#i never hammered out his real ending because I kept getting distracted by opening and closing gates sjdjdjdjd

[impossible-rat-babies]

me gnawing on pollux like

[angelkurenai]

Break those rules - Dean Winchester x Reader

Title: Break those rules

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: None

Prompt: Hey! So this is my attempt at making a request: DeanxReader where feelings have not been expressed yet. They're just researching some stuff together. The reader absent mindedly smiles when they're reading something. Deano notices. Then he just kind of jabbers about how adorable the reader's smile is. End with a kiss and finally expressed feelings maybe? I wrote a short little writing prompt kind of like this on my blog. (It's near the bottom if you want a better idea for the request) Thanks! xxx

“I don't get why Sam has to get away with only three hours of research and I am stuck here for the fifth hour. In a row.” Dean said with a rather heavy, and even more dramatic, sigh as he flipped open another book and rested his chin on his palm.

“Stuck here huh? Wow, way to make me, and the company I offer you, feel so flattered, Winchester.” you said as you looked up at him through your lashes. He couldn't see much of your face as you kept focus on the book before you but that didn't mean he couldn't hear the obvious playfulness that laced your voice or nearly feel, let alone imagine, the small smirk that tucked at the corner of your lips.

“You know what I mean.” and still, despite your easiness, he couldn't help but feel a pang in his chest if only for the pout you gave him – playful or not – and he rushed to speak again “To tell you the truth, being in your company does make it ten times better and always worth it, but-” he raised a finger “That's still not enough to make up for...” he looked down at the books, his face a mix between horror, disgust and exhaustion as he said “This. And besides, we're not even making progress as it is. Field work could do much more or say if it was more than just the two of us here, there could be en end to... this.”

“This-” you tried to mimic his tone “Is what we can only do now, I am afraid, no field work left. And to answer your previous question: Sam gets away with three hours because he's already read through his part of books. Meanwhile you are stuck over that book for the past hour. And you're not going anywhere before you read the rest either. Stop stalling.”

“Then stop being so distracting, for a change yeah?” he couldn't help but mumble as he rested his chin on his palm and slid a little bit down his seat.

“How? I didn't even start this in the first place!” you protested, eyes wide.

But certainly not as wide as his when he realized the words had really slipped past his lips “What- n-no, I- I didn't-” he started but actually stopped himself “Well, actually-” he felt bold, maybe even looked like it and hopefully - he prayed to any deity that didn't hold a grudge on him and that was listening - that he looked confident as he imagined in his head; or at least the part of his head where he wasn't freaking out “You heard me. It would be much easier to focus if you weren't so distracting.”

“Do tell? And what is so distracting about what I said? Seeing as you were the one to start this conversation.” you asked with a small smirk, ready to sass him out of anything that he could come up with, just like you'd done so many times before. Or so you expected.

“Nothing.” he shrugged, face mostly neutral save for the casual half smile “It's not what you said. It's not anything you did either. It's just you being you. You're distracting. I just look at you and get carried away in an instant. Sometimes you're so distracting I can't even get my thoughts in an order, let alone focus on research. So, no, really you are the only one to blame here. But ain't that in the best way possible, huh sweetheart?” he asked with his smile turning into a grin.

He was proud at himself for getting it all out without a single stutter and even more praising himself deep down for not showing any of the panic he was feeling, slip through. Because oh there were all kinds of red lights and sirens going off in his head at the moment; he was freaking out not only at this newfound surge of bravery but also at the words that were really coming out of his lips in this very moment. Why now, when after all this time he had held them back along with his infatuation- schoolgirl crush, Sam would say and he would be 100% right about it even if Dean never admitted it out loud. And even more he was proud with himself for - by whatever miracle - how it did sound like he was flirting and not struggling to be a human. So much so that he huffed his chest out a bit, thinking that if today was the day - and it seemed so because of how he really was on a roll - then so be it. He had not had any previous signs to you being interested in him as he was in you, sure, and for that he feared he probably was simply stupid and not brave but there was really no taking it back now and for the first time he didn't feel like it.

“I-” you started, blinking several times as you looked at him carefully an for a couple dreadful moments of silence when he nearly felt like caving in because of his panic, Dean held his breath, and listened as you spoke up again “Are you for real? I- I mean are you- Dean-” you huffed, your eyebrows pulling into a frown and your lips almost forming a pout that was the exact definition of distracting he was referring to “Seriously, this is not funny at all. If you wanna joke around here then-”

“Joke?” he breathed out before you could get to continue with your words, let alone thoughts “Why would I? No, no. I'm being absolutely honest here.” he shrugged so casually he might have patted himself on the shoulder for the achievement if you weren't there, and if he wasn't so distracted once more by seeing the way your eyes widened and you then blinked before looking down shyly.

And he continued “Sweetheart, I don't get to tell you often and shame on me for that but with Sammy all the time in the way I can't express myself so I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: You're so beautiful that everything you do is distracting to me, even just being in my presence. Sometimes you struggle with that, I get it, given the job we do. But don't let anyone tell you different, because all of it only makes you even more special. Thought-” he shrugged with an easy smile, looking back at his book as if it was nothing, as if he wasn't in a struggle with his very own self to just look at you at all time just to not miss a single reaction “You should probably know that. Not that you're not already aware but I suppose... since we're making small talk. And just so that I let you know, that there is nobody else I'd rather be stuck doing research with.”

Your lips fell apart and the soft sound of “Oh. Oh I- oh.” escaped past them before silence set in the room, one that he enjoyed a little too much as he looked up at you through his lashes only to see you shift and play nervously with your clothes or the pages of your book. You kept opening and closing your mouth before you ended up clearing your throat and straightened your back to look straight at him.

He did the same, meeting your eyes with the most straight face he could master “Yes? Something the matter?”

“No, I- I just- Well-” you cleared your throat again, shifting in your seat “Thank you for- for...”

“For?” he inquired and you shot him a half-hearted glare that melted so soon into the sweetest look he ad ever seen on your face.

“That. What you said. You know what you just said. I don't have to repeat it.” you said so fast, a small huff leaving your lips “A-and I appreciate it. So thank you for it.” your eyes fluttered down to your hands before you shifted in your place “But still-” you gave him a stern look as if to brush the whole topic off; it was the easiest thing when you didn't know how to respond and your whole face felt as if it was on fire “That ain't gonna cut down any research for you. You've gotta get through those books and you won't leave this place until you're done.”

“I wasn't looking for any special treatment.” he shrugged all innocent.

“Good.” you said stubbornly “Bause you ain't getting it. So quit the sweet-talking me and get back to work.”

“Fine, fine!” he raised his arms in surrender, looking down at the book but not stopping the mumbling, loud enough for you to hear “Since when did speaking the truth turn into sweet-talking, I had no idea.”

“Quit it, Winchester. Or else I'll throw this book at you and it will definitely not be a happy ending for you.” you tried to say seriously, putting on a stern face but only for the sake of seeming determined and unaffected; despite what your eyes told him at that moment.

“Fine, fine.” he sighed dramatically “Not that I'm stalling but you just should wear those jeans more oft-” he paused when you narrowed your eyes at him and he rolled his “Alright. They look great on you but I get it. No telling the truth today. Back to work.”

“You're unbelievable sometimes.” this time you scoffed a laugh, shaking your head and he didn't fight his own grin especially as you muttered “Idiot.” at him.

He hummed, this time not looking up at you as he whispered “I am.” and let the comfortable silence fill the room, calming the both of you as you went back to work. Dean even more so than you because - as far as he was concerned - he needed it more than anything.

Surprised and proud as he was at himself for getting all of that out, he still was a mess of emotions all of which refused to die down, and could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his pulse so intense that he felt it to the end of his very own fingertips. And better not get started with the way he could feel a familiar heat spread all the way up his neck, to the tips of his ears and dangerously close to the rest of his face, making him wish that it was at least not obvious to anyone that would look, which really only meant you.

With his head still very much in the clouds, feeling high and dizzy on emotions if not somewhat filled with the aftermath of adrenaline from what could only be an almost-confession, he found himself only skipping through the words, barely paying any attention to them. His fingers played with the pages as he basked in the warmth and comfortable feeling of this newfound silence. It was like coming home after a long time and soaking in the comfortable and familiar warmth of one's bed.

As the words before his eyes blurred for what seemed like, at least, the tenth time in only a couple minutes, he decided that that was it. His mind was running with so many thoughts that he couldn't help it; he wanted to steal another look at you after this endless and at the same time too short silence. Chewing on his lower lip he slowly tore his eyes away from the text and took a good look at you, shameless about it as he should be, as he had every right to be and he wouldn't let anybody tell him otherwise. He was in love, goodness how crazy it was to even think about it, and by the looks of it – by some crazy chance even better – it seemed like there was hope for him that you might feel something for him too.

So why even try to hold back from taking it all in?

The grin on his face only got wider, much as he tried to hold it back, when he saw you pause. Your eyes clearly moved away from the page, deep in thought and with your chin resting on top of your palm. You could very easily hide it if you wanted to, but that didn't seem the case and so Dean could see fully the beautiful smile that graced your lips. Whether it was at something you had just read or because of something he'd previously said he didn't know and frankly it didn't matter. Because the moment he saw that smile his entire mind went blank, there was nothing that it could come up with... unlike his mouth, that is, which had plenty to say apparently.

Gosh how can that smile not turn even the worst tortures to the sweetest thing in the world? It's just so damn beautiful, that I know there's not a single thing I wouldn't do for it. Hell, the moment I saw it for the first time I knew I was a gonner, fell stupidly head over heels for you as anybody else would and the more I got to know you, the more I got to see that smile the more clear it was to me that those feelings were there to stay. And so they have. I knew I would do anything in my power to see it again but to go to such extents? “Hell, sweetheart, I'd climb over freakin' mountains just for that smile and I ain't just getting poetic, you know I never could. There are always different kinds to it that I don't know how you do it but this- this right here is my favorite. It's so free and so true and so damn adorable and you almost try to hide it sometimes and shit that makes me angry at who could have ever made you believe it is not gorgeous enough to show but also so damn stubborn too, to take it upon myself to make you smile like that every freakin' day of your life. I won't get shit done, I know, because it's just so distracting but heavens-” he breathed out, not clear where the air even came from after all the rambling “That smile is worth all of the stars, sweetheart.”

A heavy albeit not uncomfortable, by any means, silence hangs in the room once more after Dean's done with his rambling. He didn't even realize it as the word poured out of his lips, heavens out of his very own heart and soul is better, right there for you to hear, just as he didn't realize the second you stopped looking at the book. Your eyes were currently on him, wide and beautiful as always, blinking in surprise even after you thought that there was nothing that Dean could do that could surprise you more today.

But as the realization downed on Dean, it didn't leave a pleasant shock but rather a chilling one; the same one would get after an ice bucket being dumped on them. Not that he was willing to let you know that, so instead he gave you an awkward smile and asked “...Did I just say that out loud?”

He did, after all, hope that by some high power you hadn't heard a thing and that it was all still words in his head and not a confession – although very much needed – probably poorly-timed.

“I-” your lips parted as you blinked several times in disbelief “Y-yes-” your voice cracked a little “Yes you actually did.”

“O-oh o-ok c-cool.” but not as much as his did, before he cleared his throat “Cool. That's uh terrific... Embarrass myself more than I have in my entire life in the span of half an hour. Way to go Dean.” he mumbled the last part to himself as he looked away from you and down at his book with wide eyes.

“I mean I-” you chewed on your lower lip before you straightened your back a bit more and look at him with a bit more confidence “I would have interrupted you but for one I wanted to hear all of it, seeing how adorable you were being it was a sight for sore eyes, and for another there is a date rule I must keep up with so-” you shrugged but it was anything but innocent with the smile you were sporting.

Not that any of it mattered, because one thing registered above all “Dating? What dating? And what kind of rules?”

“Sadly we don't have a dictionary here but I'm sure you can guess, pretty boy. And as for rules well it goes like: kiss on the first date, everything else after the third date.” you rested your chin on your palm again and looked him in the eyes “Wouldn't wanna break that one, no matter how tempted I was to shut you up with a kiss, you bloody idiot.”

“...You're kidding me right now, right?” his eyes were wide and he only managed to get the words out after a good few seconds of silence. Minutes probably.

“Alright, yes, maybe we do need that dictionary. Listen, I'm gonna put it as simple as possible and pray that that wonderfully smart yet so very stupid brain of yours gets it: You take me out on a date and you can get to be as distracted as you wanted by my smile. Stare at it, kiss it away only to kiss it back up on my lips. Anything you want. Because I've been waiting for too freaking long for you to say these things and I'm done beating around the bush. I am coming clean. I have feelings for you too, Dean.”

Again silence before “...As in for real?”

“Couldn't get any more real. Always had them.” you smiled, this time actually shyly at him.

Pause, a long pause actually, and he blinked rapidly before asking “This is really not you trying to, I don't know, let me down easily or something?”

“Absolutely not, why would I? I meant everything I say.”

“So that means-” he actually held his breath, feeling his head beat so hard it would almost break out of his chest “Are we... you know?”

Your smile turned into a more teasing one, almost a smirk as you shrugged “Only after the first date.”

“So if I did happen to ask you out now, you would...?” he had to be sure this wasn't some kind of dream.

“Say it would be my pleasure.” you nodded your head.

“And- one more question, just-” he raised a finger, taking a calming breath in even if it was a bit shaky “...So long as there's say beer and maybe burgers that's...?”

“The perfect kind of date for me, you know i-”

“Awesome!” his eyes widened and he jumped up from his seat with a grin on his face.

“But not while doing research!” you said fast enough before he could get much further away “No beer and burgers while researching is not a date.”

“Not even a little?” he asked and you shook your head “...Then can research itself maybe be?”

“Absolutely not.” you said despite the pout he was giving you. It did make things harder.

“...But what if I maybe, really wanna get a kiss right now? What do I have to do to get that kiss?”

“Guess what?” you grinned and you could see the hope in his eyes before you made it vanish into thin air “Research!”

“More books, yay!” he said with a huff, his arms falling by his side as he made his way back to his seat “Of course it's books.” he groaned and you couldn't help your grin “But really... nothing else? I know your smile makes it all worth it but honey... this is the worst kind of torture!”

“Alright you big child come here. Can't believe you're making me break my rules.” you sighed with a shake of your head “Just one, for getting this far with research, as a reward.”

“Oh you know I love rewards.” he grinned “How about one about every book I read? And if it ends up otherwise, oh well, Sammy can handle the case alone right?”

“Don't push your luck, Winchester.”

[bitchwhoreofastorm]

"Do you know what they do with the corpses?" Trinimac had asked, at the end of their sparring session. And Boethiah hadn't even known who he was talking about, because they never spoke of Lorkhan to each other, not until that day. But Trinimac's voice was hollow and grim in a way he'd never heard it before. "Follow them, some time,” said Trinimac, “See what they do with the corpses." And this was an intriguing prospect, in a time when only one spirit had the power to kill.

So here Boethiah is once more, liquid smoke among the tall grass, slinking small and cowardly in the wake of another.

Tracking Kyne is not hard, for wherever she passes, she leaves howling wind and churned soil in her wake. This hunt has taken her through a vast field of wheat, once neatly-cultivated but long abandoned by a perpetually distracted Mara, so the stalks stand woody and over-tall, bent to breaking where Kyne had charged through. The destruction she’s wrought has left an abundance of hiding-places, which Boethiah takes advantage of as he winds through the dusty-smelling carnage.

He's larger than he was the first time he followed her, and it's harder to be nothing more than smoke; here and there he's clumsy, and when his feet accidentally land on the trail of destruction, his toes become sticky with dirt and blood.

Trinimac's challenge has interested him for one reason: Boethiah actually has no idea why Kyne has invented the concept of death. He has been at the edge of her claws, yes, he has felt the sharpness sinking into his essence and has known what it is like to be on the brink of being destroyed, but he has never understood this thing she would have inflicted upon him, had Lorkhan not seen him crushed into the ground below her wrath. Death is an unpopular concept, considered vulgar because it’s inexplicably frightening, so it's not often talked about, and even Bal shudders away from the topic when brought up; it's understood by all that Kyne and her husband are doing something with it, that it’s connected to that elusive notion which is called Lorkhan’s endeavor, but if anyone knows the real purpose for the act, they haven't shared.

Following Kyne now, Boethiah wonders if it's intentionally kept secret, and how Kyne might react to being spied on-- there's a reason he tries to be as unseen and fickle while he pursues her through the grass. Kyne is a mighty and terrible spirit, and Boethiah, for all his strength and all his tenacity, knows that if she decided to end him, she could. He thinks he knows better than to assume Trinimac is trying to get him killed, but as the wind grows fiercer and the bloody puddles underfoot turn steaming-fresh, he starts to wonder...

Then there's the sound of crashing, a repetitive meaty thud accompanied by the dry crackle of snapping reeds. Fluid as a snake, Boethiah slips to the top of a strand of wheat and watches.

Kyne’s prey is a spirit with a distinctive essence about it. It's the concept of something that sets out on a transformative journey of the self but is forced to return to its initial state before reaching its destination-- an Anuic that wants to be Padomaic, grey through and through. It's large, very large, reminiscent of a hairless mammoth with cobbled skin and a thick trunk that hangs limply on the ground, bulky enough that even Kyne is struggling to lift it. She perches atop it in the form of a giant hawk, hunched over and indistinct for her concentration on her task, so that to Boethiah she seems a shapeless mass of feathers and storm-clouds, save for the single fearsome leg outstretched with claws grasping its neck. But as he watches she extends two vast wings, and gives a mighty flap-- she succeeds in lifting her prey into the air slightly, only for the weight of it to slam back into the ground with that same meaty thump, sending a slurry of blood and leaf-litter spraying into the air.

Boethiah's ears are keen enough that he hears Kyne mutter a curse. Then Kyne shifts her grip, becoming something a little less bestial, and, using the same futile gesture of flapping wings and awkward hops, she begins to heave the spirit through the grass.

It is not truly dead, Boethiah realizes, when he starts to follow them again. The spirit Kyne’s dragging is bleeding, its essence ripped into tatters, but he can still see it, its substance still exists; it cannot be dead, because death, Boethiah realizes at once, is little more than a clever piece of propaganda that Kyne's put out there to stop her prey from resisting once she's got her claws into them. The prey’s skin has been shredded, and the foggy rain-like anima sublimates the moment it leaks from its openings, but the trough left by Kyne is filled with pools of gory mud, as if it's taken inspiration from the tales of so many hunts that have come before. 

Kyne's progress is slow, given the awkward hopping shuffle she's been forced to use, and she's so preoccupied with the unwieldy task that Boethiah feels quite sure she won't see him. He follows as close as he dares, letting himself be little more than a streak of imagined gore among the ruin left in their wake.

Thus, slowly and unsightly, Kyne leads him right to that secret she and Lorkhan have been keeping.

-

The secret Lorkhan has been keeping turns out to be an arena. 

The secret kept by Lorkhan turns out to be a cavernous and terrible pit into which thoughts slip like debris sliding down the walls of a cliff.

The field falls away into a confused distortion of itself; a steeply-sloping arc of wheat turns into a jumble of thick milled stalks, like hay, which slide over each other as they depart the plain, only to break apart against each other in ways that no wheat should break. Here they become glass, there they snap into bones, in other places they sublimate into broken color and fractured shades of grey, being reduced to a hell of rhombuses and squares as they tumble down and come to rest in a slowly-churning heap of soupy geometry at the base of an arena wherein existence has been reduced to a profane intellectual game. 

This miasma-- a poor description for it, for it could not be described by one coherent notion so much as several contradicting ones reducing each other to fluid-- seems to flow in a sluggish current around a raised platform in the center of the chasm, upon which a sort of workshop has been set up. At this workshop is racks upon which are hung sheets of dripping grey matter; tables smeared with rendered bloody notions; a warping-table like that Mephala uses for her secrets; cauldrons; hammers; machetes; blades; and the centre reserved for the most dangerous of instruments.

Still dragging the spirit behind her, Kyne limps to the very edge of this-- this unconventional arena, such as it is. Here at the edge she fans out her massive wings and beats them two, three, four times-- with the advantage of the steep slopes, she takes off and, sluggish for the weight she's still bearing, goes half-flying, half-falling over the cascading fractals being sucked into the pool below. Her massive form plummets towards the central island, ballasted down by her prey, and when she goes crashing onto a round flat platform the sound of her impact is audible throughout creation itself.

"Husband," Kyne cries, struggling to set herself upright, "A successful hunt."

In the middle of his many instruments, Lorkhan turns to the side and gives his wife a radiant grin. "Well done, my hawk," he says, striding over to her.

His hand meets her face, and at once Kyne is a woman of some sort-- the thunderstorms of her hair waft around her beautiful face, her feather-cloak crackles with electricity, but Boethiah sees that she is panting hard, and at Lorkhan's touch she sags against him.

Lorkhan moves forwards, and disappears in the chaos of her as they kiss. Seething with envy and sickened by curiosity, Boethiah watches, winding himself around a wheat-stalk so tightly it begins to smolder.

Moments later they separate, Lorkhan's expression tender with affection. While Kyne moves away and slumps down to the ground nearby, Lorkhan turns to the prey she's bought him. It’s still inert, believing itself dead, but when Lorkhan kneels and touches its ruined flank Boethiah sees its eyes open, and its long trunk stirs.

"Who are you?" asks Lorkhan, so sweetly.

The spirit is scared enough that even from this distance Boethiah can see the whites of its eyes. Lorkhan's word is law, however, so it answers:

"I am that which falls and is always falling. I set out on journeys but only end up at home."

"Yes, I know you. What is your name?"

"Virga."

Lorkhan's hands, ink-black, spread across Virga's grey flank. With a religious reverence he bows his head, probing with his fingers the many punctures rent into its skin.

"Is it enough?" Kyne calls. She's crouching some distance from him, with her feather-cloak wrapped tightly around herself, so that she’s once more shapeless, ragged and panting.

Lorkhan does not answer her. "What is it that you want?" he asks Virga.

"I set out on journeys but only end up at home," Virga replies.

"I understand. You want to be transformed, but you can never quite manage it."

"Yes."

"Have you ever felt the rain, Virga?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?"

"I should like to feel it again."

"It is enough," Lorkhan declares, looking back at Kyne.

Kyne rises to her feet.

Lorkhan remains kneeling by Virga's side. "You want to be transformed," he observes, with brilliant warmth, "So we aren’t so different, you and I. You see, I wish to transform things. Actually, I wish for a lot of things. I am full of desire. I desire much, and I desire it very keenly.

"You did not wish to become my prey," Lorkhan continues, as Kyne approaches him with an adamantium knife. "So, how is it that you are now my prey? Because I wanted you to become my prey. I am stronger than you. This is why I get what I want and you don’t. Do you know why I am stronger than you, dear Virga?

"Because I am want," says Lorkhan, taking the knife from Kyne. "My desire is keener than yours, so I am stronger than you. You are my prey because I've willed it so. My desire is strongest, so my being is strongest.

