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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years ago

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For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe?#C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess?#there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

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hyunjinspark · 2 years ago

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Hi Jade, I always thought of writing here and I was thinking of waiting till the next chapter (like mate stop procrastinating) but here we go... I've seen some people bad mouthing fanfics here and you saying that Tumblr hasn't been a happy place for you but I want you to know that your writing was one of the few things that helped me during one of the hardest times I've went through this summer. This is a bit embarassing for some reason lol but since I'm writing anonymously I can talk freely. Let me warn I may talk about some triggering topics and I don't know if you even want to read such things but my depression and anxiety became worse and I was also diagnosed with an eating disorder this summer. I really felt like giving up a lot this year and I feared that I'd. Thankfully I found some things to hold on for in life especially with uni starting. But during the summer I felt really alone and hopeless. This is half joking and half serious but I spent most of my time online and everytime you updated I was like "omg thank god I didn't do stupid things, here's the new chapter." "oh i should hang on a little more so that i can see the end of the fic." I always look forward to new chapters and I can imagine how hard it is to focus and be inspired when life goes on, responsibilities shows up and people try to degrade your work. But in the end I really hope and believe that nothing breaks your soul and your love for writing because you can always be an escape from reality and a peace of mind to someone who's in trouble without even knowing. I even made goddamn streusel cakes lol (unfortunately I had no strawberries left but apples weren't that bad either). Sending so much love to you and pardon me if I made any grammatical mistakes while writing to the greatest writer <3

trigger warning; depression, anxiety, ed

oh my god. first of all, thank you so much for feeling comfortable enough to open up and share this with me. i can’t thank you enough for telling me something like this, and how your message turned my week around.

its definitely strange to not have it to be a happy or safe place at the moment, because tumblr, for me, since years, has always been a safe space where i felt like i could share the writing i like, in a form that’s interesting to me. i love writing fiction, films and building stories about love, and with something like fandoms and fanfiction, its so simple to share with people. but currently with the hate threats, it’s definitely not feeling like a space where im comfortable anymore, so your message really impacted me, because it reminds me what i write for.

im so sorry to hear that you went through such a time, and i truly hope you’re doing much better now. ive had people close to me who have been through such situations and im so proud of you for not giving up and for still holding on. for you to say that my story helped me is a lot, perhaps way too much credit than i deserve, but honestly if my stories make you happy even just 1%, that’s enough for me.

i have been writing my entire life, but only shared on tumblr for a couple of years, with reservations because when you share any form of art or writing on the internet, you’re always inviting hate and anonymous comments from people who may not understand the intent of the work, and i could always go back to not sharing my writing since first and foremost i always write to express my ideas of love and receiving hate for love stories kind of negates that, you know? this week has made me feel like not wanting to share my writing anymore in the future, so thank you for telling me this.

i am grateful to have been an escape and piece of mind for you when you most needed it, and just that makes me feel like i was successful in sharing some love into the world.

you made streusel cakes from slwy? im honestly going to cry, ive never made streusel cakes myself but i will for you, im serious. going to get the recipe and coerce my best friend into doing that with me, just to celebrate you and slwy, and love.

once again, im so proud of you for getting through this and im so happy to have been there for you, even if unknowingly.

#star lost with you #the best message i have ever received #despite the circumstances #thank you for sharing it with me

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princess-of-disappointment · 4 years ago

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Intruder Alert

Request from @perksofbeingatrex: Hey I wasn’t sure if this was the right place to request? And if it is maybe y/n is a streamer and has an intruder or something idk I like reading angsty/fluffy stuff

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Hi Hi!

Thank you so much for sending in your request! I’ll work on figuring out a system for requests, but in the meantime if you’d like to send anything in via dm like she had, I have no issues with it! I’ll respond as soon as I see it just for some clarification and to let you know that I have indeed seen your request with no problems. :)

Anyways, @perksofbeingatrex I hope you enjoy this! I really enjoyed writing it and funnily enough almost started it in a completely different way (saved that beginning for a future writing).

I will admit my usage of the word “you” feels very repetitive so if anyone out there has any suggestions about helping that for future writings that would be greatly appreciated!

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Intruder Alert

Pairing: Corpse Husband x Reader (y/n)

Warning: Angst / Fluff

Specific Warning: CREEPY AF, intrusion, stalking?

Summary: During a stream of Among Us, y/n receives some creepy messages in chat which quickly escalate.

Word Count: 1,438

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After being a streamer for a few years, you had become used to some of the peculiar and out there things that people have said in your chat. However, today, a day no where near Halloween or any other related event, you were most definitely not expecting to be receiving some of the absurd and rather creepy messages that you were receiving.

“You still live in (town name), right?”

“Is that a lawnmower I hear? I must be getting closer.”

“I can’t wait to see you in person…”

There were more of these messages and every time a user sending these would get banned, it almost seemed like double that amount would pop up. For awhile you were truly creeped out and then you went through the moments where you thought chat was just trolling you, however one message in particular really got you on edge:

“Blue house, number 332, right? Looks like no one else is home.”

That comment alone made a shiver run down your spine. You weren’t certain if they got the town correct or even the state you were living in, but this was too much of a coincidence to ignore as those specific details matched your home exactly.

Your roommates were out of town visiting family and friends and you had opted to stay at the house to hold down the fort and you had thought that it would be a pleasant experience to have the place to yourself for once.

Not knowing how to respond to that message you completely halt what you were doing both in real life and the game that you were currently playing which happened to be Proximity Among Us with Corpse, Rae, Sykkuno, Toast, Poki, Ludwig, Leslie, Peter, and Karl.

You were imposter that round meaning you were allowed to look at your chat and you had simply been keeping an eye on it due to the strangeness of today’s chat. You didn’t comment on anything that had been said and were actively engaging in a conversation with Corpse as you were following him around the map when that particular message rolled in.

“You could totally kill me right here, y/n, and no one would know. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Laughing, you had responded with, “Corpse, I am not imposter and I certainly don’t-” your words slowly begin to fall flat when you read that message and you stop moving your character as you turn away from your screen to peer at the other monitor to ensure you read that right.

Corpse noticed the change in behavior quite quickly. How could he not when you had been happily laughing beside him and then you suddenly weren’t, “y/n? Is everything alright?”

You had no idea how to respond as you quickly got up to lock the door of the room that you are in, bumping into a light stand while in a hurry, knocking it over. Your mic being unmuted caught this sound and alerted Corpse that something definitely wasn’t right. With your lack of response to his previous questions to you, he decided to attempt to call your cell phone which happened to be sitting on your desk.

As you finished up repositioning the light stand that you had knocked over, your phone began to ring. You answer immediately and mute your mic both in game and for the stream before going over to the only window in the room and closing the curtains quickly, “Corpse? Wh-what’s up?”

“Is everything alright?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I should still be streaming or calling the police… Oh my… I should be calling the police,” you trail off as you mentally make note of anything and everything you have ever heard about being in a situation where there may be an intruder, you just never thought that it could ever happen to you, much less on stream where your thousands upon thousands of viewers could see.

“What’s going on right now?” You were freaking Corpse out, you could hear it in his tone as he asked the question in which you weren’t quite sure of the answer, and with how heightened your senses seemed to be out of the mixture of pure adrenaline and fear, you knew you couldn’t have both of your anxieties going rampant at the moment.

“I-I… I’m not quite sure… I think someone may be outside of my house. The roomies are out of town and I’ve been getting these messages in chat and I thought that maybe they were just trolling but this one… This one…”

You’re cut off by a loud noise sounding from somewhere within the house and you quickly cover your mouth in hopes to make yourself quieter. You move to the far corner of your office with your phone in one hand and grabbing the light stand as you pass it. It wasn’t the best option for defense if necessary, but it was light enough for you to carry and could put some distance between yourself and whoever was to enter the room.

On the other side of the phone line, Corpse had quickly ended his stream and used his home phone to call the police, giving them your address before grabbing his mask and car keys. “y/n, stay on the call with me. I’m on my way over. I’ll be there soon, okay honey?”

“O-okay…” you speak as quietly as you could and thankfully Corpse had been able to hear the short response as he starts his car and turns his phone on speaker phone before setting it in one of the vehicle’s cup holders.

Thankfully you lived in a small town about a half hour away from San Diego and traffic wasn’t as bad as it could be as he was able to arrive at your house just within that 30 minute time range. When he arrived the police had already arrived and you were standing outside with them discussing what had happened.

Those 30 minutes waiting for Corpse’s arrival had been terrifying. You refused to turn off your stream in case it were to capture something, but you worried about ruining the game experience for your friends. These conflicting thoughts ran around your mind, yet you were frozen in the corner of your room as you heard more noises throughout your home and over time they slowly got closer and closer to your locked door. They were right outside of your door when the police arrived and entered the building. Thankfully, the person outside your door hadn’t planned on this and was handcuffed to be taken in for questioning. Even so, you were still shaky and anxious about the whole experience. On your way out of your house to chat with the police, you gave your camera a brief wave before leaving the game and the stream - you would have to apologize to your friends later for leaving without an explanation but for now, it was too fresh to discuss online.

You answered all the questions brought your way to the best of your ability and although you knew you were safe now, you were still uneasy and knew that only one person could make it all better… And then he arrived. Once you had caught his eye, tears began to fill your eyes. Throughout this whole experience, you had managed to keep the tears at bay, but once you saw him, your rock, your person, arrive they just seemed to want to be let free. You quickly excuse yourself from the questioning and rush over to Corpse.

As though he could read your mind, he opens up his arms to embrace you once you were within his reach. Your hands lace under his arms as you gently clutch at the back of his hoodie while holding him while his arms wrap around your figure and his head leans to rest against yours.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” He mutters softly before pecking the side of your head.

“No no no… You got here at the perfect time… The police got him and they were finishing up some questions and now they’re leaving and…” You pull away slightly to look at him mid-rant, “Can you just… Can you stay here with me? Like just for the night or whenever…”

He smiles softly before leaving a kiss on your forehead and gently nuzzling the side of your head, “I don’t plan on going anywhere right now princess.”

A small smile appears on your face at his words, “Really? Can you stay until my roomies get back home?”

“Of course I will.”

#corpse husband #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband x y/n #corpse x reader #corpse x you #corpse husband fanfic #request #fanfic #fanfiction #angst #fluff

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 4 years ago

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erotica, m | myg

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Your roommate, Min Yoongi, catches you masturbating. You catch him masturbating. Well then, dear reader... This should be interesting, shouldn’t it?

warnings: rated M (18+) for language, smut (fem reader, f and m-masturbation, cum eating); non-idol!AU; switches between Yoongi’s POV and your POV

Being in the music industry was rough. It meant long nights struggling for inspiration, fervent mania when it did hit, and crippling anxiety when it was being evaluated. But being a music producer was all Min Yoongi ever wanted.

He had given up a lot to chase his dreams, moving to the big city alone, friendless, trying to find his way, living meal by meal. He needed a roommate, but finding a trustworthy one was difficult. Friend of a friend of a friend and he finally found someone who seemed alright. A young woman in the middle of grad school, who was looking for a place to stay. At first Yoongi thought it would be weird to room with a girl, but one conversation and he realized it would be a good match. Her first question was if he was going to have guests over often. Of course not, Yoongi had music to work on. Her second question was if he was clean, because she couldn’t stand a dirty living situation.

In short, he now had a quiet, paying roommate who kept to herself, holed up in her room all day studying or rushing to class.

Yoongi worked for a small entertainment company, but he also had a home studio because he couldn’t afford to rent a space. This was enough for now. He asked if she was fine with a little noise and she responded by holding up her over-the-ear headphones.

But Min Yoongi had a secret.

Nothing that incriminating. Nothing like drugs or a gambling problem or a recurring STD or something like that. It was in innocent secret, a very small one.

Min Yoongi liked to read erotica blogs.

Now, Yoongi could watch porn. He could go through all the hoops and find some to jack off to. That wasn’t why he preferred to read smut stories online. He just liked to use his own imagination. He liked closing his eyes and painting the scene, but he wasn’t creative enough to dream up all the freaky scenarios he could read online. Some people had some… big brain energy. Some wrinkly brains. He was pretty sure all his gray matter was used on music, so why not let someone else craft the story for him? It took the work out the equation and he could get off. Win-win.

Also, it was much easier to hide it in public. All people would see is him scrolling on his phone, the same thing everyone else did.

Yoongi had his favorites he went back to. They were updated often. Every week there was something new. He checked at least once a week, since that was his usual routine his body wanted. And it was fine. No one knew. He could do it whenever he wanted and relatively quickly. So, all in all, not that bad of a secret, really.

It was six in the morning and Yoongi was scrolling on his phone, mildly horny. Oh! One of his favorite blogs had updated late in the night. Nice. He chewed on his lower lip, reading the summary.

There was a knock on his door.

He nearly dropped his phone. The door was locked, thankfully.

“Yoongi-ssi?” He heard his roommate yawn sleepily. “Did you drink the last of the milk?”

He screwed up his face to think. “Maybe? I’ll buy some the next time I’m at the store.”

He heard the sounds of teeth being brushed and a muffled, “Nah, I’ll place a delivery order right now. I need stuff.”

And that was that. He heard her wander off.

Okay, a very, very, very small part of him did kind of want to get caught. Not embarrassingly or shamefully caught. Just… maybe if it ended in something kind of sexy. Like the stories.

That was would fun.

Yoongi went back to his phone.

You cracked your neck in the mirror, yawning again as you brushed your teeth. You rubbed your eyes, inspecting your dark circles. Ugh. Maybe a little concealer today couldn’t hurt.

You had stayed up late again, writing.

You hadn’t meant to. It happened every once in a while, when the scene played out in your head and you needed to write it down immediately. When inspiration struck, you couldn’t let it run away from you. Sometimes the best things come in short bursts of energy.

At least you didn’t have class today. You were caught up on your classes, so you could spend today writing for your blog. What you posted last night was written several days ago. You had a slight backlog so that you could review things multiple times before posting. Even if it was something as meaningless as smut posted on the internet, you took that shit seriously. This was your outlet and you wanted to personally like everything you posted.

If what you wrote didn’t make you horny, it wasn’t going to make anyone else horny either.

You spat and rinsed out your mouth.

You stared at yourself in the mirror, your tired eyes looking back to you. Maybe you needed some socialization. Real socialization, not you eventually venturing outside because you needed to get laid for… research purposes. You chuckled. Well, you weren’t going to get that here. All your male roommate ever did was work on his music or eat. Which was alright; people were allowed to do what makes them happy. And besides, it was better that way, because you did actually need to study and eventually write your thesis. Less distraction at home was always better.

You turned off the lights in the bathroom and stepped out.

A strange noise came from Min Yoongi’s door.

You blinked, staring at the door several feet away from you. Then you shrugged. He probably just tripped. He was kind of clumsy sometimes, knocking shit over with his fat ass. Well, not really, but it was funny to think of it that way.

You went back to your room.

Oh fuck.

Yoongi stared at his door, clutching the toilet paper roll he hid in his nightstand. He was usually quite skilled at keeping quiet, but he accidentally moaned a little too loud. His hands were still sticky. He waited.

Her bedroom door down the hall closed and he sighed with relief.

When you got back to your room, you made the online grocery order. You needed pads anyway. Then you checked your blog. At this point, you had some familiar usernames you watched for. People rarely commented. Maybe their hands were busy or something. You could forgive. Besides, there were likes and that was enough. To be honest, you never expected anyone to actually do more than read. It felt kind of nice, knowing someone out there was willing to take one second to press one button to let you know.

It made you grateful, even if it was a small thing.

Your eye paused at one particular username. You only noticed it because it was gendered.

daeguboy0613.

Huh.

For the life of you, you couldn’t understand why someone would put their location and gender in their username. Maybe it was a reference to their favorite singer or something. Probably. You shrugged it off and flopped on your bed.

You fell asleep.

Big surprise since you had posted at four in the morning and only gotten up to brush your teeth because your mouth was too disgusting to exist. Ah well. Sleep was good.

You woke up, super groggy. You stared out the window, seeing that it was already dark. With a sigh, you looked into the tiny mirror beside your bed. Yikes. A master yikes even. You climbed your hair with your fingers and got out of bed, your purple pajamas rumpled and crazy. Maybe a shower would do you good. Or a bath. Oh! That sounded nice.

You looked around for your slippers. You found one. Ack, so annoying. You weren’t a messy person, but when you were preoccupied with something, you forgot everything else. You straightened your room and found the other slipper. It was in your blankets, oof.

You opened your door and realized you forgot clean underwear. You stuck your head out, looking around. Faint bass was coming from Yoongi’s room. He’d be there for a while. Eh. You still had your violet pajamas, with long sleeves and long pants. Fully covered. He wasn’t going to know in the two seconds it would take you to get to your room. A good shake of the fleece fabric and the wrinkles would fall out. You’d look way less crazy after a good bath.

You hummed to yourself as you made your way to the bathroom.

Yoongi rubbed his neck, frowning.

It wasn’t coming out the way he wanted. The sound just wasn’t right. He leaned back in his chair, furrowing his brow. Maybe he needed to move on for now. Leave it and work on something else. He spun around in his chair, lazing about. He hadn’t heard his roommate make much noise all day. Was she dead? Yoongi heard the water running in the bathroom. Oh. She was taking a shower.

He thought about her for a moment. She was generally calm person, quiet and reserved. The only time he had ever seen her panic was when she was late to class, which wasn’t often. Other than that, she was kind of boring. It was like the only thing she thought about was school. She was pretty in a casual sort of way. Yoongi rarely saw her dressed up, but the few times she left at night, she always looked very nice in a short black dress and black heels. Probably a recurring outfit she used at every outing. He could respect that. Being strapped for cash meant a lot of repeating outfits.

Anyway, they didn’t interact much at all. They had their respective things to do, so they co-existed in a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship. It was nice not having to be distracted by a bad roommate, so for that he was grateful.

You pushed back the shower curtain, dripping water.

That was nice. You waited as the bathwater drained. Your hair was wet, kind of by accident, but whatever, you needed to wash your hair anyway. Your brushed water off your body absentmindedly, poking your nipples. They were hard from the cold air.

Hm.

The water gurgled as you rubbed them slowly, sighing softly. That was nice. When was the last time you masturbated? You couldn’t remember. You looked at the bathroom door. It wasn’t locked, but what was Yoongi going to do? Open the door on you? Yeah, right. You pinched and pulled your nipples, sucking in a breath. It was nice to touch yourself, to cup your breasts and press them together, grazing your nails over the hardened nubs, imagining someone else’s hands touching you, wanting you.

You slid against the wall, moaning quietly as you played with your breasts, water beading on your skin. One of your hands slid down between your legs and slid around your folds. The wetness of your pussy was different from water, thicker, more viscous. Your eyes closed as you stroked your clit, slow and gentle and pretty. Imagining a tongue there, licking you softly, giving you just the right amount of pressure to build your arousal. No rushing, letting it last.

You ended up sliding to your knees, spreading your thighs wide to give your hand space. Your other hand played with your nipples leisurely, pinching and pulling, making your heart jump. You were quiet, barely making any noise.

Drip.

Your eyes opened hazily. They shifted slowly to the faucet. It was dripping water. Slow, fat plops hitting the bathtub.

Drip.

You pressed harder on your clit, rubbing roughly.

Drip.

Your eyes shifted to the silver faucet again. It was right there, after all.

Fuck it.

You turned the water on again, setting it to a nice temperature. You waited impatiently, touching the water. It heated up quickly. You bit your lower lip, and then raised the temperature a tad. It torrented down and, for a split second, you thought you weren’t going to do it.

Then you adjusted your hips and planted your ass on bottom of the bathtub and slid down to the water.

Instant, unyielding. You shivered, the blasting water jet-streaming right into your pussy. Holy fuck. You slid down a little more and moaned, hoping the water masked your sound as the high-pressure water smacked your clit, lowering to your elbows to get a better angle. Heart beating fast, legs folded flat against the edge of the tub, leaning your head back, tits straight up. It was a difficult position to keep, but a rewarding one, because the water was getting you off fast, gentle enough that you weren’t in pain but hard enough that you could really feel it radiate all over you, the heat adding to the pleasure.

So close, so close…

You closed your eyes, thighs burning, core tightening as your entire body began to throb. A slow hiss escaped your lips as you felt your orgasm unfurl and hit you, wave after wave of delicious pleasure swimming through you, spreading to every point of your body.

“Are you drowning or wasting water, the fuck is–”

Min Yoongi’s voice was trying to cut through your reverie but it was impossible because you were too far gone now, legs collapsing inward, body falling flat against the tub. The door was open and he was staring at you, eyes so wide they looked like dinner plates. Water flowed over your hot body, blanketing you. Slowly, slowly, you came down, like an addict losing their high. His mouth was slightly open, kitten-like. His white t-shirt stuck to his chest and black track pants far too oversized for his slim legs.

You might have been ashamed if you were younger, but you were older now. If he couldn’t handle you getting off every once in a while, then he was the one who needed help.

You reached up and turned the water off, panting. You quirked an eyebrow at him.

“If you’re so worried about it, I’ll pay the whole water bill this month,” you gasped, chest heaving as you glared back at him.

Yoongi sputtered back to life.

“N-no, that’s fine.”

And then he slammed the door.

You sighed, frowning. Now things were going to get weird.

Holy shit.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

He just witnessed his roommate masturbating with the goddamn water faucet.

Yoongi scrambled into his room and onto his bed, red in the face. He hadn’t meant to. He thought something weird was going on when he heard all the water. And, oh fuck, something was, but not the something he thought. His mind replayed the image for him, her legs spread, her breasts glistening with water, nipples hard and out, head tipped back and mouth open, tongue peeking out.

He was still hard.

His heart was thumping in his ribcage. Yoongi grabbed his phone and flipped through his liked posts. He had to get off. Now. Anything else could wait.

He slid in, hard, rough, gasping at her pretty lips opened and her eyes closed in bliss, enjoying his cock, just his, enjoying the way he felt, enjoying his hips slapping into hers and his cock twitching inside her.

Impatiently, he reached down and fished his dick out of his pants, sliding to his back and pushing his track pants down. Oh fuck, sweet relief. Yoongi stroked himself, reading, imagining her wet body, her slick hair, those fucking delicious breasts right in front of his face. Had Yoongi ever fantasized about his roommate before? Hell no, he wasn’t a damn pervert. But he was doing it now, because, fuck, how could he not? How could he not want to fuck her, press himself against her, hearing that soft moan against his ear, her wet body and smooth skin on his?

Yoongi dropped his phone, pushing his head back against the pillows, closing his eyes. Yes, he’d jacked off in the morning, but it was already late and he was so fucking horny it didn’t take very long for him to bite the inside of his cheek, trying to muffle his noise, trying to silence himself as the familiar wind-up came. He cracked his eyes open. His door was slightly ajar. Had he left it like that? Whatever, she was probably too embarrassed to come over here anyway.

Yoongi shut his eyes again, a soft cry leaving his lips as he chased his orgasm.

