#i need to throw him against a brick wall as fast as i can and watch him splatter against it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

osarina · 3 months ago

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ᡣ𐭩 AND WHEN I'M BACK IN YOKOHAMA

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: with the team sent to escort you back to the port mafia headquarters obliterated, you're on your own in a war-torn yokohama. or, well, you are until mori sends out the infamous double black to retrieve you... you almost wish he would've let you suffer out there alone.

wordcount: 10k; sfw; fem!reader, pm!reader, mentions of mafia business

AUTHOR'S NOTES: at last, we get the first meeting between pm!reader & double black. keep your eye out for two other cameos in this fic ;) i can't remember if dazai and chuuya got their moniker before or during the dragon's head conflict and i dont feel like going to go figure it out so for the sake of my sanity, their little duo started rising in infamy just before the conflict broke out.

“Oh, this is the worst,” you complain quietly, arms wrapped around your waist as you look up and down the abandoned street.

The city looks nothing short of apocalyptic with dead bodies littering the ground and buildings caved in. You can’t help but want to blow up at Mori for calling you back to Yokohama with all of this happening. The “elite squad” he had sent to ensure you arrived at the Port Mafia base safely had been all but decimated by an ability user with a penchant for arson—you only survived by the skin of your teeth, running as fast as you could down vaguely familiar alleys until you finally lost him.

You pull out your phone, trying to see if you can call Mori but only fall further into despair when you find that you have no cell service and your phone is nearly dead.

Tucking your phone back in your pocket, you let out a shaky breath as you begin to make your way down the street again, trying to figure out where exactly you are so you can get to the base as soon as possible. It’s only a matter of time before that pyromaniac finds you and your ability isn’t exactly built for self-defense or combat—you’re not sure if you can get yours activated before you’re roasted to death by the man.

You swallow thickly, anxiety beginning to spread through you as you make your way through rubble down the street. What happened? It’s all too reminiscent of that day eight years ago when Mori found you, the death and destruction as far as the eye could see—it drags up emotions you’ve long since repressed and now is not the time for it.

You’d been unable to get answers out of Mori’s men before the ability user attacked your convoy, but it seems as if the city has become a warzone—but over what? How hasn’t it reached the news outlets yet? And who are the combatants? Obviously, the Port Mafia is one of them, and you can guess that Mori called you back to Yokohama because the war isn’t falling in their favor, but who the hell is strong enough to compete with the Port Mafia, and why?

You sigh, kicking absently at a small rock as you continue down the street.

You should have been briefed. You don’t know why you weren’t briefed before being called back to the city. Frustrated, you turn down a somewhat familiar alley and lean against the wall, resting your head back against the bricks. You need to figure out what’s going on, but more importantly, you need to figure out where the hell you are so you can get back into safe territory.

You peek your head out to peer around the road—not a soul in sight in the streets, but… your gaze flickers up to the buildings, sliding from window to window until you catch sight of a figure peeking from between the blinds down to where you’re standing in the alleyway. Instantly, they let the blinds fall shut and throw themselves back indoors, but it’s too late—you’ve already spotted them.

You let out a breath of relief, looking both ways to make sure the fire manipulator hasn’t caught up to you yet before darting across the street to the building. It’s an apartment complex—the door leading into it has been half knocked off its hinges, so it’s easy to push it open and step inside.

The whole hallway has been ravaged, doors on the lower floors kicked in to reveal trashed rooms. You have to be careful not to step on glass as you make your way to the stairwell, Third floor, fifth window from the right. Most of the doors on the third floor aren’t quite as done in as the ones on the first, but only one has light peeking out from the crack.

You exhale, letting your eyes slide shut briefly before you raise your fist to knock on the door. “Excuse me! Would you mind answering a few questions? … I just arrived in the area, got caught in the crossfire of some battle, I would really appreciate the help, if you can spare any.” You’re careful to keep your voice light, gentle, and you’re even more careful to make sure your expression is smooth and unassuming when you hear the lock click open.

“You picked a god-awful time to come to Yokohama, child.” You hear an older woman speaking on the other side of the door; she doesn’t open it yet, but now that it’s cracked, you think your ability will work quickly to make her at ease. “Not one of ‘em Strain decoys, are you?”

The fact that you have no idea what she means by that is infuriating, a reminder that Mori didn’t even bother to warn you about anything before dragging you back here, but you don’t let your frustration seep onto your face.

Strain… Strain… That Australian organization? What the hell are they doing in Yokohama? Why have you been kept so in the dark?

“No ma’am, unfortunately, I don’t even know what you mean by that,” you admit, and when you hear the woman let out a heavy sigh, you know that you’ve won, sending up a silent prayer of thanks as she opens the door to let you in. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

The woman only grumbles, but her eyes are gentle and her wrinkled face is soft as she ushers you into the room, shutting the door behind you and locking it. She’s not alone in the apartment, you notice—there’s a teen boy around your age lingering in the hallway, blonde hair cut short and glasses hanging off the bridge of his nose as he studies you with a frown.

“What are you doing out here on your own, girl?” the elderly woman asks as she wobbles after you into the main room of the apartment, ushering you to sit down. “Doppo, go get the poor girl some water. Stop acting like a lump, boy.”

The boy looks disgruntled but nods, scampering off into the kitchen as the woman turns her attention back toward you. “Well? Don’t you know? Yokohama’s no place for tourists lately. Where are your parents?”

Your smile falters, mind racing as you try to pick your words carefully. “My father is the one who told me to come back to the city. I was… not made aware of the circumstances I would be arriving in.”

“Men,” the elderly woman spits out, looking up as the boy, Doppo, returns with two glasses of water, handing one to you and one to the woman. “Take notes, boy, you better not end up like one of those useless wastes of air or I’ll put you down myself, understand?”

“Yes, granny,” the boy replies, and though he still looks distinctly aggrieved, you can’t help but feel amused by the fact that he immediately pulls out a notebook to take notes.

“Would you mind telling me what exactly… happened to the city?” you ask after a moment, taking a sip of the cool water and trying to make yourself a bit more comfortable on the sofa. “I haven’t seen anything on the news about this.”

The woman scoffs, waving her hand. “Of course not, big whigs think that they can keep it all on the low and get it under control before the incident makes it across seas,” she says roughly. “Gang wars broke out after some bastard with a lot of money died. Came in from all over to try to get their hands on the money. Whole city’s being torn apart.”

Interesting, you think to yourself, mind racing as you put together the few puzzle pieces you’ve been given. How many factions are already here? Who are they? Why did Mori call you back here if it’s already escalated this much? Your ability might be key in intel gathering and negotiations, but you’d be useless in combat.

“Our ward is under the control of some organization called the Strain,” the boy tells you. “They’ve been targeting civilians. They-”

Doppo grimaces and looks away, an angry expression crossing his face and you watch as the elderly woman reaches out to squeeze his forearm before looking back over to you. “Boy’s mother was killed by them the night the conflict broke out. I’ve been looking after him since.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say quietly, but he only averts his gaze from you, looking down at the ground.

Strain. You were right. You’ve heard a lot of them. They originated in the Australian underground, but they spread rapidly throughout the world—footholds in every major country, stakes in every major world event. Brutal and ambitious, you suppose you’re not surprised they came here if there’s as much money up for grabs as the woman assumes.

“What ward are you trying to get to, girl?” the woman asks you. “It’s not safe out there on your own. There are no rules or laws anymore, whole city is anarchic. You go out there on your own and you’ll be picked off by Strain.”

“I need to get to my father,” you tell her as you shake your head. The Port Mafia must be in an especially precarious position if Mori is bringing you back after the conflict has escalated this much—your heart rate spikes as worst-case scenarios start to fly through your head, wondering if they’ve been backed into a corner, forced into a position where their only option is negotiations for surrender. Logically, you know Mori would never let that happen, but it doesn’t quell the rising fear. “He’s in Naka-ku.”

You just need to know what ward you’re in and-

“You’re in Kanagawa-ku right now, you’ll never make it through it and Nishi-ku—and Naka-ku is the heart of the conflict,” the woman says as she clicks her tongue. “Stay here. You’ll be safer.”

“I need to get to my father,” you repeat again, “but thank you, really, for the offer and concern… and for helping me figure out what’s going on. I appreciate it.”

You rise to your feet to leave, and instantly, the boy is on his feet, nearly knocking over the woman’s cup of water and promptly getting whacked with a rag in response. The boy winces but takes a few steps toward you, undeterred.

“You can’t go out there,” he says, green eyes pleading for you to listen. “Just stay. Once everything’s calmed down, we can help you find your father.”

“I can’t stay,” you say quietly, wondering if Doppo’s desperation for you to stay is a result of your ability messing with his head or if he really does just have that big of a heart. You think as a thank you for their help, that you’ll ensure that Yokohama will become Strain’s grave.

The old woman makes another disparaging comment about ungrateful fathers before nodding at you. “Good luck, girl, be careful out there.”

You make it approximately seven blocks before the ability user that you thought you lost catches up to you. You think that if you die here, you’re going to spend the entire rest of Mori’s life terrorizing him as a ghost. You grimace as a wave of flames sweeps above you, you can feel the heat against the top of your head from where you’re using an abandoned car to shield you from the man, but you know it’s only a matter of time before he gets to you.

Shit, you sigh, eyes flitting around the street trying to figure out if there’s anywhere you can dart to, but the only other rubble you could hide behind is a tipped-over dumpster in an alley twenty yards away—you’ll never make it that far without something to shield you from the flames.

You blame Mori. Again. He should’ve warned you about what you’re walking into, and he should’ve sent more than just a group of second-rate losers to pick you up from the station knowing how bad the city is. Now, you’re going to get roasted alive by some psychotic pyromaniac when you should be back in Kyoto dealing with the more pleasant parts of business—wining and dining elites to strike deals and expand the Mafia’s influence throughout all of the societal spheres of Japan.

You grimace as you steady your gun in front of you, using the broken side-view mirror of the car you’re hiding behind to try to figure out where the ability user is because if you can get one good shot off you’d at least have enough time to make a break for it. You just need to focus—the Colonel didn’t put you through all of that firearms training just for you to choke up when you actually need to use it.

Your gaze tracks the man as soon as he comes within view of the mirror. You breathe in and out steadily—once, twice, three times. He’s fumbling with a walkie-talkie, distracted, and you don’t hesitate before taking the given chance. You twist into a kneeling position to face where he’s standing, raising both arms as you aim the gun in his direction; he catches your movement from the corner of his eye, expression shifting into one of anger, but you fire off three bullets before he can retaliate.

Or so you thought.

Your lips part in shock as the man whips a fireball in your direction before he hits the ground—even if you do evade it in time, it’s stronger than the rest he’s been throwing at you, it’ll blow right through the car you’re using as a barrier.

“Shit,” you breathe out, trying to take a step back but your ankle catches on a stray piece of rubble. You hit the ground hard, pain shooting up your leg and as you brace yourself for the flames, you squeeze your eyes shut.

But the agony of burning to death never comes.

Your eyes fly back open when you see someone standing between you and the fireball, the flames fizzling out and dying before they can touch him. They disappear, unable to get past him to you, and your eyes widen in shock. Who on earth… He looks over his shoulder at you, dark-hair flopping in his visible eye—he’s pretty, you think absently, even if a quarter of his face is covered in bandages. You blame your thoughts on the fact that you’re still a bit stunned and confused.

Then he opens his mouth.

“You must be the precious cargo,” he grins. “We’re here to rescue you.”

“Cargo?” You gape, offended. “Did you just call me cargo?”

“Precious cargo,” he corrects, eye turning up in amusement before he focuses his attention back to the ability user who had attacked you. “Go handle that, pipsqueak. Make yourself useful for once.”

“Shut your damn mouth, bastard,” another male voice spits from behind you, voice riddled with irritation and anger.

You look behind you to see another boy around your age with orange hair and mismatched eyes. He’s dressed more casually than the dark-haired boy, who’s wearing a black suit and tie beneath his long coat. He barely spares you a look as he steps forward, and you watch as his entire body glows red before he flies forward so fast that your eyes can’t even keep up with him.

The gravity manipulator. You’ve heard of him through Kouyou—not much, but enough to know he’s probably the strongest ability users to exist in the eastern hemisphere. Does that mean…

The dark-haired boy turns his attention to you, smile widening as he leans over you. He looks unbearably amused at your predicament, and you find yourself growing more and more incensed by the second.

“Dazai Osamu,” he greets. “You got a name, precious cargo?”

Oh.

You recognize the name instantly, eyes narrowing, and as if he can sense your sudden change in demeanor, his smile starts to fall. Dazai Osamu. The Demon Prodigy. The Port Mafia’s Black Wraith. Mori brought him in two years ago, if the rumors you’ve heard hold any truth to them—after he sent you away to Kyoto with Kitada Usurai, one of the previous boss’s executives.

You always wondered if the reason Mori never brought you back had something to do with his new protege—whether it was because he didn’t need you in Yokohama anymore now that he had “the Demon Prodigy” to be his heir or it was because he just didn’t want the two of you interacting. You never really minded; you like being in Kyoto and you like not having to be at the heart of every gang conflict that takes place in Yokohama but you can’t help the bitterness that rises now that your eyes have settled on the boy that took your place.

Before you can answer him, Dazai abruptly goes careening over to the left, hitting the ground hard. The orange-haired boy is standing where he once was, leg extended, and you realize that he must’ve kicked him away.

“Stay there and die, won’t you?” he snaps, and you glance behind him, trying to figure out if he had already taken care of the ability user that had been hunting you down. Your lips part when you see him crumpled in a pile of rubble, unmoving. “Nakahara Chuuya. You can call me Chuuya. You hurt?”

He extends his hand to you, and you take it gratefully, giving him your name and letting him help you to your feet. You stumble a bit, your left ankle buckling under your weight, and Chuuya wraps an arm around your waist to steady you.

How embarrassing, you think, thanking him quietly before easing his arm away, standing on your own even with the pain in your ankle, not wanting to come across as weak. You make your way over to where the ability user is crumpled on the ground, kneeling in the rubble next to him. You lift your fingers to his neck to see if he’s still hanging on, but there’s no pulse.

You click your tongue, having been hoping you’d be able to take him back to the base for questioning, but instead, you let your fingers drift to the symbol embroidered on his jacket and then to the two bars embroidered onto his bicep.

Strain.

The old lady and her grandson hadn’t been lying.

“You recognize the symbol?” Chuuya asks, wandering over to stand next to where you’re kneeling on the ground.

You frown instantly. “You don’t?” you ask dubiously, eyes narrowing again as Chuuya bristles at your comment.

“The conflict only just started a few days ago,” he says defensively. “We don’t have intel on all of the organizations that have showed up in the city. There are dozens of them. We’ve been more focused on trying to keep the civilians out of the crossfires at this point.”

A mighty fine job they’ve been doing at that, you think sarcastically, mind drawing back to the boy and old woman that helped you earlier and all of the destroyed buildings. You keep the thought to yourself, not too keen on antagonizing one of the people sent to get you out of this hellhole.

“That’s why he brought me back here then,” you mutter more to yourself than anyone else, rolling your eyes as you grab the ability user’s walkie-talkie and rise to your feet. “He’s a member of Strain—one of their lower-ranked ability users, if the lines on his coat are accurate. From what I’ve gathered, they control Kanagawa-ku and Nishi-ku. We should get out of the open before their stronger ability users show up.”

“I can take them,” Chuuya says confidently, looking unperturbed by your comment.

“I’m sure you can,” you say dryly, “but how skilled are you at using nonlethal force against strong opponents?”

Chuuya only squints at you, which is as much of an answer as you need.

“If we want actual, useful intel, we’ll have to capture one of their higher-ranked ability users alive. I can get the information out of them, I just need the opportunity to use my ability.” You rise back to your feet, gaze shifting around the street to try to figure out where you should hide out for the night. “Plus, night is falling, and rumor has it, Strain has an ability user that’s particularly adept with umbrakinetic abilities and I would rather not run into him. I am already tired and wounded, and I don’t know how your gravity would interact with an element unaffected by gravitational forces so we can’t rely on your brute force.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have attitude?” Chuuya scowls, disgruntled by your blunt commentary, and you roll your eyes.

“No, actually,” you say, giving him a thin smile. “In fact, I’ve been told I’m quite pleasant. I’m just in a bad mood because I didn’t realize Mori would be having me return to a warzone when he called me back to Yokohama. I would’ve appreciated a bit of a head’s up.”

Your gaze drifts back to Dazai as you speak, curious, but the boy is already looking at you, a frown on his lips and visible eye sharp. As soon as he notices that you caught him staring, his face smoothes out and he cocks his head to the side, questioning, eye too black and too empty.

Your gaze slides away from him onto what seems like another residential building behind him.

“We’ll stay there for the night.”

You wake up with a pain in your back and a headache. The fact that your ankle doesn’t hurt as badly is only a minimal consolation as you push yourself into a sitting position and rub your forehead, disoriented and confused, trying to remember where you are and why you’re sleeping on a rickety bed.

Your gaze catches sight of a head of orange hair lying in the opposite direction of you, pillow at the foot of the bed and curled close to the edge of the mattress as if trying to stay as far away as possible from you.

That’s right. You’re back in Yokohama. Mori called you back to help with this conflict. Sent the gravity manipulator and the Demon Prodigy after you to make sure you got back to the base. Your eyes linger on Nakahara Chuuya for a moment, watching the way his chest rises and falls, soft puffs of air escaping his lips—he’s fast asleep, dead to the world. So, you let your gaze drift across the room; it’s dark, no lights on in fear of drawing unwanted attention from Strain scouts if they see any sign of life in one of the abandoned buildings. You can only hardly catch sight of Dazai Osamu sitting near a cracked open window, one knee tucked to his chest while the other hangs loosely at his side as he looks outside and smokes a cigarette.

There’s an indecipherable expression on his face—a heavy look in his eyes and a downturn curve to his lips. You watch him curiously for a moment.

You’ve heard a lot about Dazai Osamu’s feats while stationed in Kyoto: ruthless, terrifyingly intelligent, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. It took only a year of him being a member of the Mafia for him to be given control of Mori’s personal covert ops unit, and he’s been producing staggering results since. He’s the one who takes charge of eliminating organizations that you deem unworthy of associating with the Mafia but too problematic to keep around, the one who’s been opening up new distribution and trade channels for you to make use of in negotiations and acquisitions.

You suppose you’ve been working closely with him for a while now, even if the two of you have never interacted until now.

Still, the rumors that have spread about the boy are nothing to scoff at. The head of the Mafia’s interrogation unit—they say no one lasts more than five minutes in the same room with him before cracking. You’ve heard through the grapevine that the lower-ranked mafiosos are more terrified of him than any of the executives—see him as heartless and calculating, willing to sacrifice any one of them if it means furthering the Mafia’s interests. He only views people as tools, there’s no room in his black heart for meaningful relationships. No one trusts him and the longer he works for the Mafia, the darker and more unfathomable he becomes, even in the eyes of others entrenched in the dark—people keep far out of reach of him unless they have a death wish.

You study him carefully from where you’re sitting; he still hangs his jacket over his shoulders, like some sort of barrier from the rest of the world. His expression now is a far cry from the smile that had been on his face when you first saw him; his eye black and eerily still as he stares out the window, void of the gleam that had been in it before he noticed your reaction to his name.

You slide out of bed as quietly as you can, making your way over to where he’s sitting—he doesn’t even notice your approach until he catches sight of your reflection in the window, but even then, he doesn’t turn to look at you, only tracking you through the glass until you come to sit on the windowsill across from him. You tilt your head to the side as you observe him, pulling your knees to your chest.

“You shouldn’t sit at the window,” you finally say. “Someone could spot you.”

His eye is so black right now; you almost feel uncomfortable beneath his stare but you only raise your eyebrows. His gaze pointedly trails down to where you’d joined him and the corner of your lip quirks up.

“Fair enough,” you say and then hold your hand out, silently requesting for him to pass the cigarette over to you. Dazai stares at your hand for a moment and just when you’re about to draw your hand back, he finally reaches out to let you take it from him. Your fingers brush his as you take it between your index and middle fingers, the contact causing a spark to run up your forearm. You lift the cigarette to your lips and take a long drag, tilting your head back against the wall before you tell him, “You should go get some rest. I’ll take watch the next few hours.”

“Not tired,” he replies after a few seconds of silence. His voice is just as cold as the expression on his face, no hint of the playfulness from earlier in the day.

You hum, trying to decide what to say because he’s clearly unhappy and you have a feeling it has to do with how you reacted to hearing his name earlier, so you decide to be upfront, not in the mood for word games.

“I think you’re unhappy with me because of how I reacted to hearing your name,” you say, laying out the issue. His gaze snaps up to you, sharp and narrowed, lips parting to deny the allegation but you don’t let him. “I was only surprised. I didn’t mean to make it seem like I have a bad opinion of you.”

“No?” Dazai asks, a sardonic lilt to his voice, goading more than anything else but you don’t fall for the trap.

With your legs brushing, you can’t feel the familiar warmth of your ability circling through you and emanating around you, everything feels cold and empty instead, as if a part of you was sucked into a vacuum in space—the rumors must be true about him being a nullifier. You’ve never had to interact with people without your ability as a fail safe, it’s constantly active despite trying to learn how to turn it off. It’s useful though, it ensures that even if you mess up, the people around you are comfortable enough and amiable enough to not notice. They trust you without you even needing to do anything, adore you just because of the pleasant feelings your ability induces in them.

This is… different.

And you don’t think in a bad way. You’ve always wondered what it would be like to interact with people without your ability interfering, it’s why you tried so hard to figure out if you could turn it off. And… it's nice talking to someone who’s not automatically endeared to you by your ability, who you can have normal conversation with without having to wonder if they’re only talking to you because you’re messing with their minds. Even nicer than you used to imagine.

“No,” you confirm. “I’m curious about you.”

The corners of Dazai’s lips turn down even more, brows furrowing at the comment. “Why?”

“You’re not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“A monster,” you say the word absently, watching as Dazai goes rigid at it, staring you down. “A demon. It’s what everyone calls you, at least.”

“... and what makes you think I’m not one?” he finally asks, jaw tight.

Your lips curl into an easy smile again. “If you were a monster, you wouldn’t have been so bothered by the idea of me not liking you. The desire to be liked is an exceedingly human trait.”

Even under the dim moonlight, you can see the way Dazai’s cheeks burn a rosy color at your words. He suddenly looks years younger as he fumbles for words, gaze averting from you back to the window, but his reflection betrays him.

“I was not bothered by the idea of you not liking me,” he protests, defensiveness creeping into his tone as he snatches his cigarette right back from your hand as if to make a point, giving you a glare from the corner of his eye. “I was not.”

“You were also very clearly put off by the fact that I had no issue with Chuuya,” you note, biting back a laugh at the squeak-like protest that slips from his lips and the mortified expression that follows. “Jealousy, another exceedingly human trait.”

“I was not jealous,” he cries out, a bit too loud because from where he’s sleeping on the bed, Chuuya grumbles out a ‘shut the fuck up’ in his sleep. “I was not jealous.”

“It’s okay if you were,” you say, instead of indulging in his denial. “I’m not judging you.”

“I wasn’t,” Dazai hisses, more insistent now. “I don’t care if you like me or not.”

“Well, I do like you,” you tell him—honest, you’re having fun teasing him.

“You don’t even know me,” Dazai scoffs, cheeks still pink as he pointedly turns his face away from you. “You can’t like me.”

“I want to know you,” you say, tilting your head to the side as you observe him. You like observing things—it’s the easiest way of gathering information. You keep quiet, you don’t draw more attention to yourself than necessary. It’s how you’ve been able to thrive alone in Kyoto even with so many vultures circling you. “I don’t know many other people my age… none, really.”

Something strange crosses Dazai’s expression. Longing but hesitant. Wistful but reluctant, like he should know better but just can’t help himself from wanting. You’re good at reading people, you pride yourself on it; it’s another reason why you’ve been able to succeed in Kyoto alone. Dazai is difficult—he covers half of his face and he’s quick to school the other half when he slips up, but you’re observant. It’s what you’re best at.

You wonder, maybe, if Dazai has his own vultures. You think he must, he’s young—like you—and it’s probably why he uses his reputation as a shield and wears his long black coat like armor in the same way you use honeyed words and wear a saccharine smile. So, the thought must be scary to him as much as it must be appealing—the desire to have someone see him put against the fear of actually being seen as he is.

You know it better than anyone.

“Well, you can’t have Chuuya. Chuuya is my dog,” Dazai says firmly, raising his chin. “He follows my orders.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Your dog?” you ask dryly.

“My dog,” Dazai confirms, seemingly quite proud of himself. “I won a bet, and now Chuuya is my dog for life.”

“Must have been quite the bet,” you drawl, watching as Dazai brightens a bit at the topic.

“We had a contest to see who could figure out the culprit of one of our missions faster. I won, of course, because Chuuya is slow and dumb like a slug. A slug. Chuuya is a slug,” Dazai cackles, dark eye shining as his lips curl up into a wide smile, clapping his hands together. “I’m much better than Chuuya, you see. He’s a brute. He’s never had to learn to be smart or cunning because of his ability, so he just punches things around until he gets what he wants. Plus, he’s small—and if that’s not bad enough, he is more arrogant than his tiny body can hold. That’s why he’s my dog. He can’t do anything without his master’s orders.”

Dazai is not subtle in dragging Chuuya down to boast about himself, puffing out his chest like some prideful bird and lifting his chin as he speaks. You think that if Chuuya was awake to hear this, Dazai would find himself tossed right out of the window to fall two stories to the ground, but the other boy is asleep, blissfully unaware of Dazai’s rampage of insults.

“What happened during the mission?” you ask curiously, a bit interested to know what’s all been happening in Yokohama while you’ve been gone.