"I want to fulfill my wanting," says Lorkhan, laying the flat of the knife against Virga's heaving fear-sweaty flank, "And I have the power to do so. And so I exist.

“And so I will do as I want. 

“And so you shall die for me."

And Boethiah cannot make himself look away, he cannot bring himself to recoil even when the wheat he’s clinging to bursts into flame, and it's only when the smoke catch Kyne's attention does he even realize he ought to flee, but he's captivated, captivated despite his horror, and he thinks that he sees Lorkhan raise his head-- Boethiah thinks that their eyes meet, in the moment before Lorkhan makes the first cut.

-

"So you saw it," Trinimac says when Boethiah returns to him changed.

Compared to the miasma of Lorkhan's creation, Auri-el's abode is sterile and static, all straight lines and shining clean surfaces draped in inert gaudy gold. Boethiah is not meant to be in Trinimac's chambers but those rules have not stopped him; ever since Lorkhan began his endeavor the palace is less populated than it ever has been, and sneaking in is far too easy. Among Auri-el’s elite Trinimac is one of the few who’s deigned to abstain from the serpent’s schemes, and now it is clear why that incarnate of perfection always seemed to find such distaste for Lorkhan's plans: creation, it seems, is a very messy thing.

Boethiah is still smoke-shaped and silent as he drifts into the centre of Trinimac's chambers. "I saw it," he agrees in a voice that is very quiet. 

And then he says nothing more, hanging suspended like a wisp of cinders in the centre of the room.

The air is perfectly still, so still that nothing moves him, so still that even Trinimac's small sigh slightly stirs his form.

"Perhaps you weren't strong enough to see it," Trinimac admits, with obvious concern in his usually stoic voice.

Boethiah does not respond to the insult.

"You knew, didn't you?" Trinimac asks tentatively. "About the endeavor?"

"I knew he was...creating. Something."

"But not what he was making it out of?"

Trinimac moves closer to Boethiah, creating eddies of breeze that pluck at his edges. "I know," he says in a voice that's trying to be soothing, "It's--"

"Glorious," Boethiah whispers.

This single word pauses Trinimac in his path. Boethiah stands still, staring into nothing, but his edges bleed into the stagnant air.

"No," says Trinimac. "It's horrific. It's profane. Glorious is defeating your enemies in combat, not--"

"It's glorious!" Boethiah repeats forcefully, jerking his gaze up to meet Trinimac's, and perhaps the wheat from the field snagged on his borders before it was immolated because his eyes are blazing in a way they never have before. "To want, to will, with such force, that others are vanquished and remade in your image-- what could be more glorious than that?"

Trinimac, stalwart warrior, so undaunted by everything in the world, recoils.

"Lorkhan is brilliant," Boethiah continues breathlessly, and he now fees very solid against the cold golden room. "If you cannot see that then Auri-el has blinded you. What he was doing back there-- he's discovered the point of it all. Becoming-- existing in spite of all else! What else can possibly matter in the face of that?"

"He's ruined you," Trinimac whispers.

"So let him ruin me, if that is his will, if I'm not strong enough to stop him! Trinimac!" And Boethiah lunges forwards, pressing his burning palm against the icy coldness of Trinimac’s breastplate. "Now everything is strife, our very existences depend on being strong enough to resist each other! Isn't this what you've been looking for, too? How long have we fought with one another, trying to impose our wills on each other? Isn't this what you've wanted? What has Lorkhan done but recognize who we are?"

But Trinimac knocks his hand away, and a smoldering black handprint remains seared into the gleaming armor. Trinimac is expressionless in his helmet, so Boethiah cannot discern his reaction, and this too is something new, because his gilding has never stopped Boethiah from reading him before.

"I did not expect..." Trinimac begins, moving slowly across the room. "I thought you would hate it.”

“Then you did not know me,” spits Boethiah. “Then I did not make you know me.” 

“You were a fraction of myself when I met you! What was there to know?”

“Then you do not know yourself.”

“But you told me that you denied him!”

“Yes, because I knew he meant to tear me to shreds.”

“And you call that glorious?”

“It is glorious!”

Trinimac has arrived at his weapons-stand and he’s reaching for Vosh Rakh, which hangs inert and gleaming with violent light upon the wall; Boethiah, in shadows, is nonetheless burning with a violent light of his own. 

“No, I won’t let him tear me to shreds,” Boethiah proclaims, voice raw with passion, “I respect him far too much for that. No, instead I will emulate him. If he is desire, I shall be--” 

Trinimac has taken Vosh Rakh in hand. “What can you-- you, a small weak thing-- what can you possibly be to him?”

“To him I will be Boet-hi-ah! Not as meat to be used, not as a tool to be wielded, but as Boet-hi-ah, as myself, as the one who won’t be butchered!” Boethiah raises his chin boldly as Trinimac approaches him with the killing blade. “Can you say the same for Auri-el?” 

“Lord, forgive me!” . 

But Vosh Rakh does not meet its target when it descends in an arc of cold light, for Boethiah is a little faster, or a little stronger, or a little more mutable from the flames. He’s gone before Trinimac can land a second blow, slipping through the window and dissipating like a memory of smoke, leaving only in his wake cinders and char, and the burned-black handprint over Trinimac’s heart.

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

Overheard - Chapter 2 (also on 9L)   (Chapter 1 here)

Daryl ignored the overheard conversation for two whole days. At least that's what he told himself. It wasn't the cause of him offering to keep night watch again to avoid spending the evening alone with Carol after the kids went to bed, it wasn't why he snapped at the crew when they didn't get as much of the walls secured as they'd planned to that day, it wasn't why he'd smashed his own finger with the hammer as he fixed one of the garden planters, and it most certainly wasn't why he now traipsed around the compound late into the night when by all rights he should be sleeping. No, he'd forgotten all about that little tête-à-tête. He glanced down the block to the house where he knew Carol, Lydia, Judith, and RJ slept and an empty room awaited his presence. It looked closed up tight and secure, windows darkened just like every other house on his block. You're the only dumbass too afraid to walk into his own home, that sneering voice mocked. Dammit, he needed sleep, especially since he expected yet another grueling day of fence-mending and trap-checking tomorrow and he knew the kids would be up bright and early as per usual. Sighing deeply, he bee lined for home, sure he could slip in unannounced and settle in for yet another restless night of thinking about the woman sharing his home and owning his heart but still eons away from where he wanted her. It wasn't until he opened the front door that he saw the oven light on. Carol stood at the island, busy when she should be sleeping.

He turned away quickly. Damn this... What had she called it? An open-concept house? No way he could sneak to his room now. He closed the door behind him, set his crossbow down, kicked off his shoes, and shrugged out of his jacket and vest, hanging them on the peg on the wall. He started to move in the direction of the stairs, sure she’d stop him to chat, but made the mistake of actually looking over at Carol and found himself arrested mid-step.

A spread of foodstuff lay on the island, and her hands deftly went about their work, but it was the way she looked in the soft light, her hair on one side pushed behind her, long gray locks cascading down the other, that left him frozen in place. She wore a fitted red tank top with spaghetti straps, and he knew if he could see the bottom half of her she'd be sporting those ugly, careworn pajama pants she loved so much. Her skin looked invitingly soft, and when she peered up to find him there, a smile broke over her face. He could barely breathe. "Hey." "Hey. Whaddya doing?" "Making lunch for tomorrow. Lydia and Judith are going to teach RJ how to feed the chickens and gather the eggs before school and weapons training, so they'll be up extra early." He barely heard what she said, his thoughts a million different places, and about half of those in places they shouldn't be. All he could see was her in the home they shared, mothering kids that weren't theirs, distracting as any minx, and stealing his breath and his thoughts like a perfect thief. Maggie and Aaron's refrain, a broken record in his brain, played again. “…times I thought Carol was about to make a move. Been thinking the same thing about Daryl lately.”

He couldn't take it anymore. Before he knew what he was doing, the words had already come out of his mouth. "Do you like living here?" Carol looked at him quizzically, then glanced around the darkened house. "It's better than most of the other places I've lived," she stated as she wrapped up the kids’ lunches. He took a few steps closer. "Do you like it here with—" He nearly said 'me,' but recovered before the singular word slipped out of his mouth. "—the kids and me?" She kept glancing up at him as she finished putting the food away. "Yeah. I think it's good for Lydia. No one else could understand what she's been through better than you and me," she admitted quietly. "Being around Jude and RJ has helped her open up and allowed her to be a kid—when she lets herself. And you know how much I love Judith and RJ. I wouldn't want them with anyone else." He kept moving slowly towards her, unsure what compelled his feet to close the distance between them even as he felt mystified by the direction of his questions. What was he doing? "And me?" he heard himself ask quietly as he rounded the island. A teasing glint entered her eyes. "You have to ask after all this time? You know I liked you first." Her words took him back to another lifetime, another home they'd shared. A time when his mind had first begun thinking about her constantly, when he’d started wanting to care and protect and provide for her, wanting her near. Wanting her. Nothing had changed since then, unless he counted how strong those feelings had become over the years. She expected him to bashfully retreat—he saw it on her face—maybe give her his usual 'stahp' so she could chuff a laugh and they’d go on as they had been for yet another decade. But that overheard conversation had played like a broken record in his head for days. He’d envisioned all the ways he could find out the truth of their words, and laughter was the farthest thing from his mind.

"Carol," he said lowly. His eyes dropped to her shoulder, and of its own volition his hand rose until his fingers trailed over her soft, cool skin, a slow back-and-forth graze across her shoulder. The air around them sizzled, and the voices of his friends, which had accompanied him for days and somehow compelled him into this moment, suddenly dissipated until only the internal drumming of his own heartbeat remained.

He lifted his eyes back to hers, and she peered up at him with desire. "Daryl." He heard his name ghost from her lips, and though he barely knew what he was doing, the sound drew him closer, closer, until his lips finally met hers.

He'd imagined this moment in myriad ways, most of them flushed and frantic and fast. Now that he was here, he wanted to make it last forever in case this, the greatest risk of his life, ended in spectacular shambles.

He moved his lips slowly, deliberately taking his time, and Carol let him. She turned towards him more fully, and his hand cupped her shoulder before sliding down her back, holding her in place, though she seemed content enough on her own to match him, her hands against his chest sending fire spiraling through him.

He eased away just enough to look at her, to make sure this was real. The heat in her eyes and the wonder on her face told him everything he'd ever wanted to know.

He kissed her again, gently, languidly, until it wasn't enough. She slid her arms around his neck, feverishly pressing into him and his hands roamed from her shoulder blades to her hips. Instinctively, he lifted her as her legs wound around him, and he started to move towards the bedroom.

"Too far," she mumbled against his lips, the hum of her voice and the friction of her body against him causing his blood to rage within him.

It was only a few steps to the living room, but they barely made it before she started removing his clothes, and he was more than happy to help. Somehow they missed the couch and ended up on the floor, but he couldn't care when her lips and hands and skin were touching him all over and she urged his own roaming hands to continue mapping her body. And moments later when he stared into her eyes, he knew he'd never be the same.

*****

Daryl took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart, before he opened his eyes and looked to his left. His arm was falling asleep where it pillowed Carol's head, but he didn't dare move. Her eyes were closed, cheeks tinged pink, a look of contentment on her face.

He couldn't believe what had just happened.

For the first time in his life, he didn't care that he'd completely lost control, let loose every emotion he felt, every word that formed on his lips, every thought about Carol that came to him. Didn't care that he lay completely exposed, both physically and emotionally. Because she had done the same, and it was glorious.

He took a final deep breath, his heart rate finally returning to normal, when, in one smooth move, Carol rolled towards him onto her side and tucked herself against him, slinging one leg over his. His arm curled around her, and he trailed his fingertips across her hip as she placed a kiss over his heart.

"So that was fun," she purred playfully, eliciting an amused huff from him.

"Best thing that's happened to me all day," he admitted.

"Daryl Dixon, are you

flirting

me with?" she asked coyly, clearly pleased.

He raised an eyebrow in response, one side of his mouth turning up in a lopsided smile, and she kissed his chest again.

"Why now?" she asked softly. "I mean, what made you...?"

He flushed a little, embarrassed to admit the truth. "I overheard Aaron and Maggie talkin'. Seems they've been waitin’ for us to get together for a long while and think we've been taking our time."

Her eyes smiled at him. "They're not wrong. We should stop waiting."

"I think we just did," he reminded her.

She moved over him, straddling his hips, seduction written all over her face.

He wanted to. Hell, he'd been waiting 10 years. He could spend the next 10 years making up for it. Still... "Carol, I don't think I can--"

She set a finger over his lips. "Shhh....we'll take our time," she promised as she leaned down to kiss him.

And they did just that.

[trashforhockeyguys]

Don’t Hold Me -17- Carter Hart

All previous parts linked in my master list

A/N: Okay, so we’re officially in the homestretch of the series. This part is a little calm, no real huge shocking moments. Just a lot of thoughts. So enjoy my loves. 

“C’mere. You look stressed.”

You wished you could tell him just how stressed you were. Every second you were waiting for a new text. A new rule to the game, another move Zachary wanted you to make. You wanted to be able to enjoy these moments with him, because you didn’t know how many more you were going to have. Zach made it very clear that he wanted all of this to crumble down around you. 

“It’s just finals,” You lied, “I want to be as prepared as I can.”

“Babe, they aren’t for another couple of weeks,” Carter laughed, holding his arms open for you, “Just come over here.”

“Carter, they start next week.”

“Please? I just want to spend time with you. Not you and your books.”

You sighed and shut one of your textbooks before pushing away from the kitchen bar. You folded yourself into Carter’s side, wanting to be as close to him as you could. Deep down, you knew the smartest thing would be to put as much distance between you and him as you could, but you selfishly didn’t want to do that. 

You liked being with him too much. You liked the feeling you got when you were with him. The warmth in your chest, the freedom you felt. Carter seemed to even make it easier to breathe, to think. You could just be when you were around him. There were no games, no part you had to play. You could just be a girl who was in love with a boy.

“See, this is better than going cross eyed over there,” He joked, kissing the top of your head, “Are you feeling better by the way?”

You almost questioned what he meant before you remembered how quickly you’d run from the game just the night before, “Yeah. I was just so tired. Been pulling all nighters.”

He held onto you a little tighter, “You’re going to run yourself into the ground before too long.”

If only he knew just how bad things would get. Finals were the least of your worries now. Maybe you’d be lucky to even make it that long. You might not even be able to sit them, whatever game Zachary wanted you to play...it could be over before then. 

You tried to push those thoughts out of your head. All you wanted to do was just enjoy the feeling of Carter’s arms around you. The fireplace was on, he had a blanket around both of you, with some movie playing on the TV. Not that either of you were paying attention to it. You wanted to forget about all of it, just for the night. One more night where you could just be a girl in love.

“I don’t want the season to end,” You said honestly, “Or the semester. I’m not ready for you to leave.”

He looked down at you with such love in his eyes, “Come back home with me. Stay with me for the summer.”

You sat up, fully able to look at him now, “You want me to come to Canada with you?”

He shrugged, “That way neither of us has to say goodbye, and you were going to go with Travis anyway, so consider it a little change of plans.”

“A little change of plans? Isn’t Alberta on the other side of the country?”

He shrugged, a playful smile spread across his face, “Details. Just promise me you’ll think about it. Yeah?”

You nodded, “I’ll think about it.”

“I think you’d really like it. And my family...they want to meet you so bad,” He explained, “I’m sure Trav would gladly come stay for a week or two. Maybe all of us could go somewhere. Maybe Mexico or somewhere like that.”

He held you tighter again, you almost wondered why he was holding you as closely as he was. Carter normally did give you a little space to breathe, but tonight it seemed that the both of you were unwilling to let go. You didn’t mind though. Maybe if you could just hold him like this for a while it would be easier to walk away later. 

The fireplace crackled in front of you, the TV on low providing more background noise than anything else. Your fingers slowly ran up and down his arms. You relished his warmth, wanting to just stay wrapped up in him forever. 

You sat up a little bit to kiss him. The feeling of his lips against yours was nearly intoxicating. You just wanted more. You always wanted more with him. Like no amount was ever enough. You wanted to keep being with him. You wanted him, always.

And as the kisses started to fuel something more, all you could do was silently beg him for one thing. With every kiss, with every movement of his hands, with the way you climbed on top of him. 

Distract me. Make me forget what will happen. Make sure I remember moments like this.

It became like a chant inside your head while your body said other things. You loved him so much it practically hurt, but in the best ways. You didn’t want to forget moments like this. You didn’t want to forget how it felt to be loved by him, fully and completely. You clung to him as he practically made your body sing. 

And for a few moments, it was just you and Carter. Just the sound of your breathing and hearts hammering. Just the feel of his skin against yours, his lips seemingly everywhere. The way his hair tickled your neck when his head dropped onto your shoulder. 

You tried to savor it all. You wanted to remember the moments like this. Where neither one of you were bothered by the outside world. The moments where you could just be two young people in love, without all of the other baggage.

You clung to him as he moved. He kept whispering how much he loved you. You wondered if he knew those words almost felt like a brand. But you didn’t want him to stop. Not as his fingers dug into your skin, teeth sinking into your shoulder, leaving behind a mark. You wanted all of it more than anything. For just a few more days, you wanted all of it. You wanted to be able to remember. Even if every second would make it harder for you to walk away when the time came.

What felt like hours later, both of you finally found your way back into the bedroom. The sheets were tangled around both of you. You never wanted to forget the comfort you felt while in his arms. The sense of safety he always brought to you. Because you knew he would protect you, even if it meant putting himself in the line of fire, he would do it. For reasons you didn’t understand, he chose you. 

He wanted you….he loved you.

You watched as he slept next to you. All you wanted to do was memorize every feature. When you thought back on him years from now, you wanted to be able to remember every little detail. The way his hair, now fluffy from the amount of times your fingers ran through it and pulled on it, fell all over his face. The way his mouth was just slightly parted, although not even the smallest of snores seemed to escape this morning. You wanted to remember the way he often slept all scrunched up, but how today he was stretched out, an arm thrown around you. You wanted to remember the weight of that arm, the warmth of his body next to you, the way the mattress seemed to cave just enough to push you towards him.

You’d turned your phone off hours ago, just so that it would be you and Carter. No one else. Travis, Ethan, and Kora all knew how to reach you if needed. But for now, with no hockey for the next couple of days, and the fact that it was officially the weekend, it could just be you and Carter. Even if this would be the last time, it was all you needed. 

Your heart seemed so full as you watched him sleep next to you. But you wouldn’t kid yourself, you knew that this wouldn’t always be your life. But even if Carter was just for a short time….such a short time...it would be okay. You’d known more love from him in the last months than you ever expected to know from anyone romantically. 

He deserved the world for how he treated you, how he loved you. He deserved everything that you couldn’t give him. Your chest seemed to tighten at the thought of it. You would never be able to give him everything he should have from this life. You’d never be able to love him as freely as he loved you...no matter how much you wanted to. He deserved more than you’d ever be able to provide...he deserved a future.

You looked at him again, feeling tears burn your eyes. He was too peaceful. A type of peace you wouldn’t be able to give him when he was awake. You wanted him to always be this peaceful, but instead he was always worried about protecting you. You didn’t want that for him anymore. You didn’t want to ruin his early twenties.

You gently brushed a bit of hair out of his face, knowing he slept too hard for it to wake him up. The sky outside was still dark, but you couldn’t stay here any longer. You felt like the walls were closing in, and you couldn’t be here like this. So, you quietly dressed and left him a note, telling him that you needed to go back since you had a 6am class. 

But that feeling in your chest didn’t go away when you left his building. Because you just wanted to turn around and cuddle back up with him. You wished you had the freedom to do that. So many things could be different if Zachary was never a part of your life. But would you have even been able to experience this level of love if he hadn’t?

But you couldn’t stop yourself from putting on the new dress you acquired the previous week and making your way down to Carter’s awaiting car. You weren’t even sure if you wanted to go to the event, but he looked so hopeful when he asked you. You just couldn’t say no to him. You wanted this to be another one of the good memories that you could look back on.

Carter leaned over to kiss you the moment you were in his car. It almost hurt to see just how happy he was. Would he still feel the same way about you if he knew you were playing games with the devil again? Would he want anything to do with you? 

“You look….damn. Maybe we should just show up a little late.”

“We can’t, you’re expected to walk the carpet for all of the press.”

He sighed and brought your hand to his lips. You closed your eyes, trying to find a way to make the feeling go away. You felt like you were betraying him. Like you were betraying everyone. Ethan, Travis, Nolan, Kora...everyone. 

“You okay?” Carter asked a few minutes later, “You’re really quiet.”

You nodded and took a second to find some sort of lie, “Kora was snoring really loudly last night, so I didn’t get much sleep.”

He laughed, so light and free. You hoped that you’d never forget the sound of his laugh. It was one of your favorite sounds in the whole world. Somehow, it always reminded you that there was still good in the world. That not everything was dark and broken. 

“Baby, you know you can always come over. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night,” He told you, “I like waking up to you.”

You nodded again, trying not to give in to the ache that seemed to be growing in your chest, “Playoffs start soon. And finals are this week...it’s all almost over.”

If only he knew what all over really meant.

[fanartfunart]

Fly Away

Episode 1: Paon Lilas (*Lilac Peacock)

Ao3 Link (If I actually continue this, check my Ao3 of the same name “Fanartfunart”.. Considering how much mental real estate it’s taking up, I probably will.)

An au in which Adrien didn't succeed in trying to 'sneak' into brick and mortar school and therefore also didn't get the Black Cat miraculous..... but he did find a pretty peacock. (It's in his house... I mean....) Ladybug and Féline Sombre (Who uses She/They. Black Cat hero name thanks to @broadwaytheanimatedseries) get some help from the mysterious peacock miraculous holder, but Ladybug isn’t sure he’s 100% doing this for good.

Warnings: Canon typical violence.... Not much else? Tell me if I need to add anything.

A/N because Brick and Mortar schoolers never know that’s what they are: "Brick and Mortar school" is a homeschool/online school method of reference to in-person schools before calling it “in-person” was a thing. I 100% think Adrien would use that phrasing. (if the writers knew it existed...Tho. Idk if there's a French equivalent)

-*-

Adrien knew he shouldn’t be doing this. This was a worse idea than trying to sneak his way into brick and mortar school. He’d only seen it by accident. He wasn’t even doing very good at committing to breaking into his father’s mysterious safe. This was the third time he’d come back down to find out what was behind that painting.... He should really not be doing this. But...a secret compartment behind his mother’s painting was just… too interesting to ignore. He unfurled an umbrella to cover himself from the cameras his father probably had in the room. Inching his way to the painting of his mother. 

...He had had far too much time to think about this. He only had to punch in the code once (his mother’s birthday- frankly, his father really needed a code harder to guess), for the safe to click and unlock.

The contents… were not what he anticipated. It looked like a keepsake box, not a super secret compartment. He ghosted a hand over the frame of his mother’s photo, blinking away the lingering sadness. ...A peacock brooch? He picked it up, tumbling it in his hand. It almost hummed with energy. He tilted his head, brow raised.

Footsteps.