Then he felt it. A presence to his left. But he was so close, so close, so close, he couldn’t stop. His hand moved at a feverish pace, spreading the pre-cum over his length, adding to the pleasure. He felt lips on his cheek, her soft breathy moans against his skin. Was he imagining it? Then her lips on his, softly licking his tongue, so sensual and sexy that he was losing it, moaning into her mouth. He felt her hot breath glide into his and he groaned, too loud this time, feeling his cock twitch and spurt his cum everywhere, sliding down his hand, his wrist, onto his pants and shirt.

Yoongi panted, opening his eyes.

His roommate moved away from his face. Eyes dark in the low light of his room, pupils blown wide with lust. Her hair was still damp, slicked against her purple pajama shirt. He didn’t know what to do. Hos hand was a mess, covered in his cum. She leaned forward, tongue sliding out.

“Um…”

His thought was cut off as her warm tongue ran over his knuckles, scooping up his cum and eating it off his hand. His eyes went wide as she licked all around his hand, his fingers, dipping her tongue into the crevices. Yoongi could barely process what was happening right now. Was his nerdy, school-obsessed roommate licking his cum off his hand after he just masturbated? After he just witnessed her masturbating? Her mouth enveloped the head and part of his hand and Yoongi moaned, feeling her tongue press against the tip and tease the sensitive opening, licking it all clean.

After a sufficient amount, she removed her mouth and backed off. Yoongi blinked blearily, slowly detaching his hand from his limp cock. He didn’t know what to say. Or do, really. Her eyes were on his phone, screen still lit up. Then she shifted her eyes to his raised hand. Gently, she took him by the wrist and brought his hand to her face, placing his fingers in her mouth, sucking on them.

Yoongi was speechless.

Her tongue slipped between each finger, prodding around his joints, slurping slightly. She was still looking at his phone, eyes pensive. Yoongi wished his cock would wake up, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“I…”

Her eyes went to his, his fingers still in her mouth. Shit. His brain tried to process the thought, trying not to fixate on her pink tongue moving amongst his fingers.

“I can’t fuck you…” he mumbled, swallowing. “I already came twice today.”

She nodded. Slowly, she pulled his fingers out of her mouth, joint by joint. His body jerked at the movement, aroused but unable to get hard. Strings of saliva snapped as she removed her mouth from his hand. She turned it around and licked his palm lightly, making him shiver.

“You like my blog?” she finally said.

He blinked.

“What?”

She pointed to his phone. “That’s my blog.”

Yoongi’s eyes went wide. He stared at his phone and then at her. Then back at the phone. Then back at her. What? She cocked an eyebrow, smiling at him.

“So, you’re daeguboy0613, huh?”

He blinked rapidly. “I… what… ah…?”

“Guess that makes sense when you like my posts at two in the morning and such.”

She climbed on the bed – where were her pajama pants? Her panties? – and laid down next to him.

“You don’t seem like the type to read erotica,” she said absentmindedly. “I thought only girls read erotica.”

Yoongi stared at the ceiling. “Obviously not, since I’m a guy.”

She nodded. “You’re right. I shouldn’t stereotype like that.”

Silence.

“We can always do more in the morning, Yoongi-ssi.”

Two things happened that day. One, Yoongi’s secret was exposed. And two, the source of Yoongi’s secret passed out in bed next to him, head on his shoulder.

34+35

masterpost

#yoongi x reader #min yoongi x reader #bts smut #yoongi smut #min yoongi smut #min yoongi x you #yoongi x you

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solastia · 4 years ago

Text

The Dragon’s Lair - 7

- SEOKJIN’S POV -

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x F!Reader (although she’s kinda OC now huh?)

A/N: Kinda on the short side, I apologize. But I wanted us to get a quick peek into Jin’s side of things and where his mind is. Any guesses on who his mate might be? ;)

*****

He wasn’t sure what had woken him up. The house was silent beyond Namjoon’s snores that he could hear coming through the old walls. He waited a few seconds to see if he could hear anything else or catch a scent, but it was all clear. There was just something pricking at his mind - something making his instincts go wild. He’d blame the fact that he was in a new house but this wasn’t a new feeling.

It had begun when his ride here had traveled past the sea. He’d gotten a whiff of fresh ocean air and his fur had instantly bristled up. His claws had lengthened involuntarily and he’d had to exercise every scrap of self-control he possessed so he wouldn’t leap out of the moving vehicle and run full-shift towards whatever that scent had been.

Seokjin groans and cracks open his eyes, still heavy with sleep. He might as well take a trip to the bathroom while he was already awake. He yawns and forces himself out of the comfy bed, scratching his belly sleepily. Even now, the scent was clear to him. There had been the smell of the ocean, yes, but...something else. Something other like him.

The realistic part of Seokjin’s brain said maybe his exotic side had simply found a scent it liked and that’s that. But when he allowed himself to be more fanciful, like now when it was three am and he was still half asleep, he listened to the Sphinx screaming, “mate, mate, MATE!,” and he didn’t hate the idea.

He’d been alone for so very long that it sounded like a dream. A fairytale ending for his Cinderella story.

Not that Namjoon was any sort of evil stepsister, nor his mate that exuded naivety and goodness from every pore. If anything, he knew that he was particularly blessed to have Heechul hyung looking out for him and talking this human into taking him in. He would have dealt with having to be in the shelter again, but quite honestly he was too old to do well there. He was a grown Sphinx used to independence and being at the top of his hierarchy.

He finishes in the bathroom and sighs heartily, deciding sleep was going to be impossible now. Might as well help himself to the kitchen. He shuffled quietly there and peeked inside the fridge, horrified once again by the contents. How have these two been keeping alive? The fridge only contained very basic ingredients like eggs and milk, a bottle of soy sauce, and not a single vegetable in sight.

He settles for making a couple of fried eggs, using them to top off the bowl of instant rice he pilfered from the cupboards. He gives it all a splash of soy sauce so it’s not completely flavorless and sits at the kitchen table, eating his little meal slowly.

It always seemed like nights were harder for some reason. Like the dark vastness of the sky reminded him of how empty his life had become - of how much he missed his parents.

He’d seriously lucked out when the two had walked into the shelter all those years ago. He’d been a bit older than the usual desired age for hybrid adoptions so he hadn’t expected much when Heechul had escorted the couple towards the exotic section. He’d stayed in his corner of the room playing his video game, but he’d kept an eye on them as they smiled and shook hands with all the desperate little ones crowding them. They seemed genuinely nice, with smiles that lit up their eyes and the man always making his wife laugh.

When they finally got close enough, Seokjin greedily scented the air, thinking if he ever had someone pick him he hoped they smelled as good as these two. The man - though obviously old for a human - smelled strong and healthy. Faint hints of cigar smoke and old books clung to him almost as much as his mate’s scent did. And his mate - the wife - smelled exactly how Seokjin had always thought a mother would. A light hint of expensive perfume couldn’t cloud the endorphins that were coming off of her in waves from being surrounded by the little ones. She was older too - perhaps younger than her husband by no more than a handful of years - but she too seemed to be in good health. She smelled so comforting to Seokjin that he stopped paying attention to his game and let his little avatar get killed three times in a row as he glued his eyes on the woman.

Heechul actually herded the pair towards him and he set down his controller and bowed formally, wanting to make a good impression despite the fact that he knew they would never pick him. He’d thought they’d merely shake his hand and move on, but the man had kept asking him questions about his hobbies and what he wanted to do when he grew up. The woman kept staring at him with her hand held to her chest like she’d been shocked by something.

It wasn’t until a half-hour later when Heechul had called him into his office with the pair that he realized she’d decided she wanted him. A mere few minutes and she’d decided she was his mother and no one else’s. “You’re so handsome I fell in love at first sight, my Jinnie,” she’d always say.

He’d had nineteen wonderful years with them before pneumonia took them both within days of each other. Nineteen years filled with happiness and laughter with two of the most loving people he’d ever met. He missed his routines with them - the fishing every weekend with his dad, cooking with his mom, the Sundays all three of them would sit around with face masks and watch movies.

When they’d passed away, his heart had broken. He’d known it was inevitable - they were both getting old and frail - but he’d thought he’d have just a little more time with them. After the funeral, he waited with bated breath for someone to storm in and drag him off to be put down somewhere. When nothing had happened, he’d grown steadily more careless, often forgetting he wasn’t supposed to be on his own with the big house and vast wealth. He’d carried on with his life like he knew his parents would have wanted him to. He kept going to med school since his dad had pulled so many strings to let him attend, he tried going on dates that never went anywhere, he hung out with his friends whenever he had the time. Life went on.

Trying to stop the robber had been stupid of him - he knew that now. He should have just let the man get away and then never reported him so he’d be left alone...but once he spied his mother’s favorite pearls in the man’s hand he’d lost his shit. He’d fully shifted, letting his wings out and knocking over a couple of vases with their width, and his nails expanded until finally he’d roared and the robber had screamed and thrown the nearest item at his head in his rush to escape. Unfortunately, that item had been his mother’s bird statue that was made entirely of gold, so he’d been knocked out cold. His friend had found him after he hadn’t shown up to their gaming session and called the police and an ambulance, where they took his blood and found out that he was a hybrid with deceased owners and proceeded to shove him in the nearest pound while they contacted his mother’s very distant cousin.

He’d never even gotten to meet this so-called cousin before the fat lawyer that smelled like fried chicken rushed him out of his own home, making him leave behind even the belongings that were his. He had no idea what use the cousin had for his manga or video game collection. Let alone the used sports jerseys or his hamper full of dirty clothes.

Thankfully Heechul existed and he’d been able to contact his old caregiver before he was sent to the state center. He knew that place was a death sentence. And now here he was, in a strange home with barely anything besides his small suitcase. He missed his dad. He missed his mom. He missed feeling loved and hopeful for the future. He missed the way his dad always knew what to do. He missed the way his mom would brush his mane and groom his feathers while she sang.

Seokjin cleared his throat and swiped at his suddenly wet cheek. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. He shook his head and went to the sink to wash his dishes, heading back to his room when he finished for another sleepless night.

****

Life in the ‘Dragon’s Lair’ (as he’d taken to calling it, despite said dragon’s constant eye-rolling) began to take on a new normal the longer he was there. Days began to blend into each other as he struggled to adjust himself to his new reality, but Namjoon and his mate were a great help.

Luckily, his tuition had been prepaid by his father and the cousin had no way of taking his education away from him, so he still took his classes - albeit mostly online because he wanted to stay in his room most of the time.

Money was thankfully of no immediate issue. There was more money in the book than he’d felt comfortable sharing with anyone, enough that he could still go years without a job if he needed to. He also knew that if he needed it, he could always ask Heechul for help, although the other would make him work in the cafe for it. He might do it anyway just for something to do.

Namjoon and his mate were simply wonderful. His old friend had grown up into a great person who was sweet and intelligent, good to the people he cared about, and strong in ways that he probably wasn’t even aware of. His mate Star was just as good. She was funny and kind, with just enough sass to be interesting. And they were both sickeningly in love with each other to the point that Seokjin had to leave the house quite often to get some peace. Not that it upset him - he was incredibly happy for Namjoon. It just sometimes emphasizes how alone he was.

But yes, Star was great. There was just...something about her. Something that drew him to her. Not in a sexual or attraction kind of way...more like - primal. Like the animal side of him saw her as a protector. Which, he supposed she kinda was since she was housing exotic hybrids, but still. He couldn’t figure it out. He was certain she was completely human, but sometimes underneath the frankly nauseating amount of reptile musk that she was constantly covered with, he could catch hints of the forest in her natural scent. Sure, there was a forest nearby, but why would the scent cling to her like that? There was something there and luckily for him, there was nothing he enjoyed more than a good riddle.

Beyond that, there was still one other pressing issue. His mate.

He knew they were out there. He knew he’d caught their scent. When he’d passed the sea he’d been certain they were there. He just needed to find them. He didn’t want them to be alone too.

“Jin, we’re about to head to the mall. Do you want to come shopping with us? The weather’s clearing up and I promised Namjoon we’d go to the ocean,” Star asked with a bright smile as he exited his room.

“The ocean?” he responded, his brain halting for a second. Fate was working her magic, was she?

“Yeah, he’s been wanting to go for a while but it’s been too cold. I thought we’d rent a small beach house and spend the weekend. So you’ll need swim trunks and towels, stuff like that. If you’d rather stay here, that’s fine too. It’s up to you.”

“No,” he rushed, feeling his ears go red with embarrassment as he let his eagerness show. “It’s fine. I’d love to go.”

“Great!” Star grinned, threading an arm with his as she leads him out to the yard. “We’ll have so much fun!”

He nods silently, his nose trying in vain to catch that salty scent on the air again.

I’m coming. Just wait for me.

#bts #the dragon's lair #solastia #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #hybrid au #hybrid!au #hybrid!bts #hybrid!namjoon #hybrid!seokjin #dragon!au #sphinx #bts au

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handsoffmyfriends · 5 years ago

Text

Breaking Expectations

— when you transfer into the hero course for your second year, you have a lot of expectations regarding your soon-to-be classmates. of all the people to not meet your expectations, bakugou katsuki ranks number one, but you find that you aren’t disappointed in the slightest

PARING: bakugou katsuki x reader WORD COUNT: 1,852 WARNINGS: bakugou swears like the bakuhoe he is

A/N: my first one shot 🥺🥺 i really wanted to write something cute and fluffy and angst free for once, i hope i did okay!! warming myself up for opening up requests !

Part 2

You weren’t sure what you expected when you transferred into the hero course, but somehow befriending the hot-headed Bakugou Katsuki hadn’t even been within the realm of possibilities. You respected his undeniable power, but his personality left much to be desired. You, like the rest of the school outside of the hero course, believed he was nothing more than a feral child with a superiority complex. All you had ever heard about him was how angry he was and how poorly he treated everyone around him. Hell, the guy called his best friend “shitty hair” for crying out loud. It left you feeling not as excited as you should have been when you found out you were transferring into Class 2-A.

Your first interaction with the angry boy left you wondering just how much of the rumours you’d heard had been just that; rumours. You thought for sure he was going to yell at you when you’d been thrown into him during hero training, but he’d simply helped you steady your footing and told you to be more careful. His tone always held a note of anger, you’d found, but the way he helped you and proceeded to back you up during the exercise left you feeling like you’d completely misjudged him.

You couldn’t shake the guilt at how poorly you’d originally viewed him, so you approached him later that day in the dorms. Thankfully, he was by himself, sitting on the sofa scrolling through his social media. You weren’t sure how you’d have spoken to him if other people were around.

Still, you weren’t sure how to start the conversation. He very clearly didn’t want to be disturbed, but he was out in the communal living space, so surely he expected to be disturbed? You stood there like an idiot for several long seconds, agonising over how to begin, but once again, he surprised you.

“Don’t stand there all day,” he growled out, flicking his crimson eyes up at you. “Couches are free real estate. Don’t need my permission to sit your ass down.” He returned his attention back to his phone.

You stiffened slightly at his bluntness. Again, you hadn’t known what to expect, but that certainly wasn’t it. “Ah, that’s not what I came over here for.”

He looked back up at you, this time putting his phone aside and giving you his entire attention. “If it’s about before, don’t worry about it. Everyone does dumb shit during the exercises. Dunce Face does something stupid every fucking time.”

You frowned in confusion before realising he meant Kaminari. You shook your head, finding your voice. “Ah, it’s not quite that either, though I am very sorry about getting in your way. It was a lot more intense than I thought it was going to be.”

Bakugou shrugged with indifference. “You did alright to me. Better than that grape fucker we had last year.”

You dug through your brain to figure out who he could have possibly meant before noticing you were getting distracted. “It’s— I mean... I came over to apologise to you! For misjudging you!” You blurted your thoughts out before they got lost on the way to your mouth. It came out a lot less eloquently than you intended. At his furrowed eyebrows, you tried to save face and explain yourself. “I just... I needed to apologise. You aren’t at all how I thought you would be.”

His expression darkened. “Let me guess, you thought I’d be some kind of villain in the making? Some asshole that would stomp you into the ground without a second thought?”

You didn’t respond, but it was answer enough for him.

He sighed deeply, releasing his frustrations. “Look, that shit was probably true a year ago. I get why you’d think that.” He pulled his phone back out, returning his attention back to it. “People change, believe it or not. But, thanks... for being upfront, I guess.”

You weren’t sure how you felt about the conclusion to the conversation, but it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. You didn’t feel right just walking away after that either, so you took a seat on the couch, a comfortable distance away from him, and pulled out your own phone to browse your social media.

You looked back up at him sharply when you noticed the new friend request notification pop up. The Bakugou Katsuki had just sent you a friend request. He seemed entirely unaware of you staring at him in disbelief, despite having just sent you the request. He continued to scroll through his phone, very pointedly not looking up at you.

You decided not to make a big deal out of it, since he wasn’t either.

Bakugou continued to surprise you as the weeks and months went by. Sure, he was as angry as you had been led to believe, but it wasn’t a personal anger that you had assumed. He was just a shouty kind of guy. He called all his friends insulting nicknames, but they were said with a strange kind of fondness, like insults were the only way he could allow himself to show affection. He even had one for you, and if anyone else had called you that, you would have been really offended. Coming from Bakugou, it was strangely nice.

You found yourself hanging out with him more and more. Not through any intentional planning, but the two of you just ended up in the same places at the same times. He was almost always accompanied by Kirishima, who was always overly happy to see you, almost like he was making up for Bakugou’s lack of enthusiasm. You didn’t mind the extra company, though you found you liked your alone time with Bakugou even more.

Sometimes, it was just studying together. Sometimes, you both didn’t say a word, simply enjoying each other’s company. When you did talk, it was comfortable. Bakugou wasn’t a big talker, but you could tell he really trusted you when he did talk to you about more serious topics than the weather. You treasured those moments.

“Hey, Y/N! We’ve been looking for you!” Kirishima called out, pulling you from your book.

“Oh, Kirishima, Bakugou,” you greeted pleasantly, giving up on studying. You probably shouldn’t be studying in the communal area anyway. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Kirishima grinned impossibly wide, showing off his famously sharp teeth. “Bakubro here wanted you to join us for squad movie night.”

Without hesitation, Bakugou threw a punch at Kirishima, right in the face. The red-head had apparently been expecting it, since he’d hardened up instantly and was left entirely unaffected by the slug. “Shut the hell up, shitty hair, you make it sound so fucking creepy!”

You laughed at their bickering, finding it endearing. How you had ever thought Bakugou was an asshole to his friends was beyond you. The words themselves were harsh, but the emotions behind them spelled out an entirely different meaning. He was embarrassed.

You decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up. “Squad movie night, huh? I didn’t know I was part of a squad.”

Kirishima threw an arm around Bakugou. “I’ll add you to the group chat! But, you gotta come for movie night first! It’s like, initiation.”

You giggled. “Alright, alright. I need a break anyway.”

That’s how you found yourself curled up on the couch, pressed up against the arm of the three seater. It seemed squad movie night was an accepted practise in the dorm, since no one other than Bakugou’s friends were present despite being hosted in the communal area.

Mina had picked the movie, which was surprisingly an action packed thriller, not a rom-com that you’d have expected from her. It suited you just fine, since you weren’t exactly in the mood for a rom-com.

You’d sat down first, since you weren’t sure who did what when it came to movie time. Kaminari handed around little bowls full of snacks for everyone, while Sero and Kirishima pulled out a plethora of comforters, blankets and pillows, passing them around to everyone. You suspected they were from everyone’s rooms and you suddenly felt lacking since you hadn’t brought your own. This certainly wasn’t what you’d expected to come along to.

You continued to be surprised when Bakugou took a seat next to you and threw his comforter over you. “Bring your own next time,” he growled at you, adding on your insulting nickname.

You figured Kirishima would sit next to Bakugou, but he just sat down on the other couch with Sero. Mina had created a nest on the floor, pillows and blankets piled into an impossibly comfortable mound of plush. She practically disappeared into it when she laid down in it.

You found it hard to concentrate on the movie with Bakugou so close to you. You were surrounded by his smell, burnt sugar and smoke, a combination that you would have thought to be repulsive. Instead, it wrapped you up and made you feel nice and warm. Although, that probably had to do with the fact that Bakugou was so close to you that you could feel his body heat. The sudden realisation had you barely able to breathe.

Why did you suddenly feel so weird? No one else made you feel like your heart was in your throat, so why did Bakugou?

You think your heart completely stopped when Bakugou very casually threw an arm behind you. Well, behind the couch was more accurate, but it was still behind you and when your heart came back online, it was working double time.

“Fuckin’ relax,” he murmured, eyes never leaving the screen. When you didn’t relax quick enough for his liking, he turned his crimson gaze onto you, those red eyes boring in your own. “I can move if you’re that fuckin’ uncomfortable.” He probably meant to come off blasé, but you could hear the underlying hurt in his voice.

You shook your head very quickly when you realised he wasn’t just being casual about getting comfortable, but making a silent move to get closer to you. You didn’t speak, not trusting yourself to talk. You’d probably say something really stupid and really loudly. Instead, you forced yourself to relax, shifting around a little to get more comfortable. Bakugou hummed in satisfaction.

You weren’t sure when you were snuggled into Bakugou’s side instead of the arm of the couch, and you weren’t sure when he pulled his arm from behind the couch to be wrapped around you, but you found that you were way too comfortable to care.

You felt so warm and safe that you didn’t even notice that you were dozing off until you were being gently woken up. The room was dark, the movie very clearly over, and the rest of the squad were long gone. Bakugou gently jostled you awake, a strangely soft expression adorning his features. You’d never seen it before, but you decided then and there, in your sleepy stupor, that you wanted to see it as much as you could.

#bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader #katsuki #bakugou #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki #katsuki bakugo

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chunhua-s · 4 years ago

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WITH OUR HEARTS CONNECTED ➽ WAKATOSHI USHIJIMA X READER

PART OF THE HAIKYUU SOULMATES! ONESHOT SERIES

genre: fluff

soulmate au: you are able to feel the emotions that your soulmate feels through the bond you share

warnings: none

you don’t think you’ll ever get used to this rush — the strange feelings that swell up so deeply inside your chest and cause the very wind to lose itself in your lungs. they’re so sudden and far in between that whenever they do happen, you’re left reeling from the weight of them as they slam into you. on those days, all the intense feelings that your soulmate unknowingly sends to you through your bond render you utterly exhausted, until you’d be able to collapse into his waiting arms. the strong emotions that so often had your knees jerking and your chest tightening would all melt into something so tender and undoubtedly affectionate when you got to see him at the end of each day, when he bent down so that he could press his nose and his lips against your neck and inhale the cocoa butter smell that he’d long since grown familiar with. his hands would rub gentle circles into your hips as you both came down from the high of his adrenaline, allowing the rush from countless drills and practice matches to slowly flow out of your bodies and leaving you both to finally relax into the other’s embrace.

it was certainly an experience to be ushijima wakatoshi’s soulmate. you’re one of the few people who are born with one — one of only a handful of others who had a partner whose heart would be tightly bound to your own for eternity. thus, you learned at the age of three that your feelings and emotions would be shared through the bond you had with your soulmate and vice versa. at that age you weren’t able to understand the implications of what that meant, and it became hard to identify what you were feeling separately from what you felt through your connected hearts; days where you felt so inexplicably happy that you sought around the house looking for something to do (these days, for ushijima, had been the days when he could play volleyball with his father in their garden); days where you were restless and burning with the urge to fill your long and dragging days with whatever could take that need to be active away (and similarly, those feelings were thanks to ushijima, whose father began taking him to volleyball camps as soon as his matriarchal household allowed it). thanks to those days, you ended up finding your place of relief in dance; your mother had the brilliant thought to get you into it when she realized your restless days were becoming more frequent as you grew older, and so both she and your father put together money and enrolled you into classes after school. thankfully, your being active helped to burn away all the extra energy that had sometimes caused you sleepless nights, and overtime, you eventually found your passion with dance and decided to nurture what ability you had further into your years.

it was when you grew older, nearing the age of 6, when you were hit with strong, torrential feelings of hopelessness and desolation, sometimes strong enough where it would affect you for entire days. the sensation itself wasn’t necessarily sudden, having been building up, like droplets of water slowly filling into a bucket. when that bucket finally overflowed, it felt as if you’d lost something — as if it had been taken away from you, and had gone to somewhere you couldn’t reach. it felt as if your words couldn’t find their way past your throat, stopped by an invisible hand around your neck that you couldn’t go against if you tried to. it made you want to cry and hold yourself, wondering what could be causing your soulmate to feel this way. during those days, you wished for nothing more than to reach out for them somehow, to hug them so tightly until those emotions would be a distant memory. you wanted to take their pain away and make them happy again — to let them know that they had someone who would do their best to ease their suffering in whatever way she could, however they needed from her. the feelings that followed after could only be described as cold and lonely: your head would feel so blank and empty, smothered by a fog that provided you no answers to questions you didn’t have. your days became blurred as you went through your motions and your only solace was in dance (ushijima’s would be volleyball). you sometimes felt so incredibly frustrated that you would lock yourself away and brood, sometimes you were left feeling so broken and abandoned, and no matter how muted the feelings would sometimes be (as if your soulmate was trying to push them away from his mind) they still managed to twist your heart as you could only imagine what must have been happening to your soulmate.

you couldn’t talk to anyone in your family about it for nearly a year because you didn’t know what was wrong, only that these weren’t your feelings and that they were being shared to you through your bond. your parents didn’t know how to handle it because neither of them had a soulmate; aside from basic knowledge, they were in the dark on how to help you. and so, you could do nothing but try and push as many positive feelings as you could through your bond, hoping that somehow, it would reach your partner’s heart. “i’m here for you” ; “it hurts, doesn’t it? if there was anyway i could help to take your pain away, i would do it in a heartbeat” ; “if you can feel what i’m wishing for you right now, i hope it can bring you some comfort” ; “you’re not alone even if it feels like it, I promise.” it was the only way you could think of to help them through whatever was hurting them so much, and you prayed to whoever would listen that it would lessen the pain they felt. (it was after meeting ushijima that you learned of his parents’ divorce, and even though he was no longer grieving, you could never forget the helplessness and sorrow that he’d unintentionally shared with you as a child. you promised him that day that, whatever it would be, you would always be there to hold him through moments of pain and hurt. he smiled at you so tenderly, the sight of his normally stern expression melting with so much love, and assured you that he would do anything he could to make sure you would never hurt the way he had to).

as you grew older, you started searching online about soulmates, specifically about how you would know when you met them. the answers you found were, at the best, incredibly vague and did nothing to quell your uncertainties and budding anxieties. every forum and vlog told you the same thing: “it’s like the world suddenly grows brighter and you learn how to breathe for the very first time!” or “meeting him changed everything for me, it was like i finally found something i didn’t even know i was missing, you know?” no — you didn’t know, that had been your whole reason for searching in the first place! it didn’t take long for you to give up, growing frustrated after coming across one blog that said “you’ll know when it happens, trust me.”

at the time, you couldn’t predict just how accurate those words would be.

the ac inside the gymnasium effortlessly seeped into the sleeves of your kitagawa daiichi pe jacket, drawing goosebumps across your skin like a pattern. and yet, you felt an indescribable kind of warmth flooding through your entire body as the world around you suddenly grew muted; the screams and cries of your schoolmates, the blow of the whistle that signaled your school’s call for a time-out, it all turned to white noise that faded out of your mind, all turned irrelevant in the face of him. green eyes that reminded you of summer leaves and olive trees stared up at you from the court during his team’s discussion period, and you found yourself drowning in their depth when he became the only thing you could see. his gaze was wide and his body was turned ever so slightly towards where you stood, as if he would take off running to you had it not been for his game. the pounding of your heart, the way the sound of it filled up your ears and the way his heavy, exhausted breathing echoed out to you were like the beating of taiko drums, loud enough that they drowned out the chants of “go, go, kitagawa!” on your side, the overwhelming shouts of “shiratorizawa!” from his. nothing else mattered to you in that moment other than him.

he took off towards the doors of the gym floor as soon as the award ceremony ended and the coach had dismissed his team, not sparing even the slightest second once his gaze found yours again. you didn’t even worry about the fact that your school had just lost its match, or that your friends would be looking for you so that you could leave together. you hurried to meet him, running down the stairs two at a time (forget that you’d injured your ankle during one of your practices, the pain was near non-existent to you in that moment). you found each other in the wide hallway; he stood before you, just as breathless as you felt as bodies passed between you. hesitantly, you took one step forward, and when he did the same, every bit of fear and uncertainty melted away from your body until you were standing directly before him. the light of the sun caressed his skin with such a tenderness, bathed him in yellow lights as his hair stuck to his forehead and his chest rose with his heavy breathing. he was sweaty and worn down from his match, but with the way his olive green eyes glittered like green jewels, he was painted in the sight of something so vibrant and breathtaking; to you he was the most beautiful person you’d ever seen. your own heart was beating so wildly against your rib cage that you feared it would break through and fall into his hands; your breathing felt as if you’d just danced for hours and your throat felt full of all the words you’d wanted to say to your destined partner when you met them for the first time. now, they all poured out from your heart and gathered on top of your tongue like a weight.

he was the one to speak first, the natural baritones of his voice filling up your ears and forbidding that you should hear anything else other than him. “i’m ushijima wakatoshi.”

“i know.”

“oh.”

it was the first thing you thought to say, and despite the initial embarrassment you felt (because how did you even think to respond like that?) gentle laughter bubbled up from your chest and fell out from your lips. you weren’t sure why you were laughing, but your first awkward interaction with your soulmate somehow managed to remove what bit of nervousness sat lurking beneath everything else you were feeling at that moment. “sorry,” you gave him, taking a deep breath and offering your hand for him to shake. “i’m (l/n) (y/n), it’s nice to finally meet you.”

the tender smile he gave to you as he took your outstretched hand was an image that you’d permanently burned into your mind.

since then, the both of you have only grown so much more together. you learned that he wasn’t the most expressive person, where the people around you so often believed him to be an impenetrable man, nothing but the southpaw canon, the dominating power inside shiratorizawa’s volleyball club. to you, he’s your closest confidant, whose heart interlaced so tightly with your own that it was never difficult for you to understand what he’s thinking or feeling in any given moment. while his world meets the unmoving volleyball freak, you’ve been able to recognize the tell-tale signs of his happiness by the fluttering of your own heart since you were three, could so easily take one glance at his eyes and understand when he was feeling particularly affectionate after a long day of practice. the subtle lifts of his lips when he got a text from his father, or the way his brows would furrow if he was struggling with a subject he didn’t like. and the honest and pure smiles he would take to wearing whenever you held his face between your arms and kissed his forehead, his nose, each rise of his cheeks and the very corner of his lips, you get to see everything that your world didn’t get to see. and why would they? to him, no one else needs to see him like this — it doesn’t matter to him whether or not the world understands him for more than his powerful spikes; with your heart connected to his, he has everything he’d ever dream of having.

you remember one particular day during the summer. you’d met with him briefly before he went to practice, letting him know that you were heading home early instead of heading to your dance practice, the headache from your newly-done box braids wearing you down. and so, he gently kissed your forehead and reminded you to take painkillers to help. (“try and drink a lot of water,” “do you have your silk bonnet?” “i could come and help you apply your oils later on,” “no i won’t be too tired after practice. it won’t matter if it’s for you.” you could tell he felt the obvious fluttering and the gratitude in your heart when he smiled down at you and squeezed your hand in his.) after wishing him good luck, and giving him a swift kiss when you were sure no one was there to see the pair of you, you took the bus straight home where you showered, ate a light snack and immediately crashed into your bed.

what woke you up wasn’t the six pm alarm that you set so that you could start your homework, but rather a sudden spike in your heart that had your blood burning beneath your skin and rushing like molten gold. it was the same feeling that would flow down to you through your bond, during ushijima’s games where you knew him to be domineering and competitive, and yet, this one was somehow different. rather than the familiar sense of we’ll win this round, no doubt about it, the same unyielding confidence that filled you up with pride, you were instead left reeling from an overwhelming need to crush, crush, crush! it was intense and all-consuming, like the heat of a particularly hard dance number that so often emptied your lungs of that well-needed air and replaced it instead with pure and unfiltered adrenaline. a shiver ran up your spine, forcing you to sit up and hold a hand over your chest. the pump, pump, pump of your heart was reminiscent of a long day of practice, the satisfaction that you felt when you finally completed an entire routine without mistakes. it was exhilarating and consumed every thought you had, and you had to wonder if it was the match against that college team that had wakatoshi feeling this way.

the bond you shared with him told you that it wasn’t.

“i met two volleyball players today,” he explained to you easily, his voice sounding relaxed as his legs nestled you between them. his hands worked their way between each box of hair, applying drops of lavender oil and using one finger to gently massage the pain out of your scalp. you did nothing to hide the content in your voice, humming at his actions and closing your eyes to the relaxing feeling of his hands in your head.

“is that what had you so worked up earlier?”

his answer came to you in a slight nod that you caught in your mirror, his hands not pausing in their journey over your hair. your eyes held on to the reflection of his face, you watched with a smile as his lips pursed and you felt the remnants of that intense competetive fire fluttering through your bond as he remembered the two boys he met that day. “they’re interesting,” he said to you, but you knew that there was much more to it through your connected hearts. i will crush them, the words still echoed in your mind.

“you’re excited to play against them,” it wasn’t a question, left your lips with assuredness as you tilted your head back to meet his eyes. in them, you could see the very same fire lighting the green colour until it they burned like liquid lightning. when he nodded, you turned yourself around so that you could face him, lifting yourself to your knees as his hands fell from your head and instead to your waist, where the tips of your braids tickled his knuckles. “play a fun game against them and win, okay?” you whispered with the palms of your hands against his cheeks, gently caressing the skin there and placing a tender kiss to his lips. you felt your heart swelling up with every ounce of love you felt for the boy-turning-man before you, and felt it all multiply with his own affections until both your hearts were singing in sweet harmony. he smiled and chased your lips before you were able to pull back before wrapping his arms around you and placing his head in the valley of your neck.

now, as you feel a million things running through your heart, you remember the same sensation that had woken you up that evening. the overwhelming urge to crush him, crush number 10, that near consumed your entire being has you cheering louder than you ever had in your life as the fifth and final set against karasuno drew closer and closer to its end. wakatoshi is absolutely relentless, each ball he shoots over the net a command for them to stay down, to drop the ball and crumble in the face of his power. it has you burning so viscously that your hands tightly clutch over the metal bar to the point of cramping. annoyed, impatient, eager, they all choke the breath from your lungs and force you to gasp for air at the summit, and yet, you can feel his heart singing on the nodes of pleasure. he’s having fun, you know this when he glances up at you from the benches during the final time out. through your connected hearts, you’re able to feel every rise and fall that follows his jumps, his spikes, his serves; every bit of emotion that he feels wounds around the red string that binds you together and you share them as your own. as you watch your soulmate blend into his element, you support him in the best way you know how, taking everything he gives to you and pushing it into your voice so that you’re the loudest in the audience.

and through your connected hearts, you’re able to feel the love and gratitude that he bears for you.

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

haikyuu!! soulmate au taglist: @nishiya-is-baby @aiiishiiiteru

wow this was longer than i expected it to be?? i decided to cut it short since the rest of it would delve into the rest of the shiratorizawa vs karasuno match and i didn’t really want to repeat what everyone already knows happened :v sorry if it’s a lil over the place, my brain’s been filled up with ushi brainrot and i kinda let myself go on this one. im not sure if i wrote him the way everyone likes but i tried to emphasize on him being more than just “ushijima the southpaw,” especially during his family’s divorce. i hope i did a good job trying to translate what i think he might have been going through during that time? in my head i feel as if his homelife with his mother would be a kind of smothering place where he wasn’t able to open up to her, and when his father was suddenly gone one day, he didn’t have anyone to show his heart to. and so the reader would do her best to let him know that, even if they haven’t met yet, she was there for him, that she could feel his pain, and that she wouldn’t ever make him hide those from her. she wanted him to know that whatever it was, he could express it to her without fearing those feelings being brushed off.

this is part of a series, so please send me an ask or dm if you’d like to be apart of a taglist! i’m currently taking request for haikyuu characters and soulmate au’s, so please come and leave your requests for those as well! thank you for reading! ♡

previous: asahi azumane | next stop: hajime iwaizumi!

#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x black reader #haikyuu x black reader #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi x black reader #haikyuu reader insert #black reader #haikyuu soulmate au #haikyuu x black!reader #ushijima wakatoshi #self indulgence at its finest #ushijima wakatoshi x you #ushijima x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu!! soulmate au 💕✨

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readyplayerhobi · 4 years ago

Text

Flower | 32

; Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Fluff

; Word Count: 4k

; Synopsis: You finally decide to take a dip into the world of online dating and find the Flower dating app. One of the top matches for you proves to be a guy who looks to be your complete opposite; tattooed, pierced, a metalhead and oh…incredibly handsome. What happens when you throw caution to the wind and reach out to him?

; A/N: A light chapter that I hope you’ll all enjoy! It’s fluffy and fun...but there’s also something significant that happens in it. So PLEASE let me know your thoughts and what you liked about it! The feedback has been decreasing as we’re getting to the end, which is a little disheartening :)

; Flower Masterpost

“Hobi! Oh my god, try this. It’s so delicious.” You practically moaned out, almost wiggling with delight on the aluminium seat. It wasn’t too hot thankfully, the clouds a little overcast but the hoodie you wore combat any chill. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Because you were on vacation. And not the kind of vacations you were used to, which were usually a little weekend break here and there at the closest beach or some nature park. You didn’t have any kind of issue with those places of course but you’d always yearned to be able to travel even further. Explore other countries.

Which is what you were doing right now.

For your second anniversary, Hoseok had surprised you with two weeks in Italy. Two things about that had shocked you. Firstly, the very fact that you’d now been with Hoseok for two years. Secondly, that he’d saved up some of his much higher salary and chosen to take you to one of the countries you’d always wanted to visit.

You hadn’t even known that he’d managed to subtly arrange it with your manager, a woman that you liked and enjoyed working for now. Two weeks of vacation time had been booked for you quietly and he’d organised the hotel, flights and even buying new suitcases. Stuff like this only happened in fiction, or so you’d thought.

But here you were, in the heart of Rome. It had already been a week and you’d eagerly taken in the magnificent sites of the Colosseum, the imposing Pantheon and the ancient Forum. As a lover of history, every part of it had excited you and you’d happily dragged Hoseok around to read every single information stand available while begging him to agree to go inside them all.

Not that he’d taken much begging really, he was just as eager to see things as you were. The only difference was that he was excited because of all the fantastic photo opportunities he was discovering. He’d brought his top of the line camera with him and was going wild with it, finding all the best angles and lighting to bring Rome’s important buildings to life.

For once, you’d been more than happy to pose for his photos. Each picture had you smiling so brightly, happiness evident in every part of you as you just relaxed and enjoyed yourself.

Hoseok leans forward, mouth open and waiting as you scoop up a good amount of pasta onto your fork. Carefully, a hand underneath to avoid any fallout, you fed it to him and watched his reaction eagerly. He chewed for a moment, expression thoughtful before letting out a quiet hum of appreciation.

While Hoseok had opted to go for a pizza bianca, you’d instead chosen the intriguing-sounding pasta alla gricia. It was better than you’d thought it would be, given you’d been a little unsure over the ingredients at first and your boyfriend agreed with your thought process as he nodded with a smile.

“It is good. Do you want a slice of this? It’s also better than it looks. Never considered having a pizza without tomato sauce anymore but...when in Rome, right?” Rolling your eyes at him, you sighed playfully. That was his favourite line to say at the moment, he seemed to take great pleasure out of it.

Instead of responding, you just opened your mouth up as well and let him feed you a piece of the pizza. For a moment, you let the flavours simply roll over your tongue as you chew. It was slightly salty, with hints of the olive oil it was cooked with and layered with delicious parmesan that gave it a lovely cheesy kick.

“Urgh, why doesn’t Italian food taste like this at home?” You moan softly, wiping at your mouth with the napkin before taking a sip of water. Laughing softly, Hoseok continues to eat as he shrugs and you marvel at how easily he travels.

Even though he quite clearly doesn’t fit into the little family-run restaurant you’d both stopped at, he seemed to feel at ease no matter where he was. While you understand feeling at ease with him at home, it was strange to see that he was just as comfortable no matter where he was.

“Probably because the food at home has been filtered through like...a million non-Italian mouths or something. The same way Indian food is nothing like what it is actually in India, you know? This is...this is the real shit.” Pointing towards his plate, he grins and you sigh affectionately before reaching out and brushing away some crumbs from his mouth.

He was like a child sometimes when he ate. Constantly get it everywhere except his mouth it seems. It was cute.

“Do you think they’d give me the recipe if I asked? I’d love to try and make this at home. Authentically.” Murmuring to him, you glance over to the older lady who had come out of the kitchen. This seemed to be a truly family-run place in that she’d only gone in there to cook your food.

“Err, I don’t know. Do you speak Italian? Aren’t Italian grandma’s like...feisty or something?”

“Now you’re stereotyping.” Pointing the fork at him, he just grins and shrugs with amusement. You don’t argue any further with him though, instead focusing on cleaning up your plate with enthusiastic gusto. The two of you were planning to head over to the Trevi Fountain and walk around for a little while, enjoy some gelato and what remains of whatever good weather there will be today.

You were going to throw a Euro into the fountain to guarantee that you’d come back one day before kissing Hoseok silly in some alcove. Enjoy a little of Rome at night before finally heading back to the hotel. Maybe even some more kissing, who knows? You liked it with him.

Once you’d both finished, you went and paid. Unfortunately, you became far too shy to ask about any recipes once there, so instead, you just complimented the old lady in your broken Italian before smiling brightly and leaving quickly. Hoseok’s laughter at your inability to ask caused you to gently poke his ribs until he was asking you to stop.

The walk to the Trevi Fountain was long, but you found that you enjoyed every moment of it. Even though you’d only been here a week, you had fallen truly in love with Rome. An ancient city that has captured your young heart with its delicious food, stunning architecture and rich culture.

Even just a stroll in the evening like now, you felt like you were in some kind of romance film. From the subtle, warm filter Rome seems to have to its colour scheme to the old building’s, the cobbled streets in some areas and the way ancient ruins seemed to pepper the city liberally. You loved every inch of it. Including the graffiti and the not-so-tourist friendly areas. It was proof to you that the city was lived in, and had been lived in continuously for over two millennia.

Surprisingly, you didn’t talk much on the way there. Instead, you were too busy just admiring everything and simply enjoying the moment. If you were this in love with Rome already then you had the itch to not only get to explore more of Italy but also explore the world. And you certainly couldn’t think of anyone better to do that with than the wonderful man by your side.

“Where do you wanna go on vacation next? What about...Greece? Or maybe Japan? New Zealand and Chile are definitely on my list but I’d also like to go to at least one country in each continent. What about you?” Peppering him with questions, Hoseok looks at you with wide eyes before laughing.

“Woman! We’re not even through two weeks in Italy! And you’re already planning our next trip?” Snorting, he rolls his eyes before kissing your temple with more affection than his pseudo-outraged words. “I don’t know, I’m pretty open to anywhere I think. Maybe India? Try that real food like we’ve talked about? Egypt? We could try and visit all the super ancient places. What’s that place with the big, building thing carved into a mountain or somet? It’s all orange?”

“Petra? That’s in Jordan. I want to go there too!” He just smiles at you, squeezing your hand before squinting at the signpost just ahead. You’re finally approaching your destination and you grin as the two of you move through some of the little alleys that make up Roman streets before finally coming upon the world-famous monument.

“Oooh, it’s pretty,” You whisper, simply staring at it with awe. “The water is so...blue. How do they do that?”

The soft click of Hoseok’s camera distracts you, causing you to look over to him before raising a brow. He just smiles and shrugs, looking down at his screen and you presume he’s just taken another photo of you seeing something for the first time. It would seem he’s gaining a collection of your reactions.

“I know something prettier,” Hoseok whispers into your ear. Almost immediately you cringe, pulling away from him to scowl while your lips pull away from your teeth almost automatically.

“Oh don’t. Don’t be that cheesy guy.” You whine, half-heartedly fighting as he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you closer. He’s laughing though, so you know he’s not offended by what you’ve said.

“I’ll tell your mom that you don’t think she’s prettier than the Trevi Fountain then. What kind of daught-oof.” Bending over slightly, he holds a hand to his stomach from where you’d elbowed him. It doesn’t stop him from laughing though and you find yourself following along despite how annoying he can be.

“Here.” Handing you a Euro coin, Hoseok takes a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Standing upright again, he gives you that brilliant and beautiful smile that you’ve come to love so dearly over the last two years.

“I read about this, you gotta stand with your back to it and throw it over your left shoulder with your right hand. That means we’ll come to Rome one day.” Giving him a satisfied look, you do as exactly as you told him to and throw the coin with gusto. He takes a moment to watch the coin fly through the air before doing the same with his own Euro, sealing the promise of a future trip.

“How many coins do you think are in here? There are hundreds.” Hoseok whispers, wrapping his arms around your waist and cuddling you closely from behind. The two of you stand there for a moment and watch as others crowd around the Fountain, some throwing coins of their own in while others simply take pictures.

There’s plenty of tourists here, but thankfully your anniversary isn’t near the true tourist season. So while there’s a lot, it’s manageable in your view. Still, you wouldn’t want to be the municipal workers cleaning up after all this.

“Come on, I want some gelato now.” Pulling out of his embrace, you head towards one of the side streets that lead away from the Fountain, positive that you’ll find a gelato shop hidden away this close to a tourist trap. It’s what you’d do if you wanted quick money.

It takes no time at all to find a nice looking shop and you soon have a cone in your hand with three large scoops of delicious looking gelato topping it. One is just plain vanilla, another is pineapple while the last is strawberry. Nothing too outrageous, but just a combination that makes your taste buds dance.

