#i was sixteen when i watched that presentation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sunnami · 1 year ago

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❝i am half-agony, half-hope. . . i have loved none but you.❞

summary: how the marauders loved you in their time. featuring harry potter the time-traveller and sixth-wheel.

pairing/s: poly!marauders + lily x reader.

tags: reader is referred to as she/her and a mother throughout the whole fic[!], reader is a violent gremlin who craves blood but the marauders love you for that, implied child abuse[!], mentions of blood and violence[!], disgustingly sappy poetic fluff, no angst, happy ending, not proofread we die like finnick odair, edited: very minor detail.

note: there is little plot, it’s just the marauders and their adoration for you. thank you all so much for your kind responses to my first marauders fic :(( ilysm! i hope you enjoy this one as well! because there are parts when i was writing that i ended up kicking my feet in the air and smiling to myself.

“MY NAME IS HARRY POTTER. I come from twenty-years in the future, you’re my mum — one of my ‘em, actually. It’s complicated. And you’re married to James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black.”

You blink.

“Get the fuck out of my room!”

Harry James Potter has dodged many things in his life. Killing curses, jinxes, girls, Draco Malfoy, and Dudley’s sloppy punches, but he’s never had to dodge his sixteen-year-old mother’s fuzzy slipper before. (Godric, that sounds weird, even in his head.) He doesn’t know precisely how he arrived here. In the Slytherin common room, to be exact, in your dorm. Harry remembers duelling with Death Eaters, Hermione calling his name, and a flash of light hitting him square in the chest, then he remembers waking up in the cold tiles of the snake dungeon. He nearly throws himself off the window when he meets your eyes, bleary from interrupted sleep — it’s not often he gets to meet [read: one of] his dead parents, after all, three had been brutally murdered by Voldemort, and one killed by his own loony cousin. He misses Sirius, though. A lot. And right about now, he could do with some of Hermione’s nagging and brilliant plan-making.

At present — or past, Harry guesses — he watches you scramble out from your duvet, hand clumsily reaching for your wand as you snarl at him. He wonders if his mother knows that he’s encountered other creatures far more threatening than her. Oh shit, he realizes with all the forces of an angry Hermione Granger, isn’t this the last thing he’s supposed to do? But, well, Harry has given, and given, so much of himself all for the greater good — just this once, he’d like to see his parents alive and well. Even if they were currently trying to blast him into the walls.

“If you’d just let me explain, mum—!” Harry pleads, nearly dropping his glasses after dodging one of your stinging hexes. Godric, you’re crazy. “Please!”

“Stop calling me that!” You screech, eyes set ablaze. Harry finds that you’re quite dynamic with your attacks. A hairbrush, followed by a stinging jinx, then a thick History of Magic textbook — which rudely hits him in the face, but he doesn’t dare complain because you’re his mother, and he’s respectful like that — and after you’ve exhausted your breath, running him into a corner, and your nostrils flare with the stubbornness of a lion, you point the tip of your wand at him. “If this is another one of the Prewett’s shitty pranks, I want you to leave! You are in the girls’ dormitory beyond midnight, and so help me, if you aren’t walking out that door in the next five seconds, I will kill you and string you up by your bottoms for everyone in school to see! Maybe all your stupid rumours of me being a Death-Eater might come true after all!”

“You’re a Death-Eater?” Harry asks dumbly.

You growl furiously, and Harry figures that was not the right thing to say. “I wonder what McGonagall would say if I delivered your head to her on a silver platter.”

“Professor,” Harry corrects with a toothy grin. “Professor McGonagall.”

You slam his head against the wall.

Definitely the wrong thing to say.

Harry groans, little Dobby heads floating around his vision. Why was this so much harder than actually facing Voldemort? Quick, he needed to think of something, otherwise he’d end up eviscerated to ashes on your cold, stone floors. Harry is pretty sure you’d use his remains as decoration to send off a message to your enemies.

“You hate your father,” Harry slurs through the pain, remembering Remus’s stories of how you were the gentlest magical being he’s ever had the privilege to love — now that Harry thinks about it, Remus was being extremely biased, nothing about you is gentle at all. “He’s forcing you to marry someone old enough to be your grandfather. You love to read Muggle literature but had to stop when your father burnt your whole collection of books. Your favorite novel is Persuasion by Jane Austen. It’s the one book you carry with you everywhere, you could never get tired of it.”

Your grip on his shoulders falters, but the fury in your eyes crackles. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not meant to be funny, mum,” Harry croaks, voice cracking pathetically — strange how this is the most he’s ever uttered the word, mum; it’s a peculiar string of letters, foreign on his tongue. “You have tremors in your left leg from when your father cast the Cruciatus curse on you. One of your dearest friends is a Hogwarts house-elf named Pipley. You cheated on your Transfiguration essay once, and—”

“That’s enough!” You bark, eyes narrowed in dangerous slits. “I don’t know where you heard those from, you creepy, little stalker, but if you want to keep breathing, then I suggest you shut up.”

Harry scoffs — you don’t understand. Everything he’s learned about you is from Sirius and Remus. They talk about you with whispered devotion, your name like a prayer on their lips, their eyes glazed with wistfulness as though they could see you reaching out for them — but you were dead in Harry’s time. Yet, you might as well have been alive with their tales of you.

(“She’s a different kind of beautiful,” Sirius had said, a year after breaking out from Azkaban, sitting by the fire in Grimmauld Place, taking a swig of decade-old firewhiskey, “The kind of beautiful you don’t want to take your eyes off from because you’re afraid she’ll disappear from your eyes. But you won’t forget her, oh no, you’ll memorize the freckles and moles on her skin, the scars from her years, the light in her eyes, and the way she holds her head up high. You should have seen her, James, she. . . she was — is glorious.”)

“I told you,” says Harry firmly — although he loves his mother very much, she’s beginning to wear him out, “My name is Harry James Potter, I come from twenty-years in the future. You are one of my parents.” A lightbulb flashes in his head. He squirms in your hold, reaching for his robe pocket until he finds the thing he’s looking for. Harry dangles the ring in front of you, grinning in success when your eyes flash in recognition. “It’s—”

“A family heirloom,” You say breathlessly. The alexandrite winks under the light, a familiar gold band with the Latin inscription of your House words. “Where did you steal this from?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You left it for me in my Gringotts vault. It’s my heirloom now. You have to believe me, there’s no way you can deny this.”

You take a step backwards, nibbling on your lower lip, as you stagger to your bed — Harry nearly stumbling to catch you in case you fell; adjusting to the living proof of time travel was quite difficult, he, of all people, should know. He exhales, dragging a hand down his face. “Magic, amirite?”

You throw a pillow at him, which he catches gracefully thanks to his Seeker reflexes, as you plop down in the comforts of your quilts. “Sleep. The other girls won’t be back until the end of the holiday. We can deal with whatever this is in the morning. It’s way too early for me to process the idea of a future Potter spawn following me around.”

Harry smiles. “Yes, mum.”

ONE THING THAT his fathers failed to tell him about you, and that Harry had to learn himself, was that you took ages to get ready. You sat on the chair in front of your vanity mirror, the birch wood legs whittled with snakes, and it was as though you had a Sticking Charm on the cushion. Harry didn’t know there could be so many creams, oils, and serums, and powders one put on their face. He blanches when you turn to offer him a cream for his under eyes. (“Suit yourself.” You shrug, turning to brush your cheek with dusts of pink. “Just saying, those dark circles aren’t doing you any favors.”)

“What am I like in the future?” You ask, a kind lilt to your voice, much like a warm hug, much like home.

Harry stiffens, shoving his hands in pockets of the robes that were twice his size — you had given him the garments of Lucius Malfoy to change in, which you apparently had stolen from his room. It’s come full circle, really, the Sorting Hat had once told him he would be great in Slytherin, and now here he was, looking fabulous in green — because he was about to hurl at the feel of the velvet on his skin, knowing slimy Lucius Malfoy had worn it. (“No son—” You pause with a tight purse in your lips, as if you still can’t accept the fact. Harry doesn’t blame you. “—no son of mine will be parading around in red of all colors, future or not.” And Harry finds that he really doesn’t care, so long as you call him your son.)

“Loved,” replies Harry gruffly, avoiding your eyes in the reflection of your mirror — they were piercing. One look and Harry wanted to spill all of his deepest, darkest secrets. He remembers the photographs in his album, the one he’s stared at so many times as a child. It’s a moving photograph of the five of you, fresh out of Hogwarts, each wearing a smile that stretched from ear-to-ear. Before Sirius and Remus, it was the only semblance of proof that Harry had — that you had once been alive. Remus is holding you by the waist in the picture, twirling you around as autumn leaves fell. You were — are — loved, and Harry thinks there’s no better description than that.

(“I bloody hated her cat,” says Remus with a roguish quirk to his lips, regalling Harry with more talks of his parents. “Sirius, too. We just never got along with the little creature. But your mother loved it, and we would have done anything to make her happy. She deserved it, you see. She deserved more than what I had to offer her, but still she chose me anyway. And I am a selfish man, Harry, I crave glimpses of her and the whispers of her voice. She has made me a mad man whose only reprieve is her touch.”)

You hum knowingly. “Stupid question, I guess. Since you aren’t allowed to reveal anything more about the future.” You sigh, gracefully threading your arms in the sleeves of your shirt, a green tie in the center of your collar. “Except, of course, when you gave me a heart attack in the middle of the night by telling me the last thing I want to become — no offense, I just don’t see how a relationship with those rowdy bunch would work. They get on my nerves far too much for me to ever feel anything other than disgust.”

Harry doesn’t need a mirror to see that his expression has contorted in confusion; brows knitted and upper lip crinkled. By their memories of you, you all were madly in love in Hogwarts. Damn. This just made his trip to the past a lot harder. No maze seems to be ever just a maze.

Luckily, you don’t notice him brewing a grand master plan to bring his parents together. Instead, you say, “But you don’t seem to be phased by any of this. If I had been thrown twenty years into the past, I would have puked my guts out twice at some point.”

“Thanks for the image,” says Harry with a scowl. Truthfully, it had either been a present with a noseless Dark Lord to face, trauma to unpack but really never have the chance to, or a past where all of his parents were alive, and a chance to talk with them for however long he has. He knows where he’ll be staying, thank you very much.

“Anytime,” You reply with an impish smile.