Adrien frantically closed the hidden compartment and glancing for a hiding place. The umbrella closed over his head just as he dove for the curtain. That… might bruise. He flattened himself against the windowsill, going on his tip-toes on the barely-there window ledge. 

From the distinct clack of dress shoes on the floor, his father had entered the room. Adrien held his breath, hearing his father’s footsteps come closer. A strange whirr. Then silence. Adrien stood there for a long moment, feeling the edges of the peacock brooch dig into his clenched fist. Heart hammering. But father never called for Natalie, or his bodyguard, or moved, or anything. It was eerily quiet. The umbrella peaked out of the curtain. He popped open the umbrella to find… no one. 

"What?" Adrien whispered to himself. He frowned, and tiptoed out from the window, before racing out of the room, down the hall, and outside. Once safely in the garden, he dropped the umbrella. He slid down into the grass, taking deep breaths. 

The brooch vibrated.

Wait. The brooch vibrated? He opened his hand. He had to shield his face from the burst of light. He opened an eye to see… a tiny… hummingbird? No, it was a peacock. Why is a peacock… floating? And Tiny? And why isn’t he sneezing? Are miniature peacocks hypoallergenic? “What the...”

“Ooooo, hello!” The creature said cheerfully, “Lovely weather isn’t it? Beautiful flowers! Nice to be outdoors for once isn’t it? Are you my new miraculous wielder? You’re so cute! You look almost like…” tears welled up into the miniature peacock’s eyes. Adrien looked around frantically. It kept talking unintelligibly between sobs, gesturing vaguely.

“Are you… okay?”

“Noooooooo.”

“Right. Er-” Adrien frowned, clearly it wasn’t going to make sense if he asked what was wrong. He opted for distraction. “Do… you want something to eat?”

“Oh sure!” The tiny peacock’s tears cleared up immediately.

Adrien blinked at the sudden change in mood and nodded “Let’s… Let’s go get you something to eat… I guess. Er, what are you?”

"Oh I'm Duusu, a kwami, I can grant the power to hone emotions into constructs."

He tilted his head. The image of Ladybug summoning her Lucky Charm came to mind. "Like… a superhero? How?”

"Well you are transformed by a magic phrase, and once transformed, you can create a sentimonster out of vibrant emotions. Whoever holds the Amok, the item imbued with power, can control the sentimonster."

“Oh, cool!”

"It is! Do you have any mangoes? I love mango."

“We’ll see.” Adrien glanced at the peacock brooch and stuffed it into his pocket. He looked back at the door inside, then Duusu. “Actually, can you… hide? Just for now-”

“Oh yes! Don’t worry! I know the Kwami and our wielder's identities are a secret.” The kwami zipped into Adrien’s over-shirt inner pocket and settled there. It felt… almost natural. He smiled a bit to himself and went to find out if they had some good fruit for the tiny peacock. 

-

The TV played in the background while Duusu had another sudden breakdown about… something. Adrien still wasn’t sure what. He was starting to feel very out of his depth. 

“Duusu.... Duusu. D- Duusu, do you want to talk about it?” There was a pause before the tears flowed even harder. Adrien was reminded of a sprinkler.

His eyes were pulled to the TV, with a flash of red and black blurring on the screen. Followed by an Akuma. Ladybug and Féline Sombre. He glanced at the Kwami. “Duusu… you mentioned you can give me powers, right?”

“Mhm! You just have to say ‘Spread my feathers.’”

“Alright! Duusu-”

“OH! Wait I didn’t-”

“Spread my feathers!” The transformation felt so natural, like he was made to do this. He struck a pose and smiled behind the fan that materialized in his hand. “Alright, let’s go help Ladybug and Féline Sombre.”

He didn’t expect to start… feeling, seeing emotions. Although he supposed that made sense for the power set. They were everywhere- it was like being dropped into the deep end of a pool, surrounded and covered. Fear, worry, frustration, annoyance, determination. Stronger emotions felt… bigger, somehow. The world was full of colors and feelings he’d never expected. He lept across rooftops, feeling like he was flying. His own elation from the truest sense of freedom he’s ever had in… ever; a bright vibrant bubble. He stumbled to a stop as he spotted Ladybug.

Ladybug was determined… and scared? He didn’t expect that from Paris’s hero. She kept looking around, searching for a plan. The redhead cat hero dove in from above and smacked the Akuma with their baton. Her baton was then immediately captured and swallowed by the plants under the Akuma’s control. Féline Sombe pulled desperately before eventually giving up and vaulting towards Ladybug. She was scared too, he noticed, and frustrated.

The Akumatized person was angry. So so angry it was overwhelming. He almost couldn’t see the person behind their anger. “It’s only a matter of time before Chloé Bourgeois and the litterers of Paris pay!” The plant-covered Akuma cackled. 

Chloe?! Well that’s not good. One of his only friends is in danger?

“Bonzaniac is just gonna grow bigger if they go anywhere near the Eiffel. We need to prune this plant before it’s unmanageable.” Ladybug told Féline Sombre, wrapping her yo-yo around the Akuma’s legs, straining to control Bonzaniac’s movement.

Féline Sombre gestured widely, “If I touch them I’ll just become Cat-nip! How are we supposed to stop them?”

Ladybug called her Lucky Charm, ending up with a polka dotted fishing pole. “How’s that supposed to help?” 

The peacock hero frowned and… Chloé? What’s she doing here? Bonzaniac noticed her as well, it seemed, because the plant growth reached toward her. Chloé’s fear grew rapidly and immediately. He plucked a feather from the fan, imbuing it with power. He dove from his perch on the roof down towards Chloé and Bonzaniac. 

“Fly away, darling amok.” The feather fluttered into Chloé’s necklace. He grabbed a traffic cone and hurled it at the plant tendrils, keeping it from touching Chloé. Féline Sombre quickly took over the idea, batting away the tendrils with a trash can lid. (That made Chloé cringe.) A purplish mask of light illuminated Chloé’s and his own face. “Chloé, I am…er- Paon Lilas. I can sense your fear. Let me help you turn it into safety. I can grant you a construct to protect you.” 

“Then just do it already!” Chloé cried, “Please just don’t let it turn me into a sticky sappy gross tree!” A large golden bear materialized in front of Chloe. It roared and Chloé gasped. “Mr. Cuddles!”

Ladybug was... understandably confused. “What? Another Akuma?” She furrowed her brow and deepened her fighting stance.

“OH! No no no, uh, I’m Paon Lilas." He flourished his fan with a bow. "I’m here to help.”

Ladybug’s suspicion grew, but he didn’t have much of a chance to explain himself as Bonzaniac roared and turned on him, aiming their plant tendrils towards him. “Hey! I’m not really the roosting type of bird!” He dived for cover behind a car, patting himself down, “Come on, is the only weapon I get a fan? Why couldn’t I get a baton or something like that?”

The gold bear attacked Bonzaniac, knocking them down. Bonzaniac grappled the bear in plants, taking the plants away from protecting their back.

Ladybug gasped, "There! They only have so much plant matter! Féline, destroy as much plant matter as you can, Paon, distract Bonzaniac! I'm going Akuma fishing."

The two other heroes nodded. 

"Cataclysm!" Féline Sombre yelled, summoning black destructive energy around their hand. She ducked and weaved towards the center of Bonzaniac's plant mass, jumping out of the way of grasping tendrils. 

Paon Lilas whistled "Hey Bonzaniac, have you heard about Fast Fashion? I use all my outfits that way. Never worn the same shirt twice!"

The Akuma roared "All. That. WASTE!" They focused a massive amount of plant matter towards him. 

"Didn't think that'd work so effectively," he muttered under his breath. He lept out of the way, and back around the bend of the car. The plants wrapped up around the car. He whooped in triamph.

Féline Sombre finally managed to hit Bonzaniac, severely reducing the amount of plants in their control. Ladybug swung the fishing pole and caught a necklace from in the middle of the thicket of plant matter. She crushed it under foot and captured the purple butterfly that fluttered out. 

Mr Cuddly the sentibear sat on the Akuma victim. Paon frowned and glanced at Chloé. The gardener looked dazed and confused.

“Now who do you think you are?” Chloe said, crossing her arms.

The gardener smacked the side of the over large bear. “Wh- you! You littered in my garden! And refused to simply pick it up!”

“So what? That's not my job," Chloe huffed, crossing her arms. The sentibear huffed with her.

Paon snapped his fingers, pulling the amok from the necklace, the sentibear disappearing. Chloe gasped, pouting.

"Mademoiselle Chloe," Paon sighed softly, "How would you feel if someone threw trash into your beautiful hair and refused to help clean it up?" Chloe grabbed her hair, and Paon saw her horror at the concept. "Exactly. That garden takes just as much work, or more, as your hair. I suggest apologizing."

She pouted, "Fine, your garden was pretty or whatever, sorry I messed it up." She flicked her hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "There. I apologized."

Féline Sombre and Ladybug chatted in the background. Féline grabbed their baton and with a light salute, she vaulted away. 

Paon's Miraculous beeped. That... meant something right?

"Birdy!" Ladybug called, walking toward him, her own Miraculous beeping. "Where did you get that Miraculous?"

"Oh… um…. Funny story-"

"I'm sorry, but you need to give it to me. It doesn't belong to you."

"What?" Paon took a step back, "Why?" 

"It's been lost. I'm going to take it back to the original owner."

Paon paled. Did Ladybug know his father? Or did his father find the lost miraculous without giving it back? Did his father know what it was? What would happen if his father found out he took it? The bubble of elated freedom popped. "That… sounds like a great, morally right thing to do… but… consider…” He took a soft step back, glancing up to find a path of escape, hands raised surrender. “I can't. Sorry, bye!" Paon ran, leaping up and away.

Ladybug moved to go after him, only for her miraculous to beep again. Sabrina had run in just in time to comfort Chloé, so Ladybug sighed and ran in the opposite direction.

Adrien tripped over himself as he detransformed in a back alley. His legs weak, and head dizzy. "Woah- is that normal?"

Duusu looked up at him with sad eyes. "I meant to tell you. The miraculous is broken... If you continue to use it... it will hurt you."

"... Does it hurt you?"

Duusu thought for a moment. "The transformation? No.... It is nice... to see another use it's power so kindly."

Adrien glanced down. He looked at the broach clipped to his overshirt. The lightness... the freedom. He nodded firmly. Unclipping it from his shirt and instead clipping it in his inside pocket. Hidden. "I'll be careful. Come on, let's get something to eat...” He rubbed his head, “I feel like we both need it."

-

Marinette just barely managed to make it to the bakery before the afternoon rush.

"Marinette! How was school?” Tom called, opening his arms for a hug. She happily took her place in her father’s arms.

"Not great.. Chloé caused another Akuma."

Tom sighed and shook his head, releasing her with a pat on the back. "At least we have Ladybug and Féline Sombre. Come on, if you can't learn in peace at school you can learn some more Dupain-Chang classics!"

Marinette chuckled and nodded, heading over to get ready to work behind the counter.

The door chimed, signaling the entrance of a young blond. She stared at him. He seemed oddly familiar. She started picturing him against all the blonds she knew, although her brain was still somewhat stuck on the Peacock Miraculous holder…. She really needed to talk to Master Fu about that. 

The boy stumbled. He was just about to faceplant into the counter before Marinette, intending to catch him- shoved him. He fell on his rear instead. 

“OH, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” Marinette cried, moving to pull him up to his feet. He was surprisingly light, ohmy and now she just manhandled him like a human doll.

“It’s okay! You saved me from what was probably a worse fate.” He giggled awkwardly, "Thanks... I��ve been.. a bit dizzy today, I guess."

"Oh, I hope you feel better, anything I can do to help?"

"Heh, I was looking for food. Got some, er, fruity stuff?"

"Fruity, fruit. For sure, fruit." Marinette stared at him a bit longer. Finally the images and fashion magazine clippings clicked next to the boy’s face. She gasped "Adrien Agreste! You're Gabriel Agreste's son! He’s my favorite fashion designer!"

He laughed awkwardly. Rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah… That’s… that’s me."

"You probably hear that all the time, sorry! But! Fruit." She walked over to the counter and gestured at the prepared goods. "Macaroons are always good, and there's some a couple of fruit Eclairs, brioche and jam-"

He smiled somewhat stiffly, before frowning at the eclairs. He made a subtle 'come here' gesture. Marinette looked down at the eclairs herself, unsure what exactly made him frown.

He sighed, adjusting his overshirt. (Duusu settled nicely into the pocket again, glad to have been able to choose his treat.) "I think one of those is good.... Er... actually, I think two." 

He handed her the money, and she handed him the pastries. "Thank you."

She smiled, "Thank you! Come again soon. Just try not to trip, that's usually my thing."

He laughed. "Actually…” He takes a bite of his eclair, with a smile “I think I will definetly try to come in again."

"Oh! Okay, cool!"

He waved and walked out of the establishment with a small smile.

Tom leaned over as she watched him leave. "Flirting with the customers?"

Marinette gasped dramatically, "NoOo dad no. He's... just a friend."

Adrien leaned against a wall and sighed. Duusu floated up into view, taking a section of eclair. "Ah young love..."

He shook his head, "...She's just a friend..." He gasped, glancing back at the bakery with a smile, "A friend."

-

Marinette frowned, "Wait, Master Fu, do you think he could be working with Hawkmoth?"

"It is a possibility. I wouldn’t be surprised if the butterfly and the peacock had been nearby each other. If you can find out where he found it, it may help us find Hawkmoth.”

“Hm, he didn’t seem like he was with Hawkmoth. He was helpful... And he actually got Chloé to apologize?”  She was still bewildered about that. It wasn’t the best apology ever, but she still actually did it.

“The peacock wields the power of emotion, Peon Lilas will be able to sense emotion. He can very easily use that information to manipulate others into doing things for him. Even something as simple as an apology.”

She frowned, considering, “I think I understand.”

“Be careful, the peacock is not to be underestimated. Make sure you and Féline Sombre are prepared for what he might do next."

She nodded firmly. "I will be.”

-

Gabriel Agreste stared at the paused frame from the newscast on his newest enemy. Emile's painting ajar and missing a vital item. "Natalie... Where is the surveillance footage for this room?"

She silently pulled up the footage, scrolling through to find an umbrella blocking their view of their thief.

Gabriel growled under his breath and stood up. "Time to catch a runaway bird, it seems. See what you can find from the rest of the cameras in and out of the building. If there's anything or anyone out of place, you tell me immediately."

"What will you do sir?" Natalie asked, already scanning through footage on her tablet.

"Someone found and stole the peacock miraculous from right under our noses. I need to find a way to protect my identity and a lure for our heroic peafoul.”

[t-lostinworlds]

I’ve Got You, Always (Tom Holland)

A/N: This has been sitting in my draft for a lil bit and I just got around to finish it. Also, this may seem rushed, which it is, kind of, but I hope you guys still like it <3

Pairing: Tom Holland x Actress!Reader

Summary: An interviewer asked you a topic that was off limits which prompted a panic attack and Tom decides to step in.

Warnings: slight angst, mentions of past trauma, panic attack, and angry tom but with fluff in the end.

Word Count: 2.4k+

Masterlist in Bio

-:-:-:-:-

You were sat inside a room across an empty chair with the microphone all hooked up. A movie poster showing only your face — looking all horrified and troubled — was right behind you as the official one stood on the opposite side, right beside where the interviewer would be seated.

Two cameras stood on its rightful places for two continuous shots, accompanied by big blaring lights that illuminated the whole room. There were a maximum of six people occupying the space to make sure everything was working just fine and that the interviews go as smoothly as they could.

It's the last press for the day and you were more than relieved.

Not necessarily dreadful — you love your job — but it is draining doing junket, especially when you've been doing it for hours on end. Redundant questions are inescapable and they usually turn boring after countless times of repeating, but you answer them as thoughtful as you can anyway, being that you're the most proud of this movie.

You're always thankful for the interviewers who spice things up a little, make it more interesting than the whole simple question, simple answer routine. Even more so if they get to ask a genuinely good question that would pick your brain to tell more about the movie.

However, you didn't expect the last interview to be quite different from the others, but not in a way that you'd like it to be.

"Hi I'm Jim, nice to meet you." A guy, looking like he's on his late-20s, offered you a hand, which you shook politely with a smile. "Y/N, nice to meet you too."

And just as Jim prepped himself for the interview the door opens, your head turning instinctively to see Tom making his way inside with Harry right on his tail.

Catching your eyes, Tom flashed you a slightly tired yet relieved smile; relieved to finally get to see your beautiful face after such a long day. You were just the same as you felt yourself relax with a sigh, your heart melting as Tom gave you a cute wave, blowing you a sweet kiss before he found a place to sit just beside your agent.

Comic-con was just across the hotel that you're doing junket at, Tom spending all day there to promote his own movie as well. You were lucky enough that your schedule and location managed to tie in together, hence why he's here at the moment. Maybe his day ended earlier than expected and you were glad, excited to spend time with him after you're finished.

"Right, we ready?" The voice made you tear your eyes away from your boyfriend and back to the person in front of you, just in time to see him putting the familiar piece of paper down, one that's been passed on from interviewer to interviewer.

"Ready." You answered with a nod, throwing an upturned thumb for good measure.

"Recording."

"I'm Jim for HBC and today we are joined by the star of the upcoming movie The Cry, Y/N L/N, how are you?" Jim started before turning to face you with a smile. You nodded with a grin in return. "I'm good thank you."

"Now, the last few films you've done were romantic comedies or light-hearted films in general, how did it feel to do a complete 180 and star in a much different film this time around?" Jim asked.

You crossed your legs with a hum. "It felt interesting and quite challenging for sure but I'm glad to have taken up this opportunity because now I get to push myself to see how far I can go, and how much I can do be able to broaden my range as an actor."

"What's the difficult part about filming the movie?"

"I think for me, filming wasn't as difficult as the after? I was never good with horror movies when I was a child, I get so scared so easily so coming home after shooting was tough. During filming was fine because there are a lot of people and distractions and you know it's not real but after filming, when you get home and then you start thinking about what the whole scene actually was? It gets scary. I keep looking behind my back all the time and I definitely slept with the lights on." You giggled with a shake of your head, keeping the tone of the interview as casual and calm, that, until Jim got to his next question.

He sat straighter, eyes narrowing slightly as he turned the piece of paper in his hand. "Speaking of childhood, with what I've researched, I've noticed how you don't speak much about your family, why is that?"

You blinked in shock, totally caught off guard as you tried to wrap your head around his question. "I'm sorry?"

He did read the paper that was given to him right?

"Your family, how do they feel seeing you in this massive but jarring movie? What do they think of it? Or do they not know that you've got a movie coming out?" Jim was trying to act nonchalant about it, but it was clear as day what he was trying to do, trying to pry out what would make people talk and click on his interview: some drama.

"I—uhm, I'm not comfortable with that topic. I can't answer it, I'm sorry." You tried to laugh it off, but the sound only came out forced, fingers picking at the material of your jeans as the atmosphere in the room was quick switch, turning unpleasant, awkward.

Jim didn't seem to notice this though, or he did and he just simply didn't care as he kept at it with the topic. "Why not? This movie, after all, is a family movie."

It wasn't.

It's a horror movie. There's a family in it sure, but his question still doesn't correlate with the plot of the movie at all.

You cleared your throat as you shifted in your seat, eyes darting around, glancing at Tom for only a split second, the lad just noticing your agitated state being that he was slightly distracted, talking with Harry about something.

"Can we move on, please?" Your voice was soft, controlled even, but your palms were turning clammy by the second, counting inside your head as you tried your best to keep your breathing even.

Jim only hummed at that, head tilted to the side as he asked, without precaution whatsoever. "Why? Did something traumatic happen?"

That's when you felt your throat tightly close up, darkness slowly creeping in your mind, heart hammering, hard against your chest at the memory, tears prickling in your eyes as you gasp for air.

"I—I'm s-sorry, I can't—" You looked around the room for help and your gaze immediately landed on Tom who was already sitting on the edge of his seat. His eyes were coated with utter worry when it locked with yours, and he didn't waste any time as he made his way towards you hurriedly once he took in the look of pure dread and panic on your face.

"Take the mic off her." Tom spoke through gritted teeth as he helped you stand up, voice deep in anger, the sound man quickly fumbling with the wires to help get the mic off of you.

Tom held your face with both hands, your trembling fingers wrapping around his wrist for support once he did so. He felt his heart break when he saw your eyes shut tight, tears already streaming down your cheeks as your tried to catch your breath. And to see you in utter distraught because of some douche who wants a clickable headline? It made his blood fucking boil.

"Harry—" Tom didn't need to finish his sentence as his brother got the drift real quick, Harry throwing a protective arm over your shaking form as he guided you out of the room.

"No. You, sit back down. I'd like to have a word with you." Tom growled, glare dead set on Jim once he saw him slowly get out of his seat.

Tom's jaw was clenched as he took your place and sat on the chair right across Jim, arms crossed over his chest with a look of pure disdain on his features. "Right, I believe you were given a piece of paper."

"I—uh, this one?" Jim fumbled, handing Tom a piece of paper to which the lad snatched, gave it a quick read before handing it back to him.

"Yes, that's the one. Now tell me, what does it say? Can you read that out for me?" Tom said coolly, but his eyes were shooting daggers at the man in front of him, leg bouncing to try and rid just a little bit of anger off his body.

Jim cleared his throat and did as told. "It says uh, 'Kindly refrain from asking questions about her family. Thank you.'"

Tom nodded with a scoff. "Glad to know you can read mate."

With a deep, sharp intake of breath, Tom leaned forward, jaw tight as he pressed his palms together. "You think it's okay to press that question on her when she clearly was uncomfortable? Do you think she has that piece of paper handed over to each interviewer just for fucking fun Jim?"

If looks could kill, Jim would've been on the floor seconds ago, and clearly he felt that as he started to cower under Tom's gaze. "I'm sorry, I just asked questions."

"Well clearly you asked the wrong ones. She kindly requested you to move on, she told you she wasn't comfortable with the topic and what exactly did you do? You asked her about it some more! She's here to talk about the movie and promote the movie, not her life." Tom seethed, face red from rage with his nostrils flaring to match. He wanted to be civil about it, to be calm and collected but it just angered him so much knowing the pain that you were reminded of because of how stupid and disrespectful a person can be.

"Y/N is such a sweetheart, such a kind soul and I'm not going to sit here and let you take advantage of that for fucking views or clicks or whatever the fuck you were trying to gain from this. Even the fact that you're trying to gain something from someone's trauma, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Tom was aware that maybe the camera was still rolling, and that this could go out to the internet and make him look like an asshole but he could careless, he wasn't in the wrong. He was so fed up with these so called journalists who only care about clickbaity headlines and drama filled stories for good profit more than delivering the actual truth of the story. If they cross a line, then they need to be put back in place, especially when it's affecting someone who he cares so much about.

Before Tom could add another word Harry butted in. "Tom—"

"I'm not yet done here Harry." The older brother grumbled, eyes still glued on Jim who was looking everywhere but at him.

"She needs you."

That was all it took for Tom to calm back down, shooting Harry a nod and standing up from his place. But before leaving, he gave Jim one last pointed look.