There’s not much in the way of public seating, unfortunately, so the two of you just sit down on the curbside of one of the streets. It’s pretty deserted with only the odd parked car every now and then. A few more mopeds are parked a little haphazardly but you’re not too worried about them really, they’re small enough that neither of you would be a nuisance if they wanted to get by.

“Mm, this is good.” Hoseok hums and you look over, catching him at the very moment that he licks at his mint chocolate flavoured gelato. It’s a pretty innocent movement, but the way his tongue curls into the soft, frozen cream reminds you of how he uses that tongue for something and you shiver softly. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice and you quickly glance away. It doesn’t help that you’re now considering how cold his tongue piercing might be from eating that.

Quietly, the two of you simply enjoy your cold treat while the gentle buzzing of the tourists only a few streets away filters through the alleyways. It’s getting close to sunrise and even though you wouldn’t say it was cold, the air certainly felt cool enough to warrant you cuddling a little closer into the warmth of your hoodie.

“So, now that we’re just chilling for a little bit. I have something important that I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.” Shifting slightly until he’s facing you more, you look up slowly to find him giving you a serious look. He’s got one of those ‘I’m about to ask you something life-changing’ looks. You’re not sure why you know that, but you can just tell instinctively.

“Are you about to ask me to marry you?” Blurting out the words, you slap your hand over your mouth as your eyes widen. Well, you certainly hoped he wasn’t now. If he was, you’d just ruined the whole moment.

Sure enough, Hoseok’s eyes widen at your words and he recoils a little, confusion mixed with shock painted onto his face.

“What? No! Why would you think that?” You’d laugh under any other circumstances if Hoseok had this kind of reaction to anything else. But he looks concerned as to why you thought he might be proposing, a hand resting on his chest almost like he’s trying to protect himself or something.

“Well...I don’t know! You whisk me away to Rome for a romantic holiday for our second anniversary? Then, after having a good time, you tell that you have something important to talk to me about and you look so serious! It was an educated guess!” Folding your arms over your chest, you hunch your shoulders over to make yourself a little smaller.

“I wasn’t going to propose. Did you want me to?” He sounds a little unsure then and you see the way his lips purse in thought like he’s wondering if maybe he should have been proposing or something. “And anyway, if I was going to propose then you’ve totally ruined the moment! It’s meant to be romantic and shit.”

Yeah, now he looks put out. His lower lip jutting out over how his non-proposal has been interrupted and you can’t help the laugh that leaves you at the sight. He’s too cute for his own good, honestly.

“I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to not interrupt any romantic moment in the future. I promise.” There’s only the tiniest hint of sarcasm in your voice as you tell him that. Just a teeny, tiny bit. It’s enough to make him give you a droll stare though, reaching out to gently poke at your cheek with his index finger.

Grabbing his hand, you smile at him innocently before pressing a kiss to the soft flesh of his palm. For a moment, he lets you before shifting until he’s holding your hand in his own. Tilting your head at him, you wonder what he had been about to tell you and he understands the silent question with a small smirk.

“So, anyway. As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. Just before we flew out here, and I mean literally just before. Like...only two hours before we went to the airport, so don’t get too mad at me if you’re going to get mad. But that’s beside the point. Anyway, our landlady called me.” Hoseok pauses for a moment, letting you compute that information before carrying on.

Given he was far more comfortable talking on the phone, you’d elected to have him be the point of contact for anything related to the house. You figured he’d be able to sort out any of the non-important stuff by himself and anything important would be discussed by you both. Like right now.

“Oh...have we done something wrong? We signed the new lease properly and on time, right?” The two of you had signed a lease for another year just the other month. You liked the house and felt fully settled in it now, not wanting the hassle of having to move anywhere when you’d made it feel like a home. Thankfully, your landlady, Elsie, was lovely and had dealt with any issues quickly and efficiently.

“No, we’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just...she told that she’s going to sell the house. She’s moving across the country to be closer to her family as they’ve all moved away. So she’s selling up everything here to fund her move to a retirement home over there. We’ve got a few months until it’ll probably be sold and will need to move out.” He goes to carry on talking but you’re gripping his hand tightly, worry flickering to life inside you and anxiety following quickly after.

“What! She’s selling? But...but what about us? What do we do? Oh god, we need to find somewhere that’ll let us take Kasumi and-” You’re quieted by Hoseok’s finger on your lips, a gentle smile on his own that seems oddly calm for the bombshell he’s just dropped.

“If you’d let me finish...I thought you weren’t going to interrupt anymore?” Teasing you lightly, he taps your lips before sighing and shuffling on the hard curb. Looking in both directions, he takes the opportunity to stretch his legs out, the black Converse on his feet looking just as dirty as ever.

“What I was about to tell you, was that she told me that we’d been some of her best tenants even though we haven’t been there too long. Because she wants to sell quickly and get moving, she then asked if maybe we’d like to buy the house. First dibs on it. It’s going to go up for a reasonable price and I know we’ve both been putting money into our individual savings accounts for the last year. I mean, I can afford the deposit if necessary and I’m pretty sure we can get a nice mortgage.” Staring at him with wide eyes, you don’t quite realise that your jaw has dropped until he’s affectionately closing it with bemusement.

“Also, before you say anything. Let me just...say my piece here. It’s a good price and well, I’d like to do it. We’ve been together two years now, I love you and I can’t imagine my future without you. So...it’s not a marriage proposal but it is a ‘would you like to take a leap of faith and purchase a physical house with me that will require a mortgage for many years?’. As I said, I’ve got enough saved up to cover the deposit and...well...I know my parents will put money in. What should’ve been my sister’s college fund instead got turned into a ‘whenever you buy a house fund’, despite me telling them to donate it. So...we can get a small mortgage. Easily manageable.” There’s no need for you to ask if he’s thought about this because it’s incredibly obvious that he has.

So instead, you simply watch him in stunned silence. He wanted to buy a house with you. The house you currently lived in, that had become your home for over a year. Not just your home, but the safest place you’ve ever felt outside of your parents home. And he wanted to make that permanent.

Or at least, as permanent as you can get it without having to pay out lots of legal bills to get it all sold. This was a big move. A huge step in your relationship. Hell, in your life. A house. Buying a house. And you weren’t even thirty yet!

“I have some saved up,” Whispering, you cast your eyes down to instead focus on his hand as you gently trail along the veins and tendons along the back. “Probably not as much as you but enough to help.”

“Okay...what if you keep that money. And if we buy it, then we can use that money to start doing some of those home improvements we’ve always wished we could do? Like a new fence.” Gasping softly, you’re suddenly taken away from the fact that you were being faced with a big decision because your excited mind started to run away with you. While you weren’t a big fan of change, you were surprisingly a huge fan of causing planned change.

Which meant you loved decorating or building things. Moving the furniture around in a room and decorating everything into something entirely new was so incredibly satisfying. Plus, Hoseok was right. You’d spent the last year fantasising to him about all the stuff you would improve or change in the house if you could.

Because that’s what adult life was about. Getting excited at the prospect of new fencing.

“Oh my god, yes! And a new roof! Finally, get rid of those ugly tiles. And we can pave over the driveway so it doesn’t have that annoying gravel that gets everywhere. Can we redo the backyard entirely? I want a porch from the back door and then it leads down-” Laughing in amusement, Hoseok gently squeezes your hand before kissing your cheek when you look down in embarrassment.

“Okay, we can make a plan of all the DIY things we want to do. But I just need to know for the moment...would you agree to buy it? With me? We can sort everything properly when we get home, plan out the money and apply for the mortgage and all that. I just want to know for now.”

You don’t respond for probably half a minute, causing Hoseok to frown slightly. But then you almost burst in excitement, jumping up and dancing on the spot in uncontrollable excitement. Hoseok wasn’t expecting it, his eyes widening in shock while his hands are reaching out to you as if he was worried you were going to fall.

“Oh my god! Buying a house! This is...oh my god. Hoseok! You want to buy a house with me?” Reaching for his hands, you half tug him up and he snorts while catching his balance. Resting his palms on your hips, he brings you to a halt before grinning down at you.

“Yes, I want to buy a house with you. I mean, that’s why I asked. So is this a yes? You're an impossible woman, you know that? It’s not a marriage proposal but I’d still quite like a yes from you…” Trailing off, he pouts slightly and you reach up to gently flick at his lip ring.

“Yes. I mean, we need to talk more seriously about it and sort out the finances but...yes. As long as we can do all the things I want to. Like new doors inside. I hate the doors we have now, they’re so annoying.” Hoseok sighs like he’s got the weight of the world on his back before dropping his forehead to your shoulders, arms wrapping around your waist and hugging you tightly.

“Okay, okay. I give in, we’ll make a list of all the things we want to change later. But you realise we have to buy the place first, right? And then save up again to make all these home improvement changes? It’s not going to be cheap.” You don’t hear him though, giving him a quick kiss before humming to yourself as you visualise your house as it is and your house as you want it to be.

Watching you closely, Hoseok lets out another breath before smiling and shaking his head. Well, at least you’d said yes.

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poedameronloverx · 4 years ago

Text

Close To Home

Life In Lockdown Masterlist

Pairing - Poe Dameron x F! Solo Reader

Warnings - Massive amounts of Covid talk in this chapter as it starts to effect our lovely little squad, so if that upsets you please don’t read, I don’t want anyone to be triggered or upset by this content <3

Month 2 – April 2020

As the weeks went on, you found yourself getting more and more used to remote working. Your boss had made a lunch time finish on a Friday a weekly thing and you were grateful for it. Poe was getting every Friday off, and Rose got to finish at 3pm on a Friday. You and Poe were working round each other better, you’d gotten used to his singing and he got used to you getting up to wander round the room and stretch every hour or so. The novelty of having people around all day had worn off for BeeBee, he would choose to spend an entire day with either Poe or you and lie by your feet for the day. Rose’s idea of doing something each evening had stuck and you had set up a weekly plan of things to do. Movie nights became a Friday night tradition. Rose had ordered relaxation colouring books for each of you and that became your Monday night routine. There was a YouTube marathon on Tuesdays, you’d all found a series to binge together on Wednesdays and you played board games on Thursdays. Poe was teaching you to cook, you could make basic things but he was much better than you were and you’d asked him to help you learn. Rose loved teasing your about how cute you both looked and how domestic it was. Things were still strange but everyone was getting used to it.

Rose and Finn occasionally took walks after work, just the two of them. Poe had just arrived back home with BeeBee. He wandered into the living room and found you sitting on the sofa crying your eyes out. He was by your side in an instant, pulling you into his arms and rubbing your back.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“My dad” you sobbed “He has the virus; he’s in the hospital on a ventilator”

“Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry!” he pulled you tighter “He’ll be fine, I’ve never met a man as strong and stubborn as Han Solo!”

“Mum said he’s really ill, she’s not even allowed to go and see him”

“It’s not fair”

“I just want to go and see mum and hug her”

“I know sweetheart, I know”

Poe held you until you eventually cried yourself to sleep. He pulled you onto him, and grabbed the blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over you. BeeBee jumped up onto the sofa and lay by your legs. Your body heat and the heat from the blanket lulled Poe to sleep. When Finn and Rose came back a little while later they eyed you suspiciously. The sound of Rose’s keys against the coffee table woke Poe.

“This looks romantic” Finn said

“Far from, I’ve just held her whilst she cried herself to sleep” Poe replied, glaring at his friend

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked

“Han’s got the virus; he’s in hospital on a ventilator”

“Oh my god, when did that happen, is he alright?”

“I don’t really know” Poe shrugged “She was really upset, I only got the basic information from her”

“I’ll phone Leia” Rose replied “To get more information but also to check on her”

Finn nodded “That's a good idea”

“I should text Ben.” Poe said “Then we need to work out what to do here. I don't want to put her to bed before dinner, I know she’s exhausted herself crying but she needs food in her system, as much as she probably won’t want it”

“We can make a start on dinner, wake her when it’s ready and make sure she eats at least a little then she can get some sleep” Finn said

Poe managed to lift you off him enough to move, he laid your head on a pillow and made sure the blanket still covered you. BeeBee got up and moved along the couch so he could snuggle against your stomach. Poe headed to the kitchen and made a start on dinner with Finn’s help. Rose sat on the bottom stair and called Leia. She was on the phone for 10 minutes before joining the guys in the kitchen.

“What did she say?” Finn asked

“He had a few symptoms so they called the doctor yesterday and he was told to go in and get checked out, they didn't want to worry Y/N and Ben so they just kept it between them at that point, the hospital got him tested and obviously he had it so they said he would get kept in overnight but he started to struggle to breathe so they put him on the machine. They don’t know when or if he’ll come back around”

“Oh god” Finn replied

“We just have to take care of her” Rose said “We know how close she is to her parents and not being able to be with them is going to be so hard for her”

“She has us” Poe replied “And we’ll be here for her day and night, no matter what time”

“Absolutely” Rose nodded “I’ll wake her for dinner”

The next week was difficult, you’d asked for some time away from work as you knew you would never be able to concentrate whilst your thoughts were all about your father. He hadn’t been getting better but he also hadn’t gotten any worse, which the doctors said was a really good thing. Poe and Rose had both taken a few days off to make sure someone was with you and helping keep your mind off things. You and Poe were on a walk with BeeBee one afternoon when your phone rang.

“It’s mum” you said to Poe before answering the phone. He gently took hold of your arm and led you over to a wall where you could sit. He could only hear your side of the conversation but the fact you hadn’t burst into tears yet made him feel more positive. “I’ll speak to you later mum, love you. Bye”

“How’s things?”

“Dad came off the ventilator this morning” you replied, happy tears appearing in your eyes “He’s breathing on his own and the doctors are really happy with his progress”

“That’s great news sweetheart. And it’ll be a load off your mind knowing he’s doing okay”

“Yeah, it really is” you replied “Thank you, you’ve helped keep me going this last week or so. I really appreciate it”

“I’m here for you anytime sweetheart” Poe replied

“I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. It's been so scary seeing all the stuff on the news, I guess I just didn't think it would end up so close to home”

Poe held his arms open and you fell into his hug gratefully. Poe gave the best hugs in the entire world. He hugged tightly and it made anyone he hugged feel secure and content.

Easter was very much a non event, the weather wasn't great so you were inside all day. Poe cooked a nice meal for everyone and you sat and watched a lot of TV whilst eating all of the Easter snacks you'd ordered in with the food shop. You were all happy to have a few days off work, Finn had a few weeks off whilst the schools were closed for the spring break. A few days after Easter, your father was released from the hospital. He still wasn't 100% back to his normal self but he was really glad to be back in his own home. You face-timed with him and your mother every day, just to check up on how they were both doing. You knew it wasn't easy on Leia either. She had to take care of Han plus do everything herself at home, whilst trying to work. Finn decided to take up gardening whilst he had free time, he ordered loads of plants and gardening tools online and got to work as soon as they arrived. Your garden had never really been full of plants because you and Rose were always too busy and neither of you were that into gardening. Finn cut down all the bushes, planted loads of flowers and painted the fences. The small fence that separated the patio from the grass was painted a sky blue and all of the surrounding fences were white. Poe helped Finn with the painting, whilst you and Rose cleaned up all the garden furniture. Once you were done, it looked like a whole new garden.

As the month went on, things with everyone's work got quieter. You were no longer working full days, Monday to Wednesday you only worked from 11am until 3pm, Thursday you worked 9am-12pm and Friday was a day off. Rose only had to work Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Poe no longer had to do any work. He was luckily still getting paid but his work just didn't have anything else they could do remotely. They told him to keep checking his work emails just incase anything did come in. It took a while to adjust to all of the free time. Working from home had been strange anyway but only working for part of the time made it even weirder. Finn was still working his normal hours after the school break. Friday became a cooking day. Poe continued to teach you how to make meals, and sometimes the pair of you would bake.

Rose liked to come on walks with BeeBee when she had the spare time, the park was everyone's favourite place to go. It became a lifeline to everyone. The stay at home order still said you were only able to go out once a day for some exercise. You all began to look forward to walk time so you could get to your park. You could walk all the way round it twice before BeeBee got bored. You would always stop at the kiosk and get a coffee or an ice cream, whilst the dog ran after his ball.

“This is his dream” Poe chuckled as he watched Rose throwing the ball “He's getting to spend time with people he loves, he's getting much longer walks than normal and he gets to run after his ball a lot”

You smiled “Animals must be loving this lockdown thing, they get to spend so much time with their humans and don't have to stay home alone all day”

“Bee is loving living with you and Rose. He's always really happy when you guys come to visit us so all of us living together is great for him”

“I'm actually really enjoying it too, I had my reservations at first. Especially when Rose just mentioned Finn moving in. I didn't want to be the third wheel in my own home. And even when she said you were coming too, I wasn't sure we'd all manage to work around each other but thankfully we have and I couldn't be happier to be spending this lockdown with you guys. Especially with how much you helped me when my dad was ill”

“I'm glad we're all together too. It's made things feel so much better knowing that anytime I have a bad day I get to spend it with my best friends. Living with Finn is great but sometimes when him and Rose are all loved up it gets a bit annoying. I mean not that I'm not happy for them because I absolutely am, they're a great couple but yeah”

“No, I totally get that. Being the 3rd wheel isn't easy” you nodded “They're adorable, but sometimes it sucks to be left out so I'm glad we have each other during this lockdown”

“Me too, I think you're the only one that gets what it's like to be 3rd wheel to them” Poe chuckled

The final few days of the month were difficult, Rose fell ill with suspected Covid. She had all of the symptoms but she didn't feel overly ill. Finn moved into the spare room with Poe, he didn't want to get ill whilst he was still so busy with work. You looked after Rose, bringing her food and plenty of fluids to keep her going. You were glad that she didn't have a really bad case of it, but you worried for the rest of you.

So here’s the next part. I hope if you read this far that you enjoyed it and you’re still enjoying the series. Your comments would mean the world to me <3 Have a lovely weekend!

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x F!Reader #Poe Dameron x F!Solo Reader #tw covid #tw: covid #tw Covid19 #tw: covid19

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feeling-weirdy · 4 years ago

Note

Maybe a post Endgame AU where wanda and Vision are both alive but dealing with trauma from IW? Especially vision who's not used to the feeling or nightmares? Just angst and fluff I'm a sucker for

Disclaimer; Thank you for giving me an excuse to start this AU I’ve been thinking on! I realized after I finished writing this that you said post Endgame. I hope it’s okay that I changed that bit.

Posted on Ao3 if people want to be notified of updates!

TW: for a little bit of choking

Peace. Silence. Sadness.

Waves of emotions and thoughts flooded through his mind until he felt himself dissipate into nothingness. Just as he had hoped, Wanda had been the last person he saw before the inevitable happened. It shouldn’t have been her, but it was. She had stood before him, her energy aimed straight for the stone until there was nothing left. 'I just feel you' he had told her and he meant it. Her warmth filled his body until he could feel nothing else. He could die a peaceful death, a gift he had never expected to receive.

His thoughts were put to rest, feeling his mind completely shut down as he found peace. At least until he could feel a small tug.

Suddenly, he felt himself being pieced back together. That couldn’t be right. His programs slowly came back online, his system completely rebooting. Vision remained kneeling in the dirt, but this time the being standing in front of him was not the love of his life. The monster they had been avoiding for so long stood before him, having used the time stone to bring him back to life. He had undone everything Wanda had just accomplished.

“No!” Wanda screamed, Vision felt his attention be pulled in her direction st the sound of her voice.

“Wa-” A large, meaty hand gripped at his throat, raising him from the ground like he was nothing. The circuits and wires in his throat collapsed and his mind began to glitch. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. The mind stone should have been destroyed. It had been destroyed and now...

The lights of his eyes flickered as his programs began to shut down one by one. Vision gasped for air, hoping words would spring forth, but the grip on his neck only tightened. Thanos used his free hand to reach for the stone, a disgusting smile sliding across his face. He could feel his large fingers dig into his metal skull, synapses keeping the stone in place breaking as Thanos ripped it from his forehead. Vision’s eyes had rested on the auburn-haired girl still frozen in fear on the ground.

This couldn’t be it. It couldn’t...

The last of his programs shut down, causing his vision to blackout yet again.

“Wanda!” Vision screamed, his systems came back online in a snap. Had he been asleep the whole time? Raising a hand to his forehead, he could feel the space where the stone had been just moments ago. The intention had been covered by a new plate, but the stone was gone.

His eyes scanned the room, searching for answers to where he was and what had happened to him. The room wasn’t his bedroom, nor was it Wanda’s, but it was familiar. The group had been in this room what seemed like hours ago. Large windows spanning in front of him allowed him to see the vast vegetation that spread across the land, hidden safely behind the barrier that still protected the city of Wakanda. Swirling vectors on the machine next to him caught his eye, proudly displaying the message he had been desperately longing for since earlier this morning.

-SEPARATION COMPLETE-

He recognized the mind stone diagram as well as the detailed breakdown of his internal workings. His consciousness had been fully detached from the mind stone.

Relief washed over him, his head falling in what he could only describe as utter bliss. Shuri had done it. He no longer needed the mind stone to function.

“Ah, so you’re awake.” The girl’s familiar voice sang behind him, his attention falling to her as she made her way around the table. “And how are you feeling?” Shuri immediately set to work, scanning him quickly as he tried to fully process what he just read.

“Remarkable.” Vision reached up again to where the stone had rested previously, the lack thereof having been extremely obvious. It was going to take some getting used to not having it there. “It’s almost like...a weight has been lifted from my mind. There is certainly a difference, yet I feel the same.”

“I wouldn’t worry. It will take some time to get used to, but you are fully disconnected. No mind stone required.” Shuri smiled at him, pride swelling in her chest. Not at all hiding the emotions that she certainly felt at her accomplishment. Despite whatever happened here, she had no doubt been hard at work focused on her job.

Scanning the area once again, he noticed how entirely empty the room was. The shock of reawakening having completely distracted him from those he wished to be reunited with. His eyes widened, the thought of Wanda’s screams filling his memory. “Where are Wanda and the others?”

“Wanda is on her way now. She should be here any minute.” Pressing a few buttons on the display she summoned from her wrist band, her confidence bringing him a good deal of comfort despite what he had seen.

“And Thanos?”

She was quiet for a moment, uncertainty clouding her face making it difficult to discern the meaning behind her silence. Even from the small distance, they held between the two of them, Vision could see how desperately she was trying to not make eye contact with him. Forcing herself instead to focus on the display in front of her. Vision climbed off the table, pushing himself up into a standing position with a grunt. He didn’t like how quiet she had suddenly become.

“Well? Where is he?” Her face contorted, looking away from him for several moments. With a deep breath, Shuri walked toward him, placing a hand on the center of his chest. Putting a gentle pressure to his chest, she nudged him back towards the work table.

“You should really get some rest. And I really should run some more tests before you get up and about.” Shuri shook her head. “There will be time for answers later.”

“My functions are working perfectly, but I must insist that you answer the question.” Vision stepped forward, his voice becoming more firm as he felt irritation bubbling up inside of him. Shuri took a step back as he came forward. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself.