Your heels pad across the floor as you walk over to him, mouth clicking as you pat the top of his head, full of wild, untameable Potter hair. “You need a trim soon,” You mutter, frowning, as you brush the thick strands away from his eyes, then you gasp — and Harry knows exactly what’s coming next. “Oh, you’ve got Evans’s eyes. That’s freaky.”

“I know.” Harry grins.

“Here’s the plan,” You say as you lead him out of your room, making sure no one saw him walking out of your door and getting the wrong impression — because that would be so wrong on many levels, but also, explaining to someone else that the person beside you was a time-traveller was just complicated in general. The Slytherin dungeon is unfamiliarly familiar, eerily quiet, as the two of you made your way out. “Just say you’re Potter’s distant relative, twice or thrice removed, and you’ve always been here. If you lie to their faces enough, they’ll believe it eventually.”

“Will that work?” Harry doesn’t really mind — he needs a connection to James, his father, if he’s going to work out a connection between you and the others, because at the moment, it doesn’t seem like you’re too fond of them. There’s a tick on your jaw every time you mumble the word, Potter. Nevertheless, Harry decides he’s going to spend the duration of the holiday break trying to set you up with them — on the list of most insane things he’s ever done, living out the Parent Trap was high up the tally.

You shrug. “They’ve fallen for less.”

(“She’s got this adorable habit when she lies,” Sirius tells Harry, whipping up a stack of pancakes for their breakfast — Remus browsing through the morning paper. It’s the closest he’s ever been to a normal family. “It’s not obvious to her, of course, but I know her more than I know my own name. So we play along with it.” For a moment, he stops drizzling the maple syrup on the well-cooked batter, gazing at Remus fondly. “D’you remember that, Moony? She led us straight to one of her pranks, and we ended up covered in slug slime. She was so obvious — with her adorable fucking giggles. I need help with Charms, she said, and we knew right away it was a set-up. But it didn’t matter. I’d happily let her lead me to my ruin.”)

The Great Hall is the same as Harry remembers. Now that most have returned home for the holidays, those who stay back mingle with students from other Houses, sharing meals under the bewitched ceiling, their low murmurs and hushed Christmas greetings bouncing off the walls. Harry scours the four tables to find a hint of blazing red hair, or the scent of impending trouble. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to search very far. As fate would have it, James Potter finds you — and where he is, Sirius Black is sure to follow.

You’re barely seated when James comes bounding over to your table — more precisely, he struts, and Harry is horrified to ever be proven wrong by Snape, of all people. He ignores the roll of your eyes as he drags a leg over the bench, sitting to face you as Sirius occupies the space to your left before Harry can even sit down. He can’t even fathom how weird it is to see his parents as rambunctious teenagers. Lovesick, rambunctious teenagers.

“Morning, dove.” James preens under your glare, stealing a grape from your bowl with a boyish smirk. His hair looks as though he’s ran his hand through it many times. “You look ravishing today.”

“As always,” Sirius pipes in. “But that eyeshadow really isn’t complementing your skin tone, my darling.”

You smile at him, right before your lips twist into a cutthroat sneer. “Piss off, Black.”

James stifles a laugh as he shovels a mass of potatoes on your plate, then pumpkin pasties, and slides a steaming cup of Dragon Well tea in front of you.

“What the hell are you doing, Potter?” You reach over to smack his arm when he sprinkles apple slices and bacon on your breakfast.

“What does it look like?” James smiles lopsidedly. “You need to eat more, honey.”

(In the future, Sirius will tell Harry, “It started off as a joke, a way to get on her nerves — but then, it just became this thing about taking care of her, making sure she got enough sleep before her tests, wondering if she had breakfast or dinner, staying with her in the library, walking her to the Slytherin common room, and sending her stupid notes just to make her laugh. You don’t get it, Harry. I’d give my every breath to ensure her life. We all would.” Harry doesn’t see Sirius any more during that evening, but he hears a bottle crashing against a wall, cracking into a million pieces, and the masked sound of Sirius sobbing, and Harry decides to leave him alone for the night.)

Then, you tear your eyes away from James — he huffs, pushing your plate to you, mildly annoyed that you’ve deprived him of your eyes; they were his favorite part of you, you see, so expressive and full of life; James thinks you put the stars to shame — and thankfully, you remember that Harry still exists. You lightly smack Sirius’s leg until he gives Harry some room to sit. “Potter, meet other Potter. It’s the holidays, shouldn’t it be the perfect time to let go of House prejudices and spend time with family?”

James looks at Harry up and down. “You must be from dad’s side of the family with all that hair.”

Harry lets out a breath of relief. That was easy — way too easy. When he takes the vacant space in between you and Sirius, you dump all the available food on his plate, just as James had done for you.

“Eat,” You say with a tone of finality. “You look like the wind could snap you in half.”

“Yes, m—” Harry stops himself before he could finish his sentence, avoiding Sirius’s curious gaze.

“Wow.” Sirius pokes Harry in the shoulder and in the cheek. “You really look like a mini-James, you’ve even got his terrible eyesight.”

“Oi!”

Your fork clatters against the silverware as you turn to Sirius with a shrill. “Not that I do enjoy your company — because, trust me, I do not want you here at all and would very much prefer if you got out of my sight — but why are you here? The Gryffindor table is over there. Unless your housemates finally got sick of you, Potter, which I can definitely see happening.”

James chuckles, tossing another grape in his mouth without taking his eyes off you. “It’s as you said, isn’t it? It’s the time for putting aside House prejudices. And I think it’s a lovely day to enjoy a meal with my favorite snake.”

“Drop dead,” You retort, digging into your chicken with a little more force than necessary.

“Oh, dove.” James shakes his head, a teasing grin pulling at his lips. “It’s cute that you think death will keep me from you.”

(Harry’s been told before, probably by Sirius, that this line had been wedged into his wedding vows for you. “A dramatic one, James was,” Sirius chuckles to himself one morning, Harry and Hermione listening intently, “He always said he’d rather die than ever hurt her. There was this time in seventh year, they had a fight — it was ugly — and she had ignored him for a week. James cried in Remus’s arms begging him to cut his heart out, saying that he didn’t deserve to keep on breathing, not after making you cry.”)

“That is so creepy,” You say in disgust, scrunching your nose. Sirius chortles at your side. “I still wonder why Evans agreed to go out with you.”

“It’s all part of the charm, dove.” James winks. “It’s all part of the charm.”

Harry wants to barf, actually.

After breakfast, James then decides to introduce Harry to Lily, Remus, and Peter. (He’s gonna need the patience of a saint to not Avada Kedavra that rat on the spot.) Harry had spent the whole morning watching Sirius peel oranges and give them to you with a smitten look in his eyes — naturally, you gave whatever Sirius offered you to Harry, and each time Padfoot would visibly wilt. If he were in his Animagus form, Harry thinks he would be whining by now, tongue out and all. James and Sirius follow after you like lost puppies when you extricate yourself from the table.

“Where are you going?” James calls, hot on your heels as you leave the Great Hall.

“Away from you, Potter!”

And James actually sighs when you turn the corner and disappear from their peripheral vision. Seconds later, he turns to Harry with a blinding smile, “She’s definitely charmed.”

Harry chortles.

“Well, come on then!” James guffaws as he wraps an arm around Harry’s neck — this is so, so strange. They begin walking in the opposite direction of where you went. “I still can’t believe we’ve got another Potter here and in Slytherin. I think I would have remembered Minnie calling your name during the Sorting Ceremony. What year are you in?”

He’s supposed to start his sixth-year in a few weeks. “Fifth.” Technically.

“We should ask Lily,” says Sirius, hands in his pockets and ebony ringlets tickling his nape. “She’s got the best memory out of all of us.”

It’s odd, Harry thinks, meeting the person who’s got his eyes — or the other way around, as people have told him. It’s like someone carved out the emeralds of Lily Evans’s eyes and bestowed it upon Harry for safekeeping. She sits beside Remus Lupin, head resting on his shoulder, hands clasped together, as they enjoy the shade. Nex to them, oblivious to their intimate conversation, is Peter Pettigrew — with his rosy, cherub cheeks and innocent blue eyes; not at all the image of a pathological, cowardly liar. Their heads snap in attention as James boisterously cries for their name.

“Marauders — and Lily-pad — meet ickle Potter.” James lightheartedly whacks Harry on the back, to which Harry feels his lungs spill out from his mouth, he’s sure there’s an imprint of his father’s hand on his back now.

“There’s two Potters in Hogwarts?” Sea-green eyes look at him in scrutiny as Lily knits her brows. “How even is the castle still standing?”

James cackles like it’s the best joke he’s ever heard in his entire life, slapping his knee for dramatic effect. Oh, well, at least they’re buying Harry’s half-baked lie. At this point, it’s not even baked, it’s just wet, soggy, and poorly done. “Good one, Lily-pad!”

Sirius ruffles Remus’s shaggy blonde hair, canines bared in a wide grin. “This one here’s Moony, uptight prefect in the morning and absolute beast in the evening.”

Harry blanches. Surely he was talking about his furry problem, right? Right?

Remus doesn’t even flinch, just peels off Sirius’s hand from him and extends his hand out to Harry. “Please do not mind him. Remus Lupin, nice to meet you. Although, I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve met. We would have definitely remembered if we had another Potter in our midst.”

“It’s true, we Potters are just hard to forget,” says James, smiling cheekily.

Harry pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Mum didn’t take the Potter name. I’m part Dursley. Muggle.”

Lily hums, toying at the ends of her bright hair. “Dursley, huh? What a familiar name.”

“It’s a common one,” Harry assures her — not at all the names of the people who would take him in after they died. And make his life miserable.

“I suppose you’re right,” says Lily, unconvinced.

“And this is Peter.” James introduces the boy eagerly, pride in his voice — as though this isn’t the person who literally allies himself with Voldemort. As if Peter won’t betray his friends all because of fear.

“N–Nice to meet you,” Peter stammers with a nervous fidget, “Any family of James is a friend of ours.”

Harry’s eye twitches.

IT IS ALMOST COMICAL — the way their eyes land on your figure, bursting through the courtyard from the corridors, winter cloak swishing with every step, tendrils of hair swaying in the crisp wind, and head held up high, thick books under your arms. You pause in front of the Marauders, face blank, then you turn to Peter, greeting him with a: “Hello, only Gryffindor I can tolerate.”