"We do these interviews to talk about our craft, not our personal life. People's private lives are none of your business. It's not yours to meddle with, not yours to gain profit from. If you can't seem to understand that simple logic then you're just a dumb dickhead."

With that, Tom followed Harry outside the room, his heart shattering once he saw you sat on a chair, head hanging low as your body still raked with sobs, slight guilt consuming him for not being with you sooner.

Tom rushed in front of you, crouching down as he tried to search for your eyes.

"Darling, hey, it's me, look at me." He coed, hands gently cupping your face to make you look up, his worry ever growing to see your eyes still screwed shut, tears endlessly flowing down your cheeks, chest heaving fast as you try to take a hold of your breath.

"Open those beautiful eyes for me baby, look at me." Slowly, you willed yourself to open your eyes, meeting brown orbs filled with nothing but concern, though the familiar gaze made you felt calmer, safer.

Gently, Tom took both your hands and pressed it, palms flat on his chest, a reassuring smile on his lips as he whispered. "Breathe with me angel. In and out, breathe in through the nose, and out of the mouth. That's it darling." He repeated over and over, his tone kind, patient.

You followed Tom's soft voice, never breaking his gaze that was grounding you back to earth, the feeling of the steady beat of his heart against your palm, slowing down the fast pace of your own heart.

Once you felt calmer, a little more collected, You leaned forward as you wrapped your arms around him, face buried on the crook of his neck with small sobs.

"I'm right here. You're safe." Tom muttered against your hair, hand rubbing up and down your back comfortingly, his embrace warm and secure, his arms your safe place, he was your safe place.

"Thank you." You whispered against his skin with a sniffle, Tom giving you a gentle squeeze in response.

"I've got you, always."

Hearing those words filled you up with warmth, filling you up with reassurance knowing that you could always count on him, that you'll always have him, no matter what, and you'll forever be grateful for that.

Pulling away slightly, Tom flashed you a sweet, reassuring smile, placing a soft peck on your lips before speaking. "Let's go back to our room yeah? I'll run you a warm bath, we'll watch any movie you want, then pizza and ice cream for dinner. Sounds good?"

You nodded with a small smile of your own, Tom standing up fully and offering you both his hands to hold, which you took gladly as he helped you back up your feet, keeping you close by his side as you walked back to your room.

With his arm over your shoulder you leaned your weight on him. Not afraid to lean all your trust on him, all your love because you know, with every fibre of your being, in the deepest depths of your heart and soul:

He's got you, always.

-:-:-:-:-

Like, Reblog & Leave a Comment if you enjoyed! Tell me your thoughts! <3

Tom H. Taglist: @spacebitch2​ @hollanddolanfangirl @keepingupwiththehollands @hollandstea

[bmo-galaxy]

sns, prompt: reincarnation, waiting, soulmates

There's always been a yearning in him. A drive that sets his blood on fire and clouds his brain with determination. Some invisible force that pushes him toward... something. Sasuke thinks it's jealousy of his elder brother.

Itachi was always the favorite, the focus, the one set up to take over in their father's stead. Focused, intelligent, determined, capable; Itachi was everything Sasuke yearned to be and strove to emulate.

For most of his life, Sasuke assumed it was this jealousy, this borderline hatred, that set the fire in his gut. It felt good, satisfying, right to work in an effort to best the elder Uchiha. Each step he took toward his goal soothed and spurred on that fire.

He excels in school, but in different subjects than his brother. He keeps busy with numerous sports and clubs, but different activities than Itachi did. While they both graduate valedictorian, Sasuke's is by a smaller margin than Itachi's had been.

In the end, Sasuke is never quite good enough for his father. The patriarch judges him harshly and scolds him severely. The comparisons between the brother's are never ending. It sets Sasuke's teeth on edge and spurs him on further, hardening his determination to get ahead.

Not wanting to simply follow in Itachi's footsteps, Sasuke chooses a different college than the elder raven's alma mater. It irritates his father but for some reason, the simmering flames in his blood seem to delight in this decision.

The buzzing anticipation and impatience, something he so long tied to his brother, urges and encourages his choice. His usually turbulent soul settles when he sends in his application and is overjoyed when he's accepted. The yearning grows, filling his lungs and chest and heart.

'One step closer to besting you, brother,' he thinks as he stares at the acceptance letter in his hands. It feels right and wrong all in the same thought, the same breath. Is that why he's going? Wasn't there something... something else... No, this was his lifelong goal.

That goal is the only reason he picked this school. That goal is all that matters and all that's ever mattered. Right? Right. And as soon as he did it, as soon as he won, this persistent and anxious fire in his core would finally settled. The yearning would ease. Right?

In a few months time, Sasuke leaves for school. Those months are confusing and disorienting, punctuated by moments of pause. Why this school again? Oh, yes, something is there. Something is waiting. Something.... something... No. Just his goals, just his chance to gain power.

The day he leaves is frustrating. The relentless burning in his soul won't ease enough for him to breath properly, leading his voice to waver when he spoke. It's so distracting that even his father's scathing scolds can't break through the fog. Sasuke just yearns to get there.

More than he's ever wanted to be anywhere, which is confusing and irrational considering Sasuke's never been to this place before. But it feels like he's returning somewhere important. He tries and fails to attribute it to his determination, his dedication to his goal.

He reasons that it feels like somewhere important because its the stage of his revenge, his chance to beat Itachi. He's off though and he knows it. This feeling is too... something. Sitting on the plane, waiting for touch down and buzzing with anticipation, Sasuke realizes he was wrong.

This frantic, seering need in his chest may overlap with his desire to be better than Itachi, but they aren't one in the same as he had believed. This fire had always been too something, entirely different from his brotherly jealousy even if Sasuke never admitted it. Too big, too consuming, too intense. 

A very part of his soul instead of simply a trait about him. Deep in his chest, buried in his heart, his soul is waiting for something. Not the satisfaction of beating Itachi or the honor of his father's acknowledgement.

While very real parts of him, Sasuke knows they pale in comparison to this wistful longing. A longing that gets stronger the closer he gets to campus. A sleek black car drops him off with his bags and when Sasuke steps out, it almost feels like he's been set ablaze.

That's right, something is waiting. Something is here. Sasuke confirms the rest of his things will be delivered and his father's staff nods. The car pulls away and Sasuke is left with the flames. There's no thought at this point, no decision to make. Where is it? What is it?

Stepping in the first direction that comes to mind, Sasuke walks. The raven keeps himself composed, maintaining a slow pace, even though his heart hammers against his breastbone. He wants to break out into a run, search every corner and crevice. Frankly, he feels insane.

This feeling, this need, this all encompassing desire; all of it feels insane. It doesn't matter though. Sasuke can accept being crazy to sate the fire and soothe the burning. His feet carry him to a large, stone building that he assumes is a library. It's a book?

Sasuke finds himself disappointed without really knowing the reason why. Climbing the steps into the cool, dimly lit library, Sasuke looks around slowly. Nothing jumps out or calls to him, the flames don't change.

Feeling foolish and frustrated now, Sasuke stalks down a random aisle and grits his teeth. 'This is stupid and foolish and insane.' Sasuke keeps walking. 'Silly to lose sight of my goal over a silly feeling.' Sasuke keeps walking. 'Nothing is waiting, there's only my goal.'

Sasuke keeps walking until he turns a corner into a brightly lit grouping of tables. Sunlight comes in from big bay windows, casting the area in a hazy glow. Sasuke comes to a halt, breath leaving him all at once. The tables aren't empty.

In a long ray of sun, glowing and ethereal, is a single person. Blonde, tan, muscular but lean. Tattoos peak out from under his shirt sleeve and his nails are painted a bright shade of green. Chin in his palm, the man peaks at him slowly.

Blue eyes, deep as seas and sparkling like sunshine on the ocean, stare at him fondly. The kind of fondness that speaks of deep connections, long histories, ancient love. Sasuke is ablaze, burning to his core. From head to toe, the yearning begs him to walk toward this man. 

Sasuke resists, staring, guarded. Is this...? Could this be...? The flames are insistent and wild, the yearning in his soul sharp and aching. It has to be... Sasuke’s lips part, he barely whispers, “Are you--” when the blonde speaks louder. 

Tan cheeks stretch as the man smiles, a dazzling and earnest smile, showing off a dimple on each cheek. Sasuke wants to kiss them and the thought leaves him reeling. 

“Kept me waiting long enough, bastard,” the blonde stranger teases lightly, expression warm with mirth. Something lurches in Sasuke’s gut, something powerful and deeply buried. 

“You know me,” Sasuke says in a faint voice. It’s almost a question. Naruto tips his head to the side and those sapphire eyes are sad for a moment. Sasuke longs to help but falls short knowing how. This man is a stranger. Right?

A knowing, sweet smile spreads over the blonde’s lips now. The fondness in his eyes, which cases away the sorrow, makes Sasuke feel seen and loved; his heart trembles in his chest. The breaking point is coming, Sasuke can’t burn like this for much longer. 

“I do know you, Sasuke. For a really long time, actually.” It takes hearing his name from those sweet lips for the flames to settle. As it recedes into his soul and settles into his bones, the fire leaves behind memories from long ago. Memories with this man. Naruto. 

Naruto can tell when Sasuke realizes. The wistful fondness gives way to infectious excitement and overwhelming affection. Sasuke feels ready to collapse, every fiber of his being feels weak. 

It’s strange, almost empty, without that constant desire in his gut. Every single bit of him feels like it’s shifted slightly, warped, changed in an irreversible way. No less himself, no less Sasuke Uchiha, just weighed down by an entire lifetime of memories. 

Naruto approaches slowly, almost cautiously, arms bent behind his head and face open, earnest. “Its weird, right? I cried when it happened. My folks thought I was finally lost it for real.” 

Sasuke chuckles, sounding hoarse. “When did you find out?” This is almost too wild to accept, too insane to even contemplate. How could this be real? How could he be so lucky, so fortunate, so deserving as to get another lifetime with Naruto?

“When I was eleven. Your family is a big deal, I saw a picture of you on TV. I’d always been really, like, restless, ya know?” And yes, yes, Sasuke understood because he’d been feeling that same thing up until five minutes ago. 

“I saw you and that anxious feeling disappeared, but then the memories came. I told my folks I had a headache and wanted to go home. Been waiting ever since.” Another easy, beautiful, breathtaking smile. It’s been a lifetime since Sasuke saw it. 

Sasuke marvels, astonished and speechless. “Why didn’t you ever reach out? You were pretty relentless about that in the past.” It’s unbelievable how easy it is to talk to Naruto. How natural. How comfortable. A lifetime has gone by but it feels like only moments. 

Naruto shrugs, eyes just as glued to Sasuke as Sasuke’s are to him. Blue travels over his face and along his figure, taking in every detail. Just as mesmerized, just as awestruck. It makes Sasuke feel smug, proud, to know that he still commands Naruto’s attention after all this time. 

“I was scared. I didn’t know if you remembered. I didn’t know if you wanted to remember. I...” When Naruto trails off, Sasuke knows what he’s thinking. Knows what Naruto has carried in his heart all these years. 

I didn’t want to see you happy without me. I didn’t want you to choose not to remember. I didn’t want you to regret remembering. I didn’t want to lose you again. 

Dropping his bags, Sasuke closes the distance between them. Steady hands rise to cradles Naruto warm, dimpled cheeks. Without a breath of hesitation, Sasuke kisses his soulmate soundly. The blonde responds immediately, wrapping his arms around Sasuke’s waist and pulling him in tight. Kissing back with the same passion and adoration. 

You won’t be an Uchiha and I won’t be a jinchuriki. We can finally understand each other in the next world. 

When they pull away and Sasuke watches Naruto’s pretty blue eyes flutter open, everything feels right with the world. The stars seem to align and the air stills and it’s just the two of them bathed in sunlight. Naruto gazes into Sasuke’s dark eyes endearingly, misty tears gathering on the edges. 

“Sorry for making you wait. I supposed I lost,” Sasuke murmurs, cracking a small smile and pressing his forehead to Naruto’s. It’s addicting being able to hold him, touch him, embrace him as he’s longed to for lifetimes. Everything he’d yearned for, everything he wants. 

Naruto smiles, sweet and teasing, with vibrant blue eyes that shine. “Better late than never.” Sasuke chuckles, shakes his head in disbelief, and bends to kiss the infuriating blonde again. 

fin~

[scathecraw]

BBRae Week 2021 - Day 1: Unconventional Kiss

Raven had been dancing around the issue for weeks now, and both she and Gar knew it. There had been a few near misses after a date gone well, a few breathless close calls during training, and one precipitous moment in the kitchen that fell apart when the smoke detector signaled their distraction.

They had been good dates. Very good dates, to be quite honest. Raven had expected that they would go nearly that well, and that had been why she had held off for so long. With all the emotional vulnerability and insightful talks and fantastic company and so many other things that came with dating someone you had been attracted to for years, she knew that the other shoe would drop, and she would have to just plunge in headfirst. And Gar had been patient – he wasn’t one to rush, especially with her. But he wanted it. And, god help her, she wanted it, too.

A perfect first kiss. The First Kiss, for both of them, hung up on each other for so long that they had never made any real attempts to find anyone else. Kori’s magazines had promised that the first kiss was always awkward and had to be refined by, hrm,repeated practice, but that was only a small part of the fear that gripped Raven when she thought of actually, really putting lips to lips.

It wasn’t Gar. She fully expected him to be just as bad as she was for a while (and likely longer given how quick she could pick things up). It wasn’t even what might… come after. Not as such. It was just… just… it was Important. Capital “I” Important – that things go well. Despite the promise of a bad first kiss by seemingly everyone who had ever kissed, it had to go right. Too wet or too dry, wrong head tilt, wrong duration, whatever – but she wanted to kiss him and do it over and over again and what if he didn’t want to or what if there was no chemistry or what if she sneezed or got so nervous she vomited or any number of things that would, according to all her latest nightmares, put him off wanting her the way she wanted him.

And he seemed so damn blithe about it. Like he couldn’t be less worried, even though she had felt his pulse race and could practically hear his internal monologue turning into a full blown soliloquy. He had that placid smile and those sparkling eyes and smelled like warmth and pine and it was so stupid how he wouldn’t just admit how nervous he was so they could be nervous together.

No, she had to be the mature one and feel all the butterflies for them both. She could practically hear his corny joke about never getting butterflies because he was vegetarian. Stupid Gar and stupid kissing.

It would happen. She would make it happen. And it wouldn’t be perfect, or probably even a very good kiss, but it would be right. Eventually.

____

There was an awful lot of noise and fleeing civilians for an evening out, even at the pier.

Nightwing sighed from atop his favorite ride at the boardwalk, the Ferris Wheel, as he retrieved his communicator and alerted the team. “Titans, we’ve got work to do. Something big is causing trouble at the east entrance. Star and I are on our way and will meet you there.” With that, he stood up in the precariously rocking carriage and Starfire lifted him by the arms, taking off in the direction of the disturbance. Cyborg, heretofore incognito on a date, immediately excused himself and waded through the crowds, shedding his holo-disguise. He was alerted to his passing teammates by a green blur, and called out to Raven as she passed, asking for a ride on one of her ink-black levitating discs. She obliged and they took off after Changeling’s racing avian form.

Gar was the fastest one to respond in these situations. Superhuman reactions and mobility got him to the trouble faster than any of his teammates, and he was proud of it. It meant that he was the first one to  engage the enemy, which was a dangerous gambit when he didn’t know what the enemy was, but someone had to be first on the line when every second was a danger to innocent people. In this case, it was more an annoyance than any real threat. Kitten was throwing a very public and destructive temper tantrum, as she tended to do within a few weeks of release/escape.

Her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Fang, was nearby and suffering the brunt of the auditory assault while a swarm of mutated grubs ate their way through stalls and prizes alike. Kitten was waving the control device as she gesticulated wildly, and the chance to end the whole debacle in one fell swoop was too tempting.

Without waiting for backup or giving away his presence, Changeling darted forward as a seagull, beak agape as he neared the remote. He had timed it perfectly, if not for Fang’s suddenly outstretched spiderleg. The blow sent him tumbling into a pile of cheap stuffed animals and he transformed back into himself. The arguing couple immediately turned their ire on him without ever stopping their argument.

“And now look what you’ve done! Your stupidity got this idiot involved! Why couldn’t you just win me a stupid teddy bear like a normal boyfriend?” Kitten raged as she hammered at the controller, causing the grubs to turn their attention towards the dazed and prone Changeling. Fang launched webbing at him, working at cross purposes as the grubs and giving Changeling just enough time to roll out of the way.

“This is not my fault. You know these games are rigged! Why would I give the money I stole to these scam artists?”

“Because you are supposed to! It’s what boyfriends do! They do stupid stuff because I want you TO!” Kitten screamed and threw her remote onto the ground where it cracked and fizzled. Instead of the expected de-metamorphosis from vicious gnawing grubs to harmless caterpillars, there was a rumbling from deep inside the snack stall and a mass exodus of larvae from the vicinity. Gar had just gotten to his feet when a much larger, toothier, and more armored wriggler burst from the shoddy wooden confines, writhing and shrieking even more shrilly than Kitten, and headed directly towards her and Fang in a headlong charge.

Apparently Kitten’s shouting was enough to distract both of them from their imminent death by squirming tank, and Changeling had to make a tough split-second decision – let them suffer the consequences of their own stupidity, or put himself in harm’s way to save them.

It wasn’t much of a choice. Leaping forward, he transformed into a rhino, a fast moving locomotive of heavy armor and muscle and slammed headfirst into the tank sized larva, diverting it and being whipped aside by the unexpected followthrough of the tail end of the grub.

Raven’s disk touched down just in time to see his head collide with a thick support post that held up the boardwalk, and the sounds of argument fell silent as Kitten and Fang wordlessly assessed the situation and fled. Cyborg called out “Get B. I’ll get the worm,” and launched after the creature.

Raven raced to Garfield’s side, seeing the heavy gash and road rash from sliding across the wood. She assessed him as quickly as possible, noting the broken ribs, bleeding, and, most concerning, the lack of breathing. She channeled her power, reaching her soulself into the unmoving shapeshifter on the ground, and urgently repaired his most vital injuries.

The head wound would wait, they always bled more and looked worse than they were. First the broken ribs, eased out and stabilized enough to hold for a little while. Then the badly punctured lung. As the trapped air was removed and the hole patched, she expected him to cough, sit up, and make a dumb joke. Instead he just lay there, silent. His pulse was fine, and there was no reason for him to be so still.

She did all the steps that the Titans’ first aid training laid out for her, making sure his airway was clear, no pressure preventing his breathing or hidden wounds that would cause more damage, then started mouth to mouth.

It only took a few breaths, as if his body had simply not realized for some seconds that he was able to breathe normally again, before the first unassisted rasps began. Raven let out a sob of relief, feeling like his breath resuming was directly connected to her own oxygen. She continued healing him, clearing his head of blood and strengthening the broken ribs before his eyes opened with a groan.

“Did ya get the license of that truck that hit me?” he said, weakly.

Raven nearly hit him. “That was by far the stupidest thing I have ever seen you do. What were you thinking, charging in like that?”

“Aww c’mon, Rae. I had ta’. And I’m sure you’ve seen me do stupider things.”

“None of them had you puncture a lung and stop breathing, you fool. You didn’t need emergency resuscitation when you tried to do a standing backflip.” A jolt of power zapped him with an icicle of cold to the chest, and he coughed.

“At least I stuck the landing this time, heh. I think I can sit up. Thanks for fixing me up, Doctor Rae.”

She glared, and kept glaring as Nightwing checked in. Fang and Kitten had been apprehended almost peacefully by him and Starfire, and Cyborg had incapacitated the grub easily. She reported the situation, not once taking her eyes off her idiot of a boyfriend.

He rolled to his feet, only a little gingerly, and retrieved the broken pieces of the remote control for Cyborg to repair and reverse the changes to the swarm.

As he stooped down to pick up the last pieces, he stopped, and a look of realization dawned on him.

“Wait, you gave me CPR? Like, mouth-to-mouth?”

“Of course. You weren’t breathing and you needed oxygen before any working brain cells died.”

“Y’know,” he said, sitting back down beside her, “I think that counts as our first kiss.”

Raven went still. It couldn’t. It wasn’t even a kiss, it was legitimate medical treatment. But then again, it wasn’t very good, it was at a weird angle, and there was even the terrible fear that she’d vomit out of worry. It checked all the boxes for the perfect terrible first kiss.

He interrupted her musing, “Too bad I don’t remember it. Maybe we could see if trying again might jog some memories.” He reached his arm across her shoulders, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh shut up,” she said, and pulled him in for a completely butterfly-free second first kiss.

AO3 FF.net

[noona-clock]

The Dog Walker

Genre: Dog Walker!AU

Pairing: Hanbin x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 | Words: 2,022

You gasped softly when you glanced at your watch and saw what time it was.

If you had waited even a few seconds longer, you would have missed it.

But, as it was, you still had some time. So, you leaped out of your chair and dashed to the window in the front room of your townhouse, using two fingers to widen the slot between the blinds as inconspicuously as you could.

Your gaze shifted as far down the sidewalk as your window would allow, and when you saw the small, brown dog rounding the corner, your stomach flipped over itself.

Because the small, brown dog meant that he would follow.

And, sure enough, barely a second after you saw the dog -- whom you had named Teddy in your mind since he looked like a little teddy bear -- there he was.

You had no idea who he was. You didn’t know a name, an age, a location, a personality -- nothing. The only things you knew about this guy were that he was a dog walker, he took the same route every day, and he was somehow incredibly cute and incredibly handsome at the same time.

His dark hair that fell over his forehead just right. His slightly rounded cheeks that were just so pinchable. His square jawline and chin that added the perfect touch of sexiness to his face. His full lips that screamed to be kissed (not that you would kiss him because you didn’t know him, but boy did you imagine it). His straight nose that fit perfectly amongst his features.

And his eyes.

Oh my lord, those eyes.

They were never focused directly on you, of course, but you had caught enough glimpses of them to know that if they ever were... you would most likely faint on the spot.

But it wasn’t just his face that made him so captivating and alluring. The way he dressed was so effortless but so cool. And the way he walked kind of made it seem like he was a bumbling idiot but also like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Plus, as he’d passed your window one day, you’d heard him talking to the dog he was walking and it had almost made your heart beat right out of your chest.

It had sounded like he’d been having a full-on conversation with Teddy, and his tone of voice had been just about the cutest thing you’d ever heard.

If you ever did meet this guy in real life, you weren’t sure you would survive. And if you did, you certainly would never see or talk to him again because you would undoubtedly act like such a fool that he would stay as far away from you as he possibly could.

So... best to never even meet him. Or go outside to get your mail as he walked past.

You pressed your lips together, holding your breath as the guy and Teddy approached your window. Some days, it seemed like they were both walking in slow motion and you had all the time in the world to admire your dream man. Other days, it seemed like someone had pushed the fast forward button and the whole thing was over in the blink of an eye.

Today, blessedly, was a slow motion day.