“Vis?” A familiar soft voice spoke up from behind him causing his body to turn in one swift motion. Wanda stood across the room, her eyes filling with tears. Her hands lifted to her mouth in disbelief, her legs wobbling slightly, taken aback by the very idea that he was alive.

“Wanda...” Her name dripped from his mouth, a smile forming on his lips as he watched her.

“Vis!” Wanda ran across the room, quickly closing the distance between them as she jumped into his arms with a laugh. “You’re okay...”

“I’m more than alright now,” Vision said softly, nuzzling his nose into the nape of her neck. Her warmth overtook him, allowing him to fully relax. He trailed kisses up her neck, across her cheeks before reaching her lips, crashing their mouths together in one euphoric kiss. The stress and the collection of emotions they had felt over the past few hours preparing for this moment all came out at once. Wrapping his arms around her small waist, he pulled her against him deepening their kiss. Wrapping her arms around the back of his neck, Wanda moaned quietly into his mouth desperate for more.

Shuri cleared her throat from behind them, forcing him to pull away.

“I do really need to have you checked out first,” Shuri said awkwardly, completely aware they had completely forgotten she was standing there.

Vision ignored her, focusing his attention back on Wanda. While he had been caught up in their reunion, he hadn’t forgotten the small limp she carried as she ran to him. Something had happened to her and he was going to find out what.

“Are you alright, my love?” Concern filled his voice, allowing his hand to fall down her arm and grab her wrist.

“I’m fine, Vis. I really am.” She was relieved, happy beyond measure, but even he could see that behind all that there was something more they were pushing down.

“And the others? What happened?”

Wanda and Shuri shared a look. “He removed the stone. Thankfully...” Wanda sighed happily, gripping onto his hand. “Shuri had already completed disconnecting you from the mind stone. You don’t need it anymore.”

“So what you’re telling me is that he has possession of the mind stone.”

“He does...as well as the other five.” She paused again, squeezing his hand. “A lot of people are gone, Vis. Steve, Tony, Bruce...a lot...b-but you’re safe. I’m safe. We’re here together. Everything’s going to be fine now.”

It was a lot of information to process in just a few short sentences, but even he couldn’t stop the strange wave of emotions that followed them, crashing over his systems again and again. Stark was as close to a father figure as he had and had been a dear friend even longer; the fact that he was gone was definitely something worth noting.

“Perhaps...” Vision started, his words trailing off as he reached for the exam table. “Perhaps...I will sit down.” He had seen the way Wanda had grieved the loss of her brother, studied humans coming to grips with their loved ones no longer being there. This feeling that overwhelmed him was almost too much to bear.

“If you’ll lie down here, I’ll check your vitals. Make sure everything is in tip-top order.” Shuri insisted, helping Vision lie back on the table to continue her scans. “Once I am finished, you two can take one of the back rooms for the night.”

“Thank you, Shuri. For everything.” Wanda continued speaking with her, but their voices faded in his mind as he processed what he had learned. Thanos had made half of all life disappear from the universe, including many of their closest friends. The weight of the mind stone had been lifted, but a far heavier one had been thrust on top of him. Vision was going to have to find a way to get them all back.

Shuri spent the next hour running every test she needed before giving him a clean bill of health. No abnormalities had been found and it seemed like everything was working beyond how she had expected.

The couple retired to one of the many bedrooms that Shuri had pointed out to them. Having no real preference, they accepted one of the middle rooms before saying good night. Wanda walked into the room, taking a deep breath.

“Wanda...are you sure you’re alright?” Vision asked once more. He couldn’t quite place it, but he could tell something was eating at her mind despite her attempts to make herself appear happy.

“I’m more than fine,” she assured him. “Really. You’re alive. It worked.” A bright smile covered her features as she walked back toward him. “Everything is fine.”

“But everyone else...” His voice trailed off, flashes of memories of those they had lost spilling into his mind.

“Is not our problem.” Her voice was stern, unexpectedly so. “Vision...we can’t keep sacrificing our lives for the team. It seems like all we’ve done for two years is give and sacrifice for them. At some point...we have to look at what’s best for us.” Gripping onto his hand, Wanda looked up at him pleadingly. “I almost lost you three times in the past twenty-four hours. I had to kill you myself...” Her voice broke, sequentially breaking something deep inside him. “I cannot lose you again.”

Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, Vision nodded. “...Very well.”

“Let’s get a little sleep, okay? We can figure out what to do in the morning.”

Wanda hopped in the bed, the smile returning to her face as she turned to look at him. She pulled the sheets open for him, waiting patiently for him to occupy the space.

After everything that had happened, sleep was the last thing on Vision's mind, but denying her was out of the question. Vision shifted into some comfortable clothes and slipped in the bed beside her. Wrapping his arm around her back, he pulled her tight against his chest. Yet again he had been granted some semblance of happiness and he was not about to let it go again.

Wanda had been right about one thing: they deserved a moment to themselves. However, he could still feel a push inside him; a force deep down begging him to go out and do something. Vision kept the voice at bay, deciding instead to focus on this moment right now. The moment where both of them were alive and could finally be happy.

#scarletvision #wandavision #the vision #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #rini drabbles #post IW AU #I'm ASSUMING people have probably written something similar to this but I haven't done a good job of checking AO3 and actually READING fanf #This may not have a concurrent story but I will probably write a few parts to this if people are interested #otherwise it will just float off into a one off drabble watching Wanda once again break down while Vision stands and watches #I have a bad track record with writing long form fics so I'm not promising nothing but hey request more if you want it #I'll do what I can

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh Ep 35 S4: Raphael Joins the Pile of Dead Bodies

Ah 2020, thankfully we have one trashfire somewhat behind us, but I’m still avoiding social media for so many obvious reasons because of all the other trashfires that just never seem to stop burning, so lets talk about Yugioh with all of this newfound time.

Ah, card games. Card games that go on for 6-7 episodes. Lets see how they pad it out:

In a lot of ways, Roland really is just padding for the show, and that’s OK. He’s doing his best, by doing literally nothing but stand outside and check the time.

Inside the dusty soul chamber, Tristan has decided to do us the favor of recapping what happened last episode, which included the return of our four dead friends, so that they could die...again.

Seto’s reaction to seeing these dead people suddenly alive again was very “guys...I went nuts like years ago, I’m just going with it at this point.” and he’s still 100% positive that this is all a hologram and that no one will ever die.

Whatever it takes for Seto to get out of bed in the morning, I guess.

(read more under the cut)

One of the big mechanics the game is that you need to stay level headed, or the Orichalcos just kind of slurps you up. This explains a little why Dartz is so freakin chill basically all of the time, just the Bob Ross of evil over there. It also is sort of funny because Pharaoh and Seto are the least chill people to have ever lived so he’s just kind of waiting it out to see whom between Seto and Kaiba gets the most angry first and completely botches it.

Yugi has to do literally nothing and for the first time in his life this is the right choice.

I’m so glad he gets to use his big brain move of “If I don’t play, no one dies!” from S1. Glad it came back to serve him for once instead of just make everyone else really annoyed.

Yugi just...not moving means it’s now Seto’s turn to put down some cards, and he kinda looks over at Pegasus and goes...well you know what’s gonna happen next.

I have no idea why he didn’t attack Pegasus. Like this episode is kind of weird because we got these flashbacks of Pegasus being like “you’re my only hope, Yugi!” and it’s like wtf, Pegasus trapped you on a murder island and tried to kill you multiple times. He abducted Mokuba and turned both the Kaiba brothers into cards.

yo did Seto and Pegasus get back together in between seasons or something? Was there a whole character development where these two have fun brunches in San Fransisco now? Because I would watch that anime. I would watch the anime where Seto and Pegasus are co-hosting Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and just destroying every unsuspecting local restaurant they brunch in.

But are we just assuming that the eyeball did all that evil stuff from S1 and that otherwise Pegasus is a good person? Because like...he was a mess before he got possessed. He’s kind of a Yugi, he’s kind of a Bakura, he’s kind of a Marik...in that there’s a mess in that bean, and getting possesed just only amplified what was already there.

So, with his smug as hell grin, Seto surprises Dartz by only barely getting affected by this inescapable moral dilemma and Seto just very quickly deciding to do a murder. And then we get a little blimp throwback to S2 (S3? I don’t even remember at this point, since we’ve been stuck in S4 for an entire year. Thanks 2020.)

If blocking the shot when Marik did it in S3 or S2 or whenever that was, didn’t get Mai to like Joey, then it shouldn’t work if you do it a second time.

But hey, I guess it’s better than letting her perma-die. Although this show desperately needs to figure out how to use Mai if they’re gonna keep her around, youknow?

Like all ships are fine and valid here, ship whatever you want to your hearts content: I don’t ship at all, as you know, but I hope one day they give Mai a personality that is consistently likeable. I do want to like her because she’s like...good at what she does when she plays cards and can be that can be a fun “hey I’m a girl but I’m not a freakin ‘gamer girl’ you male chauvinist assholes” type of character. But, the show just...the show doesn’t know what they want outside of a little romantic tension that they legally can’t follow through because of a 5-6 year age gap with a teenager.

This show actively tries to destroy this ship, and then turns around and is like “oh shoot this ship is all we have.” This show tries to lift up Mai as a feminist icon one season, and then tears her down for being “too” feminist the next season when she decides to--youknow--kill Joey Wheeler because he made her feel weak or something when he saved her life.

Like the show does a lot to explore weakness and strength, and how what we see as weakness is actually strength, and how what we tend to attribute as strengths is actually weakness, and how our modern career/school/success expectations set us up for failure, but I think they explored that way better with Seto than they ever did with Mai.

Could’ve been cool Mai, you could’ve been cool.

Anyhoo, that was my spicy commentary on a 10+ year old anime, good to get it off my chest.

Seto and Yami have the typical problem they have whenever they play cards together, where one goes completely rogue. Except this time, the one going rogue isn’t Seto, it’s Yami. He’s just like...I’ll make life for Seto very difficult and I will lose this game and I don’t even mind because I’m already dead, deal with it.

So honestly this is an episode where it’s just Seto demanding we kill a bastard, and Yami being like “but not THAT bastard” and Seto just shrugging and saying “I have to kill A bastard, Yugi! Just CHOOSE one!”

That actual line in the show (I forget what it was exactly) does infer that Seto thinks Joey holds him back, and that implication speaks miles about Seto’s insecurities.

HOW THOUGH..........what are you jealous of, Seto?

You’re better at cards than he is, he’s never beat you at anything. It’s not about who’s best friends with Yugi because...Yugi’s possessed so Yami is always going to take first place...

......so what could it possibly BE?

Seto doesn’t attend school anymore, is it about that? Is it because Joey is likeable? Is it because Joey pretends he has a much older girlfriend? I mean hypothetically, Blue Eyes White Dragon is WAY older than Mai so...that can’t be it.

.....what IS it???

Does the “friendship” he have with Joey make Seto too soft? Is that what’s holding him back? Because Seto doesn’t actually think he’s friends with these people and says that Yugi and co are “Mokuba’s friends” so like....

.....what are you talking about, Seto???

Is it because you’re addicted to cards again? Because that’s...sort of Joey’s fault because he was the one who told you he needed a ride to Jacksonville, and then let slip that the “King of Games” title was up for grabs, is that it?

Are you just tired of Joey asking you for a ride?

Not like it matters, because Joey survives, and Seto gets to feel like a complete asshole about it.

As Raphael (who is this purple blur here) motorcycles into the dome of souls, Rolands last words were

“You can’t go in there!”

which was the weirdest thing to say to a guy you just saw fall down a 50 story building a few hours ago. Raphael not being dead should be the thing Roland fixates on, but instead he’s seen so many people die and come back to life, that he’s only concerned that Raphael will get in trouble for trespassing.

Again, Roland is the only Kaiba that hasn’t died yet, and it’s because he’s the only Kaiba that hasn’t broken the law.

Dude. What if the reason Roland is standing outside is because he’s been politely looking for the doorbell to be let in?

...the players asking for death...like clockwork...and me asking for the end of this freakin game...we played...1 turn this episode...

This episode was 1 turn!

And you may ask...well what else could possibly happen to stretch this out and well...

Raphael dives in on a motorcycle to save the day. Which is an aesthetic, by the way, this huge man covered in like a dozen belts, doing a wheelie jump into a chasm of 1 million souls. that’s an aesthetic.

So he shows up, gets off his bike and I was like “Oh good, someone to maybe save Yugi saving Joey saving Mai?” And instead, I was...not given that.

Mostly Raphael is here because he ALSO wants to kill Dartz, and is like “can I join? I know you’ve only played like 1 round, just deal me a new hand, it’ll be fine.” and it’s like...we already played the Orichalcos Raphael, this is not a game of Uno, you cannot just jump in.

Dartz is sort of obsessed with how everyone around him has potential for evil except for him, the chillest human to ever be born, and I gotta say...when he’s in this room...Dartz has a point.

+++++++++++++RANT ABOUT BEING PERFECT FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++

It is sort of nice to have the concept of an older generation (in this case 10,000 years older) fighting with a younger generation. To have the older, more typically wiser generation say “Listen, I kinda screwed the planet and the war economy and the prison system...and I’m gonna keep doing that...and you can’t stop me because you’re a bunch of hypocritical dumbasses.” and then the younger generation say. “We don’t care if we’re a mess, dude. We aren’t the problem here.”

I may be putting some recent topical STUFF into this mold here, but it is a nice little analogy that they made even someone who is such a human disaster as Yami and Seto “morally good” enough to fight Dartz. You don’t have to be a perfect Harvard Grad to fight the system, you don’t have to be an entirely problematic-free savior, you can be even as problematic as Seto Kaiba--just get rid of the dumb assholes trying to destroy the world. That’s all.

Like this concept is strangely prescient because in 2020 we’re in a weird time period where if you aren’t perfect, you’re not allowed to have opinions. You’re not allowed to make content. You’re not allowed to make change. This is mostly an online problem in places like twitter, but it’s a real problem--because in the end what you’re left with is no one that wants to step up to the plate because they know that they, too, are flawed.

And like not even just as a political thing, even as a creator, as an artist, I see this problem more and more with kids. Kids who are like “I am afraid to draw because what if I do it wrong and I get dragged on twitter years later?” or “I want to make a story, but I’m afraid to get cancelled because my fantasy story has problematic stuff in it? Am a bad person for wanting to write it?” And it’s like...what are we doing to young creators right now? Did we all fail humanities? How have we failed art and literature SO badly that we’ve come to this point that people are too afraid to even learn how to do it right?

Anyway that was a tangent, but like...you see the similarities, right? That if you really were as perfect as Dartz either politically or creatively, you’d be a freakin monster and would probably just tear down everyone else around you on twitter rather than lift other people up. It’s a stretch but eh, it’s been a while since I went on a good Yugioh tangent and like

---it’s not like I can say this on twitter---

+++++++++++++++END OF THAT RANT+++++++++++++++++++

So it’s at this point that Dartz turns to Raphael is like “I mean...we weren’t really doing anything else, and Yugi and Yami are playing so slowly...I guess I have time to bust your nuts” and decides to bust his nuts.

Oh hey, I was right.

And yeah, that’s still effed up. Dartz killed his Raphael’s family, left him on an island, and then adopted him later after forcing him to dig up their graves. Like...Raphael, that’s effed up.

He also did the same thing to everyone else (and for Valon he just kinda glazed over that really fast because we had to edit his backstory out of the English version)

PS at this part Mokuba started sweating bullets and Tea leaned over and was like “Is this true, Mokuba?”

And Mokuba was like “...yes.”

Because, I don’t think Mokuba can keep any secret from Tea. Like for reals, Tea may be the most dangerous thing to all of KaibaCorp if she wasn’t so distracted by Yami’s endless string of problems. Mokuba is constantly telling them all of Seto’s deepest darkest secrets and there is like nothing Seto can do about it.

The animation of Gozaburo turning into a beautiful Dartz was just a simple fade to white, but man--imagine if they had dome some crazy effed up animation where Gozaburo just whips back his head and he has ass length blue hair and long, luscious lashes?

Imagine.

Anyway, this was enough for Raphael, who was already our most gullible and unstable person on this show, to just flip that switch and go lime green like all those other minibosses before him.

Really glad we built up Raphael for him to just die at the door hahaha.

That was so freakin random.

OK then. Thanks for nothing, Raphael.

I guess we go to the next episode to see if we finally play another turn? We can hope for good things. But if we don’t play a full turn I will NOT be surprised.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

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catharsis-in-a-bottle · 4 years ago

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A very long post about romantic attraction, social situations, sexual orientation, etc.

In short, a slightly organized brain dump involving some of my personal experiences and hopefully some takeaways.

There are many things I’ve learned, both in general and about myself, simply by investigating online resources about the acespec and arospec communities.

Some of these were things that I think I already knew internally, but that I had never voiced before because I didn’t have the words or the terms to describe them.

I’ve learned about different types of attraction, and I’ve realized that I can categorize them internally. For example, I’ve definitely mistaken platonic attraction with romantic attraction in the past. The term ‘squish’ - basically a sort of friend crush - can be applied to several of my experiences, and honestly, it really explains my conscious disconnect towards romance. I’ve realized that wanting to get to know someone better does not equate wanting to date them.

I’ve learned about other arospec identities, like greyromantic and demiromantic, and how they might apply to me. I’ve realized that my romantic attraction has essentially been limited to one person, and that otherwise my desires have been platonic - again, wanting to get to know someone better because I find them interesting, or else having a deep admiration/respect for them. None of these things are romantic attraction, and it’s been very relieving to discover this. It makes sense.

I think I’ve always had a weird feeling towards all the societal cues and expectations associated with romance. Why are certain things associated with wanting to form a romantic relationship? As a child, I thought I was a girl and I knew, just from the social code of school life, that becoming friends with boys would be seen as some romantic advance (despite the fact that we were all literally elementary schoolers.) In first grade, everyone thought I had a crush on this kid I was friends with, and I always laughed at them. I was just looking for friends. Friends isn’t a freaking gender-specific term. I think I’ve always kind of tried to “play it cool” with the boys, especially in middle school, simply because I didn’t really want anyone to think “haha, so-and-so is dating so-and-so” just because I had a conversation with another person. And what sucked is that when I thought I might be bi, I kind of consciously did the same thing around girls as well - I tried to be socially adept and “cool” and not too overly open, just because of all of these social codes that indicate romantic intent.

One of these strange codes that confused me was this: “if so-and-so has a crush on you, you should totally date them!” What if I didn’t like so-and-so back? Why the hell would I date them? But something that I witnessed happening quite often in middle school was kids finding out someone ‘liked’ them and then wanting to ‘like’ that person back, despite not having formed attraction in the first place. It felt like a puzzle. It was something that I observed and maybe sort of over-analyzed, because dissecting social situations and laying out pieces of the puzzles on the floor is something I just do. I reckon that kids were not only beginning to experience romantic/sexual attraction individually, but that they were also recognizing the social standards that were beginning to form. The first batch of kids wanted to form relationships (if not long-lasting ones), and so they did; other kids who were experiencing attraction subsequently felt a little bit of pressure to get with someone fast. The complaints of “I’m so sad I don’t have a boyfriend” and similar phrases rang free throughout the hallways. In short, allo- and heteronormativity seems to have influenced a lot of people. Which is fine for many, but also restricting for those in the lgbtq+ community (but of course, the jungle of school life does not intend to cater to the minorities) It was simply a thing that happened, and a thing I’m seeing a bit more clearly now.

[Also, the concept of using the word ‘like’ to describe adolescent romantic interest in another person always confused me. I never got why ‘like’ had romantic intent - I liked people that I’d formed friendships with. No one ever outright said “I have a crush on this person.” They just said like.]

There’s only one occasion on which I’ve known how to react emotionally to someone telling me that he had romantic interest in me, and that’s only because I personally ‘liked’ them back. I had already imagined that situation, and I welcomed it. [Amusingly enough, we both kind of ignored our confessions for a while, but eventually we formed an actual relationship. Ah, the joys of social situations.] But in terms of other people admitting their interest, which hasn’t happened all that much but has still happened, I’ve had very mixed reactions. One time a couple of years ago, it was my friend whom I cared very deeply about. I didn’t really know how she knew that I didn’t have interest in dating her, but somehow she did, and she told me so. This made my reaction less clouded and more simple, and it wasn’t really an uncomfortable situation; I confirmed easily enough that I didn’t have any interest in dating her and the situation resolved nicely. Basically, although it wasn’t an ideal occurrence, it didn’t affect our friendship in any way.

But there have been other times where it’s been extremely uncomfortable. Once, I joined an after-school club in which I barely knew anyone. During one of our meetings, we took a walk to a local coffee shop to just sort of hang out. And this girl - I’ll call her ‘C’ for online purposes - sat down and started talking to me. This was fine - why not have a bit of conversation? She talked about K-pop a lot (which eventually got very annoying lol) and just seemed like she wanted to be my friend, and internally I told myself well, I don’t really know her and she doesn’t seem like the kind of person I want to hang out with but we’re at a coffee shop and I’m bored. At the end of our coffee shop trip, C asked for my phone number. I didn’t take this to mean anything beyond the fact that she wanted to talk to me more, and though I felt inclined to decline her offer, I really didn’t want to hurt her feelings (again, the joys of social situations.) So now she had my phone number. Here’s where things got weird. For one thing, she sent me a bunch of random pictures of K-pop singers, saying things such as “omg he’s so hot” which was already uncomfortable in itself. Me, being a bit of an idiot, didn’t stand up for myself, or even block her number. Then, she came out to me as pansexual and told me she had a crush on me. When she told me this, she did not imply in any way that she didn’t have an intent of dating me or something, so I was very, very uncomfortable for several reasons. Firstly, I didn’t know her that well - I didn’t really even consider her a friend. Secondly, I definitely did not want to date her because I didn’t really know her. And thirdly, I didn’t know how to react. I think I said something along the lines of “Oh, well, um, okay, I don’t have a crush on you” and left it at that. For the final puncher, she started finding me in the hallways after school as she left for the bus and giving me hugs. I am typically not a physically affectionate person, so this was just weird as hell for me. Again, like an idiot, I didn’t stand up for myself, and so I just kind of stood there... all of this took place right before my school shut down because of the pandemic, so I was literally saved by everyone getting kicked out of school. Thankfully, I did not see her anymore, and finally I blocked her number as I should have done much, much earlier. [I didn’t intend to make that story so long, but there it is anyway.]

The point is, I found it extremely strange that someone I barely knew had a crush on me. This feeling was amplified when, a couple months ago, something else happened: someone on Instagram, who I didn’t know at all, expressed interest in dating me. I was extremely confused. Apparently they sort of knew me because we were in the same school system, but I’d still never met them.