Dazai looks surprised as if he didn’t expect you to encourage his yapping. Then, he lights up again. “I’ll tell you all about it…”

You wonder, maybe, if the rumors of his solidarity and inability to form meaningful relationships might not have stemmed from his own volition. Rather, you think they’ve been enforced by the people around him who refuse to give him the time of day in fear of his reputation, because right now in front of you isn’t some twisted and unfathomable wraith of the Mafia.

All you see is a boy the same age as you eager to have someone new to talk to.

He talks all night.

From the moment you sat there with him at two or three in the morning until dawn, you don’t think he shut his mouth once. You hardly spoke more than a handful of times, content to just lean your head against the window and listen to him go on about all of the missions he’s had since joining the Mafia a year ago—most of them involved Chuuya, and he certainly made a show of explaining in each one why the mission would have failed without Dazai there to guide it along.

“See. This is why he’s my dog.”

It’s not until Chuuya finally starts stirring as the sun crosses the horizon does he finally quiet down, seemingly not keen on getting himself launched out a window if the other boy happens to hear one of the unsavory stories Dazai’s telling you.

Then again, his first words are pretty much asking for it.

“About time you woke up, slug,” Dazai says cheerfully when Chuuya groans and rolls over, clearly starting to wake up. His dark eye gleams as he waits for Chuuya’s explosive reaction to the new nickname.

“Hah?! What did you just call me, bastard?” Chuuya snaps, although he’s quite slow in pushing himself out of bed, sleepy and disoriented, gaze swiveling around to try to land on Dazai.

“Huh,” you say, more to yourself than them. “He is quite sluggish in waking up.”

“What?!” Chuuya demands, head snapping toward you.

On the other side of the window bench, Dazai snickers, looking mighty pleased with himself. He looks a lot more his age now, the tenseness in his shoulders has dissipated in the hours he spent talking to you, the tightness in his face has smoothed out. His eye is a lot wider and a lot brighter, the corner of his lip twitching as he waits to see what Chuuya’s going to do next. He sits closer to you now too—or, not closer, really, but he’s extended his legs out a bit as the night drew on until they were all but entangled with yours.

“You’re a slug, Chuuya,” Dazai jeers. “A slug. Because you’re small and slow. Aren’t I so brilliant?”

“I’m going to toss your shitty ass out the window,” Chuuya booms, throwing himself out of bed and darting over to Dazai, who evades Chuuya’s punch by diving off of the window bench, nearly taking you right with him considering his legs were stuffed between yours. “Get back here, you asshole.”

Dazai’s out of the room in an instant and Chuuya is chasing after him, spitting out curses and threats. You sit there for a moment, blinking, trying to wrap your mind around what just happened before just deciding to shake your head and rise to your feet. You stretch, body a bit sore from sitting in the same place for hours and tired from the little amount of sleep you got last night.

You’re ready to get back to headquarters. You want to sleep in an actual bed and you want to drag Mori for his incompetence and nearly getting you killed. You miss Elise too, even if you don’t really like what she’s become. You’re just happy to not be alone anymore—being in Kyoto was… stressful, at best, and downright agonizing, at worst. You couldn’t trust anyone, not even your ability was enough to protect you there, you had no friends, you were lonely and constantly looking over your shoulder because you had no one to watch your back—even the other members of the Mafia in Kyoto with you would’ve turned against you at any given chance if it meant they could drag themselves higher up the hierarchy.

You yawn as you leave the room, hearing the distant sounds of Chuuya kicking Dazai’s shit in. You make your way to the front of the building you guys had camped the night out, intent on getting a breath of fresh air before waiting for them to stop fucking around but you hardly get more than half a step out of the door before you’re pushed back hard against a nearby wall.

Your eyes widen when a figure manifests in front of you, particles of shadows knitting together to form a young man who seems to be a few years older than you. You barely withhold a sigh, realizing that despite all attempts to avoid him, you still managed to stumble right into the hands of Strain’s shadow manipulator—literally.

“I didn’t expect the cargo we got intel on to be a girl,” he says coolly. “I almost didn’t believe it when Anderson reported it to me. Though I haven’t heard from him in hours, I assume that’s your doing.”

“You know,” you say lightly, “this is the second time in less than twelve hours that I’ve been called cargo. I think I like it even less coming from you.”

Though you’ve heard a lot about the shadow manipulator, you didn’t know what he looked like before now—he’s quick and elusive, and those who do manage to catch sight of him are killed by him soon after.. He’s not much older than you, though—two years max—handsome enough, pale blonde hair and green eyes with tan, freckled skin.

Your lips curve up into a small smile. “Are you going to kill me or are you going to stand here with your hand around my neck? … Just so you know, I’m not into that.”

You watch as—just as you expect—he frowns deeply and takes a step back. He watches you carefully, brows knit together, and you let your ability work. Invisible threads wind around his limbs, curling up his neck twisting into his ears and nose and mouth, they curl up to his brain and take root, leaving him vulnerable to however you plan to use your ability.

You still have to be careful. You have to be subtle. Your ability is useful but it has its drawbacks—the biggest being that if you’re too sudden with it, the person you’re targeting can realize that you’re messing with their head and pull themselves out of it. That would be the worst case scenario because 1) they’d realize you have an ability and 2) you’d be in trouble.

So you resign to just tilting your head to the side as you smile—some emotions are fickle, positive ones like love and happiness, especially among people like you who don’t often feel those emotions. Negative emotions are easier in that once you send someone into a spiral of fear, paranoia or rage, it’s almost impossible for them to draw themselves out, but they’ll inevitably realize that you had done something to their head, which is not an option because your ability needs to remain a secret.

So you decide to just rely on the passive form of your ability, watching as he falls victim to it, shoulders slumping and muscles relaxing as he eyes you curiously. Your ability is non-combatant, yes, but as soon as combat is over, it comes out to play.

He’d made a fatal mistake when he chose not to snap your neck.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” you say conversationally, hands behind your back as you tilt your head to the side. “They say you’re one of the strongest ability users in the world right now.”

“I didn’t expect you to be a kid,” he says with a frown. “You’re what? Fourteen?”

You blanche. “I’m sixteen,” you protest, forgetting to keep up appearances as you stare at him, aghast. “I do not look fourteen.”

He makes a face as if he disagrees and then shrugs.

Your eyes bulge. “I do not,” you repeat angrily. “I’m sixteen.”

“Whatever you say,” he says, amused. “I’m not in the business of killing kids though, so I guess I have to take you in. What a bother.”

Your eye twitches. You’d rather die than be taken hostage by Strain and you don’t know where your shitty escorts are so you settle for antagonizing him as a means to stall.

“You’re a high-ranking member of Strain, how are you going to sit here and tell me you’re not in the business of killing kids?” you sneer. “Your organization has been the cause of more child deaths than any other in the world.”

His eyes turn to slits as he stares at you. ��You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says coldly. “I put a stop to all of the rings in Australia myself.”

“And what? You think Strain is willing to just take those losses?” you say, an amused laugh bubbling in the back of your throat when anger flashes through his eyes. Your gaze flits down to the five lines embroidered on his jacket. “For an executive, you must not be kept in the loop by the rest of your comrades. The moment you dismantled the rings in Australia, they turned to strike a deal with Bunin—what do you think your branch in Russia does there? They’re helping Bunin expand his trafficking rings through the East and Strain cuts twenty percent of the profit.”

His hand snaps forward to grab your collar, yanking you toward him. “How would you even know that?” he spits, but from the conflict thinly veiled behind his eyes, you know that your words have taken root.

You raise your eyebrows as you look up at him, a bit too close for comfort.

“How did you know I was coming back to Yokohama?” you counter instead. He lets you go immediately, withdrawing with a closed-off expression. “Come on, we’ve both been betrayed in some manner—you by your organization, me by someone within mine. I almost burned to death because of them and you… you’ve been working for an organization that’s been lying to you for years. Let’s help each other.”

“I don’t even know if what you’re saying is the truth,” he replies tightly. “I don’t-”

“Then go find out,” you say with an idle smile, “and when you realize I’m telling the truth, well… your ability is quite handy, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me again.”

He stares at you for a moment, expression indecipherable, but after a few long seconds, he disappears in the same swirl of darkness that he appeared in and you can finally relax. You let out a heavy sigh as your shoulders slump, lifting your hand to your neck, wincing at the tenderness.

You doubt that will be enough. You’ve heard rumors that he’s Yakuza-born—only ended up with Strain after Mishima’s Sun and Steel went to war with their syndicate—loyalty is always core to those types, runs through their blood—but at least you’ve planted the seeds, and when he inevitably finds out you’re telling the truth, he’ll come crawling back for more information.

And hopefully some information for you in return.

Your gaze flits to the side when you hear a crash from your left, seeing Nakahara Chuuya fly out of the building, hands glowing red and eyes wide and wild, trying to seek out a man who’s already long gone.

You roll your eyes. “He’s already gone. Thanks for the help, O’Great Protectors,” you say sarcastically. “Really, you guys are amazing at your job.”

Chuuya has the decency to look ashamed, face flushing as red as his hair as he deactivates his ability and looks away from you. “Who the hell was that?”

“Itou Asahi,” you say absently. “Strain’s shadow manipulator—one of the strongest ability users in the eastern hemisphere right now. Mori brought him up a few times wanting me to recruit him. I didn't think I’d get the chance considering we’re aligned with the Sun and Steel and he hates them, but I might have an opening.”

Your look over to Dazai, who only frowns at your words, gaze trained on you with an unreadable look in his eyes.

“You’re hurt,” he says, brows furrowed, and you realize he’s looking at your neck.

You drop your hand from where you’d been brushing your fingers against the sensitive skin, feeling distinctly too seen under Dazai’s heavy gaze. You don’t know why you feel a bit flustered, but you do and you definitely don’t like it.

“I’m fine,” you say, shaking your head. “Can we head back to headquarters now?”

Dazai frowns like he’s about to protest, but Chuuya nods before he can.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Headquarters is less than a mile away now. The streets that three of you are walking down are safe—none of the organizations have made it this far into the heart of Port Mafia territory—and yet for some reason, Dazai still feels incredibly troubled.

He hasn’t even been able to join in on you and Chuuya’s conversation. He’s had ample opportunity to considering how much Chuuya is embarrassing himself by trying to act smart, but instead he finds himself trailing behind the two of you, an outsider, too lost in his own thoughts to even think of trying to make a snide comment.

Why is he so troubled?

Dazai isn’t sure and that troubles him too.

He’s always been very in tune with himself. His emotions, his motives, his wants and needs—they’re few and far between, yes, but Dazai has never struggled to pinpoint them at any point in his life.

He was sad when his ability manifested and his siblings no longer wanted anything to do with him. His ability made them uncomfortable, made them feel empty because it deprived them of their own abilities. They said it was unnatural, and they said he must be unnatural too because why else would he develop such a terrible ability? Dazai couldn’t really blame them, his ability made him feel empty too—he theorizes that when it doesn’t have an ability to suck up into the black hole, it starts devouring anything else it can get its hands on, like his emotions, because he stopped feeling much at all after it manifested.

When he was twelve, he wanted to learn how to play the piano to impress his mother, though he never got the chance to show her because she was killed soon after. He hasn’t wanted much of anything since then.

When he was fourteen, his grandfather started pitting him, his siblings and his cousins against each other. His older brother drew the first blood against one of his cousins, and it was a bloodbath from there on out. With both of his parents dead and his siblings and cousins trying to kill one another to be named his grandfather’s heir, Dazai didn’t have much reason to live himself, and he definitely didn’t want to be killed by one of his siblings or cousins.

So, he thought the next logical step was to die, so he tried to kill himself.

He failed, obviously, and ended up with none other than Mori. He still hasn’t found much of a reason to keep living. Chuuya is around, he supposes, and he’s entertaining enough to mess with—it’s enough to keep Dazai going for now—and you claim to want to know him, so Dazai is interested in seeing how that plays out, but that’s beyond the point.

The point is that Dazai knows what Dazai wants. Dazai knows what Dazai needs. Dazai knows what Dazai feels. And Dazai currently cannot figure out why Dazai is troubled, so something is certainly wrong and he needs to figure out what it is.

He hears you laugh at something that Chuuya said and barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. Nothing Chuuya says is ever that funny, so you must just be being polite, but it’s still annoying. Mostly due to the fact that Dazai can’t call it out because he doesn’t even know what was said because he wasn’t paying attention courtesy of his current dilemma.

He withholds a sigh as his gaze drops to your neck, eyes focusing in on the dark bruises lining your neck—the fingerprints of that ability user form Strain that attacked you when he and Chuuya weren’t around—and his irritation spikes yet again.

At once, a lightbulb goes off in his head.

That’s what’s troubling him. He’s found himself looking back at the marks on your neck on more than one occasion, and each time, it’s triggered his displeasure. He’s not sure why it took him so long to put it together, but now lies a new issue: why is it triggering his displeasure?

He squints as he stares at you hard, willing the answer to come to him. There must be a logical reason for it, he just needs to figure out what it is. He can see you looking at him from the corner of your eye, probably wondering why he’s staring at you so intensely, but Dazai just can’t rip his gaze away, fully intent on figuring out what his problem is right now.

Casualties are expected in this line of work. Dazai has never been one to think twice when people are hurt or killed in the line of action—he’s lost many subordinates to ensure the success of a mission and has even put his own life on the line if it meant that it bettered his chances of succeeding. So he should by no means be bothered by the prospect of you being wounded, especially considering he barely knows you.

“I want to know you.”

Dazai blinks as your words suddenly ring through his head again, startled by his own thoughts. His brows furrow even deeper because no, that can’t possibly be the reason why. He supposes it might be influencing it a bit because people who want to know him are few and far between, so the thought of meeting someone who actually gives him the time of day and almost losing them right away is unfortunate. It makes sense that it’s making him more irritable, especially when it’s something he’s curious to see play out and it’s something that could’ve been easily prevented.

Oh, he realizes, suddenly satisfied as he comes to an answer that he can quickly accept, disregarding everything else.

That’s the issue—it was preventable.

Dazai should’ve seen it coming and he should’ve been quick to take the necessary steps to avoid it. What he was feeling was irritability at himself, not at the fact that you got hurt. It wouldn’t make sense because Dazai doesn’t know you and even if he did know you, casualties are expected in this line of work. But you’re his assignment—his and Chuuya’s—Dazai has never failed an assignment before, much less with Chuuya, and he’d come this close because he’d recklessly let down his guard in enemy territory.

It makes sense.

Much more than any of the other absurd explanations he’d been considering do at least.

This time when Chuuya makes a stupid comment, Dazai chimes in with some very necessary commentary, giving you a simpering smile and a wink before dancing out of the way of Chuuya’s much anticipated roundhouse.

Still, Dazai finds the troubled feeling returning again when his gaze drifts back down to the marks on your neck as he passes by the two of you with flourished spin, antagonizing Chuuya just to entertain himself with how red his face gets in embarrassment.

But his gaze darts back up to your face quickly and he shakes off the unwelcome feeling, another quip on the tip of his tongue that abruptly dies when he sees your hand pressed to your mouth as you try to hide your amusement from Chuuya. Your eyes are turned up and your smothered giggles are just barely audible, the mid-morning sun casts an ethereal glow over your face and for a moment, Dazai is entirely stunned by the sight. He nearly trips over his own foot, and since he’s unsteady on his feet, he can’t avoid the way Chuuya predictably transitions from a roundhouse into a back kick.

He goes flying backward, all breath pushed from his lungs as takes the kick to the gut and hits the concrete hard a few feet away. He should be disgruntled, or he should at the very least retaliate with another mocking jibe, but instead, he finds his gaze fixed on you, watching as you finally burst into laughter, unable to contain it with the sight of Dazai sprawled out on the ground looking like a clown.

His heart rate spikes and Dazai’s hand flies to his chest, alarmed—becomes even more so when it doesn’t settle down. He rips his gaze from you to stare down at the ground, forcibly calming his heart and only when he’s sure that he’s got it under control, he looks back up.

Immediately, he loses control over it again, and this time it feels even more erratic, each thump resonating through his ears as you approach him, giggles quieting as you hold out your hand to help him up.

For a horrifying second, Dazai thinks he might have a heart attack and that would be a lame way to go. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, he does not have a heart attack, although that means he’s probably going to have to go to Mori when he gets back to the base—death may have been more preferable to that.

Great, he thinks bitterly, not only has he had to deal with Chuuya for over twenty-four now, but now he’s going to have to go see Mori and figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Or you. He wonders if maybe you have an ability that’s somehow affecting him, that would be a serious issue for future missions that the two of you might be paired for.

But it must be that—it’s the most logical explanation.

What a mess the past day has been, but…

Dazai thinks it might’ve been worth the trouble, eyes lingering on you for a few moments longer before he takes your hand, taking note of the odd jolt that runs up his arm as soon as your fingers wrap around his hand to help him up.

He doesn’t notice that even with your fingers locked with his, his heart still beats out of his chest.

“Don’t tell me you’re over here reminiscing.”

You roll your eyes before looking over your shoulder to focus your gaze on an achingly familiar face. Chuuya drops lightly to the ground behind you, using gravity to soften his fall as he approaches you.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you reply, folding your arms over your chest as a smile curves to your lips. “I was waiting for you.”

“D’aw, did ya miss me?” he asks with a sharp smile.

You have a retort ready to fly from your lips, but instead of speaking it, you sigh and let your gaze drift across the street in Kanagawa-ku that you’re standing in. Even after all of these years, the ground and buildings are still charred where that ability user had attacked you—faded now, of course, but you can still make out the faint remnants of the attacks.

Maybe you are reminiscing, you think to yourself, a heavy feeling settling over you. If you close your eyes, you can almost picture the rubble you were hiding behind, the jolt of fear you’d felt when you realized you wouldn’t be able to dodge the next attack, and then him.

And then Dazai.

“I did,” you admit, dragging your eyes from the ground to look back at Chuuya, whose smile falters a bit before softening.

“I can’t believe Mori had you abroad for three years,” he sighs, reaching out to squeeze your wrist. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let’s head back to headquarters and have a drink. We can put on a movie.”

“Not one of your shitty horror movies,” you laugh, knocking your shoulder into his. You lean into him a bit as he wraps an arm around your shoulders, keeping it draped around you as the two of you start to make your way back to the base.

You hesitate—and Chuuya can feel your hesitation from the way he glances down at you, concerned. He frowns and asks, “What’s up?”

You let out a puff of air and then speak up reluctantly, “Have you… heard from him? Of him?”

You hate the twinge of hope that’s audible in your voice, despite how hard you tried to rid yourself of it. You hate even more the sympathetic look that Chuuya casts you; he knows who you’re talking about instantly—of course, he does, there’s only one person it could be—his lashes lower and his arm drops back to his side.

“I saw him,” Chuuya says after a few moments. Your eyes widen as your head snaps toward him, waiting for him to continue. “... Met him. He’s part of the Armed Detective Agency now. Got himself captured by us to try to get information to help his new protege.”

“Oh.”

Your throat feels tight. Too tight. Swollen. Your eyes sting painfully and you have to force yourself to take a deep breath. The Armed Detective Agency. New protege. You don’t know if you feel bitter or relieved. Bitter because he’s found a place somewhere without you, relieved because he’s alive and okay.

His defection still doesn’t even feel real after four years, it’s not like you’ve been in Yokohama long enough to fully process it, but god… you could still imagine him coming up behind the two of you with a snide comment to antagonize Chuuya, eyes trained on you to watch the way you laugh at Chuuya’s reaction. The wistfulness hits you so hard that it almost knocks the air from your lungs—not for the first time since he left, you yearn, you miss him, you want him, and now that you’re finally back in Yokohama after so many years abroad, it’s all the more intense.

How unfair, you think, nails biting into your palms as you stare ahead.

“Do you think he’s replaced us?” You try to keep your voice light, but you think you fail.

Chuuya lets out a bark of laughter. “He can certainly try.”

Your lips curl up at Chuuya’s words, gaze flickering down to the ground. “Yeah, you’re right,” you agree quietly before asking, “Did he seem… okay?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “I’m not talking about that shithead anymore,” he tells you. “I’m sure he’ll come looking for you now that you’re back. Let’s go home now, yeah?”

The thought of Dazai coming to look for you makes your stomach twist with anxiety; after so many years apart, you just don’t know what to expect… but you suppose you’ve never really known what to expect from him, so you’ll just handle him the same way you always have. Except maybe not as kindly.

But you don’t have to worry about that yet. Instead, you smile and bump shoulders with Chuuya again.

“Yeah, let’s go home.”

#dazai x reader #dazai x you #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you

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satorusugurugurl · 7 months ago

Text

Self-Love Quickie!

Summary: When you finally have time alone for the first time in a week, you can find some stress relief. But maybe you should have checked the apartment first. 😗

Pairing: Gojo Satoru x AFAB!R x Ryomen Sukuna

Warning: Masturbation, oral sex, p in v, smut!

A/N: Just a late night honey drabble ft. Dr. Gojo and Fire Fighter!Sukuna!

The second you get home from work, noticing your roommates keys aren’t there you’re rushing to the couch. You push your skirt up, running for the couch with excitement. Finally you were alone!

Your roommates keep getting sent home early, and every fucking time you go to grab your toys they barge in, or annoucce that they're home! Making it nearly impossible to get off. It didn't help that your room was smacked down between them and you weren't exactly the quiet in bed. So the fact that both of them weren't home was an opportunity you couldn't miss! The second you lie down on the couch you're sliding your hand into your panties rubbing circles around your clit.

Which wouldn’t be a problem thanks to your smutty audiobook.

You were soaking wet, fingers rubbing faster as you cried out, throwing your head back against the throw pillows. “Fuuuck~ oh my fucking god!” Your walls fluttered, toes curling as you whined into the empty apartment. “Oooh my fuck~ fuck oooh fuck.” A week without masturbating had been literal torture, and you needed to cum to be around fucking Sukuna and Gojo. The stupid sexy assholes had been coming home early every night this week. Gojo said the clinic kept sending him home because he’d been working overtime at the urgent care. And Sukuna had been out on leave from the fire department because of a sprained ankle.

Images of red and blue eyes crossed your mind as you thought back to the sounds of them jerking off through the thin walls of your apartment. God, they were so hot that it was stupid. Fucking assholes and their stupid good looks! Ugh! The least they could do was go out for the night and let you have time to take care of yourself!

“Oooh fuck.” Your eyes shut tight as you imagined the duo kissing your neck, rubbing your wet folds, making you cum. “Oooh my goood~ oh my god~ oh my fuckin’ god!” You threw your head back bucking your hips against your hand as you felt yourself getting closer and closer towards your orgasm. “K-Kuna~ ooooh fuck~ Toru~ Nnngh!” Your eyes rolled back as you rubbed your clit as fast as your hand would allow, until you arched you back off the couch. “I-I’m cumming! Cumming!! Oooh fuck me!!”

Your orgasm hit you like a ton of bricks; the pure intensity of it had you screaming as your pussy throbbed and clenched as you rode the waves. It felt so good; your slick coated your fingers as your legs twitched and shook, as your body went lax against the sofa. God, you needed that so bad to be able to find—a spoon fell, hitting the surface of a table, interrupting your post-orgasmic bliss.

With wide eyes, you slowly sat up, looking at the dining room table across from you where Satoru and Sukuna sat. Satoru’s mouth was agape, cheeks flushed, eyes focused on the hand that was still inside of your panties. While the pink-haired man leaned back in his chair, smirking, his erection visible in his pants. The three of you sat silently as you babbled and tried to think of anything! Literally fucking anything to say in a situation like this!

Not only had you rubbed one out in front of your roommates, but you had also moaned out their names while you fantasized about them doing sexy things to you. This was it, your thirteenth reason. Standing up on shaky legs, you stumbled to the side, pulling your slick fingers out of your panties.

“I-I’m going to go barricade myself in my room! Bye, have a good night!”

“Get that fine ass back over here!” Sukuna barked out with a starved chuckle. “You can't just say my name so prettily like that and leave!

“Sukuna’s righhht~ you should listen to the firefighter and come over here so Dr. Gojo can fully examine you~”

“I would rather eat my shoe.”

Sukuna patted his lap. “Come on~ don't make me get up, Satoru said I need to stay off my foot.” You have watched as Satoru grabbed his chair dragging it to sit across from Sukuna. “Give us a hand~ after all these boners are your fault.”

“Like I said, I’d rather eat my shoe.” Your words held no heat as you stepped towards them. “You pervs.”

A shoe wasn't what you had in your mouth thirty minutes later. Sukuna pierced monster cock, however, as Satoru fucked into you from behind. Your legs were shaking as you struggled to remain straddled in his hips as he bucked into you from his chair. The head of his cock jammed into your cervix as Sukuna forced your head down further on his cock.

Both of your roommates were grunting and growling. Sukuna’s head was tilted slightly back, eyes narrowed down at you as you gagged around him. While Satoru’s head was hanging low, cerulean eyes watched his cock disappear inside of your tight cunt.

All three of you were ducked out of your mind, you especially. Satoru’s cock was hitting your cervix in a painfully pleasurable way, making your eyes roll back as your soul threatened to escape. If it wasn't for the cold chill of Sukuna’s Jacob’s Ladder against your tongue, you were sure you’d be as present as you were.

“Fuuuck yes kitten~ suck my cock~ suuuck it.” The tip of Sukuna’s cock hit the back of your throat causing tears to stream down your cheeks. “What do good fucking girl you are, sucking my cock~ like a good little fucking slut.”

“Sweetheart~” Satoru’s wishing tone had you moaning around the thick cock fucking your throat. “Oh my god, you feel so good sucking me in like that; god, your pussy is so good!”

Their praises made you feel so good, pushing you closer towards release as their movements got sloppier, balls clenching, paces breaking as they lost themselves in the pleasure. Hearing them lose it made your entire body shake as you moaned, crying louder, eyes rolling back into your head as you screamed around Sukuna as your pussy clamped down around Satoru. Both men grunted fucking into you faster and harder before Sukuna’s cock slid down your throat as ropes of cum filled your mouth. Watching both his roommates cum, hard Satoru pulling out of your smooth wet walls, jerking himself off until he came all over your back, with a shuddering cry.

