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[ananke-xiii]

Epilogue: the Grim Reaper and the Sol Invictus.

My series about resurrection is over but I felt like I needed to “end” it by tying up the loose threads of my “Billie won theory”. I wanted to post this epilogue on the day of the Winter Solstice because I started this resurrection madness around the time of the Autumn Equinox so I thought it’d be cute <3.

As I’ve repeated many, many times, in this retrofitting fantasy of mine Billie and Chuck’s actual conflict is over the power of resurrection. There are rules in this universe that must be followed (and even bent if necessary) because the natural order must be preserved. For the majority of her time on screen Billie is strictly associated with rules as she seeks to contain damage for the sake of Order. She very much believes in Order but, for at least 4 seasons, she doesn’t want to take over it. On the contrary, Billie wants to re-establish the power of Death in the narrative. Thus, resurrections must be contained, controlled or even stopped. This is the “a place for everything and everything in its place” credo. Figuratively speaking, she wants stories to stop changing and start ending as they’re supposed to.

Chuck also knows about universal rules and he wants (or so he thinks) “his story” to end but he wants it to end the way that he had planned. He tampers with the rules of Time as he pleases but he doesn’t have complete control over them. He can control Time/the story up to a certain point. In the end, he rebels against the laws of the natural order but he’s also aware of his limitations and knows where he has to comply with them. He’s not omniscient nor omnipotent, he “just” has a very considerable amount of knowledge and power. Ultimately, however, he can write as many drafts and books as he wants but he can’t write the Death Books. Since his story never ends the way he wants, Chuck uses resurrections (or, rather, most of the time people doing the resurrections for him) as a tool that allows him to start anew. In a way, he keeps retelling “his” story and never allows it to end because he wants it to end the way that he wants.

Interestingly, the “resurrection as power struggle”- angle shows a side of Chuck-as-character that I hadn’t noticed before and that actually gives him more depth: Chuck is a rule breaker. Don’t worry, he’s no Robin Hood in this fantasy of mine because he’s a sly, slimy, treacherous disruptor of Order but it’s important to notice that he’s not the Order. But neither is Billie. In Billie’s mind Chuck is “just” another disruptor of the natural order who needs to be eliminated while she “just” happens to be the one who needs to clean up after his mess. On a very practical level She was right but… was she right?

I think that in her role as Death she had the right to re-claim her centrality. Literal death obviously kept happening on the show so that wasn’t the actual problem. In this resurrection fantasy of mine, the problem is that Death has lost its symbolical meaning. Resurrections, at a certain point, must end or, as Cas said, they might start feeling like punishments rather than chances. What’s gone, what’s past, what’s not there anymore must eventually be freed and let go. Otherwise resurrections risk to become ways to stay disconnected from reality. This doesn’t mean that the past will be forgotten, just that it needs to be unlocked and transformed. It comes a time when retellings must stop and people must face Death in its symbolic power, that is “the Great Transformation”. The highlight here is more on the word “Reaper” than on the word “Grim”: reaping is a very Life-related activity, wheat must be reaped so people can eat. It’s an image of abundance, reward and… success. It’s about continuing free from the chain of the past and about being ready to write something new.

On the other hand, in her role as Billie she got it all wrong. I can’t really pinpoint where the change happened but her character changed somewhere in S15. From a smart, scheming, enigmatic character she becomes this reactionary villain who wants to take over God for the sake of power. She’s convinced that Dean is her ultimate enemy (he’s very much not), consequently this makes her act blindly and a bit stupidly, imo. She had been using Dean since she brought him back in S13, the two even agree on a lot of stuff, she knew he was an important pawn. However, at the very last minute, Billie says that Dean is “human disorder incarnate” showing that, much like Chuck, she didn’t understand Dean at all.

Or, perhaps, this change in her attitude was the result of Chuck’s goading? To be honest I don’t know, I don’t quite understand her character’s change from rules-oriented to Order-oriented and I haven’t been able to find ways to retrofit this into my fantasy, lol. Taking over Chuck in order to become the new God doesn’t really make sense compared to the way she had been previously written. Maybe some important plot-point is eluding me right now, it could be, but I’m pretty sure that even Old Death knew that one day God would be reaped. Even as a reaper Billie knew about this and in S11 she says that she was close to reaping God. To me this pretty much establishes Death as something, if not necessarily bigger than God, definitely closer to how the natural order operates. Of which God is just a part of, like everybody else.

Honestly, to me, it totally makes sense that she wants to stop resurrections and wants to eliminate Chuck but it doesn’t exactly make sense that she wants both to become the “New God” and to go back to how things were. How things were when? From the Shadow’s and Sam’s words it seems to be an imprecise point in time before S4, but why would Billie-as-character want to restore that specific time is unclear to me. It seems very arbitrary. Perhaps what really changed the narrative was Dean’s resurrection in S4 (of which, incidentally, Castiel is key). Before (and after) that resurrection was possible but it came with a high cost since it was mainly done via demon deals. Dean’s resurrection, on the other hand, defies the rules of the natural order and establishes angels and Chuck as despotic and unruly towards its laws. Angels believe in prophecies that are never fully written, in Apocalypses that are constantly disconfirmed, in a God who’s sold them a lie: they want Time/the story to end as He promised them but Time/the story itself seems to have other plans. Clearly.

Again, according to the Shadow’s words, after becoming the New God, Billie would’ve killed anybody who got resurrected. Why? As a character she was written around the idea that she could interfere but she wouldn’t actively do it: just like Chuck, Billie was used to bend the rules by proxy in order to course-correct stuff. Things going off-script or “wrong” is not news to her. What’s important is minimizing damage and avoid huge escalations. As I said, it was her right and her actual job to do so.

I’m sure I’m missing something here but from what I remember Billie sort of turned into a “crazy villain” for no real reason. The funny thing is that the show itself reveals this contradiction when Sam and Dean thought that she was the one making people disappear while she wasn’t. And OF COURSE she wasn’t because if it was just about killing the resurrected people or the people from the AU she could’ve done it… any time? Before? Whenever she fancied? But she didn’t because that was not the real problem. Like, that was a concern of hers for sure, but it was clearly never her first goal. I feel like the show contradicted itself here but okay, let’s just label this as a “me problem”/ “I don’t remember stuff issue” and let’s move on.

Whatever the case may be, that happened and I’ve written a bit about my “Billie won theory” because, eventually, we see exactly what she wanted, i.e. a return to the “good old days”, back to when God wasn’t in the picture and where angels got back to where they belonged. The world stays the same, the world of hunting stays the same, Sam and Dean stay the same and then they die. There’s no mention of the other characters, there’s just Sam, Dean, the Impala and John’s journal. There’s no transformation. As a matter of fact, death is so literal in this back-to-factory-settings world that even former-god Chuck’s ending is very mundane: he’ll grow old, get sick and die. He’ll be forgotten and no one will care about him. Like everybody else. The highlight here is more on the word “Grim” because this is very sad, austere and sterile.

So Billie won as a character but lost as a symbol. The reversal happened to her “enemy” (who wasn’t actually Chuck but Castiel): Chuck lost as a character but won as a symbol.

As Chuck, the character and the writer, he lost because he didn’t get the ending he wanted: the first born doesn’t kill the second born, the father doesn’t kill the son. He doesn’t even get to experience “death by Dean” (which, I fear, he would’ve morbidly enjoyed) because Dean believes much more in Cas than in the hatred he has towards Chuck. It’s total defeat. Much ado about nothing. The story ended but it didn’t end like he wanted. As “Absent Father” he also lost because… well, turns out he wasn’t exactly absent, rather invisible. As a matter of fact, Chuck is found to be a rather invasive and intrusive Father/writer.

 As God… well, as God He wins as “Sol Invictus”, “Invincible Sun”. His power still circulates in the universe via his nephew, aka His tradition continues. Jack might have restructured it but His structure of power (aka the Patriarchy), Heaven vs Hell, is still preserved. If you obey and follow the rules you’ll go to Heaven, if you disobey and do what you want you’ll end up in Hell. Supreme Invisible Invincible God stays invisible and invincible because we see Jack dissolve into nothing after having claimed that he’ll be in everything and everyone. It should sound poetic, instead it gives very creepy, panopticon vibes. There’s no more prison in Heaven but people on earth who have questions will have to suck it up ‘cause Jack ain’t staying around to give answers, folks.

I’m making this comparison because Winter Solstice was/is the celebration of the Sun that never dies, the invincible sun. It’s an old myth that doesn’t want to die while it should, I think,  because… everything ends… in order to continue. The idea of an invincible power that will win every enemy, of a constant growth that will know no arrest, of lands that will never know the setting of the sun because the empire will be limitless… In other words this myth, I think, is actually about the fear of endings which, in turn, signals a bigger, comprehensible, human fear, that of literal death. But this fear, I think, causes so much harm and makes people live miserably and predicates on such an exploitative system (the patriarchy that, in my personal view, is rooted in the terror of literal death): there must be souls that go to Hell to be tortured and in pain forever in order for other people to experience fake-peace in Heaven. There must be souls that are very “good boys” and follow the rules in order for other people to “fuel” the pits of Hell. And there must be “in-between Things” like monsters, demons and angels who go somewhere else after death, away from human souls because they’re the Other that must never be met. Even in the after-life. If you think about it, Jack’s Heaven is just like Earth without monsters and demons and where angels benevolently watch over souls. It’s a naïve dream.

It’s therefore fitting that Chuck-as-character’s ending will be a human one, that is a certain one. Chuck will literally die like every other human being. He couldn’t fathom “his” story’s ending but he knows for sure how his own actual story will end. Chuck-as-God, however, is alive and kicking and it’ll continue to live inside everyone (brrrr). Billie-as-Death dies too and, with Her, the possibility of Death as Transformation, as change, as novelty. As a way to start dealing with literal death with awareness and compassion. Billie-as-character, however, lives on because things bleakly do get back as they were before. Death is, therefore, literal and final but God is symbolic and re-booted.

In this retrofitting imagination of mine, this is why Dean’s refusal to be brought back is so undeniably sad and feels... wrong? The way I see it, he “accepts” literal death (which, to be honest, was unfortunately never the real problem for him but I digress) but “rejects” the possibility of change. What the story is telling me is that Dean must accept his ending in order for Sam’s story to continue and… like… to me this is a big no and it’s unfair to both characters. The “key” for Sam to access “Normal life” is… Dean’s death? What? This is such an old-school type of ending for a show that was so meta and played so much with its material. It's storytelling nostalgia.

Dean’s literal death and refusal to be resurrected allows Sam to enter the Earth-version of Heaven, the blurry, nostalgic world of the undefeated Sun, aka the Patriarchy (well, its normalized, accepted version anyway since the hunting world wasn't that much different but it was, at least, a critique of that other, imagined world). In the end, then, The Grim Reaper stays grim and the Sun stays undefeated. Both the retelling and the story end.

This is where my resurrection series and my “Billie won theory” end. I wish I could give you a better ending but the power of my imagination fails to turn this show’s ending into something else than what I personally took from it. What I can share with you is what I would’ve liked.

So: the way I see it, everything ends but everything transforms and continues, too. This is why, I think, I would like more stories where Death is symbolic rather than literal and where Power (God) is deconstructed in favor of complete change and total newness rather than a return to how things were/are supposed to be. Perhaps there’s something to learn from Apocalypses: we need to imagine endings but since these are just imagined endings we can potentially end… and start anew… anytime we want.

Cyclicality, as I currently see it, is not a life sentence but a way to explore endless possibilities.

Resurrection, to go back to my main theme here, is a powerful tool of love and disobedience, a wonderful way of travelling through Time/the story and dimensions but, one day, we must be courageous enough to do the final act of Love which is… to integrate the past, let go of it and then… continue. Because we’re finally free from our past conditioning, we can see ourselves for who we really are. Our old, constructed, conditioned self finally dies and a new one is born from its ashes. To continue the journey. To co-write our story. To be co-authors of our life.

To use a myth about a failed resurrection as reference, there will be a time when Orpheus' Love, that's already made him capable of walking between dimensions, will be so strong and he'll have such faith in It that he won't care about gods' rules and about his own internal fears, too. A Love so strong that he'll be certain that Eurydice is with him as he continues his journey moving beyond Death and back into Life. He won't look back but he will nevertheless disobey because he will choose not to look back out of Love, not fear.

Or, perhaps, there'll be a time when Orpheus will look back at Eurydice because he Loves. And because he Loves he'll disobey the rule: he will look back in order to look at his past one last time to say his goodbyes. And then continue.

Or maybe there will be a time when it's Eurydice who stops and asks Orpheus to disobey and turn.  She'll tell him that she doesn't want to follow, that she doesn't love him and that he has to let her go if he really loves her. And so Orpheus turns to look at her one last time. And they say their goodbyes.

There are so many possibilities! Stories, myths are repetion and creation that shape our identities! The key is that we can change them, we can imagine new stories to help us make sense of ourselves, to shed light on our hidden, dark corner or even just to look at these corners, contemplate their obscurity and let ourselves be fascinated by complexities and differences. They're here exactly for that!

In other words, I don’t want stories to return but to transform. “Re” is a prefix that indicates reiteration while “trans” means going beyond. These are two different kinds of movements and I prefer the latter. As I’ve said, Resurrections must end too before they become Restorations, nostalgic attempts to bring back the past as we would have liked it to be. I also don’t want stories that “return” to their origins by virtue of sterile narrative techniques rather than via said power of transformation. Briefly put: let me see characters deal with trauma, come to terms with it and finally heal from it in a way that doesn’t mean literal death nor a return to a “golden time” that never was that much golden (otherwise there wouldn’t be any trauma to begin with). Maybe other people don’t agree with me but this is the kind of story I’d like to see more of. The way I see it, in Supernatural (together with other shows that are about destiny/free will) the transformation was taken literally and the ending meant death. The same structure of Power that made the characters suffer stayed the same as things went back to how they were to an imagined “before”.  Paraphrasing my girl Billie/Death, the show said “they died and then they got their happy ending in Heaven” but… “I say… you keep… living”. And changing. And continuing. And going beyond.

Happy Winter to one hemisphere and… Happy Summer to the other!

[dollfacefantasy]

Can't Help It

pairing: dbf!leon kennedy x fem!reader

summary: your dad's coworker needs a housesitter, but the house isn't the only thing you'll be sitting on (haha pls laugh)

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, masturbation, oral (m receiving), age gap (i imagine early 20s/late 30s), both reader and leon are kinda pervy but not in a skeevy way <3

word count: 5.3k

a/n: hi hi i am back! this was such a pain to write for no reason, but as always, i hope people enjoy. i'm not sure what trope this really falls under, it's probably more accurate to say dcw (dad's coworker), but we'll go with dbf for convenience. i might make a part 2 of this idk. also, i know the header images are really giving graphic design is my passion but... it is what is lol. as before, thank you for all the support on my last fics. if you reblogged or commented, i'm giving you a smooch rn. and just wanna say that i do take requests. if anyone is interested, don't be shy ;) any who, feedback, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! <3

When your dad’s new coworker asked if you’d be interested in housesitting for some easy money, you couldn’t find a reason to say no. Agent Kennedy, like your father, traveled for work a lot. Often gone for weeks at a time, he needed someone to watch the place and take care of menial tasks like getting the mail and watering the plants. It paid well and all you had to do was basically live in his house.

You had met him several times in passing before he offered you this job, and he was always nice to you. He would say hi when you’d come down for a snack while he talked to your dad in the living room. He’d ask how college was and about the different classes you were taking. One time he even told you about some old band he liked that he thought you would too. And that was all great.

But what was even better was that he was fine as fuck.

You had a fat crush on him from the moment you were introduced. The way his eyes pierced right through you but in the softest way. How his lips curled into a knowing smile while his hand gripped yours in a firm shake. The way he said “pretty name for a pretty girl” when you told him your name. From any other middle-aged man, that would have been so corny and had you internally shriveling up. But from him… you had to fight the urge to get on your knees then and there.

He’d approached you about watching his house, saying something about how there had been some nearby break-ins in empty houses and it would be a good way for you to get some spending money and blah blah blah. You were on board as soon as the opportunity to have more of him in your life presented itself.

Unfortunately, it was the nature of housesitting that you rarely saw your employer. You would see him when you showed up and when he came home and that was it. But those moments were enough to sustain your delusion.

The first time you came over, you walked into the house, glancing around the den of the man who enraptured you. It was pretty basic, but you figured that not being home a lot would be the reason for that. When you were done trying to psychoanalyze him from looking around his house, he gave you your own set of keys with a wink that had you blushing an embarrassing amount.

“Thank you, Mr. Kennedy,” you said softly.

“Call me Leon, Sweetheart,” he replied.

You had to look away to conceal your giddy smile. You didn’t think he noticed the effect he had on you. Or if he did, he didn’t care about your pitiful infatuation. But other times, you could have sworn he did this kind of thing on purpose.

Your first stint in the house went smoothly. You made sure to do everything he asked and even cleaned up the place a little bit. When he returned from wherever his work had taken him that time, he seemed impressed to your delight. He looked around, making small talk with you before writing your check.

“You get up to anything crazy while I was gone?” he said, smirking as he scribbled his signature on the small rectangle.

“Yeah, I was real wild - I brought out your vacuum for probably the first time.”

He laughed, handed you the check, and teasingly purred “good girl.” 

Now, he may have been joking, but your panties nearly soaked through with arousal regardless. You yet again hid your revealing expression as you said a timid goodbye and headed out to your car. You were shifting your thighs together the whole ride home, fantasizing about being a good girl for Agent Kennedy so he would relieve that ache between your legs that clouded your thoughts.

Honestly, all of this made you feel pretty pathetic. Lusting after your father’s coworker, now technically your boss, who was a good fifteen years older than you. Blushing and squirming every time he said something more than ‘hi.’ Weren’t you better than this? But then you’d see those thick biceps and mysterious eyes, and the answer in your mind would be a resounding no.

Because honestly, you weren’t better than this, you were so much worse. After the good girl incident, you decided that if he didn’t want you yet, he would. You would make sure of it. From then on, every time you were housesitting, you wore your most revealing outfits, did your hair all pretty, and even tried special perfume so you’d smell extra nice.

But none of it seemed to work. He kept up his regular teasing and charm, but to your dismay, he hadn’t railed you on that sad leather couch in the living room. You tried to convince yourself that his gazes lingered longer and that his touches were more strategic, but that felt like reach even for you. 

It was so frustrating. What more could you do? You touched his arm while he spoke. You laughed harder at his corny jokes. You even hugged him once or twice when you could justify it. You tried to drop hints every way you could without literally just trying to seduce him, and he did not seem to care. You nearly gave up. You decided that maybe you should just cut your losses and spare yourself the humiliation. Leave yourself with some dignity and resign to just being his housesitter.

You would have done this if not for the fact that he lets you sleep in his bed while he’s gone.

His house was meant for one person. It didn’t have a guest room. He told you on your first gig that you were obviously allowed to sleep in his bed since the alternative was the aforementioned sad leather couch in the living room. He told you to bring whatever you needed to be comfortable - sheets, blankets, pillows - since you’d be there for weeks at a time.

At first, it was too weird. It made you feel dirty, sleeping in his bed while harboring your secret carnal desires. But goddamn, that couch in the living room was uncomfortable. You stuck it out for the first time, but the second time you housesat, you relented and dragged your belongings back to the room you’d forbidden yourself from knowing. 

His bedroom, like the rest of the house, is pretty blank, but there’s a little more personality here. It made you feel like such a stalker, but you couldn’t help making observations, right? You got to see the type of cologne he wore, the few dusty books he kept next to his bed, what kind of stuff he crammed in the nightstand drawers. It sounded creepy, but you just had curiosity, right?

You set yourself up in his queen size bed, draping the plush blanket you brought with you across the mattress. The bed was comfy enough, but the absolute best part, the part that kept your fantasies alive and well, was the way the sheets smelled like him.

You nearly moaned when you took a deep breath, filling your nose with that familiar scent. It gave you such a rush pushing your face into those smooth gray linens. It was so wrong, but you couldn’t help shamefully slipping your fingers beneath the waistband of your shorts to play with your swollen clit. You clutch the sheets in your fists as you writhe on the bed, whining as you fantasize about your special agent.

Leon had gone years leaving his house desolate without an issue. All that nonsense about potential burglaries and spending money for you had been total bullshit. It’s not like there was anything of value in his house anyway. Those excuses served only as a way to get more of you in his life. He thought housesitting was a happy middleground, a tether to you without being obvious about his motivations.

Ever since he saw you for the first time, heading out your front door, offering a timid ‘nice to meet you,’ he had been hooked. You bewitched him with your sweet temperament, that soft laugh when he told you bad jokes, those gorgeous eyes projecting all the emotions in that pretty head of yours. God, you were so fucking cute.

You made him feel like a dirty old man, sick and perverted for coveting his colleague’s daughter. The embarrassment he felt within himself when he’d notice he was staring at your tits or imagining how your soft lips would look wrapped around his cock was immeasurable. Even though the guilt boiled inside him, he couldn’t stop himself. He craved you. He started finding more opportunities to visit your house, hoping he could steal a few moments of your time. That’s when he knew enough was enough.

Having you as his house sitter worked perfectly. He could have his moments with you without feeling too disgusted with himself. Even though he liked to tease every so often, he kept it friendly. He noticed that you, on the other hand, seemed to be doing everything to change that.

He wasn’t a fool. He could see the changes in your appearance. Those skimpy outfits you’d flaunt yourself in drove him crazy. The way you’d playfully roll your eyes and brush his arm had his cock twitching in his pants. It was becoming all the more tempting to spread you out on the dining table and take what he wanted. But he still wrestled with that part of himself that said to not take it too far. That you deserved better.

That was until you started sleeping in his bed.

He had come home after your second gig, given you your check, and sent you on your way quickly because he was exhausted from his mission. He went straight to his room and collapsed on the bed. He could tell the sheets had been freshly washed by the soft feel, but also because you were always going above and beyond to please him. Despite the recent cleaning, he swore to himself he could smell some of your perfume on them.

He looked like a madman, smelling his bed sheets for the faintest hit of that scent. He groaned, picturing you lying here, your beautiful body sprawled out on his bed. He inhaled deeper while conjuring images of your unkempt hair and sleepy eyes. It wasn’t long until his dick sprung to life as he saw images of you with one of his pillows between your legs, whimpering as you drag your dripping cunt back and forth along the fabric. He couldn’t help the need to desperately pump his cock to sinful visions of his precious girl.

This morning it’s about six when Leon unlocks the front door and quietly walks inside. He completed his mission hours before. He was tired, but it had been short, only about a week, and relatively easy. He told you he would be home in the evening, but he’d finished earlier than expected.

He trudges through the house and down the hall to his bedroom, collapsing in bed at the forefront of his mind. It’s not until he reaches the door and hears your deep breathing that it occurs to him that his bed is currently occupied. He gently pushes the door open and walks in, planning on rousing you so you could get your money and be on your way. When he sees you though, that plan vanishes from his mind.

The sight of you nearly melts him into a puddle. He pads closer to the bed, careful not to disturb you. Your shiny hair is draped across the pillow as you lie on your stomach with one leg hiked up. Your arms rest close to your face, their raised position causing your t-shirt to ride up and allowing him to see your waist. The blanket was tangled between your legs, and his eyes are immediately drawn to the junction of your thighs covered only by those thin panties you wore.

Despite your beauty, he controls himself. He pulls the blanket over your lower body and sits beside you to contemplate his next move. He came up with a few different things he could do, but all he wanted right now was to watch you sleep. He felt like such a creep, but you looked heavenly in this state. His ears strained to hear those delicate exhales coming from your parted lips.

He could just go sleep on the couch until you woke up. He could just wake you up and offer to let you stay until you had your bearings. Or he could just let himself enjoy this a little more.

He wanted to wake you though. He wasn’t fully sure of what he was doing, but if there was any part of you that had reservations he wanted to know. It would rip his heart to shreds if he frightened you somehow. He begins rubbing your back in long soothing strokes. He makes small circles with his fingers every so often. You stir a little, but don’t wake.

He continues his ministrations, smiling at your sleeping form. He uses his other hand to brush your hair from your face. He strokes the locks away from your closed eyes before leaning closer to you. He can smell that familiar scent that had driven him to humping the sheets for the last few months.

“Hey Angel, need you to wake up for me,” he coos in your ear, his hot breath fanning across the side of your head.

It slowly registers inside your unconscious mind that you aren’t dreaming. Actual fingers are coasting along your back. An actual voice is coaxing you back to reality.

A low hum emits from your throat as you shift to face the source of your disturbance. Your eyes open, still heavy from sleep, and Leon enters your field of vision. For a second, you wonder if you’re still dreaming.

“There she is,” he whispers, giving you that charming smile. He runs his fingers along your jaw and tilts your chin to turn your face completely in his direction.

You feel your brain malfunctioning as he floods your senses. The morning light coming through the window illuminating him as he looks down at you. The deep timbre of his voice speaking to you. His rough fingertips dragging across the smooth expanse of your cheek.

Soon as your eyes come into focus and your mind clears the fog of sleep a little, you grasp enough of the situation to feel a jolt of panic. It felt like you woke up late for school. You shoot up in bed and look at him with wide, apologetic eyes.

“Oh my God, Leon, I’m so sorry. I thought you wouldn’t be back until tonight. I’ll be ready in a minute. Just-” you ramble. You go to fling the blanket off of you, but remember you didn’t wear shorts to bed. You have to sit there, looking at him as you feel heat creeping to your cheeks.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he cuts you off with a quiet chuckle, gently catching your arm when you sit up, “I finished a little early. You don’t need to rush out the door. I figured you’d still be asleep.”

The look in his eyes soothes you. He has that rugged, worn out look that he gets when he comes back from missions. Your heart rate falls back down to normal levels, but your eyes still cast downwards, a little embarrassed he’d caught you unprepared. His fingers trail up and down your arm, and you shift a little to try and hide the fact that your nipples are hardening beneath the flimsy fabric of your shirt.

“Thank you. I’ll be up in a few though. I know you’re probably tired,” you say, giving him a sheepish smile.

He moves so that he’s further on the bed with you. He lays back on the pillows and looks up at you, rubbing your back how he was before you woke up. 

“Mmmm, I am, but you still don’t need to rush. I’m not gonna complain about a sweet thing like you warming my bed,” he says, that teasing smile spreading across his face and his fingers starting to trace patterns exclusively on the small of your back.

Your eyes flit away as your own smile grows on your face. How were you supposed to be normal about this? You look down at your hands in your lap and mutter a thank you.

“Honey, you really don’t need to be so shy all of the sudden,” he says softly, but there’s a smug lilt to his voice as well. You bite your lip as his hand begins fidgeting with the hem of your shirt.

He can’t help the smirk and predator-like glint in his eyes that form at your reaction. This was it. That little smile and refusal to meet his eyes was all he could stand. He was closing in now. The flirtation between you two had gone on long enough. He wanted this, and if you wanted it too, his mind couldn’t find a reason to deny the two of you any longer.

“Sweetheart, if you have something to tell me, you can come out and say it. I don’t bite. Unless you want me to,” he says as he reaches up to pull your hair behind your shoulder and out of your face, “And, lately I’m starting to think that’s what you want.”

You look over to him now, your eyes staring into his. Your limbs feel weak, disbelief coursing through your veins. Your thoughts stampede through your mind, but you eventually force the words from your throat.

“I think I want that too,” you breathe. Your heart seizes at his brows playfully rising. You lay down on the bed, resting on your side so that you and Leon are face to face. Your pulse thunders in your ears while you try to conceal how shaky your breathing is.

He scooches over to you, pushing you on to your back and propping himself on his elbow so he’s positioned above you. He leans down and presses two faint kisses to your cheeks. Pulling back, he looks into your eyes and strokes your cheek again with the same soft and slow movements.

“Think, babydoll? I think you know what you want,” he whispers, dragging his thumb over your bottom lip, “I think you’ve known for a while. Wearing all those cute little outfits, prancing through my house and brushing against me like a kitten. You were just begging for my attention.”

You squirm slightly under the spotlight of his affection. Somehow, you maintain eye contact even though every cell in you feels the urge to look away. Part of your mind wonders if he’s still teasing. If he’s about to pull away and leave you wanting.

Before you could overthink anymore, his head lowers to the crook of your neck. He takes a deep breath of you as he moves himself further on top. 

“Now, you’ve got it, but all you had to do, sweet thing, was ask,” he says as his mouth ghosts over your neck, “That’s all you have to do right now. Just want to hear that you want me as bad as I want you.”

“Yes,” you whimper without a second thought, “Please touch me.”

“That’s my good girl,” he hums as he begins kissing your neck. The kisses are soft. They’re barely there, but they’re overwhelming to you. You can’t help the pathetic sound that leaves your lips as you tilt your head back. The hand that had been touching your face trails down to your waist and begins caressing your side under your shirt.

His tongue gently laps against the skin of your neck between kisses. Your whole body is starting to heat up while simultaneously getting chills. Every inch of you aches for his touch. Your thighs subconsciously spread as your breathing becomes heavier.

Leon lets out a small laugh at your display. “You must really want this Baby. Just a few kisses and rubs and you’re already mine,” he murmurs as his lips move up your neck and down your jaw. He kisses your lips next, giving your bottom lip a little nip.

Another needy sound escapes your mouth. You return the kiss and flick your tongue against his lips. “I do, wanted this since I met you,” you moan, your body writhing for more.

“Naughty girl,” he teases against your lips, “That’s okay though, Angel. I’m the same way. Wanted a handful of these pretty tits since I saw you.” His hand moves up and kneads your breast. His fingers massage the flesh before centering and pinching your nipple. 

You whine and arch into his touch. Your eyes flutter as your face contorts with desire. He slides over you, straddling your waist. He stares down at you and takes in what was finally in his grasp. He coos for you to sit up a little while he pulls your shirt off of you. You comply and then flop back against the pillows. Now exposed from the waist up, his eyes feel even more intense. He’s locked on to the view of your tits.