I simply mean to say that romantic attraction drives people to lengths that I personally find strange and inconceivable. Looking into the aromantic community has taught me that essentially all of what we deem ‘romance’ is socially constructed. The rules, the implications, the things you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to flirt with the person you ‘like’. You’re supposed to get all nervous around them. You’re supposed to only form a relationship with one person or else you’re considered weird and even perverted. Flirting seems like a ritual, nervousness seems like a prison - why can we not do away with the expectations and simply do what feels comfortable to us individually? I have learned about the term relationship anarchy, which means doing away with and rebelling against all of these expectations. The expectation of monogamy, of ritualistic performances, of a certain type of romance, of what actions are deemed romantic or sexual, of having to have a romantic and/or sexual relationship, etc. I find that relationship anarchy is a very appealing concept. People should have whatever relationships or lack thereof that they wish. Queerplatonic relationships should be normalized. Loveless aromanticism should be understood and not demonized. Polyamorous people should not be alienated. In short, these societal expectations that we’ve established have no purpose beyond defining what a “real relationship” is, and by ensuring that romantically loving one other person is what “makes us human” and deems us “normal” in society. Platonic and familial love should not be put below romantic love, yet we’ve created a hierarchy. Me platonically loving my true friends should not be “less than” me romantically loving my boyfriend. And people who just don’t want any sort of relationships or attachments to other people should be respected, because they are not negatively affecting anyone in any way. Except by hurting the feelings of bigots, and I’d pay anyone to do that any day if I had the money.

Though I love my friends and my boyfriend in different ways, I realize that I have extremely similar criteria for a friend versus a partner. Beyond my general confusion regarding romance as a concept, this is another thing that has led me to believe I am arospec. It’s always been very difficult for me to imagine romantically loving someone who I couldn’t consider a friend - how, then, would my relationship even work? One thing about society’s ideas of romance that I do resonate with is the fact that your partner should be your best friend. [For me personally. I’m not just making a general claim.] It’s hard to see myself dating someone who I hadn’t known before, who I hadn’t befriended, who I hadn’t considered a best friend because we knew each other and had come to form an actual bond. I would be happy spending my life with someone who I considered both a best friend and a romantic partner. I don’t think this is something that is of absolute necessity to me - I could see myself without a romantic partner, which is another major reason I’m beginning to consider myself arospec [maybe greyromantic or demiromantic.] And of course, I have conflated romantic and platonic attraction in the past; upon reflection, I think I’ve only experienced genuine romantic attraction once, which of course also prompts me towards arospec.

Many resources - tumblr accounts dedicated to aspec experiences and questions, online stories, even just bare definitions of terms I didn’t know - have been extremely helpful in not only my understanding of myself, but also of the variety of experiences that lie with others. There is a beautiful array of diversity out there in the ways people think and feel, and it feels as if I have discovered a gold mine. [Hehe - do we place value on gold in the same way we place value on romance?] Simply learning about the multitudes of people out there with so many different experiences has been wonderful.

Upon reflection, I’ve also begun to wonder if I am acespec. Society is at it again - placing inherent value in certain concepts, associating expectations between categories. Specifically, the categories of romance and sexual attraction. In most movies with romantic subplots - which is a shit ton - sex seems to always be attached to the development of a romantic relationship. Here’s the thing - most people don’t think about the Split Attraction Model (SAM), which separates romantic and sexual attraction. It’s either you’re attracted to someone, or you aren’t. But for those who do use the SAM for whatever reason, romantic and sexual attraction are separate terms [though they can of course be intertwined.] I find it strange that romance sort of necessarily leads to sex - why? You don’t need sex to have a healthy relationship - but of course, many people want it and so it happens. And because sexual attraction is often tied to peoples’ romantic partners, sex is just associated with romance. [And also apparently sexual attraction can happen towards random people, which I didn’t know lmao.] The SAM is useful for many [not necessarily all] aspecs, as it creates this differentiation between wanting to date someone and wanting to, well, do the do with them. Through investigating common terms used by aspec people, I also find the terms aesthetic and sensual attraction useful, because I believe I have conflated aesthetic and sensual attraction with sexual attraction. [Also, in the past, for some reason I didn’t really know that sexual orientation referred to people that you literally wanted to have sex with. I thought it was just the people that you ‘liked’.] These specific terms have been quite useful to me personally, as I’ve realized that I really can tell the difference between the types of attraction that I experience. The issue is, I’m just not sure about my sexual attraction - have I actually experienced it, and if so, in what ways? It does get frustrating to question so much, but it’s an interesting exploration all the same.

Am I actually acespec? Maybe not. But even if I’m not, I’ve still learned a lot about acespec people, and again it’s wonderful to read about how many different experiences exist in this world. Looking back on my past has been interesting. Thinking about my present and my future is intriguing. Wondering what I am and where I’ll go is a mixed bag of emotions, but it’s here and I’m stuck with it. I think I’m probably arospec, and that discovery is honestly relieving. It feels like a weight lifted. It clicks into place. I’m just going to keep living and figuring out what the hell my sexual orientation is, and I’ll vibe with it, I guess. The general, whole, main point is: learning about these communities is an enlightening experience, and it has perhaps reshaped part of my view of society. And also, I write too much.

If you read this whole thing, I commend you for making it through my massive overshare. I hope you gained something from it, whether that be entertainment or knowledge or simple resonance with an idea.

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deanwanddamons · 5 years ago

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All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You - Part 2

Summary: You were driving alone after getting into a huge fight with your now ex-boyfriend. You had spotted a guy standing on the side of the road in the rain, hitching a ride, so you gave him a lift. That guy happened to be Dean Winchester and you had an unforgettable one night stand with him. Part 2 continues the story and there’s a surprise in store for both you and Dean.

Find part one here: All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, You, Sophie (OC)

Pairing: Dean x You (kinda)

Word Count: 2.6k

Warning: Pregnancy, mentions of suicide, angst

Song inspiration - https://youtu.be/OAfxs0IDeMs

Heart - All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You

A/N: So, this started as a one shot, but lots of you have asked for a second part so here it is! I found this one a challenge as I have never written angst before. I hope you like it! Once again I have had so much help with this and can’t thank you all enough for your advice, love, support and for being my beta’s @mummybear @negans-lucille-tblr @winchest09 @princessmisery666 @deans-baby-momma love you girls ❤️

Three Months Later

“Shit, shit, shit,” you groan, tears filling your eyes as you stare down at the positive pregnancy test in your hand.

How could this have happened? Nothing had gone right for a few weeks. You’d had to change your job to avoid your ex, office romances weren’t ever a good idea. You had to move home since said ex boyfriend had moved the woman he had an affair with into the home you’d once shared and now this.

Maybe it had been a mistake to pick up a hitchhiker and screw him in a motel room. But you’d needed the comfort, the small escape. Besides, Dean had been the best sex of your life. One night stands were supposed to be forgotten, but any girl would have trouble forgetting Dean.

Everything about the night was as vivid as reality, even the look of shock on his face when you’d bolted from the room, guilt and shame not allowing you to stick around.

Shaking your head, you refuse to believe that the first test was right. They were not always accurate so you had bought two, just in case. Looking to the side of you, you focus on the second test inside the box. You rip the plastic open and sit on the toilet. Maybe you should have drank some more water.

You had expected to hear from Paul, your scumbag ex. Maybe a text or phone call. Especially when he would’ve returned home to find all your belongings gone. But you’d heard nothing. Your best friend had offered you her spare room but you hadn’t wanted to be a burden so a few weeks later you found a small apartment to rent in town. Thank god she wasn’t here now because she’d have been the first to tell you how much of a mess you are in.

The second test would need a couple of minutes to develop so you place it on the countertop and wash your hands. As if landing the only job in town as a maid for the motel you’d spent the incredible night with Dean in hadn’t made it hard enough to forget him, the two little blue lines have now made it impossible.

“Fuck!” you yell into the mirror.

It had been a stressful couple of months, it was understandable you’d miss a period. You’d thought nothing of it, brushed it off as stress and the shitty diet you’d been keeping of late.

Then you missed a second period and the second test has confirmed what you’d wanted it to deny.

Pregnant.

It’s Dean’s. The timing fits perfectly and you hadn’t slept with your ex for months before the split. Dean had worn a condom, but it had obviously failed.

“Fuck!” you scream again, punching the countertop, bringing your hand to your mouth when you notice a trickle of blood on your knuckles. Panic and fear are washing over your body like a tidal wave.

Sitting heavily back down on the toilet, you bury your head in your hands, and start to cry.

A Year Later

Working at the motel still reminds you of Dean, but thankfully the room your tryst had taken place in isn’t on your rota. But you’d have traded that to not have to clean room 237. Approaching the door you take a deep breath and enter your card key into the reader. Green Light.

Opening the door slowly, you enter. As usual, you feel the noticeable temperature difference from the corridor. Looking around you shiver. This room always gives you the creeps, the sense of foreboding heavy and thick. As the rumour goes, a young maid - having an affair with the motel Manager, Tony - had committed suicide after he ended the relationship. She chose to slit her wrists in the bathtub of room 237, where they used to meet. Three months later, Tony had done the exact same thing.

Pulling your cart through the door, you move quickly to the bed to change the sheets. A scratching sound from the bathroom takes you by surprise. Even though your heart rate quickens, you decide to ignore it. Gathering up the dirty linen, you dump them in the cart. There it is again. What the hell is it? There’s no one else in or near the room. The atmosphere is getting heavier, the pressure getting stronger. The need to flee is becoming overwhelming.

Again; louder now. Walking towards the bathroom, palms sweating, hands shaking, you reach for the handle and pull the door open.

It’s empty. Pulling back the shower curtain, you scream as the image of a figure materialises in the tub.

Bolting from the room, heart almost bursting out of your chest, you fall to your knees, sobbing. The need to be with your daughter, to hold her, to smell her is the only thought in your confused mind.

Grace was born on a bright, cold fall day in October. It had been a fairly easy pregnancy, but a difficult birth, so you were in the hospital for a week.

Luckily, she’s a pleasant and placid child, with the most intense green eyes, a smattering of freckles across her nose and her lips were plump and full. Every time you look at her you can see her father, which makes your heart ache, but you know you have to keep on going for her sake.

She is your world, your everything and you love her more than words could explain.

Your friend had not approved of you keeping the baby at first, as she had said it would ‘ruin your life’ but you knew there was no way you could get rid of it. Plenty of people managed to bring a child up alone, and you knew, with hard work and perseverance, you could do it too. Eventually, your friend came around to your way of thinking, even offering to babysit when you had shifts at the motel. As you didn’t get paid maternity you had to go back to work almost straight away.

The motel - you hate the place.

After the encounter in the bathroom, which had haunted you since it happened, you had done some research online, and discovered this was not the first time this had happened. Twenty years ago, the same scenario took place in the exact same room.

When the new manager started, you asked why the room was still being used. The answer was simply, “Money, honey,” so you never mentioned it again. Either the public were unaware of the history, or didn’t care, as it was almost always occupied.

Your day starts out the same as any other. Leaving Grace with your friend you drive the short distance to the motel.

Entering the reception area, you are surprised to find it empty. Sophie is usually behind the counter, but she is nowhere to be seen.

“Sophie?” you call out as you walk behind the desk to collect the key to the supply cupboard.

“Hey Y/N,” you hear from the back office, “come in here a second?”

Putting your bag on the floor, you open the door to the office to find she is not alone.

A very handsome man, with floppy brown hair wearing a smart suit is sitting at the desk. As he rises to shake your hand, you are amazed at how tall he is. He must be well over 6ft 4.

“Y/N, this is Agent Taylor from the FBI,” she introduces him as he shows you his badge.

“Hi Y/N,” he smiles, shaking your hand. “My partner, Agent May and I are here to discuss the death of Tony Phelps. He’s just getting a glass of water. He will be with us shortly. Please, take a seat.”

There are two doors in the office. One, which you just came through, leads from the reception. The other leads into a small kitchen area. You sit, with your back to the door to the kitchen.

“Why are the FBI investigating a suicide?” you politely ask Agent Taylor.

“We are not sure it was suicide,” he responds, “so we are talking to all the staff to find out if they saw or heard anything strange or unusual the night he died. Anything out of the ordinary. ”

As he is speaking, you hear the door behind you open, so turn in your seat. You realise who has just walked through the door. The man you hadn't forgotten since that night. How could you forget him?

Dean.

Your heart stops as the room suddenly loses all its oxygen. Your lungs cease to take in air, a weight on your chest pressing down on you like a vice.

Staring at him, eyes wide and glassy, a lump forms in your throat, and for a brief moment you lose the ability to form words.

What is he doing here?

He stares back at you, an expression of realisation slowly changing his features. He goes to speak, but you briefly shake your head and force your gaze from his, looking back to Sophie.

Agent Taylor clears his throat, so you turn your attention back to him.

“This is my partner, Agent May,” he explains.

Dean is frozen to the spot, hand still on the door, glass of water in the other.

“Yes..um…” he begins as he moves further into the room placing the glass on the desk. He fumbles with the inside pocket of his jacket, removing his badge, which he shows you. It’s upside down. Smirking, he flips it over. “Agent May,” he croaks. You notice his hands are shaking slightly.

“Hello,” you nod at him, glancing at him briefly, then turning away. Attempting to take in a full breath, you count to 10 silently, hoping this will slow down your increasing heart rate. That smirk has brought all the memories of your night together crashing back. The way his hands touched you, the way those lips kissed you, the way he made love to you.

“So Y/N,” Agent Taylor continues as Dean sits down next to him. He gives him a confused, side eyed glance, “were you here the night Mr Phelps took his own life?” he questions.

“No, I was not on shift,” you respond, trying hard not to look at Dean who is fidgeting in his seat. He has a pen in his hand, and he keeps clicking the top.

Click, click, click.

Snatching it out of his hand and placing it on the table, Agent Taylor scowls at him. Dean's eyes meet yours with a questioning look. He shrugs his shoulders.

Holding his gaze for a second too long, you swallow. A wave of nausea washes over you, the gnawing in your stomach getting stronger.

“Can I just get a glass of water?” you hear yourself say as you rise from your seat. With shaking legs you drop back down as beads of sweat form on the back of your neck and your vision blurs.

Feeling a hand on your shoulder, you hear Sophie ask, “are you ok Y/N?”

As your vision clears, you see that Dean has also risen from his seat.

“Yes, yes,” you responded quietly, “I just need some air.”

“I’ll help you outside,” Dean says as he walks around the desk.

“No it’s fine,” you protest, but he is already by your side, taking your arm. His touch sends a bolt of lighting across your skin. Gently helping you up, he slips his arm around your waist, and leads you through the door into reception.

The silence between you is palpable as you head to the courtyard out front.

Inhaling deeply, you breathe in the cold spring air as Dean turns you to face him.

“What was that about in there Y/N?,” Dean asks “why didn’t you want anyone to know we have met before?”

“Hi Dean,” you respond sarcastically. You don’t know why you are feeling so hostile towards him as you were the one who walked away after you had slept together, not the other way around, but a feeling of anger rises inexplicably in your throat.

“What are you doing here Dean or should I say Agent May? You’re not from the FBI.”

“Never mind that, I’ll explain later. I want to know why you left so suddenly that night?”

“It was a long time ago, Dean. I didn’t expect to see you again, so just leave it,” you say as you turn to walk away.

“No Y/N, I want to know what I did wrong? I thought we had a good time, and then you just upped and left with no explanation. Were you married or something?” he protests.

“No. Everything I told you about my ex was the truth. We did have a good time, but it should never have happened,” you admit. “I was in a bad place, and not acting like myself.”

“Okay,” he agrees, “But an explanation would have been nice.”

“Oh, so you have never slept with someone then left them hanging have you?” you snap.

He stares at you with an indignant scowl.

Your cell rings. Pulling it out of your pocket you look at the display and see it’s your friend who is with your daughter. She only calls while you're at work when there is something wrong with Grace.

“I’ve got to take this,” you tell him, bringing the phone to your ear.

“Y/N, sorry to bother you but Grace is running a temperature,” she says, “she’s really cranky and I’m not sure what to do.”

Shit. Perfect timing.

“Okay, F/N. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” you tell her as you hang up the phone.

“I have to go Dean. My daughter isn’t very well and the sitter just rang.”

“Your daughter?” he asks, surprised, “How old is she?”

“Six months,” you tell him quickly, not thinking as your focus is now on getting back to your daughter as quickly as possible.

“S-six months?!” Dean stammers. Your eyes go wide as you realise your mistake, the panic rising in your stomach when you look up at the green eyed Winchester. You could see the cogs whirring in his brain, working it all out. You should have lied about her age.

“I need to go,” you say quickly, turning around to begin to walk away from him and this situation.

“Is she mine?” His question made you slow down slightly but your mouth was unable to form the answer. You swallowed hard but before you could make your next move, Dean was behind you, grabbing your arm as he whirls you around to face him.

“Let go of me, Dean!” you demand, attempting to pull away but he keeps a firm grip on you.

“Y/N, is she mine?! I have a right to know,” he pleaded. With a bone dry mouth, your heart almost beating out of your chest, you look up at him as his green eyes search yours for his answer. This was it, you couldn’t hide it from him so you slowly begin to nod your head.

“Yes.”

Part 3

Tags - @sherlock44 @adoptdontshoppets @for-a-brothers-love @ilovetoread44 @supraveng @jawritter @sandlee44 @prettydeaneyes @moonlessnight126 @maddiepants @in-deans-arms @magssteenkamp @zpandaqueen @thevelvetseries @sonofabringmesomepie @fandom-princess-forevermore @cleighwrites @linki-locks11 @dancingalone21 @chocolateheart @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @shademered @jensensjaredsandmishaslover @onethirstyunicorn

#dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #spnfamily #spn fanfic #deanwanddamons #dean winchester fanfiction #reader insert #Jensen Ackles #jensen ackles fanfiction

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nelllraiser · 4 years ago

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when you wake | cutler, dakota, & nell

LOCATION: the catacombs. PARTIES: @clarkesconvenience, dakota, & @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: the key to waking the dreamers is revealed, but cutler, dakota, and nell are unlikely to succeed without first giving something up of their own. CONTAINS: sibling death, torture mention, self-harm, gore

Cutler’s hands were aching. It had started in the morning as a dull, persistent twinge between the joints and had only intensified as the day went on, morphing into a sharp pain. It refused to leave with knuckle cracking and finger-splayed stretches, tendons only seeming to tighten and pull the bones of his fingers further into themselves. The half dozen advil hadn't helped, nor had the stiff drink he had downed before taking to the crisp winter air as a last resort.

He hadn’t intended to go to the catacombs. In fact, he would normally avoid the labyrinthine stone pathway system that ran below the city at all costs. It was for this reason that he was shocked to find himself standing on the stairs at the entrance, fire licking up his hands as he descended. He grimaced as he crossed the threshold of the stone entrance, puffs of dirt and dust settling around his feet. The pain rippled across the back of his hands, as if leading him forward.

“Bad idea.” He said aloud, even as his feet took him further into the depths. As if in response, the muscles in his hands spasmed painfully. Pulsing deep below the criss crossed lines of his palms was the knowledge that the cause of this sudden affliction was ahead of him, not behind. “Guess we’re doing this.” He spoke into the cool shadows, hoping no one was there to hear it.

Dakota had been having dreams for weeks now – although she didn’t know if they were just part of some bizarre fantasy slipping out in her slumber or if they were truly nightmares. Regardless, each time she laid down or rested in the slightest, she saw fleeting images of a cave-like place, low lighting, darkness… All flashing before her eyes too quickly for her to make too much sense of it all, but each time she woke up she comforted herself with a cigarette and a mug filled with coffee. Probably wasn’t the best idea for someone who, as of late, kept having a racing heart and acid reflux. But none of that really mattered, because at present she was standing at the entrance of a place she’d never been before – a place she was pretty sure she hadn’t ever noticed on a map of White Crest.

Her memory was… Fuzzy, at best. She remembered grabbing a jacket, but not getting out of bed. She remembered moving through the underbrush in the middle of the night, and she remembered thinking it was strange that she was walking through tree branches in the darkness, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember walking out the front door. What scared her, though – aside from not being able to recall how she got to where she was standing – was that she didn’t even know why she stood at an entrance to what she could only assume were the catacombs of White Crest. You can wake up any time now, you know. But to her horror, she realized that perhaps she wasn’t dreaming, because she’d heard a voice that helped to snap her back into reality, not too far away, amidst the shadows in the night. What the hell? “…Doing what?”

The smell of blood was what Nell awoke to, though she couldn’t be all that sure of the difference between the real world and unconsciousness when White Crest had begun it’s steady descent into the collected subconscious of its citizens. Had she even been asleep when the tangy and salty scent of blood had alerted her? Ever since people had been falling into unwilling and unwelcome slumbers, the witch had done her best to sleep as little as possible, not wanting to be the next victim in a string of people that were something deeper than comatose. It wasn’t all that hard considering the fact that sleep hadn’t been easy since May of last year, the month that her sister had been struck down before her very eyes in Nell’s stead. But Nell couldn’t afford to fall into a sleep that she wouldn’t awake from. There were far too many things in her life that needed constant attention, obligations that refused to be silent in the form of a demon cult needing downing, a family whose father had been eaten by a demon shark, and her summoning magic that seemed to have grown a mind of its own at times.

While she blinked bleary eyes open wider, her heart began to race, Nell’s mind picking up pace to match the beating in her chest as she recalled the last time she’d risen to the smell of blood. It had been the sticky redness of her sister’s beheading that had covered her face, arms, legs— and panic rose in her chest while she wondered if she’d soon find Bea’s headless body on the floor next to her. Thankfully there was no decapitated body in sight, though Nell couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness the scent of blood was bringing to her head. Where was it coming from? There was something deeper in her gut, a pulling and yearning that seemed to yell until she was forced to listen, and follow the metallic smell of blood. She walked until she came upon a familiar sight, the very entrance she and her sisters had used when they’d hunted Montgomery, Bea’s killer, down into the catacombs, capturing and torturing him so that they might earn their final retribution. She hadn’t dove back into the catacombs shadowy bowels since that day, almost worried that if Montgomery had a ghost, it would be down there in the belly of the town, still being digested, not yet truly gone. Was he the one who had brought her here?

Nell didn’t know how long she tread the empty halls of the cavernous catacombs before hearing a voice, and in an instant she was drawing a knife from its hiding place, brandishing it before her. Following the sound, it didn’t take long until she found the source of it— a man who looked as lost as a lamb without it’s shepherd, and the woman she’d traded fierce words with outside The Stacked Deck. “Were you both brought here too?” Nell asked, familiar enough with mysticism by now to recognize that no natural force had placed her here. Was it the same for them? The tail end of her words was caught up in the howl of a wolf, a long and mournful sound that turned her head down the most narrow tunnel to the left of the party. “Did you hear that?”

“Oh, fuck. Jesus.” Cutler’s knees bent instinctively and his entire body lowered into a defensive stance at the reply in the darkness. It took him a moment to recover from the shock, leg still bobbing shakily with hopped-up nerves, even as the decidedly not-scary woman became visible in the darkness. Smooth, Cut. “Going into the creepy catacombs alone. Suppose this solves half that problem. I’m Cutler.” He began to lift his hand to shake and immediately dropped it again as his knuckles screamed and scraped against themselves. He tried on a reassuring smile instead, manifesting as more of a pained wince.