The sound of heavy breathing and gasps filled the apartment as Sukuna gently eased you off his softening cock. “Let me see.” He ordered, watching you open your mouth as you stuck out your tongue, showing him you swallowed every drop of cum he had to offer. “Mhmm such a good kitten~”

“Mhmm~ the best.” As Satoru left for the kitchen, you were gently moved to rest on Sukuna’s lap. You laid there on Sukuna, humming happily as Gojo returned, wiping your back off with a warm rag. “I’ve never been so happy that I locked my keys in my car!”

“Mhmm~” Sukuna pressed his lips against your temple. “I’m glad someone was too horny. She couldn’t wait to get in her room to rub her pretty cunt.”

“Oh my god, please, let’s never discuss that again.”

You eyed both your roommates, who blinked at each other before smirking wide. “Not a chance.” And knowing both of them, they would never let you live it down. But you wouldn't be too upset if it ended up like this whenever it got brought up.

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@darkstarlight82 @pandoness @nealeart @simp-plague @sugurubabe @chilichopsticks

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seancekitsch · 11 months ago

Text

Falling Hard, Failing Fast: A Hughie Campbell x Reader fic!

You get dosed with... a mystery drug made by Vought. Hughie is a good friend and stays with you while you monitor the side effects.

Warnings: sloppy sex pollen trope usage, dubcon turned just normal con, drugging, friends to lovers under upsetting circumstances, foreplay, sappy missionary, not my best work tbh

“What did they get her with?” Butcher asks, his voice near a yell through the receiver.

Hughie traps his phone between his ear and his shoulder and waves his fingers in front of your face, struggling to get you to focus your eyes. Everything blurs around the edges, the same way blood rushes against your ear drums. All you can focus on though is heat, heat in your knees buckling, heat in Hughie’s other arm around your torso to keep you upright, heat in your head that plunges down your front and settles under your pants.

All you can offer is a weak shake of your head to no one in particular. You don’t know. All you know is heat, and that you’re fading fast.

“I think it’s bad, it was all over her,” Hughie says. He had watched a guard pull something that looked like pepper spray into your face, and he ran into the mist of it to pull you away and back up the stairs, begging you to stay upright the whole time.

“I can’t—“ you mumble, your head falling back against Hughie’s shoulder. Relief, like a cool drink of water, trickles into you at the contact. You need more, you need—

You sober up, almost, as fear cools the fire under your skin momentarily. Your head snaps up, and Hughie immediately goes on the alert.

“Get away from me!” your voice shakes, but it's the most clear you’ve sounded since Hughie grabbed you.

“What? No—,” he stops himself, confused, “No, we have to get you somewhere safe.”

He hangs up the phone in a panic as you try to pull away from him, throwing yourself towards the cold brick wall. He recaptures you, steadying you as you keep trying to lurch away. His bare hand against your arm feels like a white hot poker, feels like he's burning you, but you want it. You want to feel what those burning hands feel like moving across your skin, want to feel the pain they'll leave in their wake; part of you imagines they'd leave a trail of destruction like a forest fire, marks of Hughie all over your skin.

Another wave of heat hits you, this time forcing an embarrassing moan from your lips as you double over, stumbling down the hallway with Hughie still painfully attached to you. There's a basement apartment being used as a safe house up ahead, and if you can just get to a bed, or a couch, or even the floor to sweat this out you’ll be fine and maybe survive with your dignity.

You hear Hughie curse as you try to pick up speed, your sweaty hands clawing at his grasp on you. You don’t care if you seem insane in this moment, you just need to barricade yourself in…. alone.

Hughie helps you in, punching in the door code on the lockbox and fumbling with the key once it’s free, while you lean into the door frame, sweat starting to gather at your hairline. Once the door is open, you practically throw yourself in. The safe house is scarce; a simple kitchen with a can of corn on the counter, a navy futon, a radio, a folding chair, a bathroom. Dread pools in your stomach, settling right above the heat churning, as you realize: Hughie is not going to leave you alone in a place like this.

You shrug him off, dropping yourself to lay flat on the floor, your face to the ceiling. You screw your eyes shut, the muscles of your face hurting from how hard you’re trying to hide yourself from this. You must look like a fucking mess to Hughie, you realize, with sweat starting to coat your skin and your chest heaving as you struggle not to writhe on the floor in pain.

He rushes to the sink in the sad excuse for a kitchen, running the tap with water. Hughie mumbles to himself while he searches the cupboards for a cup or a mug.

You stare up at the off white ceiling- one of those sloppy paint jobs a slumlord does to turn a profit. It probably covers mold.

You pray silently that Hughie brings you water and leaves you the fuck alone before you embarass yourself any more than you already have. At some point the heat has to subside, right? At some point the painful desire in your gut has to fade away, right?

You close your eyes again, trying to block out the sensations you feel to no avail, the hopeless idea that if you hide from the situation it will go away.

But then Hughie’s sneakers are shuffling across the cheap thin carpet towards you, and he sits down on the floor next to you instead of taking a seat on the futon. You put your hands on your face to try and further hide from him, and realize how big a mistake you just made.

A low moan escapes your throat, relief from the heat not found, instead the same burning Hughie’s hands had on you in the hallway. Pleasure, embarrassing and wanton, shoots through you seemingly from the palms of your hands.

“What can I do for you?” he asks, and you can hear the dull thud of the mug he chose being placed on the ground.

“Leave,” you pant out, your voice wavering and airy.

“Not gonna happen,” he immediately responds, a breath of a chuckle exhaled through his nose. It's silent for a minute, maybe more, time feels weird and far away right now. The world has stopped and you feel like you're melting.

And then that stabbing, burning, sublime pleasure erupts on your skin again.

A strangled cry whines itself out between your closed lips as Hughie takes your hands in his own; a movement too tender and intimate for what you are.

“You’re so… hot,” Hughie whispers, concern laced in the edges of his voice. His touch sends shockwaves through you. You whimper pitifully as you finally open your eyes, just a crack. Worry is painted all over Hughie’s handsome face, his brows furrowed and eyes wide, his lips falling open. In this moment he looks like he would do anything for you, and you can't ask him to do this. You squeeze your eyes shut again, so tight you fear you may start tearing up. Hughie squeezes your hand in his, and you whimper again, your chest heaving and your body betraying you.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head, no. Hurt isn’t exactly the word you’d use. Your limbs feel heavy, your head feels heavy, and Hughie’s touch feels like heaven, featherlight and fresh.

You want him to keep squeezing your hand, you want him to squeeze other things, to grab you, those long fingers curling around your flesh. Another moan escapes your lips at the thought and Hughie freezes up. His hand drops yours, unfortunately. The heat rages again.

“Oh,” Hughie says, voice small. He searches your face, and as hard as you try to shy away from him, he still finds you.

“Is it touch?” he asks, “Something to do with me touching you?”

You nod, embarrassment flushing your features.

“More? Less?” He presses, and it's so fucking sweet how much he wants to help you. It hurts how nice he’s being about this. You ache between your legs, and wish he would stop being so nice about this.

“More,” you plead, arching your back in discomfort. Hughie’s hands are back on you in an instant, pulling you up to sit so he can massage your shoulders. Your forehead falls onto his shoulder, and you move closer to him, your hands moving across his ribs. He leans into the embrace, his large hands guiding you to lean yourself onto him as he rubs circles into your skin, ripples of pleasure radiating out from each spot he touches. He switches from massaging you to just rubbing your back, his hands moving over your tee shirt and roaming the expanse of space.

His fingers trace your spine, stoking the fire and bringing you relief, if only slightly. You move similarly, hands feeling completely right as you try to follow the same patterns he traces along your back onto his.

“I need…” you beg him again, desperate and shameless. You’re gasping for breath as you continue to move against him, your hands moving up under his shirt, his back feeling almost cold under the heat of your hands. You dont miss the way Hughie shivers at your touch. He keeps rubbing your back, adding more pressure to his touch. You squirm against him and moan, and then Hughie stops.

He pulls you back by the shoulders.

“Holy shit. Are you?” he asks, bewildered, but then something else crosses his features. Something you can't exactly read.

“I think so,” you mumble, again trying to look away, trying to hide from him, “That’s why I wanted you to get away from me.”

Hughie seems to ponder this for a moment, his eyes searching your face, and then they dip lower.

You’d be lying to yourself if you said you never thought of Hughie that way.

“I can help? If- only if you want…” he trails off, unsure. You can’t agree to that, no matter how much you want to. It would feel amazing, his hands on you, roaming and groping and taking, his mouth on you. You shiver, not a chill.

“Help?” you echo, and that look you can't read crosses his features again.

“Like I could,” he pauses, finds the word, “Try to give you a hand?”

If you werent already burning up and soaking wet, you would be. How does Hughie sound so effortlessly arousing in a situation like this? Maybe its just the literal drug you were dosed with, though. Either way, it doesnt matter. You cling to him, nails starting to dig into his skin.

“I- I couldn't ask you to-”

“But you’re not,” he interrupts, “I’m offering.”

He is offering. Offering to get you off as if thats a normal thing to offer one of your friends on a Wednesday afternoon. Like he’s offering to help you move or put together a book shelf.

You pull yourself in closer to him again, resting your forehead back on his shoulder. It’s less embarrassing this way.

“Let’s try it,” you mumble into his chest. This way, you dont have to face him, you can hide from it and maybe keep a shred of your dignity.

He moves his hands lower, sliding them down to your hips. Hughie guides you back down, laying you out on the ground. He takes away your ability to hide from him. Now hovering over you, he smiles slightly as he takes you in. He steadily raises a hand, moves it down between the two of you, stopping over the button of your jeans.

“Can I?”

You only nod, no turning back now.

He undoes your jeans slowly, as if he’s the one with something to be nervous or shy about. His fingers are warm against the cool metal of you zipper, the sound as he drags it down mixing with the sound of you gasping for breath, a cacophony of desperation and nervous lust.

Hughie leans back on the heels of his converse, his fingers hooking themselves under the hem of your jeans and pulling them down gently, care in every step. You whimper as you lift yourself up slightly, letting him pull the jeans over your thighs. He stops at your knees, your legs trapped in place by denim.

“Okay?” he asks, and “okay,” you also confirm. So Hughie takes it a step further, his hand coming to the waistband of your underwear, a black mesh thong that really looks like you were asking to be dosed with sex mist, but ultimately the case of the fact that you had yet to do laundry this week and all of your comfortable briefs were sitting in the laundry bag ready to be carried down the steps of your walk-up.

His fingers dip below the fabric,and when his middle finger brushes the top of your slit your body contorts beyond your control, a strangled cry leaving your lips.

“Shh, I’ll take care of you,” he reassures you, leaning down further as his hand travels further, his middle finger leading the charge and stroking you. Each movement is like a breath of fresh air, Hughie’s hand a lifeline to calm the fires within you. His lips part as he reaches your clit, fingertip to pearl.

Hughie’s eyes bore into yours, lust of his own growing in them. You don't feel as embarrassed anymore, instead, something dreadful that mixes with your hunger. It's going to be hard to stop after this, it's going to be hard to be in the same room after this, knowing that look in his eyes.

“Touch me, please,” you whisper, the words leaving your lips and sealing some kind of unspoken pact.

He nods his head, obeying you as his hand dips lower. Hughie teases, but not really. Every slow movement is deliberate, testing the waters, gaging comfort and mapping it out for himself as well. It’s careful, calculated, and generous. Just like the kind of friend Hughie always is.

But all thoughts go quiet as his middle finger slides into you with no resistance, and finally it feels as if there is an end in sight to your predicament. His finger feels… divine. Feels like it belongs there, feels like your salvation, and he your savior.

He slides his finger in you to the knuckle, curls it gently, and then slides it almost completely out again.

“You're so… wet,” he comments, and then a blush radiates up from his neck to his cheeks, as if embarrassed that thought did not stay in his head. You lean into his touch, nails raking into the cheap carpet to cement yourself in place. Your eyes don't miss how his free hand moves to his thigh, his own fingers gripping at the material of his jeans.

He starts again, pushing all the way into you, then almost completely out, then all the way in again. Then Hughie picks up his pace, steady and sure as he begins to thrust his middle finger in and out of you, starts to earnestly fuck you with it. The sounds that come out of your mouth are pathetic at best, whining moans and pants and unintelligible begging for more, all of which he obliges enthusiastically.

You arch your back into his motion, chasing the rhythm of his fingers, the wet sounds between your legs now filling the air and adding to the sound of your already labored breathing. Hughie is short of breath as well, laser focused on you and all too reactive to your body. He meets every movement with one to match, like physics, actions and reactions. He watches your face for any changes, watches you hungrily, his lips parted and eyes dark.

It doesn't take much, especially when Hughie adds another finger, and both start moving within you. He curls them along the most sensitive part of you, doesn't hold back as he pulls keening moans from your lips and whispers words of encouragement the whole time.

You come quieter than either of you expect, with a few shuddering breaths and tears that Hughie wipes away, with your teeth buried in your bottom lip and his hand stilled against you. He lets you ride it out as gracefully as you can, not daring to move his fingers from inside you while his other hand continues to smooth down your hair and wipe away tears.

It’s only when you still, relief and calm finally replacing the heat, that Hughie slowly pulls his fingers from you. Your breath hitches, your body still sensitive to his touch, to his long fingers. He pulls his hand out of your underwear, and leans back onto his heels again, the comforting warmth that came from him leaving you. Finally, you feel cool, normal. A fever breaking.

“Was that? Was it good?” Hughie asks, sounding nervous. Was it good? It was exactly how you thought Hughie would pleasure a woman. Lovely, thoughtful, with your care in mind. You want it again, just not under these circumstances. You would like to imagine a date, maybe dinner or drinks, maybe a movie, and then a lovely trip back to either of your apartments and a taxi ride because you're too eager to deal with the subway.

But yes, it was good.

And as soon as the relief flows through you, it seeps away, a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The heat returns. You shake your head desperately; No, it did not help, not enough. Tears well in your eyes.

“I still feel-” you cut yourself off.

“It was good!” you explain hastily, desperately, panicked, “It was good. But I’m still…”

You don’t exactly have the words for it.

“You need more,” he finishes, not asking, but telling you. You press your lips into a thin line, shame at the thought of what Hughie just did not being enough for you. You look away from him, not wanting to say the words. Once again, you think about asking him to leave, asking him to go and let this pass and then maybe one day it could be a funny story.

But then you see movement from the corner of your eye.

It looks like Hughie was just rubbing his nose, but then his tongue darts out from between his lips and to the side of his middle finger. From that hand, the one that was just between your legs. He puts his hand down quickly, too quickly for it to be a natural movement.

The fire within you floods down the front of you, back with the debilitating vengeance from before. If you were standing, it would have knocked you to the floor.

“Hughie, did you?” you ask, unsure if you should truly accuse him, your voice shaking the entire time.

“Can I say I was just curious?” he asks, a sheepish smile on his face.

You narrow your eyes at him again, trying to hide any of the discomfort that might be returning to your features. You don't believe that. And luckily, Hughie caves quickly under this kind of scrutiny.

“Okay, I was curious! I was,” Hughie admits, the blush across his cheeks darkening. You don't even want to ask what conclusions he came to, this horny-embarrassed-nervous-hungry combination doing a number on your thought process.

You only nod at him, slightly skeptical.

“And you… you need more? So I could-,” he pauses, recollects himself so he doesnt ramble.

“I could do more? I could help more?”

You're taken aback by this, pushing your elbows under you to lean up towards him, ignoring the fact that you're still exposed to him. More? How could you ask him for more? Even though this time and the first time he offered, how could you accept?

“I couldn't… I can't ask you to do that, Hughie,” you cringe as the words come out of your mouth, your head betraying what your body wants, but it's the right thing to do, right?

“Well, you wouldn't have to do much asking,” Hughie sighs, his eyes darting from his own lap to the lightswitch on the wall, away from you.

Your eyes follow where his fell and… oh.

From what you can tell, he’s rock hard, the zipper of his jeans bulging as it holds him in place. Hughie liked that just as much as you did. If things were not already complicated, they are now.

Again, he’s offering.

“It's a big step,” you say, trying to give him an out. You can't ask him to do this, it's not fair. You're not in your right mind, despite how willing he is.

“Ah, yeah, you're right,” he admits, then, “this isn't how I wanted it to go-”

“Wanted it to go?” you interrupt him.

“Like if we ever, you know,” he’s getting truly flustered now, his hands gesticulating to try and explain what his mouth can't. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, and then his shoulders sag.

“Let me help you.”

The air, everything in the room shifts between the two of you, something new and heavy. He doesn’t tear his gaze from you, and you don’t dare break eye contact. Instead, you nod slowly; giving him full permission, giving yourself full permission.

Within a second, he's positioning himself over you again, this time with his knee between your thighs. The heat radiating off of him somehow stokes and calms yours, his proximity its own salve after he’s already made you come once.

He leans down to kiss you, his lips fully covering yours. His lips are wet, his stubble coarse against your skin. He’s sure to rub off the makeup around your mouth and leave you with beard burn on your chin and cheeks, but that's the least of your worries. He kisses hungrily, passionately, fierce unlike the normally level headed and more meek member of the team he usually is. His lips seem to pull moans from yours, your tongues and teeth clattering and tangling together.

His hands move across your skin, his thumbs rubbing circles down your sides, reaching further and further down. He stops and pauses almost awkwardly, the first time in this entire encounter that Hughie has shown any of his awkward tendencies. He pushes himself off his hands and knees just enough to get a good grip on your jeans and yank them down. Hughie only pauses when you kick off your shoes, both of you working together to free you of the confines of pants.

You spread your legs for him gladly when he crawls his way back on top of you, settling himself firmly between your legs. His hips rut and bump against the wet patch of your thong, and briefly it fills you with an odd sense of pride that it may leave a stain on his jeans, that he may carry a physical trophy of this moment.

Hughie’s lips are back on yours quickly, his hands careful and gently as they guide themselves around your body. His fingers dip into your collarbones, palms full of the swell of your chest, ghost over your ribs in a tickle.

Your hips buck, needy and desperate against him, and he pins you down with his own. Fucking hot, in a way you didnt expect from Hughie Campbell.

“Please,” you whisper against his lips, and he nods, practically swallowing your words.

“Wait I have a,” he cuts himself off, and pulls his wallet from his back pocket, producing a beaten up looking trojan condom ribbed for ‘her pleasure’. He holds it up to you between two fingers with a smile.

“Why do you carry that?” you ask, honestly taken aback at his forethought.

“Well after Herogasm anything is possible, so I figure it's better safe than sorry,” Hughie jokes, and for a brief moment it makes you wonder what other odd shit he might store in his pockets or wallet.

You roll your hips again, and he gets the message. You need him now.

Hughie tosses the condom down near your shoulder, and untangles himself from you. You take the opportunity to pull the rest of your clothes off, as he sheds his just as hastily. All of your clothes get thrown into a messy pile, to the side, neither of you care.

Hughie practically throws himself down on top of you the moment he's bare, rolling the condom down his shaft quickly before he's rubbing himself along your entrance. He wants this just as badly as you do, and you feel guilty for doubting him earlier.

“Ready?” he asks, already breathless. You grant him a nod, a nervous smile on your face, and that's all he needs.

He pushes into you slowly, filling you. You're surprised at the way your breath gets caught in your throat, knocking the wind out of you. You did not get a good look at what Hughie is working with before, and you’re very much wishing you did. He bottoms out inside you, his hips flush against you.

He nods, as if asking if this is okay, and you push your head up and rub the tip of your nose against his. Hughie laughs, and the tension of the moment breaks.

You lift your legs, coming up to wrap them around his hips as he settles himself.

“You're so tight,” he breathes, a lazy smile on his face as he rolls his hips, testing the waters the same way he did when his fingers were inside you. He’s checking on you, making sure your comfort is first. He pulls himself almost completely out, and then back in, and then repeats the whole process. The head of his cock drags within you, rubs against the same spots that had you seeing stars earlier. You're not uncomfortable, not too sensitive, and Hughie seems to sense that.

Hughie wastes no time speeding up his pace, pressing himself deeper and deeper, never fully pulling out of you between thrusts. He fucks into you not like a friend doing another friend a favor, but like a lover, he fucks into you like he wants to wake up next to you. Hughie presses kisses to your face, hips lips all over you, his stubble scratching you just like you knew it would.

"You feel amazing," he whispers against your skin, "So fucking perfect."

Your moans are like a staccato, punctuated and cut short with each thrust, as Hughie fills you to the hilt you lose all ability to use your voice. He pushes your bodies flush together, connecting completely. Hughie moves against you like he can't get close enough, like he wants you both to fuse together. The friction between your bodies as he moves, the way each thrust drags along the most sensitive parts of you, its all so much. Whatever's going on with you or not, this may just be the best sex of your life. Hughie leaves no part of you untouched and no part of you unsatisfied. You can feel your edge approaching fast, too fast, and you wish you could make this moment last longer.

Its no use, however, as Hughie pulls your leg from his hip to the side, granting himself access to your clit, where he rubs harsh circles against you.

“Come on, give me one,” he pants against your jawline, and how could you deny him?

He presses his hand a little harder, speeds up the thrusting of his hips, that friction and closeness never being sacrificed for his speed, and something within you breaks.

You cry out, a high pitched call of his name, before shaking sobs wrack your frame, your back arching your chest into his, Hughie never slowing down as he pushes you through this.

This orgasm feels like a jump into the ocean, refreshing and cooling to the fire inside you.

Hughie works you through your orgasm, your bodies rocking together as you come down from your high. He pulls himself out only when you come back to him, when your breathing starts to regulate, when your muscles start to relax.

Hughie moves desperately himself, rutting against the apex of your thigh, spilling into his condom only moments after, your hands tangled in the short curls of his hair.

He moves away from you, the loss of contact genuinely having you feel cold, only to pull off and tie off the condom. Hughie comes back to you quickly, his arms immediately coming around your as your limbs tangle once more.

“Don't worry,” Hughie comforts you, pulling your chest against his tightly. His sweat mixed with his cologne smells almost sweet, decadent. One of his hands comes up to smooth down your hair, sweaty and messed up from the friction of the carpet, his other hand grabs your hip. The heat subsiding temporarily again, this time, it feels less painful, less all consuming. Its getting weaker.

“We’ll be at this as long as it takes, I’ll help.”

You believe him, and nod, your cheek against his shoulder. He presses a kiss to your hairline.

“Afterwards maybe a shower and I can buy you a coffee? I mean, I think this place has hot water,” he asks, nervousness in his voice. A shower would be nice, but you doubt this place has even one towel.

“A coffee?” you echo.

“You know,” he explains himself, “so I can say I took you on a date, so that we can be… you know… normal about this.”

“You want to take me on a date?” you lift your head, and that unreadable expression is back in his gaze.

“That wasn't obvious by now?”

#hughie campbell x reader

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honeyhotteoks · 1 year ago

Text

this night together - in their hands (j.yh, s.mg, p.sh, c.sn)

a 'this night together' deleted scene: in their hands

summary: chapter twelve of this night together from the boys perspectives, if you haven't read that yet, go here and read that first.

warnings: every warning that applies to chapter twelve, plus a lot of violence. blood, fighting, descriptions of body parts breaking, ideations of killing, and a lot of internal panic and emotion.

notes: this deleted scene is entirely dedicated to the person who commented and said it would be interesting to see chapter twelve from the boys perspective. i've never written from their povs before, so i hope this still flows well and feels good, but i couldn't get that thought out of my mind. i pretty much wrote this in one sitting and only edited it once..... so i hope it doesn't disappoint but i really just wanted to share it with you all.

there are some things that will be covered in chapter thirteen that are getting lightly spoiled here, but for the purpose of consistency i'm going for it.

pairings: alpha!yunho x alpha!mingi x omega!reader plus alpha!san x alpha! seonghwa

genre: smut, a/b/o/omegaverse, angst, fluff, romance, polyamory

word count: 7.8k

Yunho feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up and the air around him shift just enough to make his stomach tight about three seconds before he hears your scream. He doesn’t need to think through if it’s you or someone else, he feels it in his gut like a brick and he’s scrambling to his feet so fast his brain feels sluggishly behind.

“Something’s wrong,” He manages as he starts to move, but Mingi is already gone like a flash and he follows at breakneck speed behind his best friend.

His heart feels heavy in his chest, his mouth is dry, and in the seconds it takes to run from the back office to the far studio rooms, he starts to realize that there is something very, very wrong with his omega.

Footsteps behind him don’t deter him, his eyes are steady on Mingi’s back.

“What the fuck was that?” San.

“y/n,” Seonghwa, but Yunho stops listening the minute he watches Mingi push in the door to the practice room, the sound of it as it swings back on its hinges and collides with the wall stark and sharp. They take in so many little things at once before adrenaline pumps through their brains and throws them all forwards into action.

Mingi catalogs Minseok’s hands, one sunken into the back of your hair and pulling your head to the side, the other pressing you back into the wall at your chest. His knee is pressed between your thighs and the straps of your top are roughly wrenched to the side to bear the length of your throat.

All Yunho can see is your face and everything in him is suddenly so full of cold fear. You look so blank, your body unmoving against the mirrored wall and palms upturned in submission. For a single second he thinks he’s lost you already, that the strange metallic taste in his mouth is the scent of your blood from Minseok’s successful claim and something strange and panicked bubbles out of his chest. It takes him a moment for his brain to catch up and to realize it's you, the metallic taste isn’t iron at all; it's ripe tannins, over-steeped tea, bitter and sudden and pulsating your fear and panic through the room.

Mingi moves first. “Get the fuck off her!” His hands close over Minseok’s neck and shoulder, wrenching him backwards with a curt jerk of his arms.