Peter’s cheeks burn a saccharine hue of pink. Oh, no, no, no — absolutely not — Harry will not stand for a little crush Peter Pettigrew has on his mother. He needs James to act now. “Hi,” Peter replies shyly.

Lily quirks her lips. “Hello, princess, see your score for the Astronomy test yet?”

You scowl. “Zip it, Evans.”

The sound of Lily’s laughter fills the atmosphere — it’s the sort of melody that makes flowers bloom in deserts. “Had a bit of difficulty with the star charts?”

Sirius pinches your cheek — Harry thinks you’re going to murder him on the spot. “Difficulty? I think this one just slept through the whole thing.”

James snickers. “Must have been one hell of a nap, princess. You were drooling on my jumper.”

“I most certainly do not drool!” You gasp, appalled, eyes wide as you step away from Sirius.

Sirius rolls his eyes. “What? Is drooling too barbaric for the pretty, little pure-blooded princess now? Newsflash, pet, you’re just as human as we are.”

“Oh, you horrible, loathsome, infuriating—” You whip around to beat his chest with the course book in your grasp — it’s the kind of book Hermione would consider for light reading.

“Irresistibly attractive—?” Sirius supplies for you, grin widening with as he captures your wrist with his hands.

“In your dreams!” You shrill.

You exhale slowly, eyes closing, chest rising when you take a sharp inhale. You open your eyes and stare straight at Harry — for a moment he fears that you’ll bite his head off. “Harry, dear, will you accompany me to the library? I think I’ve found something important regarding your situation.”

Harry nods. “Is it time already?”

“Yes,” You say firmly. “And time is of the essence. Come on.”

“Wait!” Lily calls out to you as you turn to head back to the castle, Harry in tow — he tries to avoid the way James is glaring at your linked arms. “Hogsmeade next week?”

Your jaw falls to the ground — this must have been unrehearsed, if the others’ reactions were anything to go by; Remus had dropped his book in shock, Sirius looked like he couldn’t decide between applauding Lily’s bravery or shaking her, and James was somehow frozen in time. “Excuse me?”

“You’re excused, princess,” says Lily, dimples poking out of her cheek as she takes another step towards you. “You, me, Hogsmeade. A date. I’m sure you’ve gone on one of those before.”

Harry elbows your stomach as you stare at Lily in shock. It takes a few moments to break you out of your stupor. “A–And what makes you think I’ll just go with you?”

Lily shrugs. “I’m fit. Aren’t I, Remus?”

“The fittest,” says Remus without missing a beat.

You laugh incredulously. “Do you just expect me to go along with this? You’re mad, Evans.”

Harry glares at you. You need to go along with this.

“Are you scared, princess?” Lily’s face is inches away from yours, noses almost touching — Harry doesn’t know if he should keep watching this painful way of flirting — as she grins at you, happiness barely contained within her eyes.

To your credit, you don’t back down. (Harry has to say this for the masses: he saw your gaze flitter down to Lily’s lips for a split second.) “Stop calling me that, Evans.”

“One date, then.”

You growl in exasperation, eyes flickering to the boys behind her back — pretending not to hear their conversation. “I suppose I’ll have to deal with them as well?”

Lily beams and Harry swears sunflowers could grow in her direction. “We’re a package deal.”

“Unfortunately,” You utter — but Harry notices it, the lack of venom in your voice. You straighten your posture, nose lifted haughtily, “I choose where we’re going.”

“Done.” The sun peeks out from the cloud just as Lily smiles at you.

“And I want to—”

“Done,” Remus interjects raspily, peering up at you from underneath his lashes. “Anything you want, it’s yours.”

You fight a growing smile, but continue, “If we’re going out in public, you’re going to have to wear—”

“Done,” says James giddily, he looks as though he could kiss you in front of everyone without a care in the world.

“You can’t just agree to anything I say!” You flap your arms in frustration.

“Yes, dear,” Sirius teases.

“Do you know how much you piss me off, Black?” You squawk. “Because you are this close to—”

“You are so fucking beautiful,” Sirius confesses, every pretense shed raw from his skin, sincerity pouring from his words.

“I—” You falter, heat rushing to your cheeks. “You’ve gone mad.”

“It’s your fault, dove,” says James, eyes twinkling like crescent moons as he smiles. “You best take accountability for this.”

“You’re incorrigible — all of you,” You say as you avoid their gazes.

(But they were yours. Past, present, and future. They loved you so much that their soul was no longer their own — it was yours; yours to keep, yours to break, and yours to love. It would be unjust to ask them why they loved you. Do we ask why the sun rises each day without rest? Do we ask a daisy to stop blooming, or a tree to stop growing after it has endured storms and floods? After all, we do not ask why humans follow the light in a tunnel shrouded in darkness.)

“Come on, Harry, let’s go.” You reach for his hand, he notices immediately that the tips of your ears are pink, and your palms are warm with sweat. He barely sees Peter wave goodbye before you tug him in the direction of the castle entrance.

“Wait up!” Remus catches up to you two in quick strides, offering to carry your books for you — not that you agree, stubborn Slytherin that you are. “I’ll walk you to the library.”

“There’s no need for that, Lupin, thank you.” You dodge his eyes, lips tightly pressed together, nails slightly digging into Harry’s arm.

“Remus,” He says with a twinkle. “Call me Remus.”

“Alright.” You pause. “Remus.”

(In that moment, Remus wonders if you remember decking Lucius Malfoy in the face to defend him in your fourth year. He didn’t think he deserved to even breathe in the same air as you — the pure-blooded princess, dressed in clothing worth more than his life, adorned in jewelry he could only dream to afford, raised to believe she was better than everyone else. Then, you beat up Evan Rosier the next month in the courtyard, eyes ablaze, extravagant silk marred with grass stains and mud, and knuckles split open. You spit blood on the ground, looking at Lily then back at Rosier. “Red,” You say, kicking him one last time in the stomach, unafraid of McGonagall’s wrath growing louder and louder. “Just like everyone else. Like those Muggleborns you fear. We’ve all got dirty blood, Rosier. Suck it up.”

“I’ll tell your father about this!” Rosier bellows through bloody teeth.

“Tell him!” You grab his neck and slam your forehead against his. “Tell him that I decide my own future now!”

Remus doesn’t even have to think about it.

He falls in love.)

FUNNILY ENOUGH, IT’S LILY who gives you her heart first, before anyone else does. It’s the last month of her first year at Hogwarts — it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet that she was a witch. Her, not Petunia, but her — Lily Evans, the witch. Apparently, some people can’t believe it either. A girl from Ravenclaw calls her this foul word, she’s heard it a few times now but it always hurts the same. James and Sirius get into a fight for her honor, now faced with detention later this evening. But she can’t help but wonder, what if they were right? What if she really didn’t belong in this world? It was too good to be true, anyway. Perhaps she’ll just run a flower boutique with Petunia.

“Oi.”

The sound of your voice startles her, and she nearly topples over in the Great Lake. Lily catches sight of your Slytherin colors and resigns herself to another round of name-calling. “What do you want?”

“They’re wrong, you know,” You tell her, ignoring Lily’s question. You look down on her with your nose raised arrogantly — she wishes she could be like you. Born to be magic. “You’ve got a terrifying brain locked up in your head there, Evans. And they know it, too. They’re scared.”

Lily scoffs. “I’m just a Mudblood to them. There’s nothing to be intimidated by.”

You sneer. “Don’t say that word. You’re more than that. More than them. They’ve got long ways to go to prove they have a place in this world. But you — you’ve defied the odds and you were destined to become magic. You don’t have to prove anything. You have the right to be in the wizarding world and no one can take that away from you.”

Then, you pivot on your heels, not bothering to hear her reply. “You’re my rival now, Evans. Do keep up. We’ve got an Astronomy test tomorrow. I look forward to seeing how you do then.”

Lily just gapes. She’s certain there’s butterflies in her stomach. Her heart thumps wildly against her ribcage. Lily raises her hands to feel her blushing cheeks. There’s a light unfamiliar sensation in her stomach — like the urge to kick her legs and scream into a pillow, or more precisely, chase after you and hold your hand.

She stiffens.

Oh.

part two

#hp angst #hp fluff #hp imagine #hp x reader #james potter x reader #lily evans x reader #marauders angst #marauders fluff #marauders imagine #marauders x reader #sirius black x reader #poly!marauders x reader #poly!marauders fluff #remus lupin x reader

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helen-with-an-a · 12 days ago

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Operation Christmas Kiss

Barça Femeni x Reader ; Keira Walsh x Reader

Description: The team come up with a plan to get Keira and R to confess before Christmas

Word Count: 3k

“So, what’s everyone doing for Christmas?” Alexia asked, taking a sip from her drink.

You sat back, watching the others as they told you their Christmas plans. Naturally, your eyes lingered on Keira. Keira … the girl you had been in love with for well over half your life.

You couldn’t help but smile as she laughed at something Aitana had said, her eyes sparkling. You sighed despite yourself. Keira … the girl had been your first kiss all those years ago. ‘Practice … for when we’re older’ you had said. It had been the Christmas camp for the Young Lionesses, and everyone was swapping stories of their first kisses, first loves, first times. You were barely sixteen, but the peer pressure had been a lot. You had made up some bullshit about a girl at school. You had confessed the truth to Keira that night. She had just smiled at you and offered to kiss you. Simple and just like that. Nothing too fancy, nothing crazy, just a friendly gesture. You ignored the butterflies then and you had continued to ignore them. Every brush of her hand against your skin when you partner up, every lingering hug or gentle touch as you moved around your small flat in perfect harmony.

“What about you, chica?” Patri asked, nudging you back to the table.

“Oh um, nothing really.” You smiled, taking a bite from the snacks on the table.

“Nothing?” Mapí repeated.

“Yeah, I’m not doing anything. My parents are-”

You started to explain how you didn’t do anything special at Christmas. You never had. You parents had been forced to go to Church and do all the family stuff when they were growing up and they had hated every minute of it. When they finally branched out on their own, Christmas was just a normal day. Sure, you always had a few presents and a nicer meal, but it was never the spectacle that it was for everyone else. Your parents had agreed to fly over to Barcelona this Christmas, arguing that it was about time they had a hot holiday. The best flights they could get was Christmas Day, and that suited you just fine. They would land around midday, and you would spend a few days with them, relishing in the quiet as the rest of the world gorged themselves on overpriced, dry meat they had spent far too long slaving away over in the kitchen. And then your parents would be off again, arguing that they didn’t want to ruin your New Years’ plans and that they would much rather be lounging on a pool bed in Tenerife rather than you cramped flat anyways.