“Oh, Sweetheart,” he mutters, “Even better than I imagined.” His hands cup the sides of your breasts, groping them a bit. You can now see his cock beginning to strain against his jeans. Your mouth waters at the sight, but it’s gone when he leans down to take a nipple into his mouth.

His tongue circles the peak before lapping against it, drawing more whines from you. Your body arches into his touch while his hands never let up their fondling. You take your lip between your teeth again. He moves to give the other nipple the same treatment, leaving the other one cold as the air touches the saliva-coated skin.

He plays with your breasts for a while more before drifting down your abdomen, lavishing your stomach with kisses. He squeezes your waist as he playfully tugs the hem of your panties with his teeth. He looks up at you deviously. “Your nipples were so hard, I bet your pussy’s fucking soaked for me.”

All you can do is nod, any verbal response tangled up in your esophagus. He leans back on his knees and swiftly pulls the garment off. His pupils seem blown out as he gets a look at your cunt. He pushes your thighs to your stomach, spreading you out for his gaze. You felt so exposed, at his mercy as he held you there and just looked at you. Your arms reach down and pull at the hem of his shirt.

“Wanna see you too,” you whimper with pleading eyes.

“Yeah?” he says with a soft smile. He leans back and pulls his shirt off. It takes everything in you to hold back a gasp. “Been fantasizing about me, have you?”

Your eyes rake along his chiseled abdomen, drinking in every line and shadow of his muscular frame. You reach out and pull him back on top of you. His grin grows, and he indulges you. You connect your mouths again, this time sliding your tongue inside his. He groans at your sudden eagerness. He runs his hand through your hair while you feel up his back, exploring the definition there.

You give him a little push, signaling that you want to roll over. His body flips over and takes you with him so that you’re positioned how you wanted. You make out for a minute more until you pull back, looking at him with your lustful eyes and swollen lips.

“Wanna suck your cock,” you say simply, sliding down his body so that you’re lying between his legs. You nuzzle against the bulge in his pants before unzipping them and tugging them down.

His eyes follow your every movement. He pets your head as you rub your face against the outline of his dick. He tilts his head back and lets out a sigh. 

“That’s a good girl, just gotta give you some love and then you loosen up, don’t you?” he coos.

“Mhm,” you hum. You kiss his solid length over the cloth of his boxers. Then, finally, what you had been waiting for since meeting Leon. You loop your fingers over the waistband of his underwear and pull them down, unveiling his beautiful cock.

You wrap your fingers around it, just an exploratory touch. You feel the veins in your hold and the heat radiating from his shaft. You slowly bring your head to the tip to give him some tiny licks. Your eyes dart to his face, looking for approval.

Leon’s chest ached from the way you were looking at him like he was a god. When your tongue sticks out and your eyes return his stare, he nods at you and keeps stroking your hair. Your lips soon wrap around the tip, and you bob your head a little. He groans and his hips twitch.

“That’s a good girl, baby. Good fucking girl,” he moans as your head slides further down his member. His fingers lace through your hair, pulling a little.

The praise only makes you more enthusiastic. You move up and down with more speed, making lewd slurping noises as you work. His hand on your head and his sounds of pleasure has heat collecting in your belly, leaking out of your dripping pussy.

His head rests against the head board as he watches you with half-open eyes. His eyes squeeze shut and his body tenses as you push your head all the way down, taking him into your throat. Spit trickles from your mouth and drips on to his pelvis.

“Fuck, Sweetheart,” he whimpers, tugging on your hair a little. You taste his pre cum leaking on your tongue. A gagging noise comes from you and his hips twitch harder. He barely restrains himself from bucking up and lodging himself deeper in your throat. You moan around his cock, driving him even crazier. He feels the rush of an orgasm approaching and tugs your hair with more firmness, guiding your head up and off his lap. You whine softly as you lose the taste of him.

“Sorry, pretty girl, don’t wanna cum just yet,” he says.

You crawl back up his body, so you’re in his arms again. You kiss his cheeks and the corners of his mouth as he rolls the two of you over so he’s on top again. He connects your lips in a deep kiss, tasting himself on you as he drags the tip of his cock through your slippery folds.

He doesn’t tease for long though. Soon enough, he’s pushing himself into your tight cunt. You both let out a symphony of sinful noises. Leon watches as your face contorts with pleasure as he stretches you out. You both felt a budding sense of satisfaction after finally receiving what you craved for the last several months.

He bottoms out inside of you. His head falls forward against your neck. He pants as he holds himself together and lets you adjust, keeping an iron grip on your hips. Your fluttering around him as you accommodate his girth. Your nails lightly dig into his back while you cling to him.

He begins thrusting with slow and deep strokes. You moan out his name a few times with a variety of expletives. He keeps his face buried in your neck, grunting as he feels the velvety sensation of your walls around his length. His motions become more fluid as he finds a rhythm with you.

“That’s right Angel, better than your dreams?” he murmurs against your neck.

“Yes, fuck, yes,” you whimper, “So much better. Think your cock was made for me.”

“That so, Baby? I’m made to fill up a precious girl like you? Keep you happy and full of cum,” he growls into your neck, his thrusts gaining intensity.

You nod thoughtlessly as he continues battering your insides, gliding over your sweet spot repeatedly.Your arms wrap tighter around him as you feel yourself getting dragged closer and closer to the edge. Your noises become more strained as Leon lays sloppy kisses on the side of your head.

He hooks his arms underneath your knees and brings your thighs up to your abdomen again. His arm loops around and thumbs your clit as he slams himself in and out. Your back arches and you squirm from the rush of white hot pleasure. You’re right there, not able to hold on for much longer.

“I’m gonna have you so full of my cum today, it’s gonna be dripping out of you still the next time you’re here,” he grunts into your ear, “Make sure your pussy remembers me till I can fill her again.”

His vulgar words rip a high pitched moan from your throat and cause your eyes to roll back. “Fuck, Leon, I’m gonna cum,” you whimper.

“Go ahead, sweet girl. Squeeze me nice and tight,” he moans, his own voice getting strained.

You do as he says. The orgasm overtakes you. You release a strangled cry as your body rhythmically rolls into the feeling. Your pussy clamps around Leon tight, sucking him deep and keeping the attention on that blissful spot. The thrill of satisfaction rushing through your mind only works you further. Your eyes flutter and your lips part as you completely let go.

As he watches you cum, he notes that it might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The sight of your gorgeous body writhing and trembling because of him. The primal sounds of your moans and cries. It’s too much for him. He growls and grunts into your neck, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. He snaps even harder into you and floods you with his sticky, hot cum.

You both ride the waves of euphoria together until you both start coming down. He basically collapses on you as he catches his breath and you wipe the sweat from your brow. After a minute, he pushes himself off of you and flat on to the bed next to you. He gazes at the ceiling as his chest continues to rise and fall with the need for more oxygen.

You sit up slowly, realizing he probably wants you gone now. Like he said, you feel his cum leaking out of you as you move to grab your panties from the corner of his bed. This is how you expected it to be, but it still hurt a little. Nothing you couldn’t handle though. Your pulling them back on when your snapped out of your thoughts by Leon’s arm around your waist, dragging you to him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks teasingly, spooning you and softly kissing beneath your ear, “You got what you wanted and now you’re running out?”

“Oh, uhhh… I thought you’d want me to leave,” you say quietly.

He guides your face so you’re looking at him. His eyes are still soft but more serious. “You think I would just fuck you and then throw you out on your ass? You’ve been sleeping in my bed for months, but you don’t know me as well as you think,” he says and kisses your nose, “You don’t have anywhere to be today, yeah? You thought you’d be here till later anyway.”

You nod in agreement, your eyes casting down with some embarrassment over your assumption.

“Hey, don’t get all shy on me now. There’s no reason for it,” he teases, “We have all day for me to show you how I want to take care of you. Just give me a moment, I’m not as young as I use to be.”

[bucksfucks]

𝙁𝘽𝙍𝙊 ; 𝗯𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀 [𝟳/𝟭𝟭]

summary┃bucky’s past comes back with a vengeance and you’re determined to get the answers you’ve been searching for. 

pairing┃roommate!bucky x f!reader

word count┃2,682 words

warnings┃bucky’s past is revealed, character mentions; [sam wilson, natasha romanoff, tony stark], pet name [kid (platonic), sweets & baby], threats made against bucky + reader, trust-issues, mention of hit-men, brief mention of death, phone sex, praise kink, masturbation, mention of toys, slight angst, soft ending — 18+ ONLY • MINORS DNI

notes┃there is A LOT of plot here but also some filthy goodness and a sprinkle of angst <<3

SERIES MASTERLIST

     Ex-wife.

    Bucky’s words echoed in your ears as he didn’t dare to look at you.

    His ex-wife was threatening you.

    And he didn’t think to mention her? Ever?

    “Can I please explain?” Bucky croaked finally, voice sounding broken as you shrugged your shoulders — in a state of shock.

    That was all he needed before he recounted his previous relationship with the woman who was now sending you threatening emails.

    Married young, too young and too fast and it ended up blowing up in their faces.

    Well, clearly she hadn’t gotten over it.

    “I thought I lost her,” he explains. “I thought that moving halfway across the country would be enough.”

    You finally looked up to meet his eyes, glossy, sad and terrified as you sniffled.

    “There’s a reason only Tasha calls me James.”

    It broke your heart hearing that, the way his head hung low and he nearly winced at the sound of his own goddamn name.

    But you didn’t know who to trust anymore.

    Bucky always glossed over how he, Sam, and Nat knew each other — telling you that they were old friends that go back.

    How far back?

    You needed to know, but clearly you weren’t about to get answers from him.

    “Buck,” he stopped you, taking a step closer as his eyes begged and pleaded you not to finish your sentence. 

    “I can’t,” he shook his head, “I need some time.” 

    You couldn’t bring yourself to say those words that would shatter both of your world’s. But you had no idea what the hell you had gotten yourself into and you needed answers. 

    And you knew exactly who to go to for them. 

    “I understand,” Bucky sighed. “I’ll stay at Sam’s for some time, okay?” 

    You could only nod your head, watching him walk past you and into his door. 

    Then he shut it, something he never did because his door was always open for you. No matter what you needed and no matter what time of day it was. 

    It felt...wrong. 

    But you couldn’t dwell on it, grabbing your keys, phone, and whatever other important things you could think of being you nearly bolted out of the front     door. 

    You plugged your headphones into your phone, hitting shuffle and descending down into the subway. 

    The entire ride made you anxious, slowly approaching your stop and you were way out of place in this crowd. 

    People rushed by you in expensive suits and what you could only guess were the infamous red-soled shoes that were worth close to your monthly rent, if not more. 

    You cringed, thinking of the man you were about to see in his stupidly tall office building that you had to crane your neck at an uncomfortable angle just     to get a look at. 

    The elevator could not have taken longer, tapping your foot impatiently as you rode up to what felt like the heavens before the doors opened to revel smooth wooden doors that reach from the ceiling to the floor. 

    You were so close, before you were stopped. 

    “Ma’am, I’m sorry, you can’t be here right now.” A man’s voice stopped you, dressed in a security guard uniform and oh, this was so him. 

    “I know him,” you said, intent on seeing the man probably sitting behind those large doors. 

    “I’m sorry, I can’t let you do th—”

    “It’s okay, Marv. I know her,” his voice came not from behind the doors, but from the long hallway to your left. 

    The security guard, Marv, nodded his head as he looked at you once more before retreating back to where he was leaning against one of the walls. 

    “This is a surprise,” you rolled your eyes, “Tony, please. I don’t wanna hear it.” 

    He walked over to you, embracing you in a hug, “oh c’mon, I’ve missed you, Kid.” 

    You shook your head, “I haven’t been a kid in years,” you tried to remind him, but it was Tony, he wasn’t going to listen as he just laughed it off and welcomed you into his office. 

    It was much different from last time, all new furniture and appliances, but nothing lasted more than a year with Tony. 

    Tony was an old friend, sort of.

    He was an old friend of your father’s, something like an uncle, but also like your older brother. 

    So just one giant pain in your ass.

    “So,” Tony sighed. “What trouble did you get into this time, Kid?”

    You told Tony everything. 

    From being roommates with Bucky to the way he asked you to be his fake girlfriend to Sam’s wedding and all the way to the situation you were in now. Confronted by his ex-wife without any idea of what she was going to do. 

    Tony had that look on his face. The one where he was going to tell you that you were crazy. 

    “I don’t know how you manage to get yourself into these situations,” he chuckled, hand clamping over your shoulder as he walked around his desk and typed something into his computer. 

    “Last name is,” he looked at you. “Barnes.” 

    He nodded his head, typing away at his computer again before he stopped. 

    There was a brief moment of silence, Tony hiding behind the computer screen before he stood up and walked back around the desk, “I’m gonna need some time.”

    You understood, shaking your head. You were asking Tony to hack into any known database and collect as much data on Bucky as you could. It was wrong, but you just needed to know who you were dealing with. 

    “Thank you, Tony. I-I really appreciate it.” You weren’t good when it came to...well, the heartfelt side of things but luckily neither was Tony. 

    “Don’t get sappy on me now, Kid. You know it makes me sick,” he joked playfully, smile on his lips as you stood up to give him a half hug. 

    “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” He promised before you walked out of the too-tall building with far more questions than you came with. 

    It was a waiting game that you didn’t want to play, but you didn’t have a choice. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    It seemed like your relationship with Bucky was doomed from the start. 

    Friends to lovers rarely, if ever, works out in anyone’s favour. 

    The fake dating trope you could handle, pushing your feelings aside to help Bucky win a bet didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world. You had a great time, great fucking sex, and a trip out of it. 

    Then Steve wouldn’t leave the picture. Going as far as coming to the wedding as Natasha’s boyfriend to spite you not realizing that you and Bucky had gotten married. 

    Married. 

    You and Bucky were married. Bonded in a whole other way and now, his ex-wife was out for you and him. 

    Maybe this was a sign from the universe, a big red fucking flag telling you that it wasn’t worth it and yet...you couldn’t let go. 

    The apartment felt empty without Bucky, his bedroom left the way it was in the morning with your favourite sweater of his laid out on the covers and a little post-it note on top of it. 

    You never could really decipher Bucky’s handwriting. It was absolute chicken scratch as you picked it up and managed to make out in case you get cold scribbled onto it. 

    It was an easy decision to pull it over your head and drown yourself in the scent of Bucky’s cologne as you fiddled with the small gold band you now wore around your neck as a necklace. 

    You didn’t want anyone other than Bucky. There was no in the world who understood you better. Who knew how to make you laugh when you were having a bad day. 

    Everything led you right back to Bucky. 

    So when your phone rang from the other side of the couch, you were secretly hoping it was Bucky. 

    Instead, Tony’s name flashed and your heart sank into your stomach as you quickly hit answer and held the phone up to your ear. 

    “You’re not gonna like this, Kid.” Tony’s voice flowed through the speakers as you took a shaky breath in and braced yourself for what Tony was about to tell you. 

    “He did a damn good job at erasing his history, but you can’t erase all of it,” Tony chuckled as you rolled your eyes, “quit stalling.”

    He sighed, “the Howling Commandos was an organization tasked with,” he paused, “tasked with collecting intel and making sure that information never got released to the public.” 

    This time, it was your turn to fall silent. 

    “Like, spies?” You asked and Tony hummed, “sort of.” 

    “They had spies, agents, hit-men.” 

    No. You shook your head, no. 

    “James Buchanan Barnes was their highest ranking hit-man. Him, along with Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanova worked as a team. A spy, agent, hit-man trio.” 

    You had to shake yourself out of spiralling, what you needed was everything Tony could possible tell you. 

    “Anything on his ex-wife?” You then asked and heard shuffling on the other line, “not much. Mary Barnes, but I doubt that’s her real name, was part of a training initiative the Howling Commandos were testing.” 

    You bit your lip, at least you had a name, even if it wasn’t her real name. 

    “By that point it looks like James—” 

    “Bucky. His name is Bucky.” 

    Tony cleared his throat after a moment’s silence, “Bucky looks like he had disappeared. Blipped off of the face of the Earth. There’s nothing in his file after 2014.” 

    That makes sense. Bucky was perhaps the most old-fashioned man you knew, only upgrading from his flip-phone just a few years ago. He barely knew how to unlock it, though. 

    “Sam and Natasha went on to live normal lives, Kid. I’m sure that’s all Bucky wants.” Tony tries to assure you and you laugh, “you sound like my dad.” 

    He laughed on the other line, “oh gross.” 

    “Thanks for everything, Tony.” You said, “you know what number to call in case you’re in trouble.” 

    With that, you both hung up, tossing your phone away from you to digest everything you’d just been told. You knew you had to talk to Bucky, but you didn’t know when. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    “So you’re tellin’ me,” Sam was confused. “That this is the same Mary that tried to get you killed?” 

    Bucky rolled his eyes, taking another swing of his beer as he rounded Sam’s kitchen island. 

    “That’s the one, you know, the undercover agent working for Strucker.” Bucky scowled at the name. 

    He was angry, beyond angry at the fact that his past was creeping up on him despite how far he had gone to erase it. 

    “But why now? Why come after you now?” Sam poses the question that even Bucky doesn’t have an answer to. So he just shrugs his shoulders and finishes off his beer. 

    “Unfinished business.” 

    They stand in silence for a little while longer, listening to the old ticking clock hanging on the wall before Sam takes a step towards Bucky. 

    “Whatever you need, you know that Tasha and I are here for you, right?” He whispers and Bucky feels the warmth blooming in his chest as he gives him a half-smile. 

    “Yeah,” he nods his head, “thanks, man.” 

    Sam knows that Bucky was never really good at the sappy shit, so he doesn’t force it. Instead, he offers him another beer, bottle necks clinking as Bucky’s thoughts race. 

    He was worried. 

    Not about himself, but about you. 

    And you were worried about Bucky, curling up in his bed as you sighed and tossed and turned. There was no way you’d be able to fall asleep alone tonight. And hugging his pillow just wasn’t enough. 

    So you grabbed your phone, hitting his name and waiting for the ringing to sound before he picked up — tired and groggy.

    “We need to talk.” You didn’t give him a chance to greet you. He sighed on the other line, but hummed in agreement, “tomorrow?”

    You hummed in response to his question, the sound of his voice soothing as you played with the sheets of his bed.

    “I miss you, Sweets.” Bucky whispered, your breathing hitching at how low and raspy his voice really was.

    “I miss you too, Bucky.” You admitted, shifting as you got comfortable on the pile of pillows against your head.

    There was a moment of silence before Bucky spoke again.

    “You know what ‘m really missin’ right now?” His words sent a shiver down your spine as you shakily inhaled, “what?”

    Bucky sighed, reminiscent of how he sighs when he runs his hands all over your body. 

    “I miss that sweet cunt of yours.” Bucky purrs, you know he’s smirking, possibly even dragging his tongue across his bottom lip as he closes his eyes to imagine you under him. 

    You’re at a loss for words, feeling your panties grow damp, core aching and you’re going to have to touch yourself soon. But that’s all part of Bucky’s plan, you think. 

    “Here I am, all alone, with my hand wrapped ‘round my cock,” he whispers, but you can hear him stroking himself. 

    “And all I can think ‘bout is that way your tight little pussy grips me and milks my fuckin’ dick, baby.” Bucky was always so good with his words, knowing exactly what to say to make you melt. 

    And it was working, because you were a squirming mess in his bed. 

    “Well,” you could tell he was smirking by his tone, “what’re ya waitin’ for, Sweets. Go on, touch yourself. I wanna hear you work your clit.” 

    Your hand flew under your panties, being given the permission only made it sweeter as your fingers came in contact with your soaking folds. The sensitive bundle of nerves needed desperate attention as you slowly circled it. 

    “Good girl, that’s my girl.” Bucky praised, continuing to work himself. 

    “God,” he hissed, “can’t wait to have you all to myself again. Bury myself deep, maybe even have you sit on my cock as you beg me to do somethin’.” 

    You worked yourself a little faster, applying some more pressure as you let out a whine at his words. 

    “Add two fingers, Sweets. I know how much you love bein’ stretched,” Bucky chuckled deeply, “been thinkin’ of gettin’ you a mould of my fuckin’ dick for when ‘m not home.” 

    Oh my God. Oh my God that shouldn’t be so fucking hot so why does it make your walls flutter and breathing uneven as you have to stop yourself from actually fucking cumming. 

    He chuckles again, “yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

    You can’t verbally respond, too focused on the tight coil in your abdomen that’s ready to snap. 

    “I know you’re close, can hear it in how fuckin’ desperate you sound,” he pants, “so why don’t you make a mess all over my clean sheets.” 

    You gasp, how did he know, but you don’t get to dwell on it for much longer than a moment because your orgasm rips through you and leaves you panting Bucky’s name. 

    Both of your breaths are uneven and ragged through the phone’s speakers, bed springs creaking on Bucky’s side as he hums. 

    “If only you could see the miss I made for you, Sweets,” you shuddered at his words, closing your eyes to relish in the moment. 

    “Now get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” His tone has changed, entirely sweet and caring as you grab the phone to bring him closer to you. 

    “Okay,” you reply, another lick of silence before you hear Bucky going to end the call but you stop him. 

    “I love you, Bucky.” You quickly blubber out and it feels good to finally say those words because there’s no more denying how you really feel about him. 

    “I love you too, Sweets.” 

    It’s a bittersweet ending to the phone call, thoughts and emotions running wild as you’re forced to remind yourself that Bucky has a lot of explaining to do. 

[a-simple-imagine]

Study Date

Requested by anonymous: “Hermione Granger x reader where reader is best friends with Luna and has a crush on Hermione. She never acts on those feelings because Hermione called Luna Looney and seems to dislike her and in the end maybe Luna sets them up. “

Pairing: Hermione Granger x fem!reader

Words: 2.3k+

A/N - Today i offer you yet another story about hermione granger. Tomorrow? Who knows. 

Thank you to @kileyrose-2003​ for checking it over.

Hermione Granger was a complete enigma but that was probably due to the fact there was only so much you could learn through limited interactions. If there was one thing you knew about her, it was that she was a spectacular witch with a thirst for knowledge. She had been placed in Gryffindor all those years ago but she truly could have excelled as a Ravenclaw; if that had been the case perhaps the two of you would be closer. Things would have been entirely different but alas you were left to admire from afar since that very first year when you noticed her across the Great Hall. You didn't even have any classes together until you started taking electives. However, as hard as you tried Hermione Granger seemed to avoid you at all costs. You had invited her to hang out many times but she always declined. Maybe Ron and Harry were the limits of her social perimeters?

A hand sways before your eyes drawing you back to reality. "So easily distracted."

Luna Lovegood had such a melodic, soft voice that it was weirdly hard to ignore. Then again everything about the girl could be considered peculiar which was something you greatly admired. She didn't care what anyone thought of her and yet you cared so desperately what they thought of you. "Sorry," You hum, folding the paper in your hands. "I just... do you think there is something wrong with me?"

"No more than anyone else,"

"Maybe that's why she doesn't like me," You let out a defeated sigh before placing the origami tiger you had been working on down on the table.

"Who?"

From the corner of your eyes, you spot a familiar brunette wander into the Great Hall. A few books wedged under her arm. "Can you just give me a sec-"

Without giving Luna a chance to respond, you leap to your feet and scramble along the length of the entire table and then around to catch Hermione.

"Wait," You place your hand against her shoulder, startling her just a little. "Hermione,"

She spins on her heel; her frown morphing into that of a welcoming smile. At least she seemed happy to see you. "Yes?"

"I..." you trail off as a wave of heat washes over you. The Gryffindor always managed to make you feel anxious. It wasn't a bad thing; you knew it was because you liked her but with her already taking every opportunity to ignore you it didn't exactly help the situation. "I was wondering if you uh, wanted to play with us? Me and Luna, I mean."

It sounded rather childish slipping from your lips but Hermione's brow quirked up. "What are you playing?"

"We're having a race," Your expression brightens at her interest, signalling back to the Ravenclaw table where Luna now sat alone. "We both made something out of paper and we’re gonna enchant them so they run the racecourse we made." To the left of Luna was a makeshift racetrack made of books, cups and even your spare inks and quills. It was only small so it'd be a quick race before lunch began. "If I win Luna promised to make my bed every day for a week. If she wins she gets my last bag of Fizzing Whizzbees."

"Shouldn't you be studying during study hall?" Seems Miss Granger was all work and no play. You simply shrug, standing a little taller.

"I'm smart enough already," You declare proudly, a cocky smirk on full display. "And besides it’s nearly lunchtime so we were long overdue a break."

You watch her eyes drift from yours over to where Luna was sat and back. "You two are quite the pair."

"Me and Luna?" As if she could sense you talking about her, Luna waves at the two of you. "She's like my best friend."

"You don't find her a little... strange to be around?" Hermione muses. "A little... loony perhaps? Half the school thinks she's lost her mind."

She was right in saying that a lot of your fellow students judged Luna harshly for being a little more outside the box but you never expected Hermione to be one of them. "I think... she's awesome and I'm glad she's my friend. You shouldn't judge her so harshly when you don't even know her."

You may have invited her to join you but that offer was no longer on the table as you marched back to the Ravenclaw table without another word. Slumping down in your seat exasperated sigh. "Are you okay?"

Plastering on a smile, you give her a firm nod. "Shall we start?"

"What happened over there? You seemed rather excited before."

"Nothing," Focusing on the origami, you pick up your wand.

"You shouldn't bottle things up," Luna expresses softly, picking up her wand too. "Might make your head explode."

"Does it ever bother you that people call you crazy?" You wonder.

"Not really," her head shakes. "It's all in good fun."

You never understood if Luna's belief in people was misguided or just for show. If the roles were reversed you'd certainly not enjoy having people make fun of you. "But what if it's not?"

"Then it's out of my control," Luna flashes a smile. "Shall we start."

With a nod of your head and wands at the ready, Luna starts the countdown. "3... 2..." your grip tightens around your wand. "1.... Go"

With a flick of your wrist, the paper tiger springs to life but it takes a few nudges from the end of your wand to get it moving. When you saw Luna's monstrosity trailing behind, you knew you had this race in the bag.

"I don't think Hermione likes you very much," you don't know why you decided to tell her that, it seemed only cruel in the moment. "I don't think she likes me much either as hard as I try,"

"Maybe you should stop trying," Luna's focus was exclusively on the race as you watch her. Maybe you should stop trying... that was easier for her to say because she didn't find herself with butterflies every time she saw the girl. Searching the Gryffindor table, you find Hermione sitting alone; scribbling away on a piece of parchment. "Staring can be considered quite rude, y'know?" 

Glancing back at the race, you find both racers have crossed the finish line and were now laying completely still against the table. Students were beginning to pile into the hall for lunch so it was time to clean up a little. "Sometimes it's hard not to," Reaching over the table you grab your quill. "She's just interesting- who won by the way?"

"It was you," Did you win or was she just being nice? It didn't matter now anyway so you may as well take the win.

You haven't spoken to Hermione since that day she had the audacity to question your friendship with Luna. You didn't necessarily think she had meant what she said in a bad way but it just hadn't sat right with you. It also helped that the only class you shared was Defence Against the Dark Arts so she wasn't all that hard to avoid. The page of your textbook flips over with a gust of wind as you lounge against the stone archways in the quiet courtyard. When you spot Harry, Ron and Hermione, you bury your face behind your book in hopes of not drawing any attention. If you didn't acknowledge she was there maybe you wouldn't long to run over.

"Hey," Slowly lowering the book, you spy the girl in herself looking perkier than usual. Seemingly having abandoned her friends just to come and speak to you.

"Hello," you reply quietly, keeping your eyes on the page. It was explaining how to create the Forgetfulness Potion; a beginner level potion and not at all hard to make.

"Luna said you'd be out here," You glance up at the mention of your friend's name. Why had she been talking to Luna? "And that you may require a study partner,"

Strange. She had never wanted to study with you before. "You don't have somewhere else you'd rather be?"

Hermione shakes her head. "Luna can be quite convincing but if you'd rather study alone, I can go."

"No," the reply comes a little too quickly. "I mean, uh... you can stay. I'd really like the company."

"Great, Ron and Harry are rather distracting when it comes to studying," She plops herself down at the other end of the archway by the end of your feet. Your knees were now pulled a little closer to your chest, propping up your potions book. "I can quiz you if you want?"

"Can I ask you something?" You pose the question as you sit up a little straighter trying to give her more room; handing over the book in the process.

"Of course," Taking the boom, Hermione's hand brushes over the cover but she opens it and begins flickering through the pages. She had the same textbook so you're not exactly sure what she expects to find.

"Why are you here?" The rustling of pages comes to an abrupt stop as her eyes settle on yours but only for a moment.

"To study?"

"You've never been interested in me before," you reply bluntly. "I don't see what's changed now? What exactly did Luna say?"

"Just that you like me," Wide eyes of surprise, your stomach sinks. She was joking right? She had to be. "And that you think I don't like you which is perplexing. So she told me where you usually go to study and that you'd very much appreciate my company."

"I'm gonna kill her," you growl under your breath, sinking down against the stone. How you wished the ground would open up and swallow you whole right now.

"I also thought it was only right that I apologise for the other day," you can't even bring yourself to reply; too scared you'll somehow embarrass yourself further. "I shouldn't have spoken about Luna that way- I also apologised to her. Are you ready?"

Anything to help forget about what Luna had purposely done, you nod your head a little. Setting this whole thing up was a sweet enough idea but she didn't have to straight-up tell Hermione that you liked her. Hopefully, you could just play it off as friends. A silence settled between the two of you as Hermione searches through your book. "I'm gonna say a potion and you just have to list the ingredients, simple enough?" You can feel her eyes on you but can't bring yourself to look back. "You alright?"

"Mhmm,"

"Are you sure?" She questions. "I didn't mean to embarrass you or anything. I'm sure Luna had the best of intentions."

"Just say a potion," It's even more awkward when she brings it up the fact Luna told her. "Please,"

"Okay, how about... Draught of Living Death?"