Your body tips sideways, but your face is still empty and Yunho’s mouth is so full of dry, acerbic chamomile and he can’t catch you, he can’t do anything. Everything goes absolutely silent in his mind.

His fist connects with Minseok’s cheek first, but it doesn’t feel good enough. Mingi hauls him back up and Yunho throws a cross hard and with sure direction and then he feels the crunch of bone under his knuckles as Minseok’s nose snaps, the blood quick as he shouts and reaches to clutch at his face.

If there’s one thing alphas typically aren’t good at it’s de-escalation, and whatever primal release of hormones his broken nose unlocked, Minseok shoves Mingi off and comes back up swinging.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Yunho narrowly misses the return shot, dipping to the side, and hands once again close down on Minseok, the combined weight of San and Seonghwa pressing him down towards the floor.

“You broke my fucking nose!” Minseok scrambles against them.

“Stay down,” San presses his knee square between Minseok’s shoulder blades and drops his weight.

“Fuck you!”

Yunho drops fast, locking his hand over the back of Minseok’s neck to press his face into the wood floor and help hold him down.

Mingi stumbles forwards after being pushed off balance, but then his eyes flick up past the scuffle and he sees you. You’re lying flat on your back on the practice room floor, eyes vacant and unfocused on the white ceiling, your leg bent in a strange position, one that can’t be comfortable but still you don’t move.

He knows it all at once.

“Oh, God,” His stomach turns as he ignores the writhing alpha on the floor and the others doing their best to pin him down so he can skid to your side and drop to his knees.

Yunho can’t see you from his vantage point, he’s holding Minseok and facing the opposite direction and that wall of the practice room doesn’t have any mirrors to guide him, “Mingi, what? What’s going on?”

“Baby,” Mingi’s so quiet as he shifts forwards, but Yunho hears it.

“Is she alright?” Yunho can’t wait, he twists around and loses his steady grip on Minseok, but he has to know, “Mingi! Seriously, is she,”

Mingi’s hands cup your cheeks, and he studies your empty expression for a moment but he doesn’t need to, “Jesus,” he manages, “he put her in subspace,”

“He did what?” Seonghwa’s voice is sharp.

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Mingi’s something else entirely when he’s angry, really and truly angry, and he has Minseok right where he wants him in a second. He cuts through the other alphas in a flash, rolling Minseok onto his back and straddling the smaller man’s hips to pin him in place. His fist has never felt as good as this moment, cracking across this coward’s teeth and splitting his skin again, and again, and again.

The sound of your whimper only makes it feel better.

Yunho suddenly and with perfect clarity knows what to do. In this moment you need him, even if you’re not in the presence of mind to ask, he knows. He looks you over fast as he slides close to you, relief flooding him when he sees the unbroken skin of your neck. He’ll process the redness later, the wet glisten of saliva over your gland, but his first conscious thought is that he’s strangely grateful for Minseok’s sadistic approach to claiming you against your will. He thought he had time to savor you, and those seconds of his carelessness saved your life.

Despite your blank eyes, tears slip from the corners and snake down into your sweat-damp hair, and Yunho watches the quiver of your lip, the way your whole body seems to tremble right from its very center despite how still you really are. He drops his head to the side and calls back to the others, “Calm down or get out of here, do you understand me? You’re scaring her,”

“Mingi,” San is wrapped around his friend’s back, trying to pull his arms into his chest, “Mingi, stop! Mingi, you’ll kill him, man, stop!”

Minseok groans, spitting blood onto the practice room floor with choke, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, fuck,”

“He,” Mingi’s voice is tight, “you saw what he did,”

Minseok whines again, “Rut, it’s my rut,”

Mingi’s nose crinkles at that and he has half a mind to keep swinging but San’s arms tighten, banded around him now and he lets him keep him still.

“I know,” San soothes, ignoring Minseok and staying focused on his friend, “but she’s safe now,”

“I,” Mingi breathes, but a voice breaks through the fray.

“I called the police!” Everyone’s heads snaps up at the sound of Dahan in the doorway, her eyes shining and terrified, “they’re on their way…. I… I’ll get an ambulance too,”

“Good,” San nods, “go wait for them out front, Dahan, tell them to hurry,”

Her sneakers squeak on the hardwood as she darts away, her cellphone pressed against her ear.

“We got him,” Seonghwa interjects, locking his hands down on one of Minseok’s arms, “San, help me get him to the office,”

Everyone hears the soft, panicked noise that bubbles from the back of your throat.

“G-go,” Mingi pushes himself back off Minseok’s hips and San finally releases his arms, “get him out of here,”

San yanks Minseok up off the floor and winds an arm under him to hold him steady, Seonghwa on the opposite side so they can drag him up the hall to the back office.

“Mingi,” Seonghwa manages, “please take care of her,”

He nods once, annoyance bristling under his skin. Of course he will, you're his omega and no one, no one will ever care for you like him and Yunho. Even if you never want to talk to him again, even if he has to watch you go and let you live your life some other way with some other alpha, somehow he knows that truth down to his very soul.

As Mingi returns to your side, Seonghwa allows his eyes to wander. He’d been trying to look anywhere else but you since he made it into the room, too afraid that he’d see the evidence of a violent claim on one of his best friends, too afraid he’d lost you. He’s never put an omega into subspace before, not even when they’ve wanted to be there, and now he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see anything but your empty eyes when he thinks of it.

The last thought he has as he rounds the corner is that the man in his arms used to be his teammate, but now he thinks he’s as good as dead.

Minseok groans between him and San and he can’t help but tighten his grip on the man just to make it hurt a little bit more.

He groans again, but this time San’s the one who stops dead, “Stop whining,” his voice is cutting, “you don’t get to complain after what you’ve done,”

A little huff of air passes through Minseok’s lips, “Some alphas you are,”

“Excuse me?” San’s fingers tighten on Minseok’s arm where he still holds him upright.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking what’s on offer,” Minseok says it like it’s obvious, “isn’t that right, Seonghwa?”

Seonghwa’s stomach goes icy and he’s not really the type to get into a physical fight, but this? This is something altogether different. He has him back up against the wall of the hallway with a sharp knee to his gut, and then his mind goes absolutely blank. He’s never felt rage like this, true and deep compelling retribution singing through his blood and he just can’t help himself.

“She’s a person,” Seonghwa lands a swift kick to the man’s ribs as he lets him drop to the floor, “and you’re a fucking waste of an alpha,”

“Hwa,” San’s voice is low and calm, but he ignores it.

Another kick, another. He feels ribs give way to make space for his rage, “Stand up if you’re such a big man,”

Minseok groans again.

“You’re alpha enough to terrify an omega,” Seonghwa spits, “come on, get up, try and terrify me,”

He’s coughing now, fingers gripping the cold hard floor beneath him, “P-please,”

“What was that?” Seonghwa lands a stiff punch to his gut.

Minseok curls in on himself with a cry, “Please, you know what, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for what I said,”

“I’d keep your mouth shut,” San again, but Seonghwa can’t conceive of where he is or what he’s doing, his eyes are so singularly focused on this man.

“It was,” Minseok coughs, blood across his lips, “the rut, I just lost it, you know how the haze is,”

“I don’t know a thing about how you are,” Seonghwa drops another punch.

“No, no!” Minseok shrieks at the sensation of another rib popping.

“Hwa,”

Minseok’s voice is getting threadier, “y/n, she,”

Seonghwa’s hand redirects, a sharp strike across his face as he descends on the man in earnest, “Keep her name out of your fucking mouth,”

He loses count of the number of punches it takes for Minseok’s jaw to pop and his eyes to roll back, and San knows he should have stopped it all sooner, but there’s a part of him that wanted to watch this man suffer too.

Seonghwa is shaking, blood spattered across his gray sweatpants, smears darting up the sleeves of his white shirt. The soft skin of his knuckles is split open and angry, and San thinks if it was possible to love someone’s hands more, he does. San curls his body around Seonghwa from behind, but unlike Mingi, Seonghwa allows his arms to be pulled in by his sometimes lover.

“Jagi,” San whispers low in his ear so only he can hear, “come back,”

Minseok is still, his eyes closed, “Sannie,” Seonghwa’s voice cracks, “w-what did I do? Is he dead?”

“No,” San squeezes him, “he’s just knocked out. An ambulance is coming, you did nothing wrong.”

“What did I do?” Seonghwa asks again, his voice small, and San knows he has to take care of things now.

San pulls Seonghwa up to stand, turning him physically away from the bloodied man on the floor, “Jagi, come away with me, alright?”

“What did I do?”

“You’re in shock,” San says softly, “but I’m here,”

“What did I do?” He repeats, empty as San steers him towards the back office. He’s never been in a fight, he’s never hurt someone like that in his life. He’s not prepared for the way that the feeling of a body under his angry hands replays on a loop in his mind, he didn’t know he was capable of things like that.

“Shh,” San bids him as he gets him directed into a seat, “I’ll be right back, baby, but I need to take care of something first.”

Seonghwa is vaguely aware of a shout from the far practice room, and down the length of the hall he finds Minseok’s body again with his eyes.

San steps cleanly into his eyeline to break his gaze, “Stay right here, just breathe.”

He manages to nod, and then San is gone and the door is shut. He wants to cry.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tone is not something Mingi has ever enjoyed using. He’s tried it, of course, every alpha has even when they say they haven’t. It’s natural, it’s a part of growing up, he just always hated the way tone seemed to change every boy around him. Mingi remembers the first time he ever tried it, in the mirror in the emptiness of his childhood home. His voice broke a little later than the other boys around him, but when it did it dropped fast and deep in the smack center of his chest.

He remembers his middle school teacher’s eyebrows drawing high when he said hello to her the next day. He remembers how she smiled and the way she said - Maybe you’ll make a good alpha afterall.

He started to speak less and less after that. He practiced at home in the mirror just to understand the shape of his voice like that, but unlike some of the other boys who couldn’t help but torment with their tone, he knew what it could do. Yunho was the first boy he ever met that didn’t need to use it to command respect on the school yard, and when Yunho swung an arm around Mingi’s shoulders and said he was with him, he got respect too. No one asked why he was so quiet after Yunho, they finally just let him be.

Mingi hasn’t used tone since he was maybe sixteen, joking around with Yunho to make each other laugh trying to stay up late on a summer’s night. But an alpha never forgets how to do it, and Mingi just has to let it come.

He’s crouched over your prone body now, his hands holding your face steady as he tries to get your eyes to focus on his. Yunho is practically a knot of panic next to him, but he can’t focus on him when he knows he has to focus on you to pull you out from under. He doesn’t know what Minseok said to you to put you this deep into headspace, but he knows he should have killed him for it.

He watches tears track silently down your temples and over his shaking fingers as Yunho begs him, “Why isn’t this working?”

“I’m not sure,” He answers quietly, but he knows exactly why, he just doesn’t for the life of him want to do it, so he tries one more time with his normal voice, “y/n. Omega. Listen to me now,”

People respond to their designations, it’s natural, and in a state of submission like this the possibility that you’d be able to latch onto the word ‘omega’ alone is certainly possible. The noise you make is thready and tight, but at least Mingi knows he has your ear now.

“Come up now,” He repeats, “right now. Listen to me, omega,”

He might be able to get you up without using tone, but he doesn’t know for sure. You don’t make a single sound in response to his last plea, and suddenly he can’t stop it, he can’t lose this one chance of your conscious mind floating close enough to the surface.

He takes a low inhale, letting the otherworldly calm fill his chest, the familiar feeling of his alpha tone building in his lower throat and then he says it, “Don’t disobey your alpha.”

Your eyes finally flick to his, pupils dilating as you focus on Mingi’s face.

Yunho draws in a sharp breath.

Mingi remains passive, he doesn’t let himself feel the joy yet of knowing you’re okay, he has to get you there first. He needs you awake, talking, crying, screaming, anything to tell him that you’re here. He holds your eyes steady, “When you’re given a directive, you follow it.” He hates this part, the way an alpha’s bark can make an omega snap to attention, but he almost has you back. Shifting closer he levels his voice more and gives you a clear and present order, “Come. Up.”

Mingi watches your face break from cold blankness, grief and panic etched into the lines on your forehead and by your eyes, your hands reflexively jerking up to defend yourself like it was your last thought before you lost the ability.

“I’m sorry,” You choke out, and he watches you start to curl in on yourself.

He’s not thinking anymore really, he just can’t let you hide away from them, and he pulls your body up into his shaking arms, “You’re here? You’re with us?”

His name on your lips.

Your body is vibrating with panicked sobs, and he feels you claw against him like you want to crawl into his chest, pushing your body against his with desperate heaving breaths. For a moment he’s so worried that his own use of alpha tone might have hurt you more than helped you and his mind spins.

Yunho drops a heavy hand on Mingi’s thigh, a steadying comfort bringing him straight back to center.

Mingi drops his face to your hair and strokes your back, “Shh,” his body rocks naturally to soothe you, “we’ve got you, we’re right here, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,”

“She’s bleeding,” The edge in Yunho’s voice scares him, and Mingi snaps to attention.

His hands search over your body, looking for the source of pain, trying to find the problem that he can fix so you’ll just stay whole and here and with him.

“Here,” Yunho says, stopping Mingi’s frantic movements, “it’s not too bad.”

It’s not, rationally he knows that by the small amount of blood smeared across Yunho’s fingers, but Mingi’s never seen you bleed before and his stomach knots up tightly in rage.

Mingi holds you while Yunho steps in, talking you through the moment as you come back to your senses. He can barely breathe at the way your body shakes in his arms, your nails digging into his thigh where you grip him unconsciously, and he hears your fast breath and the quick step flutter of your heart, but he can’t move. His hands keep making fists, he wants so badly to stalk down the halls and find this man. Nothing he did was good enough, not now that he’s hearing you cry. You were never supposed to be afraid like this, not ever.

He comes back into his body when you pitch the contents of your stomach into the little plastic trash can that Yunho pushes into your hands, the sound of your tight wretch shocking enough to pull him back down.

He gathers your hair back, “Okay,” he tries to soothe you, “you’re okay,”

“He touched me,” You manage, and Mingi’s mind flashes with static images. His hand in your hair, on your chest, lips, tongue, teeth.

Mingi and Yunho both hold you steady while you heave again, “The things he said,”

“Shh,” Yunho tries now, “you’re safe, none of that is true.”

“He talked to me like a dog, and I couldn’t move, he told me not to move and I just let him,”

Mingi finds his voice too quickly, “No.”

The way you twitch under his hands makes him sick and he softens his voice as best he can despite the curl of anger in his belly, “He used alpha tone on you, he wanted you to stop fighting and he said it in tone until you couldn’t hear anything else.”

Yunho’s hand lays over his on your back.

“You didn’t let him do anything,” He needs you to understand.

“I’ve never,” You heave again, nothing in your body this time.

Mingi’s ears are ringing, but Yunho’s soothing you now like he’s so good at doing and you’re pushing back the plastic bin, but then you slide out of his arms and onto the wood floor and he doesn’t know if he should reach for you or not.

“I’ve never been in subspace,” He hears you say.

“You’re not there now,”

“I don’t remember, it’s so muddled, I can’t remember,”

Mingi watches you frantically check your body and he wishes he had had the foresight to fix your shirt from the way that it was pulled to the side over the cap of your shoulder because maybe you wouldn’t have had to remember that and he could have saved you this one small thing.

Yunho dips lower in front of you to meet your eyes when he says, “What can’t you remember?”

Mingi watches you reach up your hand, desperate to know. He remembers suddenly the moment in his bed all those months ago when you mistakenly thought in the haze of heat Yunho might have claimed you. Rage and sick guilt swirl in his gut and then he hears you ask it, soft and terrified, “Did he… did we?”

“No,” Yunho brings you right out of that terror spiral and back to the moment, “absolutely not.”

Mingi hates the smell of your fear and he’s learning that he hates the way you look when you’re scared. He never wants to see you like this again for as long as he lives.

“All I can smell his him,”

He has to get out of this room.

“I can’t even breathe,”

Mingi knows you need someone calm right now, someone centered and capable, but if he has to feel you shaking on his lap again he might just snap. His eyes flick to Yunho, “Take her,”

There’s a question in his friend’s eyes but Yunho’s careful not to say it out loud.

“I’m getting water,” Mingi says, and then he’s moving.

In the hall his breath comes back in heaving gulps and he nearly slips in a little pool of blood on his frantic way to the locker room.

San is up the hall, in front of the closed back office door with his cell phone tucked tightly against his ear but at the sight of Mingi he drops it immediately and presses it to his chest, “How is she?”

“Awake,” Mingi responds, “alert,”

“Herself?” San asks.

Mingi nods, “Where is he?”

He’s not sure it’s actually best for him to know that information at this time, but he had to ask anyway. San nods his head to the right towards a smaller studio space, “He’s unconscious, don’t even think about it.”

“I’m… I’m not, I,” Mingi feels dizzy, he needs to sit before gravity makes him.

“I have to,” San shakes the phone, putting it back to his ear, “she’s okay, I’m telling you, she’s okay.”

Mingi can’t be here, he can’t be anywhere. He pushes himself to the connecting hallway that leads to the locker room.

“Wooyoungie,” He hears San say from behind him, “listen to me, she’s okay, I promise you.”

Mingi cannot understand how this day went from normal, hopeful about Saturday, to catastrophically terrible in every way imaginable.

In the locker room he collapses on one of the wooden benches, his mind pulsing with questions. He needs to get back to you, but he can’t let you see him like this, he knows he’d scare you after everything you’ve just been through. He wonders if this is a panic attack.

The thought that presses into him sideways and buries deep in his brain is sickening. He left you alone with that man for three months. He was traveling, and laughing, and dancing, and eating stupid junk food thinking his biggest problem was whether or not you might be into Seonghwa. He was so selfish. He blanches when the next thought occurs to him. Have you been afraid of Seo Minseok this whole time, afraid in ways you felt you couldn’t tell them?

Mingi rips open his locker and pulls out anything he can find to muffle his bubbling voice, a sweatshirt and a towel stuffed tightly against his mouth to capture his angry scream. He has to get this out of his body, and he has to get back to you, but he’s so, so angry in a way that feels uncontrollable.

His body collides with the locker door, denting the middle inwards enough that it no longer properly latches shut, but he doesn’t care. The pain spiking up the side of his arm is good, it’s real, and it pumps his brain full of all the chemicals he needs to focus.

He puts any thought of going across the hall into the practice room where Minseok lays unconscious. He ignores the little voice that says he would be justified in finishing him off. He forces himself to think about your face, your smile when he saw you at the party for the first time in months.

He holds that image while he moves quickly, grabbing a few water bottles and turning right down the hallway towards you and away from every impulse flicking through his body. He stops short at the door when he hears Yunho’s voice, “I’d put him on the floor faster than you could blink. Mingi and I both would.”

He breathes through the spike of anger as he hears your soft voice in response. He hates that you’re still afraid, even with him here, but he knows he has to show you for you to believe it.

“You are completely safe,” Yunho says, and at this moment Mingi is so grateful for Yunho’s steadfast calm.

He takes one more deep, deep breath, and pushes through the doorway with as much softness as he can muster.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

San ignores his phone. He’s told Wooyoung everything he can about what happened and that you’re safe and now he has other problems to deal with.

As Mingi disappears into the locker rooms, Dahan races back through the hallway, her eyes darting down at the puddle of blood, “Oh, god,”

“It’s his,” San assuages her fears immediately, “are they on the way?”

“Yes, I told them to hurry,” She nods, “does he need an ambulance too?”

“The ambulance is for him,” San says, clearing his throat, “can you wait for them and show them where to come? I need to,” he jerks his head towards the back office.

“Yes, yes, of course,”

“And Dahan,” He remembers himself, “don’t go into studio two, okay?”

Her eyes flick to the door, “Is he in there?”

San nods, “He’s hurt, but still, he’s not safe to be around, okay?”

Dahan might be a beta, but he’s not taking any risks where Minseok is concerned, not after he heard the way he talked so casually about what he did to you. She nods, stepping backwards down the hall once more.

With everything taken care of, he can finally focus.

San pulls open the door to the back office and Seonghwa jumps, his eyes going from unfocused to focused in a second. “It’s only me,” San says softly, “I’m here now,”

“San,” Seonghwa’s eyes well up with tears, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,”

San shakes his head, dropping to crouch in front of him, and he gently lays his hands on Seonghwa’s knees, “There’s nothing wrong with you at all,”

“I should be helping,” Seonghwa swallows tightly.

San shakes his head again, “Everything’s handled,” he says, brushing his hand over Seonghwa’s long black hair, “there’s nothing to do right now.”

“y/n?” Seonghwa murmurs.

“She’s awake,” San repeats Mingi’s words from a few moments ago, “alert, and she’s herself,”

“Thank god,” Seonghwa’s breath hitches, “and she’s alright? She’s not alone?”

“They’re with her,” San soothes him, cupping his cheek, “she’s right where she needs to be,”

“Good,” Seonghwa sinks back into his seat.

San lets his hand drop back to Seonghwa’s thigh, his phone once again buzzing incessantly in his pocket. He’s sure Wooyoung is frantic, but right now he needs to focus here on the man in front of him. Wooyoung will have to wait.

“Who’s calling?” Seonghwa nods towards San’s pocket.

“Woo,”

“You told him?” Seonghwa surmises.

“I thought she might need him,” San confesses softly, “I don’t know what an omega would want at a time like this… I wouldn’t know what to do,”

“You’re doing it now,” Seonghwa corrects, “you’re doing better than me,”

San squeezes Seonghwa’s knee, giving him the smallest shake of his head, he never was one to accept that kind of self deprecating talk and he’s not about to start now.

“I should,” Seonghwa starts to shift away from San and put space between them, but then he actually looks down at himself and his chest starts to pound, “oh, Jesus,”

He hadn’t properly looked, he hadn’t really taken it in until this moment. He’s never seen so much blood before, and his hands are shaking as he turns them over to see his stained palms.

“Shh,” San covers Seonghwa’s trembling hands with his own, “I’ve got you,”

“H-he’s alive, right?” Seonghwa can’t think of anything except the way Minseok’s jaw felt coming loose under his fist, “Sannie, did I kill him?”

“No, no,” San dips closer, pressing a warm kiss to Seonghwa’s forehead, “he’s fine, it looks worse than it is. You didn’t do that, you’d never do that, I know you,”

Tears pool in Seonghwa’s eyes, tracking down his cheeks quickly as he drops his head against San’s clean knuckles, “I thought about it,” his voice is tight with tears, “what does that make me?”

“Hey,” San moves in, pressing quick kisses along Seonghwa’s temple, any part of him that he can reach, “no, it makes you a person, alright? He did something awful to someone we love.” San squeezes his hands tight, “He hurt her, he could have claimed her, we all know what that means, okay? You were protecting her, you did nothing wrong,”

Seonghwa stills, letting his words sink in. He thinks about what an unwanted claim would have done to you, who you would have become.

“It wasn’t his rut either,” San leans his head against Seonghwa’s, his thumb caressing the back of his hand, “you know that’s just what these alphas say when they try to do what he did,”

“I don’t understand why he would try it here,” Seonghwa lifts up, shaking his head in disbelief.

“He thought we were all gone,” San says quietly, “I’m sure he thought y/n and maybe Dahan were the only ones working late. Yunho and Mingi had the back office door closed, I was in the gym, and you said you were leaving early. It was quiet,”

“He planned it, then,” Seonghwa’s stomach rolls.

“I think so,” San nods, “we just need the police to believe that.”

“They’re coming?” Seonghwa murmurs.

“Mhm,” San smiles, close lipped and then sighs, “jagi, I need you to do something for me,”

Seonghwa studies his face, he hasn’t heard San call him that outside of bed in so long, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

San sighs, eyes flicking away, “You know why,”

The feeling sits between them for a moment, and then Seonghwa nods, “What do you need me to do?”

“We need to get you out of these clothes,” San cups his cheek again, “and you need to wash your hands,”

“San,” Seonghwa’s jaw tightens, realizing what San is pushing him to do, “I’m not lying to the police,”

“It’s not lying,” San presses, “you’re just changing after work,”

“If I get in trouble for what I did, I’m not going to get caught lying on top of that,” Seonghwa murmurs, “I know what you’re trying to do, but think it through.”

San’s jaw tenses and relaxes and then he nods, “Alright, but I’m cleaning your cuts, and you’re not going to argue about that.”

Seonghwa smiles softly and nods, “Okay,”

San ignores the phone in his pocket again and finds the first aid kit in the cabinets, pulling out a pack of alcohol wipes and gauze. He doubles back for a water bottle and some paper towels, and then he pulls a chair close to Seonghwa to sit and take his hands back in his.

Seonghwa is quiet while San works. He uses the water and the paper towel to effectively wash the blood away from his palms and the alcohol wipes to clean the broken skin of his knuckles. He works on him quickly and quietly, and he fights the urge to kiss his broken skin when he’s finished, he’s gotten away with too much today already.

He holds Seonghwa’s hands in his, so much softer and more delicate than his. He thinks that after today he’ll have to take care to make sure he never has to use them in violence again. San thinks the next time he will do better, if Seonghwa ever has to kill, San will be the one to kill for him.

San smooths his thumbs over the backs of Seonghwa’s hands, and this time he does give into temptation. Dipping forward he presses a kiss to each of his palms.

“San,” Seonghwa’s voice is soft, “we’re alright,”

“I know,” He whispers into the soft skin of the hands he misses so deeply, hands he aches for. If anyone ever touched him the way that Minseok touched you, he can’t even conceive of what he wouldn’t do.

His phone rings again, and this time he answers it.

“Now you answer?” Wooyoung’s voice is taut, “I’m downstairs,”

“I had things to take care of,” San sighs, standing and giving Seonghwa’s hand one final squeeze.