“Do you not want to spend Christmas with them?” Pina asked quietly, her voice a little nervous.

“No, it’s not like th-” You could see the looks people were sharing. The sad pitying looks that meant they thought you didn’t spend Christmas with your family for a very different reason.

“It’s okay, amiga. We understand,” Marta smiled kindly.

“It’s not-” you tried again. You loved your parents, and they loved you. You had no issue with them, and as far as you were aware, they had no issues with you. You knew some others around the table had had issues with their parents, especially when they were teens and trying to figure out their sexuality. But for you, it was never like that. You had never actually ‘come out’ to your parents. You had just brought a girl home when you first moved to Manchester and introduced them to your new girlfriend. No one had batted an eye.

“Vamos, chica, I need el baño and then we shall get another drink, sí?” Ona asked, standing up from her seat, extending her hand to you.

“Uhh, sure … ok…” You let yourself get dragged away by Ona, unable to catch Keira’s eye.

“Ok, we need to do something for la niña. She cannot spend Christmas alone.” Mapí started, her eyes narrowing as she came up with her plan.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to do anything for Christmas, kjære?”

“That is absoluta mierda, Princesa.” Mapí dismissed Ingrid with a wave of her hand. “Everyone wants to do something for Christmas.” Ingrid sighed, shaking her head. She knew her girlfriend, if Mapí had a plan, the plan would be happening regardless of what anyone else said.

It took maybe 10 minutes for a plan to be concocted. A plan that Keira was not too happy about. She had tried, she had tried so hard to get the team to see that there really was no issues, no larger problem at hand that led you to not really ‘doing’ Christmas. You always had been like that. She didn’t do traditional Christmas herself – her family opting for an Indian instead. A habit they had picked up from you. You were 13 when you met, 14 when she had begged her parents to let her spend the holidays with you, and 15 when you spent your first Christmas at the Walsh household.

Her parents had fussed and stressed over the catering for months, you had both watched them bring up Christmas when you visited every school holiday. It had been a throwaway comment really, a joke that you would be happy with an Indian for all you cared. You could see the look they gave you, a curious, intrigued look. ‘Christmas is about family, right? You don’t have to add the stress on top of it. If you want to do a roast, go ahead, but we just do whatever we fancy. Last year it was a roast because Kei was with us, but usually it’s something way more chilled. I think we had picky bits once’. The look on Mrs Walsh’s face was one that you would remember forever. The look of pure and utter relief that someone else had said it. That you had said it. From that Christmas on, there was no more burned potatoes or overcooked turkey. There was an Indian takeaway, dished up with more pride than any carving had ever received.

“Guys, honestly, she doesn’t wan-’

“No, Keira. She needs this.” Mapí wasn’t having any of it.

“She really doesn-” Keira tried again, looking to Lucy for help. Lucy grinned, smiling into her glass as she shrugged.

“Kei,” You shouted, oblivious to the conversation going on at the table. You staggered slightly, flopping heavily onto the ginger’s lap. “Come dance?” You asked, the blush on both of your cheeks having nothing to do with the alcohol.

“I don’t dance, y’know this.” Keira laughed slightly, her arm automatically cradling your waist.

“Please, Kei.” You pulled out your infamous puppy dog eyes, ones you knew she was irresistible to. “For me?” You pouted ever-so-slightly.

“Ugh, fine.” Keira rolled her eyes, unable to help the smile that spread across her lips as you squealed with joy. “The things I do for you,” She grumbled, allowing herself to be pulled across the floor.

“When are they going to realise, they’re head over heels for each other?” Alexia asked, watching you loop your arms around Keira’s neck as her fingers danced with the waistband of your jeans.

“Who?” Vicky asked, trying to follow Alexia’s line of sight.

“Keira and Y/N, estúpida” Pina supplied, pointed to where you and Keira were very much in your own little bubble. The group watched as Keira said something to you, and you dropped your head onto her neck, all sporting smiles as Keira’s fingers traced gentle lines on the sliver of bare skin on your back.

“At least you get a break,” Lucy commented, bringing her arm around Ona’s shoulder. “It was like this at City too, and at camp.”

“Oh god. Do you remember that time when Y/N did her hamstring, and she wasn’t on England camp? It was maybe a week and all I heard from her was ‘Kei this’ and ‘Kei that’.” Ellie chimed in, rolling her eyes at the memory.

You had torn your hamstring a week or so before you were supposed to go away on an England camp. The suddenness of it all had meant you were even more mopey than you would have been normally. Yes, you missed playing, and yes, you weren’t a fan on the rehab. But doing it without Keira to keep your spirits up was too much to handle. She had been by your side from the moment you had sat down on the grass, your face contorting in pain. She had been subbed off a few moments after you and followed you down the tunnel. Keira had driven you home and stayed the night, doting on you hand and foot, acting as you butler, driver and bodyguard until she had to leave for St George’s Park.

When Ellie had picked you up the next morning, you were a vision of sadness. Your hair was sloppily tied up, the blue circles under your eyes more noticeable than ever before. Ellie had taken note of the small 24 printed on both your hoodie and shorts for the whole week.

“God, Kei was no better. ‘I wonder what Y/N’s doing right now?’, ‘Has anyone heard from Y/N?’, ‘I better text her, make sure she’s doing okay’, ‘Oh, sorry I can’t hang out with you, I’m facetiming Y/N’. It was nauseating,” Lucy huffed, taking a swig of her drink.

“Ok, we get it, they’re in love and have been for ages, they just need to get a grip and kiss each other.” Kika laughed, watching her two new friends press themselves closer and closer.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Aitana asked.

“Oh, Kei. I’m so in love with you it hurts.” Patri joked, her eyelids fluttering as you drapped herself over Cata.

“Oh, Y/N/N, me too. I’m just too in my head to do anything about it.” Cata joined in.

“I’m thinking we change our plan. Operation Get Y/N and Keira to Kiss at Christmas is a go.” Mapí turned to the table, bringing out her phone to take notes.

“We may need to shorten the name.” Caro chimed in, a small smile on her face.

“What are they planning?” You asked Keira, your face millimetres from hers.

“They want you to celebrate Christmas.” Keira smiled as you groaned, your head dropping onto her shoulder.

“I am celebrating Christmas, Mum and Dad are flying out on Christmas day.”

“I know that. You know that. They just don’t know that’s how you do Christmas.” Keira pressed a sneaky kiss to your temple. “They want you to spend Christmas with someone, you rescued me before that bit got figured out.”

“No,” you whined. “I love my Christmas plans. A chilled Christmas and then a very fun New Years’ with you.” You couldn’t help the blush that rose on your cheeks when you thought of your New Years’ plans.

“I know you do,” Keira laughed quietly, her cheeks sporting a similar blush. “And it’ll be our first New Years’ together.” You rolled your eyes.

“Stop phrasing it like that. We’ve spent a million New Years’ together.” You complained, shuffling closer, relishing in the feeling of her fingers against your skin.

“No, we haven’t. We have spent 13 together. But this we’ll be our first one as more than just friends.” Keira whispered into your ear.

It was a new development for you and Keira. One that had taken far too long to happen, but over a snowy hot chocolate at the Munich Christmas market when you had flown out to see Georgia, it had happened. It wasn’t really anything epic, nothing like a fairytale. Keira had told you how beautiful you looked, eyes reflecting the lights of the market. You had blushed and told her you thought she looked pretty too. She had pushed some hair off your face, and you were just inches from each other and then suddenly her lips were on yours and you hadn’t looked back since.

You had told your family but beyond that, you were relishing in the privacy of it all. The stolen kisses and quiet declarations were adding to the magic of it all. You knew you needed to tell the team soon, but you were having too much fun watching them moan and groan at each other. You were more than happy to keep it between you to, a perfect little secret to be shared at just the right time.

It was the last home game before the break when Mapí’s plan was finally able to come to light. She had everything planned to perfection. Aitana and Kika were still out on the field with Keira. Ellie and Lucy were signing things for fans and keeping a close eye on you. Alexia was the organiser, the go-between to make sure you would be walking down the tunnel at the same time. Cata was waiting by the locker room door, making sure that no one would stand in the way. Mapí, Patri and Pina were all in the locker room, placing mistletoe at strategic locations across the room. One above the doorway, one above each of your lockers, one by the entrance to the showers and the last one tucked safely next to Mapí’s things, a fail-safe she could wave above you if Plan A, B, C and D fell through.

It was the Man City game, the team knew they had ample time to prepare with how long you and Keira would stay out on the pitch catching up with old friends, but that didn’t help with the nerves. Mapí had even bribed one of the coaches to help. When Alexia gave the signal, a painstakingly crafted but natural movement of taking off her Captain’s armband, the coach would drift over to you, telling your group they needed to come inside for cool down and stretches. At the same time, Carla would beckon Keira over for some media and you would both meet at the top end of the tunnel, ready to walk past the rest of the team and straight into the locker room. Vicky had been chosen to point out the mistletoe if you hadn’t spotted it already. It had originally been Ingrid but that was met with a raised eyebrow and a shake of her head.

“Kjære, are you su-”

“Sí, Ingrid, I am more than sure. It will be un milagro de Navidad.” Mapí waved her girlfriend away, her eyes fixed excitedly on the door.

“- it’ll be nice. I’m glad that Lani and the other Aussies will be able to get back home quickly.” You chatted away to Keira, a City shirt adorning your top half as you pushed your way into the locker room. Pina not-so-subtly came to stand in front of you, stopping you in the doorway.

“You played really well, Chicas.” Pina smiled unnaturally at you.

“Uh, thanks?” You said slowly, although it came out more like a question.

“Sí, muy buen juego” Patri added, her eyes also a bit too wide. You looked towards Keira and back again, you eyes taking in the mistletoe dangling from the ceiling.

“Oh, mira eso. You are standing under muérdago. Ellie, what is muérdago en Inglés?” Vicky called, her voice superficially high.

“Mistletoe, Vicky. It is Mistletoe in English.”