"Uh..." for a second your mind seems completely blank. Taking a deep breath you settle your nerves a little. "Standard potioning water, Powdered Root of Asphodel..." your brow furrows in concentration. "Infusion of... Wormwood? Valerian root, A Sopophorous bean and-"

"Sloth brain," Hermione finishes. "Good job. Okay, let's try..." The pages flutter between her fingers for a moment. "Exstimulo Potion."

Exstimulo potion. You rake your brain for any memory of it; If you remember correctly it was a potion used to boost magical energy. It was a beginning level potion so it won't be too complicated to make. "Re'em blood... Granian hair, Snowdrop maybe, and like... uh... Bitter root?"

"For an extra point, what colour should it be?"

That you knew almost instantly. "sky blue."

With each passing question, your confidence grew around the same speed as Hermione's smile did. You liked to think that your extensive knowledge of potions was impressive but in all honesty, some wouldn't see it that way. "You are really good at this,"

"I enjoy potions. They value knowledge over skill more than some of the other classes- that's not to say potion-making doesn't require skill and vice-versa. " You explain, moving so your legs now dangle over the edge similar to how Hermione was sitting. "It's probably my best class but I like the study of ancient runes too. What about you? I imagine you're brilliant no matter the class."

"I wouldn't go that far," Her gentle laugh fills your ears, filling you with such an innocent sense of glee. "I like most of my classes though, I would take more if I could."

"Of course you would," You giggle to yourself. "I heard in the past you used a time-turner just to attend more classes."

"Guilty," She offers you a smile. You'd done research on time turners, they were interesting little devices but it took a lot of guts to use one. "It was worth it."

"It's a pretty smart way to use one," No surprise considering who you're talking to.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. Anything." Hermione fiddles with the corner of the page she has settled on.

"When Luna said you like me, I'm guessing she meant..."

The fire in your cheeks spread hot and fast which had the butterflies in your stomach going crazy. She really had to bring it up again? She couldn't have just ignored it and moved on? "...yeah." You admit quietly. Handing your textbook back, Hermione slips down onto her feet

"So this was her way of setting us up... hmm," Spinning on her heel, she looks to the sky. The sun was beginning to set so it was illuminated by an orange glow. "For a girl so imaginative I would have expected something a little more than a study date."

"I like studying," She sharply turns back to you.

"As do I," She offers a gentle smile. "But I think we should do something a little more traditional for a first date, don't you?"

"First date?"

"Only if you want to,"

"I... yeah. I'd love to."

[btsmakesmehappy]

Palate Cleanser | 1

Genre: Agent au, friends with benefit (sort of), Stranger to lover, Angst, Fluff, Eventual Smut

Pairing: Agent!Taehyung x Baker!reader

Word Count: 5,6k

Rating: 18+ (M)

Warning: broken heart, cursing.

Chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 completed

Summary: Taehyung needs something to take his mind off his broken heart. His best friend, Jimin, suggests that he should meet another woman and the first woman he met was you. Would you help him even though you have your own problem, that you hate men?

a/n: Hello again! This mini series is a continuation from Broken Vase. You can read it as as a standalone, but it’s better if you read it first for better understanding! As always, english is not my first language, so I would really appreciate if you give me correction or any suggestion. Please tell me if you want to be added on the taglist!

Also this is gonna be a part of The Company series (Click it for agents’ description!). Please look forward for it!

Taehyung walks mindlessly in the city. It is already noon, but still, he doesn’t want to go back to the company. The sun shines brightly like it is mocking him. And how the roads are full of couples, it is like hell to him. He hates it. He wants to be with someone too. Someone whose hand he can hold in the middle of a busy street. Not just someone, but someone he truly loves. That particular one who chooses Namjoon over him. He knows that the girl loves Namjoon deeply. He always knows it. Yet he refuses to acknowledge it. He thought that if he stays with her by her side, she will reciprocate his feelings. But it is just a mere hope. Love is not that simple.

His phone vibrates inside his pocket. He looks at it only to find Jimin is calling him. “What do you want, chim?” He then moves to the sidewalk, to take the call. His back leans onto a brick wall.

“Hello to you too. Where the fuck are you? The meeting is in 5 minutes, you know!” Jimin yells from the telephone. Taehyung taps his foot impatiently, waiting for Jimin to stop his blabbering. “Just come here fast!”

Taehyung interrupts, “I am not coming.”

There is silence on the phone and when Taehyung wants to turn his phone off, Jimin yells again. “Are you crazy? The meeting is about our mission in Hawaii. All of the agents who worked in it must be present. Our boss and that girl are gonna ask me about you.”

Taehyung can feel his heart stop for a bit after hearing about that girl. The girl he loves. But still, he doesn’t want to meet her. He is not ready. She will be together with Namjoon in the meeting. A sight he never wants to see. “Just act like you don’t know anything! I am hanging up!” Taehyung hangs up before Jimin replies back. He then turns his phone off and puts it again inside his pocket.

Yes, he thinks that it is not professional for him to avoid Namjoon and the girl. He doesn’t hate them, Hell no. Namjoon is one of his best friends and so does she. But he still needs a moment to mourn, to finally moving on. He sighs and walks again. His stomach grumbles. He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday. He doesn’t even believe it himself. He thinks that only women will have anorexic as a breakup phase. But it seems, losing appetite applied for every human being who is brokenhearted.

His feet stop in front of a small bakery. It has a blue color outside and yellow inside, a rare combination since some people think that blue is not an appetizing color. He decides to buy some bread and eat it in the park, he is not in the mood of any rice right now. He just needs something to fill his empty stomach. The bell in the door rings as he opens it.

He is welcomed by delicious smells of freshly-baked bread. He takes a tray and walks around. Somehow the smells make his stomach growls even louder. After many considerations, he chooses a bread with red bean paste and butter and also an egg sandwich. He also takes a coke from the chiller and walks to the cashier.

He puts the tray in the cashier and his eyes wandering around the small bakery. The bakery itself is cozy, with some corners full of cute photo spots. There is only some seating area in front of the cashier. Taehyung is nodding at the rhythm of the music when his eyes dart at a little placard with a hand-written scribble beside the cashier.

Girls get 50% off

Taehyung frowns his brows and asks. “Why do only girls get 50% off?”

You raise your head. “Because all men are trash.” You reply dryly.

Taehyung gawks with that sudden explanation. “I’m sorry, what?”

Just before you say anything to the random guy, someone hit your head. “What the fuck, Hani? Why did you hit me?” you touch your head and look at another girl, Hani, who holds a rolling pin in her hand.

Hani then grabs the placard and tears it into pieces. “How many times did I tell you not to use this stupid ‘girl only’? You want us to go bankrupt?” She then throws it into the trash can. Hani turns to the man in the suit in front of them. “I am really sorry sir.”

“Why? I said the truth!” you shrug. Hani then glares at you, which shuts you up. “Fine. You handle this then.” you then walk to the back, to the kitchen, while Hani handles the cashier.

Taehyung is flabbergasted. His eyes following your back. What a weird girl. “So, how much?”

Hani then smiles, “2700 won. Would you want to pay with cash or card?” Taehyung gives her an exact amount. “Oh, this is a free cookie for you. It’s a new recipe.”

Taehyung takes the paper bag and nods politely. “Thank you.”

“Thank you! Please come again!” She yells to the girl as Taehyung walks out of the door. He can hear how the weird girl is being yelled at. Somehow he finds it amusing and funny, not at all weird.

He walks to the nearby park and sits on the bench. He puts the paper bag beside him. He looks at the bag. Palate Cleanser. A weird name for a bakery. It should be used for an ice cream parlor or that kind of stuff, but instead, they use it in a goddamn bakery. Well, not only the people working there are weirdos, the bakery itself is weird too.

He chuckles. Taehyung loves unusual stuff. He was once scolded by the higher-ups when he showed up in the Company in a pajama set and the other time in a suit with some doodles on the back. It is just his fashion sense, and everybody in the Company just looked at him like he was crazy. Why can't he be the unique one? It’s not that he bothers anyone with his habit nor his fashion sense. He opens the sandwich first and bites it. Not bad. Maybe he will come to that weird bakery again.

“What the fuck, Y/n? You almost scared him away!” Hani yells at you. She puts her hand on her hips. It may be the fifth time she yelled at you about this, this week.

You shrug. “So what? That is my intention anyway.” You open the kitchen cabinet and pull out a sack of flour, chocolates, caramel, and a bottle of peanut butter.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “He just wanted to buy some bread for god sakes. Not making a move at you!”

You look away and walk to the kitchen island to make another batch of cookies. “Men still are trash.” You said as you rolled your sleeves.

Hani just shakes her head. “Not all men are trash.”

“They are!” you yell. “You lucky you found a good one.”

“Enough with the stubbornness!” She sighs. “Fine then, just think like that. But don’t you ever put that placard again! People would think that this bakery is a lesbian crib, you fucker.” Hani stomps her foot to the front, leaving you alone in the kitchen.

You sigh. I hope I am a lesbian, maybe It’s just better that way. You begin to measure the cookie ingredients. Your mind wanders freely as your hands work. You have done this for almost 5 years now, and you can measure a basic cookie dough subconsciously.

It’s because of Youngjae.

It was maybe the lowest point in your life. You found Youngjae naked in the bed with your college friend who you thought was your best friend. But frankly, she was just a bitch. Youngjae was your boyfriend for 3 years, you dated him in the last year of high school. He was kind, handsome, and smart, basically a grade-A boyfriend. You thought you were blessed for having a nice boyfriend. You gave all of you to him. But apparently, he cheated you all the time in your relationship. For 3 fucking years.

You are glad that you have a nice family and friends to help you through it. You cried, starved yourself, and did not take a bath for weeks in your break up. Hani is one of your friends that supports you in that hard time. Instead of just depressed and sad, she helped you move on. She was the one who printed huge ass banners that said ‘Youngjae got herpes’ with his photo and stuck it on every surface in your college. It probably cost you some dates but you were happy and satisfied. You were relieved that you got out of that unhealthy relationship. But still, you despise all of the men in this world.

You studied hard after that, took patisserie classes, not bothered by guys and dating. You get on your feet and finally, you open a bakery in the middle of the city with your best friend. It is like a successful revenge. Even that jerk ruined your life, you still have your best friend and a great job that you have always dreamt of.

You always love baking since you are just a little kid. You love the moment when you wait in front of the oven. You love to see how all the raw ingredients turn into an edible one. And you love to give your food to people, you love seeing their reaction. There was even a time when you made bread with a miso paste fillings. It was a horrible combination that made Hani and your family throw up. But you love trying new things, or just watching them trying your disgusting food.

You put the cookies in the oven. This time you made a batch of sumbitches, cookies filled with peanut butter, chocolate, and caramel. It is your bakery’s special and most favorite one because your customers are mostly girls. Who says that the girls need love? Well, who needs love if you can eat chewy, sweet, salty, and crunchy fresh baked cookies while watching Netflix?

Taehyung decides to go back to the Company after his lunch. He is racking his brain to avoid the other guys. He looks at his watch. The meeting should be over in an hour. He better moves faster. He speed-walks to his cubicle, nodding at everyone in his way. It is not that he has a job to do. He hasn’t got a new mission yet, so he basically can slack around. He sits on his chair. It’s been a while since he moved back to this city. He always chose to be located in other countries as an asset. He loves to interact with new people and to be in a new environment, not stuck in this tiny cubicle in a suit. But after that Hawaii Mission, the boss orders him to return to the head office, and well, he can’t refuse. Even Yoongi, who was an asset in Hawaii, ordered his return too.

He moves his chair around. He is bored. Maybe he is going to ask Jungkook to play with him. Oh but Jungkook is at the meeting. He sighs as he props his hand under his chin.

“Tae! Where have you been?” It’s the voice he wants to avoid the most. She walks to his cubicle with her bag on her shoulder. He can see the scar on her cheek is not as red as before, since it was from two weeks ago. “You are lucky, the Boss didn’t ask for you!”

He smiles sheepishly. “Ah, right. I kinda forget. So how is the meeting?”

She looks at him suspiciously and puts her arms across her chest. “Yoongi found that Ji Seok had contacted some people before he came to Hawaii. So, we need to investigate them. They sound suspicious from what Yoongi told us before. We thought that they might be the newest members of the Black.”

He tilts his head. “I’m sorry. We?” He is fine with another job to save him from boredom, but to work with her again? It’s just uncomfortable.

She laughs, “Oh, I am sorry. I mean you, Yoongi, Jin, Jimin, and Hoseok. Everyone except me and Namjoon. Can you believe that?”

Taehyung raises one of his eyebrows. At some point, he feels relief that he won’t work with her. “What? Why?”

“Namjoon is getting his ‘punishment’ and sent away to teach the recruits and as for me, I have finally decided to go on therapy.” She smiles proudly.

His jaw drops, “Oh my God! I am so glad you decided to do that!” He stands and hugs her tightly. “What makes you change your mind?”

She returns the hug. “Well, Namjoon kinda talked me into it. I was afraid I would get fired, at first. But he told me that if I get fired, he will leave too.” She laughs. “And after that, I gathered all of my courage to tell our Boss. Fortunately, he doesn’t fire me and encourages me to go to therapy. They told me to think about myself first.”

He gulps and gives a faint smile. “I am so happy for you.”

She then releases his hug. “I want to talk to you more, but I must go to my first session. Talk to you soon, okay?” she then waves and walks to the tall man standing beside the door. The tall man smiles and then puts his arms behind her back and walks with her happily. She never smiles like that before and if Namjoon is the only one who can make her happy, he will gladly let her go. Even if his heart aches whenever he sees her with Namjoon, he will be happy for her. He tries to be happy for her.

He needs to move on. He must let her go.

He drowns in his thoughts, not realizing Jimin walks to him. “Hey, bro. How are you?” Jimin has always been his best friend. They both went to college together and finally decided to work in the same place, Taehyung works in the field area, whereas Jimin works as a handler. Her handler. And Jimin was the one who introduced her to Taehyung.

Taehyung sighs. “So-so.”

Jimin pats his shoulder. “I know. You are doing good, by the way. I am so proud of you.” Jimin always knows about Taehyung’s love for her. It’s not that he is not supporting it, but Jimin has always known that the girl loves Namjoon, since a long time ago. Basically, he is stuck in between helping Taehyung, his best friend, or helping the girl. But love is not that simple, and can’t be controlled with a mere human being like him. It just goes with the flow like a log in the river. And unlucky for Taehyung, the log flows to another stream. “Just tell me if you want to hit the strip club okay? Hoseok is waiting for it too.”

“Haha. Yeah right.” Taehyung shrugs. “Maybe next couple of years.”

“Dude. Why are you so pessimistic about it? You are going to move on soon.”

Taehyung glares at him. “I have loved her for 3 years, okay? It’s not that simple to unlove someone you love.”

Jimin sighs. “You know what? I think you need a palate cleanser.”

Taehyung knits his brows. “What? Why do I need that bakery?”

“What bakery?” He asks back. “No, what I mean is you need some sex to help you get over her! And then you can get ready for a new one.”

“So, you suggest that I should hook up with a prostitute?” He crosses his arms across his chest, finding Jimin’s suggestion to be amusing. Amusing as Jimin who is a hopeless romantic and has been in love with his childhood friend since he was a kid suddenly told him to get a one night stand.

“Eww. No! Just look for a girl, you stupid. Hang out more.”

Taehyung chuckles. “Shouldn’t it be easier to find a prostitute?”

Jimin’s nose scrunches in disgust. “If you say a prostitute again, I won’t ever talk to you.” He then drops a binder on Taehyung’s desk. “Anyway, this is the data for our mission. Jin said that we would have a meeting tomorrow, so you should study it. Oh, did I mention that I am joining the fieldwork too? Finally, I don’t need to stay in front of my computer. I am so thrilled!”

“Wow, congrats bro.” Taehyung pats his shoulder and takes the binder and opens it. “But you should practice your gun skill more then.”

“Right! I think I will practice after this. Alright then, if you need other data just tell me, okay? I’ll see you soon.” Jimin then walks away.

Taehyung drifts his attention to the binder. It looks like there are 3 suspects. They have been contacted by Ji Seok for at least ten times in the last 3 months before Ji Seok is caught. The First suspect is Byun Baekhyun, he went to the same college with Ji Seok, now working in a restaurant in the city. The contacts all happened in his restaurant, with no telephone trace. The second suspect is Park Chanyeol, he lived in the same neighborhood with Ji Seok. He now works as a journalist in a food magazine, last seen with Ji Seok at a work party. The last suspect is Jung Eunji, she has no connection with Ji Seok, but her credit card was used to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii.

His forehead furrows. There is still not enough data to capture them, which means they needed to go to the field to investigate. Another troublesome mission. But at least, he won’t be stuck in front of his computer.

It is the morning. You wake up lazily. You are not a morning person. Even though you have a job which requires you to go to work at 6 am for years, you still go to bed after midnight. You always have other activities that make you busy, either you watch movies or read books. Well, not books. You have been using Tumblr for almost 10 years now. That application has occupied your browser history for almost 10 years, and that is the only reason why people never get to see your phone, there are too many links to your favorite smut authors. There is no way people can see that. Basically it’s just like porn, but you always think that it is more than that. Smut is just full of artistic things too. You love how the author writes such a poetic description of humping with emotional touches which make you cry until 2 in the morning. Well, you did other stuff too besides crying. Let’s just say that not only your face is wet.

You take a quick shower before you go to work. You wrap your body in a towel and pick your clothes for today in the closet. You never go to work in classy clothes, usually, you just wear a t-shirt and jeans, you have to change into your kitchen clothes later after all. You wear your black t-shirt and your ripped jeans quickly, then after tying your hair into a messy bun, you grab your jacket and your purse on the couch. You should go now if you don’t want to be late, or getting scolded by Hani. You shudder in reflex.

It is still chilly in the morning. You keep thinking to yourself, why you hate morning so much when you love the morning weather and how empty the road is, like you own it. You yawn. Well, you hate the wake-up part in the morning. You hate to leave the comfort and the warmth of your blanket.

The walk from your apartment to your bakery is not that long. You are lucky to find such an affordable apartment in the middle of the city. It is small, but it is still livable and pretty. It is close to many things, like the market, train station, and even your bakery. It is a pity you don’t live with Hani. You were going to be Hani’s roommate when you first moved to the city, but now she lives with his boyfriend, Jackson. That’s why, when you first saw the ad of your apartment, you called it without any further thinking.

You arrive at the bakery as you sigh in relief for not seeing Hani’s head inside. Lucky to you, she won’t scold you for this morning. You unlock the door and go straight to your locker room to change your clothes. You then skillfully sweep, mop, and wash all the dishes. And after an hour, you begin to prepare your today’s bread. It’s just your usual menu in your bakery. While you are preparing the dough, your mind wanders, where the hell is Hani?

It’s almost 9 am, and you still can’t find Hani anywhere. You wanted to call her, but as clumsy as you are, you left your phone in your apartment. So you just hope that Hani is fine but her ass will not because you are gonna kick her ass for letting you prepare the bread alone. You sigh as you walk to the front door to turn the sign to ‘Open’.

It has always been a hectic morning for two people to make, display the bread, and handle the customers. And now you are the only one here. It is basically like a war. You still feel lucky, to have people loving your bread. But after 2 hours of working alone, you are admitting defeat. You change the sign on the door to ‘Still baking’ and run to the kitchen to bake some more. It is the only thing you could think of right now. All the bread this morning has already sold out, after all. You are never a multi-tasking girl. So it seems fair for you to work in this type of situation or you will go insane.

Your next batch of bread is already in the oven, and you finally can take a breather. You look at your clock on the wall, it’s almost noon, and Hani is still nowhere to be seen. You begin to worry, but it’s not like you can leave the bakery alone. Then the bell on the door rings. You almost run to the front to yell at Hani for coming so late, but instead Hani, it is a guy.

It’s a guy from yesterday.

He wears a different suit from yesterday, now he is wearing a navy one. His curly hair falls on his forehead smoothly, framing his frowning brows. “Are you close or something?” he asks after he observes your display area.

“My friend is a little late, so I work alone right now.” You give a half-smile, a business one. “If you do mind, you can come back for an hour for the bread. Can’t you see the sign on the door?”

He turns his sculpted face to the door, “Oh, right. Sorry.” He then walks to the seating area, “Can I wait here?”

You bite your lip. But before you say anything to him to forbid him, your alarm in the kitchen rings. You snarl and walk back to the kitchen. “Your call.” You begin to pick your bread and put it to the cooling rack. You then put the already cool one to the plastic back to put it on the display later. Your eyes leer to the guy sitting casually in the seating area in front of the cashier. The presence of a man close to you is kind of uncomfortable.

Taehyung looks at you from the kitchen window. It is a big glass window to show what’s going on inside the kitchen. And that noon, the window lives to its purpose, he can see what you are doing inside. He can see how uncomfortable you are. How you fidget every time you have nothing on your hand. How your eyes sometimes leer at him. It is his ability to know body language, he is an agent, after all. He knows that you are nervous.

Since you told him that all men are trash yesterday, he still thinks of you as a weird girl. Somehow he is drawn to you. At first, he thought it was just a joke or a prank, but seeing how awkward you are when you see him, he realizes that you do hate men. And he thinks it’s really adorable.

You then go out from the kitchen with a pan of freshly baked bread and walk to the display. You put them neatly, quietly, trying not to mind him, while mentally praying for Hani to come sooner.

“Wow, you really do hate men, don’t you?” He asks abruptly.

His deep voice startled you. Your empty pan falls to the ground as the impact, making a loud noise in the room. You then give him a dirty look. “Pardon?”

He walks to the display area, casually observing the bread. He then takes a piece of bread. “I thought it just a joke when you said all men are trash.” He walks back to his chair, opens the plastic, and bite the bread.

You raise one of your eyebrows. “So?” You ask without batting an eye.

“Nothing. Just find it amusing.”

You walk to the chair in front of him and pull it. You sit there facing him. “You have a problem with that?”

“No.” Taehyung throws his last bite to his mouth and chews it quickly. He inches forward to your face. “Let me guess. Hm.. You got dumped, didn’t you?”

You widen your eyes. “No, I didn’t! I was the one who dumped him!” You put your hand on your mouth. What the hell are you doing telling strangers that?

He hums and folds his arms across his chest. “Okay, let me try again.” He studies you for a bit. “Your boyfriend cheated on you with your friend?”

Your jaw drops and you can feel a flush crept on your face. “How do you know?” You ask in a shock.

He smirks and shrugs confidently. “I am just that good you know.” He chuckles. “Actually no, I just guessed it.”

Just when you wanted to reply to him, the door opened harshly. And there you find your best friend rushing towards you. “Oh my God, Y/N! I am sorry.”

You observe her from the top to her feet, well, she seems fine. That’s the important thing. You sigh. “Where have you been?”

“Jackson got sick so I took him to the hospital. I have been calling you for a hundred times, where is your phone?” Hani asks. You can see her face is bare, she didn’t even draw her eyebrows.

“I left it at home. Is Jackson okay?”

Hani takes off his jacket and rolls her sleeves. “Yeah, just a little infection, he will be fine.” She looks around the bakery. “I can’t believe you open this yourself, I feel terrible.”

You wave your hands. “It’s okay. But I think we should hire a part-timer. It has been a hell for me.”

She rubs her chin. “Yes, I think it is time for us to have a helper.” Hani then looks to the side to find a man there. “I am sorry. Am I interrupting something?” She smiles.

Taehyung smiles back and laughs. “Not really. We just discussed about her hatred of men. I got free bread for guessing the reason right!”

“It’s not free-“

You are interrupted by Hani’s laughter. “It is ridiculous, right? I talked to her all the time that not all men are like that.” Her voice then quieten. “I even told her to find a palate cleanser, you know. And, this is a lil bit TMI. But actually, it’s the reason why we use that name for our bakery.”

Palate cleanser. Taehyung then remembers what Jimin said to him yesterday. And an idea comes to his head.

You push Hani’s back to the locker room. “Alright, alright. Just go change already.” She follows your instruction as she waves to Taehyung.

Taehyung looks at his watch and then gathers his stuff and rises from his chair. He walks towards you and he holds out his hand to you. “I am Taehyung.”

You take his hand after many considerations. “Y/N.”

Taehyung smiles. He then takes his wallet out from his pocket and pulls out a card. A black name card. “This is my number. If you are interested in the palate cleanser thing,” he then forcefully puts the name card on your hand, “please give me a call.” He winks and Taehyung walks away to the door, leaving you speechless on the spot.

You are stunned, seeing the card on your hand. After a few seconds, you realize. You ran outside to catch him. “Hey, you haven’t paid!” but Taehyung has vanished in the crowded road.

“Finally!” Jimin yells. All of the 5 members gather in the meeting room, with Jin in the middle. It’s already 15 minutes past the meeting time. Taehyung walks faster and sits beside his friend.

Jin sighs, “I swear to God, if you are late one more time, I will kick your ass in the practice room.” He shifts his eye to Jungkook beside him. “Actually, I will ask Jungkook to do it.”

Taehyung being such a brat, like he always does, shrugs. “Fine. I am sorry. Please continue the meeting.”

Jin pouts and rolls his eyes. “What I am saying is, we need to gather as many pieces of information from the 3 suspects and they should know nothing. The Black is still an influential organization. We must be careful not to attract any attention.”

Hoseok raises his hand. “But actually, haven’t we attracted the attention already by capturing the leader in Hawaii?”

“That’s true. But most of the new members seem to be a rookie in this field, they haven’t been that loyal to him. For short, they are terrified. They will do whatever they take to throw all of the evidence that shows they’re in the organization right away. That’s why it’s our chance to dig a little deeper.” Jin continues.

“So what is the plan?” Jungkook asks.

Yoongi rises from his seat and connects his laptop. He then shows all of the suspect’s profiles. “Jin and I already talked to our boss. We think that we should divide ourselves into groups to tail them.”

“So, Jimin and Yoongi will investigate Jung Eunji. Taehyung and Hoseok will investigate Park Chanyeol, and the last, Jungkook and I will investigate Byun Baekhyun.” Jin folds his hands across his chest. “You will be needed to submit your report every single day at 00.00. Just tailing, no harsh approaches. If they suspect something, you will retreat and report to me. We don’t need another attraction. Are we clear?”

All of the members nod and rise from their seats as Jin dismisses them. Taehyung walks to Hoseok. “So do we get a stake-out van?”

It is almost midnight but you still can’t fall asleep. You move your body anxiously on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Finally, you surrender. You pick your phone, scrolling on Tumblr. It is a bad idea actually. You always think that reading some stories will make you go to sleep, but instead, you feel excited and end up reading fifteen chapters of 10k stories. But tonight, you can’t find other stories to read.

You sigh. Your mind begins to wander. And suddenly Taehyung pops out in your mind. A palate cleanser, huh? It is tempting actually. He looks nice. Well, nice doesn’t do justice to him. You have never found a guy as handsome as him. It really makes nonsense to you. His beauty is beyond words. And to have such a guy to offer you such service, you must be dreaming.

Or, is he a prostitute? That’s why he looks so ethereal!

You turn your headlamp on and walk to your purse, where you kept his name card. You look at it carefully on both sides. It is just a simple card, with simple ‘Kim Taehyung’ written in gold in the center, with his email and phone number under it and ‘The Company’ on the other side of the card. It seems too sophisticated for a prostitute’s agency, well, not that you ever got it though. Or is he like an exclusive prostitute?

Should I just text him? You sit on your couch. You input his number on your phone and hit the message button. What should I send? You tap your phone on your chin. You have never texted a guy since college. It is lame actually. Whenever you got a guy’s number, you always ignore it. But now, you just got the feeling that you can ignore Taehyung.

You walk to your pantry, pouring a glass of wine, and bring the bottle to the couch. You begin to type.

To Taehyung: Hey...

You knit your eyebrows, what are you? A high schooler? You can do better than this. You delete and begin typing again. You gulp the wine in one shot and pour another glass.

To Taehyung: Dear, Kim Taehyung. I was happy to receive your number and I hope to see you again.

Are you his business partner? Damn, woman. Just type casually. You drink your wine again. Typing and deleting, and drinking. For several hours. Until you fell asleep on the couch with the phone on your hand.

And just like the safety slogan on the road, ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’. You need a new one.

‘Don’t drink and type’

[ezrasarm]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day

I know, I know, I’m a little late to the party but I spent all of yesterday trying to actually finish and post a fic for once so I’m hoping you’ll forgive me for the delay 😂

Part 1 - THANK YOU!!!

(yes there are multiple parts to this so strap in)

I would like to start off with a huge thank you to those of you who thought of me and tagged me in those beautiful heartfelt messages! @a-seeker-of-imagination @adikaofmandalore @lola-wolf @agirllovespasta @oloreaa @din-damn-djarin @littlevodika @mrschiltoncat @cinewhore and @mindless--ramblings @plexflexico @imalovernotahater I’m looking at all of you 👀

I was just talking to @din-damn-djarin and @chaotic-noceur this morning about how theoretically (although heaven knows this isn’t always the case) writing should be something we do for our own enjoyment. To blow off steam, to let our imagination run wild, to have some form of creative output in our life, to feel productive, to make yourself happy, to make other people happy, etc. Whatever your reasons for writing, your own enjoyment of the process and content should be very high on that list. It’s very easy to get dragged down the rabbit hole of fixating on the number of notes and reblogs and comments we get on our work. And that’s great! If we’re gonna post this stuff it is endlessly gratifying and humbling to receive validation and appreciation for the hours upon hours of work that we put into it for absolutely no charge. But it’s not everything. It’s moments like these that remind me why I keep coming back. Knowing that I have a network of amazing, talented and supportive writers and readers, mutuals and friends who look forward to hearing from me and what I’m making next. That was never something I expected to gain by starting this blog but I am endlessly thankful to all of you for it.

Okay I think my point got away from me and I just wound up turning into a big mushy ball off feelings but what I was trying to say was thank you so much for your support because none of us are under any obligation to give or receive it but it sure does make things seem a whole lot more worthwhile when we do.

Part 2 - Right Back Atcha!