“I’m coming up,” Wooyoung ignores his excuse, “he better be in a fucking body bag when I get there,”

The line goes dead, and San steps into the hall. He takes quick stock. Minseok is still unconscious in studio two, he can hear the tone of your voice from down the hall mixed with Yunho and Mingi’s. The slick patch of blood on the tile is gone, and San wonders if Dahan had the same idea he did about cleaning up before the police arrive.

The door to the access stairs by the elevator swings open, Wooyoung looking wild and full of panicked rage, and San dives back into the chaos. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For the first time in his life, Yunho wishes he wasn’t the designated driver for everything. He wishes Mingi had a license. He wishes that after the most uncomfortable and awful hospital trip of his life he could have tossed Mingi the keys and told him to drive and climbed in the backseat with you. Instead he’s stuck in the driver’s seat again, trying to focus on the road but finding himself glancing up every few seconds to check his rear view mirror just so he can see you asleep with your head in Mingi’s lap.

“Green light,” Mingi murmurs with a nod of his head, and Yunho breaks his eyes away from the mirror to watch the road again and press the gas.

“Sorry,” He manages.

“I get it,” Mingi replies, his fingers slowly brushing along your temple, “I can’t believe she’s here either.”

“Is she sleeping?” Yunho checks.

“Mhm,” Mingi nods, “she’s out,”

Yunho breathes a sigh of relief, he hated having to wake you up with Mingi every few minutes on the way to the hospital when they weren’t sure if you had a concussion or not, he’s just happy you can actually get some rest if you need it.

“Yunho,” Mingi says quietly, a question in the lilt of his voice, “what did the police want to ask you?”

“Um,” His eyes flick to the mirror and then back to the road, “they wanted to talk to the owner, but Jaemin obviously wasn’t there,”

“Right,” Mingi nods.

“I don’t know,” Yunho admits, “San gave them my name and said I could give a statement about what happened,”

“Which was?” Mingi asks.

Yunho watches your face for a moment, but it’s clear you’re still deep asleep and he shrugs, “The truth, that we heard a scream and that when we went into the room we saw him attempting to hurt her. It was clear he was trying to force a claim and that she was in subspace, and that Minseok fought us while we tried to subdue him.”

“Do you think they believe that?” Mingi murmurs.

“They have to,” Yunho won’t let that thought enter his mind, he knows what Mingi’s implying, they both heard the way your conversation with the police went at the hospital, but he can’t entertain the thought that the police would side with anyone but you.

“Do they?”

“Not tonight,” Yunho shakes his head, “not in front of her, she’s been through enough.”

Mingi stays quiet, and Yunho drives on.

When they pull into the alleyway that leads to their apartment, Yunho watches you start to stir. It’s like you have a sixth sense that the energy in the car is changing, and you make soft, sleepy noises as you come out of it.

Mingi runs a hand soothingly up and down your back, “We’re home, okay? You’re with us,”

Yunho watches the way you don’t respond. Your eyes look vacant again, unfocused and distant and when he pulls the car to a stop he watches the way you don’t wait to just step out yourself and start the familiar walk up to their front door.

He exchanges a fast look with Mingi, and they follow you at a little distance to keep the pressure off until the door’s unlocked and you’re stepping over the threshold. Everything about this is wrong. Not you back in their home, that’s never felt so right to Yunho in his life, but you look glassy and scared and he wants nothing more than to take it away.

“Hey,” He tries, waving a hand across your field of vision, “are you alright?”

Your eyes flick away from his, a pregnant pause between you before you look back up, “I’m fine, sorry, it’s just been awhile.”

He feels heat flood his cheeks, his ears warm. Of course you’re not alright, and he feels stupid and small at even asking the question. He feels foolish about every little thing until you walk down the hall and shut yourself away in the bathroom.

“I don’t know what the fuck to do,” Mingi says suddenly, running a hand through his hair before moving towards the couch, “I still want to break something.”

“I know,” Yunho nods, sitting next to him on the sofa, his knee bouncing nervously.

Mingi shoots him a glance, his eyes flicking down to his knee, and Yunho freezes. They settle into the quiet of their apartment, and they listen. Yunho expects to hear you cry, something more than just the steady spray of the shower, but he doesn’t and that scares him more than anything.

“Should we call the others?” Mingi clears his throat after a while, “Woo or,”

“Seonghwa?” Yunho finishes his thought for him and then swallows tightly, “No, I, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Me either,” Mingi nods.

“She wants to be here,” Yunho remembers the way you clung to his shoulders at the studio, begging for home, and maybe tomorrow you’ll regret that decision but he’s done trying to think for you.

“I know,”

“Let’s just let her be here then,” Yunho murmurs.

Yunho knows that Mingi doesn’t want to lose you just as much as he doesn’t. They agreed one night after just enough alcohol on tour how they felt, everything finally out in the open between them. They had never stopped and imagined a pack together, but they both know it feels right.

“We’re her friends,” Mingi reasons quietly.

“Friends,” Yunho nods, “and the fact that we’re both stupidly in love with her can wait,”

“Yep,” Mingi sighs, “I think we’ve gotten pretty good at that,”

Yunho huffs, a short breath of laughter through his nose and nods, “Yeah,”

The sound of the shower turning off draws both their gazes up and down the hall, and then Mingi stands, “I’m going to make up my room in case she wants it,”

Yunho watches him go. He listens to the stillness of the apartment around him.

Mingi comes back and you’re still in the bathroom. They make themselves scarce. They listen as you come out of the bathroom and go straight into Mingi’s bedroom. The door shuts tight. Yunho listens but he doesn’t hear the turn of the lock. The bed creaks, sheets rustle, and then all is quiet.

“What do we do now?” Mingi asks quietly.

Yunho’s eyes flick over the closed door down the hall, “We wait.”

Being pulled from sleep at four in the morning is never a good thing, but Yunho would put seeing you struggle through a night terror and a flash back at the absolute top of his most awful moments list. The way it took so much to get you to snap out of it and come back to them, the pile of Mingi’s bedding in the corner, the way your muscles stayed locked tight for minutes even with their arms around you.

Holding you now with Mingi he keeps thinking of the purple bruises that litter your skin from where you rubbed your glands raw. He’s a swirling mix of emotion, but the worst part of it is that there’s nothing left to do. He can’t channel it anywhere, there’s no threat except the one in your mind now, and he doesn’t know how to make that kind of threat recede.

He remembers the way you shrank back into his chest at the hospital at the glimpse of Minseok’s name on the hospital room door as you passed through to the exit. All he could do was wrap an arm around your body and try to steer you away, and he doesn’t know if that was even close to good enough.

His mind turns it all over as light starts to spread in the sky outside, and he feels the way you’re shifting in the bed getting closer and closer to sleep. He hopes you can all get a few more hours before the reality of whatever tomorrow is going to bring. Your lips move against Yunho’s chest and he doesn’t risk shifting a muscle so he can hear your quiet words in the dark. It’s faint, but he hears it when you whisper, “Don’t let me go,”

Yunho’s throat constricts, his eyes flooding with tears. He presses his eyes shut tight, trying to keep his breathing even and low so you don’t know he’s still awake. The weight of the night sinks into him, pushing against his chest and there are so many things he wants to say to you heavy on his tongue.

It doesn’t take long for your breathing to level out and your body to unspool and relax, they both feel it when you do, and Yunho takes a shaky wet breath now that he knows he can.

When he opens his eyes again it’s straight into Mingi’s and for some reason his friend’s unwavering gaze makes the tears come faster.

Mingi waits, and Yunho looks away in discomfort at the raw moment of exposure.

Quietly, and careful not to wake the woman in his arms, Mingi shifts closer to you and Yunho, his arm stretching across you both and settling on Yunho’s side.

“It’s okay,” Mingi murmurs quietly.

“How is this okay?” Yunho manages, getting his moment of overflowing emotion under control.

“She’s here,” Mingi says simply, “even if it’s just tonight,”

Yunho’s arms tighten around your sleeping form and he nods, “She’s here,”

Mingi presses a kiss to your hair and squeezes Yunho’s side just once, “Sleep,”

“What if she has another nightmare?” Yunho murmurs.

“I’ve got her,” Mingi assures quietly, “you sleep,”

You shift between them, winding your way deeper into Yunho’s embrace, and he passes a hand up and down your back until you sigh heavily against his skin. If this is all he has, he’s going to take it. He nods to Mingi, and despite the growing light leaking in through the curtains outside, sleep pulls him under.

Mingi stays awake for as long as he can stand watching over you both, but held in their arms you barely stir. There are no nightmares, no subspace to hold you under. With the birds starting to sing, Mingi falls asleep.

He wakes to the sound of a fist on their front door and the sinking feeling that last night might have really been their last with you. He hopes to god he’s wrong. He so badly wants to be wrong.

#SO I JUST HAD TO DO IT #honeyhotteoks updates #honeyhotteoks fics #this night together fic #this night together deleted scene #ateez series #ateez fic #ateez ff #yunho fic #mingi fic #yungi fic #yunho x reader #mingi x reader #yungi x reader

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ellieslittleburrow · 8 months ago

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Summary : You're fighting off a bunch of men when Reacher comes to help. But you don't need his help. What does he do about that?

Pairings : Jack reacher x Platonic!reader

Warnings : fighting men

A/N : what a good change, i love this strong female lead thiing. Also what do we think?? Do we like??? Should we do more Reacher? Enjoy 🌸 also wtf i've never written something this fast.

----

"Let's split." You shout, spinting after the long-legged man while Reacher goes after the other one.

Your feet follow as your eyes scan through the crowds, you can't let this one go, he needs to be int- He takes a right turn, and as you enter the same alley, you find him already jumping over the fence-Nothing difficult for you...You've done that many a times- and as your shoes stick to the wall, you push against your arms to lift yourself up and over the brick bloc, jumping down onto the next alley-

You notice his body dissapearing into the right, and as you ready yourself to start running again, a couple of men suddenly appear from both sides, sending you staggering backwards in surprise.

"Don't make this too hard on yourself, little lady."

You straighten yourself up-You can't seem scared- You're not scared. And as they confidently walk closer to you, you examine their figures, the way their arms fall at their thighs. Big men...Boohoo...Too confident they don't realize you just shoved your hand into your pocket to put your brass knuckle in. Play time, fuckers.

As the first guy reaches for you, you pull his hand and kick your foot into his stomach-giving yourself some time to launch at the next guy, who throws a punch your way-you dodge it, punching him from under the chin, he staggers back and before you get to attack him again, the other guy grabs you from behind, swiftly pulling you from the ground and into the air. You squirm, freeing your arm from his grip to swing it back violently, your elbow landing somewhere on his face-You don't know where but it's a good enough place because he let go of you.

"Little lady, huh?" You scoff, throwing a punch at his face before spinning around to twist the hand that just gripped your shoulder-they might be big, but they're not as trained as you and you take advantage of that by punching his face while his hand is still twisted. He groans as the knuckle kisses his skin. You spin around again, finally ready to finish one of them off. The first guy is standing back up, his body rocking back and forth, conveying a lack of balance. "I'm gonna enjoy-" You swing your foot upward, landing it right under his testicules and as soon as he bends down in pain, you take ahold of his head, kicking your knee right into his face-

A crack sounds behind you, causing you to tuck and to spin around-Reacher.

Your eyes meet and Reacher lets go of the man's body, letting the cadaver hit the ground. You stare at him, unsure of your own emotions. Only then does the realisation hit you that the man you needed to catch escaped!!!

"Did you catch him????" You ask and your face reddens as anger courses through you. He did the fuck not.

"No" Reacher coldly says, only heightening your anger even furthur.

You close the distance between you two, lifting your chin up to look at him.

"Why would you fucking do that, Reacher? We've been running after this guy for a month-What the hell is wrong with you?" You yell. But that doesn't do much to him, so you push against his chest. "I'm talking to you-fucking answer me." You demand, your face leaning in every direction his goes. He's avoiding your eyes and you hate that. "HEY!"

"I COULDN'T LEAVE YOU HERE ALONE." He yells back and you startle, taking a discreet step back.

"I don't need your help, Reacher." You only lower your voice a tiny bit. "I can take care of my own god damn self."

You look back when breathing sounds behind you, snapping you out of the fight. "Oh yeah, him." The guy you knocked out starts waking up. You walk over to him, dropping to your knees to plant your knuckle into his face, knocking him out a second time.

"I don't need your help."

"It's not-it's in my instincts. I can't help it."

You scuff. "As flattering as that sounds, Reacher, my case is drowned. It's fucked. So please do me the favor of keeping your mouth shut-you're not the strongest guy in the world, i did not need you."

"Yeah! And you're not in a competition, relax."

You'd gasp at his response if you could-but you didn't want to puff his chest up for him. Ouch...You ignore the sting in your heart, brushing past him to walk back home.

What a guy...

----

Hello again ❤️❤️❤️🥀🥀🥀 i hope you enjoyed this 🌸 i'll see ya next time!

#reacher fanfiction #reacher x reader #jack reacher x reader #reacher #jack reacher #reacher x platonic!reader #platonic!reader #alan ritchson x reader #alan ritchson #alan ritchson x platonic!reader #jack reacher x you #protective brother

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image-thot · 2 years ago

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Throw Him Off His Rhythm: Mirage x Reader

Fandom: Transformers Rotb

Summary: After getting caught and subsequently losing a bet he made to his human, Mirage now finds himself having to follow through with his end of the deal.

Words: 1,517

Warnings: Masturbating, handjobs, Sub/Dom, orgasm denial

A/N: The reader is written as gender-neutral. I did indeed spend a little time today figuring out an average size estimate for how big a cybertrionians spike would be (more specifically Mirages) relative to them and their humans because I needed something to like visualise or something. Can’t lie I may be on my way to making a table of transformers and how big their spikes are, if you by primus wanna see that let me know XD

Enjoy the fic.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." The string of curses leaves Mirage's vocaliser as he awkwardly shimmied down the narrow alleyway.

"Why'd the perfect spot have to be so fragging, hard to get to." Mindful of his finish he carefully squeezes out of the alley into the outdoor courtyard.

Sure it wasn't the nicest looking or biggest of hiding spots, but it was private and quiet. Panelling sliding open as he sits on the ground, leaning back against the brick wall he sighs in relief as his burning spike pressurises already dripping transfluid.

"Frag finally, for a second thought I was going to burst a line." Servo quickly dives down to wrap around his spike and he bites back a moan as his servo begins to stroke at a fast pace, aching to relieve the burning pressure.

"You couldn't wait until after the meeting?" Helm hitting the wall behind him as he groans, of course it couldn’t and you knew that all too well otherwise you wouldn’t have followed him out here.

Although amusing at the time making, a bet to see who could go the longest without needing to fuck or masturbate wasn’t his most brilliant idea. In his defence he thought humans weren’t capable of going more than a day let alone a week without having to self-service themselves, all but certain he’d have the win in the bag.

It didn’t help him that you’d poke and provoke his imagination, you’d butter him up with your sweet words which had done more than just stroke at his ego. Not-so-subtle innuendos had on more than one occasion almost had his interface panels sliding back, it’s a miracle he had managed to last this long.

“Obviously not.” Servo still stroking his spike as he speaks optics looking everywhere but your eyes, he doesn’t need need to look at your face to see the grin that spreads across it. “I can see that but aren’t you forgetting something?” Your words tease him as a huff of annoyance leaves his intake, slowly making your way over to him you lean against the wall next to him.

“Fine. Fine. You win. You a human can outlast me a cybertronian. Happy now? Cuz I could really use some help.” Continues to stroke his spike as other servo reaches out to grab you, when you quickly dart out of his reach a whined gasp leaves him.

"W-what? Come on you can’t be serious.” You chuckle at his needy response no doubt in your mind that if your roles were reversed he would have teased you.

“But didn’t you say the winner could order the looser around for an entire week?” Smugness dripped off your words as you watched his frame slump forward, a defeated sigh leaving him.

“Yeah, but I thought you’d just wanna be on top or something. Not like. Not like leave me hanging.” Sending the best puppy dog eyes he could muster your way, hoping you’d cave into his needs.

“Mirage. You wouldn’t be trying to go back on your word, would you?” A fake look of disappointment briefly covers your face as carefully move around his legs coming to a stop by his pedes.

“What!? Of course not! I mean, after so long I figured that you'd. You know, wanna fool around." Servos still as he watches you contemplate and tries to stop his legs from bouncing impatiently as he waits for your response. A devious look spreads across your eyes as you walk between his legs, hand coming up to trace between the seams as you move closer.

"I suppose, a little fun now wouldn't hurt. If you promise to stand by your word and do exactly as I say." Missing the dark edge of your words as he moans out a string of yes. Now standing in front of his leaking spike you give him a playful smile as you tap the servo that had slowly resumed its stroking.

"Servos by your side's big boy and no matter what. You don't touch me or your spike." Words are spoken as if you're sending him into battle, your hands gently caressing the metal and seams around his heated array.

"Sir yes sir!~" The chuckle he lets out after his own words are cut off by a soft moan and his servos drop-down like rocks off a bridge, digits grip the ground as your breath fans over his spike.

"Good." You hum as one hand trails up to his spike while the other continues to tease the wires between his seams.

Your eyes watch his faceplate like a predator, his optics offlining and scrunching up when your hand delicately runs up his spike. Shifting your gaze back down to his spike, your fingers briefly graze over the tip blue biolights pulse at the touch and a gaspe escape his intake. Fingers move back down as your hand begins to slowly stoke easily gliding thanks to all the pre-leaked transfluid.

"Frag." A moaned whisper breaks from him as his hips twitch and he desperately holds back from thrusting them into your hand.

A chuckle escapes you, eyes moving back to his faceplate as they keenly watch him bite his derma as his helm hits the wall behind it. Digits dig into the ground below them, frame shifting uncomfortably as you barely increase the speed of your hand and a whine slips out and his optics online.

"Please baby. Frag you're killing me here." Optics looking down at you and he groans as a smirk briefly returns to your face.

"Aww, I'm sorry." A fake pout spreads over your face as your hand begins to stroke a little faster, eyes never leaving him as your mouth moves in closer to his spike.

"Would you like me to go a little faster?" The teasing words fan hot air over the sensitive tip of his spike and have his hips jolting up. Spike almost pushing into your mouth you move your head back with a chuckle and your hand speeds up.

"Yes! Please babes! Frag I wanna be inside you so bad!" Optics offlining as his words fall out along with his desperate moans as your mouth moves away.

Your other hand finally leaves the cluster of wires it had been teasing to wander to his spike, your thumb firmly runs over the tip and he gasps out. Frame shaking you can see the strain in his servos as he desperately keeps them from reaching out to grab you. Hand stroking faster as your fingers tease around his leaking tip, whined moans leave his vocaliser as he approaches his overloaded and you bite your lip holding back your own moan.

"Frag babes I'm so close! Frag yes. Yes." The words fall freely from him as his spike throbs, biolights pulsing quicker as he almost reaches the tipping point of his pleasure and just like that your hands pull away.

"What?! Frag babes you ok? I'm almost there." The desperation, confusion and slight concern are evident in his voice as his optics look down to identify the reason for your sudden lack of touch.

When his optics catch the devious smile spread across your face as your hands link behind your back, the realisation of your motives slowly comes to his lust-filled processor.

"No please! You can't! Babes come on. Just a little more! Don't leave me like this! I-I'm almost done then- you can ride my face place however long you want after! Please." Panicked and pleading for you to tip him over the edge, his legs shake and servos hit the ground in frustration but never make any move towards you or his spike.

The pleasure that surges throughout your body as you watch him in such a state of need and want, you almost want to jump on his spike then and there. Unlike your partner, you have a lot more self-restraint.

"I said I'd have a little fun. Nothing about letting you overload." You hum out enjoying the look of needy frustration that covers his faceplate.

"Come one. Babe's I've been good! I-I didn't touch-." His babbling words are cut off by your own stern ones.

"Good and you'll keep it that way." Smirk dissipates into your normal loving smile as you shift from between his legs.

"What no!" Shifting to his knees as you continue to walk into the small alley. "You can't leave me like this!"

"I think I will." You muse out as you wave your hand for him to follow.

"Perhaps I'll change my mind a little later. Until then we've gotta get back to the others." You call out from the end of the alley, not missing the small sob and whine that comes from him as you make your way back into the building.

"This is going to be so much fun if he can keep his servos away from his spike." You think to yourself as apologize to the others for your brief absence, trying to hide your smirk when a rather tense and twitchy Mirage tries to sneak his way back into the building.

#transformers #x reader #smut #reader insert #transformers mirage x reader #transformers mirage #mirage x reader #rotb mirage #mirage x human reader #mirage #rise of the beasts #mirage rotb #tf rotb #tf mirage #transformers rotb #oneshot #transformer drabbles #drabble

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selyas · 7 months ago

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Chapter 1

Batman needs a Robin

Ina was a street rat. A dirty, malnourished, eleven year old from Crime Alley. She couldn’t fight well and didn’t even steal, because mama would be mad. Samantha Reilly was a victim of abuse and bad luck all her life, but she refused to subject her daughter to the same fate. The day Ina gets caught stealing something from the wrong person will be her last and Samantha much prefers to prevent it altogether. So, while she was never very skilled in street fights, she could at least throw a punch. She was smart and incredibly fast on her feet. That sufficed. They can survive a little longer, if Ina doesn't cause trouble.

Contrary to popular belief, Red Hood was a kind man. He cared for the children of Crime Alley in a way no one else usually did. Ina spent her day running around and playing with other kids unfortunate enough to live in Park Row. Many of those children, much like herself, more often than not went to bed hungry. But never when Red Hood was around. Gotham City as a whole may have Batman, but they have their own hero. The man was in his thirties (even though there was a visible grey streak in his hair) and always brought food for the kids. That evening wasn't different. Little children and teenagers alike ran to him cheering loudly. The anti-hero only laughed and set down the bag for them to rummage through. Ina's mom wasn't home that day at all. Weekends were very busy days at her work, but in all her stress she forgot to leave something to eat for her daughter. The girl couldn't blame her mama for making mistakes like that, seeing her mother's state every time she came back home. Samantha's boss was the definition of what could only be described as a "motherfucker". With that thought, Ina took out a cheeseburger and murmured a shy thank you before biting into it happily. She felt Red Hood's large hand rest on the top of her head, before ruffling her dark brown hair. The girl grimaced out of habit, but didn't swat his hand away.

In the end, the vigilante vanished as quickly as he appeared, but the kids knew he would be back. Hopefully with more food and some stories from his missions. The sky started to darken and Ina decided it was her que to leave. She said goodbyes to her friends and marched quickly, almost soundlessly home.

[-]

Crime Alley, per it's name, was usually full of very shady people, but as Ina hurried through she didn't spot anyone at all. Now that sparked trouble. She thought about running, but immediately decided against it. Suddenly, she heard labored breathing coming from around the corner. It was a sound of a dying man, she knew. Slowly, minding her own safety first, she peaked at the wounded person. Her blood ran cold. Leaning against the wall, in a pool of his own blood was the goddamn Batman. He clutched his chest, probably trying to stop the bleeding. Not very successfully. Ina crouched next to him in panic.

'Sir? Hello? I will call the ambulance.'

He gripped her arm with much force, before she could take out the phone. The cheapest one there was, but it was all she needed.

'No. They can't know who I am. I have to go to the Batcave' the vigilante's voice was strained with pain. He reached to his belt and took out a small device. Car keys - she realised. 'The Batmobile should be on it's way. Just help me get to it.'

He was right, after a few moments Ina saw a big and probably very expensive vehicle roll onto the road right outside of the dark alley. The girl was so high on adrenaline and focused on not letting the Batman die that she coudn't even bring herself to be amazed by it. She "helped" him stand or rather supported his balance as he leaned on the brick wall, colouring it red with his blood. They somehow got to the Batmobile - as the man called it - and he collapsed onto the drivers seat with a sigh of absolute suffering. Ina didn't know what came over her in that moment, but she quickly sat on the only passenger seat available. Batman eyed her in shock and looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could waste his breath any further, she cut in.

'I'm sorry, but there's no way I will let you go home like that all alone. You're barely conscious!'

He didn't respond, instead opting to relax into his seat. He typed in the destination on a bright panel and felt his eyes close involuntarily. He shouldn't have gone to patrol tonight. His previous injury hasn't fully recovered yet and went out against Alfred's stern discouragement, not putting on his com link for good measure. How foolish of him. Now, he was basically dying with a little, scared girl by his side after getting stabbed between ribs. All because of mild pain making him hesitate and allowing his opponent to take advantage. Father is going to kill him. Unless, of course, Pennyworth doesn't beat him to it.

#dc #dc fic #original character #oc #damian wayne #damian al ghul #batman!damian #batman au #batfamily #batman #dc comics

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impishtubist · 2 years ago

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adventures in teaching

“Sirius Ambrose Black!”

Sirius chokes and drops his cigarette, which he quickly crushes beneath the heel of his boot.

“Oh, hey, Moons,” he says casually, waving a hand to wandlessly clear the cigarette smoke from the air and his clothing. Remus glares at him.

“You quit.”

“Yeah, I know, I just.” Sirius rubs the back of his neck. “Harry’s teacher wants to talk to us! Harry’s never been in trouble at school before. What could he possibly have done that requires both of us to be here?”

“Well, we won’t know if we don’t go in, will we?”

“S’pose not,” Sirius says sullenly. “Wait, Ambrose?”

“Your middle name is shit. I gave you a new one.”

“Think you can do better than Ambrose, Moony.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lord Black,” Remus says as Sirius pulls open the door for him. “How about Cosmo?”

“No.”

“Hamish?”

“No.”

“Zephyr?”

“Let’s just get on with this, shall we?”

---

“Thank you for meeting me,” Miss Coburn says, gesturing for Sirius and Remus to have a seat in two of the child-sized chairs in front of her.

“We’re happy to,” Sirius says. “To be honest, though, we’re a little surprised to hear that Harry’s done something that requires his teacher having to speak to us.”