“Ahh, sí. Y/N and Keira are standing under mistletoe.” Vicky’s acting was appalling. You glanced up anyway, smiling at the small spring resting above your heads. “Is the tradition the same in England as it is in España?” Vicky held her hands out in a comical shrug.

“You mean, whoever is caught under the mistletoe has to kiss, otherwise it is bad luck?” Ellie added, her acting equally awful.

“Ah, so it is the same.”

You looked over to Mapí, who was vibrating like a kid about to open their most anticipated present.

“Be … so, be … so, beso, beso, beso” Mapí began to chant, her voice carrying across the room.

You looked to Keira, smiling at her as the small blush bloomed across her cheeks. You shrugged, as if saying ‘I’m down if you are’. She nodded shyly, a smile matching yours. You shuffled a little closer, your hand coming to rest on her cheek.

You leaned in, the world around you fading into the background. Her breath hitched as your faces drew closer, her gaze briefly dropping to your lips before meeting your eyes again. The moment stretched, charged with anticipation, until finally, your lips met in a tender, lingering kiss.

The room exploded with applause, whoops, and whistles. Mapí was the loudest, clapping her hands and shouting, “Eso es! Así se hace!”

As you pulled back, Keira’s shy smile had turned into a full-blown grin, her eyes sparkling with a mix of nerves and exhilaration. “Well,” she said, laughing softly, “guess we’re lucky now.”

“Guess we are.” You stuck your tongue out at her as you moved away to the bathroom.

“So, how was your first kiss with the girl you’ve been in love with since you were 13?” Lucy asked, nudging Keira with her elbow.

“Oh, that wasn’t our first kiss,” Keira smiled up at her friend, her cheeks still lightly stained with pink.

Lucy blinked. “N-not your first kiss?” She spluttered.

“Oh no, I was her first kiss when we were like 16? I think. It was a youth camp, and everyone was saying about their first kiss and she said she hadn’t had one so I kissed her.”

“J-just like that? You kissed her? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why would I, Luce? It’s not that deep.” Keira laughed, enjoying the look on Lucy’s face.

“Not … not that deep?” Lucy screeched. “Kei, you’ve been in love with her since you were 13, I have had to listen to you both whine and whine about it all and you’ve already kissed her? Keira, what the fuck?”

“Language, Lucia.” Keira teased, bending over to gather her stuff for the shower.

“H-have you kissed her since you were 16?” Lucy asked, trying to wrap her head around what was going on.

“Of course she has,” You chimed in, kissing Keira swiftly on the cheek. “It would be weird not to kiss your girlfriend.”

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harrysfolklore · 10 months ago

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Harry Styles Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED

this was posted on my patreon a few months ago, enjoy ! MASTERLIST | MY PATREON

"Hi I'm Harry Styles and this is the Wired Autocomplete Interview."

Harry introduced himself to the camera and you smiled, you were currently at WIRED Studios for Harry's long awaited autocomplete interview that he finally agreed to do thanks to yours and his fans persistence.

You were sitting behind the camera with the rest of the crew, watching him with a small smile.

A crew member passed the first board to him, he looked at it confusedly for a minute before speaking.

"Okay so. I'm answering what I think or what?"

Everyone in the studio laughed and the director quickly explained to him how the game worked once again, you rolled your eyes with affection and he sent a wink your way.

"Alright, how is Harry Styles?" he said after taking the little piece of paper off the board, "I'm good, I'm really enjoying being home in London, I was away for a while on tour and I'm going to stay here for a bit so that's exciting."

"How did Harry Styles," he paused to rip the next paper and reveal the rest of the question, "Become famous? Well, when I was sixteen years old I auditioned for a singing show called The X Factor, I got put in a band with four lads and we didn't win but we put out a song called What Makes You Beautiful," he smiled for a second, "that one put us on the map, we released a bunch of albums and now I'm here."

"How did Harry Styles meet his wife?" at this, he turned his gaze to you to give you a big smile, you immediately mirrored his and nodded your head, signaling that you were okay with him talking about it.

"We could say that it was basically a blind date, we had a friend in common who thought we would be a good match and set us up, we had an amazing first date but then I had to travel to Los Angeles for work so we couldn't really see each other after that but once I was back in London we hung out all the time, and now we're married."

He smiled at you again and you couldn't help but feel your heart melt, you had been married for 6 months now but the married life was still new for the both of you, and everything he called you his wife butterflies made its way to your stomach.

"How is Harry Styles still alive?" his eyes widened in surprise and he looked around the room, making a few present laugh, "Um, that's a weird thing to search on the internet, but I guess, I don't know if I can answer that, I don't think anyone can answer that we're just lucky to still be around and enjoy life."

He gave the camera one of his infamous "frog smiles" and handed the board to a crew member who was ready with the next one.

"Does Harry Styles have tattoos?" he revealed the first question of the new board, "Yes, he does. I have a lot of tattoos actually, they're basically all over my body. The most recent one is right here," he pointed at the back of his right arm, "It's my wedding date, actually, everyone might call me a sap but I was reserving this arm for tattoos about my wife a and future kids, so I guess it's finally time to fill it."

It was safe to say that fans watching at home and everyone in the studio absolutely melted, especially you.

"Does Harry Styles have siblings? I do I have a sister, she's older than me and her name is Gemma. A lot of people claim she's cooler than me for some reason but I don't thing that's true," he shrugged and revealed the next question, "Does Harry Styles speak Italian? I would like to think that I do, I spend a lot of time there and I've learned how to communicate pretty decently."

"Is Harry Styles an actor?" he said after peeling the first sticker of the new board, "He tries to be an actor that's for sure," he laughed and everyone in the room did as well, "I mean, I've been in a couple of movies, I've auditioned for a bunch of roles and my agent has sent me scripts to go through," he shrugged "So I can say that makes me an actor."

"Is Harry Styles american?" he shook his head at that one, "He is not! He's Britain, born and raised okay? He's very proud of it."

"What's Harry Styles BeReal? I don't have a BeReal, but if I did I wouldn't tell you," he pointed to the camera jokingly, "What are Harry Styles fans called? I think they are referred to as Harries, but I don't like to speak on behalf of them, you should ask them."

"What was Harry Styles first song? My first song was Sign Of The Times, I wrote it with friends that I love, and that is my wife's favorite song I've ever written, right love?"

"That's correct." you said from your spot, pretty audible so you know it would make it to the final cut of the interview.

"What are Harry Styles songs about?" he peeled the last sticker of the board, "They're about a lot of things, life, friends, love, my wife," he shrugged, "I even have one about the female orgasm."

You quietly giggled, knowing that his fans would go crazy over that last sentence.

"Did Harry Styles go to college? He did not, he became a singer."

"Did Harry Styles win a Grammy? He somehow won Album Of The Year last year, which is absolutely insane if you ask him."

"Did Harry Styles finish high school? Oh I'm glad the internet asks," he laughed, "Contrary to popular belief I did finish high school, I completed my GCES and I graduated, I don't know why there's a rumor there that I didn't finish high school tho."

"Anyway, last one!" he comically threw the board to the floor and grabbed the final board a crew member was handling him, "Who is Harry Styles best friend? Um, I have a ton of best friends. Jeff who's also my manager, Mitch who plays in my band, my childhood best friend's name is Johnny, so yeah, I'm very lucky in the friends department, I love my friends."

"Who does Harry Styles look like? My mom, I would say. A lot of people point out that we have the same smile," he shrugged, "My mom is a beautiful woman so I'm flattered."

"Who did Harry Styles write Love Of My Life about? My wife and London."

"And final question," he slowly peeled off the sticker for dramatic effect, "Who does Harry Styles love? Okay, that's cute that people search for that on the internet, um, I love my family and friends, I love my wife that's for sure, I love making music and performing," he listed with his fingers, "And love love, yeah, love is great."

He smiled to the camera and put the board aside to say his goodbyes.

"I thought my Google searches were much more appropriate that I expected. I was fun to see what people wonder about me, so yeah thank you WIRED for having me."

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cowboy-heart · 7 months ago

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'interview with a butch' - a fake interview reflecting on butch-femme dynamics! inspired by the amazing piece by @llovely, which you can read here :)

(ID below read more)

[an original, interview-style poem called 'interview with a butch':

when did you know you were butch? I knew by the time I was sixteen, but that’s only when I found the word. I’ve been butch since the day I was born, at least since I was just a few months old and threw an earth-shattering tantrum whenever my mum tried to put me in a dress. (both laugh) your poor mum!

I remember being a little butch knight, chivalrous even before I was double digits. my best friend only lived up the road from school, but her parents were running late and she was scared to do it herself. so I walked her up the hill, her arm linked in mine, pride balancing on my chest. and when I got her to her door, I said that we should kiss like adults do when they say goodbye, and we took it in turns to kiss each other on each cheek. when I walked home I felt something the size of a boulder in my stomach, but I didn’t know what it meant yet, just that there was something about myself that set me apart.

how did you feel with your first femme? oh, man, even for a writer that’s hard to find the words for. (laugh) let’s put it this way: before I had my first femme, I always felt like something was missing in my relationships – not just in the relationship itself, but in me. I felt broken and wrong, unsatisfied and selfish. I thought that maybe I just had too high expectations or something. hell, even with sex I felt like something was missing, like I couldn’t find my own desire.