On to the second portion of this post! Screaming at you all about how talented you are!

@vercopaanir The Lovely Moons

TLM was among the first fics I read when I joined this fandom and I have loved every bit of watching your characters grow and overcome new challenges in every sense of the term. Every time I sit down to read a chapter I’m astounded by the professionalism and artistry you use to maneuver your craft because you are an artist. Reading it feels like it should be an actual print book that I can hold in my hand and turn pages in and write notes in the margins of all my favourite parts (’cause there are a lot). To think that you are author, editor and publisher all on your own while working still working blows me away!

@chaotic-noceur Scribbled Ink, To Be Human, Stanley

What can I say Kay? You write angst like no other. You are truly the angst queen but then you came along and you pulled a stunt like Scribbled Ink and excuse me? Who gave you permission to be both the queen of fluff and queen of angst?!?! You write such beautiful, heartfelt stories with concepts that are so raw and emotional and real and you do it with such finesse! I am constantly in complete awe of your writing!

@din-damn-djarin Find My Way Back To You, (Not So) Secret

Ploots, you magnificent bastard (there I said it)! I know you don’t believe me but I really do mean it when I say I love everything you’ve written with a passion. You come up with such astounding fic concepts and you characterize all the characters you write for so beautifully- I mean Frankie in FMWBTY??? You kept all my favourite parts of him but then you made him your own and it was astounding. I love that you’ve given me the privilege of being a part of your writing process and I have so much fun working on your fics with you!

@littleferal First Time Sleeping* Together

This series is bringing me life! I know I’ve already screamed at you but I love that you’ve looked at this very suggestible topic from the most innocent of viewpoints and explored the other forms that intimacy can take. That and they’re all just insanely cute and soft and fluffy and I love them!

@oloreaa Orbit

Rea!!!!! Our adopted tumblr child (except you’re not a child)! Somehow everything you write manages to be so soft and so cute and so fluffy it makes me feel like I'm about to spontaneously combust! You write Din cuddles for crying out loud! What more could anyone ask for than our big beautiful tin can to wrap them up in his arms and never let go? You write these moments with such a warmth and softness and intimacy thats hard not to fall in love with.

@starryeyedstories All Of Me

I still can’t get over how beautifully written All Of Me is! It just does things to me! It will always be way up at the top of my list of favourite Din fics! Your writing just makes me want more and I am seriously considering rewatching all the Star Wars sequels so I can read all your Poe stuff now. It is that good!

@aerynwrites What They Don’t Know

I don’t know what you did but I blame you entirely for my love of Paz Vizla now. It is seriously all your fault (and I love you for it). You are an amazing writer! Simple as that and you have so much beautiful content that I have yet to read. What you do for this fandom does not go unnoticed!

@agirllovespasta Masterlist

Yes. Yes I am aware that I’ve just linked your entire masterlist but it’s simply because I want everyone to read everything you’ve ever written. I love you and you are talented and amazing even if I don’t remind you of that as often as I should!

@tintinwrites Unspoken

I will admit I haven’t read a whole lot by you yet but of what I have read I love the way you weave your sense of humor into everything, it doesn’t fail to bring a smile to my face. The sass in unspoken killed me and I’m still not over Din talking to the kid.

@alwaysbethewest A Light In Your Eye

You are SO. FREAKING. TALENTED. You get that balance of sentimental and playful so perfect and it makes me feel things! Your characterizations are on the nose, the way you describe settings to set the atmosphere of the scene is amazing and your imagery makes my brain explode a little. You’re an artist. 

@dindjarindiaries Bittersweet

If someone asked me to site one blog to get a good taste of this fandom I would without a doubt point them in your direction. You write so many of my favourite characters and you write them so. damn. well. I love seeing you pop up on my dash- which reminds me I just saw that you updated Bittersweet but I haven’t had time to read it since and it’s driving me a little crazy.

@a-seeker-of-imagination Masterlist

 Alright, so admittedly I’m awful and I haven’t actually read anything you’ve written yet but you’ve got a Peaky Blinders fic I’ve got my eye on and you write for Pedro so I’m eager to do so! I can already tell you have such a passion for writing that anything you’ve written is bound to be amazing!

There are so many more of you who deserve love and appreciation and recognition and I sincerely apologize if I have missed you out of this list but my brain is a mess and I have trouble keeping track of who has written what a lot of the time! 

Part 3 - An Announcement Of An Announcement 

This is me announcing that I will be announcing something fanfic writer appreciation adjacent... soon (actually I’m announcing a number of things soon) so you should keep your eyes peeled 👀👀👀

[bangcrizpychan]

3 Things I Love Most: Strawberries, Books, and My Dandy Boy

☆Pairing: Kim Seungmin x Reader

☆Genre: FLUUUUFF, high school!au

☆Requested: Yes

☆Word count: 1.8k

☆Summary: A teeth-rotting story about two high school sweethearts that will make Willy Wonka shut down his factory.

The library is always quiet, probably because only a few goes there, just to study and stuff, but you? You were a regular(a/n: Cos I need a bag on the regular, okay sorry) and you treated this place like your own home. So there you were on your daily routine, reading your nth book, and to be honest, you're starting to think the librarian might adopt you for always being there. You were so immersed in your book that you didn't notice someone put a drink in front of you. The person cleared their throat and finally looked up, it was your boyfriend Seungmin. He gave you that adorable smile and pointed at his gift, it was a strawberry milk, your favorite.

"Are you crazy?! You can't bring food in here," you whispered and the latter just laughed, "I thought I would receive a 'thank you', not a scolding from my beautiful girlfriend." You blushed at the word beautiful, you started to panic when you felt your face starting to get red and you avoided Seungmin's stare.

"You should get used to me calling you beautiful, because you are".

"stop it," you grumbled and covered your scarlet face, heart beating faster than usual. Your current state made Seungmin chuckle, how can he not when you're being so cute?

You never imagined that someone like you could ever be in a relationship with someone like Seungmin, you were this shy bookworm, you only have one friend, and you're socially awkward. Your boyfriend on the other hand seems quiet at first, but he's actually really funny and loud, also, he's a part of this popular group at your school who, you may add, consists of absolutely stunning boys.

You only got close to him because your teacher chose him as your class partner last year, and you did have a lot in common, both of you like strawberries, you're clean freaks, and he keeps a journal like yours. Call it fate if you will.

"Hey y/n, do you like someone?" Seungmin asked as you continued to scribble down your chemistry notes. Both of you were in the library, you just influenced this boy to understand the comfort the library offers.

"Wh-why do you ask? D-do you like someone?" you stuttered, completely caught off-guard by his question, after spending time with him by studying together and even hanging out without talking about school, made you fall for him, hard.

"I do like someone actually," he admitted and put a finger on his chin as if he was thinking.

"oh," that was all you said, a part of you hopes that the girl he likes is you, but a part of you breaks when you think about him liking someone else.

"she must be really pretty then, and lucky," you said and played with your fingers, "she is really pretty, it's one of the reasons why I like her," and there goes your heart, you can't compete with someone that pretty. "why do you think she's lucky?" he questioned.

"Well, it's because you're a great guy and any girl will be lucky to have you. Have you tried confessing to her?"

He leaned back to his chair and smiled to himself, "I'm actually planning on confessing to her today," you felt tears threatening to fall from your eyes, "t-that's great, y-you're so brave S-seungmin-a," you lowered your head so he can't see your watering eyes.

"Apparently, she's a little dense too," he sighed, "completely naïve to the fact I'm talking about her," you looked up at him questioningly.

"W-what do you mean?"

"It's you y/n, the girl that I think is really pretty and I'd be lucky to have, is you".

You blinked your eyes too many times that it started to hurt, you mouth felt dry and you started to stutter 'what' 'why' 'really' that you didn't make sense at all.

"It's okay, I know that the person you like is me," he chuckled and you raised an eyebrow at him, "yeah, you're that obvious, y/n," you stiffled a laugh at your stupidity and at his cuteness.

"But I think it's better if you confirm whether I'm right or wrong," he teased, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"I-I like you too, Seungmin," you finally confessed and you felt the world spinning around you, you cannot believe you just admitted your feelings. The library was too quiet and you were scared he might hear the pounding of your heart.

You ditched your homework and hung out with Seungmin the whole day, your first real date. It didn't stop there though, you did a lot of fun and sweet things together until he finally asked you to be his girlfriend, to which you gladly said yes.

You couldn't help but to smile at the memory, a blush creeping up to your cheeks, "What are you smiling at?" you noticed Seungmin already took a seat while you were busy reminiscing about the past.

"I just remembered when you confessed to me, and our relationship as a whole," you said and leaned over to peck his lips. He bit his lip to stop himself from smiling as his ears began to go red.

"Are you going to Chan hyung's party later?" he asked as you downed the strawberry milk. You wiped your mouth and shook your head, "I can't go Minnie, I still have a lot to arrange at my place," Seungmin nodded but it was obvious that he was kind of disappointed.

---------

You were at your new apartment, cleaning and organizing your stuff when your best friend and only friend, Yeri, suddenly entered your room, "why are you dressed up?" she was wearing a tight dress and bangles plus a face full of makeup.

"Why are you not dressed up?" she said and started to rummage around your suitcase. Since both of you are going to the same university anyway, you decided to get an apartment early so it won't be hard for you to adjust. Thankfully, both of your parents supported your decision and offered to pay your first five months of stay.

"I don't need to dress up, I'm not going anywhere," "you're not going to Chan's end of school party?!"

You stopped arranging your bookshelf and let out a heavy sigh, "you know I won't fit in there, and I can have fun here, I still have a lot of episodes to catch up with," you turned your back against her and shifted your attention back to your books.

"Oh come on, y/n! Loosen up! It's our last year of high school, you don't even need to drink, just be there and have fun!" she gripped your arm and jumped up and down like a child. You're not uptight, right? The definition of fun is different for each person, which in your dictionary, it means lying down in bed, binging on Netflix and bawling your eyes out when a sad scene appears. That's fun. Right?

"Plus! Your boyfriend is going to be there!" you stopped and thought about what you were going to do.

"Well, he kind of looked disappointed when I said I couldn't go to the party," Yeri nodded, urging you to continue, "I guess a break from Netflix wouldn't hurt".

Yeri squealed and hugged you, screaming 'thank you' in your ear while you just released a very unenthusiastic 'yay'.

-----

"I changed my mind, I'm going home," Yeri tutted and linked her arms with yours and basically dragged you towards the house. You were wearing denim shorts that was way too short for your liking and a crop top, you weren't completely uncomfortable, but you felt a little exposed because the outfit is so unlike you. Thankfully, you convinced her to only give you a light makeup but you had to wear heels in exchange.

You hated it. The music was too loud, people smelled like puke and alcohol, Why do people think this is fun? You thought. Yeri left you on the kitchen and went to find her boyfriend, "Wow, what a great friend I have."

"y/n?" someone called and you turned to the source of the sound, it was Hwang Hyunjin, one of your boyfriend's friend.

"Hey Hyunjin, have you seen Seungmin anywhere?" "Yeah, just stay here and I'll call him," and you were left alone again. You knew some of the guests and they were pretty surprised to see you at a party, you merely avoided conversations succefully and you took a lot of interest at a coffee maker.

Who was the genius that came up with the idea to make a machine that could easily ground coffee beans and create such a delicious beverage?

"You're not talking to the coffee maker out of boredom, are you?" you whipped your head and saw your boyfriend, who laughed at your wide-eyed look. He eyed you up and down, and you suddenly felt embarrassed, Seungmin noticed your discomfort and quickly discarded his jacket, he wrapped it around your waist and tied it tightly to the front so it won't fall out. You thanked him and gave him a peck on the cheek.

You met with his other clique of friends and surprisingly, they were all pretty nice and awesome. The DJ then suddenly called the crowd to the backyard and since you guys were already there, you were overwhelmed by the guests who either looked drunk or just wanna party.

You lost sight of Seungmin as you were being englufed by the huge crowd, someone accidentally pushed you and caused you to trip, and because you never wear heels in everyday basis, you fell. You grabbed your ankle and you were sure that a bruise will form tomorrow.

Seungmin saw you on the ground and came running towards you, "y/n! What happened?! Are you okay?!" "I'm fine Minnie, I just fell," he helped you get up but it was too painful so he carried you bridal style and went back inside the house. As he was carrying you, you took a moment to appreciate his face.

"You could take a picture if you like," he teased, and you quickly diverted your gaze, feeling embarrassed, "well, it's not my fault you're so good to look at," he chuckled at your cuteness and dropped you gently when you arrived at your destination.

You were at Chan's balcony, far from the crowd and the loud music, it was perfect. The view there was also amazing, with the moon shining so bright and your boyfriend massaging your sore ankle, you loved every second of it.

You stayed there in comfortable silence, enjoying your quiet time together.

"Hey y/n?", you looked at your boyfriend who stopped soothing the pain and was staring intently at you. You melted at his gaze but you mustered enough strength to release a small 'hmm' in response.

"I-I think I love you," you couldn't help the smile that was forming on your face. How can your boyfriend be so cute when he's confessing his love for you. You removed your feet from his touch and leaned over towards him.

"Minnie, there are three things I love most; strawberries, books, and you, my dandy boy."

You closed the gap between you and Seungmin, and at that moment, nothing else mattered but you and the thief you willingly gave your heart to.

[pippki-writes]

An Ill-Fitting Name: Snippet 4

NOTES:

Snippet 1

Snippets 2 & 3

Features lyrics from Danny Schmidt’s “This Too Shall Pass”

Faoust belongs to @thebiggestnerd - she writes him, the healer (whose contribution I summarized in this snippet, I don’t think she comes up again much for our murderboy here so I didn’t go too in depth with her) - everyone else is mine.

Longer post, 8,066 words folks! Buckle up.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The name is like an ill-fitting coat, but it’s either wear it, or go naked in the cold, metaphorically speaking. He knows Faoust will kill him, but he’s not dead yet.

The officer sitting outside the room tilts her chair back on its legs, in one ear her radio turned low and largely ignored, holding her phone out playing music and keeping her other ear tilted to the room and its occupant for signs of life. He listens to the music coming from her phone:

We think too big

We think our self is one whole thing

And we claim that this collection

Has a name and is a being

But deep inside

When every cell divides

Well, it sets upon the rule that states

Self-interest is divine

He scrapes out an involuntary cough, and the officer lets her chair fall forward as she twists to check on him.

She tries to interrogate him, but he can’t talk, and only whispers “no.” He writes on her notepad, “I’m expecting a visitor,” and refuses to communicate further. His intuition is that Faoust will come here for him eventually, though he doesn’t know how long Faoust will let him live. Maybe Faoust won’t come while he’s in the hospital. But hovering over the edge of the pain, death feels certain and he knows where it will come from.

Finally, a visitor arrives. He hears the footsteps approaching, certainly heavier than any of the nurses that have tended to him, and the sound of a respectful shuffling in place, acknowledging the officer guarding his hospital room.

A familiar voice speaks. “Hey. I’m here to see my friend Asmodai, officer…?”

He can hear the sound of the officer crossing her arms, but she neither gets up nor offers her name. “Don’t suppose you might be able to tell me what the hell happened to him and how he ended up here?”

“Nah, wish I could. Is he ok?”

“He’s not in great shape. I’m not a doctor but he’s bad off. And not the kind of bad off that happens accidentally.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Almost as crazy as whoever did this. You don’t have any ideas?”

“Nah. I’m not really an ideas guy. Just a guy who worries about my friends. Can I go see him or...?”

The officer gives a defeated little grunt. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead. We can talk later.”

Dorien walks into the room as though he belongs there. Machines. IVs. In the middle of the room, bed propped up, staring at him, there’s that bastard Asmodai. Dorien takes a moment to breathe, staring back, looking angry. Dorien reminds himself why he is here. Not to kill him. Not to bring retribution. Just information to help Faoust. He clenches and unclenches his hands.

It takes Dorien a moment to realize what Asmodai is doing. The slight, strange sound, chest heaving—he is, very quietly, laughing.

He hasn’t come to terms with how to refer to himself—he is no more Isaiah than he was Asmodai, but he supposes, out of respect for the wish of a self who once knew what it wanted, he will call himself Isaiah until it fits. Or until he’s dead.

Isaiah laughs until the sound breaks into a cough. For starters, this was not the visitor he was expecting. And he can see why he would have been drawn to Dorien. Tall, dark-haired, handsome, and vulnerable. So many of his favorite things. The wizard Asmodai, before he stole his name, had been much the same.

Dorien keeps himself in check, and comes closer to the bedside. He doesn’t want the officer to hear him.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Dorien growls quietly.

Isaiah frowns. Talking will be an effort. He can’t even breathe too deeply, thanks to Dorien’s best attempts to slowly crush his ribs the other night after what he tried to do to Faoust. This is merely a fact—he doesn’t feel particular malice over it. He tries to choose his words carefully, so as not to waste them. There’s no volume, only whispering, but even the whispers are so resolute, so final. The playfulness of Asmodai is gone.

“Too much...to explain. What ...do you want...to know?”

Dorien folds his arms, lest he be tempted to do anything. “C’mon, what do you think I’d be here wanting to know. The magic-blocking cuffs. How do we take them off? Where’s the key?”

Isaiah shakes his head. “Didn’t get...a key. Wouldn’t...have wanted it.”

Dorien glares down at the bastard who nearly succeeded at killing the love of his life, and proceeds to try to get information out of him while texting Faoust. The conversation is slow going. The answers Dorien gets are halting and unsatisfying.

Faoust texts Dorien: "I want to know what he thinks should happen next."

Dorien looks down at Asmodai. “So what do you think should happen next?”

Isaiah sighs, unfazed. “Talking...not exactly....easy. Paper? Pen? Your phone?”

Dorien looks around for paper. He’s dumb, but not dumb enough to hand over his phone. He finds a notepad and a cheap pen in the desk drawer, and throws them on Asmodai’s lap.

Isaiah scribbles, handwriting messy and difficult on the flimsy pad, “He kills me for what” a scribble then, crossing out an “As,” and the writing resumes, “I’ve done. Why wouldn’t he? It’s inevitable.”

Dorien tears the paper off the notepad and holds it up, taking a picture to send to Faoust. “You’ve really fucked up, Asmodai.”

Isaiah’s mouth twitches a little at the name.

Above the top of the note, in the picture, Faoust can see Asmodai staring at the camera. There is no fear, nothing pathetic in the way he looks. Resolute. Certain. Final.

Faoust frowns. He had hoped for a bit more fight. But this is sort of like putting down a rabid dog at this point. It's not enjoyable for anyone involved.

Faoust: "tell him I'm disappointed that it came to this"

Faoust: "tell him I'll be there soon. As soon as my magic is back"

Dorien reads his phone, and before he can speak another note is being waved at him that reads “tell him come talk to me himself. This is fucking ridiculous.” Dorien sighs and snatches the note, snapping a picture for Faoust. There is a touch of defiance in Isaiah’s eye.

Faoust's lip curls in irritation and a tiny bit of embarrassment. Fine.

Faoust makes his way to the hospital, to the third floor, to the charge nurse.

“Looking for my friend,” says Faoust, “A John Doe?”

The charge nurse points with a pen. “The room with the officer. There’s already a visitor and technically I shouldn’t let too many people visit at once, but you know what? The world is hell. This hospital is hell. Go nuts.”

“Amen,” Faoust replies, heading over to the officer. “Hi, I'm here for my friend. I guess I have to answer questions first?”

The officer squints up at him suspiciously. “Damn, did the city call a prettyboy convention and I missed the memo?” She lets the chair rest back on all four legs. “I dunno, what do you know about what happened to your friend?”

“Not much. We were out partying, I know pandemic and all, but spare me the lecture. I told him goodbye and to call me when he got home but he never did.” Faoust pauses. “I heard he's bad. Maybe a hit and run?”

“Sure. Sure. Right.” The officer eyes him for a moment. “You’re a better liar than your friend. Go on in.”

“Liar? I- ugh. Fine.” He gives up on the officer and goes in the room.

“Alright you piece of shit. I'm here. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Isaiah looks at Faoust appreciatively. Yeah, he can see why he did all that shit. He sighs, wishing he could just fucking talk, and settles for hurriedly writing on the notepad.

Dorien mutters softly to Faoust. “He can’t talk..apparently.”

Faoust chuckles a little. “I should expect so.”

Isaiah rips off the note and holds it out. It begins with “A” scratched out and then “I resented the power you had over me. Wanted you to suffer. Wanted to kill you, and Dorien, and take your name, take your power. And didn’t want to kill you. Wanted to fuck and kill with you. Poorer judgment won out. Tried to make you suffer.” He sighs, frustrated at the time it takes to write, already writing on a new note.

Faoust reads the note and sighs. It was just as he thought.

“I wanted to just keep it fun and casual.” Faoust grits out through his teeth, “Why did you have to complicate things?”

Isaiah tosses Faoust a finished note: “No point in apologies. Won’t change what was done. No actions to right it” and starts writing a response to the question, tapping the pen on his chin, thinking.

“Wasn’t as fun fucking and killing without you. Didn’t like that.”

“That's called friendship, you absolute dolt.”

Isaiah pauses, and writes “Asmodai didn’t do well with having friends.”

Faoust runs his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Wait-Asmodai? Third person? Who the fuck are we talking to then?”

Isaiah makes a face. It’s difficult to explain. He writes. “I am. Was. Asmodai. For too long I think.”

He pauses, rolls his eye. He doesn’t feel like Isaiah either.

“I did what he did. But don’t feel what he felt, anymore. Memories, yes. Feeling? No.”

Faoust pauses. “So is..is Asmodai gone?”

“Depends on what you mean. The me that felt what he—I felt?”

Isaiah makes a quiet frustrated noise and slams the pen down. He is so tired of writing. He jots another note, mindful of trying to do magic around either of them. “Can I try magic on my voice? You mind?”

Faoust shrugs. “Go for it.”

Isaiah holds his right hand around his throat, eye closed. Healing has never been his strong suit, but he knows enough to get by. He just needs to be able to talk. His hand glows faintly.

When he speaks, his voice is rough, not much volume to it but it’s more than a whisper.

“If I don’t feel the things I felt when I called myself Asmodai, am I Asmodai?”

Faoust thinks. This complicates matters. “I'll be frank. If I were to leave you be, what would you do? Don't lie to me.”

“I would leave you alone.” Isaiah shrugs. “The things I ...Asmodai...I felt, I know them. Factually. I don’t feel them anymore.” He looks at Faoust sharply. “But I am responsible for what I did.”

Faoust thinks for a moment. “This is complicated. I'll need some time with this. What do you think you'll do when you're out of the hospital?”

“What do you mean, when I’m out of the hospital? You’re going to kill me. No further planning needed.”

“Well, I was thinking about waiting when you got out of the hospital regardless.”

Isaiah sighs. “Wish I’d known that sooner. Might’ve kept this magical existential crisis at bay.” He shakes his head. “No. Probably not. Asmodai—I. Fucked up too much. There was no way he...I...would win. It’s certain. You will kill me.”  He shakes his head again.

“Look. I don't want to kill you. Asmodai. At all. At this point it's about putting down an animal. That's all. And now there's this whole thing that you're not even who I knew anymore? This complicates things. Shit, if I were to kill you, it wouldn't even feel right.”

Isaiah makes a frustrated noise. “Fuck. The only reason I’m like this is because you’re going to kill me.”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

Isaiah dodges the question. “Back when I started killing to take power and names, I bound my own name away, far beyond my memory, and it would only come back if I was certain I was going to die. So I could die not as whatever fucking asshole whose name I stole. But as myself. Or at least. In the name I was born with, right?

“I was Asmodai. I was happy being Asmodai. But now?

“I’m no more Asmodai than I am this damn name my shit mother gave me.”

Faoust thinks. “Well, look. Fine. I'll kill you. Put you down. But I have to wait. I can't do anything until I have my magic back.”

Isaiah twists his lips a little. “Hm. Can’t help there. Told your boy here, I don’t have a key for the cuffs.”

This whole time, Dorien has just been watching, arms crossed and not believing this bullshit.

“Yeah,” Faoust says, “I heard. I've just got to wait. So you've got to wait.”

Isaiah sighs again. “Isaiah. Isaiah James. My name.” He shrugs. “Me. Not me.”

Isaiah twists his lips briefly in disgust at the taste of his own name on his tongue. “If you’re going to kill me, you ought to have my name.”

Faoust nods and rubs his face. “Look, I'll put you down. I will. But it's going to take like at least a week for me to get my magic back.”

Isaiah gives another shrug. “You know where to find me. I know what I’ve done. It’s only right.”

“Alright. You're not going anywhere?”

Isaiah gives him a flat look. “Where and how the hell would I manage to do that?”

“I mean, you've got magic. I don't. You could pull out some magic to take yourself somewhere.”

Isaiah rubs his fingers together on his right hand, little sparks arcing between them as he stares vacantly at his hand. “Where would I go? For what purpose? I know my fate.”

Faoust nods, satisfied. “Alright. Well then, we'll be on our way. You've got my number.”

Isaiah nods, dismissing the sparks. “I’ll be waiting.”

Isaiah wonders if it’s worth healing himself--physically, at any rate. He closes his eye and takes stock of all his pain. So many choices. And what else is he supposed to do with his time? The burns, he thinks, he will work on those. He hovers his right hand over his burned forearm, wrapped loosely in the day’s fresh gauze, and slowly works a healing spell, distracted by memories of the fight. Remembering the moment it all turned on him, when help came for Faoust while he had no one. He shakes his head, his thoughts wandering around. So many emotions that ruled him that he’s no longer bound by. Though perhaps he should be. He ought to be more angry. But he is mostly hollowed out. He does not even notice when his thoughts slip over the witch and his magic doesn’t so much as flicker, the healing steadily and slowly knitting in his skin.

Those were Asmodai’s problems.

The worst part is the waiting. Or perhaps the worst part, right now, is the burns on his arm—his healing magic is slow, the process tedious, and his head is empty of any warming memory to draw upon to make the healing go faster. There are memories, so many memories, but as he turns his mind to each of them in turn he feels nothing he can pull from. Perhaps it would have been better not to restore the nerve endings that had been burnt away—as they return, so too returns the opportunity for fresh pain to scream through his senses. And the drugs have trouble working their wonders as his magic interferes with the natural order of his body. Too late now, he’s already started this project. When the nurses aren’t looking in on him, he hovers his hand over the burned arm and continues the laborious process of working healing magic. Healing was never his forte. It still isn’t. Good to know, though it still seems like all he knows is a catalogue of things he was, and now isn’t.

Though perhaps, Isaiah thinks, it’s pointless to dwell on. Does he need that badly to know who he is now, if he’s only going to die? Not that he wants to die. Though, he can tell, Asmodai didn’t want to die in a particularly crazed and desperate way that Isaiah no longer feels. He doesn’t want to die, but then, he doesn’t feel a clear sense that he wants much of anything right now. From the moment the spell he placed upon himself fell away, he has simply accepted the fact of his death. Imminent. Inevitable. Deserved.

Asmodai was awful—not in a way that Isaiah feels, merely as a summary of fact considering the things that he’d done. The drives that motivated him. But to be fair, Isaiah had not been a good person either. No. He had been awful too. Killed people. Tortured them. Enjoyed it. Sought power beyond his measure, and took it.

Killed the dark wizard who taught him everything.

Sealed himself away.

What had he thought would happen, if this spell had ever had cause to come undone? He can’t remember, but he is pretty sure he would not have guessed it would leave him like this. So...uncertain.

Regret implies a level of sadness Isaiah doesn’t feel. He...wishes he had been someone different though. He wishes he had acted differently. Had recognized his limits. Recognized battles he wouldn’t win, and had the sense not to fight them.

The nurse surely notices when Isaiah’s arm does not look as bad off today as it did yesterday, putting fresh gauze on, but says nothing. Discreetly checks the patient chart—yes, third degree burns. It definitely said the patient had third degree burns. But you don’t last long in this town by asking inconvenient questions. Since the patient is conscious now, staring out the window, the nurse offers him his phone from his belongings and plugs it in for him. There’s a crack across the screen, but the phone works.

Isaiah has been working on healing his arm. It is such a slow, deliberate process. He isn’t sure why he’s doing it, but now that he’s started he’s committed to continuing. After all, what else has he got to do? His arm is still a mess of burnt tissue and pain, fresh nerve endings and the testament to his limitations.

Later, he looks through his phone, deleting pictures that bring him no particular joy to look at. Eventually he texts Faoust, “Have you decided how you’ll do it?” and nothing else.

Faoust: “something quick. Could stab you right in the heart.”

The heart had been Asmodai’s favorite, ripped from his victims—sometimes raw, other times he’d toast them before devouring them whole.

Isaiah: “poetic. fitting.”

Faoust: "look man. I really don't want to do this. You could go about your business. I don't care"

Isaiah sighs, and leaves the message on read for a few minutes. He thinks.

Isaiah: “I did wrong by you. I accept responsibility for it.”

Faoust: "and I'm telling you it's fine."

Isaiah waits again before responding.

Isaiah: “now I’m the one that needs to think on that”

Faoust: "Asmodai tried to kill me. He failed. You're here now. Not the same as Asmodai. It's not the same kill for me. Look, I beat the shit out of you. That should cover it. Do you really want to die?"

Isaiah sighs to himself.

Isaiah: “no, I don’t”

Faoust: "then I'm giving you your fucking out. Take it."

Isaiah pauses. Again, Faoust giving him the opportunity not to die, after everything he...Asmodai...he did. After so many times he honestly deserved to die. He was a warped and twisted thing, not right, and surely not to be trusted. But fuck. He didn’t really want to die.

Isaiah: “...ok.”

Isaiah: “fine”

Faoust: "want me to call a healer for you?"

Isaiah: “...seriously?”

Faoust: "otherwise you're going to be stuck at the hospital forever. No offense but I want you out of here."