“Harry’s not in trouble,” Miss Coburn assures them. “He’s a smart young man, and generally well-behaved in class.”

“Generally?” Remus asks.

“Yes, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Harry has a tendency to, well, disrespect authority when it doesn’t suit his purposes,” Miss Coburn says. “It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened enough that I wanted it brought to your attention.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for instance, he didn’t approve of today’s snack, so he organized the whole class to go on a snack strike until they were fed something he liked better.”

Sirius smothers a laugh behind his hand. Next to him, he can feel Remus’s shoulders shake with repressed laughter.

“I’m…sorry to hear that,” he manages. “Er, did it work?”

Miss Coburn gives him an unimpressed look. “I hardly think that is the point, Lord Black.”

“No, I suppose not.” Sirius will have to ask Harry about this later tonight. “What else has he done?”

“He has organized the class in similar fashion over the past few weeks. If he doesn’t approve of the game we’re about to play or the book we’re supposed to read together, he organizes all the children against me. I wonder if you might have a word with him about this behavior?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sirius says quickly. They need to get out of here, fast, before he bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “We’ll--we’ll definitely speak to him about this. And, er, it won’t happen again.”

Once outside, they both dissolve into laughter, leaning against the school’s brick wall and wheezing.

“He gets it from you, you know,” Sirius manages finally.

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Mr. Hot Shot Werewolf Activist who has been taking Harry to rallies and protests since he was five months old.”

“What about you, Lord Black, who takes Harry to Wizengamot sessions and to your shouting matches with the Minister?”

“Right, so this one is on both of us, then.”

“Probably.” Remus nudges his shoulder. “You really do have to quit, you know.”

“Quit what?”

“Smoking. At least for the next, oh, seven months.”

Sirius’s head snaps up. “You’re--?”

“Yeah.” Remus bites his bottom lip, which doesn’t do much to keep his grin at bay. “We just found out last week.”

“Moony!” Sirius grabs him around the waist and spins him in a circle. “A whole week! And you didn’t tell me?”

“We wanted to be sure, and--and I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to Harry.”

Sirius sets him back on his feet. “Hey. We’ll figure that out, okay? You and me, together. Besides, Harry will be thrilled to have a sibling.”

---

Remus is stretched out on the couch with his feet in Sirius’s lap when an owl swoops into the room. Sirius is busy rubbing Remus’s swollen feet, so Remus takes the letter from the owl and opens it.

“Bad news?” Sirius asks when Remus groans and throws an arm over his eyes.

“Harry’s teacher wants to talk to us again,” he says, holding up the letter for Sirius to read.

Sirius skims the letter, his lips thinning. Harry’s practically an angel at home. He doesn’t understand how the boy manages to cause so much trouble at school, especially at only six years old! He expects this behavior when Harry is a teenager at Hogwarts, not right now.

“I’ll go,” he says, but Remus swings his legs off Sirius’s lap and works himself into a sitting position.

“I’m coming, too.”

“Are you sure?” Sirius offers him a hand up. Remus winces, resting one hand on his belly and the other on his lower back.

“Positive. Just, ah, give me a second to catch my breath.”

Sirius drives them to the school in his car, since magical methods of transportation are currently off-limits to Remus. Remus has his cane tonight, and he also accepts Sirius’s arm for extra support. His hips have always bothered him, and the added weight of the little one isn’t helping.

Inside the classroom, Sirius transforms one of the child-sized chairs into a comfortable armchair for Remus, who lowers himself into it gratefully. Miss Coburn gives him a warm smile.

“I’m sorry to call you both in like this,” she says. “But thank you for coming. Mr. Lupin, how are you feeling?”

“Let’s just say I’m counting down the days,” Remus says, rubbing his side with a wince.

“Harry is, too. He tells me he’ll have a little brother in May?”

Remus perks up a bit. “He talks about the baby?”

“He does. He’s very excited.”

“Well, that’s a relief. He doesn’t talk much about the baby at home. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.”

“But you didn’t call us here to talk about that,” Sirius says, and Miss Coburn shakes her head.

“No, I’m afraid not. We had show-and-tell today.”

Sirius’s stomach sinks. “Yes, and Harry brought his toy motorbike to show the class.”

“He didn’t,” Miss Coburn says, and she pulls a box out from under her desk, setting it in front of them. “Harry brought a Boggart.”

“He what?” Sirius exclaims while Remus groans and buries his face in his hands. “He didn’t release it, did he?”

“He opened the box, yes,” Miss Coburn says. “Thankfully, as I was closest to it, it turned into a seal, which all of the children found positively delightful. I cast the Patronus charm and got it back into its box, and then we had a discussion about fear. It turned out well, all things considered, but I’m concerned that one of my students was able to bring a Boggart to school.”

Sirius turns to Remus. “Yes, Da, tell me how Harry got his hands on a Boggart?”

Remus lifts his head from his hands, looking sheepish. “I caught it in the attic last week. I was keeping it in that box on my desk until I had a chance to take it to South America and release it on the reserve down there. Er…sorry.”

“So we’re going to keep Da’s office locked from now on,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes. “And I need to thoroughly inspect Harry’s backpack every time I bring him to school, apparently.”

---

Harry has Miss Coburn again the next year, to Harry’s delight and Sirius and Remus’s relief. At least Miss Coburn understands their eccentric child, and has taken everything Harry’s done in class so far in stride. Sirius can’t imagine having a conversation like the Boggart one with any other teacher.

He’s in his office at the Ministry when his secretary pokes their head into the room and informs him that he has a Floo call from Miss Coburn. All she tells him is that she needs to see him as soon as possible, so Sirius grabs his cloak and rushes off to the school.

“Is Harry alright?” he asks as he runs into the classroom.

“Yes, Lord Black, of course,” Miss Coburn says, gesturing for him to have a seat. “His grandmother picked him up earlier. But we had an incident that I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Of course you did,” Sirius sighs. “What’s the little menace done now?”

The classroom door opens then, and Remus hurries in with a wailing Teddy in his arms.

“Sorry,” Remus says as he drops into the seat next to Sirius’s, “sorry, I normally wouldn’t bring him, but we only have the babysitter until three, and my husband is in Bulgaria this week, and Mum’s busy with Harry--”

“Wait,” Miss Coburn says. Her eyes flick between Sirius and Remus. “Husband?”

“Yes,” Remus says absently, bouncing Teddy in a fruitless effort to soothe him. “He’s the director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and there’s been an incident in Bulgaria that’s--well, I really can’t say, but he can’t get away and the baby’s teething and--”

“Here,” Sirius says, holding out his hands. “Let me take him for a bit.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Remus sighs, transferring Teddy to Sirius.

“I’m--sorry, forgive me, but the two of you aren’t married?”

“To each other? No,” Sirius says. He cradles Teddy to his chest, patting his back as the baby continues to fuss. “Remus has been married to Kingsley for, oh, two years now?”

“Three,” Remus says, smiling tiredly. “We got married right after Harry’s third birthday.”

“Remus and I have never been together, Miss Coburn,” Sirius says. “Romantically or otherwise. But we’re best friends, have been since we were eleven, and we were both named Harry’s godfathers. We’re raising him together. We’re both his dads. Rem, have you got a teething ring with you?”

“Oh--yes, here.”

Soon, Teddy is happily gnawing on the teething ring and drooling all over Sirius’s shirt, and they turn their attention back to Miss Coburn.

“Has Harry displayed any accidental magic lately?” she asks.

“Er, he has done for about a year now,” Sirius says. “Why?”

“I’m not so sure that it’s accidental,” Miss Coburn says, her lips twitching. “He didn’t want to do maths after snack time, so he kept making my chalk disappear every time I tried to write on the board. Then, during our quiet reading time, he kept turning his classmates’ hair different colors.”

“Just like Jamie,” Sirius says fondly. “Can’t sit still for a moment, that one.”

“He gets it from you, too,” Remus points out. “I’m sorry, Miss Coburn. We’ll talk to him.”

---

Harry is happily coloring at the kitchen table while Hope putters around the kitchen, cooking dinner. The tip of his tongue pokes out between his teeth and he swings his legs, humming to himself.

“Hi Dad, hi Da!” he greets cheerfully when Sirius and Remus enter. “Is Miss Coburn mad at me?”

“No, babe.” Sirius drops a kiss on his head and pulls out the chair next to him. Remus sits on his other side. “But you really need to stop turning the kids’ hair different colors, alright?”

“And you need to let Miss Coburn teach you maths and reading, even if you don’t like them very much,” Remus says, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. “She’s got to prepare you all for Hogwarts, remember?”

“You don’t want to be the only wizard at Hogwarts who can’t read or do maths, do you?” Sirius says, tickling Harry’s side, and the little boy shrieks with laughter.

“Fine,” Harry sighs, pretending to pout, but it doesn’t stick. It never does.

“You’ll be good?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“And you’ll let your teacher do her job?”

“Yes, Da.”

“Thanks, baby.”

“Can I take Teddy outside, please?”

“Thank you for saying please,” Remus tells him, “but you can play with him inside. He’s napping right now, so how about after dinner?”

“But Ron says there are Grindylows in the pond, and I wanna see ‘em!”

Sirius rubs his forehead. “Harry James, you cannot use your baby brother as Grindylow bait!”

“I won’t let ‘em hurt Teddy!” Harry says, sounding aghast. “I just wanna see ‘em! I can kick them, and then they won’t get Teddy. I can run really fast, too. Wanna see?”

Sirius laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of Harry’s head. “How about this? You and I can go flying after dinner, and Remus and Teddy will come out and watch us. You can show Teddy all the new things you’ve been learning in your flying classes.”

“Okay!” Harry turns back to his drawing. “And when Uncle Kingsley comes home, I’ll show him, too.”

“He’d love that,” Remus says.

Sirius meets Remus’s eyes over Harry’s head, and sees reflected in them the immense love he has for their little cobbled-together family. It might be unusual, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

#i did this inbetween furiously trying to meet original writing deadlines today #spoiler alert i did not meet those deadlines #oop #imp is writing #sirius black #remus lupin #harry potter #platonic wolfstar #wolfstar raising harry #i don't have a ship name for kingsley x remus #wolfking maybe #pregnancy mention #trans remus lupin #also everyone lives together at number twelve because i say so #harry has three dads and a little brother #and grandmum hope

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grimsips · 5 months ago

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Unfortunately not going to have a chance to finish and upload the next part of Love Languages: Ghoulcy's Version before I go on vacation so have a little mostly unedited tidbit of what's to come!

Sneak peak of Part 3 below the cut!

Acts of Service

Gift Giving and Receiving

Words of Affirmation

Physical Touch

Quality Time

Catch up on Parts 1 and 2 here!

“Where the hell you goin’, kid?” The Ghoul’s fingers wrapped around her bicep and hauled her back behind the brick wall she’d run out from. The dirt by their feet exploded as a bullet narrowly missed her.

“I need to get closer.” She growled in response and tried to step around him.

“Like hell you do.” He returned her glare and shoved her back against the brick. A jagged edge cut into her shoulder blade but if the Ghoul noticed her pain he ignored it.

Lucy fought the urge to stomp her foot like a petulant child. “I can’t shoot from here, it’s too far.”

The Ghoul’s eyes flicked between her and the 10mm in her hand and back again. He growled and released her shoulders but immediately pushed her back against the brick with a fingertip to her sternum. “Stay. Here.” His voice brooked no argument and Lucy bit back any that may have formed.

The raiders had set up camp on the upper floors of an old hotel, and from their vantage point the trio of wanderers below were easy pickings. Like shooting fish in a barrel, the ghoul had groaned as they took cover. Between them they didn’t have much in the way of long distance weaponry. The Ghoul preferred combat at close range and Lucy’s pistol and tranquilizer weren’t much use at this distance either. Lucy knew she was making herself a target trying to get closer but hiding behind the wall was just as useless as her pistol right now.

The bounty hunter dropped his saddlebags and dug to the bottom of its contents. His lips twitched up at one corner as he pulled his hand out triumphantly.

“You know what to do with this?” He asked as he pressed an oblong mass of metal into her palm. Lucy felt her knees weaken and her blood run cold as she cupped the grenade as carefully as she could. She nodded slowly.

“Good. You’re going to count to sixty, pull the pin, then throw that as fast and as far as you can. Distract ‘em so I can sneak in behind.” She nodded again, eyes still stuck on the weapon in her hand. A gloved hand covered hers, blocking the grenade from view, and she finally looked up in surprise to find the Ghoul’s face shockingly close to hers.

“Stay out of trouble.” Lucy’s eyes were drawn to the muscle flexing over his jaw as the ghoul clenched his teeth. Her lips parted to repeat the phrase back to him but no words formed. His hand lifted from hers and she itched to reach for it again, instead wrapping her fingers around the sleeve of his duster as he stepped around her.

“Wait-“ He kept his gaze forward but he stopped and, surprisingly, didn’t pull away from her touch. She bit her lip and carefully contemplated her next words, but when he looked back at her impatiently she sighed and muttered, “Sixty seconds or just count to sixty?”

The Ghoul rolled his eyes and wrenched his arm back as if she’d burned him. “Just count to fuckin’ sixty.”

#fallout #fallout prime #fallout amazon #cooper howard #the ghoul #lucy maclean #ghoulcy #vaultghoul #tea:writes #c: cooper the ghoul howard #c: lucy maclean

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dragonowl · 4 months ago

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Pathcode: Light Through a Broken Lens

The Sky That Doesn't End: Part 2 Masterlist Genre: EXO AU, Mystery Rated: PG Summery: Exo has scattered. Now in hiding after the Red Force closed in on them and Luhan went missing. Baekhyun finds himself in a small town while he waits until they can reunite again. Guarded after everything that has taken place, he’s not looking for friendship, or anything else, until a light shines through, even as the darkness closes around them.

Prev, Next. AO3

Chapter 2: Tao: Barcelona, Spain, 10:09

Voices. Whispers and quiet conversations mixed easily with the sound of the buzzing machinery and soft piano music. The scent of roasting beans and brewing coffee was rich and wafted around Tao like a warm hug, reminding him of the early school mornings and Xiumin’s passion for fine coffee. He’d nearly chosen the traditional hot chocolate and churros for breakfast, but the homesickness that hit him after smelling the coffee had changed his mind.

Bringing the warm glass to his lips, he paused and then quickly placed it down as he lifted up the morning’s paper. A small section near the base of the newspaper’s front page caught his attention and he quickly flipped through the pages to find the full article.

His heart stuttered as he processed the words that made him feel sick. A light flickered and his eyes shot up just as a bulb shattered. He brought the newspaper up to protect himself from the flying debris as he flinched at the noise, but the debris never hit. The cafe went silent instead of beginning to clammer at the danger, and he looked around to find the cause.

His breath caught when he realized he’d frozen time without even realizing it.

The hold he had was wavering though and he knew he needed to get out. The Red Force had found a way to track them down and using his powers would likely narrow down their search parameters if they had the right tech. Chen hadn’t been able to determine how they had been found, but he and Suho had cautioned against using their powers in case that had been the cause.

He rushed out of the cafe in a daze, trying to ground himself enough to find his way back to the small room he was staying in. After what felt like forever he made his way back and stumbled multiple times as he ran up the flight of stairs and through the door, gaze darting around to keep an eye on his surroundings.

Once inside he rushed to grab his bags and throw in any essentials he had left lying around. He tried to make a mental list as he double and triple-checked everything. Unable to handle being there any longer, he prayed he had everything that couldn’t be replaced. He’d need to go by the public locker and grab a different ID and some money, and then maybe take a train to another city to fly out of. Deciding on his next location in the moment would hopefully throw off any tail he might have. Something completely random.

Slinging his bags over his shoulders, he exited the small space and quickly made his way down the stairs and outside to the sidewalk.

Someone collided with him, his fast pace and height making him completely miss their presence.

“I’m sorry,” he stumbled, arm encircling the young woman to keep her from falling.

“It’s okay,” she said, her hands fully grabbing his arms to steady herself. “You should pay more attention to your surroundings though. You could get hurt.”

A chill washed over him at her words and he tried to see her face, but she had kept her head bowed. She let go of one of his arms and grabbed the other tightly before he could move and he winced when there was a sudden prick, immediately followed by what felt like fire in his veins. Stumbling back, he found a purchase against the brick wall and dropped his bags as his head erupted in pain, making him drop to his knees. He cradled his head in his hands as the pain drowned out his other senses and his breathing became labored. It ended as quickly as it started and he slumped against the wall, his arms falling to his sides in exhaustion. Tao blinked at the young woman standing over him, but his eyes were too blurry to make out her features and drooped closed as he fell into unconsciousness.

Prev, Next

#exo #exo fanfic #tao #z.tao #Pathcode #light through a broken lens #the sky that doesn’t end series #dragonowl #dragonowl fics

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artzzyb00-27 · 10 months ago

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Spider-Man; Vol.1 Harry Grant

Harry, Denny, and Christopher as Spider-People. Harry's first. Don't worry no one(important) dies(yet). Also, I edited the poster of all three of them. Twas not fun. (No cat is coming with them to fight crime, I couldn't find a male Sun-Spider to represent Chris' crutches but just pretend that he's got male anatomy in the picture.)

He never wanted to get bit. It was by accident. And by accident, a spider that was in the house Jeffrey used for his little escapade had stowed away on Harry. Camouflaging itself in his hair. Getting bit when he was unconscious. After another incident at school, weird things started happening.

His hearing, smell, and sight were increased. He could feel things almost before they happened. Like something was telling him, 'Watch out!'. It's how he got away from someone else trying to kidnap him when he was out with friends at the mall. Sometimes things would stick to his fingers for extra time but he didn't think anything of it. Still trying to forget the incident. Until his wrist shot out a long white sticky string.

After that, he confided in May. He wanted at least someone in the family to know what was going on. Granted, she wasn't happy that he kept it a secret for three years. She understood in the end, that's what mattered.

She asked a friend who graduated already, who had a major in bioengineering, to help out with a slight issue with her brother. Agreeing to keep the secret, Peter explained to him how his powers resembled that of a spider.

"You did kill it right?" He had asked. Harry shrugged and May rolled her eyes at her little brother. In his defense, he liked bugs. What was he gonna do? All he did was grab it, stick it out the window and-

"Oh my god, I let it out my window." He said rubbing his hands against his eyes. When he felt, well 'sensed', that May was about to throw a pillow at him, he quickly stuck out his arm and caught it. Taking a break from becoming a lab rat, Harry had gone out to the convenience store to get snacks for the three of them. Then the cashier was held at gunpoint. Great.

Lifting his COVID mask, which he still wore if he felt like he was getting sick, he grabbed a ski mask from the back and put it on away from cameras. Probably stupid as someone must've already called the cops but he needed to do something. Jumping out from the aisle, Harry aimed his wrist and prayed he didn't look stupid. Luckily, he didn't. The webs, which Peter told him to call them instead of sticky white stuff, grabbed hold of the gun and was pulled back into Harry's hands. The robber and cashier looked at him in shock.

Panicking Harry shot out another web with his right, landing on the robber's face, and pulled on it. Making the guy land hard on the ground. Knocking out unconscious. Not knowing what to do next, Harry looked at the cashier and walked up to pay for the snacks.

"N-nah man! On the house!" Harry must've looked shocked so the cashier explained. Rob. "Not everyone can do that. And I'm not just saying that." Still confused Harry took that as a sign to leave the store. He forgot that he still had the mask on, so when he walked outside with a plastic bag and a ski mask on, the cops outside assumed he was the robber.

In their defense, he was dressed like one. The universe loved messing with him apparently, because the officer in front of him was his mother. With a gun pointed at him. That kinda stung, though he couldn't be too hurt. She had no idea who was under the mask. While debating in his head whether to remove the mask or not, his mom started speaking in her work voice.

"Put the bag down, and take that ridiculous mask off you!" Okay, so trying to calm her down would not go well. Luckily Harry was fast so he sprinted and jumped over a brick wall that led into an alley. He knew his mom would follow but that made it easier to get the attention off him.

When his Spidey-sense told him she was right behind, he instinctively threw his right wrist up to shoot out a web and launched himself. Into. The. Air. Landing on the building that was an office. Which definitely, didn't make people jump and scream at the small man who was sticking to the side of their building.

Snapping out of the trance, Harry realized he needed to think of something. No time for thinking about the massive fall below him. Not the time to try and tell the people inside to stop taking pictures of him. He needed to,... turn invisible? What!?

Taking the opportunity, he climbed down as fast as he could and ran back to May's place. Telling them what happened in extreme detail. Things were different now.

-------------------------------------------

That was a week ago. Harry had gone around training his power. Whether at the private lab, Peter had, due to working at some fancy tech company, or just serving vigilante justice to randos causing trouble. I mean hey, it was giving his family fewer dumb calls to take. Plus it meant more time with his mom. Although he got annoyed Athena the majority of the time. Due to the 'Slippery Slick' people were calling him. Cameras on the sides of buildings had caught the whole thing.

At a family reunion, Harry overheard the adults talking about him. Well, not him him, but you get it.

"I don't know, does he even know what he's doing?" Michael asked no one in particular. Again, his parents didn't know, but damn it hurt.

"Hey, if I got powers-,"

"I'd tie you to a chair and make you pinky promise to not do anything." Eddie interrupted Buck's penny for thought. Makes sense that Buck would do the same thing Harry was doing. Made him feel more confident his older brother would support him.

"Kid could get hurt. There are rules for a reason. Cashier told me he's on our side, but,... Look bottom line, vigilantes are outlaws for a reason." Athena said ending the conversation there. She seemed more uncomfortable to answer honestly. Why, Harry didn't know. He didn't think he wanted to know.

Three days after that, Peter called Harry and asked to meet him at his apartment. He had to tell his mom and Bobby that Peter was tutoring him with homework because everyone else was too busy, and he understood it better from Pete. Which wasn't a total lie.

"So, I have a surprise for you. I know how hard you've been working. And how dangerous this side job of yours can be," Harry rolled his eyes playfully but kept his attention on Peter. Who had walked over to grab a box and walked back to Harry. "So I wanted to give you this. Well, I technically made it, but you get it."

Shaking his head, Harry opened the box and went slower. His very own suit. Running into the bathroom he went to try it on. From outside Peter told him to bring his civilian clothes with him. Looking in the mirror after putting on the mask, Harry took in a deep breath.

The suit was one-piece style but had a hood attached to it. Walking out of the bathroom, Harry looked up at Peter who was taking the sight in proudly.

"Hold out your left arm." As Harry did so, Peter stuck in a thin and small USB that made the inside of his mask light up. When Harry focused his attention back on Pete, he saw his face glowing. Literally. Harry went to look in the mirror that hung above the couch in the living room and gasped in awe. His eyes were glowing with a makeshift fog effect. "The schematics in your mask will help you access situations out on the field. And connect me to your mask if you need backup. Whether I'm at my desk or not. It also can call anyone on your phone's contact list."

"Awesome."

"Alright, let's test this bad boy out."

-------------------------------------------

Athena had been patrolling the area when she saw a group huddling in front of the tallest building in the area. Parking the car and wailing her sirens a bit, she got out to see what everyone was looking at. Up, apparently. Lifting her eyesight, she gasped and wired her walkie.

"Available units near me, I've got a suicide about to happen at the Ten Thousand." Clicking off her walkie, she forced her way into the crowd and saw more officers coming in to de-escalate the situation. Then the 118 arrived, looking like they didn't know what to do. The kid was sticking to the side of the building.

Harry had never been so nervous before this moment. But he was so ready for it too. So, in a moment of faith, he jumped. Breaking the glass his fingers were sticking to and letting himself fall. People beneath were watching and the firefighters froze for a second. They weren't fast enough. Or were they?

Twisting in the air, Harry looked up and shot out webs to reach the top of the building. When they caught him, he ricocheted up and to the left. People on the ground were cheering as he swung away. Then Athena heard glass raining down and she told the people to leave.

"What just happened," Hen asked anyone who could answer.

"I think our friend just upgraded," Ravi answered smiling at the awesomeness in front of him.

-------------------------------------------

And boy, did he upgrade. Harry had never felt so sure of himself in that moment. Swinging around the city and stopping occasionally to stop crime. At one of these, he saw a redhead getting assaulted. Or about to, he should say. Improving with each encounter. Outsmarting some and overpowering others.

Jumping in between her and the men, he jumped and put the guy in a headlock with his legs and twisted his body quickly. Slamming the man on the ground. To the second, he shot out webs and jumped up landing on top of a street light. Shooting out more of the desired type of string, Harry wrapped the guy up like how a spider would a fly.

Jumping down, he ignored the looks of amazement he was getting from the people around who witnessed the scene. Finally getting a better look, he realized it was a reporter who Taylor had worked with. Mariah, or something.

"Impressive. Though, you're a lot shorter than I thought you'd be." Harry laughed and shrugged it off.

"I get that a lot. Gives me the upper hand though. They underestimate me, and I knock down their egos." Smiling, the woman held her hand out. Grabbing hold of it and shaking it out of habit, cause his mom raised a gentleman, he began stepping back.

"Hey, wait!" He stopped and turned to the woman again. "What's your name?" Well, he acted like a spider and he got bit by one. Might as well use it.

"Spider-Man."

With that, Harry backflipped on the side of the building nearby and swung off for a final round of patrol before sneaking back home and hiding his things. The morning after, thank god it was the weekend, came in a report from the lady he saved. His mom was making breakfast and listening to the news. Looking up at the mention of the masked vigilante.

"Last night, I was down the streets of LA, unknowingly being followed by dangerous men. Spider-Man, which is what the swinging hero chooses to go by, stopped them and saved my life." The TV then shows video clips of the fight from last night and the aftermath of how the guys were. Harry had hoped that he didn't go too hard on the guys. He and Peter found out he could break solid rock if he wanted to.

"That's pretty cool. That there's someone else helping you guys." He said trying to subtly push his mom's opinions, of him ironically, out.