Your forehead wrinkled as he loped down the sidewalk, his stride casual but purposeful. You bit back a squeal when you saw his mouth moving, murmuring some unknown words to Teddy (or whatever the dog’s actual name was).

And your eyes followed him like your life depended on it. As if you would actually cease to exist if you stopped watching him for even a millisecond.

And then, a few moments later, just the same as every other day... he was gone. He turned the corner at the other end of your block and vanished.

It was the highlight of your day, and yes, this was all incredibly concerning and upsetting. You were fawning over a guy you had literally never met. Literally never spoken one single word to. Literally did not even know you existed! And yet your heart began to hammer when you knew he was coming, and it sank when he was no longer visible from your window.

It was kind of like he was a celebrity you fangirled over... except he was just a normal guy. A dog walker. One who presumably lived in the same town. 

But he was definitely as handsome as a celebrity!

...Still, though. You knew if you ever told anyone about this daily routine of yours -- about your secret crush on a guy whose name you didn’t even know -- they would judge you. Harshly. And for a long time. Probably until you stopped spying on him as he went about his work.

So... you never told anyone. You didn’t even talk about it out loud to yourself. You didn’t write anything in your journal, either! This whole situation was something you would take to your grave.

With a soft sigh of disappointment, you let go of your blinds, turned on your heel, and shuffled back to your computer. It was right smack-dab in the middle of your work day, after all, and now that you’d had your daily fix of Cute Dog Walker Guy... it was time to come back to reality.

You know how some people get into a very specific routine but they can’t even remember how that routine came about? Like, it just sort of happened one day and then it stuck and now it seems like it’s just always been a part of their life.

That’s not how it was with your routine.

You remembered exactly how it had first happened -- every little detail. Partly because you had the memory of an elephant and were extremely observant, but also because... I mean, how could you forget the first time you saw...

Was it too dramatic to say ‘the man of your dreams’?

Maybe?

Okay, fine, I’ll just say this: How could you forget the first time you saw Cute Dog Walker Guy?

Close enough.

It had all gone down about two months ago, on a Wednesday. You had just finished a particularly long, particularly stressful project at work, and you had stepped away from your home desk for a limb stretch and a brain break. And probably a snack. 

The sun had been streaming in through the blinds, and you’d had a thought to go and open them, wanting to soak up a bit of vitamin D after being cooped up inside the entire morning.

And then you’d heard the barking.

If anything could put a smile on your otherwise grouchy face, it was a cute dog. And since you were the type of person to think just about any dog was cute, you scurried over to your window and, rather than pulling on the cord to lift the blinds up, you simply peeked through two of them to see if you could spot this yippy friend.

And, sure enough, you caught him trotting around the corner just in time.

You’d thought seeing this adorably fluffy brown dog would be the highlight of your day... but then the person walking him had come into view.

Basically, you’d known instantly that you were a goner.

The day after, you’d kept an ear and an eye out for both the dog and the dog walker, and much to your surprise and gratitude, you’d been rewarded. 

And again the next day, and the day after, and the day after.

At first, you’d thought the fluffy brown dog belonged to him, but there were some days when he was joined by a scruffy tan dog and other days when he was joined by a smooth gray dog -- both of them so cute you thought your heart might burst. So, you had eventually come to the conclusion that he was a dog walker.

Many times, you had been tempted to try and look him up by searching for dog walking services in your area. But, somehow, you’d resisted.

First of all, you kind of enjoyed the mystery. Second of all, you didn’t have a dog, so there was really nothing you could do with any information you found on him besides stalk him on social media.

You already spied on the guy every single day. Wasn’t that enough?

Your plan was really just to continue waiting and watching as he walked by your townhouse for as long as he chose to walk by your townhouse. If he ever decided to take a different route, then... you would just move on, I guess? Maybe try to actually meet someone you might be interested in dating?

That sounded like a pretty solid plan.

But, as we all know, life very rarely ever goes according to plan. I mean, the instant any one of us thinks we’ve come up with a pretty solid plan, The Universe simply shakes its head and laughs.

Instead of watching Cute Dog Walker Guy go past your window every day, admiring him from afar and daydreaming about your life together, wondering how much time you had left to watch and admire and daydream...

Well, I might as well just stop trying to explain and actually tell you what happened.

It was Monday. You were slightly depressed because the weekend had been far too short, and honestly, who decided that a workweek should be five days long, anyway? You’d barely caught up on your sleep over the past two days, and now you were expected to work again? For five days straight? It wasn’t at all fair, and along with being slightly depressed, you were incredibly distracted.

Really, you were sitting at your desk waiting for Cute Dog Walker Guy time rather than actually even trying to work.

But such is life!

And when the time finally arrived, you were ready. You pushed your chair away from your desk, stood up, and tiptoed over to your window with a hopeful smile tugging at your lips.

Almost immediately after you peeked through your blinds, though, you knew something was different.

Instead of hearing the jingling tags of Teddy’s collar, you heard... yelling?

“No, no, no, stop!”

...That didn’t sound good.

Your eyes darted around, trying to see what could be causing Cute Dog Walker Guy (at least, you assumed it was him) to call out like this. And when your gaze finally landed on a squirrel scampering around on the sidewalk and climbing up up a stop sign, you couldn’t help but let out an amused giggle.

Finally, Teddy turned the corner, and he was joined by a brand new dog you’d never seen before -- a dark brown brindle dog who was tugging at his leash and hunting the squirrel as if his life depended on it.

Cute Dog Walker Guy stumbled behind, his brow furrowed deeply as he continued to call out after the dog, desperately attempting to get things under control.

Attempting... and failing.

The squirrel hunter had, apparently, tuned out everything in the world around him so he could focus on his prey and was now jumping up the stop sign pole and barking.

“No, please, be quiet!” Cute Dog Walker Guy pleaded.

The squirrel then jumped from the stop sign onto the trash can at the corner, and Squirrel Hunter leaped after him.

Cute Dog Walker Guy yelped as the dog yanked him forward, both leashes getting tangled up in the stop sign and the trash can.

And then Cute Dog Walker Guy fell to the ground.

Your eyes widened and your mouth fell open slightly, a soft but strangled yelp of concern emerging from your lips.

Oh, god.

What should you do?

I mean, obviously, your instinct was to run outside and help him! He was now sprawled on the ground, trying to keep hold of the two leashes while one dog was still wildly jumping and whining toward the squirrel.

But... wouldn’t that be weird?! If you just immediately showed up to help him?! He would know you’d been watching!

Although, maybe he wouldn’t care? I mean, it really looked like he needed help.

But what if --

“Owwww -- stop! Stop it!”

At hearing Cute Dog Walker Guy’s moan of pain, you fled from your window and skidded to the front door.

Part 2

[halynra]

At Last

DenkixReaderxvoyeur!Mineta

All Characters have been aged up to their mid 20′s

tw: slight dubcon, voyeurism, and bondage in the beginning. Oh, and FLUFF!

Minoru was sadistic, it’s something that, once you had discovered these sides of each other, he never bothered to hide. Sure, there was the odd night every so often when you two switched roles and you got to watch the delicious way he came unraveled beneath your gaze. But most nights, he was ruthless. It was how you found yourself naked, stuck to the bed with no chance at escape, and wearing a forced orgasm belt with tears streaming down your face, since he had left you to go do a quick patrol. Your legs were shaking, your clit was on fire, the sheets beneath you were soaked, and every fiber of your body was straining against the devilish purple balls that kept you “chained” to the bed.

When you heard the door handle to your chic, high-rise studio loft start to jiggle relief flooded your veins, your torture was soon to be over! But that floating feeling of relief was quickly replaced with ice when you heard, “Hey, Mienta! I forgot my doujin here last night…” Kaminari started and trailed off, looking to the puddle between your shivering legs, his eyes fixated on your sopping pussy; his yellow eyes met your embarrassed ones as you reluctantly moan around the ball Mineta stuck in your mouth to keep you silent.

For Kaminari this was like a dream come true; he couldn’t begin to count the amount of times he’d pictured you like this, he’d never do anything about it though! You were his best friend’s woman! But hearing your muffled moans, watching your cunt twitch and spew forth your sacred fluids as another orgasm flooded your body, it had him straining against his pants in an instant. He moved closer, taking in your flushed chest, before wiping a tear from your face, bringing his finger to his tongue to taste the sinful saltiness of your pain and overwhelming pleasure.

“I’m back, Y/n! Oh, Kaminari, what are you doing here?” came Minoru’s voice, somehow smug and surprised at the same time.

“I forgot my doujin so I came to get it, but I…got distracted.” The blonde man replied, heart hammering a mile a minute. Well, probably still not as fast as yours.

“I can see why. She’s such a good girl, isn’t she? Aren’t you, Y/n?” he said in a condescending tone, reaching down to caress your cheek with his still gloved hand. “Why don’t you take her for a spin, Denki?”

“W-what? No way man! I can’t do that to you.”

“Go for it, I wouldn’t mind.” Mineta says, taking a seat at the desk chair and crossing his legs, eyes cold and calculating.

Denki gulped, he couldn’t believe this was real. He reaches down, fingers shaking in anticipation, to remove the belt and your relief is immediate. His hands sparked as he touched you, sending shockwaves of pleasure through your spent form. He kneels before you, inhaling your intoxicating scent; his tongue reaches out hesitantly, and he moans when he tastes you for the first time.

Your senses are on overload. You’re thankful for the ball in your mouth because you’re screaming, and Denki’s tongue shocking your clit oh so gently had you peaking again quickly.

Your eyes shift to Minoru, searching your boyfriend’s gaze for what, you didn’t even know anymore. “Cum for him, y/n, cum for him and I’ll give you a reward.” That was all it took to break you.

You scream again as you feel two of his fingers slip into you and curl against the spongy bit of your walls, throwing your head back as your body excreted once more. Denki rutted his hips against the bed sheets as his face and hand soaked in your essence, slurping up as much of it as he could. Running the flat of his tongue all along the droplets found on his skin and yours, committing your taste to memory. Your mind was mush, you didn’t even realize that Minoru had come and removed the balls attached to your wrists until his obsidian gaze met your blown out eyes, his bare fingers scraping up the drool running down the side of your chin before removing the ball he stuck between your lips. “Kiss him.” He said, moving back to his place on the chair.

Your exhausted body cracked forward like a whip as your hands cradled the side of Denki’s face, your drool drenched lips meeting his cum flavored ones, slipping your tongue into his mouth as he moaned in surprise; your body’s pressing together for the first time. His shock clearing fast, Denki wrapped his hands around your naked frame, strong fingers digging into your supple flesh, familiarizing himself with every dimple, fold, and curve. The two of you were a mess of moans, losing yourself in the other; his crisp scent permeating your nostrils through the haze, filling your head with visions of tart lemonade and a soothing summer breeze. Your hands slipped under the soft fabric of his shirt, running your nails down his abs, bringing your fingertips higher and higher with each stroke; yearning to feel his hard, naked flesh pressed against your own. “Denki.” You whimpered as he broke the kiss.

“Patience, little one.” Mineta, said suddenly, “Sit.” You reacted on instinct, falling back on your haunches, turning your head to look at your love reclining in the chair. “Nuh-uh. Eyes on him. He’s your world now.”

You turned your eyes back to the charged up man before you, breath catching in your throat when you saw his cock in your face, leaning forward and flicking your tongue along his slit, claiming his precum for yourself. “Can I?” you asked, not bothering to wait for an answer, wrapping your lips around his head and letting out a little whimper.

“Fuck yes, baby. Please!” He groaned, thrusting his hips into your eager mouth, as you began bobbing your head up and down his length. His fingers wound themselves through your hair and tensed, pulling the strands taught against your scalp, causing you to moan around his thick shaft; giving yourself to him more fully as you tried to take more of him down your throat.

Bracing your hands on his thighs, you alternated the strokes of your tongue between swirling your tongue around the head, and flicking your tongue through his slit to gather more of his salty pre for you to savor. The groans and sputters of his hips searing themselves in your memory and filling you with pride. When your eyes met, Denki snapped, giving your hair a rough tug, pulling himself from your mouth. He took his cock in his hand, the other still fisted in your hair as he slapped his rock hard length into your cheek. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about this? How much I wished I could touch you? To see you beneath me like this?” he whispered, as he pushed you onto your back. He buried his face in your neck, pressing reverent and fleeting kisses to the flesh beneath his lips.

“Probably as much as I’ve thought of you.” You whispered back, the one moment of clarity piercing through your lust filled craze.

Denki froze as his body processed what he just heard. There’s no way he wasn’t dreaming. Or maybe he had died. Maybe his last bout with a villain didn’t end in victory like he thought it had. He opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into the junction where your shoulder met your neck, causing you to moan out, your hips bucking up into his as your nails raked down his back; his moan joining yours in filling the room.

Your lips found each other once more, in a stolen moment of tenderness after your whispered confessions.

Mineta smirked as his plan finally same to fruition. He wasn’t an idiot, Denki’s been sweet on you since school, and he could hardly miss the way your eyes softened when you looked at his best friend. It was the same way you looked at him when the two of you finished an intense scene. One filled with devotion and care. Of love. Plus watching you get railed has been something he’s wanted to do from the beginning, and who better to do it than the person he trusted most in the world? He let out a shaky breath as he pumped his cock in time with your thrusts, stifling his moan to not break the magical moment he got to witness.

Denki had moved from your neck to take a pebbled nipple into his mouth, biting down on the tender peak, marking as much of you has he could, hoping to sear this once in a lifetime moment into your skin as he began to coat himself in your slick, not that he’d need to prepare. As he thrust himself between your folds he could feel your pussy clench, trying already to drag him in. He released a shaky breath, and looked straight in your trusting eyes as he slowly pushed forward.

“Fuck.” You whimpered, digging your nails into his shoulders, as he grounded himself in your thigh, the forearm by your head tensing, giving you a view of the veins that ran up and down his lithe form.

“Took the words right out of my mouth, Sunshine.” He grunted as he bottomed out in your pussy, causing your lip to quiver before you let loose another moan. Denki began thrusting in and out of you, slowly but harshly; letting you feel the full brunt of the force he was capable of. He knew he wouldn’t last long, you were his dream girl, and suddenly he was a boy once more; giddy, overexcited, and sprinting toward the finish line. He couldn’t help himself. Your every whimper, every moan, every iteration of “fuck, fuck, fuck” that left your lips whittled away at his resolve to be patient, but it was shattered to pieces when he heard what you said next.

“Denki!” you screamed when his thick cock kissed your cervix, hitting you with a jolt of pain before it faded pleasantly. He let loose a small growl as his hips began snapping forward quicker and quicker. You could feel every drag of his length through your silken walls, every vein and ridge massaging your most sacred spot, driving you deeper and deeper into your manic lust filled lunacy.

“Say my name, say my fucking name!” he groaned, gasping for air, for clarity, raising his hand and bringing it down on the cusp of your ass.

“Thank you!” you cried out, a response trained into you that brought a blush to your cheeks.

Denki stopped.

“Denki, wha-?” you were shocked when he pulled out and flipped you quickly, pulling at your hips until your ass was in the air and your head was down in the sheets. Another spanking rang out in the room. “Thank you!” you cried out, pussy clutching around him in a vice-like grip.

“Is that what you like, Sunshine?”

“More. Please.” Was all you managed. You could feel your mind slipping again, lost to you.

Your blond haired lover alternated his spanking, switching between hard strikes and gentle ones that shocked you in a different way, thrusting rough and fast into your abused pussy as he did. You were breaking, tipping, jumping off the last peak he brought you to, only capable of one long scream as your body seized, your eyes rolling back into your head as you felt Denki’s fingers trailing over your naked flesh, before he fell forward, caging your body with his own as he cried out. You could feel your pussy flood with warmth as he emptied himself into you, making you feel so full and right. His pace sputtered and slowed as he gazed down at you. He couldn’t pull out yet, he couldn’t let this moment end; he lowered his sweat slick torso down onto your trembling back, laving kisses to your salted skin anywhere he could reach.

You whimpered, turning toward him, catching his lips with yours sloppily, unable to keep your eyes open but a lazy smile unwilling to leave your face. Denki sighed, pulling out of your heavenly body, but only so he could twist you around, wanting to feel what it would be like to truly hold you in his arms. It was more perfect than he could have ever imagined.

You were in heaven, blissed out and satisfied beyond belief. You nuzzled your head into the crook of his shoulder, taking shelter in the heat and scent of his body as you began to come back to your own. You felt the bed shift behind you and turned to see your boyfriend kneeling there, and you smiled lovingly up at him. He pressed a kiss to your temple before leaning back against the headboard. “Denki, help lean her up against me, yeah? You don’t have to let her go, but she can’t sit up by herself.”

The two men handled you like a baby, delicately and slowly, as if you could somehow break even more.

“Hey there, little love, can you hear me?” Minoru asked soothingly. All you could manage in response was a low whining noise, eyes focusing up at him.

“Open your mouth for me, you’ve been through a lot, we’ve gotta replenish your body.” He held up a juice box, and you opened your mouth, allowing him to slip the straw between your lips. The sweet apple taste coated your tongue and began bringing your parched mouth back to life. “Slowly, not too much at a time. Here, eat.” He said, replacing the juice box with the tip of a chocolate covered strawberry. “I know nobody gave explicit consent, and we didn’t negotiate worth a damn, so I hope you won’t be too upset with me.”

“Are you kidding? I should be thanking you for this.” Denki said with a chuckle.

“I’m okay.” Came your soft voice from between the two.

“I’m glad, sweetie. Finish this juice now, and then I’ll feed you some more.”

“Yay, snacks.” You cheered weakly.

“You did so well, sweetie, and I love you so much. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be with you. You were so good for Denki.” He whispered, holding you close. “I bet you’ll be excited for next time.”

“Mhmm! Next time!” you nodded happily, popping a brownie bite into your mouth.

“…Next time?” Denki asked.

“We can discuss everything in the morning over breakfast, but I don’t think either of us are opposed to there being a next time. Maybe even a poly relationship, but that is a conversation to have when y/n here isn’t dicked out of her mind.”

“What? Really?” the blond questioned, his mind filled with images of all the things he wanted to do to you, and cherishing the thought of never having to let you go.

“Mhmm.” Mineta responded simply, handing you another juice box and beginning to swaddle you in your favorite blanket. You sighed, absolutely content and warm, overflowing with euphoria and love.

“I love you guys.” You said dreamily, your eyes already closing as your entire body began to sink into the mattress, darkness slowly taking over your field of vision. The last thing you saw was your boyfriend’s loving gaze, and a flash of blond hair before a kiss was pressed to your forehead.

“We love you too.” Came their quiet voices next to your ear as they snuggled into your soft body, adrift on dreams of fantasies soon to see the light of day.

[hansols-yoda-boxers]

CNS Spin Off - Sweetness - Finale

Lee Seokmin x Chou Tzuyu

Word Count: 1620

Seokmin’s hands were sweating. And his arms. And his legs. He was pretty sure every part of him was sweating which was not at all ideal because he really wanted to look and smell nice. He had spent the whole last week planning out this date to make it perfect. He got the food, he’d readied one of the guitars, he was currently hoping the whole sky didn’t cloud over. It was partially covered, above them, but off in the distance the horizon was not. They would still be able to see the sunset.

He hoped.

Despite his nerves, as Tzuyu approached down the path a big smile broke out across his face. He didn’t know if she liked wearing dresses. Most people didn’t wear them at camp, they weren’t the most practical clothing choice. But she had apparently packed one and broken it out for the occasion.

And she looked stunning.

“You- You’re- That’s really- It’s v-very- Pretty.” He finally managed. Tzuyu giggled and he felt lucky for the thousandth time that she found his floundering so endearing.

“Seokmin,” she said, taking a hold of his hands. “You don’t have to be nervous. It’s just me.”

Seokmin didn’t think in a million years he could ever explain why “just me” was such an understatement. Just her. Only her. How could it ever be?

“I’ll try,” he said. “Follow me.”

Tzuyu kept a hold on his hand as he led her down the path. It wasn’t far where he’d set up and soon they came to a little clearing along the lake. Tzuyu let out a little gasp at his set up. He had a small barbeque to cook for them, he’d laid out blankets and the guitar and pillows to sit on. He’s brought a picnic basket full of food. Very carefully, he’d lit candles and placed them around the edge of the blanket.

“I-I had to ask Seungcheol if we even had candles,” Seokmin mumbled. “S-So some of them are different sizes o-or they were burned once or twice before. I know it’s not-”

“It’s perfect,” she smiled. She let go of his hand before excitedly running over, settling herself on a pillow.

Seokmin followed her. He settled next to her and she scooched closer to him as he set a fire in the barbeque before putting two patties on to cook.

“This is such a nice spot,” she hummed.

“I looked around to find one. I know we come through here a lot but I still thought it would be good for a d-date,” His voice was a little small. He knew it was a date but something in the back of his brain kept telling him he had misunderstood. That she wouldn’t want to go on a real date with him.

“It’s a beautiful spot for a date,” she said. “We can nearly see the sunset.”

“Y-Yeah,” he wasn’t sure if he wanted to spoil his plans for later just yet. “It’s a good view.”

Seokmin reached for the picnic basket he’d brought, pulling it closer to them. Tzuyu let out a small gasp when she looked inside at the food he’d brought.

“How did you get all this?!”

“I’m really nice to the cook staff,” he mumbled. “A-And I bribed Shinwon for some stuff.” He reached around in the basket, pulling out a small pack of cookies.

“H-Here.”

“You-” Tzuyu looked incredibly touched. “Did you remember I said these were my favourites?”

“Of course I did,” he grinned. “How could I forget?”

“It’s such a silly little fact,” she said, taking the cookies.

“Not to me,” he said. “Nothing about you is silly. U-Unless you’re trying to be silly. If you make a joke of course I’ll laugh, I-I just meant-”

Seokmin fell silent as Tzuyu pressed a kiss on his cheek.

“You’re so thoughtful.” She said.

“I-I-I try,” he mumbled, unable to stop the smile that was breaking out across his face.

“You are,” she said. “You put so much thought into this. You made it so pretty. You didn’t have to do all of this for me.”

“Of course I did,” he chuckled. “How could I not? Of course I put in a lot of effort for you. I like you so much.”

Tzuyu smiled at him, taking his hand and squeezing it. “I like you so much, too.”

“I-” Seokmin stopped, the smile starting to fall from his face as he looked over at the barbeque, the smell of burning coming from the patties. He quickly flipped them over and let out a whine when he saw they were burnt to a crisp on the bottom.

“Oh no.”

Tzuyu just giggled. “It’s alright. There’s lots of other snacks in the picnic basket.”

“Yeah,” Seokmin sighed. “I’m really sorry, I should have been paying attention.”

“I don’t mind so much when you were distracted talking to me,” she said a little shyly.

Seokmin turned off the grill and they turned to the basket. He tried to put the slip up out of his mind. It wasn’t the end of the world but it wasn’t his planning either. He tried not to kick himself for it but talking to Tzuyu helped. As they ate the snacks and fruit that he had brought they talked about their plans for the school year and favourite things and any topic that came to mind. 

As the sun sank lower and they finished eating he thought he ought to move onto his next plan.