Isaiah: “sure, sure. If I’m healing myself it’ll take forever”

Faoust: "you can't kill her"

Isaiah: “of course”

Isaiah thinks about the warning, which is fair, considering his history. He doesn’t even feel like killing anyone right now. Which is strange to him. He wonders to himself as he waits if this is the right thing to do, not insisting Faoust kill him. If he’s just avoiding fate and what he deserves. But when Faoust arrives in his hospital room with a healer, and she uses magic to transport the three of them out of his hospital room, he just watches quietly, making no protest. The empty alley she takes them to is cold, and Isaiah’s broken body falls to the ground painfully without a bed beneath him anymore.

He sucks it up, grits his teeth, and withstands the pain and the cold. Not out of any sense of pride, but because he feels he deserves it. He lists out for the healer the procedures the doctors had done, along with his own meager attempts at healing, and in turn, she tells him what she’ll be able to do. The metal they used to set his bones will always bring him some pain and discomfort, and there’s nothing she can do for his eye, the curse--

“The eye,” says Isaiah, touching his cheek lightly, “has been there a long time now. It’s fine.”

The magic of healing is painful, and there is a lot of it to be done. Isaiah doesn’t scream, not the way he did when Faoust beat him in the first place. He endures, and tries to focus on the fact that he deserves this pain. This doesn’t stop a few strangled screams and growls from bubbling up. Faoust watches impassively, satisfied.

When it’s finished, Isaiah breathes heavily for a moment, feeling every nerve on fire, taking stock of how he feels. He sits up, slowly, impressed and in awe. He gives thanks to the healer, to Faoust, and stands up shakily on knees that are no longer shattered. He summons up the illusion of clothes over his hospital gown, with no idea where he ought to go, what he ought to do. When Faoust tells him to get the fuck out of here, he readily agrees. Not the first town he’s been kicked out of. Always violent. Always deserved.

He could teleport himself, but where the hell would he go? There’s nowhere he belongs. There’s a dull ache in his bones, and he picks a cardinal direction and starts walking toward it. The speed doesn’t matter. Isaiah doesn’t strictly need actual clothes. He could use magic to keep himself warm. But the first window shop he passes, he swaps his hospital gown for the outfit on display, and keeps walking. He walks until he’s passed by a sign indicating leaving/entering, the liminal space of one town bleeding into another, goes to the first clean motel he can find, uses his magic to procure a room, and passes out after having walked for hours.

At the hospital, a call is placed to 911. A patient is missing.

The officer assigned to take the report is the same one who had been guarding the room when Dorien and Faoust visited. With the most deadpan expression, she questions the charge nurse on duty, intoning dully, “wow, just fucking vanished, huh?”

She files a missing persons report for “Asmodai / Isaiah James,” because in spite of trying not to hear things she doesn’t want to have to question, she hears them anyway. She makes note of possible contacts / persons of interest, “Dorien” and “Faoust,” and submits her report to see if she can get away with not following up on anything further.

She doesn’t even bother running any checks on any of the names. She doesn’t find anything out about a decades-old missing persons report for a runaway boy of the name Isaiah James out of Ohio. If anyone bothered to fingerprint the victim at all to try to ID him while he was unconscious, the prints have been lost.

After all, a lot of people go missing in this town.

It’s just one more.

Her supervisor literally flips a coin to decide if such absolute bullshit shoddy work will be accepted. Tails. That’s a nope. He rejects the report, and sends her a CAD message: “hit the streets and try again sweetie.”

Officer Dannic “Dani” Voros swears, loudly, in her patrol car in the hospital parking lot, and slams her computer shut. Growls, and opens it again to search for any information she can find about Dorien and Faoust. If she can find anything, she’ll talk to them at least.

Here’s what she finds: no drivers licenses. No arrest records. No voter records. Nothing in any database she has access to. No hospital records, which no, her friend in the hospital records should NOT have looked up for her probably but dammit, this was important. Well, not important to her, but it’s what she was supposed to be doing and she was getting very annoyed with the lack of any hints of paper trail for those two.

She starts angrily and haphazardly googling search terms, and some combination of tall, mysterious, handsome, and Dorien does bring back a tabloid article about the enigmatic artist, which brings up several printed interviews and connections to a particular pre-teen punk rock band apparently bankrolled by Mr. Dorien Godforbidhehavealastname, and the names of its musicians. Actual names. First and last names, unlike those recordless bastards Dorien and Faoust. She searches the names. Property tax records. Bingo. A lead. And an address. She puts the patrol car in drive and heads out. One conversation largely conducted through the few-inch gap of a chained door later, Officer Voros has both probably offended another citizen with an inappropriate joke, and obtained an address for the two handsome strangers that called on her missing person.

The cold rain makes all this work extra annoying. She debates putting off the follow up until more clement weather. Or just never. Reluctantly she puts the patrol car in drive and heads to the address.

She looks at the apartment building as she pulls up. No, correction. She looks at the giant skeleton covered in Valentine’s decorations outside the apartment building as she pulls up. The apartment building itself is an afterthought. As she arrives, the weather around the apartment changes. Suddenly it is clear and 59 degrees.

Officer Voros just stares at the atmosphere and blinks at it like it has personally offended her. She twists in her seat to look back down the street at the weather there, then stares at the apartment again, and sinks back in her seat for a moment, closing her eyes, and thinks to herself, “thiiiiiiis. iiiiiis. some buuuuuuuullshiiiiiiiiit.”

She sighs a very angry sigh, gets out of the patrol car, and goes up to the appropriate door. She raps on the door with her very best authoritative knock.

Faoust opens the door and clocks the cop. “Hm.”

Officer Voros puts her hands on her hips and brightens comically. “And they said I’d never find the secret prettyboy convention! Those bastards once again were wrong.” She smiles, and doesn’t offer her name. “Evening citizen. I’m hoping you might help me with this absolute crazy missing persons case I’ve been cursed with.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“Why, your dear friend or whatever bullshit you said at the time. Asmodai? Isaiah? You know, the guy SOMEBODY in this cursed plane of existence beat all to hell and put in the hospital.”

“Wait, wait, wait. How did he go missing? He couldn't stand, let alone walk? How did you lose him?”

“Yeah! That’s the crazy part, he just. Fucking. Vanished. Shattered kneecaps, pelvis, and all. Gone. Between you and me, that’s on the hospital. We weren’t watching him anymore at that point, but now it IS my problem to, you know. Figure out what the fuck happened and make sure there’s not a homicide investigation that should be happening here.”

Faoust shakes his head in disbelief as he tries to come up with a plan. “I could give you his motel room and location if you want? I mean, I haven't heard from him since I went to go see him?”

“Sure, sure. And it’s not like it’s illegal for him to leave the hospital. If he’s fine, I just need to lay eyes on him. It just seems real fucking suspiciously inconceivable how he’d have managed that in the state he was in, ya know?”

“Yeah, no, for sure. Let me go get some paper.”

Faoust leaves her at the front door and digs around in drawers looking for paper and pen. She stands at the front door, looking inside, pondering Faoust the whole while. He hands her a note with the address of the motel Asmodai had been staying at.

“Let me know if you find anything, yeah?”

Officer Voros takes the paper. “Of course.” She takes a blank card out of her pocket, a generic business card for the police department that doesn’t have her name on it. She writes down a phone number and offers the card to Faoust. “You think of anything else helpful, call or text me. Or if your prettyboy friend Dorien knows anything either.”

“Dorien doesn't know anything. At all. Not a braincell up there. But I'll keep it in mind.” Faoust takes the card and pockets it.

“Thanks. Stay safe citizen.” She heads down the steps and back to her patrol car, looking at the address. She knows the motel.

Officer Voros looks back toward Faoust from her patrol car for a long minute before she pulls out. She doesn’t have any sort of proof necessarily, just a feeling that Faoust was lying quite smoothly out of every side of his head right to her face. She types up a field contact for alias Faoust along with the address before she leaves.

Asmodai’s motel room ends up being a dead end. There’s nothing obviously off about the room, but she gets a weird vibe. Still a suitcase here. Some knives. Nothing much else. She does not discover that the room is under a stolen credit card in another name. She doesn’t look up any other purchases that stolen card might have made to connect it to an abandoned rental car that was impounded on Faoust’s street. She types up her report and deletes “went on a wild fucking goose chase because my corporal is a dickhead” from the report.

Officer Voros swears loudly, because she realizes she didn’t ask Faoust if the mysteriously vanished bastard had. a fucking. cell phone number. She groans. She decides she’ll pretend to have thought of that tomorrow, because she doesn’t want to follow up now.

The weak and cloudy light of morning is scattered further by the cheap, hazy curtains pulled loosely across the window. Isaiah wakes up, still dressed in his stolen clothes where he passed out on top of the covers. There it is—a dull ache in his bones, a twinge in his hips and knees as he pushes himself up to sit. He looks down at his palms, and they are smooth and untroubled, marked by nothing but the simple creases of where his hand folds. He flexes his left hand. The countless scars that had made a tangled nest there in his palm, the countless times he’d cut and called upon blood magic and done only a just-good-enough job of closing the wounds, when he remembered to heal himself at all, they’re all gone.

Isaiah doesn’t even have a knife, he realizes. His...Asmodai’s favored knives were either in the clothes left in the hospital, in the rental car, or in the motel room he has no intention of returning to. But it feels like he should have a knife. He has no money, but money isn’t too necessary when you’re flush with magic and short on moral qualms against stealing.

He heads out for the day to get a knife, zipping up his stolen coat. Something simple. New. He goes to the nearest outdoors store and sees a nice Benchmade folding knife with a black-coated blade and white handle and feels drawn to it. With an effortless bit of magic, the knife disappears from the case and appears in his pocket as he leaves the parking lot.

Isaiah flips the knife open experimentally, admires it, turning his wrist this way and that to see the sides of the blade. He unlocks the blade and closes it again, clipping the knife in his pocket. He doesn’t have a plan for it, but it felt appropriate in his hand.

Isaiah has been somewhat skirting around thinking about this fact, but taking the knife in his hand he has to confront it. He’s not someone who can go work a 9 to 5 job, take a little paycheck home, find someone sweet to love him and love in turn. Whatever he does next isn’t going to be some contented kind of life. That wasn’t the lot he was born to.

What he is good at...all he has ever been good at, is violence.

He walks slowly back to the current motel. He takes the knife out of his pocket, opening and closing it as he goes, thinking to himself. Magic, and violence. Magic and violence. This is all he’s ever known. Even if he wanted to do something else, how could he, at this point? He’s not a good person. And surely nothing he is capable of can be used for good ends. He hasn’t killed anyone in so many days now, and strangest of all, doesn’t feel particularly compelled to. Not averse to it either. But the stirring in his blood that craved to see the icy glint of fear through tears before an untimely death doesn’t move him, for now.

Officer Voros follows up with Faoust the next night, gets a phone number for her missing person, and puts in a request for a ping before taking a nap in her patrol car. She’ll follow up further in daylight hours. Before ending her night shift, Officer Voros tries to call the phone number Faoust provided for the missing person. It’s almost 6am, of course he doesn’t answer. She leaves a voicemail indicating for him to call the communications center so they can speak.

The next day, Officer Voros, as soon as assembly is done, goes to her patrol car and puts herself on a follow up before any calls can be assigned to her. She tries calling the number again. Isaiah looks at his phone. A blocked number. He silences the phone without answering, because who would be calling him? He hasn’t bothered checking his voicemail either, since he didn’t recognize the number that called. He’ll check it eventually. He sits in his motel room, opening and closing his stolen knife.

Officer Voros checks the latitude and longitude of the ping. Another motel. It’s within a mile of what technically counts as her jurisdiction, so technically she CAN go investigate her own damn self, OR she can call her counterparts in the next town over to check for her. She debates which sounds like more work. With an agonized groan that can surely be heard two counties over, Officer Voros puts her patrol car in drive and heads for the motel.

Officer Voros checks with the front desk, but thanks to his use of magic there’s no one checked in by the names of Asmodai or Isaiah James. She pulls up the coordinates on her phone to get as close as possible to the ping, and starts knocking on doors fruitlessly, starting with the ground floor. She has an idea, and dials the number again, and faintly hears a ring from a couple doors down. A little excited in spite of herself, she hustles down to the door and knocks.

Asmodai would’ve checked through the peephole before opening the door, if he opened it at all. Isaiah does not care, and opens the door as he silences his phone again, looking up from the phone at the officer.

“There you are, you mysterious bastard! Alive and unmurdered, and my hatred of paperwork thanks you for that.”

Isaiah feels a slight needle of panic, if only because he has done a lot of things that would not put him on the good side of the police. His eye darts briefly to her neck and back to meet her eyes.

“Here I am. Alive. Unmurdered, as you say.”

Officer Voros looks him up and down, frowning. This is definitely the same guy, that’s not a common scar after all, but he’s clearly not just unmurdered, but very significantly undamaged. “Didn’t you have a hell of a lot of shattered bones?”

Isaiah shrugs. “Modern medicine is a miracle.”

Officer Voros just blinks at him. She doesn’t believe him for a moment. “And I don’t suppose you might be able to tell me how you managed to make your way so secretly out of the hospital that they felt compelled to report you as a missing person?”

“Sorry, no. Not sure what the miscommunication was there. Quite obviously, I left the hospital.”

“Quite. Obviously. Of course.”

Isaiah smiles wanly. “Am I in trouble?”

Officer Voros continues looking him over suspiciously. “I suppose not. You left your paperwork from the hospital.” She hands him a stack of paperwork and billing statements. “Somehow.”

Isaiah takes the papers. “Oh, thanks.”

“And the belongings you came in with. Are still at the hospital.”

“Oops.”

“And a bunch of shit I’m guessing belongs to you is all left at another cheap motel.”

“You think?”

“No,” Officer Voros snaps. “I try to avoid thinking whenever I can. But I do think some weird ass shit is involved here with you.”

Isaiah’s hand twitches slightly, and he presses his lips together. “Hm.”

“But shit being weird isn’t my problem. Not my jurisdiction. So I suppose I don’t give a fuck. Glad you’re not murdered. Take care. Call your friends, they’re pretending to be worried about you.” She heads back to her patrol car.

Isaiah slowly lets out a tensely held breath.

Officer Voros sits in the parking lot, wrapping up her report. She tries calling Faoust from her blocked number. He answers, not knowing any better.

“Solid citizen! Faoust right? Your favorite friend-finding officer here. Found your friend.”

“Oh my god! Where was he? Is he ok?”

“He’s better than ok, considering the state I last saw him in. Damn near miraculous recovery. He’s just outside of town, another motel not far off the highway.”

“Oh man, thanks so much for finding him. I'll have to go see him. Are you able to give me the address?”

“That depends, are you going there to murder him?”

“Why the hell would Igo there to murder him?”

“Aaaa I’m just fucking with you. I’ve got a nice neat solved missing persons case here and if you went and murdered him it would just be an assfuck of paperwork that I don’t want to have to deal with is all.”

“Fucked up joke, officer.”

“Yeah, file a complaint on me if you’d like. Oh, right, address,” she says, and gives him the address and room of the Quality Inn where Isaiah is staying.

“Thank you. Despite the fucked up joke, I'm glad you found him.”

“Just doing my sworn duty and all that. Stay safe citizen,” she says and hangs up.

Without fully realizing it, Officer Voros has solved the first missing persons case in the department in nearly a year.

Officer Voros always keeps a spare portable radio among her belongings. She managed to get it more or less off the record, so that when she inevitably loses track of her actual radio again, she can make do with the backup until the original eventually resurfaces, and not get all manner of shit from her corporal for losing her radio AGAIN. She doesn’t think hard on the fact that her radio is once again MIA. It will turn up in time.

In his motel room, Isaiah switches the radio on, and fiddles between channels.

Isaiah lays on the bed, one hand manipulating the knife—open, closed, open, closed, each motion with a satisfying little sound—the other hand resting on the radio on his chest, occasionally following the chatter of traffic to a side channel. An officer keys up, her voice annoyed and muttering over sounds of entitlement in the background—“6676 to 200, switch to 2”—and Isaiah flips the radio to channel 2, partly because he is curious and partly because it sounds like the officer from the other night.

The officer keys up, he’s quite sure it’s her, and a voice that sounds like it expects the world laid compliantly at its feet cuts through the backdrop of everything the officer says

6676: 200 you on?

—this is AMERICA, I have RIGHTS, I demand to speak to your SUPERVISOR, I—

200: go’on whatcha got

—what is your NAME, no WHAT is your NAME—

6676: *you can hear the eye roll in her voice* can you just come over here and deal with this.

There’s a final indignant “do you even KNOW” in the background before the supervisor cuts over the traffic to advise he’s en route. Isaiah’s thumb closes the knife again with a sense of finality. He doesn’t care about the officers, but the woman in the background had the sort of voice you’d love to cut right out of her throat.

Isaiah sits up, goes to put the radio aside but pulls it back in front of him again. He focuses on the radio, whatever traces of grit and grime and little skin cells from the officer still stick to the plasticky radio, and does a tracking spell. He switches the radio off, puts it on the bedside table, and grabs his jacket on the way out the door.

Isaiah returns to his motel room. Hands clean. Knife clean.

He did not appear with an ear-splitting bang, as the witch does. He knows ways to move through shadows and though it isn’t instantaneous, it’s a hell of a lot quieter. Isaiah remained in the shadows, waiting. There, yes, the officer from the other night, and there, that must be 200, the human embodiment of an industrial refrigerator crossed with a boulder, and there. Jabbing her finger, practically frothing at the mouth, hair crisply cut, every line in her body set in the conviction of her own righteousness and that she should get what she wants. Isaiah didn’t even try to listen to what she was saying. It didn’t matter. He waited.

When the officers left, the woman turned to her minivan to get in. Or, that was what she intended to do. But she found as she walked, it was like her body was being pushed and pulled, and the sound had left her voice, and she walked into the shadows across the parking lot.

Without saying a word, Isaiah came up quickly behind her and slit her throat, and before a drop could hit the concrete sent her body and all its rapidly spilling blood deep, deep into the earth below.

Magic cleaned the knife. Magic cleaned his hands. He slipped back into the shadows and hurried to get the hell back out of Faoust’s town.

Isaiah returned to his motel room, everything clean. Feeling a certain ...satisfaction? Correctness? A bit of lost unease dissolved away within him.

Of course, Isaiah reflects on how different this murder was. He flicks the knife, open and closed. When he thinks of himself as he was, he has gotten in the habit of thinking of himself as an entirely separate person now. Asmodai was. Asmodai would have. So on. Asmodai would have taken far more enjoyment from the killing. Asmodai would have tasted the blood on the knife. Asmodai would have savored the delicious fear in her eyes, for as long as possible. Asmodai would have had the possibility of someone to share the experience with, though he resented so much about that fact. Asmodai was an idiot.

Isaiah switches the radio back on, quietly, to have something to listen to, since that’s all he has.

When Officer Voros was handling the latest missing person case early this morning, part of her was perversely satisfied—maybe that bitch descended back to hell where she belonged—and that other part of her, the part made of intuitions that guessed too correctly, that had long ago tried to bring up things that had since gone ignored, the part that she did her best to keep buried, that part felt a sharp jolt of unease. She was, officially, the last person to have seen the missing person. There was a security camera on the other side of the parking lot, and the footage made no sense. The victim—victim? Why was she already thinking victim?—missing bitch, then, started walking to her car, and then turned, and walked off to the far side of the parking lot, into grainy shadow. It didn’t look like someone had called out to her, she just...decided to go on some random bitch walk. In the dark of early morning hours, Officer Voros walked around the spot she went off to, clicking on her flashlight, looking for clues. Nothing.

It seemed appropriate for Isaiah to return to murder on his own...it’s all he knows. He’s not suddenly a good person. He’s not full of remorse for everything he did. It’s all just facts. Things that happened that can’t be changed.

He listens to the radio again today, and thinks with a sort of mirthless chuckle how hypocritical it would be for him to kill some of the people he’s hearing about. “If I were cutting throats for that, have to start with myself,” he thinks, over and over and over. Asmodai craved victims, sought them out. Isaiah is content to see what serendipity will bring.

Isaiah struck out into town yesterday to find a charger for his stolen radio. Listening gives him something to do besides think. He could have just gotten a commercial police scanner, or used an app on his phone to listen in, but that didn’t have the same appeal. He listens carefully, mentally keeping track of the addresses and where the officers are, when it’s announced anyway. The officer from the other night he can find easily enough, but without addresses and nothing to trace them with, magically speaking, finding any of these other officers would be incredibly difficult. Well, to do in a timely fashion anyway.

So he listens, and waits, hoping to feel that same jolt of dead certainty, knowing a voice spoke that would be his to kill.

Isaiah knows. An officer keys up “put me out with an animal problem at” and gives an address, and just before the radio cuts out he hears a man in the background, derisive, say “I don’t understand, it’s just a stupid—“ before being cut off by the end of the transmission. That voice. He felt it, like a nail being slashed at high speed across a chalkboard, a string plucked so hard it snaps, THAT is a man he needs to kill. He is equal parts thrilled and yet feels the calm certainty slipping over him. His knife is ready. He knows where to go. He slips out into the cold rain.

Sliding through shadows. Waiting. The man goes inside, alone. Isaiah slips inside, without a word, the only sound made is his knife blade locking into place. The man finds his voice is gone. The man walks toward Isaiah, against his own will, and kneels before him, fear shining in his eyes. Isaiah looks down, cold, comes around from behind, threads his fingers in the man’s hair and pulls back, hard, exposing his neck. He draws the blade firm and fast across the neck, and like the woman before Isaiah sends the body hundreds of feet into the ground below before a drop of blood can hit the floor.

He looks at the blood on the knife, for a moment, imagines the taste on his tongue like a mouth full of pennies. It doesn’t appeal to him, not right now. Magic cleans the blade, cleans the bit of blood on his hands, cleans the scene of any trace evidence, and Isaiah slips away.

- NEXT SNIPPET -

[crocodilenialledfics]

story page // masterlist // wattpad

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Ten: where did our love go? 

 word count: 4261

warning: This chapter contains mention of mental illness and violence 

“Well a lot of people thought you two were like...” she trailed off with a laugh. “It’s so ridiculous. They thought you two were like lovers or something. I said that was completely...” her humorous tone faded.

Niall knew his face had given it away. Maria could read his eyes. They were lovers. “You’re not here for the money are you?” She asked after a long moment.

“No I’m not,” Niall shook his head, facade crumbling before her.

“This is a very typical Rosalind move, you know?” Maria told him, reaching down to open up her desk drawer. “Leave the men she’d gotten to fall in love with her. I really can’t explain it. She’s like a magnet sometimes.”

3 months later 

Niall could not let Rosalind go. No matter how hard he tried, how badly he wanted to, it wasn’t possible. His chest ached at the absence of her. She put him through hell most days and Niall swore deep down he hated her for it, but most strongly he never wanted to let her go. 

Rosalind disappeared the day after Mario was buried. At least that’s what Luca told him. She’d left him and Maria notes with envelopes of cash and she was gone. 

“She’s not coming back,” Luca told him, voice firm after the millionth phone call. “And why should it matter to you, anyways?“ 

“It doesn’t,” Niall had tried to convince him, voice quiet over the phone. He wanted to tell Luca everything but he didn’t. He kept it to himself. 

It was a shot in the dark. He put a trace out on Rosalind’s plates. Her car was found at LaGuardia. No one knew how long it’d been there. Niall got his hands on their flight history and it seemed almost too good to be true. Would Rosalind really leave the country? Is that the extent of her leaving it all. 

But Niall had been around the shop. He realized that Luca knew nothing. Maria, he learned, had loose lips. She just had a look in her eye like she was waiting for someone to ask so she could spill all of her secrets. 

Niall found himself leaning against Maria’s desk, eyes glued to her as she moved around the room, making him a cup of coffee. 

“I’m sorry Rosalind left without paying you,” Maria said, her back to him. “I really wish I could help you. Unfortunately she’s left without a trace.”

Niall wasn’t convinced. He sat down across from her desk, scratching at his jaw. Soon, Maria set a cup of coffee down in front of him, sliding into her own seat. 

“Rosalind and I were actually kind of like friends,” Niall told her, eyes flicking up to hers, studying her reaction. 

“Rosalind and I weren’t very close,” Maria responded. “So I wouldn’t know her personal affairs. Always tight lipped- unless she was angry of course.”

And Niall felt like this was the moment he could tell her everything. Maria was nice enough, kind eyes that were the same as Rosalind’s. And dark black hair but much shorter. Maria took a slow sip of her coffee, sitting back in her chair. “You know a lot of people thought...” she trailed off, meeting his eyes. “Never mind.”

“No what is it?” He urged. 

“Well a lot of people thought you two were like...” she trailed off with a laugh. “It’s so ridiculous. They thought you two were like lovers or something. I said that was completely...” her humorous tone faded. 

Niall knew his face had given it away. Maria could read his eyes. They were lovers. “You’re not here for the money are you?” She asked after a long moment. 

“No I’m not,” Niall shook his head, facade crumbling before her. 

“This is a very typical Rosalind move, you know?” Maria told him, reaching down to open up her desk drawer. “Leave the men she’d gotten to fall in love with her. I really can’t explain it. She’s like a magnet sometimes.”

Niall knew what she meant. The way he had just gravitated toward her the second he laid eyes on her. From there it was history. A shared cigaret behind the building and then Rosalind had kissed him, fingers in his hair. The memory itself was enough to make Niall lose his breath. 

“Anyways,” Maria concluded. “Here’s an address that she gave me to send money. Whether that’s where she is, I don’t know. She gets transactions every Wednesday. Might be worth the flight, you know, to get the money she owes you.”

Niall met Maria’s eyes from across the desk, taking the scribbled address from her. “Thanks,” he mumbled, looking it over. For a moment he wondered why he had to fall in love with the evil Civella sister. 

“You’re welcome,” Maria told him, a slight smile on her face. “Can I ask how serious it was? Between you two, I mean. In all of Rosalind’s life she’s never had a boyfriend she even remotely liked.”

“Never?” Niall asked. 

“Yeah,” Maria chuckled. “God she dated so many boys who were just like our father. Hated all of their guts. Fought like crazy. Physical, too.”

“Am I like your father?” Niall asked, unable to help himself. 

“Well I don’t know you very well,” Maria smiled, stirring her coffee slowly as her eyes drifted to the wall behind him. “But judging by how quiet and calculating you are, I’d say only in the best ways. It’s good you don’t have the temper that she has, though.”

Niall thought back to the fight they had. The way he’d let his temper get the best of him. How Rosalind had finally said what he wanted to hear and he said all the wrong things. 

“I guess I was surprised when she left,” Maria told him, pulling him from his thoughts. “Because she’d been doing really well, I thought. No physical fights at least.” 

Niall hummed, nodding, “I was surprised too.” 

“Did she kill Mario?” Maria asked, jumping right to it. 

“No,” Niall shook his head. “I have no idea who killed him but it wasn’t her.”

“Are you sure? Falco was hellbent on pinning her to it that morning,” Maria urged. 

“We were together that whole night and the next morning,” he told her, hoping it’d clear her name. “She didn’t do it. She couldn’t.”

“But she was going to have him killed?” Maria asked, eyebrows raising. 

Niall shrugged, “I honestly don’t know. We didn’t talk business.” 

“Right,” Maria nodded. “Well I hope you find her. Tell her to get her ass back home. Brooklyn isn’t the same without her.”

“I’ll pass the message along,” Niall nodded, standing up. He glanced at the address one more time, wondering if this was actually it. If Rosalind would actually run away to Canada,  of all places. The address that would magically fix everything. That was a high hope. 

Niall set off to find her, though. Packed a bag, grabbed his passport and was off to the airport without telling a soul. Just for the fun of it, he called Rosalind’s phone for the hundredth time. It went right to voicemail. 

While he waited for his flight he began to worry about the million sceneries. If he showed up and found Rosalind with another man, if she wasn’t even there, if maria had just thrown him off her scent. 

While on the flight, he convinced himself that Rosalind did owe him money and he was coming to collect his debts since she left without a call. If money was code for love ad debts was code for kisses, that’s Niall’s secret. 

Rosalind was right, though. Life without her was unbearable. He wondered how he could’ve been so stupid, to let this happen. Rosalind and him deserved each other and that was really something. Equally as fucked up after years in the business. They could love the way normal people loved. 

When Niall finally stepped foot in Canada, he had the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be there. The impending feeling that Rosalind would hate him to be here. The air was cool, though. He could tell fall was coming faster around here. 

He felt aimless as he gave the driver the address. The man didn’t ask anything of it, though. He took Niall to the bank, letting him out in front of the building. Niall got out, eyebrows furrowing as he adjusted the bag on his shoulder. It was a family owned bank that looked almost vacant. 

Niall went in, pulling his phone out. He pulled a photo of Rosalind up, walking toward the desk where an older man sat, magazine in hand. “Hi,” Niall said, leaning against the counter. “My name’s James. I’m looking for my wife she told me to meet me here today. This is her,” he showed the man the picture. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,” the man shook his head. “We don’t have very many clients as it is.” 

An older woman came out from the back office, a box in her hand. She saw Niall and smiled, “hello.” 

“Do you know who this is?” The man asked, pointing to the phone. “He’s looking for his wife.”

Niall watched the woman study Rosalind’s face. It took a moment but she smiled again, straightening up. “Of course, that’s Isabella, remember?” 

“Isabella,” the man repeated. It finally clicked I’m his mind and he laughed. “Ah right. Ms. Jones. I hardly recognized her.” 

“Reckon Isabella came in early this morning,” the woman told Niall. “Got her money and well, you know.” 

Niall nodded his head slowly, eyes glancing between them. “Right. Well I appreciate it.” 

“Of course,” the man nodded. “By now she’s probably off to work. What is it?” He asked, looking up at the woman. “That bar on McDermot?” 

“Well surely he knows where his wife works,” the woman waved him off. “It was lovely to meet you. I’m afraid we can’t disclose much about Isabella. She’s a very private person.”