"I don't know if cool is the right word, sweetheart. Brave, yes. But cool. No." She turned off the TV and kept making food, changing the topic to school and friends. At least she wasn't overly anti-Spidey like his dad. That would hurt later.

-------------------------------------------

Swinging through the city for the rest of the month was fun. Oddly therapeutic. Got his mind off teenage angst and emotions. Every day after finishing his homework, and eating dinner, he would sneak out and swing through the city and patrol around till about 2:30 and then go off to sleep if nothing held him up. His latest was 4:30. He needed some sleep for school.

And for his family to not get worried. May had also installed a tracker on him which told her exactly where he was. At all times. Fair.

One night, however, while sitting on top of a building's gargoyle statue, his mask sent a notification. Trouble near the 136 and he needed to get there quickly. Once there he saw the firefighters outside talking with the 118. Bobby speaking with Bosko.

Landing on top of one of the fire trucks parked outside, he drew people's nearby attention. Looking up Buck smiled in awe.

"Spider-Man!" Harry nodded up and turned his attention to Bobby and Bosko. Reminding himself to call him Captain and not what he usually does.

"Captain," He greeted gaining a nod of acknowledgment from the older man, "What's going on?"

"Something attacked our station. It's inside but one of our members is in there. It looked like a giant octopus. But he made a metal sound when walking. Power went out so we couldn't get a good look at him."

Suddenly long arms shot out from the station doors and grabbed hold of Bobby.

"Cap!" Buck screamed and ran forward in a failed attempt to save his father figure. The arms raised the man in the air and pulled him into the smoke coming out of the building.

"I've got it handled, you just take care of the injured firefighter! This doesn't seem like a normal thug!" Huffing out in amusement and shock, Lena nodded behind her, as if permitting him to enter. Good thing Peter installed that voice module thing in his mask. Didn't want people to recognize him at all. Especially because his voice broke halfway through speaking.

Shooting out webs at the frame of an open window near the top of the station, Harry hopped up slightly and whipped himself in. Landing on the roof looking at the station upside down. Very different from the 118. Using his mask, he scanned the building for body heat. Nothing. Heart beating fast, Harry prayed that Bobby was safe. Despite being pulled in by who knows what.

That's when his Spidey-Sense went off. Jumping down and front to land on the wall in front of him, he avoided mechanical arms that shot through the roof. The arms pulled out of the roof, and other arms grabbed onto the railing in front. Lifting a figure that looked human. Dammit Bobby, where are you?

"Hello, Spider-boy." The man in front of him asked.

"It's actually, Spider-Man. W-who are you, exactly? You're wearing a lab coat and have eight limbs. Are you like a Doctor Octopus? Doc Ock?"

"My name is Doctor Otto Octavius."

"Meh, I like mine better. Woah-!" Harry yelled as he jumped off the wall avoiding another attack from Doc Ock. "So, you wanna explain why you attacked the 136?! No offense," Harry bantered as he bobbed and weaved around the station with the man chasing him around effortlessly. Suddenly, Harry used the webs he shot out from both wrists, twisted his body, and launched himself back towards the other. Landing a swift kick to the face. "But I don't think you're the 'swinging' type! What do you think? Was that good?"

Growling in frustration, Otto commanded his tentacles to restrain Harry against the wall. He did, but just when he was about to get closer, an axe chopped his lower mechanical leg. Looking down he saw the 136 captain holding the axe and Bobby right next to him with parts of his shirt torn. Without thinking twice, Otto used one of the arms restraining Harry and launched the captains to the wall behind them.

"No!"

Harry yelled out, shooting out some webs from his free arm, and pulled Doc Ock closer. Kicking up his leg hard, hitting the man on the jaw, and threw him upwards through the ceiling outside. Landing on the elevated ground, Harry ran towards the captains who were knocked out and threw them over his shoulders.

"I gotcha you guys!" He said, while running back towards the window he came through while avoiding debris falling from the damaged roof.

Outside, the firefighters had tried to go in and search the building but during the chase, Doc Ock was careful to throw heavy objects to block the doorways. Trying to figure out ways to get inside and help the masked vigilante, Athena, and her partners showed up.

"What the hell is going on?" Just as Buck was about to answer, a loud crash was heard and caused the people around to turn their heads. All they saw was Doc Ock flying out and running away on all eights. A firefighter from the 136 was looking towards the window when Harry flew out carrying Bobby and the captain of the station. Just in time as well, the roof of the 136 had caved in. Athena threw her hand up to her mouth to cover her gasp.

When he landed he placed the 136's captain down on the rolly bed and then put Bobby down helping him gain his footing back. He'd woken up again when Harry was running out and leaped out of the building with a total of 320 lbs on him. Turning to the crew helping out their captain he spoke.

"Sorry 'bout the mess. Doc Ock sure left an impression."

"Doc Ock?" Chimney asked while checking Bobby over. Hen went up to Harry to inspect the bleeding arm he had. Huh, the mechanical arm must've more than pinched him. Meh, it would heal.

"Better than Otto Octavius. And don't worry about it, it'll heal itself. Powers, remember?" Harry said mimicking his move when throwing webs out. Buck imitated it making Eddie chuckle and shoulder bump his fiancé.

"Well whoever he was, he's going to have an APB on him. I'm not technically allowed to let you go, but I'll let the chief and mayor know what you did. You saved my husband's life." Feeling pride swell in his chest, Harry nodded.

"Just trying to do the right thing. I don't think I could've handled losing someone tonight. Right now, I gotta get home before my mom beats my ass. I got school in the morning." Not a smart thing to say as everyone looked at him like he was insane.

"School? How old are you?" Getting more worried, Hen reexamined the arm, which was now fifty percent healed. Laughing nervously, Harry pulled away from the group who looked like they wanted to jump him. Too bad he jumped first and swung off.

"Might wanna keep an eye on that one Sergeant." Ravi. Ever so the quiet one, made the others jump but nod their heads in agreement. Softly, Athena sighed. Why did she feel like she'd met him before?

-------------------------------------------

Telling May and Peter about what happened the next day was exhausting. They decided to dive into Doc Ock more, whoever he was.

"Let's see. It says here that Doctor Otto Octavius was the head scientist at Otto Industries. They specialized in prosthetics that were connected to the neural link of an amputee's brain. Making them slightly more efficient than other prosthetics." Humming, Harry looked over Peter's shoulder while May was in the kitchen making chocolate sandwiches.

"How'd he end up like this though? He seemed, agitated. Annoyed. Desperate. And why go after a firefighter captain?"

Typing more, Peter pulled up files and reports of a fire that happened three years ago. An experiment gone wrong showed up a lot. Scrolling through some of them, one document mentioned a young woman named Olivia Octavius.

"His daughter."

"She died in the fire."

"Look at the pictures, zoom in!" As Peter did so, they could see the station that was there at the fire. 136. "Doc Ock blames the firefighters for his daughter not making it out."

"That's why he went after the captain, but why grab Bobby? Attention?"

"No. He wanted the Fire department to feel the same hits he felt. Losing a firefighter captain can be overcome. But losing two in the same night? Things fall apart." Harry said, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't slept well. Bobby almost dying back at the station in front of him brought back memories of Jeffrey. This time Bobby was kidnapped. While Harry was forced to watch.

"Go in my room and get some sleep. Mom already knows you're here." May told her little brother who was eating the sandwich she made him.

"No way, I gotta find him by today. He'll take advantage of me not being out there."

"It's five o'clock. I'll wake you up at midnight. You need energy." Sighing, he walked into his sister's bedroom. She was right, if he wanted to confront Doc Ock and win, he needed to rest his body. And mind.

After a six-hour nap, Harry woke up to talking in the living room. May and Peter were in front of a corkboard with string connecting pictures. They looked like the office meme.

"What, in the Sherlock Holmes, did I miss?" Turning at his voice, May looked up at him in the suit and smiled.

"Nothing much just found some leads on where our octopi friend might be."

"Yup, and we've got one big hint. Oscorp center. Our biggest competitor when it comes to selling world-changing technology." Peter said. Damn, if he didn't work at Oscorp, where did he work at?

"Why Oscorp?" Harry asked while walking toward the board and looking at the highlighted and circled science center picture.

"Oscorp shut down Otto Industries after getting into a battle of who was making more money. Oscorp won, and took over all technology Otto was working on." Harry frowned.

"That doesn't seem fair."

"It wasn't, and now that Otto's after a firefighter captain who's currently at a hospital,..."

"It's more than likely he's going after anyone else who wronged him. Oscorp being our best guess." May concluded Peter's thought.

Harry hoped that was the case. He wanted tonight to go smoothly. He wanted peace and quiet.

-------------------------------------------

Why does he do this to himself? Bobby's always saying how the Q-word is a jinx. Why didn't he listen!?

When he first arrived at Oscorp he snuck in past security flawlessly. Having a hands-up on the competition with invisibility powers. After reaching the lower levels of the building, he heard rumbling and load crashes. Screaming from the scientists and visitors. No time for invisibility.

Leaping down he started directing people.

"That way! Let's go, let's go!"

"Help!" Harry turned to see some debris that had fallen from the roof collapsed on a woman's leg. Shit. Running over, Harry lifted and tossed the giant piece of the building away. Shooting some webbing onto the victim's leg. Handing her over to a scientist and firefighter nearby. Guess they arrived quickly.

"Get her out of here! I have to deal with Doc Ock." Nodding the firefighter picked up the woman.

"Will do! Be careful kid!"

When he reached the testing area, Doc Ock was fighting some weird green-looking dude.

Just when Doc Ock pinned his opponent down, webs zipped in front and behind his head. Looking to his right, he got another kick to the face. Launching him to the wall. Shaking his head and dusting off debris on his coat he looked up more annoyed than before.

Harry narrowed his, which was expressed through his mask, but then he tucked and rolled after his Spidey-Sense warned him of behind. Spinning as he rolled, he faced the other person in the room.

"Hey there! My name's Spider-Man! How 'bout you?"

"Norman Osborn. A pleasure to meet you. I admire the kick you gave my friend. However, while cliche, he's mine." Just as he finished speaking, Norman controlled his hoverboard to speed at Harry while Doc Ock rammed towards Harry as well. Waiting for the last possible moment, Harry leaped up, making the two bad guys crash into each other. Shooting out webs, Harry pulled himself toward them and landed a punch on Otto and a famous face kick to Norman.

"I'm gonna call you Green Goblin. Suits your mask." Harry said as he dodged something G.G. threw at him. Beginning to walk forward, a small explosion pushed him forward faster. "Bombs! Are you insane!"

Laughing, G.G. ignored Harry and sped towards him with Doc Ock in tow. Somehow these two worked well as a team. Scarily enough, thank go they didn't fully get along. Awe, Harry brought them together- he's gonna hurl.

"Weren't you two trying to destroy each other a while ago!? What happened to that!?" Harry asked rhetorically while avoiding and throwing attacks. Hopefully, everyone above evacuated the building. Because by the way Green Goblin threw his bombs, not everyone was making it out.

The fight seemed to go on forever, that is til one of the bombs had hit a pillar that supported a huge portion of the floor above them. Green Goblin flew away and escaped through the opening, while Doc Ock was busy trying to murder Harry.

"This is your fault. If it weren't for you, I would've gotten my daughter back, my job!" What? Scanning the area, Harry's mask told him a lucid gas was in the air. It had properties that made people hallucinate, which explained why Doc Ock thought Harry was Green Goblin. While Harry was distracted, Otto took the opportunity to pin Harry against a wall with his arms. Cracking the wall behind him. "It's over Norman. You're going to feel the pain I had when you took away my life's work. It could've saved her. My Olivia."

Oh no.

"Goodbye." He said before rushing towards Harry. As if in slow motion, Harry kicked up at the last moment. Without holding back. Launching Otto into the concrete ceiling. A crack was heard, and Harry fell to the ground. Taking a breath, he realized the building was collapsing and burning. Scanning for life, he saw glimpses of Otto's. No.

"No!!" Swinging through the hole made by the man who attacked him, Harry landed near Otto. He was hefting loudly. Wheezing while trying to speak.

"Olivia,.."

"No, no no no. Come on! We've gotta go!" Harry flipped him over and disconnected the tentacle on Otto's back. Making yell out in pain. "Come on!" Harry yelled out, picking the man up and swinging out of the building avoiding large debris.

Once out, Harry was able to see the damage. Oscorp was destroyed. Smoke coming from the center. Landing on a building nearby, Harry saw firefighters outside trying to put out the smoke. Landing he cried out.

"Help! He needs help!" Gaining the attention of Eddie and Buck, they ran towards him and took Otto. Harry tried to follow but he fell to the ground. Hen and Chimney rushed over to him, asking to remove the mask for breathing but Harry refused. His vision focused on the firefighters 20 feet in front of him.

He saw Buck shake his head.

He failed. His ears rang. He looked over to see a cop walking over with handcuffs and a gun in hand. He's failed. Athena steps in front of the cop. Muffled yelling. Their hands are off him. No one touches him. Bobby.

A hand was placed on his shoulder. Looking up through the lenses.

"Breath in." Fuck that.

Harry rammed into Bobby's chest and shut his eyes. The inside of his mask was wet from his tears. He failed.

"No, you didn't." Looking up, Bobby looked at his eyes despite not knowing who was underneath the mask. "You saved the most lives. That's what matters."

"I don't care what old laws are! The mayor was set to reveal Spider-Man as a trusted ally of the LAFD and LAPD. So back it up, before I take your badge and gun from you." Athena reprimanded the cop before turning back to the boy savior.

"Oh baby, come here." She said pulling him into a hug. Despite having to pretend she wasn't his mother, he couldn't help it. "You did what you could."

"We've got new trouble." He said when he let go of her. "Green Goblin. Norman Osborn. He's gone mad. I don't know how, but I'm going to find out. And I'm going to bring him to you." He said determined to come back with an alive enemy next time.

"I know you will. We'll be on the lookout as well. Go home, I know your family's worried." Yup. May crushed him into a hug and Peter cried out apologies for encouraging it in the first place. The next morning MJ reported on how Spider-Man saved her friend, Phin's life.

-------------------------------------------

Playing video games was a great distraction. The family was over for a barbecue and Harry was talking to Denny while Chris went to the bathroom. He'd gotten better at doing things by himself.

Harry was just about to beat Denny when the game paused. Looking over at player two he saw Denny looking scared.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah, just,.." He got up and closed the door. Locking it. Huh. "Some things have been happening. Like physical." Huh. Awkward puberty talk.

"Oh, well. I mean, yeah, you're a teenager now and things are going to start changing with your body and-"

"No. Not that." Harry quirked his eyebrow. Denny sighed and stimmed his hands. "It-,.. It's better if I show you." He said while bending his knees slightly. Harry closed his eyes.

"Denny no please-!" Thud. Huh. Braving, Harry opened his eyes. Denny was gone. Scratch that, he was on the roof. The. Roof! Denny was smiling while panicking.

"This is weird, right?" Smiling in return Harry leapt up while twisting mid-air. Landing in front of Denny whilst sticking to the roof like a pro.

"Not that weird." Denny looked in awe. Then relief. They're not alone.

To Be Continued in Volume 2.

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thatseventiesbitch · 2 years ago

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would you do a jackie/hyde one? 🥺 how about 18

Thanks for the ask! Prompt Ask Game

18. "Dance with me in the rain"

The sky had been overcast all morning, but the forecast called for it to hold off until after Mr. Forman's annual BBQ. But in the time it had taken Jackie and Hyde to drive to the Piggly Wiggly and hunt down some more hotdog buns, the sky had opened up. Torrents of rain came down, soaking the parking lot as they emerged from the store.

"Ugh. Steven - " Jackie jumped back under the safety of the store's awning, lest she damage her cute new shoes in a puddle.

"Shit." He stepped out into the downpour, sticking his palm up towards the sky to gauge the velocity. What he found sent him back to Jackie. "We'll have to wait it out, man."

They stood with their backs against the brick wall of the supermarket. Jackie handed him the plastic bag with their purchase inside, and he slung his other arm around her back.

"These shoes are velour, Steven," she grumbled. She was unhappily eyeing the river of water that was winding its way downhill towards them.

"So take 'em off."

She scoffed. "And go barefoot in a parking lot? I don't think so." Honestly - did he forget who he was talking to?

Hyde shrugged. "I'll carry you."

"You expect me to - what?" She stopped mid-complaint, genuinely stunned.

He shrugged again, and nodded towards the sky. "I don't think this is letting up any time soon, Jackie."

"Okay," she whispered, still in shock.

Jackie bent down to remove her shoes, and cradled them protectively against her chest as Hyde scooped her up.

"Ready?" he whispered in her ear. "I'm gonna go as fast as I can."

She nodded, and he took off into the storm. After just a few steps, they were both drenched. Hyde glanced at her nervously, but he didn't need to be worried. She was laughing - loud and free - and he started to do the same.

They reached the El Camino in a few more of Hyde's long strides, but when he set her down Jackie didn't reach for the car door. She reached for his hand, and started to tug him back towards the middle of the parking lot.

"Jackie - " he shouted to be heard over the downpour. "What are you -"

"Dance with me in the rain. Steven!" she shouted, a blissful, elated gleam in her brown eyes.

He chuckled at the sight. Jackie Burkhart, dancing barefoot in a parking lot. Water was streaming down her face, matting her hair and causing her make-up to run. She'd never looked more beautiful to him.

"What about your shoes?"

"Forget about the shoes." She tossed them to the pavement, throwing her arms wide behind her as she started to spin. "And get over here!"

If it were anyone else, he'd have scowled and gotten into the car. But she was willing to throw caution to the wind for him - so he did the same for her. Hyde grabbed her hips and joined her carefree twirl, and she scream-laughed.

Yeah. The Formans would need to wait awhile for their hotdog buns.

#thanks for the ask!#prompt ask game #That 70s Show #That '70s Show #Jackie and Hyde #Jackie x Hyde #zenmasters #Jackie Burkhart #Steven Hyde #Hyde #fanfic #my fanfic #ask #answered #anon

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bigbrainkatrina · 2 years ago

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Rooftop Run - a Kigo fanfic

Shego runs. Kim chases her.

"KP, this is like, our third mission tonight. Can we just let this one go?" Ron pants, doubled over his weary knees.

Kim doesn't respond right away. Chest puffed out, arms and legs tensed, she’s on a rooftop to a museum. The thief got away, though Kim can still see her. Dressed in all black with a backpack slung over her shoulders, the thief quickly climbs up the ladder to the next building over. She reaches the top and rolls over the edge, disappearing from view.

Kim and Ron are several stories below. She leans forward and Ron's hand swings out, catching her by the shoulder. "Kim."

She looks at him. "I still got a little fight left in me."

He frowns. "You sure? I mean, uh, the cops look like they're on it."

"Yeah," she rasps. "That's what I'm worried about."

She knows this thief.

It's the darkness in her eyes.

The way her raven black ponytail trails behind her head like ribbon as she runs.

Her posture. Her preference of style over substance. The trendy cut of her jacket.

Kim wishes it wasn't her .

But she's not unhappy to see her.

“HEY!” Kim calls out the moment she lands on the rooftop with the thief. “I don’t want to do this with you.”

The thief is wrapped in a sleek leather jacket and ski mask. She immediately turns on her heel and dashes to the edge of the rooftop, leaving Kim with no choice but to give chase.

Her feet pound against the gravelly rooftop, her limbs smash against their joints as she sprints as fast as she can. She reaches out, about to grab onto the thief from behind when—

Snap.

—the thief snaps her fingers and a massive cloud of lime green light blooms just before Kim’s fingertips, shrouding her in an all-encompassing fog. A slight tingle on her skin from this unearthly glow.

At least this confirms that it really is her .

Kim swats her way through the fog, still running. She knows the edge of the rooftop is coming up soon, she’ll just need to jump and—

—she overestimates how far out the edge is, and feels her foot fall onto nothing but air. Moving too fast to stop, she sprints right off the roof and flops between buildings, falling fast. Her arms spin in full circles around their sockets, desperate to find something, anything to cling onto and…

Slam .

…she bodyslams the brick wall opposite the roof she fell from. Slides down the length of the building, hands swatting at the bricks to find some kind of foothold to—she gets it. Catches herself mid fall, body dangling off the edge.

Her body weight pulls against her taut arm and she winces.

Wedges her knee against the wall, presses her heel down into another foothold, and reaches for her grapple gun. It’s a tricky shot she has to take but she knows she can do it.

She can do anything. Especially when it’s for her .

She fires her line at the top right corner of the building and twists her body around until her hip is facing the ground way below. She runs along the wall, makes it to the corner, and leaps…

…and swings.

She throttles up onto the roof and lands directly beside the thief.

The thief jumps in surprise, hands then falling to her hips. “Why am I not surprised? You never make it easy.”

“No, I don’t,” Kim snarks, tensing her body for a brawl.

“Hm,” the thief, or rather, Shego scoffs. “You’re still wearing the purple tunic thing? Kinda miss the bare midriff number.”

Kim smiles weakly; she loves their banter, she really does. But Shego is being such an idiot right now. It’s only been two months since Lowardia. She’s clean. All of her crimes have been pardoned for her work in saving the world. And already she’s blowing it.

“We need to talk,” Kim says, fingers twitching in and out.

“Oh, sorry,” Shego jerks her head towards the incoming police helicopters. “No time! Ciao, Princess!”

And she dashes off.

Kim slumps, grunting. “Maybe Ron was right. Christ, this is annoying.”

Kim throws herself back into it, chasing after Shego. Reaches the first ledge and leaps. Closes her eyes. Soars. And lands on the next roof.

She doesn’t stop, she uses the momentum of her jump to keep her legs locked into a sprint.

Shego jumps to the next roof and Kim follows. Again and again. Eventually, Shego starts kicking up sparks. Moving faster and faster, as Kim closes the gap between them.

Meanwhile, search lights start tailing them. The police don’t move in as closely as they should, because Kim Possible is about to do their job for them…

…or so they think.

She is not bringing Shego in, she knows that much.

Suddenly, one search light gets too close. Swings in between Kim and Shego, flying right into Kim’s face, momentarily blinding her. And again, she has to guess when to jump and she misjudges it. Jumps too early.

Her chest thumps against the lip of the next roof and she tumbles, elbows digging into gravel. Arms slide against the itty bitty rocks and she just manages to grab on in time. But still she dangles.

Shego walks up to the edge, staring down at her with wild hubris.

Kim grimaces. “You still say Ciao . Interesting.”

Shego rolls her eyes and falls back, giving her a mock salute. “Whatever, catch ya on the flippity, Kimmie. That better?”

“Eh,” Kim shrugs, playing dumb.

Shego stops her retreat, looking at her. Because now she knows Kim is up to something.

Kim makes it happen fast. Releases her hold with one arm so she can get the grapple gun. But instead of using it to fire herself back up, she shoots at Shego. The hook latches around the woman’s waist.

“Yo, the fuck?!” Shego cries out.

Kim smirks and drops off the roof. Kicks off the brick wall and falls into a series of somersaults that cascade her down the side of the building. Until she reaches the first window in her sights. She lands on the window ledge, kicks the window open with the assistance of all her built-up adrenaline, and tumbles into the building.

The grapple cord pulls against the window, almost snapping against broken glass, but Shego spins through the shattered window just as planned.

The two girls fall to the floor. Or rather, a bridge. It’s a steel girder bridge above a cement warehouse floor.

Shego gets up first. Lights up and rips the grapple hook off her, tossing it aside. Opens her mouth to spit out some quip but Kim shushes her, pointing at the window.

The search light, for one half-second, shines through the window. But then passes by. Lazy cops probably didn’t notice that Kim broke in with Shego in tow.

“They probably think you’re on foot now,” Kim says, getting up with a shaky start. “Now we can talk.”

“Oh you wanna talk, huh?”

Shego doesn’t even hesitate. She goes straight for the kill.. Hurls a plasma bolt at Kim that nails her right in the chest, knocking her backwards into the guardrail.

Kim’s body sways against the guardrail, and the flimsy metal snaps off its hinges.

And she falls.

Falls and lands on her back. Hard.

Shego drops down beside her in a panic. Immediately pulls the mask off. “Shit, shit, I overdid it. That’s my bad, I’m sorry—”

Kim swats Shego away in aggravation, pushing herself up to her feet. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Shego shakes her head.

Kim gives her a sidelong glance. “A few years ago it’d have been fine, I guess.”

Shego looks at her for a moment, reading between the lines.

Who knows what she’s really thinking about though. Kim never knows. Though she’d like to think Shego is reflecting on the time she was going to turn Kim into a Kimmie Frappe with a giant batter mixer. At one point in Kim’s hero career, Shego really was trying to kill her. Nowadays, it’s not even close.

Kim shakes her head. "Why are you doing this? The U.N. pardoned you on everything! You'd risk it all for some money?”

"The money’s whatevs, honestly, I’m in it for the thrill," Shego drawls, mouth sinking into a smirk. Plasma flares up. "Besides, I only ‘violate the pardon’ if I get caught!"

Kim winces, testing the waters. She really doesn't want to fight her. "Yeah, well I caught you."

"Did you now?"

Oh brother.

Shego kills the sparks and plays it like a normie. Basic punch to the face. Kim dodges it. Another punch to the face, faster this time. Dodge. Punch dodge punch dodge punch dodge.

Shego doesn’t stay at a distance, she’s practically on top of Kim. Twisting, turning, and flailing. Trying to get in just one good hit. Punches and kicks. To the ribs, to the legs, to the chest, the face. Kim dances around her, hot footing it. She slips and evades each attack, searching for her opening.

She finds it after fifteen solid seconds of dodging. Kim leaps and spins into a corkscrew. Scissors her legs around Shego’s waist, sending them both tumbling to the ground. But Shego hits the ground harder.

Kim rolls off her and lands in a crouch. Shego leers at her, growling.

“Can you at least hear me out—” Kim starts.

“Less talking, more fighting,” Shego spits, lunging at Kim again.