But then, then I had my first femme. How graphic can I be here? (laugh) as graphic as you want! okay, good!

watching my stomach hang over my harness, long nails in my hips, I felt like I had a second sexual awakening. I felt the most present in my body I’d ever been, and like I could be in them forever. I didn’t feel dissatisfied, or wrong. when their hand held mine and played with my fingers I felt lightning shoot through me. it was like realising I was a lesbian all over again. but even outside of romance, femmes are my friends, my family, my community. talking to femmes, being around femmes, I’ve never felt so seen and loved. I can handle every sharp look, every slur thrown my way, just because my armour was polished by femmes.

do you find your roles restrictive? they’re liberating. I think sometimes people see me and think that I had to fit into this constrictive box, that I disallowed myself to enjoy anything feminine. the reality is that for butches, we find the word we’ve been searching for our whole lives. I can’t even remember finding the word, isn’t that crazy? it felt second nature. it somehow perfectly described everything I’d ever felt, exposed me to a community of people who were just like me outside of my Tory town! (pause)

I think there’s a tendency even in leftist, LGBT spaces to think that masculinity is oppressive, and femininity is liberating and oppressed. but it’s really not like that. we’re punished for deviating from our assigned gender, whether you’re a masculine woman, or a feminine man, or something in between the two. I’ve had gay men try to convince me to let them do my makeup, I’ve had gay women tell me that they’re “so glad” I don’t have ‘toxic masculinity’ like “other butches”. femininity was a cage for me, something I had to imitate to survive the perils of high school, but it was never me. masculinity liberated me, and it’s not inherently toxic. I love to carry the bags, hold open the doors, cry in pride, protect those I love. and there’s nothing like coming home at the end of the day to a sweet femme, ready to rub my tired muscles. man, I’m not good at concise answers, am I? (both laugh) no, but I love it!

what do you think of people who see your relationship as heteronormative? they’re twats! (both laugh) now, that’s a concise answer! no, no that’s not fair. here’s what I’d say to them:

I see it as…a complex gender performance. no, that makes it sound like it’s play pretend. they’re complex gender…expressions, dynamics, play, desire, euphoria. a butch and a femme together is no more heterosexual than a bear and a twink, a top and a bottom. it’s a dance that we know in our bones, like we knew each other in a previous lifetime and we’re just falling back into our favoured rhythm. even every fumble and awkward gesture is a part of it. we fall into sync and into each other, we tenderise each other’s gender, affirm it, and love every minute of it. we’re not two sides of the same coin, you talk to any butch-femme couple and chances are our priori (edit: interviewee meant propositions) are the same but our conclusions are not; we’re the same side of the same coin, just one is the top of the tail and the other is the bottom of it. is that a euphemism? (laugh) take it as you will!

I’m no man, my femme is no woman, and I’m no less butch when I’m wearing a kiss-the-cook apron and cleaning their kitchen, and they’re no less femme when they’re putting together a shelf or driving me to work. To look at us and see a heteronormative imitation of cisgender predetermination is proof of their own lack of nuance – do you think all dogs are boys and all cats are girls, too? (both laugh)

I think in a lot of ways, butch-femme dynamics are inherently transsexual. or, in the very least, good friends of transgenderism. If you can’t see us for what we are then chances are you’ve got your own internalised gender biases to unlearn.

I’ve always been butch to my bones, but when I’m with my baby I’m on cloud nine. I feel desired, my gender revered and loved.

so, what you’re saying is, you feel seen? I do. we see each other and nurture each other. I’ve never really liked being called ‘beautiful’, but when it falls from the lips of a femme, I know that they’re not seeing me as feminine. I feel most comfortable to explore the depths of both my femininity and masculinity with them; I don’t feel restricted to a role.

maybe that’s what people are missing about it: our homes are temples of gender exploration and devotion.

end ID].

#original poetry #my writing #writeblr #image described #poetry #poetblr #butch #butch4femme #writing #lesbian #butch poetry #butch femme poetry #lesbian poetry #most popular #most proud of

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burnthatbridge · 9 months ago

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if you love him let him go (if you love him let him know)

pre-buddie, bucktommy | T | 3k | angst, pining tommy needs to tell eddie something not on ao3 atm because i can't figure out if this is done or if i'm continuing it - please let me know your thoughts! now on ao3 because i hate not having all my fic in one place

“Can I get you another beer, man?”

Eddie checks his watch. It’s only a little after nine thirty. He’s kind of hoping to get home before Chris goes to sleep, but he’ll not be heading to bed any time soon, will likely stay up later than Eddie. Friday night means he disregards his supposed bedtime — not that he sticks to it that well on school nights, now he’s sixteen. “Sure, thanks.”

Tommy nods, disappears into the kitchen, returns a moment later with a can of IPA in one hand, a bottle of lager in the other. They’ve already finished the six-pack Eddie brought over, but trust Buck — well, Buck and Tommy — to have Eddie’s favorite beer in their fridge. Tommy hands over the can, already cracked open, and Eddie takes a sip as Tommy settles down at the opposite end of the couch. He doesn’t turn to face the TV, sits twisted towards Eddie instead, but he does pick up the remote and turn down the volume, the post-fight commentary rendered nearly unintelligible.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Eddie twists towards Tommy himself, something not-quite-anxious-but-almost flaring in his chest. Over the years they have been friends, he and Tommy have spoken about lots of things, including those not so easy to discuss: their respective experiences in the army, Tommy’s tough childhood, Eddie’s difficult parents, the hard aspects of the job. But they’ve all been topics that have come up naturally, raised organically. Tommy has never led into anything with such a pointed opener before.

Eddie studies him. He has one knee pulled up on the couch cushion, foot poking out off the end, the other foot planted on the floor, nearly parallel to the base of the couch. One arm is up on the backrest, the other relaxed, beer bottle in that hand, resting on his thigh, dripping condensation painting a charcoal ring on his — probably Buck’s, in fact, given how tight the fabric is stretched over the muscle of his leg — grey sweats. He’s not tense, but he’s not smiling, and there’s something about his expression that Eddie can’t place. It’s not that he hasn’t seen this look before, because he’s pretty sure he has, witnessed it in flickers across numerous occasions over the years, there and then gone, present for but a heartbeat. But he’d never known what it meant any of those times and he certainly doesn’t now.

“'Course,” Eddie says, when Tommy doesn’t go on, seems to be waiting for some kind of sign. Then adds, feeling like it’s necessary given the gravity he can feel pulling this lightsome evening down to something more serious. “Anything.”

Tommy sighs, bites his lip like he doesn’t want to speak, even though he’s the one who said he wanted to talk, then shakes his head and takes a pull of his beer.

“Is everything okay?” Eddie’s starting to feel worried now. He mentally scans back over the past few weeks, trying to remember if Tommy has mentioned anything about work that could be a problem. He saw him at basketball last week, and nothing had seemed off. Plus, Buck hasn’t said anything. Not that he’d necessarily tell Eddie about an issue Tommy was having, not if Tommy wanted it kept private, but Eddie can usually tell when Buck’s concerned about someone, and he hasn’t picked up on anything, not at all.

But maybe this isn’t about a problem Tommy is having. Maybe this is a Buck problem, something Buck has kept from Eddie. It would make sense why Tommy would bring it up with him; sometimes a concerted, multi-person effort is the only way to get through to Buck. And Tommy’s more likely to bring in Eddie first, and then expand the team to include Maddie, Chim, more, as needed.

“Is Buck okay?” Eddie asks, something like panic constricting his throat, making the words come out a little strangled.

Tommy actually laughs at that, a small, choked thing, an exhale of sound and air. He shakes his head again, but not a no. More like an extension of the laugh, a motion to accompany it, to better convey the disbelief — not humor — contained in it. “He’s fine.”

It’s a relief to hear. Buck had seemed physically okay, when Eddie had seen him briefly before he left the house, since he’d maybe purposefully waited to order his Uber until Buck pulled up in his jeep outside, despite Christopher’s insistence he didn’t need to wait for Buck to arrive, despite the fact that his kid is more than old enough to be left in the house alone for the twenty minutes it would have taken Buck to drive over, while Eddie was ferried the opposite way. But there could still have been something, Buck could have been fighting through pain, much better at hiding any hurt of his body than he is at masking his emotional distress.

“But,” Tommy says, and that one word is enough to have Eddie’s muscles tightening once more, “It is Evan I wanted to talk about.”

Again, Tommy doesn’t follow it up with anything. Eddie has found, in their time as friends, that Tommy is not often a man lost for words. Quite the opposite, in fact. He usually says what he means, means what he says, and is an expert at listening and delivering sage advice. This reticence– it doesn’t feel like it bodes well, has the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck prickling.

“Alright,” Eddie says, a feeble prompt. “So, Buck?”

Tommy nods, like he’s gearing himself up for something, to face a challenge, to take a punch. Eddie is expecting something bad, so the words he says catch him even more off guard than they would have. “I want to ask Evan to marry me.”

Maybe if Tommy had seemed eager, excited, when he turned to him, Eddie could have anticipated the blow, could have felt a creeping suspicion this is where Tommy was headed, could have been provided with enough of a heads-up to brace himself. As it is, he doesn’t see the hit coming, takes it full force to the chest, so hard it steals his breath, knocks the wind from him. His mouth goes slack, and he feels his fingers slide against the slippery sides of his beer can, almost spills it over Tommy and Buck’s lounge carpet before he gets a hold on it, on himself. He forces himself to smile. “That’s– that’s great,” he makes himself say, only faintly aware that Tommy isn’t smiling back, like this moment should call for. “Did you–” he swallows around the bile climbing his esophagus, “Do you want help planning the proposal?” He wishes he could take the words back the second they’re out. Because this — just hearing that Tommy wants to ask Buck — is torture enough. To be involved with it, to help enable it, Eddie will be lucky if it doesn’t kill him. Maybe not his body, but certainly his soul.

“No.” Tommy shakes his head. “No, I want to ask him to marry me. But I’m not going to. At least, not now.”

Eddie squints at him. The news that Tommy wants to marry Buck might hurt Eddie, but it’s not exactly surprising. Eddie’s seen how much Tommy cares for him in the years they’ve been together, has seen the way he looks at him, the way they look at each other. Has felt the way it burns him, the scorching heat of flame, the searing cold of ice. He doesn’t understand what Tommy is saying, doesn’t understand why this proclamation seems not to be a happy one. “Why not?” Eddie asks, almost grateful for the opportunity to present confusion, curiosity, rather than forced pleasure at the thought of one of his closest friends and his– best friend marrying each other. “You guys are serious. I mean, you live together.”

Tommy huffs another laugh, still more disbelief than humor, really the opposite of humor. “His lease was up.”

“Right. But he chose not to renew it. He chose to move in with you,” Eddie says, slow, struggling to understand, the pounding of his pulse not helping him think clearly, see through the puzzle that is everything Tommy has said so far and the way he has said it.

“He was never going to renew it,” Tommy tells him.

And that’s– that’s something Eddie didn’t know. He hates it when he learns information about Buck from Tommy, always has, even though he fights with everything in him not to feel like that. Tommy is Buck’s boyfriend, of course he’s going to know things about him that Eddie doesn’t, know him in a way that Eddie doesn’t.