“Of course,” Niall nodded. “I appreciate your help. It’s just,” he sighed. “Isabella and I have been separated. I’m sure she hasn’t mentioned me. Recently we’ve reconnected. We had this fight for months. She wanted kids,

I didn’t. Eventually I came around, realizing that the only thing I want is to make her happy. I was surprised when she told me we were meeting here. We were finally going to put a down payment on a house. I fear she’s changed her mind.” 

Niall watched, the man engrossed by it. The woman, not so much. She looked Niall over, slowly nodding, “I’m sorry to hear that. I could give her a call, if you’d like? She hated to be bothered at work, though.” 

“That’s okay,” Niall shook his head. “I thought she quit her job at the bar, though. Moved down to that restaurant with the white table cloths. Shit, I always forget the name. You know what I’m talking about?” 

“No,” the woman shook her head. “She’s still at the bar, as far as I know.”

“Right,” Niall nodded slowly, pocketing his phone. “Thank you for your help.” 

“You’re welcome,” the man answered. “And good luck with everything.” 

Niall stepped back out onto the street, letting out a sigh. He thought about going right to the bar, confronting her and demanding that she speak to him. He thought better of it, though. 

Maria was right, he was calculating. He wouldn’t mess it up. So Niall got a rental car, and a room at a hotel not far from the bar to wait it out. 

Niall thought about all the things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to make sure she knew just how sorry he was. The rest, he realized was up to her. 

Niall imagined her face a million times. He dreamt about the moment he’d see her again. The way she looked and how she looked at him. Nothing prepared him for the moment he walked into that bar. 

Niall saw her at the bar, filling up a glass while she talked to the man across from her. She laughed at something he said, finally setting the glass down in front of him. He gave her some money and she flashed him a smile, shoving it into her apron. 

Niall unstuck his feet from the floor, finally sliding into a seat at the bar. Rosalind set a Guinness down in front of him, meeting his eyes for the first time in months. “It’s about time,” she said, arms crossing over her chest. 

Niall’s tongue was heavy. He could hardly speak, let alone say everything that he’d thought of. She threw him off, the calmness of her voice, like she knew he’d come all along. 

“Three months,” Rosalind shook her head. “It took you three months to find me? I thought you were better than that?” 

“I didn’t think you wanted me to find you,” Niall told her, voice quiet. 

“If I didn’t want you to find me, do you think I would have given Maria the address?” Rosalind asked, an amusement to her voice. 

“So you knew I’d come?” Niall asked, eyebrows furrowing. He hesitantly wrapped his hand around his glass. 

“Eventually,” Rosalind nodded. 

“So what the fuck was the last three months then?” Niall demanded. “Pure hell for no fucking reason? You put me through that shit for nothing?” 

“Niall,” Rosalind sighed, looking around at the people beginning to stare. “This was never about you. I left because I couldn’t breathe in that city. That was not the person I wanted to be. I didn’t leave to spite you, or to make you pay. I left because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten better.” 

Niall couldn’t stop himself from feeling like it was selfish. Her voice rang in his ears as he remembered her saying, ‘I’m selfish because I have to be.’

“Obviously if you hated me, you wouldn’t have come,” Rosalind told him, shrugging. “I think you came to tell me something. Think about it. I’m here till midnight.” 

Niall let out a sigh, finally picking up his drink. Rosalind moved down the bar, taking orders. He watched her, the skill she had. It looked effortless. Most everything Rosalind did looked effortless.

Niall counted the amount of times he heard Rosalind laugh. It was more than all the time he’s known her. Maybe, he thought, this was where she was meant to be. 

By the time midnight rolled around, Niall felt himself begin to forgive her. He wasn’t angry as he watched her come out of the office, her purse on her shoulder. He thought maybe he was still in love with her. 

“Do you want to talk?” Rosalind asked, nodding toward a booth in the back. 

“Yeah,” Niall nodded. 

Rosalind slid across from him, hands on the table. She focused her eyes on him. Niall let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, meeting her eyes. 

“So how’s things in Brooklyn?” Rosalind asked after a moment.  

“Alright,” Niall shrugged. “Sucks without you.” 

“Winnipeg sucks with you,” Rosalind told him, voice soft. 

“Did you mean it when you broke up with me?” Niall asked, eyes falling to the table. 

“Yeah,” she murmured, fingers tapping against the table. “I think I did. In that moment.”

“I should’ve...” Niall trailed off, shaking his head. “I’m a fuckin’ moron. I should’ve just told you I loved you and-and everything would have been fine.” 

“It wouldn’t have been fine,” Rosalind shook her head. “My anxiety got progressively worse. Me throwing up in the parking lot- you fuckin told me to pull my shit together. That was anxiety and it got a lot worse leading up to Mario’s funeral.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Niall asked, almost desperate. 

“Having a mental illness doesn’t automatically forgive a person’s behaviors,” Rosalind told him, eyebrows furrowing. “And I wouldn’t want that even if you believe that. You never held me accountable. You let me do and say whatever the fuck I wanted.”

Niall didn’t respond, eyes glued to the table. Rosalind sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “I’m on medication. Anxiety shit. Mood stabilizers. I’m in therapy. I don’t smoke anymore. No weed or cigarettes. I hardly drink anymore and I work out every morning. I take my medicine regularly. I’m...” she trailed off. “Niall, look at me.”

Niall finally looked up at her, eyelashes fluttered. She could see the contempt on his face. “I’m doing so good, and I’ve tried so hard to be a better person. Can you see that? Can you at least just acknowledge it?”

“I can see it,” Niall nodded, letting out a sigh. “And it’s a relief that you’re okay. I’m really proud that you’re doing so well. I guess I’m still a bit hurt, though.”

“I know,” Rosalind nodded. “Because we talked about running away.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, shifting in his seat. “And if you’d told me you were moving to fuckin’ Canada, changing your name and becoming this completely new and better person I would’ve been right behind you.”

“I didn’t want you to feel pressured,” Rosalind told him, shaking her head. “I wanted you to come to it on your own. Realize how shitty brooklyn is, and how you can’t live without me.”

Niall chuckled, nodding, “I knew all of that before you ever thought about leaving. I knew Brooklyn was shitty and I knew I couldn’t live without you.” 

“Except we both did,” Rosalind pointed out. “Iived without each other.”

“Barely,” Niall agreed, nodding. “I barely lived without you.” 

“Well I knew you were coming to find me,” Rosalind smiled, head tilting to the side. “So I was okay just waiting for you to come around.”

“It must be nice to be able to see the future so clearly,” Niall teased, feeling himself begin to lighten up. 

Rosalind’s smile spread even wider and Niall was fine. His own smile spread across his face and Rosalind laughed, resting her chin on her hand. “So how long do you plan on staying?”

“I don’t know,” Niall shrugged. 

“Well,” Rosalind murmured. “I have a two bedroom house. It’s kind of small but it has a nice kitchen. I have to be honest, though. It is quite lonely.”

“Lonely?” Niall echoed, eyes meeting hers. “That’s really a shame. Anything I can do to change that?” 

“Maybe,” Rosalind nodded. “Do you know anyone new to Winnipeg that might be looking for a place?” 

“I might,” he nodded, eyes shining. “Your ideal roommate?” 

“He has to be handsome,” Rosalind told him, smiling so wide Niall was almost blinded. “Ruggedly, so.”

“Okay,” Niall drawled out. “I might know a guy.”

“And he’s got to be okay with sleeping in because since I’ve gotten out, the only thing that I ever want to do is sleep in,” she added. 

“I think he’s probably more than okay with that,” Niall agreed. “Any other specific details he should know of?” 

“In my house we only shower together because it’s better for the environment and keeps the water bill low,” she added. 

Niall finally laughed, nodding, “that just might seal the deal.”

“So your guy’s interested?” Rosalind asked, feigning surprise. 

“Of fucking course,” Niall laughed, pulling at his hair. “He’d be an idiot not to be.”

“So you wanna see the place then?” Rosalind asked, shouldering her purse. 

“More than anything,” Niall murmured, standing up. 

Rosalind stood up too, unable to help herself as she wrapped her arms around him. Niall hugged her tight, one arm around her waist, the other hand on her head. Rosalind let out a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut. 

This was all Niall’s ever wanted. 

“You have to call me Isabella,” Rosalind told him as she pulled away. 

“I’m not calling you Isabella,” Niall shook his head. 

“You have to,” she laughed as they began to walk out of the bar. 

“I’ll call you Roz,” he murmured. “Because it’s your fucking name and the only fucking name that looks right on you.”

Niall walked Rosalind to her car, resisting the urge to kiss her. Rosalind looked at him with a smile on her face that he’d never seen before but he knew he’d never get sick of it. Niall wanted to draw it out, he decided. 

Rosalind gave Niall the address, eyes lingering on his. She was giving him the look she always gave him when she wanted to make a move. It was a daring look. 

“I’ll see you soon, then,” Niall told her, stepping back. 

Rosalind chuckled, nodded, “so now you’re playing hard to get?” 

“The tables have turned,” Niall laughed, shrugging. 

Niall took his time getting his things from his room. He checked out, eyes glancing to the clock every couple of seconds. His mind was racing, thinking about everything. Would this be his life? Was this everything that he wanted? 

When Rosalind opened the front door, robe clad with wet hair falling in her eyes and that smile on her face, Niall decided that this was everything to him. 

“I got pizza,” she told him, leaving the door open for him to pizza. “And a couple beers if you want one.”

“Sounds great,” Niall murmured, closing the door behind him. 

“So this is the kitchen,” Rosalind said, gesturing to the room around her. “Kind of small but we make it work. And then living rooms in there.” 

Niall followed her into the living room, looking around. It reminded him of the place she had in Brooklyn. There wasn’t much to it, but somehow it all made sense. 

“And then a bathroom over there,” she pointed to a door. “Upstairs we have both of the bedrooms and another bathroom.” 

Rosalind brought him upstairs, showing him the spare room which had a few stray boxes and things in it. And then the bathroom, which had a bathtub and a shower, which obviously Rosalind loved. 

And then she flicked the bedroom light on, showing him the bedroom. “You can put your bag anywhere,” she told him, walking in. “But yeah, the bedroom.”

Niall set his bag down on the floor beside the bed, nodding, “I like it.” 

“So you’ll stay, then?” Rosalind asked, leaning against the doorframe. 

“I might need convinced,” Niall told her. “After all, you did leave without even telling me.” 

“That’s fair,” Rosalind chuckled, nodding. “How much convincing do you need? Like a pizza and a beer convincing or is this one of your plans to get a blowjob out of me?” 

Niall laughed, walking past her, “all of the above, I think.” 

They took to the couch, a beer for Niall and a glass of wine for Rosalind. They devoured the pizza, leaving only a few pieces of crust in the box. 

Rosalind told Niall about the bar, how she’d gotten her job. She confessed that she didn’t need it. Not even a little. All she’d done for the last how many years was save her money in obscure places. 

Niall agreed, a job was probably unnecessary. He too had more than enough for them to be well off together. But Rosalind convinced him otherwise. 

Rosalind reached forward, setting her now empty glass of wine on the coffee table. “We should travel,” she told him, shifting back on the couch, eyes on him. 

“Yeah,” Niall agreed, glancing over at her. 

“Do you want kids?” Rosalind asked him, propping her feet on the table. 

Niall chuckled, “yeah. You?” 

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I think so.” 

“Roz,” he said, chuckling. “I don’t know how to tell you this but, we have to get married.”

“Married?” Rosalind laughed, eyebrows raising. “You haven’t even moved in and you want to get married.” 

“Think about it,” Niall explained, looking over at her. “We’ve been doin this shit for what two years? We successfully dodged an FBI investigation. You convinced me to run away with you and I’m pretty sure that we just agreed to have kids together. We’ve got to get married.”

“It’s crazy how you turned all of that into a marriage scheme,” Rosalind murmured, shaking her head. “Sneaky, I’d say.”

“Well,” Niall shrugged. 

“I’m afraid we can’t get married, though,” Rosalind told him. “I don’t want to give up my last name and the last thing that I want is a fuckin’ Irish last name.”

“Fuck off,” Niall laughed, shaking his head. “You’re so full of shit.”

“I’m serious,” she laughed. 

Niall reached for her, pulling her closer by her wrist, “come here,” he muttered. 

Rosalind laughed, letting him pull her toward him. She wound up on his lap, straddling him. Niall shook his head, pushing the hair off of her shoulder, “you’re going to take my last name.”

“I might need some convincing,” Rosalind told him, shrugging. 

Niall couldn’t help his smile as his hands drifted to her waist. He thought about laying her out on the couch to convince her properly. Or taking her to bed to convince her. All Niall wanted to do was look at her, and watch her, and admire the person she’d become. 

Rosalind kissed him first, diving down to catch his lips in a painfully slow kiss. Her hands found his hair, and suddenly Niall lost all the thoughts in his head. 

His hands on her hips, wanting to roam, but feeling like he should take it at her pace. He did, letting her untie her robe, letting it slip from her shoulders, her eyes glued on his eyes. 

Niall had spent so long thinking she was a new person, that he’d forgotten that she was exactly the same, just better. Better for him, she’d tell him, lips ghosting over his. Niall knew that she was better for herself, so she could be better for him. 

As Niall kissed at her neck, Rosalind held onto his shoulders to save from falling over. Her eyes slipped shut and she hummed, “fine. I’ll take your last name. As long as you stay with me forever.”

“That means you love me?” Niall asked, pulling away to get a look at her face.

Rosalind smiled, eyes fluttering open. “Of course I love you.” 

Note: There is actually one more chapter left, an epilogue! 

taglist: @swasanfrancisco​ @halluciniall​ @coconutdawn​ @exoticniall​ @missy14us​ 

[ventura-starlight]

𝑻𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝑻𝒆𝒍𝒍

A/N: So hehe hello to the people of Tumblr. Remember when I said I was going to write stuff? Yeah me neither. Anyways sorry for not writing like I said I would. I’m taking a little break from TLTNH so I can work on something else. This is an idea I had based on a post where a serial killer and a writer are dating. I have it reblogged on my dash if you want to look at it. As I am a true crime fanatic I kinda loved the idea. I couldn’t bring myself to write this for Draco or people I have written for before so I asked some friends and family and we kind of decided Neville Longbottom would be an interesting serial killer. But then I remembered how sweet he was and I couldn’t do it. So here we are with my original baby Loki! Only a few people may remember when I wrote for him in like….October. It’s been a while but I do remember reading a fan fiction based on this a while back and if you can let me know who they are I would really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy this and please give me some feedback!

Warnings: murder...duh but not graphic really, some crazy murderer talk, maybe like a few bad words but like….they aren’t too bad, andddd I think that’s it

Pairing: Serial Killer!Loki x Author! Reader

Word count: 1,232 (I’m so freaking proud!)

Loki’s POV

Today was an interesting day. It had been a while since I found her in a coffee shop. She looked young, probably 20 maybe 21. This day was a nice one and perfect for another “little accident” as I call them. When she walked home I followed her from a distance until she got to her house. The day seemed to drag on as I waited for a good time. It was probably 1:13 in the morning when I walked into her apartment. It was small, not surprising for living in New York. I tiptoed into her room and found her asleep soundly. Her chestnut hair flowed on her pillow and for a moment I felt bad for her. Of course, that only lasted for a short period of time. I grabbed one of her pillows that was discarded on the floor and began to press it on her face. I had only tried this method once before, wanted to see if I could do it better this time. She struggled of course but she wasn’t quite strong enough to overpower me. After a while her body stilled and I checked her pulse…dead. I set the pillow back where it was and began the trek home.

When I got home to my apartment I was honestly exhausted. I grabbed a bottle of Merlot off of one of the shelves in my kitchen. I poured a glass and sat it on the island as I got a book I had been reading. I had discovered this writer, Y/N L/N, about 3 weeks ago and I couldn’t stop reading their novels. Now as I kill for sport I have never loved murder mystery and crime novels because they were never realistic. But this author...wow. It’s like they just know what it’s like to see the light drain out of someone’s eyes. I was reading until the sun came up and I decided I should get ready for work. Being a detective and being a murderer is an interesting combination, to say the least. Sometimes I cover my victim’s cases and although it may be sick I get an overwhelming sense of pride. To see my work investigated. And as I got finished getting ready for work my associate Natasha Romanov informed me of a new case we would look at today. A young woman found dead by her boyfriend. When the cops arrived they discovered that she had been suffocated. And once again I go to work and start a new day.

Your POV

I was stuck. Absolutely stuck. I can only come up with so many murders for my stories before they get repetitive. My books were getting more attention nationally and my fans wanted more. I was so stuck and had no clue what to do. As I finished the eighth cup of coffee that week (it was Tuesday) I decided to watch the news. Once again the breaking news was a murder. This one was slightly suspicious. “Woman killed by suffocation and discovered by boyfriend.”....I think the boyfriend did it. Well, at least that is what seems most likely. It could have been an intruder but damn that dude must be good to not leave a trace of being there at all. It was a tricky one indeed but I had to get back to work.  

I finally got dressed and packed my bag with my computer deciding to walk down to a cafe down the street. I had only been there a few times but it was cozy. It had many comfy couches that littered the wooden and industrial style of the building. I loved the pastries too and whenever I wrote there I just felt like it helped me type the words quicker (okay but I need this place lol). I walked in and got my usual coffee order and a strawberry danish and went to sit in my usual place in the back of the shop. I parked my butt on the comfy leather couch and began brainstorming some ideas for my writing.

Loki’s POV

I walked by a cafe on my way home feeling terribly exhausted. Sometimes it is just hard to pretend that you didn’t kill the person you are trying to find justice for, but I guess it’s all in a day’s work. I walked into the warm cafe around 7 o’clock. After I ordered a drink I noticed a striking young woman in the sitting typing away on her laptop. She was gorgeous with Y/H/L, Y/H/C hair, and absolutely stunning eyes. Although I see a lot of very pretty people this one is different, I just couldn’t look away from her.  She must have felt my eyes practically burning holes into her skull because she looked up and we made eye contact. She smiled and blushed as she looked back at her computer. I felt a light heat dust my face as I chuckled softly. I walked over and sat near her. She looked up again as I began to introduce myself.

“Hello there, I am sorry if this is a tad odd but I just saw you and I couldn’t look away.” she giggled softly as I continued, “Anyways my name is Loki.” I reached out my hand to shake hers she smiled and shook mine. Her hands were so soft and lovely.

“My name is Y/N, it’s nice to meet you Loki.” I gently said her name and it clicked. This beautiful woman wasn’t just that but she was the author that I loved. I tried to remain calm and asked what she was working on. “Oh uh...it’s a book I’m writing.” She stumbled her cheeks turning a tad bit pinker. She was absolutely adorable. “I have written some novels in the past and I am working on the next one currently.” I could hardly take it anymore and had to say something.

“So that’s where I know you from.” I began as her light blush turned a tad bit more crimson. “I love your writing by the way. It’s so real and interesting. I used to hate crime novels until I read yours.” She laughed and quietly thanked me. We sat in comfortable silence for a moment when I decided to ask for her number.

“Oh! O-of course!” She handed me a piece of paper with her number scribbled on it. 

“I would like to see you again if possible Y/N” She simply nodded in agreement. A quiet one I think. “I will talk to you soon darling” and with that, I walked out of the cafe waving in a small goodbye to the sweet author.

Your POV

My cheeks were still warm when Loki waved goodbye to me. I am not sure what just happened. A very attractive guy who also likes my novels wants to see me. He asked for my number and I gave it to him. If I was standing I am pretty sure my legs would’ve given out. Maybe he would catch me...no stop it. I had made some progress at that point and it was getting late so I went home thinking of the near-stranger Loki. What would happen from here? A few dates? Or would this be something more? I’m getting terribly ahead of myself here. I guess only time will tell.

𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒉, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒍𝒍

@70swonderpoisonstark @anotheronebitestheskye @brianmydear @casuallywriting @fantasticnewtimagines @silversslytherin @ashtonsbabe706 @hunter-with-a-tardis @ghullehh @perrythefrickinplatypus @living-through-the-fictional @fire-in-her-veinz @regalillegal @a-hopeless-fan

🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~🥀~

[larryssunflower]

The Non-Royal Romance, part nine

Read past parts to catch up!

one   two   three   four   five   six   seven   eight

Tagging usuals but if you wish to be removed or added let me know <3 

@simplyaiden-blog   @butindeed  @mfackenthal  @addictedtodrakefanfic@confessionsofabrokegirl @american-duchess @drakelover78 @monosodiumglutamateme @crookedslimecreatorpasta  @mrsdrakewalkerblog  @traeumerinwitzhelden  @gardeningourmet  @speedyoperarascalparty @agent-zephyrkah @liam-rhys-x-mc-x-constantine@snyggflicka @texaskitten30 @annekebbphotography  @irishwhiskys-blog@nomadics-stuff  @msjr0119 @catlady0911 @twinkle-320 @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @drakewalker04  @bigmemesplz @jovialyouthmusic @sleepwalkingelite  @choices-lurker @pintobomb  @moneyfordiamonds​@mskaneko​  @lauzales  

The following night with Drake replays in my head as my mother and I ascend into the bright sky in our jet. I bite my lip, looking out the window. Drake was someone different last night... he was so possessive, passionate... it makes me shiver just thinking about the way he touched me. After our makeout sesh, I had heard my name being called and reluctantly returned to the party. When the party eventually came to an end, I went to my room to find a note from Drake on my dresser which said, in scribbled handwriting which seemed to suit him well,  ‘Had to leave for rounds otherwise I would be here with you. Can’t wait to see you soon, D’. Which was alright, it gave me some time to celebrate alone.

I still sense that he is uncertain about us. He is clearly an ethical person and I can tell he doesn’t think that much of himself. But the fact that he ignored all that because he needed to be with me last night makes my heart flutter. “Alana? Are you okay? You haven’t spoken much,” my mother comments, making me jump slightly. “Oh, sorry, just thinking,” I say with a smile. She smiles back knowingly. “Big night tonight,” she says with a teasing tone, making me blink in surprise. It’s come so soon. My coronation ball. “Yeah! It’s crazy,” I nod with a hopefully not noticeably fake tone. My mother moves from her seat to sit across from me, taking my hands in hers.

“Alana,” she says, her tone serious, making my blink my eyes at her in surprise. “I know it’s a very big decision. But your family before you have done it for many years. I did it. You can do it too,” She pauses for a moment, a certain look in her eyes as she seems to stare into my soul. “It is a tough and monumental decision, but I can tell you’ve already found your love,” She says confidently, taking me by surprise. “It’s obvious, you are glowing just thinking about him,” my mother grins, taking me aback. I didn’t realize I was being so transparent. “I-I mean-“ I stutter, and she just laughs lightly. “No need to explain anything, I can wait until tonight, just like everyone else,” Mother says with a wink, getting up and heading to the restroom near the back of the plane.

As she walks away my smile disappears. I take in a deep breath, rubbing my temples. What am I going to do?

All I want is to be with Drake again. To feel the electricity between us and kiss those lips again. It seems insane to even think about being with someone else when what seems to be my soulmate is standing right in front of me. There is just so much shit stacked up against us. 

Then there is Liam. Liam is safe. Stable. Sweet. He‘s a good kisser and cares about me. Also a noble, so no issues with tonight. He just- isn’t Drake. Liam doesn’t consume my thoughts. He doesn’t kiss me the way Drake does, or make my stomach do backflips the way Drake does.

But I have to choose someone.

A deep feeling of dread starts to eat away at my chest. I have no option. But I should, right? I deserve to be with the man I want, not the man I feel obligated to be with.

As I glance out the window at the sparse clouds and bright sparkling ocean, a recurring insecurity rises in me. The ever-present doubt in my mind that I'm not supposed to be royalty. I can barely connect with my country in the way a ruler should, I haven’t spoken directly to the Cordonian public before, and it doesn't help that the idea of actively running this country makes me want to run away as fast as possible.

Obviously an amazing thing to panic about the day of my coronation.

I sink into my seat, burrowing my face in my hands. Fuck.

Our plane touches down on the tarmac and slows to a stop, prompting a group of workers to push a flight of stairs up against our jet. A limousine pulls up at the end of the stairs to take my mother and me to the palace and our press conference. We step into the dignified limousine and I start to feel myself sweat with anxiety. 

The drive to the palace is short, thanks to the police escort. I haven’t spoken to the Cordonian public directly before. I have indirectly, through reporters, but that is the extent. The nearer we come to the palace, the quicker my heart hammers in my chest. As we pull up to the back entrance, I can hear the crowd, a sick feeling fall over me. My hands start to feel slick and I rub them on the fabric of my dress. I wish Drake was here and I could feel that reassuring hand like I did that one night in the blizzard. Even just having him by my side would send a wave of reassurance over me. A memory of him opening my door, and holding his hand out to me to help me out of the car flashes as the door to the limo opens. I take the unfamiliar hand of some guard, smiling through the sadness. I miss him.

My mother and I walk through the palace, making our way to the entrance for the press conference. We eventually reach the podium and the sheer number of people gathered makes my knees weak. They cheer loudly as my mother and I stand together, and my heart hammers unpleasantly. I try to keep a calm look and clasp my hands tightly in front of me to hide the shaking. My eyes dart around the crowd, trying to calm myself down by memorizing faces when I reach a familiar face staring right at me. My heart skips a beat and that wave of calmness washes over me as I look into his deep brown eyes. An unfamiliar feeling falls over me as I look at him. The only way to describe it is an overwhelming feeling of appreciation and adoration. My lips part in shock at the feeling. Drake nods at me encouragingly, a smile on his lips. I reciprocate his smile, looking down for a moment to breathe. What was that?

My attention switches to my mother as the clapping slows and she begins to talk. “Dear Cordonains, thank you for being here today. As many of you know, tonight is the coronation of my dear eldest daughter, Alana,” She says gesturing a hand to me, and the crowd cheers. I smile to them with a polite wave, my gaze lingering on Drake’s face. As usual. “Alana has a big decision to make tonight and following the coronation ceremony, she will become your Queen.” Drake looks down at those words, making my heart sink. My mother continues with her speech and I try to concentrate on the words coming out of her mouth but all I hear is the blood rushing in my ears making her words muffled. I am going to be queen tonight. Holy shit. How am I supposed to do this? It was easy to pretend that this night wasn't going to come eight weeks ago, but now it has gotten serious. I am not prepared for this. 

Before I know it, the press conference is over, and my mom is gently leading me inside. 

---- 

I numbly stand under my showerhead, my mind wandering. Could I just run away? Create a whole new identity, and live my life like a normal person? I’m certain there are more qualified people who would do a much better job than me. I shake my head at myself and rinse out my conditioner. I need to be responsible and carry out my duties as needed. I would break my mother’s heart if I ran away. I turn off the water and dry myself off and wrap my bathroom across my body. I can do this.

After my shower, a small group of makeup artists come in, plop me in a chair, and start to primp me up. One pair works on my hair, drying and styling it into an intricate updo, topping it off with my tiara which I have despised my whole life. The other pair work on my makeup and nails, doing a great job and talking excitedly to me and each other. I try to be happy about all this because I should be right? I should be looking forward to being primped and the object of attention for an entire night, but the idea gives me hives. Luckily the group working on making me look prim and proper are finished, I thank them gratefully and they walk out the door, still talking in raised and excited voices.

Once they leave I shut my door, leaning against it for a second to calm myself down. I then pace my room in my robe, my feet padding on the wooden floors. What the hell am I supposed to do? How am I going to go out there, choose a husband, leave Drake, and become the leader of a country in one night? I collapse onto my bed, urging myself not to cry and ruin the work my makeup team worked hard on. This was a mistake. This whole thing.

A knock sounds and I jump up. Gingerly, I walk over to the door, unrealistically hoping that Drake is on the other side, ready to comfort me. I open the door and instead see Allie standing there, a huge grin on her face and a large garment bag. “Heyyy!” She sings, holding the bag up happily. I smile and let her in. “Oh my god, you look so hot!” She exclaims, hugging me. I laugh. “Heh, thanks. Not my work though, that makeup team surely is something,” I say, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “He will love it,” Allie gleams. I frown for a second. I never told her about Drake and I. At least not yet. “Who?” I ask and she laughs as she delicately places the garment bag on my bed. “Liam,” She says, confused. “You are picking him, aren't you?” She asks, turning to me.

I sigh and shake my head. “I don't think I can,” I say uncertainly. “What? Why? You guys seemed so close at the Beaumont Bash and Max told me he adores you.” Allie gushes, making me sigh. That makes it so much worse. “I just don't feel for him the way I should. I- I think I'm falling in love with someone else.” I say before my brain can even process it, my voice cracking. That's what I felt earlier. I am falling in love with Drake. “Who?” Allie asks, shocked. “Drake. My old bodyguard. At the Applewood Manor, he kissed me after saving me from that Tariq situation, and at the Bash, we kissed again. I- I don't know Allie. There is just something about him that I care so much about. He fills me with this overwhelming appreciation and calmness when I look into his eyes.  I have never felt this way about anyone. When we are together, my heart starts pounding relentlessly in an incredible way. His smile brings butterflies to my stomach and his touch is electric. I don't know how I'm supposed to choose someone else when I know I only want him,“ I finish talking, taking a breath and looking down slightly embarrassed by my over-sharing. 

I look back up to see Allie looking at me with a look of amazement. “Damn. Alana you cannot let him go. You have never spoken about anything or anyone that way before,” Allie says, starting to unzip my garment bag. “You need to get into this dress, go to that ball, and fuck it, choose who you love. Who gives a shit what anyone else thinks, this is your life,” Allie finishes confidently, making me smile. “You have no idea how much I needed that,” I grin breathlessly. She smirks, pulling out my dress, a Cordonian baby blue ballgown with ornate golden designs around the hem and chest. “Woah,” I say, impressed gently stroking the designs. “Let's get you dressed lovebird,” Allie laughs, making me chuckle, feeling excited for the first time today. 