“I know we both like music,” he said, grabbing the guitar. “So I wanted to play something for you.”

“What song is it?” She asked excitedly.

“I-It’s uh- I kind of wrote it?” He said.

“You wrote me a song?” Tzuyu gave him the sweetest look as he nodded with a bashful grin. He liked that she was excited but it made him even more nervous. Tzuyu shifted onto her knees, smiling and bouncing a little as Seokmin checked the tuning. Even though he had tuned it already the weather had it out of tune again. He turned the tuning pins, listening to the notes and fixing each one until he got to the high E string. He twisted it a little tighter to tune it.

There was a loud “Twang!” as the string snapped.

Seokmin’s jaw fell open as he looked at the guitar, some sense of betrayal filling him, as if it was the guitar’s fault.

Tzuyu giggled. “I think the guitar got stage fright.”

At least she was good natured about it. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, I guess the strings are a little old.”

“You know, my mother says bad things come in threes.”

Seokmin looked up at her in fear. “Don’t say that!” He hissed, as if the universe was eavesdropping. “Only two bad things have happened.”

“It’s okay,” she giggled. “So far it hasn't ruined anything.”

Seokmin nodded, more to reassure himself than anything, as he set the guitar aside. They closed up the basket and he helped Tzuyu to her feet, taking the time to put out the candles before leading her away from the clearing a little.

“Are we watching the sunset?” She asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know we’ve done it before.”

“It’s something I’ll never get tired of,” she said.

Seokmin led her to the edge of the water with a pretty view across the lake. They settled on a rock, peering at the sun on the horizon. Though the sky above was getting darker with clouds, the far horizon was still clear enough to see the sun setting.

Tzuyu squeezed his hand and reached across herself to hold onto his arm. She leaned into him, snuggling into his shoulder and it made his heart leap. A few things had screwed up but maybe it wasn’t so bad. This moment was good. This moment was nearly perfect.

Seokmin started as he felt something drop on his nose. Then something else on his arm. He looked up at the clouds with a frown.

“Did you feel that?”

Tzuyu looked at him. “What was it?”

Seokmin stood up. “It felt like rain.” He stuck out his arms, gazing up at the sky as a few more drops fell on him.

“We should probably-” The words on his tongue were washed away as the heavens opened up. Rain poured down on him as he stood there stunned, mouth agape as he looked over at Tzuyu who had also been drenched in the sudden onslaught.

Tzuyu took one look at him and let out a laugh. A full, proper, howling laugh that made him chuckle a little at the absurdity of it all. Tzuyu got up, still laughing and came over to him.

“So this is thing number three,” he sighed.

“I guess so.” Even in the rain her smile was dazzling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Things have gone all wrong this evening. I really wanted this to be perfect for you. It turned into such a disaster.”

Tzuyu shook her head with a giggle, cupping his cheeks. “It’s not a disaster.”

“Tzuyu,” he said. “I burned the food, the guitar broke, and now we’re both soaked. How can it-”

Tzuyu cut him off as she pressed her lips to his in a sweet kiss. Seokmin stood stunned for a moment as his heart hammered in his chest, taking a moment or so to relax and kiss her back, his hands grabbing her waist.

“It’s perfect because I’m with you.” She murmured. “I love hearing you talk, Seokmin. But right now, I’d much rather you kiss me.”

Seokmin grinned. “That, I can do.” 

He pulled Tzuyu against him, feeling her arms wrap around him as they kissed again.

[angrylizardjacket]

dirtbags // 5: Charlotte

Summary: High School AU. 1985. Winter. Charlotte and Razzle are officially not dating, while Lola’s not dating someone but won’t say who, though she’s contemplating sleeping with Tommy in an effort to get him to stop pining for her, which Charlotte thinks is a terrible idea. Except that Charlotte lets slip to Tommy that that’s Lola’s plan, and he doesn’t take it well. The whole pack ends up at the Drive-In, which is going great for Charlotte and Razzle right up until Nikki decides to be an ass, and Charlotte realises that Tommy has spoken to Lola about their fight. It looks like things will be getting worse before they get better.

A/N: 6655 words. long overdue sorry!! @misscharlottelee and @evaangelics my beloveds this is, as always, for you both. ft. asofterworld quotes

my sister and i both hate antique shopping. but we love hating things together.

So yes, technically Charlotte and Razzle spent the better part of Heather’s party in a dark corner being altogether gross, as an incredibly drunk Peach had informed them both before she was pulled away by a far more sober Vince, which Charlotte hadn’t thought much of at the time, herself more than a little tipsy, but hearing Eileen rant in the diner the following day had made her feel a little guilty for not paying more attention. Not that anything bad happened, but still, she felt partially responsible for the young ginger girl. 

But the point is that Charlotte and Razzle are not dating, despite what everyone in their weird and ragtag bunch of lunchtime delinquents likes to imply. If Charlotte could justify punching Nikki again, she absolutely would. It’s not her fault that Razzle’s interesting and kind and honest and funny, and if she finds herself feeling a little heady, a little good-nauseous, like she had back when she and Duff had first been dancing around the idea of being a couple, she pushes those feelings to the back of her mind and distracts herself with something, anything else. 

Right now, she’s got a terrible headache and is having a whisper argument with Lola in the middle of art, trying to talk her out of pity-fucking Tommy.

“You make it sound so crass and heartless,” Lola’s lip curled, frowning at the red pencil in her hand and the cartoon drawing of a flower in her notes, “pity-fucking,” the word sounds wrong on Lola’s lips, tone derisive, “you say it like I don’t care about him.”

“Don’t pity-fuck my cousin, you can both do better,” Charlotte rubs at her temples, eyes closed, as Lola makes a noise like she’s not too sure if that’s a compliment, “a few weeks ago, you promised me you were just friends -”

“He’s a hopeless romantic who keeps hearing about cheerleaders sleeping with people who aren’t him, lemme put him out of his misery -”

“By fucking him? What if he catches further feelings for you?”

“I dunno, I’ll kill him?” Lola suggests flippantly, and when Charlotte cracks her eyes open to level a glare at Lola, the dark haired girl is grinning, clearly joking.

“Why Tommy? Why can’t you sleep with someone less related to me?” Charlotte hisses, tone vaguely annoyed and desperate, “I thought you were getting laid? What’s up with you and Nikki anyways?” There’s a shift in her tone, and Lola makes a face, pressing a little harder with her pencil. 

“I am sleeping with someone less related to you,” Lola says, though there’s a strangely guarded quality to her voice, “not Nikki, for the record; he’s the one who suggested I sleep with Tommy to begin with. He’s too much of a bitch to fuck me himself,” she mutters, mostly to herself, a little wrinkle creasing the bridge of her nose as she thinks about it. 

“Wait, you’re seeing someone? For real? And it’s not Nikki?” Charlotte’s expression lit up, and Lola gave her a calculating looking out of the corner of her eye.

“I bet we both know another person I’m not sleeping with,” and Lola’s tone is mean and a little venomous as she deftly changes the subject, “how is our favourite exchange student, by the way?” Charlotte realises too late that her excited questioning of Lola’s private life may have touched a nerve. For all that Lola’s become more open in the few months they’ve been friends, there were strange lines Charlotte kept finding. Lola never really acted as though she cared much about Charlotte and Razzle’s vague status, so to use it against Charlotte was a surprise, and a clear giveaway that one of those lines had been crossed. It got Lola’s message across well enough, and Charlotte’s mouth snapped closed. 

Lola was a terrible distraction when she wanted to be.

“Lola’s not seeing anyone,” Nikki says flatly around his cigarette, and when Charlotte realises she’s gossiping with Nikki Sixx, she wonders idly where her life went wrong, “she’s fucking someone,” he corrected, “and she refuses to tell me who, but she’s not seeing anyone.” He sounds far more annoyed than Charlotte had anticipated, and she can’t help herself. She tugs on that string.

“Wait, so it’s actually not you?” 

“Lola’s dad is built like He-Man, Master of the Fucking Universe, have you seen him, Charlie? I couldn’t stick it in his daughter and bring myself to look him in the eye every other day; and I’m past worrying if he’s gonna toss me into space like he’s an Olympic hammer thrower,” Nikki considers for a moment, before heaving a sigh, “I just don’t wanna disappoint him.”

“You think fucking Lola’s gonna disappoint her dad?” Charlotte’s brow wrinkled with slight confusion, “why do you even talk to her dad every other day?”

“We work together?” Nikki says, like it’s the simplest answer in the world, and oh, suddenly Charlotte knows exactly why the back of the fry cook in Leo’s looked so familiar. Nikki can obviously read it on her face as the realisation, the full understanding of the situation dawns on Charlotte, but it still doesn’t stop her from bursting out with laughter.

“Oh dude, you definitely cannot fuck your boss’s daughter, no matter how much you so clearly want to -”

“Hey!” Nikki snapped, “bold words coming from you, Miss Lee; you already made sure Razz has had the full American High School Experience, or are you waiting for Prom to go full cliché about it?”

“Nikki, I’ve already punched you in the face once, so help me -”

“Yeah but now I know what to expect, I’m kinda into it,” Nikki’s grin is all teeth, and he leans across the table, into Charlotte’s space, “do it again, Miss Lee,” he teases, offering up his cheek to her, grinning from ear to ear. Charlotte makes a disgusted noise, leaning back, crossing her arms.

“You disgust me; can you please quit your job so you can fuck Lola?” 

Thankfully, this seems to take the wind out of Nikki’s sails, his expression falling to something irritated as he huffs and drops his gaze, sitting back dejectedly, and pointedly refusing, unable to come with a snide comeback in time to save face. 

“Lola would punch you in the face,” Charlotte pointed out, tone a little smug, and Nikki presses his lips together, trying very hard to keep his expression neutral as a blush creeps up his cheeks. 

“So would that leggy redhead of yours,” he’s quick to change the conversation, “isn’t she in the musical? You know my band’s still looking for a singer -”

“Lemme stop you right there,” Charlotte stops Nikki in his tracks, holding up a single hand for silence, “first of all, the only person Eileen hates more than you is Vince Neil, and she told me personally that she’d rather eat glass than join your band, secondly -”

“You talked about my band with her?” There’s something a little bashful in Nikki’s voice, and the blush hasn’t left his cheeks; the whole picture would be endearing if he wasn’t such a colossal asshole.

“Secondly,” Charlotte tries again, “you know her name’s Eileen; everyone knows her name is Eileen, stop calling her my leggy redhead,” she ordered, before taking a deep breath, trying to let her irritation subside, “and thirdly, Lola was the one who asked Eileen to be in your band, Eileen just brought it up to me because she knew Tommy was in it.” Nikki, who had already been pink all over, was steadily turning red, trying to hide it as he made a show of patting down his pockets looking for his cigarettes.

“Lola... uh, she talks about my band? She asked if Eileen wanted to join us?” He’s shooting for casual and missing the mark miserably, much to Charlotte’s delight.

“You’re so in love with her,” she smirks. Nikki scowls at her. The bell rings.

i have found a way to watch video in your head. high definition, with instant replay. it is called having regrets.

When Eileen invites Charlotte to the drive in, and suggests bringing Razzle, she insists it’s not a date, that some of the people from the musical were just getting together to watch the new horror movie, and she thought it would be good for Razzle to experience a proper, drive-in movie. That probably should have set of alarm bells in Charlotte’s mind, since everyone knew that if you take someone to a horror movie at the drive-in, you generally don’t end up actually watching much of the movie. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. 

But Eileen’s adamant, and Charlotte honestly wouldn’t actually mind sneaking off with Razzle at some point, if the opportunity arose, not that she’s admit that. 

“I should ask Lola to go,” Tommy says, tone a little wistful, when, on Thursday, Charlotte tells him her plans for the following evening; alarm bells definitely start ringing. 

They’re in Tommy’s kitchen after school, with his mom at the supermarket, and his dad at work, they’ve got the house to themselves, apart from Tommy’s sister upstairs, monopolising the phone. Charlotte’s sitting on the counter, while Tommy’s staring into the refrigerator, not actually looking at what’s in there, thoughts miles away as he considers his own words.

“Shut that if you’re not going to get anything, and no you shouldn’t,” Charlotte shuts him down immediately, to which Tommy frowns, asking derisively when she became the boss of him, slamming the fridge closed, “I thought you two were just friends,” Charlotte counters with.

“I can ask a friend to the drive-in,” though the way he suddenly can’t meet her gaze betrays him, and he flits over to a cupboard, opening it and staring at the food inside, trying to decide on an afternoon snack, “why are you here, anyways?” At this, Charlotte goes quiet and pensive, looking down at her knees as her heels kick softly against the cupboards below, trying not to think about how her mother keeps leaving college brochures out, with Law, Accounting, and Medicine courses all meticulously highlighted, or how whenever they’re in the same room, she’s treated to passive aggressive questions about whether she’s seen the brochures her parents know she definitely hasn’t touched.

“Am I not allowed to hang out with you?” Charlotte finally surfaces from her thoughts to see that Tommy is waiting for an answer.

“Not if you’re going to be an asshole.”

“If you’re going to daydream about Lola, I’m going to be an asshole,” Charlotte fired back, snarkily, and Tommy narrowed his eyes at her.

“You’ve become kind of a bitch since you started hanging out with Nikki,” he huffs, and Charlotte straightens up where she’s sitting, eyes going wide with disbelief, with slight outrage.

“I’m just fucking sick of hearing you chase after girls who don’t want you! It’s all you ever talk about!”

“Lola wants me! Lola fucking wants me, Charlie!”

“She doesn’t want you, she wants to pity-fuck you so you’ll get off her damn case! Just how naïve are you, Thomas?” Charlotte yells back, and immediately smacks her hand to her mouth, regret written all over her face. Tommy’s expression falls like his heart is breaking. “Tommy -”

“A real, fucking bitch,” there’s a shake in Tommy’s voice that is breaking Charlotte’s heart, and she tries to apologise, but he tells her to go home. 

Yes, she leaves, she shuts the door behind herself, but she can’t bring herself to go home. Her feet carry her while her mind is blank, but when she looks up, she’s pushing open the door to the gas station, seeing Mick Mars look up from his magazine. Before he greets her, she sees the way his eyes search the space around her, roam the empty fuel pumps, as if expecting Tommy to pop out behind her. Then, once he considers himself safe, he puts down his magazine, tilting his head curiously at her, at her dejected demeanour. 

“Charlotte?” She’s actually surprised that he knows her name, and Charlotte hovers in the door, letting in the cold air from outside as she deliberates. Why had she come here of all places? “Are you okay?” The words sound strange, like he’s not used to saying them, not used to showing any sort of care, but she appreciates them nonetheless.

“I was a massive asshole to Tommy,” the words spill from her before she can stop them, and she watches Mick’s expression, can almost see him fight back several sarcastic or congratulatory remarks, suppressing his own well-worn irritation for her cousin, instead, just making a noise in the back of his throat that she can’t quite decipher. Then, he looks out the window, looks to the clock on the wall, and takes his feet off the counter carefully. 

“Do you want a slurpee?” He asks, obviously a little uncertain of how to proceed.

“Not really,” Charlotte admits, and Mick awkwardly looks around, as if to offer something else.

“Do you smoke?” He’s already pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. Charlotte shoves her hands into her coat pockets, shaking her head, looking at the floor, not quite sure where to go from here herself, “do you mind if I smoke?” 

“No,” her voice is small.

They sit on the step by the door outside the gas station, side by side, silent for a few minutes as Mick smokes his cigarette. No cars approach, but they watch some drive by as the sun sinks lower in the sky. 

“I told him Lola doesn’t want him, that she’s just interested in pity-fucking him because she thinks it’d get him off her case,” Charlotte admits, and from the corner of her eye, she sees Mick wince, a sign that what she’d said truly was a dick move. 

“That would’a broken the kid’s heart,” Mick muses around his cigarette, and Charlotte, who’d had her knees curled up to her chest, rests her chin on them, with a quiet ‘I know’. 

“He said I turned into an asshole since I became friends with Nikki Sixx, and then I just managed to prove him right,” she seethes, disappointed in herself more than anything else. 

“That’s your first problem; being friends with Nikki Sixx.”

“That was an accident,” Charlotte tried to defend herself, “and I’ve been friends with Nikki for kind of a while, honestly, but I was just so sick of hearing Tommy moon over girls who don’t even look twice at him, like they hung the stars in the sky -”

“Charlotte,” Mick interrupts her, his voice soft but insistent, and when she finally looks at him, he’s actually frowning at her, hands stilled with another cigarette half-pulled from it’s packet, “that’s not... you know why what you said hurt him, right? You know you could’a said that about any other cheerleader he was into and it would’a rolled right off his back, right?”

Oh. Oh no. Slowly, Charlotte’s expression crumbles as the full weight of her words dawns upon her, her guilt skyrocketing. Face in her hands, she actually wails, and Mick gives a firm pat on the back as a show of support. 

“They’re friends, Mick.”

“I know, Charlotte.”

“God, fuck, he probably thinks that I mean she doesn’t even like him as a friend, Mick!”

“Yeah,” he sighed deeply, giving another pat, “I know, Charlotte.”

“I just... don’t want him to get his heart broken,” she admitted, her only attempt to justify herself, which Mick didn’t accept as a proper answer for a moment.

“He’s sixteen, he’s gotta make his own mistakes, and,” at this he hesitates, lighting up his cigarette and taking a long draft as he deliberated saying his next words, “don’t ever let her know I told you this,” he adds seriously, “but the last thing Lola wants to do is hurt that kid; if anything, she’s hoping hooking up with him will strengthen their friendship, and raise his confidence for when he goes after other girls.” This... is a lot to process.

“How do you even know this?” Charlotte asked, bewildered, and Mick scrunches his face up and takes another long inhale on his cigarette.

“We’re friends,” is what he settles on.

“What?”

“Lola and I... are friends,” he sounds like he doesn’t want to admit it, and visibly cringes as he follows it up with, “she cares about that kid, and speaks very highly of him, and of you, honestly, and maybe the kid’s not as irritating as I had him pegged as. He’s still irritating, but he,” and he audibly groans, hanging his head for a moment, as if disappointed that he’s even saying any of this, “he’s a good friend to Lola.” It’s like the words themselves hurt him to admit, so he changes the topic quickly, “she told me he’s in a band with Sixx, actually,” and his tone is thankfully much less strained as he straightens his posture a little, ignoring Charlotte’s frankly flabbergasted expression, “I’ve been seriously considering joining them.”

“You sing?” Is what Charlotte hears herself say, without really registering it. Mick snorts derisively.

“Fuck no, I play guitar.”

“You sho- you should join them,” Charlotte babbles, trying to make sense of everything that she’d just learned, and now this of all things, but it’s going to take her a while. 

“I should,” he agrees with the barest hint of a smile, once more clapping her on the back. He hesitates before he stands, like he wants to say something else, but instead, he gives an awkward smile and gets to his feet, heading back inside, leaving Charlotte in silence. 

Eileen gives her a lift to school the following morning, seething about how Peach got a part-time job and their parents still aren’t happy. It’s conflicting for the older sister, who hates hearing the derisive way her parents refer to Peach as a ‘burger flipper’, while Peach herself had sneered when Eileen had asked about the job, telling her older sister that she was done grovelling at their parents’ feet just to exist, with an implied ‘unlike you’ which had been so uncharacteristic of the usually kind and upbeat Peach that it had sent Eileen spiralling. It was the third day in a row Eileen had been ranting about it, about how she just wanted to support Peach, but that her whole family appeared to be turning on each other.

Charlotte found herself relating to that particular sentiment far too well.

Half their ragtag bunch of lunchtime misfits is notably absent from their usual lunchtime hang out, so while Charlotte spends the forty minutes picking apart her food like she’s trying to deconstruct it atomically, Razzle sits diligently as Eileen carefully and meticulously braids his hair, while he asks if he needs to bring anything, or wear anything special to the drive in that Friday. Charlotte’s not paying them any attention, just letting her gaze roam distractedly essentially until the bell rings, and Eileen pulls the hairband from her own hair to secure Razzle’s braid, before taking off. 

“Anybody home in that head of yours, Charlie? The bell’s gone,” Razzle’s offering her his hand where he’s standing, and Charlotte finally returns to reality from her blank, concerned mind, wiping the last few crumbs of her sandwich on her jeans picking up her bag with one hand and taking Razzle’s hand with the other. Today he’s chosen to wear a royal purple collared shirt, several sized too big for him, with the sleeves rolled up, tucked into tight, acid-washed jeans littered with naturally-made holes, his backpack on his back, and a black, corduroy jacket slung over one shoulder; with his newly acquired braid, the whole look is quite fetching, quite -

“You look like a prince,” Charlotte feels rather foolish for even saying it, can feel as the blush rises on her cheeks, but Razzle’s beaming as he pulls her to her feet, and doesn’t let go of her hand for a moment. 

“Well then I must be truly lucky to get court a princess like you,” and coming from anyone else, it would have sounded cheesy, or the phrase princess would have been derisive or snide, but he’s sincere, almost painfully so, and Charlotte ducks her head, “not courting,” Razzle corrects quickly, and Charlotte doesn’t think about how her heart sinks at that, despite how they’d talked through this.

“Princess Charlie -” something about the way he says her name always hits her hard, because hearing how it sounds, the reverence with which he says it, the nervousness, she leans in and kisses him quickly, can’t help herself, can’t stop herself. But then she’s leaning back, getting a better grip on her backpack, but - “wait, wait, wait, Charlie, wait -” Razzle, for the barest moment, tightens his grip on her hand, and she’s terrified that she crossed a line, that she’s done something wrong, but she turns back, and he doesn’t seem to be mad or concerned, instead he drops the jacket he’d been holding, gently taking her face in his hands, “can’t spring that on me and get away with it; lemme do it proper.” 

i am going to build a new boyfriend out of garbage and dirty feathers. no one else will touch him. 

 “Did you tell Tommy we were coming here?” Eileen hissed, startling the hell out of Charlotte at the concession stand at the drive-in before the movie began. Charlotte, who had been hovering in line, nervously retucking her nice blouse into her skirt every few minutes, almost jumped out of her skin at her friend’s voice in her ear.

“Yeah, I - why?” Looking around, Charlotte thankfully can’t see Tommy’s shitbox of a car, but it becomes readily apparent the source of Eileen’s frustrations, when she spots a shiny, red sports car parked four cars past where Keanu and his good friend and well known fellow theatre kid Alex Winter were sitting on the hood of Keanu’s car, chatting animatedly with Razzle, who they had been quick to warm to him upon meeting him about twenty minutes ago. 

“Charlie!” The name came out as a frustrated noise from between Eileen’s clenched teeth, her eyes glued to Vince Neil’s ostentatious car, and Charlotte looked down for a moment, before adjusting her skirt again and retucking her shirt as she spoke.

“I didn’t know he’d tell Vince; I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday afternoon,” and she hesitates before adding, “we got into this fight and I’ve been trying to figure out how to apologise but I don’t know how, so it kind of slipped my mind, I didn’t know -”

“We’ll talk about you and Tommy later, I promise, but right now I need you to tell me three convincing arguments as to why I shouldn’t pop one of Vince Neil’s fucking tires.” Eileen’s hatred of Vince is perhaps getting out of hand, Charlotte considers, prying Eileen’s vice-like grip from her upper arm, considering for a moment.