It was then that a second voice breached the dim, settling heavy in the mildewed corners and damp brick. Anxiety and tender pain fluttered in his chest. “Brought here? I wouldn’t say-” A dry cough stuck in his throat, rasping behind his words and cutting off the statement that he didn’t quite believe. “Were you?” His hands clenched and unclenched at his side nervously as he fumbled for a way to lighten the conversation. “This isn’t how I usually meet people, but if this is the new spot maybe I should come down here more often.”

Dakota vaguely remembered him, but everything around her seemed like a distant memory at the moment. Was it that online forum? Did she see him at a grocery store? It was starting to irritate her just how confused she felt. “Cutler,” she heard herself say, though her gaze drifted more so back to the catacombs. “Do you know why –” she trailed off, mostly due to the fact that yet another voice was thrown into the mix. However, this girl was more than just a vague memory – she was more than even just familiar, because she was that girl from The Stacked Deck who burst through her poker game, though she never caught her name. The two exchanged words, something about being “brought” here. That was enough to finally snap her out of her dream-like trance.

“I was, yeah. I don’t remember getting out of bed. I don’t remember walking out the door. But somehow I’m standing here in the middle of the night with you fine people—” she paused to toss Nell a look. She wasn’t still angry about The Stacked Deck… per se. A howl in the distance, though, did in fact shut Dakota up quite quickly. Someone had told her to watch out for wolves. “Does anyone know why the hell we’re here?”

Nell’s dagger had dropped to her side into a more relaxed position, though she made no move to stow the weapon back from whence it had come. Giving the man named Cutler a nod, her lips pursed while she took in her surroundings, trying to remember how long she’d already been walking the craggy walls of the catacombs. Ten minutes? Thirty? A few hours, maybe? She couldn’t remember, and that only added to the stone of dread pooling in her gut, an unsteadiness that always formed these days whenever she could feel control slipping through her fingers. “I’m Nell,” she told the man before narrowing her eyes towards the other woman, barely resisting the urge to offer more sharp words. But she could feel that there were more important things at hand than a petty feud over some flipped tables and spilled cards. “You didn’t say your name.” By the way the dark-haired woman cut her words in the midst of another howl, Nell took it as confirmation that she wasn’t the only one hearing things. “I don’t know- but it’s probably for some bullshit reason.” That’s what had happened at the lake all those months ago, wasn’t it? People had come to Nell for the demon banishing ceremony, pulled by some otherworldly force to the right place at the right time. Another call of the wolf had Nell staring down the tunnel in question, a desperate need to answer it seeming to pull her towards it. “I think...we should follow that howl, though. Do you feel it?” The need that was seated in her mind’s eye, like an itch she couldn’t quite reach.

There was something in the air between the two women. Cutler was scared, not stupid. The tension was thick, billowing around hanging spider web scraps and floating dust specks. He could cut it with a knife. That is, if his quivering hands could even hold one in their current state. As Nell spoke, his fingers were reaching down the hallway even as his mouth protested. “Follow it?” His voice was high in his register, squeakier than it had been in several years.

Something in him shifted as the young woman’s voice spoke once more. Calmer than she had any right to be. Grounding him. Can you feel it? Whatever “it” was throbbed in his hands and tugged at his gut, pulling him forward. “Yeah.” He found himself saying, “I can.” He turned back, making eye contact with both of his newfound companions. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”

By the second howl, Dakota couldn’t have given a rat’s ass about exchanging names and pleasantries, because she was about ready to turn around and head home. But… The moment she thought about retreating, there was a sickening, sinking feeling in her gut that made her stay. She felt it in her bones, she felt it in her chest – a knot tying itself tighter in her stomach that pleaded only one request: stay. “Dakota,” she muttered a few moments later, eyes looking askance towards the entrance of the catacombs. She wasn’t sure what the hell was about to be down there, but she was sure as shit not about to risk her life for some adventure.

… Except that she was, because a third howl began to make her think that being inside the catacombs was a lot safer than being out here. “We don’t. I feel it, too – whatever ‘it’ is. Let’s just.. Follow the howl and hope we don’t end up fucking mauled.”

Nell knew that a wolf howl was more often dangerous than not in a town like White Crest, a place so steeped in the supernatural that it had almost become...natural. She couldn’t begin to explain it, just as she couldn’t entirely explain why she’d come here in the first place, but the howl of the wolf didn’t seem threatening. It was a long, searching sound, as if calling out to someone for help. The subject of whether or not they had a choice was a touchy one for Nell, always balking at being forced into anything, but she couldn't’ help but feel that Cutler’s words were true. Steeling her shoulders into a determined and hard stance, she took the little height she possessed and made the most of it as she began to lead that way into the tunnel, doing her best to ignore all former thoughts of Montgomery as she began to descend. “Let’s get going, then.” While she walked the path, the scent of blood grew stronger, so much so that she swore she could nearly taste it on her tongue, thick and sharp. All the while the wolf’s howls led the way, showing which path to take when they came to forks or a circle of tunnels. “I think we’re almost there.” She could feel the magic in the air now, a shimmering that she’d known since a young age that was shining brighter in her head the closer they got.

Cutler fell in step behind the girl in front of him instinctively. She operated with a natural leadership and seemed to possess some hidden knowledge as she looked around the tunnels where he only saw shadowy recesses in grimy brick. In the low light, he spread his hands in front of him, looking for some medical explanation for the tingly-sharp pain that only grew stronger the deeper they went. At the back of his tongue, the familiar, coppery taste of blood brought back memories of the surgeries he had performed with these same hands; once valuable enough to be insured, now primarily used for punching prices behind a cash register. “Almost where?” He had almost run into Nell when she stopped, and scuffled backward a few steps. He looked to his left, making sure Dakota was with them. Whatever was around the sharp bend ahead, he didn’t want to face it alone.

The thick, cloying scent of blood hit him like a wall, meaty and organic. Blinding pain seared through his hands and he expelled a soft sound, halfway between a moan and a cry. His eyes screwed shut instinctively, willing the static from the edges of his vision. “You guys don’t feel that?” He stared at his feet, sharp, jagged breaths hampering his attempts to get the words out. “Tell me you feel that.”

As they submerged themselves deeper into the damp, dank tunnel, Dakota could smell the presence of some sort of blood – fresh, most likely. It reminded her of hunting with her uncle when she was a kid – that smell of blood, human or animal, was almost universal.. And it was present down in the halls of the tomb that they walked. The phrase almost there was something she didn’t want to hear, but Cutler summed it up when he’d asked the question she was already forming in her own mind – almost where?

The deeper they went, the stronger the scent grew – like a thick curtain or a shroud hanging around the three of them, metallic in its fragrance. Deeper into the tomb they walked, and the stronger it grew. Dakota’s heart hammered in her chest, not knowing exactly what lay ahead for them. Cutler had said something, and though she was fit to answer, she caught a glimpse of an object on the floor, farther ahead than she cared to go, that seemed to resemble something far too close to human remains.

“Hey, guys…? What the fuck is that?”

Cutler remained bent over, hands on knees. “No.” The word tumbled out of his mouth, quietly and aimed at the floor. He barely heard it himself over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Dakota was speaking, Nell was ahead, but his gaze remained trained steadfast on the floor below him and the centuries of dirt and whatever else filled the gaps between the ancient brickwork below them.

When he finally summoned the courage to stand back up, both of the women were looking at something ahead of them. It was dark, and he didn’t have his glasses on him, but he knew what it was, the same way he had known to come to the catacombs in the first place. What little light there was in the tunnels bounced off pale skin in the shadows. “It’s a-” Cadaver was the word at the front of his mind; the only other time he had been privy to the sickly white tones of bloodless flesh. “-a body. I think. Or part of one.” He drew air into his chest, forcing it to expand and contract, reminding himself to breathe. He could handle this. He’d seen dead bodies, operated on them. This was nothing he hadn’t faced before.

And then it moved. It jumped forward, movements quick and erratic. Spidery limbs crawled across the floor as it came into focus in sharp terror under the lamp light. It was a hand, isolated from the rest of its body, moving independently with jerky, inhuman motions. Cutler was already reaching for the Swiss army knife in his pocket; numb, throbbing fingers jammed themselves into his too-small jean pockets. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He barely managed to retrieve the multitool in time to stab the knife squarely into the hand in front of him. As it collapsed to the ground, he looked around frantically. “There’s got to be two, right? Two of them?”

A soft scraping below him snapped his gaze back to the floor. It was moving. Again.

Somehow Nell had walked right past the hand that had scuttled towards Cutler, and his string of curses made her head turn backwards over her shoulder, a frown of concern firmly in place. How the hell had she missed a living hand? Either her senses were growing duller, or the thing hadn’t spawned until after she’d passed it. Whatever the answer may be, the appendage certainly shouldn’t have been inching all over the ground like some fleshy crab. At least Cutler had managed to stab the hand, though it soon became apparent that the abandoned body part had made a steady and full recovery, dancing around the man’s feet as if it were auditioning for some grotesque rendition of The Addams family and the role of ‘Thing’. “Two would make sense.” After all, hands came in pairs, didn’t they? “So where the hell is the other one?” she muttered, sharp eyes scanning the shadows that seemed to be looming closer by the second as the walls of catacombs blurred and twisted into shapes she could almost make sense of. Squinting into the darkness, she searched for movement that she could track and caught a glint of silver instead. The moment she took notice of the abnormality, an enormous injection needle shot through the darkness, the three foot long steel tip of it aiming for Nell with deadly accuracy. “Holy shit!” she called out as she rolled and dodged, never having been a fan of any shot, let alone one that looked as if it’d been created for giants.

Quick movements caught her attention, but Dakota wanted to haul ass in the opposite direction the moment she saw a fucking hand scurrying near their feet, like some sort of spider. Moments ago she was trying to decide if she were in a dream or walking along in the realm of reality, and now she was wishing to open her eyes and see that this was all an illusion. Cutler’s curses and quickness, though, reassured her that this wasn’t something she was going to wake up from anytime soon. “Stab it again!” Dakota exclaimed, hopping on the bandwagon of belief that there must be a second one walking around – another hand that needed to be destroyed.

Her eyes searched the darkness hurriedly, hoping it would appear out of the blue so that she could stomp on the damned thing and get this hellish night over with. However, that wasn’t the case. Nell’s scream was a distant cry at this point – she’d felt herself wander into a spiderweb of some sort while looking for the other hand. Instantly she began to brush off, muttering little curses to herself, anxious hands running over her limbs. She couldn’t see a thing, but it was like she felt them all over. “Fucking Christ!” she shouted in disgust, obsessively sweeping her hands over herself only to stumble over another object on the floor – the second hand? -- hitting the ground with a thud.

To Dakota’s absolute horror, in the dimness of the catacombs she saw what looked like hundreds of spiders crawling towards her, some small and some large, others akin to tarantula size while some were beastly, at least as large as a dog with legs as long as she was tall. Letting out a string of curses – “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” – along with a cry of disgust as the small arachnids crawled over her legs. Finally, she had managed to scramble herself to her feet, now noticing the giant needle as the swarm of spiders seemed to follow every which way she ventured. She didn’t know how these nightmarish visions were spawning, but she had one idea that might put an end to them.

“Cutler, stab the goddamned hand!”

Cutler didn’t see the needle, or the spiders, or the fear in his companions’ eyes. He didn’t hear the persistent calling of his name over the chaos. He saw the scene as if from outside himself. Disaster arced outward, nightmare spawn barreling toward him and the hand at ground zero. The hand twitched, rising from the floor on clicking joints and he just stared, glassy eyed. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

The pain in his own hands brought him back to his body with a sickening jolt. Hot saliva pooled at the back of his tongue and pearls of sweat began to dampen his collar. The pain had changed. What was now a dull throb became a stabbing agony; converging at the centre of his palms where his life and love lines intersected. He knew what he had to do. The round, clean-cut fingernails of his left hand scraped nervously at the faux-mahogany handle of his multi-tool for a moment, seemingly impervious to the events unfolding around him. A series of moments flashed before his eyes. His first surgery in the OR. His last one. The good, the bad, and the ugly: all perpetrated with these hands.

When the blade of his knife pierced the skin of his palm, there was no hesitation. It was a smooth cut. His professors would have been proud. An excruciating scream filled the tunnel. At first, he thought it was coming from him, but his teeth were clenched together over his locked jaw. Below him, an identical wound had appeared on the pale hand on the floor, viscous liquid seeping from it and into the sandy tile below.

“I got it.” The words were spoken at regular volume, overwhelmed the shrieking from the hand below. The same inherent knowledge that had led him here told him it wasn’t long for this world. “I got it.” He said again, louder this time. Stronger. One down, one to go.

The moment Cutler made his incisions was the same instant the enormous needle faltered mid-trajectory, dropping to the ground as if it too had been defeated. It gave a long enough pause for Nell to look past her attempted impaling for a moment to see the scene that lay before Cutler. His blood dripping from one hand onto the one below him, the ruby red droplets staining its ghastly skin red. Of course. Nell had been foolish not to realize it earlier. Between the plethora of magic swirling in the air, and the blood that the hand had demanded, it was becoming clearer by the second exactly what it was that was going on here. “It wants a sacrifice,” she said slowly, knowingly as she continued to glance warily towards the giant needle that lay still on the catacomb floor. “It needs payment in exchange for…” In exchange for what? They still didn’t have the faintest idea of what it was they were trying to accomplish here beyond making sure they didn’t get murdered by their worst nightmares. Suddenly, a voice seemed the echo through the cavern, raw and rough but full of determination and confidence. “We need to get the parts to the pedestal. We need to use the rest of our energy to get these parts to the real world. Like the skeleton said...they need to be made real so that they can be destroyed.”

Make them real so they can be destroyed. Based on the nightmare-ish visions they were experiencing and the voice’s mentions of the ‘real world’, Nell could only guess as to why the parts had to be done away with. This was what needed to be done to bring back those that had fallen prey to whatever sleeping curse had taken White Crest as its prisoner. Those like...Bex? Iron determination was quick to find its way back into Nell’s gaze as she thought of her slumbering pupil, an innocent girl caught between things she didn’t yet understand along with the rest of the town. “Where’s the other fucking hand?” she hissed, intent on stabbing the thing herself if she could find it. She’d do whatever it took to ensure her town was happy, that her little witch was safe. But whatever antidote Cutler had worked seemed to be wearing off, the needle rattling from its resting place to rise once more while the other hand roamed free. “Find the damn hand!” Nell yelled as she dodged another stab of the needle, narrowly escaping impalement.

Amidst the darkness scattered hundreds of spiders, all that seemed on a manhunt for Dakota. The beastly ones reared up on hind legs, towering over her, latching on to her fear of them as if they fed off of it, the smaller ones closing in while crimson red dripped from Cutler’s palm to the single hand below. Sacrifice. The word rang in her ears as she dodged the spiders, though the moment his blood dripped they held themselves at bay, a few vanishing into thin air. Just that the few drops weren’t enough, apparently, because as the needle trying to impale Nell began to bring itself to life once again, aiming straight for her.

All she knew was that if they didn’t find the other hand, and quick, she’d run out of energy and succumb to being eaten alive by a bunch of snarling tarantulas and Nell would be given a hefty dose of dead, God only knowing what would happen to Cutler. Dakota, though still panicked by both the spiders she was frantically kicking away from herself, hoping against hope the giant ones, as well as the giant needle chasing Nell, would vanish the moment Cutler destroyed the hands. It was painfully clear, though, that they all only had one option: face their manifested fears. You can do this. They’re just spiders. It’s just a dream.

The spiders continued to rear up on hind legs, Dakota continually dodging left and right in order to miss the others when she noticed something large and ghastly scurrying through once again. The same object she must have tripped on in the first place. The second hand. Adrenaline flooded her veins, knowing damn well that if she didn’t make her next move and follow that hand, the risk of all three of them not making it out of the catacombs alive would be much higher than she cared to gamble for. They’re just spiders. It’s just a dream.

Taking a few steps back, Dakota braced herself before sprinting forward, dropping her right knee just in time to slide across the floor, right between the legs of the beast before her, only to chase down the hand she’d spotted moments before. “There!” she tried desperately to communicate with the others as the swarm of spiders began their chase, the hand speeding between Cutler’s legs and hoping to retreat to safety. “Do something!”

Cutler wasn’t worried about the other hand. The moment that Nell had said the word sacrifice, he had understood that proximity wasn’t the issue. It was the sacrifice in the action. The final relinquishing of his surgical career in a single choice, offered up to the dark mirror of what were once his most valuable assets. He was surprised to find that he felt lighter knowing he would never again hold someone’s life in his hands. Dark life force seeped down the grooves in his skin, tiny rivers running back to the sea. At this rate, he may never hold anything at all.

The tendons in his hand jumped and rippled around the wound. He looked at it clinically, like the cutaway diagrams in his anatomy textbooks, bridging the gap between his limbs and what every person was underneath. Meat. Flesh. As corporeal and precariously mortal as any other animal. Bone, muscle, and tendon scraped together as he switched the knife to his still-bleeding hand. Strangely, he felt no pain. It was what allowed him to repeat the action once more, stabbing the blade into his uninjured palm. Another scream from below him: the second hand meeting its end.

At once, sights and sounds began to seep back into his peripheral. Yelling from his companions, impossible visuals bombarding him. The hands were gone, but this was far from over. “We have to move.” Ahead of them, he felt the pull of a greater force drawing them forward. He had just made the greatest sacrifice of his life, and it was only a taste of what was to come. An appetizer for the great, slavering hunger that was closing its’ jaws around them. “Now. We have to move, now. I’ll cover you. Run.”

Dakota didn’t know Cutler. His aspirations, his dreams, his pain, his guilt – it was all lost on her, but it didn’t take much to realize that what he’d just done was the sacrifice of his life. She stopped running from the spiders long enough to look upon the scene in both awe and admiration. There wasn’t time to unpack that, though, because while the bloodthirsty needle had dissolved into thin air and the crawlers she’d been dodging had suddenly vanished, she felt the pull – a foreboding sense of ruin lying ahead. We have to move, now.

Only one word made sense to her: run. It was something she’d done her whole life – something she practiced often and knew all too intimately how to do. It was a knee-jerk reaction that came with a side of always having an escape route in her back pocket. Dakota was hesitant about a lot of things in life, but one thing she’d never think twice about was disappearing without a trace… Until now. Breaking into a sprint, she knew there were more things than just two hands to destroy, and the faster they could find them, the faster she could retreat back to safety, burrow herself back into her own little world where shit like this could only ever exist in horror films.

Her gut was never to be trusted, but something told her to hang a left as she was running through the tunnels, splotches of red catching her eyes, beckoning her to follow. The sense that she was growing closer grew stronger, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, blood rushing in her ears. She could feel it like it was burning a hole straight through her, whatever this force wanted her to find just at her fingertips, so close she could almost taste it – a few more feet and… Dakota slowed to a stop, the splotches of blood she’d been following leading her to this:

A still beating heart lying balefully at her feet.

Nell couldn’t begin to guess at what exactly Cutler had given up. After all, she’d only met the man some twenty minutes ago. Nevertheless it was apparent that his sacrifice had been more than enough, the stabbing of his hands paying the debt that had been demanded. Once they were out of here, she’d ask to take a look at his hands. Healing wasn’t her forte, but she could do enough to at least stop the bleeding and make sure he didn’t keel over from blood loss. She would have taken a look at his injuries now if another organ hadn’t spawned in the midst of them, the thumping of the bloody organ louder than any tell-tale heartbeat the witch had heard before. It seemed to bounce off the walls of the catacombs, until it echoed in her ears, drowning out her own thoughts as she watched Dakota approach the heart.

Nell took a confident step in the direction of the heart, only to be met with iron bars shooting up from the ground mere inches from her nose. The message was clear enough. This was Dakota’s sacrifice to make. “Looks like it’s your turn,” she said none too begrudgingly, knowing her time would most likely be coming sooner rather than later. “It’s your sacrifice to make now.” As soon as she’d said the words, the bars that had kept her from the heart began to move towards her, as if trying to pin her against the rock of the catacombs. Taking a stuttering step back, Nell tried to quell the anxiety that was pooling in her chest as imprisonment looked unavoidable. This was too much like the underground jail of the Ring, and the place she’d been trapped for an entire week, continuously drained of her magic and barely fed until she’d finally managed to break free. The only thing it was missing was… Before she could even finish the thought a familiar voice was worming its way into her ear, silky, smooth, and commanding as Jax’s silver tongue made its demands. “Fuck off,” she growled despite knowing the man was dead, rising dread making it difficult to remind herself of logic.

The wet pumping of the heart matched the rapid thrum of Cutler’s own in his ears. Thud-thud. Steel bars shot up between himself and Nell. Thud-thud. The sharp smell of hospital antiseptic at the back of his throat. Thud-thud. The cracking of whisky over ice. Thud-thud. The cavernous walls of the catacombs swam under half closed lids as his brows furrowed together. Thud-thud. Around his neck, the crinkly plastic collar of a surgery gown began to tighten.

Drawstring dug into the jumping tendons leading to his collarbone as he scrabbled at his jugular with red-ringed fingernails. With each breath he took, the string tightened further. His lungs burned with the effort of pulling air into them; black constellations spotting across his vision. Desperately, he kicked forward. The rubber sole of his work boots connected hard with the bars in front of him, sending reverberating shockwaves up his knee.

“It’s not real!” The words hissed through his bared teeth as he lifted a knee once more. “Close your eyes if you have to, Nell! None of it is real!” This time, he felt the bar give under his foot just a little. On the third kick it bent inward with a dull clang and he felt the pressure on his neck release all at once at the string snapped. Coughs ripped painfully through him as he leaned against the bars. He thrust an arm through the newly widened gap, blood-slicked hand reaching for the young woman inside. “See this? Flesh and blood.” His voice was smoky and hoarse. “I’m as real as it gets. Climb through.”

Something was wrong. It had started small, a little irritation, a headache beginning to form just behind her eyes. But Kevin had not had a headache in over a thousand years. She had felt them before, the dreamers, poking and prodding and sticking their minds where they didn’t belong. At the moment, she had paid it little mind. There was a spell to weave and a town in desperate need of dreams. But those pesky dreamers kept poking and prodding, meddling and touching. They scraped inside her chest and dug about inside her mind and spread a dreadful itch down her arms. They meant to tear her apart. Still, there was only so much there could do. Then she felt it. White hot, burning through her hands. Her scream tore through the air, a thunderclap echoing. Even as her fingers cracked and shriveled, she sought the source. There. The catacombs.

Kevin appeared with a burning flash of light. The air around her sizzled, her eyes blazing as she searched for the meddlers. Ah. There. Her eyes burned as she lifted a broken, burnt hand. The fingers were charred, black like charcoal creeping up her arm. “You. You will stop. Dream now, and forever more.” Her hands may have been ruined, but some of her power remained. It took only a jerk of her head to throw Dakota against the wall, leaving her unconscious, dreaming sweetly on the floor. She turned slowly toward the other two. “And you. Unless you wish to join her, you will leave. You will go and forget all that has transpired. I will not tell you again.”