Allie helps me into my gown and tightens it for me. Before I know it, its time for the ball to begin. Maxwell barges in excitedly to escort us to the ball. Once he sees me, he tears up, patting his eyes dramatically like an elderly woman. “Oh Alana, you look amazing!” He gushes, running over to hug me. “Careful of the dress and hair!” Allie exclaims, but I hug him tightly anyway. “God, you two are a nightmare,” Allie mutters. We break the hug and Maxwell turns to Allie, caressing her cheek. “A hot nightmare I hope,” He grins, making Allie roll her eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Whatever Fabio, we need to get Alana to her ball so get out of the way,” Allie orders, making Max back up, smirking. “Bossy, mhm I like it,” He comments with a wink, making Allie groan, grabbing my arm and practically dragging me out the door. I watch amusedly as Max rushes after us. 

---

Eventually, the three of us make it to the doors of the ball. Allie kisses my cheek and then Max’s. “I'll see you guys after, good luck!” She says and I stop her. “Oh hell no, I need you in there,” I say, my eyes wide. “Alana, I'm not on the list, I only got to come in because I was giving you your gown,” She says quietly. I roll my eyes and turn to the guard by the entrance. “Hey, Milligan, this is Allie, and she is not on the list by mistake. She will be back shortly dressed appropriately, then you shall let her in, no questions asked.” I order in a dignified tone. “Of course, your highness,” He says, bowing slightly. 

“Alana,” Allie says, but I stop her. “I want you there, and you can keep Maxwell company. Just go up to my room and borrow one of my dresses, I don’t mind. Just hurry!” I say with a smile, making her grin widely. “Thanks, Al,” She says, giving me a hug. “Also it will probably piss Bertrand off, so I'm all for it. I would never object to spending a whole night with you,” Max smiles, making Allie give him a quick kiss. “I swear I love you even more. Okay, see you guys soon!” She says, before rushing away to my room. “Thanks for that Alana,” Max says and I shake my head. “Oh it was purely selfish I assure you,” I say with a wink, and he just nods with a grin, facing towards the main doors of the ballroom. I back slightly to the side as the doors open and announce him into the ball. He gives me a thumbs-up before heading in. The doors close again, and my mother appears. “Ready Darling?” She asks, looping her arm in my elbow. I smile, nerves eating away at me. I ignore them and focus on my mother. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, and she smiles widely, leading me gently to the doors. They suddenly open, the bright lights blind me for a moment, the only thing holding me down being my mother’s arm as she leads me in. As my eyes adjust, I scan the decadent ballroom. They didn’t spare any expense that's for sure. Ornate chandeliers I have never seen before loom above the large crowd of nobles and suitors. They watch as we enter, making the uncomfortable feeling of being watched overcome me yet again. I don't think I will ever get used to it. We find our way to our thrones, and I try to sit delicately, even though I feel like collapsing onto it in dread. After we settle down, the music starts up again, and people begin to dance while others socialize and drink various cocktails and liquors. I watch the dancers for a minute as it has always calmed me down. 

I enjoy observing dancers as they sway, spin, and twirl to the music. It’s truly an art form and a great way to people-watch. A majority of my childhood was spent people-watching outside palace windows and sneakily around a corner while my mother held parties. Wondering what lives they held, who they loved, hated, what their deepest secrets were. Dancing is a vulnerable and beautiful form of expression. You can tell someone’s mood, their thoughts, just by the way they waltz. The way they hold themselves, how they look at their partners, etc. It's compelling. My eyes wander from couple to couple, observing how they look at each other. I see Neville dancing with some poor girl, his nose in the air, not even glancing at her as he swings her violently around the dancefloor. I try to hold a snigger. I spot Liam dancing with one of my younger cousins, Elaine. She is around 8 and standing on his feet. He grins as he swings her around, making her shriek with laughter. A group of women watches, swooning and talking about him to each other. He is definitely the charmer, that's for sure. He notices my staring, winking and flashing his grin. I smile politely before looking away. Guilt eats away at my chest. He probably thinks I will choose him.

As I glance around the room, and the main doors open. Allie walks in, wearing one of my dresses, a black dress which elegantly falls on her figure. I make a mental note to give it to her as it never fit right on me. I smile as Max sees her and rushes over to capture her in a kiss. They really are perfect for each other. As I watch them, I notice a smaller door opening on another empty looking wall. The security guard beside it turns and switches places with... Drake. They nod to each other, and the other guard goes through the door, closing it behind him. 

Drake clasps his hands in front of him, scanning the room, a searching look on his face. His eyes Immediately find mine and he stops. His gaze softens as he takes me in. ‘Beautiful’ he mouths, making my heart flutter and my cheeks heat up. I bite my lip as I smile at him. God, I definitely love him. He tries to surpress his smile, trying to be professional, as always. He looks down and gradually the smile fully fades. He clenches his jaw and looks back up at me, a vulnerable look on his face. Dread. My face falls as I remember the situation at hand. I blink back tears, forcing myself to look away. I take a deep breath and sutuate myself. I have to make a plan. I can’t leave Drake and I need to figure out how I can make it possible for us. 

Tonight will be monumental, thats for sure.

---

Sorry if this is a cliffhanger! I cannot wait for the next chapter hehe! This social isolation/ quarantine thing is great for my writers block. I apologize for how long this took me but my life has been crazy and im looking forward to spending this break writing! I hope you all are doing okay in this crazy time and this could possibly make your day better! Love you all and see you again for another chapter! Also sorry for the lack of Drake but there will be more than enough next time ;)

[linane-art]

Wales Comic Con - Saturday

My experiences after the first day of the Con under the cut:

Dean 1

(In the autographs section. Dean only ever seems to have a short queue, 4-5 people, which I find sad, but understandable, considering the amount of Doctor Who and Good Omens craziness going on)

Me: I don't actually want anything, but I wanted to give you a gift.

Dean: Oh, is it from Santa? (Gift bag says 'special delivery from Santa')

Me: No, I'm afraid in this case it's just from me.

Dean: Oh, okay, what is it?

Me: Well, I understand you've just had a little one, who you've waited for for a very long time. So I made you a baby blanket!

Dean: Oh, a baby blanket?

Me: Well, it kept growing, so it's actually more like a toddler blanket now.

Dean: A baby blanket is actually really useful! Coz what we do is we chuck a blanket outside onto the grass and she likes playing out there. So blankets are good!

Me: Great! But presumably you're going back on a plane, right?

Dean: Yes.

Me: So is this going to be a problem? Because it's bulky and heavy? Because if yes, I'm perfectly happy to mail it to your agent or wherever else you like.

Dean: Well, actually that would be good, because I pretty much didn't bring any luggage with me. But now I feel bad about causing you an extra cost!

Me: No, it's no problem at all! I'll get it sent! To your agent? The address on the internet?

Dean: Yeah, the NZ one. Well, at least let me get you an autograph!

Me: No, I don't really need one...

Dean: Come on, on the house!

Me: Okay, go on then.

Dean: *Scribbles an autograph*

Me: And then I also brought something extra... *Pulls out 3 mini bottle Welsh whiskey sampler set* I figured you might need sleeping aids these days.

Dean: What is it? *Eyes it*

Assistant: Ooooooh, that's the good stuff, you want that! It's Welsh whiskey!

Dean: But I can't take that on the plane!

Assistant: Drink it tonight!

Dean: Oh yeah! That'll be for tonight with Aidan then! Thanks! *Keeps the set, puts it to one side*

Me: Awesome! Well, hope you'll enjoy it, and I'll get the baby blanket sent! I think it should even get there before Christmas!

Dean: Appreciate it! Seeya!

(Dean is very Kiwi about everything. Practical, cool, focussed. I think I built myself up too much with my blanket...)

---

Aidan 1

Aidan: Hi, how are ya? How you doing? *Shakes hands with me*

Me: I'm good! You must be really bored by now of saying 'hi, how are you' to people!

Aidan: Nah, it's always great meeting new people, I enjoy it! *Lean back, stretch, ARMS*

Me: *gathering my wits about me* Well I'm after an autograph, but I also come bearing gifts! *Proceeds to explain the details of the autograph*

Aidan: *scribbling* Did you say you came bearing gifts?

Me: I did! I got you some mince pies -

Aidan: Mince pies? Nice...

Me: - And then there's this... *Pulls out 3 mini bottle Welsh whiskey sampler set*

Aidan: *helps me pull it out* Ooooooh!

Me: I thought with you being Irish you might want to compare and contrast...

Aidan: *opening the box, smiling*

Me: Or perhaps you might want to share it with Dean tonight, because Dean has had his own supply -

Aidan: Tonight?! *Comparing the bottles, picks one, opens*

Me: Oh! You wanted to try -

Aidan: *Lifts the lift of his coffee cup to the side, starts pouring the whiskey, looking happier by the minute -*

Aidan: *- and pouring*

Aidan: *- and pouring*

Aidan: *until the bottle is empty. Stashes it under the table. Takes a sizeable sip, little tasting, face lights up like the sun*

Aidan: Oh yeah!

Nearby people: *giggles*

Me: Right.

Aidan: Thank you so much, that's great!

Me: No problem! Glad you like it! Thank you so much for coming despite your schedule changes and not canceling on us!

Aidan: No, it's a pleasure! Thank you and take care now! Have a great Con!

(Aidan is very warm and genuine. What you see on the screen is exactly what you get in real life. I think he doesn't so much act as he just wanders in front of the camera and delivers lines, as himself, whilst looking pretty. I have seen the staff ask him to go quicker, coz the queue was slow. He said: "I'm going exactly as fast as I want to be going". Everybody got 3-5 mins conversation with him, a handshake or a hug and an authentic interaction. Aidan was meant to be there 12-3. He was still there around 5 from what I've seen.)

---

Dean 2:

Me: Hi, me again! This time on business!

Dean: Oh, hello!

Me: *Explains details of an autograph I need*

Dean: *Proceeds to scribble an autograph*

Aidan: *Shouting from the next table* Hey, Dean!

Dean: *Eyes him*

Aidan: *Pulling out a giant bottle of some alcohol someone gave him in a brown paper bag, looking positively gleeful*

Dean: *Automatically reaches for his little whiskey set* I got some too!

Me: I feel out-done now! Next time you're getting a bigger bottle!

Dean: *laughs*

---

Other things I've seen:

Aidan making a little scrap paper ball and tossing it at Dean to get his attention

Dean picking up a BB Gandalf and hoisting him on his hip for a photo. (BB Gandalf was reaching up maybe to my hip, including the entire height of his sizeable pointy hat)

(To the photographer after his first photo op shot) Dean saying: "Let me see, I want to check how I look!" while tossing back his imaginary hair and combing through it with his hand.

I've also seen a lot of big stars and other stars to the tune of: "and who are you and what have I seen you in again?!"

I've met up with @durincrafts @chelidona @silva-13 and @zulfiya-the-warrior-princess​ and had a lovely meal and a catch-up - great meeting you girls!

AND HELD AND PETTED AN ACTUAL LIVE OWL, HOW COOL IS THAT?!

12/10 would recommend! Loved it! So, so tired! Can't wait for tomorrow!

I leave you with this: pictured below is my best friend @wyvernchick and her cute little owl. ...AND THEN THERE'S MY PSYCHO BIRD...

[calpalirwin]

Meddling

Summary: Every story’s gotta start somewhere

A/N: The (way more detailed) origin story nobody asked for because after reading @cxddlyash​‘s spin on the end of this story, I wanted to rework some of it on my end.

Content: Take a wild guess

Word Count: ~4k

And away, and away we go!

__

Caroline Bennett placed a sneakered foot on the rung on her dolly cart, shifting the weight so she could wheel it into the venue. “Merch booth, merch booth, merch booth,” she muttered under her breath as a way to keep her focus on the task at hand rather than how weird it felt to be walking through an arena meant to house far more people than it currently did. If she had to take a guess, there were maybe 50 people or so in the building, compared to the 5,000 that would be pouring through the doors in a matter of hours. But she didn’t care about the 5,000 people because she’d be long gone by then. Right now, her only focus was finding 1 out of 50, because god damn it, how hard could it be to find the fuckin merch table?!

“You’re not Nate,” an accented voice questioned, almost making her lose her grip on her cart with how close it was to her. 

“Jesus!” she exclaimed, hurrying to adjust so the boxes didn’t go flying everywhere. Because that would be what she needed, to spill merchandise all over the place on her first day.

“Somehow I doubt that,” the voice said again, and she could hear the smirk before she saw who it belonged to- a boy, well man, she supposed, of about her age and about a foot taller. Soft brown curls were tightly contained by a bright-red bandana he had plastered to his forehead. If that wasn’t a dead-giveaway as to who he was, the drumsticks in the back pocket of his black skinny jeans sure were. Know everybody’s name, from the top to the bottom, her dad had taught her. “Wanna try again? It’s simple really. I say ‘hey you’re not my regular delivery guy.’ And then you go, ‘No, I’m,’ and then, here’s the crazy part. You tell me your name. And then I tell you mine, and well… you do know how meeting people goes, I hope.”

“Just point me to your promo team,” she scowled.

“Ashton Irwin, at your service.” He did a mock bow, somehow smirking even wider. 

“You’re not the promo team.”

“And you’re not Nate, merch girl. But you clearly do your research.”

“I’m good at my job, you mean.”

“That’s still to be decided. Seeing how it’s your first day and all. C’mon, follow me.” He started to lead her towards what she assumed would be the merch table. “So, how old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Oh, so you’re the same age as my bandmates. Well, almost. Two of ‘em are nineteen. Luke’s still eighteen.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ashton laughed. “You’re smart. I like that. You single, merch girl?”

“How is that any of your business?”

He held up his hands defensively. “Just making conversation, shit. If you’re in charge of our LA deliveries, then you’re gonna be seeing an awful lot of me.”

“I was told I wouldn’t be dealing directly with bands.”

“Yeah, normally. But we like to make a lot of our merch so I try to know as much about it as I can.”

“Mmm, and the rest of your band?”

“They’re around. Why? You happen to fancy one of them more than your dear friend, Ash?” He pouted his lips at her. 

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know which is the bolder assumption. That I fancy you, or that we’re friends when you don’t even know my name.”

“I would know it if you told me, merch girl.”

“It’s Caroline.”

He grinned, and if he wasn’t so infuriating, the dimples in his cheek and the lights bouncing off his hazel eyes would be downright swoon-worthy. But good God, he was annoying. “You can drop this stuff right here, Caroline.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, setting her cart upright and reaching for the top box.

“Not a problem,” he said, grabbing the box underneath hers to help her unload faster.

“Did I make you mad or something?” he asked after they unloaded in total silence.

“What?” she asked, as she double checked the order form against the boxes. “No, I’m not mad.”

“Okay. Cuz I wasn’t joking earlier. Like if you’re on our account now, you will be seeing a lot of me. And I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable or anything. But stiff professionalism never really spoke to me. So I’d much rather if we could try to be friends, you know?”

“I can be your friend, Ash. I just can’t be more than that.”

Ashton chuckled, “Damn, you sound a lot like Luke.”

She arched an eyebrow in a silent question. 

“Not that way!” he rushed, his cheeks flaming. “I meant that he’s also told me he doesn’t want to focus on a relationship right now. Which kinda sucks cuz thinking about it, you two would work really well together.”

“You hardly know me…”

“Call it instinct then, Miss Skeptic.”

“I think I liked ‘merch girl’ better. Here,” she thrust the order form in his chest. “Sign this.”

~~~

~Three Years Later~

“You seriously want more of the black hoodies than the white ones?” Caroline asked as she looked at the computer screen.

“Yes,” Ashton told her and she could hear the eye roll. “People like black.”

“People are also gonna like the white ones, especially when they see you modeling it,” she told him.

“Aw, you flatter me,” he deadpanned. “Who calls the shots here?”

“Fine, fine,” she said, punching in the right number for his order. “But don’t come crying to me when you get stuck with shit you can’t sell.”

“When have I ever?” he gloated. 

She sighed. He was right. The drummer knew his audience in terms of what they liked and which items were more popular. And all she had was a hunch.

“Hey, how’d that date with… uh… fuckin hell what was his name…” Ashton fought to remember the name.

“Brandon,” Caroline reminded him. “We broke up like three months ago. Guy was a dumbass. Where have you been?”

“Making an album and planning new merch for a tour. Why was he a dumbass? I thought you liked him.”

“I did, up until he turned into every other guy, Ash. He thought my job is so fuckin sick until he saw that I’m actually friends with you other dumbasses, and then I turned into a groupie all of sudden.”

“That’s fuckin disgusting.”

“Yeah, tell me about it…”

“So what you need is a guy who gets it.”

“Ash, for the last time, I’m not going out with you,” she joked. 

“Okay, 1.) Ouch. 2.) I’ve never asked you out so what the fuck do you mean ‘for the last time’? And 3.) I don’t mean me, although I’m flattered you think of me that way.”

“I don’t think of you that way. I don’t think of you at all actually.”

“Ha-ha, you’re hilarious. I see why all the guys are beating down your door.”

“Oh, fuck off!” she laughed. “But yeah, you’re right. I do need a guy that gets it. Problem is, I keep ending up with guys who are only pretending to get it.”

“Well… I might know a guy.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yeah. Luke. About giraffe high. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Killer front man.”

“You mean the one who wasn’t looking for a relationship because he was working on himself?”

“The very one!” Ashton applauded her memory. “Look, I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it would work out. I wouldn’t fuck with you both like that.”

“Yeah, I know, Ash. And I appreciate you looking out for me, I do.”

“So…?”

“You know me, Ash. If he asks me out, I’ll give him a fair chance.”

“Cool. You’re still making deliveries right? Or did they finally get wise, and promote you?”

“They promoted me. I’m in charge of your account now, along with a few others.”

“Nice! Although, that kinda puts a damper on you and Luke meeting. I was counting on that delivery next week. Damn…”

“Oh, I’m still making deliveries. It’s weird though. See, I got the promotion, but then my boss said I was still requested to do deliveries for one of my accounts. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

“Not a damn thing,” he lied through his teeth. “But, that’s good. Must mean the promo team likes you.”

“Yeah, ‘promo’ team.”

“So, see you next week?”

She laughed. “Yep. See ya Ash.”

~~~

“Luke, mate, you gotta sign those posters,” Ashton said, stirring Luke in the direction of the merch booth, knowing Caroline would be there any minute.

“Alright, I got it!” the blonde huffed at his friend, stepping to walk beside Ashton so he’d stopped getting shoved forward. “Geez, what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is, there’s a girl coming later and if you don’t ask her on a date, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Luke stalled, turning to face his friend, eyes wide. “You promised someone I’d ask them out?! Without checking with me first?! Ash…”

“Relax, mate. You’ll like her, I promise.”

“I’m gonna fuckin kill you, is what I’m gonna do,” Luke threatened.

“Kill me, and you’ll have to find another drummer. And that would suck on such short notice. Might have to cancel a show, maybe more, while you guys get a replacement. Really bad for business.”

Luke glowered.

“Just trust me, okay? Just ask her on one date. One single date. That’s it.”

“This better be one hell of a girl…”

“Oh, she is. Don’t worry.”

As Luke stomped off to sign posters and await this girl he was supposed to ask out, Caroline walked confidently through the near empty amphitheater, a feeling she had really come to enjoy. There was something calming about walking silently through a place meant to be packed tightly with bodies with music so loud you could feel it in your bones. The calm before the storm, as she’d come to view it.

“Merch order,” she said, walking right up to a booth with a single man behind it. His blonde curls covered his face, a stack of posters beside him and a Sharpie resting delicately between his fingers. She rolled her eyes immediately. Ashton was going to pay for this one way or another.

Luke didn’t look up as he scrawled a loopy autograph across the poster at the top of the pile, setting it aside before repeating the same practiced scribble. “Can leave it right there,” he said, curls shifting across his forehead as he nodded over his shoulder in indication of where she could put the boxes. “What’s the order?”

“You don’t know what you ordered?” Caroline asked, grabbing the top box from her dolly cart and dropping it in the ground with a thump! She knew he didn’t. In three years, she’d never once crossed his path. God, what had Ashton been thinking?

“Not part of the promo team. I just get told to sign the posters.”

“Careful not to get a hand cramp there, rockstar,” she teased, dropping another box. 

Her comment was enough for the blue eyes to snap over in her direction. He swore under his breath, pushing his chair back and standing up to his full height. “Shit, here. Let me give you a hand with those.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Caroline tried to brush him off, but their hands were already knocking into each other as they both reached for the next box. Caroline’s cheeks flushed as she dropped her hands, letting Luke grab the boxes as she instead busied herself with the itemized order form on her clipboard. “So, it’s a box of extra large shirts. 1 box of large. And a half and half box of medium and small. All men standard sizes.” She could hear the slight shake in her voice and she was definitely going to murder a certain drummer for this occurrence. 

“A box of the black hoodies, in various sizes, and then a last box of random odds and ends. Keychains, pins, CDs, the sorts,” another voice finished as a man with brown curls cut closer to his head than the blonde’s spoke up behind them. Just the man she was looking for. “Thanks, merch girl.”

“It’s Caroline, Ash. How many times do we have to go over this?” Caroline said as she turned on her heel, arms opening to hug the man. “I’m gonna fuckin kill you,” she whispered low in his ear. 

“Good to see ya too, love,” Ashton chuckled, accepting the hug.

“You two know each other?” the blonde man asked, an eyebrow arched in confusion.

“Yeah, Care’s been handling our merch for years. Have you two not met? Luke, Caroline. Caroline, Luke.”

The pieces clicked in Luke’s head, and he would have loved nothing more than to wipe that all-knowing smirk off Ashton’s face. He noted the way Caroline’s own fingers curled, like she was itching to do the same. And damn it all to hell, wasn’t she cute with her polo work shirt tucked into her blue jeans, and her brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, with little escaped strands framing brown eyes that snapped like fire as she glared up at Ashton? If this was the girl he’d be promised a date with… well shit… to say the pressure was on was definitely an understatement. 

“Yeah, I know who he is, Ash. I’m not blind. But nice to officially meet you, Luke,” Caroline spoke first, opting to be polite. After all, Luke had helped her with the boxes. And he was pretty damn cute up close and in person. 

“Pleasure,” Luke smiled, extending out his hand.

“Alright, if I can just get one of you to sign off on this…” She switched back into work mode to distract herself from how pink her cheeks were under Luke’s gaze.

“I got it,” Luke said, holding up his Sharpie as evidence.

“And maybe you can convince this one to order more of the white hoodies because those are going to sell better than your black ones,” she joked to Luke.

Both of the men laughed while Ashton scoffed, “Is that so?”

“Yep. Matter of fact, grab me one in medium.”

“Small,” Ashton corrected as Luke started ruffling through the stack of white hoodies.

“Lady said medium, Ash,” Luke said, handing Caroline the hoodie.

“Ooo, I like this one. He listens,” she smirked at Ashton who rolled his eyes playfully in response. “How much are you charging for these things?”

“$55,” Ashton answered. 

“Highway robbery!” Caroline told them, digging into her back pocket anyway.

“Don’t worry about it,” Luke said, his fingers brushing against her arm as he tried to stop her. “It’s on us.”

“Yeah,” Ashton agreed. “No one’s gonna notice if those ones go missing anyway, cuz I’m telling you, nobody’s gonna want one.”

“Well I want one, and that should count for something. I’ll throw an extra hoodie in the next order, and we’ll call it even. How’s that?” Even though her words were directed at Ashton, she looked right up at Luke, almost daring him to ask the question all three of them were waiting on. 

“How about a date instead?” Luke blurted out the magical words, and Ashton had the nerve stifled a laugh at his friend’s outburst, like he hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing. 

Caroline kept Luke’s gaze, pushing a copy of the itemized order form into his chest. “You’re on, rockstar.”

~~~

“You know, I’m really glad you said yes. I didn’t think you would,” Luke confessed, fingers tugging nervously on the curls at the back of his neck. “I mean… I know Ash sort of forced both our hands. But you still could’ve said no, ya know?”

Caroline smiled over at him. “And miss out on all of this?” She gestured out to the city lights blinking in the distance. “A midnight picnic overlooking the city. Gotta say, this ranks pretty high on my list of first dates.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, leaning back on the palms of her hands. “Plus my date’s pretty fuckin’ cute.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Luke chuckled. “You look stunning by the way. Don’t know if I told you that.”

Caroline blushed. “You did, when you picked me up. But, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Shit, sorry I’m so nervous. I just… I’m having trouble getting out of my head I guess.”

“Because of Ash?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m glad we’re here and all. Like you seem really nice. And you’re really cute. But…”

Caroline’s heart dropped. She had just been on the brink of forgiving Ashton for his meddling in the first place. But if his friend left her crying on the cliffside, she’d put that man six feet under if it was the last thing she did. “But what?” she forced herself to ask. 

“Was worried you’d say no. Ash meddling or not, you’re still a woman with free will. You didn’t have to say yes.”

“Just like you didn’t have to ask me.”

“Why wouldn’t I ask you out?”

“Why wouldn’t I say yes?” she countered.

“We talked for maybe like what? Two minutes? And… I dunno. I know Ash is the one who pushed us both into this, but… you guys seem close. Shouldn’t this be you guys?”

Caroline shook her head. “Nah, Ash and I get along, sure. But no. I, uh, have that problem a lot, actually. A lot of rock bands are made up of men, and I supply a lot of rock band merch. People, guys especially, seem to take that the wrong way a lot of time.”

“N-no, I- I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not… I don’t see a problem with…” Luke fumbled over his words.

She laughed softly, moving one of her hands to rest it over his. “No, I know what you mean. Ash is your boy. You didn’t want to feel like you were swooping in on his girl, even if this was his idea. And that’s sweet of you. But, I am a free agent who can go on as many cute dates with as many cute boys as she likes.”

“How about as many cute dates as you like with only one cute guy?”

“Ooo, I dunno. He’d have to be pretty fuckin’ cute,” she flirted.

His eyes were soft, his touch softer as he leaned in for a kiss that sent shivers down her spine. “I’ve been told I’m pretty fuckin’ cute,” he murmured against her lips, his own quirked up in a smile.

~~~

“Merch girl!” Ashton chirped over the line. “You coming to the party on Friday? Lover boy misses you something awful.”

“Of course I’m gonna be there, Ash,” she laughed. “Lu asked me last week.”

“Well damn. What do I bother calling you for anymore now that you have him?”

“To bother me because that seems to be your favorite pastime? And you can’t be mad that your meddling worked, Ash. Wasn’t that the point?”

“Yeah, I’m happy for you guys, truly. But also kinda scared because now there’s two of you to plot revenge.”

“Oh, no fair! I didn’t know plotting revenge was an option!”

“Ha-ha, hilarious. Seriously, how high should my guard be up for this party?”

“If you want me to return the favor of meddling in your love life, all you need is ask.”

“See, I’ve seen the people you pick out for yourself… so, lemme think… yeah, hard pass.”

“Suit yourself. I’m still bringing my friend along. If I can persuade her to come, that is.”

“Ooo, shy friends. Those are always fun.”

“Oh, so you do want to be set up!”

“I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is that I happen to be a very, terribly so, single man. And if I so happen to be introduced to a pretty girl, I’ll take it from there.”

“Well I’ll see what I can do about getting that pretty girl to the party, then.”

~~~

“Oh, will you come on?” Caroline asked, exasperated as her friend Britt sat on the edge of her bed, picking at the skin around her fingernails.

“I don’t want to be a third wheel, Care.”

“You’re not gonna be a third wheel.”

“Is Luke going to be there.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m a third wheel.”

“Oh, c’mon! There will be plenty of other people there, too. Maybe even the man of your dreams. But you won’t know that if you sit here, so c’mon!”

“I’m not like you, Care. I don’t go to work and come home with a husband.”

“Okay, 1.) Luke is not my husband. We’ve been on like maybe four dates. And 2.) it’s a good thing this is a party then, not a delivery.”

Britt let out a long sigh, weighing her options. “Better be some cute fuckin guys at this thing…” she muttered finally.

“Oh, there will be,” Caroline smirked. It wasn’t technically meddling if she just introduced Britt to Ashton. Wasn’t like she was promising Britt a date with the man or anything crazy like that.

~~~

“Merch girl!” Ashton greeted, spotting Caroline as her and Britt walked in.

“Hey, Ash,” Caroline said, giving the man a hug. “Missed ya guys.”

“Missed ya too, Care. But not as much as lover boy, over there.” He jerked a thumb over at Luke who was quickly pushing past people to get over to where they were. “Who’s this?” Ashton’s hazel eyes flickered over to Britt.

“This is my best friend, Britt. Britt, this is Ashton.” Caroline matched Ashton smirk for smirk. 

“And I’m Luke,” Luke said, wrapping his arms around Caroline and pressing a big kiss to her cheek. “Missed you, baby,” he whispered low so only she could hear.

“Let’s get you girls something to drink. C’mon.” Ashton led the way deeper into the party. “So, how’d you meet Care?” he asked Britt.

“Kids,” Britt squeaked.

Caroline laughed. “We’ve known each other since we were kids,” she elaborated.

“Mmm. Well, any friend of Care’s is a friend of ours.”

Caroline wasn’t sure her friend’s cheeks could get any darker under Ashton’s gaze. She had to hold back bewildered laughter of how well this was going already, while wondering if this was how Ashton had felt watching her and Luke interact for the first time. Like you had inside knowledge on a love story that hadn’t been written yet. 

“So, what’s the deal with your friend?” Ashton asked Caroline later on in the evening.

“Why? You interested?” Caroline teased.

He scoffed. “I don’t think I’ve heard her speak, she’s too busy blushing.”

“I told you she was shy. And she’s also out of her element here. But yes, she is single, if that’s what you’re asking. Which it is.”

“I said I didn’t need to be set up, Care.”

“I never said I was setting you up, Ash. I just happened to introduce a pretty girl to a very, terribly so, single man.”

Ashton chuckled. “You’re devious, you know that?”

“That may be so. But you’re both my friends. All I did was introduce you guys to each other. Something that was bound to happen sooner or later. What happens next is up to you and her. Although, for the record, I think you’d be pretty cute together.”

“So you admit you’re setting me up with your friend?”

“Just like you set me up with Luke?”

“Oh, I fully accept responsibility for that one. Worked out great, don’t ya think?”