“I know you have no qualms about becoming a felon to protect Peach,” Charlotte says with half a smirk.

“Absolutely none,” Eileen agrees without missing a beat, which was both amusing and heartwarming.

“- but your mom would probably pull you out of public school to enrol you in that strict, girls-only, future-nun-school, Our Lady Of Perpetual Sorrow,” Charlotte’s trying so desperately not to smirk, not to give her amusement away at the concept, “and you can say goodbye to any chance you had of ever making out with your co-star on or off stage.” 

Eileen turns as red as her hair, but at least she takes a moment to calm down, glancing over her shoulder at the three boys who were waiting for them. Keanu looks over for a moment, catching her gaze, waving and grinning from ear to ear, and Charlotte practically cackles as Eileen’s blush deepens. 

“Look, Eileen look,” Charlotte pointed insistently back at the boys, to where Alex had hopped off the hood of Keanu’s car, and was making his way over to the pack of kids Eileen had vaguely gestured to earlier, mentioning that they made up most of the technical theatre department, despite their leather jackets and motorcycles, leaving Razzle and Keanu chattering away, “Alex is going to hang out with the Crew boys, leaving Keanu free to comfort you during the scary movie.”

Eileen takes a deep breath, not even pretending like that wasn’t what she wanted, steeling herself to head back, and ignore Vince Neil’s goddamn car. After a beat, however, she turns to Charlotte, looking altogether stern and collected.

“I know I said you and Razzle could stay in my car, since I’m hanging out with Keanu, but don’t have sex in there -”

“What?!”

“Don’t have sex with Razzle in my car,” Eileen practically ordered, and Charlotte nervously looked to the guy ahead of her in line. He looked back at her, between the two girls, then thankfully stepped up to the counter without a word. 

“I wasn’t planning on it!”

“Well you also weren’t planning on being make out buddies after getting drunk and being the gross PDA couple at Heather’s party,” Eileen sniped back, “listen, I just want Peach to be able to sit in my car without either of your bare asses having touched any of the seats.” 

“I won’t let either of our bare asses touch the seat,” Charlotte agreed, mortified.

“And no stains -”

“Eileen!” Charlotte all but screeches, right as the messages before the movie started playing.

“Eileen, the charming Mister Reeves wants a word with you,” Razzle’s voice joins them just moments before Charlotte’s pretty sure she would have expired from embarrassment, and at the mere mention of Keanu, Eileen relaxes a little. All three of them glance over to Keanu’s car, to see the man himself leaning against his windshield, cigarette idle in one hand as he watches the first of the preview trailers. As much as he makes gestures like he’s about to take a drag, the cigarette never quite makes it to his lips before he extends his arm out beside him again, like he’s going through the motions without really following through. Eileen, as if drawn to him by a spell, practically floats away.

“She’s a strange one,” he says fondly, though Charlotte kindly doesn’t point out the hypocrisy in his words, “Keanu and Alex act like she’s some aloof, inscrutable woman; weren’t sure we were talking about the same woman,” he huffed a laugh, much to Charlotte’s disbelief.

“Eileen... she is an aloof, inscrutable woman, you just happen to live with her arch nemesis, and- you’re- we’re- you know, we’re...” Charlotte gestured between herself and Razzle, flushing, as his smile widened, “and you know, I’m her best friend.”

“Guys, are you buying food or what?” The concierge asks; a tired-looking kid Charlotte recognises from Tommy’s year. She hops forward, ordering food, and waiting for it to be prepared, all while standing by Razzle’s side, his chin on her should as they watch the preview trailers. He’s behind her, warm and solid and grounding, which is exactly what she needs as her cousin’s beat-up excuse of a car screeches into the lot, almost spraying gravel thanks to his sharp turn into the first available space. 

“Oh god, oh fucking hell,” Charlotte breathes, clenching her eyes tightly shut, “if you see a blonde-haired, six-foot stick-insect, who looks like he’d cheat on his girlfriend,” she starts, whole face scrunching with frustration, “and-or Nikki fucking Sixx, well, that would be about right; that feels like how tonight would go,” she lets out a long, frustrated breath, and she feels Razzle lift his chin from her shoulder right as he makes a noise of confusion.

“Tommy just arrived,” she clarified.

“Oh?”

“And we kind of got into an argument yesterday.”

“Oh.”

Charlotte’s name is called and she collects the bucket of popcorn she’d ordered for the pair of them, and Razzle picks up their drinks, heading back to the car as the movie opens. 

“You wanna talk about whatever’s going on with you and that Drummer Boy?” Razzle asks as they’re settling in the back seat together. Charlotte’s detaching the front seat’s headrests with possibly too much vigour, but declines, despite the frustration written all over her face. Razzle keeps a careful hold on the drinks that he’d thought were safe to balance on the centre console as Charlotte foisted herself over the back seat to pull the blankets she’d packed from the trunk. 

“You sure?” Razzle tried again, still with one hand nervously keeping the drinks in place, the other firmly holding their bucket of popcorn out of harm’s way. With a blanket securely bundled in her arms, Charlotte gives him a flat look, that quickly disappears in the face of his genuine concern.

“No, Razz,” she sighed, “I’m just mad at myself for letting this, like, fester, you know? I should have apologised sooner,” she huffs a sigh, unfurling the blanket with far more care now, draping it across both of their laps. 

“You’ve a good heart, Miss Lee,” Razzle assures her, but Charlotte’s face scrunches reflexively at the nickname, having only ever associated it with Nikki Sixx’s dreadful attempts to hit on her.

“Thanks, but please don’t call me that,” Charlotte gives a strained little smile, but Razzle nods and takes it in stride, finally getting himself comfortable and sitting back against the seat, one arm draped across the back, the other holding the popcorn in his lap.

“No worries, Love; I could call you Charlie, but I always thought it sounded a bit weird coming from me,” Razzle is rambling as Charlotte settles against him, tucking herself up close to him, “had a mate back home called Charlie, but short for Charles; absolute cockhead,” he clicks his tongue as Charlotte can’t help but giggle, “I could always keep just calling you Love, but it’s not as personal, you know? And Charlotte... it’s a pretty name, but it would be like if you started calling me Nicholas, be a bit weird, don’t ya think?” He mused, and Charlotte’s eyes drifted from the opening scene of the movie, where a menacing looking knife-glove was being created, to Razzle’s face as he chattered away. 

“I could keep calling you Princess Charlie,” as he says that, he looks to her, and seems a little startled to see her looking back at him, “like the other day,” his voice is softer, eyes wide, roaming her face, as if trying to capture her fond expression in his memory forever.

“You wouldn’t imagine your friend Charlie from back home a tiara?” Charlotte’s voice is amused, as is her expression, and Razzle’s eyes crease in the corners as he smiles; his eyes as so blue, so honest.

“You’d be the only Princess Charlie in my life,” he assures, giving her shoulder a squeeze where his arm is wrapped around her, and Charlotte doesn’t even think about how they’re less than a minute into the movie before she’s kissing him. 

At least it gets her to stop thinking about Tommy. 

Honestly, it gets her to stop thinking about everyone and everything that isn’t Razzle in this car in this moment, which is fine for her, because her life is somehow currently a stupid, complicated mess of people and emotions, and Razzle is nice to her, and a damn good kisser, and gentle, and his hands are warm -

“Miss Lee, does the Declaration of Independence mean nothing to you?” Comes shouted through the wound-up window of the car, startling Charlotte, who’s been in Razzle’s lap with his lips on her neck, so much that she jumped, smacking the back of her head into the roof of the car. Razzle reached out for her, expression concerned and lips kiss-bruised, as Charlotte held her head, wincing. Looking to the window, however, she could see Nikki Sixx pressing his face to the glass, looking altogether unsightly, with Lola a few feet behind him, drawing something in the gravel with the toe of her shoe. 

Assholes!

“I’m gonna kill him,” Charlotte says with deadly calm the moment she understands the situation, though Razzle seems to have anticipated this, and has his hands on her thighs, keeping her secure in his firm grip.

“No,” Razzle says, voice equally as calm, his gaze focused on Charlotte, and not on Nikki who had put his open mouth on the window, puffed out his cheeks, and proceeded to lick the glass. Charlotte scrunches her expression for a moment, internal debate raging between her desire to stay in the car with Razzle, and her need to beat the ever-loving shit out of Nikki Sixx for being a smartass.

“I’m gonna crack the window and inch and tell him to fuck off,” Charlotte says, looking back to Razzle, who was wearing an expression of faint amusement, and his grip became a little less firm. Reaching over, she wound down the window an inch. Immediately, Nikki looked through the gap, cheek still pressed to the window as his gaze darted around the cabin of the car, no longer obscured by the window tint. 

“I’m surprised you know what the Declaration of Independence is,” Charlotte said, tone icy as she moved to sit next to Razzle. 

“Honestly I stole that line from Lola,” Nikki admitted, and upon hearing her name, even faintly, Lola joins them, thankfully not pressing herself to the window, instead standing close to Nikki, her hip by his, hands in her jacket pockets. 

“Were they doing it?” Lola asks far too casually, almost too quiet for Charlotte and Razzle to hear, though they do, and both blush, even as Nikki pulls back, making a face. 

“No,” Charlotte calls back, and Lola’s expression turns smug as she holds out her hand, making a ‘hand it over’ gesture to Nikki, only for him to begrudgingly hand over a five dollar note. 

“Shoulda waited ‘til the end of the movie to ask,” Lola’s grin stretched wider, even as Charlotte tried to splutter a protest, and Razzle had to press his face against her shoulder to muffle his laugh at the whole situation.

“Why are you assholes here?” Charlotte hissed; strangely, Lola’s expression fell, and she stepped back again, adding more to her gravel drawing with her shoe, not looking at the car. 

“We’re at the drive in because I’ve heard this is a good movie,” Nikki goes back to staring at them through the inch crack in the window, “and we’re here-” his tone turns proud while his smile turns sharp as he taps his nail against the glass, “because we’re trying to give Tommy and Heather privacy,” he all but sings. There’s... a lot to unpack there, however before Charlotte can process any of it, Lola grab’s Nikki by the elbow, pulling him away.

“Come on, I didn’t take a night off to talk to people I can see every day, did you bring weed or not?” She insisted, tone frustrated leading him towards the concierge stand. Something about it had Charlotte’s heart sinking, even as Razzle’s still chuckling and confused about what was going on, Charlotte’s heart was sinking. 

Tommy had driven Nikki and Lola - and Heather? What? - to the drive in. Tommy and Lola had almost definitely spoken about the fight Charlotte and Tommy had had, which means Lola almost definitely knew what Charlotte had said. 

“Everything okay, Princess?” Razzle had asked gently, his arm around her once more as Charlotte had buried her face in her hands. 

“My whole life is fucked,” Charlotte muttered, and Razzle pulled her in close to him. Her legs bridge over his thighs, and he’s holding her close with both arms, keeping her warm and secure, and Charlotte takes a moment, then another, then a third, to take comfort. 

She’s going to miss this. Going to miss him. Fuck, she can’t think like that, can’t keep reminding herself of the time limit on their friendship, the reason she’s scared to call it anything more. 

Everything is fucked, but this one moment, how Razzle was holding her close, devoid of it’s context, it was pretty damn great.

a friend will help you move. a best friend will help you move bodies. but if you have to move your best friend's body, you're on your own

Charlotte goes to see Tommy on Saturday morning, but when she gets there, he’s not home. 

“He’s at a movie~ with a girl~!” Athena sings, when Charlotte asks, and Charlotte, confused and concerned, looked to her aunt, Tommy’s mother, who gave a kind smile and nod of confirmation. 

“He was so nervous and excited, spent a long time doing his hair just right,” she giggled fondly, pride in her voice, but Charlotte’s heart was in her throat. Had what she said somehow guilted Lola into dating her cousin? That could only end badly for both of them, oh fuck -

Except when she bursts into Leo’s at eleven, after most of the breakfast diners had vacated, and the lunch rush was still about half an hour away, Lola was standing behind the counter... with Peach? Teaching her how to fold silverware in napkins correctly? 

“Do you know... do know that thing where you fold it into a swan?” Peach asks, giggling, right as one of the other kind-faced staff members approaches Charlotte and asks her how many people she’d like a table for. Lola instinctually looks to the door, and Peach catches on a moment later, and suddenly both girls behind the counter are frowning in Charlotte’s direction. Lola mutters something to Peach that’s too quiet for Charlotte to hear, and the younger redhead immediately takes the silverware they’ve already wrapped, going around and dispensing it amongst each table’s silverware holder. Peach is in uniform. 

“I just...” Charlotte’s voice is soft, while her gaze is locked with Lola’s, brushing past the host who’d greeted her, “I need to talk to Lola.” The host looks over his shoulder at Lola, who looks his way for the barest moment and gives half a shrug. The kid backs off, looking past Charlotte to the street outside to see if anyone else was coming in after her, and upon seeing no-one, he heads back to the counter. 

“Hey Peach,” Charlotte says as the redhead slides past her to get to another table. Peach doesn’t even look at her when she gives a flat greeting in response. 

“How can I help you?” Lola’s painfully sweet customer-service voice hurts more than any sarcastic remark she could have come up with, and it’s eating Charlotte alive to know what Tommy told her, what Lola thinks Charlotte thinks of her to make her act so hostile. The way she’s smiling so widely coupled with her dead-eyed stare is unnerving. 

“Keola!” It comes as a shock when a firm voice comes from the kitchen, and Lola practically jumps from her skin. Looking to the source, Charlotte sees the face of the man she’s only ever seen the back of in the kitchen, taller than anyone else in the restaurant, and he looks like Lola.

“What?” Lola hisses, surprising Charlotte, and the man looks to Charlotte, giving her a warm, friendly smile, before he answers.

“If you need to talk to,” and the man pauses, tipping his head a little as he looks to Charlotte, “Charlie?” And Charlotte, kind of confused and nervous as to how he knows her name, nods in confirmation, “you can take your break, okay? Water, fresh air, outside -” and without waiting for a confirmation, he calls the kid who had greeted Charlotte to come and take Lola’s place at the counter, as Lola begrudgingly grabs a bottle of water from beneath the counter, and storms out from behind the counter, past Charlotte to the door. 

Charlotte, a little terrified, looks to the man, who gives another bright smile.

“Sorry we haven’t properly met, I’m Leo, glad to finally meet you, Charlie,” and immediately everything makes total and complete sense, and Charlotte nervously greets him, and takes off after Lola, who had disappeared down the street. 

[silvanable]

The Next Life : Napoleon Bonaparte

GUESS WHO JUST RECENTLY FINISHED NAPOLEON’S ROUTE? and what do i have to do with the dramatic and promising information given to me? make everyone suffer, that’s what.

if you thought my comte angst hurt... well, that was soft compared to what i usually write~

so my brain cooked up a lil something for everyone and if you haven’t figured it out yet i hate the holidays yet, well you’re about to and possibly hate me too lol.

SO HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE AND HERE’S A LIL ANGST JUST FOR YOU LOVELY DARLINGS ♡

↪  GUIDELINES

✒ tags : reader-insert, female reader, angsty af, direct quotes from napoleon’s route, sort of a happy ending?

✒ warnings : major character death, loss & grief

✒ word count : 2729

The letter in your hand trembled, a frantic and uneasy motion that your body took as your anxiety rose. Your eyes fixed on the parchment, carefully folded and sealed, a seal you did not want to break.

Disbelief still swam through you. It took hold of every part of your being, it wrapped its hands around your heart and clouded your mind. Both refused to accept the facts presented to you, to acknowledge this was not a bad dream but the waking nightmare that had become your life. But it could not have been real, you did not want it to be, you  refused  to let it be.

Yet days had passed.

The signs, or lack thereof, all pointed to one end.

Napoleon was dead.

Even the inhabitants of the mansion knew it, that everything that had happened and the inability to find so much of a sign of their friend… even a vampire could not have survived.

Still, you stubbornly refused to accept it to drown in the pain and sorrow that wanted to pull you under.

So after three days of holding up in your room, of crying yourself to sleep, desperately trying to convince yourself he would walk through those doors at any moment, you finally returned to the land of the living. You, yourself, felt anything but alive though because some part of you had been stolen and left a gaping hole in your chest.

That was when Sebastian had come to you, or more specifically, given you something when you came to him for work.

You wanted a distraction, something to busy your mind and hands because your mind and heart both assured you, any moment, he would come through the mansion’s grand doors and sweet you into his arms.

The letter in your trembling fingers chipped away at that hope. The sinking feeling in your gut grew, consuming you, making your senses swim and swirl as you grew nauseous.

Your name, written ever so eloquently, was the only thing that gave a sign to what or who this letter was for.

Your head was spinning, the kitchen floor swayed underneath your feet but you swore your body was rooted in place. Yet the room rocked, trying to get you to stumble, to fall and the pit in your gut was only made worse.

Denial.

That was what you were told, that you were in denial.

And this letter in your hand, the last thing your beloved left for you, was chipping away at the walls you had so quickly built— the walls of denial to defend yourself against the shock and pain of the truth.

You ran.

You ran straight from the kitchen and into the hall. Your feet moved on their own volition, your body following as you allowed yourself to be led away with only one thought—  away.

There was no saying why, but it was as if you believed you could outrun the thoughts, the truth, that if you fled then that feeling of sinking and being consumed would be left behind.

Into the foyer you rushed, stumbling down the stairs and straight into someone.

Your body collided against his. Hands found their way to your arms, bracing you from a fall. Your head lifted instinctively, panicked and wide eyes finding a single violet one gazing down at you. An unusual note of concern shifting the usually stoic expression of his.

If you had been in any other state, you would have found it strange to see Jean about and in the mansion at this time, but you had hardly noticed him.

Jean’s lips were moving but the blood rushing through your skull drowned out his voice. The beat of your heart echoed like a low drum as it hammered against your ribcage, begging to be let out, to be stopped, to be in any place or state but where it was now.

You shoved out of the arms that held you up and your legs stumbled beneath you as they lost the support that had been holding you up.

The action surprised Jean as you turned and took off in another direction, like a frightened hare trying to outrun a hungry fox.

Again your body followed your feet in their path to escape, encouraged by the desperate plea of your mind to just getaway. You wanted—no,  needed— to be anywhere, somewhere else so long as it was not here.

And you did just that.

Into the garden, you went, deeper and deeper until everything around you was unfamiliar to your frantic mind. Finally, in the safety of solitude, your legs gave way beneath your weight and you collapsed. The path scraped your knees as you fell, catching yourself on your hands just before you hit.

A ragged breath passed through your lips, greedily searching for the breath your lungs were denied. Tears gathered in your eyes, but you blinked them away, refusing to cry now, not now.

There was no silence to settle over you, just the pleasant sounds of songbirds and chitter of insects. It was enough to ground you, to pull you from the cage your mind tried to build, and lift your head.

Your senses returned to you and suddenly the letter, still held tightly in your shaking fingers, was made aware again.

Your eyes fell to it, following the delicate flow of your name with penmanship you had just begun to recognize. Slowly, you turned it over in your hand, tracing the outline of the wax pressed to the fold, the only thing that kept the contents hidden from you.

You took a deep breath as you slid a finger beneath the edge of the parchment and pulled up.

With a snap, the letter opened.

My dearest…

Your mouth twitched with a broken smile at the sight of your name. The ghost of a memory whispering in your ear, the sounds of his voice as he called to you.

If you are reading this letter, then most likely, I am no longer at your side…

Those words brought a fresh wave of emotion and your eyes began to cloud with tears. You forced yourself to stay focused though, to continue reading because you needed to.

Are you crying while you read this?…

You wanted to laugh and scream. He knew—  he knew— the decision he would make would end with him dead and yet made it anyway, claiming it was for both your mutual happiness.

The bastard.

The lovable, charming, charismatic, sweet bastard.

How dare he be sorry, how dare he call you strong and say that he was worried for you still. To say that he had stalled or stopped your life and regret it, it hurt you to think he had thought you did not love him with every fiber of your being even now.

Who had given him the right to make the decision and tear himself away from you? Who had given him the right to take your heart with him and leave you broken?

You wanted to be angry, so unbelievably angry at him to dare write with loving concern when he knew what would become of you after he left. Yet you could not find it in yourself to yell, to even let a whimper slip from your lips.

Your eyes trailed further down the page, sniffling and brushing your face to hide the evidence of tears that began to sneak down your cheeks.

Then you saw it.

…return to your own time…

You reared your head up and pressed your fist to your mouth. Teeth clamped down on the soft flesh of our fingers, holding tight as you fought back a heart-wrenching sob.

The question of why he had to be so kind yet so cruel was trapped in your throat. Only a pitiful sound escaped your tongue, not even the semblance of what it should have been— his name.

You tried to compose yourself, to force down the storm that wanted to break free from your chest and leave you in shambles, if just to finish the letter before you fell apart.

Once more, your eyes fell down to the letter, unsteady in trembling hands.

And forget about this place, if you can. Forgetting isn’t a sin. I will remember this time for you. Always…

There was no chance you could forget even if you tried, even if you wanted to. You would never be able to forget the feeling of happiness in your chest and the warmth that would envelop you at the sight of him. The smile of his that would make your heart race excitedly or the sweet kisses he would press with a feather-soft touch all over you.

You would never forget him. The memories of him were far too precious, even with the pain that broke your heart now, you would never want them erased.

My heart will remain one with yours…

And your heart would forever be his.

You said you would love me no matter how much I changed. You said you would recognize me and fall in love with me still…

Tears dripped on the page— when had you started to cry?

Do you remember that?…

More tears cascaded down your chin as you nodded slowly. With each drop, the parchment would dampen with your sorrow and the ink began to blur and bleed together.

This was unfair, even now he was too sweet, but the love that swelled in you tangled with your pain.

Even if I am reborn, I will find you and fall in love with you again…

“You better,” Your voice came out quiet and broken by a sob.

You would hold him to that, it was a promise, it had to be. You wanted it to be a promise, to be true, that one day he would come back to you.

Adieu. Je t’aime…

You wanted to say it back, to let the ‘I love you’ fall from your lips countless times so that he heard you from wherever he was now. Yet your voice never came out, your breath barely returned to you. The farewell you knew you needed to whisper was lost on your tongue.

Though we could not be together in this life… I swear I will see you in my next…

You wished it did not have to be the next life. You wanted this life, you wanted this moment, you wanted him. You wanted to be able to wrap your arms around him now, to press your lips against his, to feel the warmth of his skin and hear the beating of his heart in his chest.

But you could not.

Not in this life.

Only the next.

A wail tore from your throat. The letter in your hand was clenched tight around the letter, further blemishing it with wrinkles and splotches of tears. You curled in on yourself, to protect what little of yourself you had that had not shattered yet.

“Why do you have to break my heart a second time?”

Broken sounds escaped from your lips as your body trembled with the sobs that wracked through it.