“We hadn’t spoken about living together,” Tommy says, eyes on Eddie. “But he’d said he thought the loft was too expensive and he was spending nearly every night at mine by that point. When he wasn’t on shift. Or at yours.” Eddie pulls his eyes away, takes a sip from his beer for something to do, even though the bitter taste is turning his stomach. “He said he wasn’t going to renew it, that he’d look for somewhere new, cheaper. But this was too close to the end of his lease to find a place before he had to move out. I asked where he was going to stay in the meantime.”

“And he said with you,” Eddie guesses, more a statement than a question.

But Tommy shakes his head. A smile curls his lips but his eyes– his eyes don’t match. “He said he’d crash on your couch, actually.”

Eddie takes another mouthful of beer, holds it there, on the back of his tongue. He didn’t know any of this. Buck would, of course, have been more than welcome. Likely why he hadn’t asked in advance, why he planned for it without seeking permission.

“I said he could stay with me, instead. That he’d be able to sleep in a bed here.” Eddie swallows, the beer somehow thick and cloying in a way that it shouldn’t be. “And then when he started making noises about looking for a new place, I told him he should stay.”

While it’s not how Eddie had, unwillingly, pictured it in his head — Tommy and Buck mutually agreeing that Buck shouldn’t renew his lease, deciding they wanted to live together — it still doesn’t explain what Tommy has said. “And he did stay,” Eddie says. “So, why aren’t– Does Buck not want to get married?” But that can’t be it, that can’t be right. Eddie is certain Buck does want to be married, only he’d tried hard not to think of Buck wanting that with Tommy, with anyone. Anyone else.

“No, he does,” Tommy confirms it. He leans over and deposits his beer on the coffee table. Then sits back, still turned to Eddie, but arms crossed over his chest, like a protection of himself. “We’ve spoken about it, discussed it. And he’s told me he’s always wanted that, to get married, to be part of a family.” Tommy pops one hand out of the fold of his arms to hold it up, out, quelling, like Eddie has protested. He hasn’t, but his heart is doing something approximating a riot at the idea of Tommy being Buck’s family. “And I know he has a family. He knows he does. In you and Chris, in Maddie and Jee, in the 118. But–” Tommy breaks off, tips his head to the side, gaze boring into Eddie’s face so strong that Eddie wishes he could turn away, duck and run. “You know how much he’s always wanted to belong somewhere.”

He does, Eddie thinks, the thought almost violent in its intensity. He belongs with me. Except, he doesn’t. Not really, not how Eddie wants, not the way he does with Tommy.

“And I want that for him,” Tommy goes on, tucking his hand back in, squeezing his arms tighter about himself. Eddie’s never seen him like this, hunched in on himself, curled small. Tommy is usually so open, larger than life. “I want to be the one to give that to him.”

Eddie wants to be the one to give that to him. Desires it desperately, a secret need he’s tucked as far inside himself as he can. He can feel it now, raging to be let out, to be set free. But he can’t, he won’t. Buck is with Tommy, he’s happy with Tommy. Tommy who is so warm and kind and good, Tommy who is better than Eddie in every conceivable way, who brings so much to Buck’s life, who gives all of himself to Buck. Who wants to give him even more. Wants to, but apparently won’t.

Eddie doesn’t understand. “Then, if you want to, why won’t you ask him?” he questions, trying to.

“If I ask him now, he’ll say no.” Tommy states it like indisputable fact, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world that Buck would refuse him.

Eddie shakes his head, understanding even less. “But he loves you.”

Tommy smiles again, then, larger than he had before, but as devoid of happiness, as empty of cheer. This smile hurts to see, reflects the way Eddie felt inside when Tommy had said I want to ask Evan to marry me. “I know he does.” Tommy’s tone is sure, but wistful. “But he loves you more.”

It’s like– It’s like nothing Eddie has ever felt. Or maybe it’s like everything he’s ever felt. The shock of a residual lightning bolt, the joy of being a part of the 118, the pain of a bullet ripping through his shoulder, the awe of holding his son for the first time. Eddie wants Tommy’s words to be true maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything. But he also cannot believe them, has no trust that they are true. Because they can’t be. Buck loves Tommy. Not Eddie.

“We’re friends. Best friends,” Eddie points out. “Of course, he– he loves me. But not more. Not like he loves you. He’s in love with you.”

Tommy sighs, arms uncrossing, palms coming to rest on his thighs, body taking on a posture Eddie is familiar with, the one he falls into when he’s talking someone through something, the one he adopted when Eddie came out to him some six months ago. “Eddie, he’s in love with you.”

Eddie shakes his head. It’s everything he’s ever wanted to hear, but coming from the wrong lips. Spoken by not by Buck himself but by Buck’s boyfriend, oh god. “He isn’t. Tommy, he can’t be.”

But Tommy is nodding, nodding like what he’s said is true, like he wants Eddie to believe it.

“He’s not,” Eddie says, hears the denial, the disbelief spill from him. Buck doesn’t love him. He doesn’t. But Eddie– Eddie loves– “I’m sorry,” Eddie says, almost a gasp. “Tommy, I’m sorry, I–”

“It’s not your fault,” Tommy cuts him off. “I knew what I was getting into. When I started seeing Evan, I knew there were going to be three people in this relationship. I just–” Tommy sighs again, scrubs his palms along his thighs. “I didn’t expect it to get this far. I thought we’d just be a fun, easy thing. Something to ease Evan into his sexuality, that new part of himself. I didn’t expect it to go like this. I didn’t expect to feel like this.” Tommy closes his eyes, lashes falling to his cheeks. He breaths in and out, while Eddie’s own breath is caught in his chest. When Tommy opens his eyes, he says, “But I don’t have to tell you how easy it is to love him.”

Fuck. Tommy knows. Because Eddie does. He loves Buck, loves him so endlessly he doesn’t know where the feeling starts and where it ends. Doesn’t know when it started; doesn’t think it will ever end. “I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers, needing to say the words again, needing Tommy — his friend — to hear them.

Tommy lifts one palm from his thigh, his wrist pressing into the muscle as he cuts his fingers to the side in a dismissal. “Don’t apologize for it. I’m certainly not going to. I’m never going to be sorry for loving him.” He drops his hand back down, pats his leg, emphasis of the point. “But it is a problem.” He smiles, rueful. “I thought I’d be able to break up with him, if he didn’t break up with me. I should have, ages ago. I certainly should have when you came out.”

Eddie, selfishly, had hoped Buck would break up with Tommy then. But it had seemed like a farfetched fantasy. He had told Buck he was queer after Buck had already moved in with Tommy. He’d admitted it to himself, to Frank, before that, but hadn’t told anyone else for weeks. In hindsight, sometimes he figures he’d left it too late, but most of the time he didn’t think it would have made a difference at all. But now, with what Tommy has told him, maybe it would have. It’s a knife sliding between Eddie’s ribs to think maybe. Maybe.

“But I didn’t.” Tommy looks resigned, shoulders drooping.

“Why are you telling me this?” Eddie needs to know. It seems like Tommy has known for years that Eddie has loved Buck. Loves Buck. I knew there were going to be three people in this relationship. So why is he only bringing it up now?

“Because I didn’t. Because I can’t. I can’t break up with him. But I want to move forward. And I want to do so with him, for us to further our life together. But if I ask him to marry me when he doesn’t know for sure that you’re not an option, he’ll say no.”

Fear freezes Eddie’s insides. “So, what– what are you asking me to do?” Because Tommy is asking something of Eddie, wants something. Something Eddie fears he will have to make himself give.

Tommy straightens up, shoulders rolling back. He’s serious, solemn but not demanding or pleading when he says it. A devastating request. “I’m asking you, as my friend, to let him go.”

Eddie could be sick, he thinks, could vomit up the three and a quarter beers and the half a dozen chicken wings he’s consumed since he got to Tommy and Buck’s place. Could spill the mess of his insides up all over himself, all over Tommy, all over their lives. Tommy is his friend, was his friend before he was ever Buck’s boyfriend. Eddie should do this thing for him. Should give Buck his blessing to marry Tommy, give Buck up, give him over, completely, to this man who has loved him so well for the past three years. Eddie should; in his gut he knows it would be the right thing to do. But his heart– his heart is in revolt. It’s Buck. He loves him. How can he ever let him go?

Tommy leans forward, places a hand on Eddie’s leg, squeezes his fingers around the ball of his kneecap, until Eddie lifts his gaze and meets his eyes. “Or,” he says, somehow even more serious, “I am telling you, as your friend, to go and get him.”

#do we need to see where this goes next?#or is it good as is?#these are the questions that haunt me #(also i am totally avoiding writing chapter 5 of my wip please don't kill me)#buddie #bucktommy #buddie fic #bucktommy fic #911 fic #911 #911 abc #myfic

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osarina · 7 months ago

Text

ᡣ𐭩 FRANCESCA

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: fate will always find a way. {wordcount: 22.1k; fem!reader; romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: wow guys i can't believe it's over. i won't lie this chapter was an absolute monster to write, i cried and rewrote several times, but i think it came out the way i was hoping. i'll leave some more notes at the bottom so as to not spoil, but i hope you enjoy, it's been such a crazy ride, ily all lots. as always, reblogs appreciated

GENERAL WARNINGS: mcd. dissociation. explicit mentions of past self-harm & suicide attempts. dazai describes his scars as "gross" and "ugly". implications of child abuse. suicide. i believe that's all, if there's any i'm missing, pls let me know, this is a heavy chapter obviously.

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

“... You said you have a brother?”

You look up from where your head is resting on Dazai’s chest, peering at him with furrowed brows. He raises his eyebrows, hoping the curiosity on his face comes across as innocent. In his defense, it mostly is—Dazai only wants to know because he’s wondering if he’s correct in assuming the mentions of your brother were in the present tense because he’s still alive.

If that’s the case, then that’s another first in this universe, he thinks. As far as Dazai is aware, in every other universe, your brother has been long dead by the time Dazai meets you and if that’s changed, it had to have been because of something Dazai unwittingly did, otherwise what else would’ve led to such a drastic change from the norm.

He doesn’t recall if you ever mentioned anything of significance about your brother in any of the other universes. The most he remembers is that in some, he passed away when you were sixteen and that he was involved with some shady business. You claimed that it was something to do with underground rings but if Dazai’s right in assuming that he is still alive, then Dazai thinks that the underground ring business was a cover for Port Mafia business, because the only thing that so drastically changed in the years your brother would have died was Dazai coming into contact with the Book and upending the Port Mafia’s operations.