Kim rolls her eyes. She’s trying to tell Shego something important and she just. won’t. listen.

Shego stays low, swiping at Kim again and again. It must look awfully silly from afar, both girls crouched down to their haunches, locked into combat. Kim inches backwards, gradually getting pushed back across the floor. Soon she’ll have her back to the wall, which is when she’ll be forced to fight.

She grimaces and—did Shego just lick her lips?

Kim locks her footing down and leans her body back as much as she can, forcing Shego forward. She lands beside Kim’s stretched out legs, and Kim snaps back into it. Spins her body into Shego’s from the side and crunches her against the floor. Rolls off her back and hops to her feet.

Shego gets up almost immediately, smirking.

Kim is… smirking too.

There’s just nothing like it. Shego’s her equal. Plain and simple. No one else even comes close.

Shego comes at her again. Punches and kicks. All fast and swift. Kim twists and squirms around each hit.

It really is a dance. They’re perfectly in-sync with each other.

Shego strikes in ways where she knows Kim will dodge her attack. But Shego also knows how Kim will dodge the blow, so her follow-up is always perfect.

Or. Would be perfect, on anyone else. But not Kim.

They spin across the floor and the sweat on Kim’s face feels good. But Ron was right. It’s her third mission tonight, she’s exhausted, and Shego could get in serious trouble if Kim holds her here for too long.

She needs to end this.

But Shego won’t talk.

Which leaves Kim with no other choice.

She pirouettes around Shego until she’s right in front of her. Looks her dead in the eye. Shego looks back, wordlessly. Her mouth opens.

Kim lunges.

And they kiss.

It escalates fast.

Kim pushes Shego up against the wall, arms grabbing onto hers. Feeling her. Touching her.

Shego’s hands fly up to Kim’s face, patting her cheeks, running through her hair. And God, do they kiss . All of these unsaid feelings built up over the years explode and it feels so right. She wanted this so badly, she realizes.

Kim pulls back when it passes, and looks at Shego with a spark in her eyes. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. I care about you, and I want to make sure that you don’t—”

“You know,” Shego snarks, running her fist across her black lips. “I kinda picked up on that.”

Kim stops herself mid-explanation and smiles. “I guess that would make sense, huh?”

A cute little smile crawls up Shego’s cheek, and the girls stare at each other.

“You are so fucking charming,” Shego mutters, dropping her backpack to the floor. She rummages through it while Kim looks on smugly. “Here’s your fucking artifact.”

Shego tosses the priceless stone to Kim as if it were a basketball. She catches it and sets it on the floor.

“Please and thank you,” Kim grins. “If you want action, Shego, um, you’re always welcome to…”

Shego narrows her eyes with a playful smirk. “Oh really?”

“Y-yeah,” Kim stammers. “I mean, Ron and Wade might think it’s weird but I wouldn’t mind having my, uh,” she coughs into her fist. “—my girlfriend—” Cough cough. “—with me.”

Shego pops both her eyebrows up. “You are bold, Possible, I’ll give you that.”

“Tell me more,” Kim purrs, stepping towards her and taking her in by the arms.

Shego slips out of Kim’s grip, a lime blush on her cheeks. “I, uh, gotta go.”

“Uh huh,” Kim nods along knowingly.

“Yeah and regain my pride,” Shego grunts, giving Kim one last look. “We’re really dating?”

“Yeah, you’re clearly interested in me,” Kim relishes in it.

Shego blushes again. “God dammit, I am interested in you, okay fine, we’re girlfriends, woop-dee-doo. See ya.”

She escapes.

Kim stands there in the afterglow for some time, until Ron kicks the door open and rushes in.

“KP! Are you okay—whoa, you look… happy. Uh.”

Kim turns back to Ron, grinning from ear to ear. “Yup. I got the artifact.” She holds it up for Ron to see.

Ron crosses his arms. “Don’t tryna tell me you’re happy about the artifact, you’re happy about somethin’ else.” He narrows his eyes. “Hey how come you got black lipstick all over—WAIT WAS THAT SHEGO!?”

Kim giggles. “You mean my girlfriend ? Yeah.”

“GIRLFRIEND?!” Ron cries out. “Since when?!”

“Since now,” she throws a hand over his shoulder. “C’mon, I’ll tell you about it on the way home.”

#kim possible fanfic #kigo #kim possible x shego

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faustianbroker · 2 years ago

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TIMING: Directly after 'bite off more than you can chew' LOCATION: nightfall grove; WR General Hospital; PARTIES: Levi (@faustianbroker) & Zack (@zackbanes) SUMMARY: Levi swoops in to rush Zack off to the hospital after his unfortunate encounter with a torple. CONTENT WARNINGS: hospitalization & brief mentions of medical procedures (minor surgery), brief mention of medical blood tw, references to pain killers

—

He probably should have texted Wynne, instead. Or one of the other roommates. Or even Vida – she was a mom, she probably would have been able to help. But in the moment, blind with pain and adrenaline crawling up his throat, Zack had punched in Levi’s number. It was dumb of him. He barely knew the guy but — blind with pain and adrenaline crawling up his throat, Zack wanted Levi there.

Zack had curled himself into a protective little ball against the far side of the alley, hoping against all hope that there weren’t more of those horrible things. He was hazily aware of Cassius still lingering nearby, and that was another fun discovery for the night. Terrible, violent worm creatures and…something with red eyes and teeth like fangs. He was still banking on werewolf, but who knew. Levi had promised to come quick, and Zack only hoped that he would be true to his word. The man might also be a sea monster older than time, but at least he was familiar.

Zack counted his heartbeat in the time, coming down from a rapid gallop. He breathed slow, like he had been taught years ago, centered himself in his body. Tried to keep the pain from clouding out his control. Last thing he needed was to set the damn neighborhood on fire after everything else. It wasn’t long before Zack heard a car engine and then, distantly, the rustle of Cassius taking off. He braced against the alley wall, readying himself to have to get Levi’s attention.

—

It was lucky for Zack that Levi happened to be looking at his phone at that exact moment to set a timer for the sauce simmering on the stove. Lucky that in spite of the privacy setting that hid the actual text from appearing on the notification, the presence of the caster’s contact name was enough to bring a soft smile to the sea demon’s lips and urge him to open the text now instead of later, once he’d finished preparing dinner. Lucky most of all that upon reading the cry for help, said demon flicked off the burner and rushed to the front door, grabbing his keys instead of deciding that it didn’t need to be his problem.

The street address was enough to go on, and while Levi could certainly get there faster if he shifted, he wouldn’t have a very good method for carrying Zack anywhere… also he’d blow his cover and he and the child would have to leave, again. And he didn’t want that this time. So it was practicality over speed, this time, though he certainly got there as fast as he could, throwing the car into park as one of the front wheels hopped the curb, leaving it running as he rounded the hood and disappeared into the dark alley.

“Hey, hey,” he breathed, seeing the man huddled against a brick wall and hurrying over to him. The smell of blood met his nose and his gaze jumped to the wound on Zack’s leg, brows furrowing. It reeked of a demon, but he couldn’t be certain what kind. “I’m here, I got you. C’mon.” Stooping down, Levi hoisted Zack up onto his one good foot, then scooped him up fully into his arms to carry him back to the car. He was bleeding a lot, and the backseat was going to pay for that, but Levi didn’t care about that now. The instinct to do good, to be helpful and caring was overriding everything else again, thanks most certainly entirely to the bond he shared with Teddy, the humanity he shared with his ward. But this was no time to be annoyed by it. His thoughts were elsewhere.

Getting Zack situated in the back, Levi quickly shed his sweater and helped wrap it around the spellcaster’s leg, pressing the man’s hands over it and telling him to hold it in place. “Takin’ you to the hospital,” he announced, and he’d hear no arguments. “Healing isn’t really my strength,” he explained as they pulled back onto the road, dark eyes flicking over to the rearview mirror now and then to check on Zack. “You alright? Hang in there, Zippo.”

—

Zack had sent his location, but he didn’t know how good of a job he had done. There was a lot of blood after all. But it turned out not to matter, Levi found him immediately. He wondered if it would be blasphemous to thank god in the presence of a demon.

As Levi helped him upright, Zack gave a pained noise, injured leg jostling. Not just injured, but bitten because something had bitten him and taken a chunk out. Before he could even attempt to hobble along, he found himself lifted easily into Levi’s arms. And that was…nice. Nice to be able to just collapse back against someone else and let them do the work. Nice to trust someone to help. “Thanks,” he said, ground rough between his teeth. Levi didn’t owe Zack anything, certainly not this. Certainly not dropping everything to deal with the bloody mess Zack had gotten himself into. He clutched at Levi’s sleeve and tried to keep as tight of a grip on his drifting dizzy thoughts.

“No, wait,” he protested at the mention of the hospital, but Levi was already closing the car door and wheeling around into the driver’s seat. Swallowing thickly, Zack did as he was told. Held the sweater in place, looking away from the swell of blood that was seeping up through the fabric. He shifted, uncomfortable, and pressed his forehead against the upholstery.

“What’m I supposed to tell the hospital?” Zack asked, mind cloudy. “It was… It was this thing. Like a worm but worse. And I couldn’t burn it.” He didn’t want to go to the hospital, but he also didn’t want to die bleeding out in the back of Levi’s car, so he didn’t put up any further fight. “Yeah, doc, it was just a dog. Ugliest dog you’ve ever seen, guarantee it.” The blood loss was clearly getting to him.

“I am—” Zack coughed out a laugh. “I am peachy.” The pain was constant, but in its constancy it became like a backdrop, a television with the volume turned way up that you’ve started to tune out. And then, hazy eyes drifting to the slip of Levi’s face he could see from that angle, Zack protested, “Don’t know how I feel about Zippo.”

–

“Don’t worry about that,” Levi assured, making a mental note of the apparent demon’s description. A worm that was immune to magic fire. Sounded like a torple, alright. Levi hoped, with a frown, that it wasn’t the torple he’d made into something of a pet. Still wild, but it liked to come ‘round the house now and then for attention.

“Place like this, the hospital staff will have seen all sorts of insane shit coming through their doors. Something bit you, you don’t know what it was… that’s all they’ll need. Trust me.” And with a wound like that, he’d need plenty of stitches. Something Levi wasn’t exactly accustomed to doing, seeing as how all its own wounds were healed through an immediate, involuntary shift.

He managed a smile at the small protest, shrugging his shoulders. “Best I could do, I’m a little frazzled.” He didn’t like the way Zack’s voice had slurred slightly, and pressed his foot on the gas pedal just a little harder.

Pulling up outside the emergency room, the car was abandoned a second time as Levi gathered Zack from the back seat and hoisted him up in his arms again, marching for the front doors and turning his back to them to press against the crash bar and get them inside quick as he could. The security that milled about the desk scrambled at the sight, two going for a stretcher as Levi approached the desk. “Bleeding out,” he warned, looking over at the stretcher as it was wheeled up to him, carefully setting Zack down onto the miserably thin cushion covered with sheets the texture of paper towels, not allowing the others to assist. “Get a fucking surgeon, yeah?” There was a venomous bite in his tone as he snapped at the desk attendant, as if it were her fault. “I’ll stay to fill out the paperwork.”

—

Another laugh, loose and thin, pressed from Zack. It was probably true; in a place like Wicked’s Rest the ER staff must have seen far more than their fair share of crazy shit. That was somewhat comforting, at least. They would have had their practice. Maybe Zack wouldn’t be the first person they had seen with a bite from a…whatever the hell that was.

He tried not to drift, knowing that it would be great to lose consciousness. He must have, though, because he came out of a dim sleep to find himself, once again in Levi’s arms. Zack wanted to insist that he could walk on his own but. Well, it would definitely be a lie. And then he was on a stretcher and Levi was, thankfully, taking charge of the situation, barking at the staff. Zack’s tongue was too heavy and his head was too packed with cotton to find any words. He settled for looping his hand around Levi’s wrist, squeezing there. And then he was being carted away.

It was all, more or less, a blur after that. Assessments and x-rays and anesthesia and antibiotics. Zack signed something and was helped into a flimsy hospital gown and then signed something else and then was wheeled into surgery. Hours later, he was in a room, his leg having been irrigated, debrided, stitched and wrapped up. The pain killers in his system weren’t too bad either. Not long after he was settled in, a nurse came by, cheerful grin on her face. “Up for a visitor, sweetie?”

When Levi appeared, Zack offered a sheepish sort of smile. “Probably not how you wanted to spend your night, huh? Sorry about that.” His hands smoothed over the scratchy fabric of the sheet laid over his good leg. “And thanks.” He remembered, dimly, Jonas telling him not to use that word, to say I appreciate it instead, for whatever reason. Zack didn’t like the idea of doing that, not with Levi. “Like, seriously. Thank you. I could very possibly be dead if you hadn’t come…”

—

He could have left. He gave the hospital as much information as he could, but frankly, he didn’t know much about the guy, yet. The only truly helpful thing he could do was offer to pay the expenses, leaving his information with billing before resuming his pacing.

He could have left. And a few times, he thought about it. Twice, his anxious energy carried him to the door. Once, back outside. The car had been moved by a helpful employee, who looked up as the door slid open and Levi stood there stupidly for a minute or two, shirt and jeans still soaked in blood. But every time, the thought of that look that had been on Zack’s face, the feel of his hand tightening around the demon’s wrist just before he was carted away… it pulled him back inside.

He stood now in front of the check-in desk, looking distant. A nearby nurse on her way to her meal break noticed and frowned, walking over and placing a gentle hand on his arm.

“Sir?” Levi blinked, looking down at her. “Sir, um… if you want, we could find some scrubs for you to wear, if you don’t want to leave. You’re…” She gestured at his front and he looked down, only now noticing the red stains of Zack’s blood on his clothes.

“Oh. Uh… yeah, sure. That’d be fine.”

He wouldn’t have to stay overnight, said the nurse that took Levi back to the recovery room. Not that there was much night left, but he knew what she meant. Zack was closed up and dosed with antibiotics, with only a note that he’d need to stay off the leg for a few weeks. A single crutch was provided, drawing Levi’s gaze as he entered the room. Only for a moment, though, before his attention fell on Zack in the little bed in the even littler room, while the nurse excused herself and the sounds of the hospital bustled on behind him.

“Don’t,” Levi said after a sharp inhale, looking around him for a brief moment before grabbing a chair and pulling it up next to the bed. “Don’t, ah… it’s fine. Nothing to apologize for.” He set the bag of his own bloodied clothes on the floor beside him, tugging at the hem of the scrub shirt. It was a little short. “Ahh, no, you wouldn’t be dead,” the demon lied, offering him a soft smile. “Just in shit shape.” Glancing around them again and deciding he very much did not like this environment, Levi shifted his weight in his chair. “They told me you can leave, when you feel up for it. I can take you—uh. We can leave.”

There was a pause, and then he reached for Zack’s wrist to give it a familiar squeeze, fingers lingering on the patient wristband. “How’re you feeling?”

—

Stupidly, the first thing Zack did was grin at the sight of Levi. But someone had gotten him some scrubs, it seemed, to trade for the top Zack had bled all over and it was definitely too small. “Okay, but I also have to apologize about your sweater,” he added, half-joking, half actually abashed. “They definitely threw it away.” He had been panting when they pulled it away from the wound, teeth gnashed together with a fine sheen of sweat over his skin from the pain.

“Yeah, well, tell that to the artery that was bleeding out in my leg,” he commented, brow furrowed. “Jesus,” he huffed and let his head drop back against the pillows. “That thing just wouldn’t let go. I really think it was trying to eat me.” He could still remember the sick pull of the thing’s jaw, the way it wasn’t just latched on in attack, but in some kind of hunger. Like the hunger in the other guy’s eyes, too. “Wouldn’t mind never running into something like that again.”

He rolled his head to meet Levi’s eyes, huffing out a sigh. “Yeah. Yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind. I…” Zack couldn’t say he didn’t like hospitals, this was the first time he had ever been in a proper one, really. But he would be much happier when he was out of there. “I just gotta–” he gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t have health insurance, obviously, so I gotta figure that out.” He didn’t even want to think about how much all this would cost. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride, again. Promise I won’t bleed as much, this time.”

The touch to his wrist was almost hesitant, more gentle than it had any right being. An echo of his half-panicked grip before being taken away, just hours before. Zack closed his eyes, let out a long exhale. It was nice, though, that he wasn’t there alone. He had wondered when they parked him, whether Levi had bolted – Zack wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.

“Like I got eaten for dinner,” Zack quipped in answer, “and not in the fun way.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face. “Fucking hurts.” That was for sure. But, also, “Gave me some good drugs, though.” So the pain was more of dull throb, radiating from somewhere vaguely below his waist. “Exhausted,” he added. “And keyed up.”

—

Clicking his tongue, Levi waved a dismissive hand. “I can get a new one. Knew it was a goner when I decided to use it as a sponge.” At the mention of the creature, Levi let a thoughtful quietness float between them, gaze far-off as he chewed his lip. “Yeah, that—” he finally said, coming back into the moment, “—that was probably a torple.” A demon, he didn’t say. “Cutting off the head’s the only real way to put it out of your misery.”

With Zack seeming receptive to his offer to take him home, the demon felt the need to elaborate, albeit with some admitted clunkiness. “Don’t worry about the money,” he began, his gaze bopping around the bed that Zack was laying on without actually meeting the other’s, “that’s—I gave them my address.” So the bill would come to him in the mail, and Zack wouldn’t have to worry about how much it’d cost. “I don’t love the idea of sending you home to that cramped apartment you’ve got.” It wasn’t that the sea demon had never shown compassion before, but it was usually just that—a show. Something to keep a person on the line as long as possible, if only for entertainment’s sake. Maybe that’s what this was, too. Levi couldn’t tell, but decided to try and convince himself it was. “I know you’ve got roommates, but I’m sure they’re all busy working their asses off to afford rent. I’d rather—” He stalled, finally finding his footing and glancing up to meet Zack’s gaze, that slight discomfort melting away from his expression to be replaced by a practiced smile. “You can stay at mine for a bit, if you want. I’m sure it’d be more comfortable for you. If you need things from your place, we can go get those, first.”

—

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Zack offered, still a little heady with the pain killers. Some of that ease wore away, though, as Levi offered his suggestion of what he thought the thing that attacked Zack may have been. “A torple?” he repeated, incredulously. “Awesome. Do those…generally go around trying to eat people’s legs?” Sure, Zack had signed on with the idea that all he could imagine was real. It was hard to hold onto skepticism when the guy you were casually sleeping with could turn into a massive sea demon. And you had seen him do it. But there were so many elements and angles to it all. There was still so much for him to learn.

The first reaction was relief, when Levi told him about the bill. Because, really, Zack hadn’t been sure how he was going to cover whatever massive debts were likely to have been coming his way. Following the relief was just the thought that it was nice. Not necessarily to have someone pay for it all (although, yes, that too) but just to have someone who had already taken care of things, taken care of him. A decade and a half Zack had kept himself to himself and hadn’t allowed the opportunity of anyone else coming in. “That’s probably way too much,” was all Zack could wrench out. Because after the relief and the revel, there was guilt. Taking that amount of money from someone who was, more or less, a stranger… Levi had no reason to clear that much money for him, just like he had no reason to drop whatever he had been doing that evening to scoop Zack up from bleeding out. “Thank you. Really, I…” What could he say to that, other than “thank you”?

And then, further gratitude. “Wow, you really are trying to make me your kept boy,” Zack joked. The humor faded away though and he would have protested but Levi seemed so sure. That smile on his face was balanced and even and spoke of years, centuries, of knowing what he was doing. “Okay,” he agreed without much of a token fight. Just, “If you’re sure. That…” Yeah, he didn’t want to have to worry about his roommates trying to take care of them. Because they would, likely, to their own detriment and then Zack would have to feel guilty about all of them ending up evicted. “That would be great.”

Zack shrugged, indicating the backpack that had come in with him. A nurse had placed it on one of the other empty chairs. “Whatever I need, really, is in there.” Tablet, phone, wallet, all the essentials. He had gotten used to carrying what was most important with him. “As long as you’re willing to donate another shirt to the cause.”

—

“Not… exactly. They uh, they only go for spellcasters, I’m afraid. Just their preferred diet,” he answered in a hushed tone. The admission that they were a type of demon sat at the tip of Levi’s tongue, but this didn’t feel like the right moment to tell Zack that. If ever. What did it matter, anyway? Not at all. Forget about it. The brief protest in regards to the money was met with a shake of his head, but no more. He wasn’t going to argue it, certainly, and Zack never even had to see the price tag. American healthcare was wack, anyway. That and all the thank you’s—Zack was lucky he wasn’t fae. Levi was lucky he wasn’t fae. What a shit life that would be.

The joke managed to draw forth a deep, genuine laugh. “Hey, come on, I’m not, I’m just trying to give you the best leg up I can.” He looked down at Zack’s bandaged leg, shrugged, and then snickered again to himself. “Pun not intended.” Truthfully, that big house was lonely after Teddy had announced that they’d gotten their own houseboat and were moving out. Which Levi couldn’t fault them for, of course—they were an adult, after all, or at least they were according to human timelines. Levi didn’t like feeling lonely. It was, in fact, one of his very least favorite things. Reminded him too much of home.

“I think I can manage that, yeah,” Levi agreed with a grin. The curtain that had been drawn across the open door that faced the nurse’s station was gently pulled back as a nurse announced herself to them before stepping inside, grinning at them both and approaching the mobile computer in the room to take down a few last notes and officially clear Zack for departure after making sure he was fully aware and stable. “You might feel groggy for a few days from the anesthesia, so just take it easy,” she warned, her gaze jumping from Zack over to Levi. “He shouldn’t be left alone the rest of today, if you can manage that. Make sure he gets plenty of fluids and stays off the leg for a couple days. After that, getting around with the crutch will be sufficient. In the meantime, keep it elevated whenever possible.”

With Zack discharged, Levi changed back into his bloody shirt and helped Zack get re-dressed in his own bloodied clothes, finding their hellish appearance to be a funny way to leave the hospital. The car was brought around by the valet, who certainly gave them a very concerned once-over before handing over the keys. It wasn’t a long drive from Deersprings to World’s End, made quicker by the fact that they were up before the sun, and subsequently, most of the town as well, so the causeway was empty.

Back at home, Levi provided comfortable lounge clothes for Zack and pulled back the bedding in the downstairs guest room. The sun was just creeping over the horizon, bathing the interior of the home in a warm, golden light. “You should get some sleep,” he suggested as he pulled the soiled shirt off over his head and gathered up the ones Zack had discarded on the floor. There wasn’t much point in trying to save them, so they were trash-bound. “And yell if you need anything, yeah? I’ll hear.” The crutch was placed within reach, as well as the caster’s phone that sat on the bedside table. Levi needed to go clean up whatever he’d left on the stove the night before, hoping that it hadn’t had the time to attract ants, or something.

—

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” Zack protested. “What, do we just taste extra good to them or something?” But it was unsettling to know there were things that would hunt him. Not through any higher mind, or motive, just by instinct. Just because of what he was, and what the thing was. All the time spent worrying about the humans finding him, and there was a whole other field to consider. He had more research to do. Zack grinned, a little dizzily, when Levi made the leg pun. “You really are a dad,” he joked..

Zack had been to Levi’s before, but in a…wildly different context. He trailed behind the other man, following him to a room on the first floor. The crutch was manageable, pain meds still working, and changing into Levi’s offered clothes wasn’t so difficult. That reassured Zack, who had been worried about being bedridden, having a stretch of recovery. Aside from his own qualms about being unable to move around…How long before Levi got tired of him?

Because he watched, a little twitchily, as Levi moved around the room — tidying his clothes and setting things up. Zack wasn’t used to someone else doing things for him. Given, he had never been hurt quite like this before. Whatever the situation had been in the past, though, he made it through on his own. It made nerves crop up in his chest, worry that it would be one more thing that could be used against him.

Levi came near again, setting the provided crutch and Zack’s phone within reach. He would have to text Wynne, at least, let them know what happened, to some degree, and where he was. Before all that, though, before Levi could move away, Zack caught his wrist. “Wait,” he said, drawing the other man back to the edge of the bed. With a little strain, Zack levered himself and pressed up into a kiss.

He couldn’t start anything, obviously. Injury aside, Zack was exhausted. The adrenaline had spiraled out of him and between that and the painkillers, he was practically falling asleep sitting up. But this wasn’t about that, anyway, about starting something. It was a thank you, but more than that, it was an easy expression of affection. It was just Zack doing what Levi had instructed him to weeks ago. He wanted to kiss Levi, to slide the hand not supporting him around the back of the other man’s neck, and so he did.

—

What would Ni’Fohnskutet think if it could see Lkrak’Oaazhir now? Playing house with the humans for thirty years, mating and splitting and mating again, all while raising one of them as if it was the demon’s own. Disgraceful, Levi could hear the voice in his head. What are you, mad? Perhaps. Perhaps he had gone a bit mad after all this time. Not just the time he’d spent raising Teddy, but all the time he’d spent these past centuries masquerading as a human when the desire struck him, or swimming in their seas and battling their ships and captains, securing dozens of names for itself in history.

Maybe it had gone mad. Or maybe it just saw something that the others didn’t. Humanity, and the other branches of intelligent but decidedly inhuman life, didn’t need to be ruled. There was no reason for it, other than ego. And that wasn’t to say that Leviathan lacked an ego, it had plenty of self-confidence to spare, but… all this time spent with them, and it saw purpose for these people where no other demons did. Hell, no other demons really cared to try and see. There was something special about the way Zack snaked a hand around Levi’s wrist, pulling him back toward the bed. Something that Levi never got tired of, no matter how many times it happened, that always kept him coming back for more.

They ought to try playing house too, he thought, smiling into the kiss and bracing his hands on either side of Zack’s head. It was sure worth it.

#. thread ;#. with ; zack banes #. a knight in shining scales ;

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