She laughed. “So clearly you’re the one with the matchmaking abilities. So go on. Go make your match. Get out of here, and go talk to her!” she laughed more, pushing at his chest.

“Tell that to Britt,” he called out over his shoulder.

“What was that about?” Luke asked, coming up with new drinks and handing one to her.

“Oh, I was just telling Ash to go talk with Britt some more.”

“Mhm, cuz you're setting him up with her just in a less in-your-face way.”

“I am not! I brought Britt along because I thought it’d be fun for her.”

“Sure ya did.”

“Okay, maybe I did mention something about there being cute available guys to persuade Britt to come with me. And maybe I did mention to Ash I was bringing her. But, you gotta admit that they would make a cute ass couple.”

Luke nodded in agreement. “But not as cute as you and me.”

“Thank God for Ashton Irwin, huh?”

“That meddling bastard.”

__

Tag List

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[superthiccthighssavelives]

Give Me a Try Chapter 14

Surprise, surprise, Next chapter already! I made you all wait so long, I figured I would just post as I go along.instead of waiting at set times. Please enjoy.

@linseykalynn @alyss–in–wonderland @primaba11erina @autumnslovex

Chapter 14 - Excuses

I realize I was being irrational, crazy even. I mean, who has a fit over ice cream? I don’t know why he affects me so much, or why I keep running into him. It’s some weird, sick joke. Like I need another distraction, I need to focus. Yeah yeah yeah, I keep saying that don’t I?

I didn’t even look to see what I grabbed before I rushed off and threw my childish tantrum. Now I’m stuck with raspberry ripple, and goddamnit, I hate raspberry. I need to get this article finished, so I can get him off my mind, for good. And I did just that. The article, not the latter. Unfortunately.

I spent a few days busy at work, as usual, I asserted myself for once, and had a meeting with Noreen and Justin. I wanted them to know I appreciated everything they’ve done for me, and I am happy to continue, but I need to know that there’s room for me to grow. I ranted, raved, and pleaded my case for more meaty work. I knew being an intern, there wasn’t much of a guarantee in anything. They talked to Melanie, and she agreed to a meeting with me. Again, I went over everything, I practiced everything I wanted to say so many times in the mirror, I knew it by heart. 

Melanie seemed impressed, she deemed my article regarding the play, and the interview, worthy of being published, and assigned me a probationary column, about art, lifestyle, small events. I could not have been more excited. It not only gave me a chance to show off my writing, but to be able to get out more and enjoy the culture and happenings around my neighborhood. 

My weekends were finally a bit more relaxing. I took a walk down the street, to a cafe I’ve passed many times, it looked cozy enough to relax and get some work done, and scribble down some ideas and plan out some events to hit up. 

I was enjoying some music filling up my ears, eating a bagel, scouring facebook and the local lifestyle paper for goings-on, jotting them down in my calendar, when my eyes met with his. Seriously? Is he stalking me? I thought maybe he came to find me about the article, but that isn’t out until next month, closer to the opening of the play. 

I guess I should be glad he hasn’t come talk to me. I wonder why. I mean, I don’t know what I mean. His smile was distracting me, even if it wasn’t directed at me, but some fluttery girl babbling on to him. I got nosy, and had to take a pass by. She was asking him out. I tried to seem oblivious, still with my earbuds in, but the music had stopped. I felt a painful twist in my stomach hearing her speak and seeing the smile plastered on his face. I’m chalking it up to the cream cheese on the bagel. Or the coffee. Coffee never agreed with me. 

I felt strange. I just wanted to bolt. I couldn’t be there. I made a detour back to my table and escaped as fast as I could. I didn’t want to stick around for the outcome. 

My Saturday afternoon seemed a wash. I went home, and just sat on my futon staring at the wall. I don’t know why I feel like this. Yes I do. I just don’t want to admit it. I fought it with every single molecule inside me. I made excuses to myself, I’m probably going crazy. I needed some social interaction. I took a nap instead.

 I felt slightly better when I woke up, I made myself a real meal, I took a shower, and without even thinking I was getting dressed for a night out. My neglected eyeshadow palettes were put to use. I almost didn’t recognize myself, I don’t know if that was a good or bad thing. I remembered a band with a cult following was playing tonight a few blocks away, besides enjoying some music, I could collect some article info. A few drinks wouldn’t hurt either. 

The band was decent, typical alt-rock, nothing to write home about. I never considered myself a music snob, but I tended to sway toward the more obscure and unique. I threw back a couple drinks, jotted down my thoughts, and felt a strange loneliness. I looked at my phone, but realized I didn’t really have any friends here, or anywhere really. My friend in the states was so busy, we barely spoke. I don’t know if I could consider my work colleagues friends? Maybe. But I don’t think I could text them just to gossip. 

I did chat with a few of the band’s fans, getting their thoughts and what they liked so much about them. They were sweet, and after a few minutes, I decided I'd hit my threshold for the night and carried myself back home. 

I was hoping I’d be tired enough to sleep, but no dice. I picked up my abandoned sketch book and hoped for inspiration. The last thing I had attempted were hands. His hands. Sigh. 

I spent the rest of the weekend watching old black and white movies, and eating too many snacks. 

Having a column was pretty awesome, I’m not gonna lie, even if I haven’t had anything published yet. I was given enough freedom and time to get things together, so the lesser time making phone calls and yelling at people, the better.  But that also freed up time to think more. Not so sure that was a good idea. 

I ventured to a bookstore to see about finding some inspiration for my sketching. That would at least curb the thinking/feeling nonsense going on. All the books I needed were, of course, on the highest top shelf. I wasn’t tall by any means, and there was no ladder in sight, nor anyone to ask for help. I took it upon myself to do a little climbing, only the bottom shelf, standing on the very tips of my toes, my arm stretched as far as it would go, my short fingers trying to just reach a corner to pull it down. 

I felt my legs start to shake, I was extending myself too much, I tried to clutch onto anything in my grasp. Before I could hit the floor, something, or someone, had caught me. 

“Oh god, thank....” I shouldn’t be surprised, really. He must be stalking me.

“You.” 

“Me.”

“Are you stalking me?” 

He chuckled, shaking his head, obviously amused. 

“Sweetheart, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Funny, I see you everywhere I go.”

“How do I know you’re not stalking me?”

My eyes rolled involuntarily. His smile was starting to get on my nerves.

“Sure, I have absolutely nothing better to do than follow a…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence, because I really had nothing to say. My annoyance had no reason, not really. His presence just gets to me, and he totally knows it. He’s so, so, so...UGH!

His eyebrows were raised, an expectant look on his face, waiting. “A what?”

I shook my head. My mouth was closed, my eyes just boring into his. 

His gaze didn’t break either. It seemed like an eternity. The book I was so desperately reaching for was in his hands, tightly gripped.

“Can I please have that book?” I tried to use my most calm voice, even though inside I wanted to yet again, throw another tantrum.

“Only if you tell me what I apparently am, I am dying to know, come on then, out with it” He was definitely still entertained, his sly, irksome, stupid smile still spread across his face.

“Ugh! You’re so infuriating!” I couldn’t do this anymore, these feelings were getting stronger, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to choke him or throw myself at him. Maybe a little of both. The kiss flashed in my mind, and my eyes moved to his lips. I felt hot. I needed air. I couldn’t look away. My mouth watered. If I didn’t force myself out of here, this situation...I have to go.

I turned on my heel, attempting to just leave. I was caught by his hand gripping my arm. It set me on fire. Just that small touch. Fuck. 

I turned, facing him again, unsure of what was about to happen. 

He handed me the book, nodded and walked away.

Why did I feel so disappointed?

Chapter 1 - The London Underground

Chapter 2 - Theater

Chapter 3 - The Agenda

Chapter 4 - The Shoot

Chapter 5 - Back to Business

Chapter 5 ½ - Sketchy

Chapter 6 - Tired

Chapter 7 - Drinks

Chapter 8 - Temptation

Chapter 9 - Close®

Chapter 10 - The Interview

Chapter 11 - Strange Birds

Chapter 12 - Exhaustion

Chapter 13 - Mint Chocolate Chip

[queenlists]

Mother’s Love (Part Two)

Summary: After a close call with death by a witch’s hand, Sam and Dean find themselves in a situation that they never thought could happen: Baby turning human. Left in shock, Dean and Sam could not even begin to think of what to do. Little do they know, they have nothing to worry about because Baby is determined to take care of everything.

Part one (In case you missed it <3)

Word count: 1967

A/N: We’re at 133! If I’m not following you and you’re following me, please let me know because I follow everyone back and I want to make sure I’m not missing anyone. Thank you to everyone for the support. I really appreciate it. The masterlist will be linked at the bottom and I really hope you all enjoy this ✌

“Do you want to know what I just realized?” Baby mildly laughed. “Hm?” Dean looked over at Baby, his eyebrow slightly raised. “I am technically a car inside of a car!” Baby looked over at Dean before looking out of the window with a thoughtful sigh. “I wonder what they are thinking right now. Don’t worry, I was once like you! The wheels won’t hurt for long, you’ll get used to it in no time. You are in good hands!” Baby reassured the car, gently rubbing the dashboard.

Dean looked over his shoulder at Sam who shrugged, shaking his head. Clearing his throat, Dean faced the road once again not knowing what to say "Uh, yeah! That's crazy, huh?" "Very. Oh I wonder who they are. I wondered for so long if I'd look like one of those bar girls you'd bring late at night. I always knew when you parked me by a bar dumpster that you were going to-" "So, Baby how are you liking the world from a human's point of view?" Sam interrupted, stopping Baby from painting an unwanted image of his brother in his mind. “It’s beautiful! It really is. I can see everything. I can see the inside of buildings instead of just the outside. I can feel the way carpet forms under my feet. I also have feet!" Baby giddily smiled. "Life is beautiful. So beautiful. I'm so blessed to experience this. Especially with my boys!" Baby’s voice cracked as tears spilled from her eyes. “Oh no! I am crying again,” Baby pulled out a white handkerchief from the glove compartment and gently dabbed the tears away from under her eyes. Sam sat up from the backseat and rubbed Baby’s shoulders gently as Dean  watched Baby from the corner of his eye to make sure she was okay. Baby rested a hand on top of Sam’s “Thank you, Sam. I love you both so much!” “I..I love you too, Baby,” Sam felt his eyes start to sting as tears made their way out. Dean opened his mouth, but no words came out as he felt a lump in his throat. Dean took a big gulp, his adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to gain his composure back. Baby watched Dean with a gentle smile, knowing that he wanted nothing in the world but to tell her that he loved her back, but he wasn’t able to and to her that was just fine. 

----

It was nightfall by the time the trio arrived at their lovely home: the bunker. Getting out of the car, Sam rushed over to Baby’s passenger side and opened the door for her to get out as Dean grabbed the bags. Baby took careful steps as she entered the bunker. Not sure of what to expect, she pushed the doors to the bunker open. With a flick of a switch, the fluorescent lights systematically clicked on one by one, humming to life. Brightening with every second until the lights reached their peak brightness where they still flickered every now and again. Looking around, Baby saw a bare home. Monotony. Cold. Lonely. Baby folded her arms across her chest as she hugged herself, her eyes exploring the place that her boys called home. No pictures. No decor. Nothing. Nothing in the bunker resembled a warm home. Dean and Sam buzzed around her as they brought in the extra luggage that Baby had bought earlier that morning.  The motel had more color and variety than the bunker. Baby wasn't all that surprised as John would go out on month long hunts with one extra pair of clothes and his weapons. She knew the Winchesters travelled light, but home isn't supposed to reflect the highway life and Baby was determined to fix the bunker right up. She was determined to make the bunker into a home for the three of them.

"Where is the kitchen? I can make some supper while you boys do whatever you two do!" Baby looked over at the boys. “It’s right there!” Sam chirped, pointing at a small neglected kitchen. Baby nodded, making her way over to the fridge and opening it to see an array of inedible food: a half empty case of beer, wilted salad, half of a small carton of more than likely spoiled milk, and what she made out to be crumbs of a pie. She felt her heart break even more. She could not believe that this is the way that the boys were living. This wasn’t a motel. They weren’t on the road. They were home. This is home and their home feels nothing like a home. Heartbroken, Baby disappointingly sighed as she shook her head. She looked up to the ceiling and cursed at John for not teaching these boys what a home was supposed to be. “Hm, looks like we need to make a trip to the grocery store!” Baby turned to the boys with a smile. “Or we could take you out to dinner. I could use a nice big burger with a beer and pie!” Dean offered with a smile. Baby looked between Dean and Sam with uncertainty. She had only seen the inside of a diner when Dean would park right in the front of it. Diners were always bright and buzzing with waitresses with drinks in their hands and steaming food on plates. “It’ll be fun! You would probably love strawberry milkshakes!” Sam tempted Baby. “Or cherry pie!” Dean bit his lip, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. The boys kept enticing Baby with the names of all of the foods that Baby probably saw on the plates a time or two. Rolling her eyes, Baby playfully shook her head at the boys “Okay! Okay, you convinced me. Let’s go!”

----

The diner was buzzing with people and loud. She always could hear the groovy music from outside, but from inside the music was ten times louder. Her body danced as the boys led her to a booth near the back. The diner had a sweet aroma to it. The few people who were there smiled as they ate their meals and sipped their drinks, chatting to one another. Smiling waitresses carefully passed them. Baby sat down with a smile, soothing out her dress. Sam and Dean immediately picked up their menus. “You should get a burger, a milkshake, fries, pie….” Dean trailed off as he listed off an array of items that he thought Baby should try. Baby tried her hardest to pay attention, but couldn’t because something caught her eye. Better yet, someone caught her eye. She watched as the lady pranced up to the table with a big, perky smile “Hello! What can I get you three today?” Baby could hear the boys begin to tell the waitress their orders, but Baby couldn’t shake this feeling. This feeling that she had yet to feel. Her heart began to race as her throat tightened. She took slow, deep breaths as a way to prevent herself from hyperventilating. She wanted to grab the boys and run, but couldn’t because she wasn’t so sure why this woman made her feel the way she felt. “Baby!” She heard her name being called as she snapped back into the present “Yes, honey!” Baby smiled at Dean. “You okay?” Sam asked, concerned. “Oh yes, I’m fine. I will have whatever they are having. Thank you!” Baby turned to the waitress with a small smile. “Alright! It’ll be right up,” The waitress scribbled onto her notepad, ripped out a section of the paper, and slid it towards Baby before disappearing into the back. “Ooh, did you get her number?” a lustful smirk spread across Dean’s face. Sam elbowed Dean, shaking his head in disapproval. “What?” Dean hissed at Sam. Baby mildly giggled as she shook her head at the boys’ childish banter. She slowly picked up the piece of paper, opening it to see something that she did not want to see. Slamming her hand onto the table, Baby quickly stood up and raced to the back to find the waitress.

“Ma’am, you can’t be back here!” one of the cooks pointed to the door, motioning Baby to leave. “Where is she?” Baby grit her teeth, clenching her fists. “Who?” “The waitress who just came back here!” Baby raised her voice, stepping closer to the chef. “Look lady you have to leave!” “I am not leaving until-” “What’s going on?” the waitress appeared behind the cook. Dean and Sam rushed in, immediately pulling Baby back as she started to lunge forward at the waitress. “You little-” Baby screamed, kicking as the boys took her out to the car. Baby kicked and screamed as tears rolled down her eyes until the boys were able to get her to settle inside of the car. Dean slammed his door shut as he rammed the key into the ignition and twisted it, making the car roar to life. “Don’t jab it. It hurts when you jab your key inside!” Baby yelled out at Dean. Dean immediately turned to Baby, his face hot with anger “What is going on with you?” The unexpectedly loud tone from Dean made Baby’s heart drop as she realized what she had done. Sobbing into her hands, Baby shook her head “Oh I am so sorry!” “What’s going on?” Sam gently asked as Dean started to drive the car away from the scene. “That woman is just vile!” Baby took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her face. “What did that note say?” Dean looked over at Baby, concerned. Baby paused as she looked to Sam and Dean “She said I looked ugly tonight,”. Dean shook his head, annoyed that the issue was something so small. “Well, you’re not! You look beautiful, but-” Sam was interrupted as Dean slammed on the brakes, looking at Baby. “All that just because she said you were ugly? You could’ve just said something to us! You didn’t have to make a scene like that. You basically got us kicked out tonight!” “Dean!” Sam hissed. “No, she needs to know what is called for and what is uncalled for and that, Baby, was uncalled for!” Dean rolled his eyes as he sped to the bunker.

The ride remained silent as they pulled back up to the bunker. “I’ll order pizza, I guess!” Dean got out of the car, slamming the door before Baby and Sam could get out. “He’s impatient. It wasn’t an okay thing to do, but I know this human thing is new to you. You’ll get the hang of it soon,” Sam got out, opening the door for Baby. “I would much rather go to sleep instead of eat pizza. I’m pretty tired from tonight. Will you take me to my room?” Baby looked at Sam who gave her a small smile. “Of course!”

----

Baby sat in front of the small mirror that she had bought earlier and brushed her hair. Staring blankly into the mirror, Baby could only think of what happened at the diner. She replayed the interaction over and over again in her head. The waitress’s voice haunting her and sending chills down her smile. Looking over at the note, Baby snatched it and shoved it under her bed. As tears welled up in Baby’s eyes, she covered her mouth to silence her sobs. She wished that the note said she was ugly. She wished the note said anything, but what it really said. She wished that the note was a lie. She wished and wished, but she knew that this one wish would not be granted. This note was inevitable and Baby only had one thing she could do to make it all better.

She was determined to make that one thing worth it all.

masterlist

@morguleth​ @dacres-noodle​

[bangchanshehe]

The Boogeyman pt. 2

Summary: You were constantly having the same reoccurring dream over and over again and your friends told you that it meant nothing. But as your nights became more strange as days passed by you knew that it was more than a dream. much, much more. You tried every night to stop the bizarre dreams from occurring in the same sequence to try to find out more about who or what was controlling them. But when you came face to face with the demon in your dreams in real life, you realized that what he had been telling you all along was true. There is no escape.

??? X Reader

Word Count: 3k

The rest of your morning passed as usual. You made your coffee at 6:30 am sharp, you did your hair and makeup and got dressed and made your way to work. The only difference between your morning and other people’s mornings is that you had only slept for 6 hours. You sighed to yourself once you were parked in the work garage and checked your reflection in the rear view mirror.

Fucking eye bags. You cursed under your breath.

You could tell that physically the lack of sleep was starting to get to you. You no longer had naturally dewy, well rested skin. Your eye bags had grown exponentially, and your mood. Most of all… your mood had taken a turn for the worse.

In your precinct you were always known as the most serious investigator, but lately a few co-workers had added some extra vocabulary to your name. detective “bitch-face”, was your favorite as of yet. You gathered up your bag, threw your keys and phone inside and held onto your coffee cup with a death grip as you prepared yourself for another day of mind-numbing work.

You had barely clocked in and sat your things down at your desk when your boss called you into his office. You rolled your eyes and mentally shifted into your role as a well mannered subordinate, before you stalked off to his office. You knocked twice on his glass door before welcoming yourself in.

“you wanted to see me?” you asked him with a straight face although you knew what he was calling you into his office for

“yes, take a seat y/n” he commanded in an authoritative tone

You obliged him and tried to make yourself comfortable in the stiff chairs.

“I know that you are having some trouble in dealing with the suicide cases y/n.” he started and you let out a sigh “I think that we need to put this case to rest not only for our sake but also for the family’s sakes” he leaned forward at his desk and spoke softer to you “simply put there is nothing further to investigate, and there is no sign of foul play in either of these women’s cases.”

You knew that the correct and polite thing to do would be to agree with your boss, but you had a hunch that you couldn’t get rid of. And you knew that if it was you in those women’s shoes, that you would want for someone to try their best for you.

“all do respect sir, ill have to disagree” you started “I’ve spoken to the families and neither of them mention mental illness or indication of suicide. Their work life, social life and financial stability was solid. There was no reason for those women to have motivation to take their own life. I’ve already –“

“let me stop you right there” your boss interrupted you mid-sentence. “we don’t know for sure that these women weren’t suffering from any mental illness. We cant say that they didn’t commit suicide just because they were perfect on paper.” He shook his head in disagreement

“sir, I’ve spoken with the medical examiner and they say that there is no sign of natural death….” You gave him a stern look and he gave you one back “these women essentially just dropped dead. Nothing in their system, nothing wrong with their health. It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I want you to dismiss the case.” He said firmly

“if either of these women were your daughter or wife, would you want someone else to just dismiss the case sir?” you asked him

He paused for a long while giving you a pointed glare before finally looking down at his desk and back up at you again. “y/n, I am going to give you one more week to work on this case. Either you bring me more evidence that this was a homicide by that time, or we dismiss the case. Is that understood?” he asked you

“yes sir! I appreciate it sir!” you said with a small smile, happy that you had talked him into giving you some more time.

You walked out of his office with more motivation than ever to help these women and their families. You made your way back to your desk, unpacked your files and looked back over their cases, starting with the basics.

Looking over the autopsy results the women seemed to be perfectly healthy beings with nothing in their system other than an sleeping aid.

You didn’t find that the fact that they might need help with falling asleep strange, but if you were going to produce results by the end of the week you had to cross all of your t’s and dot all of your I’s. starting with a call to a medical examiner.

You picked up the phone and dialed the examiner less than hopeful to find anything of significance but unwilling for the case to be dropped without finding any further answers.  

“hello, this is examiner song speaking. How can I help you?” a friendly and familiar voice answered

“Hi, Mr. Song this is detective Y/N speaking. I have a few questions for you in regards to the double suicide case. Are you free right now?” you asked him as friendly as possible hoping it would gain you the favor

“oh! Sure ask away!” he said as chipper as ever

“I see from the report that both of the women were both using a sleeping aid and I was wondering if the dose that they had in their system was typical and if you had any other information on this medication?”

He hummed for a moment “the amount still left in the blood stream was pretty typical for a sleep medication, particularly if they had taken it that night. There doesn’t seem to be any signs of drug abuse or abnormalities. However, I don’t know too much about the medication other than its prescription and you have to have some serious sleep insomnia to get prescribed it.” he mentioned

You quickly scribbled down the name of the drug on a piece of paper and thanked the examiner before you hung up the phone. Looking back over the files for the women you quickly look up their family physician’s number only to find that the women both go to the same doctor.

You wrote the number down underneath the name of the medication and stuck in on your computer monitor. You highly doubted that it was a strong lead to pursue since doctor song said the levels look normal and decided to save it for later.

You restlessly looked over your notes and files calling anyone who you think would have any additional information on the women, before you finally noticed that it was close to 11.

You pulled out your phone and text your best friend who was a practicing therapist in your area. You had met her because of work and ever since then you were glued to each other. You smiled to yourself remembering how comfortable it was for the two of you when you had first met. It was like you had just met your best friend who you hadn’t seen for a while and had a ton to catch up on.

The entire reason that you were there to begin with was because you were injured on the job and was told to go as a part of probation until you were “better again”, which was short for do your required 3 appointments for an hour and you’ll be cleared to be back on the force again. But the two of you were so close that you met often after your standard three meetings. Only this time you often met at a bar, after business hours for the both of you.

Hey, want to get Mexican food for lunch around 12? You sent here knowing that she was done with her standard 10-11 appointment. You had looked away for only a moment before you had heard your phone vibrate.

ABSOLUTELY! I have the craziest story to tell you when I get there! Get ready!

You laughed quietly at her text. She always had some crazy story to tell you about her clients. Was it technically legal for her to do so? No, not really. But she was at least responsible to change the names and places in her stories so that at least identities were protected. Plus, since she worked strictly with more upscale clientele, she heard a lot of stories about wild affairs, extravagant parties and occasionally a celebrity gone bad.

You locked your phone and put it down on your desk hoping that within the next 45 minutes you’ll be on a better track then you currently were.

  “so you would never believe what happened today!” your friend started off excitedly from across the table, drink in hand “my typical 10 o’clock canceled on me today… whatever, no big deal. But come 9:50ish I get this message from the receptionist that a certain very attractive celebrity wanted to book a same day appointment with me if at all possible. So I’m all ‘hell yeah! Get his ass in here!’ and when he came into my room he told me this story about how he drunkenly married a woman from a foreign country, spent the next three amazing weeks with her in paradise and now she’s gone and he’s completely torn apart from it” she said like it was the wildest news she had ever heard

You stared at her from across the table wondering where she was going to go with her story. Unamused or impressed with what she was telling you

“and I mean like full blown ugly crying in my office over this girl. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture after picture of her proclaiming that she was the most attractive woman he’d ever met. And eventually at the very end he said that he had received a message from her saying that she was pregnant with another man’s child and wanted to be with him to raise the baby” she stopped to take a breath “I mean the poor guy was really losing his marbles over this chick. But as he’s walking out of the building I literally see him eye fucking some chick and then without a word she just gets into his car and they drive off together to do god knows what!” she finally finished

You raised your eyebrows at her and gave her a look of disbelief. You wouldn’t have believed your ears if it weren’t for the fact that you had some of your own run ins with celebrities or word of celebrities in her office.

“that’s so crazy!” you said confused over such behavior.  “hey I have a question for you about a medication and I have no clue if you’ll actually know anything about it.” you said pulling out your sticky note with the name scribbled across the top

She leaned over to look at the name and immediately perked up. “oh yeah I prescribe that pretty often to patients who need help sleeping.” She said before looking up to you “why? Are you looking into a new sleep medication?”

You sighed and put the note away. “well I found it through a case and had never heard of it, so I figured I’d ask. Is it any good?” you asked her

She scoffed and giggled “it’s the best thing that anyone has invented since bread.” She said “fuck all of the older sleep medications. This one is the best. Plus… there’s a little more that goes into it than just getting the drug from a store. You take a questionnaire and they give you an at home test so they can create it to be designed more for what you need.”

Your eyes went wide and you sat back in your chair happy to hear about how good the medicine was. Whatever the price was you would be willing to pay for a decent night’s sleep again.

You pulled out your phone and googled the drug, and scheduling was much simpler than you thought, you made an appointment for 5:30 so you could go straight after work.

“thank you my sweet, sweet friend. I’ll see you later!” you said with a smile on your face shoving one last tortilla chip in your face before you ran to your car so you could get back to the office on time.

  The rest of the shift went by terribly slow and you were actually itching to get out of your chair come five o’clock. You had done literally everything that you could have to cover your basics with the case but everything seemed to run into a dead end.

You quickly packed up your belongings and raced out the door so you wouldn’t be late for your appointment. You were as giddy as a school girl to find something that might finally help you feel like a normal human being again. and as soon as you pulled up to the offices for the drug you smiled.

Utopia Inc. you read to yourself, before getting out of the car and walking towards the doors.

Once inside you were impressed with how comfortable and yet clean the offices were. You took a seat in a chair and began reading over the paperwork and questionnaire.

Are you getting more than 5 hours of rest? No.

Do you have trouble falling asleep? No.

Do you have trouble staying asleep? Yes.

On a scale of one to ten how would you rate your average nights rest? 4

Are you currently using any other sleep-inducing medications? No.

What is the average time that you sleep in one night? 4-5 hours

You sighed as you looked over the remaining questions. You couldn’t even remember the last time that you had a decent nights sleep and you were more than anxious to have that back. But the questions were a little dull. You were hoping that the questions would be a little more in depth than the traditional sleep surveys you’ve done in the past.

As you filled out the remaining few questions your name was called by a nurse and you quickly stood and approached her.

“please come this way miss Y/l/n” She said opening a door and walking down a long hallway full of doors. She stopped in front of a office and held the door open for you “ go ahead and have a seat, and the doctor will be ready in just a moment”

You thanked her and took a seat in the stiff looking chair. You read the posters on the walls and looked around the room while you waited, bored and nervous all at once.

Knock, knock.

Your head snapped up and a friendly looking man walked into the room.  He peaked his head into the room and gave you a warm smile before introducing himself.

“hi y/n! my name is Jongho and ill be taking care of your sleep test and diagnosis.” He held out his hand for you to shake and you accepted with a smile “I already looked over your questionnaire and it looks like you have some symptoms of severe sleep insomnia” he explained

“which I have some good news and some bad news with that. Unfortunately there is no cure for sleep insomnia, however after we run some sleep tests on you we can get an idea of what kind of medicine you need to regulate your sleeping patterns” he explained to you very calmly and coolly.

Knock, knock.

The two of you turned your head to see who the new intruder was in the room and you were surprised when you saw a very attractive man walk into the room with a bright smile. Jongho was surprised as well by the new guest in the room and looked back over to you with a smile only to give the man a curious glare.

“hello my name is Hongjoong!” the man said extending his hand “ill be assisting doctor choi”

“y/n” you said taking his hand

You couldn’t help but notice the strange way that the physician looked to the man before he looked back at you with an awkward smile. For some reason it made you feel unsettled

“right, so all you have to do is turn on this device and put it on your finger as you sleep for the next week and it will record all of the information that we need. From there once we look at the reports we will form a diagnosis and get you the perfect medication to help you out. Re-testing can occur at any time if you feel that the diagnosis was incorrect and you need a different medication. Any questions?” he asked you with a smile

You shook your head and jongho smiled back at you. He gave you a bag with the necessary equipment and a packet with questions and answers on insomnia. He scheduled an appointment for a week from now and you were completely ready to go home. He shook your hand one last time before you left the office and on your way out Hongjoong stopped you.

He handed you a business card and you accepted it.  it was simple with his name, email and phone number  on the card. “please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or difficulty during the tests”

You looked him over once more noticing how differently he was dressed compared to doctor Choi who was in a white medical gown and business casual clothes. He was wearing a suit that looked like it cost a fortune and he had the air around him like he was a man who didn’t work with people all day long. he seemed impatient, guarded and utterly too perfect.

you smiled at him once before leaving the long hallway and entering the reception area once more. happy like a child on Christmas you carried the box to your car and set it down carefully in the passenger seat as if it were a precious treasure. You looked back up at the building one last time before you pulled away and smiled. Hopefully this would be the answers to your prayers and help you start a happier and healthier chapter in your life.