Fate had been unfair. Fate had torn you away from your blissful ignorance and thrust you into a world so unfamiliar and frightening. To give you a knight that had come to your rescue and sweep you away to protect you from harm. Only to find he had unknowingly stolen your heart. It had been such a lovely gift of fate, such a surprise, but suddenly you found your life so much fuller.

Then fate twisted and stole from you, taking with the other hand that which it had offered. So cruelly, the happiness of your life was snatched away from you. Fate laughed in your face, taunting your consciousness, for you could never return to your ignorance now.

You had not even been given the chance to say goodbye.

All you were given was a fleeting touch as he slipped between your fingers and a letter of love and regret.

How you hated Napoleon for it.

But how you loved him far more.

So you sat in the garden, huddled over on yourself as you balled, allowing the pain and anger to drag you under for the first time.

And there you stayed, allowing yourself to drown in grief because Napoleon was gone.

Napoleon was dead.

—————

On a weather-worn bench, you sat underneath a slumbering tree. Snow adorned its branches like clumps of white, shimmering leaves. The wind drifted through the stems, catching the frozen water to flurry down from its perch.

You bundled your soft scarf around your throat and further snuggled into your thick coat.

It was cold but not unbearably so if you were dressed right and especially not if you were a child running amok on the playground.

A small smile stretched over your lips, eyes trailing after one of the small children— your small child specifically.

A pair of jade eyes found your own from the distance and you were met with a suddenly serious stare as your daughter stopped. Then she smiled at you, the biggest, cutest, toothless grin she could manage as she threw her hands in the air and ran towards you.

“Mama, Mama!” She called out to you. A small ‘oof’ escaped you both as she collided into your chest, wrapping her small arms around you as best she could.

“Are you ready to go now?” You asked as you wrapped your arms around her. One of your hands found its way to her hair, combing through the soft locks.

She nodded her head vigorously.

“Uh-huh! Can we go get hot cocoa now?”

You could not resist the sweetest tone and the pleading expression she gave you. Those big, jade eyes were a weakness of yours…

“How could I say no, Jade?” You stood up and your daughter put her hand in your own.

“And how about a cookie too?” Jade gave you a grin, a devious one at that.

“I don’t know…” You mused, looking back up to the street as you began your walk back home.

All sorts of signs were lit bright, signaling the shops that you passed were open and welcomed business. People flitted across the street, up and down the sidewalks, bustling in their own personal worlds as they went about. The sounds of chatter filled the air, almost drowned by the busy noise of the streets as cars zipped by.

The sweet scent of baked goods ladened the air, laced with the bitterness of freshly brewed coffee. The cool crisp air nipped at your face as the wind seemed to gust by. Your hand tightened instinctively around your daughter’s own.

She seemed not to notice and swung your joined arms back and forth.

Your eyes fell down to her. The wind teased her midnight hair, lifting it away from her ruddy cheeks.

Once more a smile came to your lips as your eyes lifted back up.

From across the road, a pair of jade eyes met yours.

Your breath was stolen by the wind.

The ghost of a man who had long since passed stared back at you.

Your heart leapt for joy and fell apart at once. The urge to scream, to cry, to laugh all at once was overwhelming yet you did nothing, frozen in place out of fear this was all another dream.

You dared not even blink lest he disappeared.

So you stared, stared long passed when the light changed to allow you to walk safely across.

“...Mama?” Jade's voice broke through your trance.

Your eyes darted down to her, wide and bewildered.

“Are you okay?” Her sweet face twisted with concern for you, “Did you see someone?”

Your heart clenched as guilt washed over you. She was far too kind, far too sweet— just like her father— and to cause her worry was something you never wanted to do.

It was only a memory, after all.

“Sorry, I thought… I thought I saw someone, someone from a long time ago,” You smiled sweetly down at her, “How about those cookies and hot cocoa now, hm?” You tugged her hand lightly as you lifted your head.

There were those same gentle eyes, the same man who had stolen your heart, staring back at you.

And he smiled.

[sserpente]

Pastel Blue (Chapter 4)

Synopsis: After his lucky escape, the Tesseract takes Loki on new adventures–but unfortunately, his journeys through space do not go unnoticed and he soon ends up on the TVA’s radar. Working for them, albeit reluctantly, he keeps finding himself in the company of a young woman, Jess, who works in the linguistics department and who has a truly strange effect on him. Smitten by her confidence and smugness, he seeks her presence like a bee hunting for honey and lets her wreak havoc in his heart without really knowing why. But he is determined to find out. He means to escape his new prison anyway.

Find all chapters in my masterlist!

Loki got called in again after lunch. By the time Jess returned from sitting next to Fred in the cafeteria poking at her food as if those noodles were earthworms, he was gone. She had been careless to leave him alone like that. For all she knew, he could have found a way to get rid of his handcuffs and make trouble.

Nothing of the like happened, no alarms were raised and no fuming Mobius came at her for being this reckless. Instead, she decided not to while away in the lab any longer and packed her things to continue her work in her unit, feeling like an empty shell.

What if he was right? The question hovered in the air like moist fog in a forest, creeping into her mind and clouding her concentration. Was that what he wanted, to get to her and distract her? Distract her from what, exactly? M had warned her that Loki was skilled at playing mind games and deceiving his enemies and despite you insisting he was part of the team now and that he would not get left behind, it appeared he still perceived them all as such.

It wasn’t like anyone had made any real effort to become his friend so far… so what else was he to believe? Jess bit her lower lip, and eventually gave up on the transcript she was working on. Her mind kept wandering off, even when she switched on her TV to re-watch some of her favourite Doctor Who episodes and struggled to make sense of the lines as her mind was still filled with Old French terms, repeatedly sucking in deep breaths until she realised the foreign and yet so familiar scent surrounding her was Loki’s. She was sitting on his provisory bed, after all.

The bed sheets smelled like a wintery forest, like ice and strangely, even leather and molten metal—but perhaps the latter was just his natural male scent intended to lure in females. Either way… Jess felt too exhausted to resist how it enveloped her whole and eventually fell asleep on the sofa before Loki returned to her unit.

 ~*~

He found her sleeping soundly on his “bed” after Dave practically shoved him into the room, locking the door behind him with an ear-piercing click, but he sensed her presence before he even lay his eyes on her. It came knocking him over like the strong winds in Jötunheim, making him swallow as he stepped closer.

Loki wondered just how fast he could snap her delicate neck. How he could overpower and threaten to kill her before the oafs watching him over the surveillance cameras even registered what was unfolding before their eyes, taking her hostage. But he did no such thing and it left him pondering if Mobius had somewhat suspected he would not harm a hair on her head.

He knew a lot about him, Mobius. More than he would have liked, but if watching him in various timelines proved anything at all, it was that Loki was not malicious for the sake of malice. Ever since his arrival, Jess had not once raised his voice against him—he had no reason to plot vengeance against her. Only to plan it with her. Fuck off, she had barked. He smirked.

She seemed kind, after all, understanding—well, she was cheeky and smug too but there was more beneath the surface. Loki refrained from flinching when she stirred, turning over on the sofa to reveal her face. Eyes closed, features relaxed, lips slightly parted. As soon as her eyes flew open, Loki felt an adrenaline rush resembling the thrill of being reunited with a long-lost possession.

Jess blinked. “Hey… how long have you been here?”

“About a minute. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the door close.”

She shrugged. “I have a deep sleep.” Truly. She could sleep through a war and feel rested the next day. Technically, that was another superpower of hers.

“I… um…” What? I’m sorry? For what? This was ridiculous. She had nothing to apologise for. Instead, she sat up straight and rushed to gather her things so Loki would get his bed back. Her own was calling for her anyway. “When did M send you?”

Loki swallowed. “The nineties again, to save a Minuteman from public execution in a Hydra cult.”

“And did you?”

He smirked, sending a lightning bolt right between her legs. Damn him. “Yes. Even though I do assume that he was never in any real danger.”

“How can you know? M has his reasons for what he does. I’m sure he had one for allowing you to interfere.”

Loki hummed, careful not to scratch on the surface of his true intentions towards her again—not anytime soon, anyway. “Did he now? You all think me the God of Lies, yet Mobius is so full of them he reeks of deception.” He paused, looking her straight in the eye. “Do you trust him?”

Did she? Her answer should have been an unconditional yes, a confirmation of her loyalty to the TVA but who was she kidding? No. She did not trust him. M had given her a home and he had given her a purpose beyond criminal intent, and technically she had put her life into his hands but she did not, in fact, trust him.

She didn’t trust anyone in the TVA, as a matter of fact—not even Fred and especially not Dave, even with his jubilee coming up. She trusted no one but herself. Her parents had taught her that, a long time ago. At least that’s how she remembered it.

“You should go to sleep. Fred had a point, I’m sure M won’t go easy on you once you’ve become used to all the timeline hopping.”

Loki frowned, fully aware of the fact she had not answered his question. He watched her stagger off into her room tired but elegantly, empty peanut shells still scattered on the coffee table like confetti. He would have made them disappear with but a flick of his wrist if it wasn’t for that absurd collar.

Loki wondered for just a brief moment if she would pleasure herself again tonight. Oh, yes. He had heard that and it had left him with a bulge in his trousers for the rest of the night. The barely audible buzzing of a sex toy Loki could only imagine had been buried deep inside her cunt, and Jess’ soft whimpers, albeit muffled due to the pillow she must have pressed her face into, had been all but delectable, and while he doubted that he was the reason for her night-time adventure, it had been a thrilling experience nonetheless. Loki merely possessed enough decency not to bring it up—not until he might need to blackmail her. At the very least, that was what he told himself. He refused to believe the premise of his silence was a growing collection of sexual fantasies, most of which involved Jess on her knees in front of him, moaning and whimpering like she had last night.

Loki cursed, brushing the peanuts aside and heeded her advice. He should rest. It would do him no good to stay up all night yet again and squeeze a few hours of sleep out in the early morning when exhaustion got the better of him. He shouldn’t be letting his guard down at all for as long as he was wearing that collar and could be taken by surprise. This morning posed as the perfect example of this miserable predicament. No one should be able to march past him and get ready for a long workday with him sleeping through it, and yet Jess had managed to do just that.

He hummed to himself, straightening the covers of his provisory bed before lying down with as much grace as he could muster and ridding himself of his clothing. He would be damned if he did not make use of whatever connection there might have been between them, even if he knew he was repeating himself at that point. Patience. Patience is a virtue. It still took him hours again for his mind to finally switch off and let him fall asleep.

~*~

Jess nearly jumped out of her skin when she found Loki standing right behind her, peeking over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of what she was working on.

“How did you even find me? The lab is miles away.”

Loki smirked, sending her heart knocking against her ribcage like a steam hammer. “Not all of my powers are of magical origin, you see.” He would certainly not tell her he found her because he had sensed her. herher. sdHe sighed. “And to be quite frank, you are far more bearable than everyone else around here.”

Jess smiled smugly. “You know what, I’ll just take that as a compliment. I see you’re without handcuffs but I have work to do. So either help me translate or be quiet and let me focus, alright?”

He looked so damn good in that suit. The white button-up chemise and the black tie complimented his raven hair like it had been made for him, and not been borrowed from Dave who, as far as she was concerned, had been more than against the idea of the God of Mischief wearing his suits.

“No missions today?” She found herself asking, blinking rapidly to tear her gaze away from his chest.

“I guess we shall find out. Though I am surprised Mobius is not concerned some of Odin’s lapdogs will kick in the door sooner or later.” He had given it a proper thought before, of course. Loki was a fugitive, a criminal. Thor was probably looking for him, along with a herd of einherjar following after him like sheep. The very circumstance that he might just be safe here for the time being, until he had gotten his hands on the Tesseract and the collar off his neck, had indeed occurred to him already. Mobius had refused any information on the matter, Jess, on the other hand, was easier to manipulate.

“Only in one timeline,” Jess said. “The one you escaped from. You are in the Null-Time Zone now which means you are shielded from anyone travelling with the Filumorph.” It was a ridiculous term, really, didn’t quite roll off the tongue. She knew what it meant, at least. Filum was a Latin word for string. Time strings, in this case. But then again, it was just a tongue-twister she had come up with at Mobius’ birthday party a few years ago.

“The entire facility is hidden from prying eyes then, is it not?” Loki probed, his fingertips brushing over a stack of books Jess had brought to work today.

“Yes?”

“How far does this protection reach?”

“Across the nine realms and beyond, Loki. That’s like, the whole point. The multiverse, except for a few individuals, don’t know we exist, and unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.W.O.R.D. we work in secret. We only observe and keep things in order.” She recited the words as if she had learned them by heart from a dull textbook.

“I figured this much.” He purred, snatching a book from the table and flicking through it with vague interest. Whatever stood behind this very protection, surely there were mechanics and science involved. All he had to do was find a way to use this protection for himself once the Tesseract created a portal for him to get out of here.

He hummed once more, following Jess’ every move as she attempted to get back to her work. This woman had access to any document in dire need of translation all across the TVA. He would be damned if she could not find out where the cube was—if she did not know already, that was.

She scribbled a translation on the page with a pencil reading ‘bad or evil’, then paused, chewed on the eraser-part and frowned. ‘Sick?’, she added with a question mark.

“You are not wrong,” he found himself saying, crossing his arms before his chest and leaning against her desk as his eyes skimmed over the transcript. “Evil would indeed refer to sick in this case as there are no other mentions of ill-willed entities. Here. Varð þeim ǫllum ilt af,” he cited, picking a random example a little further on in the dialogue. “It made them all sick.”

“I thought so. It must have something to do with the ‘fjölkyngi’ they keep speaking of.”

“Sorcery? What sorcery?”

Jess switched to Old Norse, reading out loud what the transcript had to offer. Loki’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest upon hearing her speak in his mother tongue, her pronunciation so on point and flawless his lips parted in utter surprise. “But they don’t mention it again,” she continued in English. “It’s like they’re afraid of talking about it.”

“Let me see.” Jess held back a smile, her pulse speeding up. Loki leaned over the desk, allowing her to take in his unique and beguiling scent—not to mention the way his sleeves were rolled up, his pale forearms on full display for her. The strength hiding in those muscles made her wiggle around on her chair like an impatient child. There went her concentration again, she thought, as she nibbled on her candy necklace.

~*~

“M? Do you have a moment?” It was about a week later when Jess made her way to Mobius’ office—it was more a control room, really—with a stack of documents tucked under her arm.

“Jess…” Mobius did not look up but she knew better than to assume he would not pay attention to her. He was exceptional at multi-tasking, Mobius. “What can I do for you?” His eyes were glued to six screens right in front of him, the one in the middle displaying who Jess immediately identified as Loki, and his new reluctant supervisors, Ariana and Homer. She placed the documents on his desk, right next to the silly Doctor Who coffee mug she had gotten him for his birthday once, her blue eyes darting over to the screens like magnets.

“I translated the remaining transcripts and protocols now.” And Loki helped me, she added silently. “There are three mentions of a foreign entity of sorts that could be an Infinity Stone but the descriptions were too vague, almost as if they spoke in code… to be truly honest, I believe this is about something, or rather someone else entirely. It seems to refer to people more than magical objects.” She said, not once averting her gaze. “I’ll need more to figure out if it’s really… When is Loki?”

Mobius looked up at last, noticing her almost suspicious interest in what was unfolding on the surveillance monitors.

“Never mind that. Those are just previews, getting him used to time and multiverse travels.” She hummed. Just what she’d expected. “He’s making things a lot more difficult for himself than they are. Makes me wonder if we should let him take part in Dave’s jubilee party on Saturday. How are you getting along with him?” He asked instead of answering her question. “I noticed he spends an awful lot of time around your office.” Blood bit at her cheeks. Did he know? Don’t be ridiculous. How would he? What was there to know anyway?

“He does. I am trying to be nice, unlike you lot. But we haven’t exactly been speaking much.” … He only watches me work, mostly, seeking my presence like a bee hunting for honey… not that I’d mind. “Why?”

“No reason. You just seem tense. You will tell me if you notice anything… off about him, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” Does me wanting to be near him and touch him count as off? She swallowed, saying nothing more.

“You won’t have to put up with Loki for much longer, I promise. Reese has recovered well, he’ll take over next week and you’ll have your unit all to yourself again. I’ll send Dave to get you those recordings, he should be able to retrieve them before the party.”

“Already?”

Mobius gave her a look and Jess slapped her forehead mentally. “I mean… Reese is feeling better already? I thought he was almost beheaded.”

“Exactly, almost.” Mobius chuckled.

Jess ignored that last bit. Her mind had gotten stuck at put up with Loki. Like she would admit to him that he had been pleasant to have around when he wasn’t trying to smash the pillars holding her life together like he had when he accused Mobius of using her like a tool. “And quite frankly, I am keen on keeping a safe distance between you,” he went on unfazed, “Loki is like a ticking time bomb. That collar is staying on until I can be one-hundred percent certain he is not up to some mischief.”

“What about my probation?”

The senior manager gave her a sly grin. “Consider it ended for now. But I’m watching you, Jess.”

She scoffed. “Of course you are.”

~*~

A/N: I’m always happy about comments, so let me know what you think or what you believe will happen next! ♥

[thekytchensynk]

So when I am trying to get a story done, I somehow always spend a lot of time writing other stories instead, as a sort of procrastination aid. Not sure I'll continue it, or even post it anywhere else ... we'll see. But if I do, it could be fun to have Eiko RPF her way through Iruma-Kun Cannon. _____________________________

Eiko leaned against the cold stone of the main building of the Babyls school campus, one hand pressed to her chest as though she could make her heart stop beating so very loud. It felt like it was trying to slam its way free of her ribs, which she felt sure wouldn’t be healthy.

“Oh my gosh, Aiko, are you okay?” Gaako’s voice cut through the ringing in her ears, and a friendly pressure on her shoulder brought her out of her reverie. Eiko blinked and looked over at her friend. The concern on her green face helped her calm down a little, but only a little. 

“That was so scary,” Gaako continued, looking around as though she expected to see another fire demon charging at them, sword in hand.

When word had gotten around that the representative of the first years was challenging the school president’s grandson in the school courtyard, it had seemed like a bit of fun. And while seeing Azmodeus in all his power had been a beautiful sight, it was also kinda funny to see the growing bafflement and rage on his face as Iruma avoided attack after attack after attack. Eiko had to admit she’d been getting really into it.

Until she saw that fire sword heading straight for her face. 

She’d had one crystal clear moment that seemed to stretch on and on, enough time to think this is it. I’m going to die here, before even my first day of classes. I never got to go to that Beeber concert. I never went on a real date. I never even got to find out what my familiar is. It’s too soon to die! Too soon-

And then, faster than her mind could comprehend, the sword was gone, Azmodeus slammed into the ground and out cold. And the one who’d done it?

Iruma.

The whole thing had ended so suddenly. In a flash, Iruma was taking Azmodeus to the nurse, and the people were all scattering and going back to their business, but Eiko, still caught up in her panic, couldn’t get the hammering of her heart to stop after that fright. She’d fled here, to a quiet interior corridor, hoping that getting some space would help. But her heart was still going way too fast. What was wrong? Had all that magic in the courtyard somehow affected her?

“It was pretty cool of that Iruma guy to stop Azmodeus though, wasn’t it?” Gaako asked. She smiled hopefully at Eiko. She’s trying to distract me to calm me down, Eiko realized with a flood of gratitude. “I mean, until then he’d pretty much kept his distance. But then he saw the danger and stepped in, like some sort of hero from a book.”

“Y.. yeah, you’re right,” Eiko agreed in shaky tones. “It was pretty cool.” Even now, she could see the look of alarm that had crossed his face, just before he’d stepped in, ahd put himself in harm’s way…

To save her.

Maybe, she realized, my heart’s not beating because I was scared. 

“He was pretty cool.”

  After school that night, Eiko lay on the floor in her room, staring at a blank notebook, pen in one hand.

She hadn’t been able to catch up to Iruma after all the madness of the afternoon, but her imagination just wouldn’t shut up. It kept imagining the scenario, but adding variables. Changing the scene. If she didn’t do something about this she was going to go wicked. And her mother had often encouraged her to write things down in order to think them through. So here, in the safety of her room, she started writing.

It was the first day of school and Beeko stopped in the entrance hall to look around. All around were other students, and they were cute or smart or mean or wild, but from the moment she had stepped onto campus, there was one who captured her attention like a hook.

Irudo. 

He was a slender young man with azure orbs that flashed with compassion and humor. His sapphire hair was perfectly styled into place to give him a mature and sophisticated look. He wore only the finest clothing from Saks 666th Avenue. Today he wore a closely tailored silver suit with intricate embroidery up the sides of the legs, highlighting how slender yet strong those appendages were. His vest was cut perfectly to accentuate-

  “Eiko?”

The rattle of her door opening drew Eiko out of the scene. Face reddening, she tried on impulse to scoop the notebook out of sight, but it caught on the ember-bear rug and stopped within arm’s reach as her mother came into the room.

“Mom!” she said, scandalized by this invasion at a vulnerable moment.

Her mother paused at the tone, then looked at the notebook. A wicked smile spread across her face. “Ahh. Starting a diary?” she asked.

Scrambling to a sitting position, Eiko grabbed the notebook and flipped it shut. “No, it’s not like that,” she said, feeling the heat rise in her face. “I just wanted to take some notes about the day. That’s all.”

The grin deepened. “Notes about a boy maybe?”

“Mom!”

Her mother laughed. “Fine, fine. I just wanted to let you know dinner’s ready in about thirty minutes. Try to finish up your notes by then.”

The door closed. Eiko watched it for a while, half expecting it to open again and her mother’s prying eyes to peer once more into the room. But when nothing happened, she sighed and settled back into the story. But … shoot, she’d lost the mental picture of the rest of that description. Ah well. It didn’t matter. 

  He was walking around to greet every one of his new classmates when a noise drew everyone’s attention to the ceiling. There was a huge chandelier overhead that was swaying back and forth wildly like someone had given it a kick. It was going to fall!

“Oh no!” shouted some of the students.

“Run!”

“Aah!”

“It’s going to fall!”

But Beeko could only watch it swing, and then fall, because she was so scared that her legs were shaking and would not let her take a step. “Oh no!” she shouted. “I need a hero! Someone save me!”

CRASH!

Beeko felt warm arms around her instead of a heavy light fixture on top of her. She opened her eyes and saw that someone had saved her. Those azure orbs looked into her eyes, probing for an honest answer as he asked in his masculine voice, “Are you all right?”

“I am now that you saved me,” she replied, still not quite daring to believe that she was in his strong arms. He had saved her! On the first day of class. Overcome with relief and wanted to give her rescuer a reward, she leaned over toward him, tilting her face as she got closer. A kiss would be his reward! At first he looked surprised, then he smiled at her and leaned in too and-

  A loud knocking made her scratch a fat line of ink across the rest of that line and onto the carpet. “Eiko?” her mother called through the door. 

She looked up, heart hammering, “What? 

“Dinner!”

Eiko looked back at the story. Up at the door. Back to the story. “Be down in a minute!” she said, scooping the book and rushing to stuff it under her pillow. It had been a really cool day. But she didn’t think she could stand her mother reading this. 

That story was for her alone.