pulled off his sweater, his T-shirt going with it. It was difficult. I knew he was muscular, even his sweaters couldn’t hide that, but seeing him for the first time took my breath away. He was so big and broad and manly. I’d never dated anyone that had even remotely come close to looking the same.

I got into bed and lay on my side. Marshall turned off the light, then joined me. He put his phone on the nightstand, then lay facing me. Even in the dark, he was beautiful.

“Thank you for this,” I said.

“You’re welcome, my love.”

“Would you mind holding me? Just until I fall asleep?”

“Of course.”

I rolled onto my other side and he wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me to him, his chest pressed against my back. I rested my arm on top of his, my fingers threading down through his. He nosed the back of my neck, then kissed it, before resting his head behind mine.

“I love how warm you are,” I said, my eyes closing. “You’re like a big, strong blanket.”

“A hairy one at that.”

I laughed. “Yes, but I love that, too. Have you ever seen a shaved bear? They’re terrifying.”

It was his turn to laugh. It shook my whole body as he did. “What?”

“Have you never seen the picture of the shaved bear?”

“No. But what does that have to do with me, anyway?”

“You’re my bear.”

“Am I?” he asked. I nodded. “Does that mean I can’t ever shave my beard?”

I hummed sleepily. “I don’t know. I do really like it. I like all of your hair, though. Especially your curls.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I always want to play with them. They’re soft.”

“You’re more than welcome to play with them anytime you want, then.”

“You’re so sweet.”

“And you get very complimentary when you’re tired,” he remarked, humor in his voice.

“Well, you deserve all the compliments.”

“Do I now?”

“Yes.” I yawned. “You’re my favorite person, you know? And you make me feel safe. Always,” I said. “Not that I feel unsafe without you, I just… I don’t know. You make me feel protected anytime I’m around you.” I let out a breath. “Especially right now.”

He tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer. “You are always safe with me, love,” he said softly.

I melted further into his embrace. I could feel myself starting to drift off to sleep. The weight of his arm around me, the heat of him pressed against my back, it all felt so comforting, I couldn’t stay awake.

As I fell asleep, the last thought I had was that I was without a doubt falling in love with Walter Marshall.

A few hours later, I woke with a start. A phone was ringing and my first thought was that it was Mom. I sat up, groping in the dark for my phone. My worry turned to confusion when I realized it wasn’t my phone ringing. A moment later, the ringing stopped.

“Yeah, Marshall,” Walter answered the call, his voice deep and raspy from sleep. There was a pause and he let out a breath. “Okay, yeah, I’ll be there in thirty.” He hung up, putting his phone back on the nightstand, and sat up beside me. He put his hand on my back. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I thought it was Mom. It scared me for a second.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” I took a deep breath, reaching out to touch him, my hand landing on his knee. “You have to go?”

“Yeah. There was a shooting.” He rubbed my back softly. “Will you be able to go back to sleep?”

“I think so,” I said. “Do you want me to make you coffee while you get dressed? I have a thermos I can put it in.”

He shook his head. “No, don’t worry about me. Just go back to sleep. I’ll lock up behind me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He moved his hand from my back up to the back of my head and cradled it as he kissed me before getting out of bed. I watched him as my eyes adjusted to the dark. He went to the chair where he’d put his clothes and swapped his sweatpants for his jeans. His black boxer briefs gave me my first glimpse of his muscular thighs with nothing hiding them, before covering them again. He pulled on his shirt and sweater, then sat long enough to put on his boots. He came back to the bed, putting his phone in his pocket, then came around to my side.

“I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he said, sitting beside me.

I shook my head at him. “Don’t be. It means a lot that you stayed as long as you did.”

He cupped my face in his hand. I leaned into it. He stroked my cheek. “I’ll call you later and check in on you, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then my nose, then my lips. “Lay down,” he whispered. “I’ll tuck you in.” I lay back down and he pulled the covers up around me, tucking them around me. He bent and gave me another kiss to my temple. “Goodnight, Fi.”

I had to fight every urge that wanted me to hold on to him and ask him to stay. “Be careful, Walt.”

He smiled at me. “Always, love.”

He left and I’d never felt so alone. The bed was cold and I missed him. I grabbed the pillow he’d been sleeping on and hugged it to me. It smelled like him. With that scent still there, I felt my body relaxing, and soon I fell back to sleep.

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