“I know- I know!” Nell gasped as the bars scraped against her ribs while she grabbed hold of Cutler’s wrist, trying to avoid the self-sustained injury of his hands while he helped pull her out of the metal maw of the jail cell. “Thank you,” she breathed in gratitude. But just because things weren’t real didn’t mean that they didn’t set her heart to pounding. Her brain knew that the voice of Jax tickling her mind couldn’t be possible, but the rest of her body didn’t seem to understand, responding with rampant fight or flight to the sound of a man who’d cause her and Remmy unmeasurable despair. Thankfully— she’d always been the one to choose to fight. And it seemed the world had answered that need with a clear target in the form of the woman who’d appeared before her and Cutler, sending Dakota flying. “Shit,” the witch cursed underneath her breath, hoping Dakota was alright but knowing this wasn’t the time to check on the woman. “You’re the one doing this?” Nell demanded angrily, it being less of a question and more of an enraged accusation. This was the bitch that was keeping Bex asleep- that was keeping all those other innocent citizens in a hopeless slumber. “Fat fucking chance,” was her only reply to the other woman before she began to charge, a knife appearing in her hand from its hiding place as she ran towards the one responsible for the sleeping town. “Cutler- get the heart, and I can keep her busy!”

Sand and grit stuck to his hands as he dropped to the ground, patting his way forward. Cutler had thought he had last seen the heart here, by their feet - by Dakota’s feet, actually - but his frame of reference was now lying unconscious across the cavern. Sweat pearled at the back of his neck as he moved forward, feeling the centuries of dirt rise, puff and cling to his forearms and legs. He had seen the flashing glint of a weapon in Nell’s white knuckle grip just before she had hurtled herself toward their now-revealed foe. She was risking everything. He couldn’t let her down. What he would give to have his glasses now.

He closed his eyes, lashes light with settled dust. He heard his own heart first; thudding fast and irregular against his breastbone. Then, slowly, he heard the other. Calm and steady. Confidently marking the offbeat. Got you. His knees scraped stone as he moved toward the sound, growing steadily louder. Finally, he was on top of it. His stomach turned over as he felt the heat radiating off of the muscular, pumping organ in front of him.

The meaty-red smell of blood washed over him as he pulled the sticky blade away from its multi-tooled brethren in his swiss army knife. It wavered in the air above the throbbing mass in his shaking hands. Last time, stabbing the hands hadn’t worked, but he was out of sacrifices. There was nothing else to give but a prayer. His lips moved, silently voicing the words in his own heart.

“God, please let this work. I’ll do anything. No, I’ll do everything. No more taking things for granted. I want to live.”

They were close, too close to ruining everything. Kevin could feel her head swimming. Her hands still burned. Even if she were to cut them away, the searing pain would remain. And now they were aiming for her heart. If she could simply bring into focus, drive them away, force them into sleep like all the others, it would be fine. She could start again, rebuild, put herself back together. But their meddling had already taken its toll. The world was slipping in and out around her, her vision blurring, thoughts slipping like water through her fingers.

She turned toward Nell. The witch had to go. Her power was bright, intense. If she could be eliminated, the other one would be easy. Kevin moved in a blink, appearing inches from Nell’s nose. “What is your aim? Why do you fight? Rest. Don’t you want to? Your dreams are so dark, little witch. I can see them all, I can feel them. You’ve lost so much, haven’t you? Would it not be easier to slip into a dream? I could take it. Your pain. Let me take it all away. It would take only a moment. Your dreams would be peaceful, you could have all that you want. Let me set you free.”

Even without the power to drive her words, Kevin’s questions seemed to pull at a part of Nell that so desperately longed for rest. Her words were soft in the witch’s ear, speaking to a tender place in the brunette that was simply tired. Tired of losing family and friends. Tired of losing literal and figurative pieces of herself. Tired of living on edge, wondering where the next blade or punch or bite would come from at all hours of the day. If she let herself slip into the peaceful slumber that Kevin promised, it would all be over. Kevin was right. Nell was barely twenty-four and she couldn’t help but feel as if she’d lived multiple lifetimes since her return to White Crest a year or so ago. This town was draining her, sapping the energy from her limbs even as she stood here with her knife still poised- frozen somewhere between herself and Kevin. Just let it end. Let it be over. She was more shell than human these days between infiltrating a demon cult, dealing with the aftermath of her accidental demon-shark summoning, and Bex falling into a deep sleep. Bex. The girl’s face rose to meet the eye of Nell’s mind, sweet and peaceful as she lay trapped in Kevin’s dreamscape. Nell seemed to jolt awake as she thought of her student, another sacrifice that would be made if Nell let Kevin take her. It wasn’t a sacrifice that Nell was willing to make.

The ever-present fire that seemed to live within Nell’s belly was quick to reignite as she reminded herself of all the harm had done- the lives she’d be taking if Nell let herself go. Kevin had moved unnaturally fast in her approach on Nell, but she could be quick too. Uttering a spell meant to grant her speed beneath her breath, Nell’s knife was quick to flash through the air, mindlessly aiming for where Kevin’s heart should beat. It wasn’t until the blade had buried itself deep into Kevin’s chest that Nell realized how futile the action was. She could see the heart underneath Cutler just a few paces away— see his own knife stabbing into it over and over again. There was nothing beneath Nell’s dagger to stab. “I won’t leave them behind.” Nell promised as she savagely dug the knife deeper, anger and bloodlust making the decision for her despite the knowledge that there was no point. She wanted to make it hurt, to make Kevin feel even a flicker of the pain she’d unleashed on the town. “I’ll never leave my friends behind. Or people that don’t deserve to die. So you can fuck right off, you piece of shit.”

The first hit slipped off of the tubular structure of the heart like squeaky wet rubber. It continued to beat, even as the sharp edge of the blade tore through tough ventricles and into the spongy tissue underneath. Cutler could taste the warm, coppery liquid that sprayed from it, only realizing after his third hit that his teeth had bit into the soft skin of his bottom lip. A shaky inhale whistled through his fast closing windpipe, hot tears building in the back of his throat. This had to work. There was nothing else.

Several feet away, Nell spoke. Her voice was soft and level, but he heard it in his own ears as clear as day. Another scream rang through the cavern; this time from the heart as he drove the blade toward the ground once more. His eyes flicked upward just in time to see Nell’s mirroring action, digging the blade into the soft tissue of their tormentor. He didn’t feel the quick-coagulating drip of blood at the corner of his mouth or the spill of tears washing tracks down his cheek.

“We’re almost done.” As soon as he said it, he knew it to be true. He coughed into the crook of his elbow, covering a throaty sniffle. The steel toe of his boot connected with the now-shrivelled remains of the heart at his feet. “This is it.”

Pain. It was still so foreign, so wrong. Kevin had cast it off long ago, the parts of her that were able to hurt. Or so she had thought. They were supposed to be gone. She was beyond this, between petty human aches and blows. But Nell’s knife cut as deep as her words. Her heart wasn’t home, the bloody, pulsating piece trapped in Cutler’s grip. Still, blood flowed from the wound. It drifted up, out, around them as if they were underwater, the blood moving as though to attract circling sharks. Kevin found herself stunned. It had been so long. Large, salty tears rolled down her face as she grabbed Nell’s shoulders with her withered hands. “I could have given you all so much. I wanted to share my dreams with you. I could have brought you peace.”

Kevin staggered back, hands clutching at her empty, heaving chest. This world, this sad, wretched world. It was wrong. It was broken. Perhaps it had always been too much for her to fix. Not even her most wonderful dreams could have set it right. Her entire body began to shake as she sunk to her knees. The air around her swirled, heavy, charged, heated sparks flitting through the air. They burst, flickering, snapping, brighter and brighter as a low cry spilled from her lips. The sound grew, filling the catacombs. It echoed, louder and louder, the force of it pulling the wind, shaping the air itself. With a force strong enough to whip up rocks, to tear deep gouges into the earth beneath her, Kevin let out her final cry.

The wind rushed and roared, buffeting the walls of the catacombs, flecking them with blood so dark it was nearly black. But it slowly began to fade. Rocks fell back to the floor as the dust settled and Kevin lay motionless amidst the rubble, her eyes shut, as if asleep in one final dream.

Nell watched Kevin fall with not nearly as much satisfaction as she would have wanted. The mysterious woman was down, and seemingly it was going to be for the count as she didn’t stir. Nell turned at the sound of Cutler’s voice, eyes resting on the shriveled heart that lay at the man’s feet as she wondered what would be the last of the parts they needed to destroy. Hands, Heart, and...what? Rocks began to tumble, and Nell spoke another spell, her hand raising towards the ceiling as a shield began to form above herself and Cutler. Unfortunately, a lack of sleep had made her reaction times slower than usual, and a boulder the size of her head slipped through before the magical shield was fully in place. It struck her shoulder just perfectly, a loud crunch echoing through the cavern as the witch gasped in pain, instantly recognizing the sensation of something being dislocated. “Fuck,” Nell cursed, glancing back to Cutler to make sure he hadn’t been hit as well. The rocks tumbled harmlessly off an invisible dome stationed a few feet above his head, the magic doing its job well-enough.

It seemed that even though Kevin was incapacitated, her magic had no intention of stopping. Perhaps it had gotten away from her, metastasized until it functioned under a mind of its own- continuing to bring the dream world into the reality of White Crest. Or maybe this was just the design of the spell, a fail-safe self destruct button that would keep going even after Kevin was unconscious on the floor. “Yeah- we gotta keep moving,” Nell grunted through gritted teeth, her arm hanging uselessly by her side. The time for fixing it would come later. She didn’t trust that the momentary rockslide hadn’t jeopardized the structural integrity of the catacombs. Who knew if the rest of the underground tunnels were just waiting to collapse? Glancing back at the body of Dakota, Nell flexed her magic once more until the woman’s form floated alongside the witch, trailing after her like some morbid and hovering duckling. Nell was past the point of wondering what Cutler would make of her abilities, knowing that could be dealt with when White Crest didn’t hang in the balance. She advanced to the next chamber, stopping short as she heard a familiar voice. “Are you sure you want to play this game little girl?”

The stuttering step of her gait jerked her arm uncomfortably, but she barely noticed as fear-blown pupils began to comb every corner of the new room. “Did you hear that?” she asked Cutler, her voice barely above a whisper while she gripped her knife even tighter.

Cutler watched the rocks tumble around him, landing off of him in a perfect circle and leaving him unharmed. Nell’s movements made two things clear to her immediately. First, that the impossible protective forces around Dakota and himself were a result of her. Second, her shoulder was dislocated. It hung loose and dead by her side, swinging as she continued to move forward.

“I didn’t hear anything.” He turned professional, examining her for signs of delirium or head injury. All he saw in her face was pale, unfiltered fear. It made her look younger. No, it made her look her age. She was young. Too young for whatever this was. “I can fix that shoulder.” He stepped close, hand hovering above her arm, mouth running as a distraction. “If I wasn’t already losing my mind, I think tonight’ll do it. How do I explain this to people?”

His injured hands settled on her arm. He could feel his own distress; texturally, his skin was torn and bleeding, but there was no pain. For him, that is. Nell was putting on a brave face, but even the small movements from the last chamber to this one must have been excruciating. “Alright. This is gonna hurt, but just for a second. Like ripping off a band-aid. Ready? I’m gonna go on three. One. Two-” His fingers tensed, and he shifted her arm in the socket to hit the right angle in one swift movement. A single push upward returned her arm to the correct orientation with a sickening pop. A mixture of pride and relief washed across his face as he stepped away. “Sorry, that was a dirty trick.”

Cutler wanted nothing more than to stop. To sleep, or to wake from this nightmare. He could feel heavy fog clouding his brain, telling him to relax and recover. He blinked slowly, the dark seal of his eyelids warm and tempting, willing his breath to a relaxed rhythm. It was Nell who kept him from succumbing, piercing eyes and bright determination tearing through his supernatural lethargy. It was her sharp gaze that tapered the last of his focus into a coherent thought: I’m losing my mind. My mind.

“It’s the brain.”

A coiled pink organ was there, right in front of them. It always had been, only now visible by his verbal acknowledgement; like invisible ink under blacklight, revealed by exposure.

“Let’s finish this.”

Cutler’s confirmation that he hadn’t heard anything did little to quell Nell’s mind, certain she'd heard the words echoing through the cavern clear as day. “You’re sure?” The owner of the voice couldn’t be present. It was impossible. She’d seen the life bleed out of him with her own eyes as she gave him his penance along with her sisters. A more fearful voice in her own head reminded her that the dead didn’t always stay dead. Be had come back, hadn’t she? Who was to say that some other necromancer hadn’t found the hunter’s bones and raised him back to the living? Maybe he’d been bitten by the undead before his death, and the sisters simply hadn’t known. Her racing thoughts were brought to a halt as she felt Cutler grip her arm, just barely hearing his assurance that he could fix it.

“What? No- no, just leave it,” Nell began, having no reason to trust that the random man she’d met in the catacombs knew anything about popping a dislocated limb back into place. “Don’t count- I’ll just get someone to fix it once we’re out of-” Her words were cut off by a painful grunt as the arm was put back into its rightful socket, a wince flashing over her features as she once again thanked the fact that she was used to pain. Begrudgingly, she offered him a “Thank you,” while also deciding to ask him about his apparent first aid knowledge once they got out of this place.

Having lost his distracting question in her attempts to keep him from fixing her arm, Nell’s brows knit closer together as she found an answer. “Easy- you don’t tell anyone about it. Then there’s no explaining needed. Especially about anything you’ve seen me do,” she added with the smallest hint of a threat. After all, there was still a confirmed witch hunter in town. “Unless you ask me first,” the witch compromised. “And if you need any explanations for yourself...you can talk to me after all this is over.” Her focus shifted to the brain on the ground, kneeling before it as she took a closer look. No doubt it would fight back just as the hands and heart had. “Alright...the sacrifice-” Without further delay, she took a new, clean knife from another hiding place before drawing it carefully down the bottom of her forearm and letting the ruby red of her blood gather neatly. Blood was always the standard for payment in her practices, certainly it would serve her here as well?

Nell held her arm above the brain as the blood began to fall, and the witch willed it to place itself neatly on top of the last organ they were meant to destroy. Tiny rivers of red began to flow, filling the rivlets of the trenches and dips of the fleshy pink thing until they pooled along the floor. “That should do it.” She raised her knife- poised to finish the job before thrusting it towards the brain. But at the last moment a hand gripped her wrist in a vice-like grip, the blade still dangling above the brain. “Cutler, what the fuck-” She looked up expecting to find the face of the doctor looking back at her, preventing her from finishing the job. Instead she found the grin of the man who tread her nightmares far too often, a ghost that wouldn’t let her be despite her constant attempts to shake him. Again his voice sounded through the catacombs, one that sent shivers up her spine as he echoed the words he’d spoken that day in the forest where her sister’s life had been taken.

“Are you sure you want to play this game little girl?” Montgomery was here, and looking as real as the day he’d lopped Bea’s head from her shoulders. “Get the fuck out of my head,” Nell growled despite her shaking hand, heart beating a frantic rhythm in her chest as she looked upon the person who’d brought fear into her life. Nell had always been reckless, one who constantly jumped without looking to see where she might land. She still was to an extent. But Montgomery was the reason for her newfound caution, and the feeling that she constantly needed to look over her shoulder in case someone new was lurking around the corner with the desire to kill those she cared about. Growing up, she’d been the fearless little girl- the one who was never shaken no matter what it was she encountered. She’d carried that into her young adult life, the confidence of youth and the sense of indestructibility that came with it giving her the strength to never falter in the face of danger. But then had come a danger she couldn’t stop, couldn’t fight against as it claimed the life of the person who’d died to protect her. The life of her oldest sister.

Nell hated it. Hated that Montgomery had made her this way. Hated that he’d taken one of her strongest attributes and turned it against her, making her heart race whenever someone crossed the property line of her home uninvited. Hated that he’d made her weak. Hated that he made her afraid. But she’d been unwilling to admit it, believing that looking it in the face would give it power— and power was the last thing she would be willing to forfeit. Not when it had been so forcefully stolen from her via the man whose hand was still holding her wrist captive above the pulsing brain. “Just admit it,” his voice came again, though these were words she’d never heard him speak before.

“I’m not doing anything you want,” Nell spat back, seeming to forget that this was all simply a figment of whatever magic Kevin had conjured. “I’ll kill you ten times over before I do anything for you.” She tried to pull her wrist away from the cold of Montgomery’s hand, nerves still making the tightness of her throat nearly unbearable as panic continued to rise. Not here. Not now. Please- not in front of Montgomery. If he saw her fear, he’d know she was weak, know the power he held over her. He’d know that she'd begun taking the stairs over elevators because it felt like the walls of them would close in on her ever since she’d been kept holed up as a prisoner by the Ring. He’d know she had to sleep in her greenhouse when Bea wasn’t home, unable to rest in a home that reminded her of the time her sister had died. He’d know that she spent far too long looking for the escape route of any room she found herself in— that she wasn’t strong enough to protect all the people she loved.

Again his coarse voice made demands of her. “Admit it!” Nell’s head shook silently as her bottom lip began to tremble, thinking of all the people that would stay asleep and lose the rest of their lives because she couldn’t utter one little truth. “No,” she protested once again, the singular word weaker as a tear slipped down her cheek. “I don’t want to. I can’t.” Montgomery shrugged, looking down at her as if he already knew her secret, a wide smirk playing across his lips. “Then you know what the price is.” Nell stared at the brain, remembering her promise that she’d made not five minutes ago about leaving no one behind. About always helping those in need. Was she so selfish as to go back on her word this soon? But admitting it felt like giving up, letting Montgomery win a fight that had started months ago and managed to live past his own expiration date. And what else did she have left to cling to if she let this go?

For one last time, the murderer’s voice rang out. “I knew you couldn’t do it.” And he was right. Hadn’t Nell proven that by staying silent? The desire to fight rose in her ever so briefly, the need to prove him wrong finally giving the push she needed to admit the truth. “Fine!” she snarled, still hateful that she’d have to admit it in the first place. “Fine,” came her voice a little softer this time, her arm going limp in his wrist. Her last defense had tumbled, forcing her to lay a truth that she hadn’t even begun to admit to herself bare before the man who was the root of it. “I’m afraid.” The words were quiet as they could come, but as she released them her wrist was freed, the apparition of Montgomery disappearing before her eyes while her blade finally fell onto the brain, piercing it deep as she admitted to the prisoner she’d become when it came to fear and her own mind.

Cutler watched the kinks of the brain slowly fill with red, tracking the infinite curls and dips. The only brain he had ever seen up close had been off colour and logged with preservatives; undeniably dead. This one was swollen with life, sinapses presumably still firing through it despite it’s disconnection, seemingly uninterrupted by the splashing of Nell’s blood onto the surface.

When Nell raised her arm to strike it, her aim was true and he was just as surprised as she when her hand stopped before delivering the final strike. He heard own name sprung from her lips, venom in her voice.

“What? I’m sorry, I-” He was cut off by her next words, delivered in his direction but not to him. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused, clearly seeing someone else in his place. “Who’s in your head?” A million expressions flickered across her face. There was a battle going on behind her shaking lip and desperate protests. A battle for control of her mind, and one that she had to fight alone. When she finally voiced her fear, he recognized it for what it was: an offering. A display of strength, masquerading as an act of weakness. The effects were immediately palpable as the manufactured dreamscape around them dissipated. The rumbling of the cavern stopped and the fog in his mind began to clear. Every sensation returned tenfold. Sand, grit, and blood sealed the dry cracking edge of his lips. Sweat and cool humidity stuck his shirt to his back as he turned, looking for confirmation in Nell’s face.

Then he felt the pain. It manifested itself as simple whiteness that blocked everything out, shielding him from the agony. His vision became a blazing void of nothingness, accompanied by a high whine in his ears. It was all he could do to remain standing in the face of his temporary blindness. When the cavern faded back, the pain was no longer blocked out, the muscles in his arms lit aflame by the wound in his palms.

“I have to go. I have to get out of here.” He willed himself to take a step toward the doorway. “My hands.” The words sounded distant and strange, as if spoken by someone else with his voice. The early morning light haloed his heavy frame as he stood in the stone archway, looking up. They had walked through what felt like miles of hallways to get to the inner chambers and yet...he could feel fresh air from above ground and a misting of fresh dew on his cheek. It smelled like freedom. Like life. “You coming?”

It was a long moment before Nell rose from her kneeling spot before the now shriveled brain, the previously pink tissue blacked and cracked. It was over. Finally it was done, and she knew as much when the air returned back to its normal density, the thickness of magic no longer pervading the stillness of the catacombs. Her gaze stayed on the broken brain for too many seconds, and somewhere an insidious thought began to form within her mind. Was this what her brain would look like one day? Rotted and burned out from one too many hits— turned into something she barely recognized? And then there was the revelation of her admission. She was afraid. Afraid because Montgomery, Jax, and countless others had shown her just how much she had to lose ever since the witch had returned to White Crest from a five-year travelling stint. It’d been easier when she was distanced from this place, friends and family out of mind’s eye and arm’s reach, their pain and suffering out of sight as well. Her shoulders remained weak while she stared into space, a few trailing tears still finishing their descent down her cheeks while she sat shell-shocked. Now what? What was she meant to do with this newfound fear?

Again she thought of Kevin’s words, and the promise the mysterious woman had made to take all the pain away. To set her free. Would Kevin have taken the fear, too? It was too late to find the answer with no way of going back. Still— now that Nell knew the truth...how was she meant to live with it?

Nell’s reverie was broken by Cutler’s question, haunted eyes turning back to the man as she looked to his hands. She’d be able to see to them now- at least make sure that he didn’t lose any more blood than he already had due to the sizable injury. And Bex. Bex should be awake now, shouldn’t see? Nell wanted to be there when she woke up, or at least soon after. To tell Bex that she’d kept her promise. To prove that Nell had come back for her, and found a way to wake the girl from her neverending sleep. So despite the feeling of hollowness in her gut, and the dread forming in her chest she rose slowly from her knees, wiping them with tired and still shaking hands. The world was waiting for them out there, whether they were ready for it or not. It would be changed, the victims of sleep and nightmares unable to go back from what they’d seen and felt. Or perhaps it was simply the victims who would be different, and in turn they would change the world to fit their new selves. Cutler and Nell were different, too. That much was obvious as they made their way towards the rising sun, eyes blinking in the harshness of a new morning and new reality. They’d be left to find their own new way in the world, just as the sleepers would as well. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.” Whether or not they’d be successful at such a feat was unknowable as they left the catacombs behind, but at least they wouldn’t be the only ones opening their eyes anew to the day’s dawn.

#wickedswriting #sibling death tw #torture tw #self harm tw #self-harm tw #ch:Cutler #ch:Dakota #chatzy

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