“I do,” you say, shifting to prop your chin up on his shoulder, you lean in to brush your lips against his jaw and Dazai’s eyes flutter shut, lifting his hand to caress the small of your back. “We don’t speak anymore.”

God, Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this. He lifts his free hand to cup your cheek, watching as you lean into his touch. He lifts his shoulders up off the bed to tilt his head down, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. He can feel you smile against his and he swears his heart is in his throat, hand sliding to hold the back of your head as he lets his fall back against the pillows. You settle back against his chest and Dazai cards his fingers through your hair as his mind spins.

It’s been two weeks since the event, and while the upcoming conflict with the House of the Dead and their allies has been eerily quiet, Dazai thinks it might be for the best because things with you have not been quiet. The past two weeks have been tense and strained, once the fog of the night the two of you spent together finally disappeared, the realization of your situation hit you hard.

It’s been cycle after cycle of you shutting yourself off from him—curling up in the corner of his bedroom and staring out the window before sending yourself into a steep spiral of fear and paranoia. You haven’t dared to leave the headquarters in two weeks, even when Chuuya and Atsushi and half the Black Lizards offer to escort you, too scared to even step out of his apartment and go down to the lower floors. Sometimes you lash out at him, angry and accusatory; other times, you just cry, terrified sobs that rip Dazai’s heart right out of his chest, and he can only hold you until it passes. And it does pass, it always passes, and he gets a day or two with you like this, peaceful and pleasant. He can pretend that the two of you are just a normal couple in love with each other and not have to face reality.

He hasn’t been much better off. Every day that passes, the corners of the pages of the Book edge further into his vision. He knows it’s coming—his face-off against Dostoevsky, the first trial he has to face to ensure you can live in this universe—and he knows he can’t let himself falter even once or make a single mistake. He’s good at putting up a front around the executives—although he’s sure that Chuuya and Kouyou are realizing just how anxious Dazai really is—but he has to keep his hands beneath the table to hide the way his fingers tremble. He thought he would have more time to prepare for this, he doesn’t know why the timeline sped up so much in this life.

He tries to distract himself from the growing fear by keeping his attention focused on you because you need him right now. Desperately. He’s never seen you like this before. And it’s his fault, he knows it. In most of the other universes, you never knew his enemies were hunting you down; and in the ones that you did know, you’d been eased into a life with him already, you’d known what you were getting into. He threw you into this life without any regard for how it might affect you, like tossing someone who doesn’t know how to swim into stormy waters.

Guilt claws at his throat again, as it always does when his mind drifts to what he’s dragged you into, so he forces his mind back to the conversation at hand. Another welcome distraction from the anxiety, a way to keep his fear at bay—trying to figure out who your brother is, a mystery that he hasn’t solved in any other universe. It’s easier to actively avoid the creeping fear than to face it upfront, especially when he’s not sure he’ll be able to overcome it.

“Why is that?” he finally asks, and then after a moment adds, “... I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you say, but he can hear the strain in your voice and Dazai understands that it’s entirely not fine, and if your brother does happen to be part of the Port Mafia, Dazai is going to put him through the most excruciating and uncomfortable missions before forcing him back into your life because how dare he make you feel this way. “It’s been like this for like six years now. He cut off contact with me, I don’t know why, he never explained. He still sends me money but I don’t care for any of that, I just want to see him.”

Interesting. Six years ago. When he usually would have died in all of the other universes. Dazai’s mind spins as he tries to narrow it down. So many things happened that year. The Dragon’s Head Conflict, the incident with Verlaine-

The incident with Verlaine.

No.

Dazai shifts a bit and you instantly shoot him a disgruntled look, the apologetic smile he gives you in return is only half-hearted. He ghosts his lips across the top of your head before wrapping an arm tighter around you, fingers rubbing absent circles against your bare skin.

Of all of the events that occurred after Dazai came in contact with the Book, the incident with Verlaine had been the one that changed the most. Dazai had gone out of his way to ensure that the Flags survived the incident so Chuuya would still have people after Dazai finished the final stage of his plan, just like how he made sure to put things in place for Atsushi and Kyouka, Gin, pushing Akutagawa to the Armed Detective Agency. Everything would fall into place after the final stage, everyone could have their mostly happy ending.

Everyone but him.

His mind drifts a bit at the thought of his original plan, the phases that he’d enacted to ensure the preservation of this world—long, happy lives for you and Odasaku. Dragging you into his life shattered that and he still hasn’t figured out how exactly he needs to adjust everything to account for this.

You brought me here. I need you here with me. Don’t go off somewhere I can’t follow

Your words ring through his head. His eyes slide shut and the reminder of Phase Five flashes before his eyes. He can feel a headache coming on already, his throat swelling with frustration. No. Now’s not the time to focus on this.

The incident with Verlaine. The Flags. Is it possible…?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be one of the Flags. He’s sure that dozens upon dozens of subordinates managed to live in this universe with the Flags still around, Doc especially, butterfly effect and all, but Dazai can’t help but hesitate, a gut feeling drawing him to them. You didn’t recognize Albatross or Piano Man, obviously it can’t be Lippmann. That only leaves Doc and Iceman. Doc doesn’t have a family, Dazai remembers the man mentioning it offhandedly after he was wrangled down into the infirmary for a checkup a few years ago, but Iceman…

“Nah, Iceman ain’t gonna be around this weekend, his kid sister’s graduating uni. He’s going to the ceremony. Hit me with whatever you needed him for, I’ll get it done.”

Albatross’s words from a year and a half ago echo through Dazai’s head. He fully sits up this time, eyes widening, ignoring the way he jostles you around. You scowl at him and shift into a sitting position yourself but Dazai is already fumbling for his phone. You claim you haven’t seen your brother since you were sixteen, and Dazai supposes that doesn’t entirely fit in with the fact that if his theory is right, Iceman went to your graduation, but he also supposes that the man didn’t necessarily have to make himself known to you to attend your graduation.

What other pieces is he missing?

Dazai should have recognized Iceman in the picture on your wall, shouldn’t he have?

Not necessarily, he thinks—you and your brother had been young in the picture, no older than ten and fourteen, and Dazai doesn’t even deal personally with Iceman anyway. The man reports to Piano Man, and Piano Man reports to Dazai as the middle-man. He hardly sees Iceman more than once or twice a year, if even that.

And…

Oh.

Dazai exhales, realizing that Iceman being your brother might explain more things than just some oddities in this universe. His mind races as he tries to mentally flip through the pages of the Book, remembering some of the stranger universes out there. Some are so distinct from this one that there are hardly any similarities to this one—universes where the world is still being torn apart by the Great War, universes where you and he had been born hundreds of years prior during an era of warring feudal lords, universes where the world is entirely flooded and universes where the world has become a wasteland.

But there are other universes so similar to this one, with just a few distinct differences, that Dazai struggles to understand what makes them turn out so outrageously different. Everything is functionally the same until the two of you are thirteen or fourteen, where it’s as if the timeline abruptly branches off into countless routes for no apparent reason. Sometimes, he ends up with Odasaku rather than Mori, but in that same universe, you somehow end up with the Port Mafia. In other universes, he ends up with the government as a member of the Hunting Dogs, you end up with the Port Mafia too in that one. Sometimes you have an ability that manifests, sometimes—like in this universe—you don’t.

He never understood what causes the timelines to go down these routes when everything else is fundamentally the same. He assumed that he was somehow the root of it: it was a decision that he unwittingly made that caused the abrupt branching off of the timeline, but he was never entirely convinced of it because he couldn’t make sense of how him ending up somewhere other than the Mafia led to you joining the Mafia, or triggering the manifestation of your ability.

It makes a lot more sense if you already have a connection to the Mafia that he was unaware of.

That would leave your brother as the variable affecting where you end up, and whether or not your ability manifests. Not Dazai.

“What’re you doing?” you complain, flopping back onto the bed and tugging at his shirt as he puts together the mystery that’s been plaguing him for almost seven years.

“Gimme a second,” Dazai murmurs, only half-listening as he shoots a text toward Piano Man, telling him to summon Iceman back to headquarters from where he’s been dealing with a slippery target abroad for months, not bothering to wait for a response as he tosses his phone back onto his dresser and returns his attention to you, significantly more pleased than he was moments before.

The best way to test his theory is to drag Iceman back to base and see the man’s reaction to you being here. Is it smart? Maybe not, but Dazai doesn’t really care.

“What’s got you so happy all of a sudden?” you ask, eyes narrowing a bit in suspicion.

Dazai’s lips tilt upward as he leans down, half-rolling on top of you as he ghosts his lips against your forehead, nose, and then your lips before resting his head on your chest. “I’m spending my day with a beautiful woman.” He tilts his face up to kiss your jaw, relishing in the giggle you let out. “Of course, I’m happy.”

“Yeah?” you ask, nuzzling your face into his hair as you wrap your arms around him. Dazai thinks that if he died now, he would die in a state of bliss—tucked away in your arms with no threat of the outside world to weigh over him. You trace over the thin cotton shirt he’s wearing, drawing absent patterns over with the tip of your finger, up his chest to his shoulder, trailing down his arm.

“Mhm,” he agrees, eyes fluttering shut momentarily as he basks in your touch. He glances back down again when he feels your finger brush over the bandages covering his forearms, hesitating for a moment.

He peers up at you through his lashes, watching the curious expression cross your face as you look down at them, not noticing that he’s caught you staring—he knows what you’re thinking, how could he not? He’d known this was going to come sooner or later, that one day you’d wonder what was beneath the rest of the bandages. You’d never looked at him differently for it in any other life, but Dazai can’t help the lump that rises to his throat as he prepares for you to ask.

You don’t.

Instead, your gaze lifts back to his and you lean down to press your lips to his forehead. He hums lightly and tilts his head up, waiting to see if you’ll say something, but you only lift your hand to brush your fingers through his hair.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” he murmurs, eyes sliding shut again as you trace your fingers over his face, drawing along the slope of his nose down to his lips.

“I don’t plan to, no,” you say lightly, smiling as Dazai nips at your finger when you press it against his lips lightly.

“Why not?” he asks, gaze lidded as he looks up at you again. He almost frowns, wondering if you don’t want to see what’s beneath the bandages, but that would be ludicrous and makes him feel a bit insecure, so he waits for your answer instead.

“Because I figure you’ll show me on your own when you’re ready,” you tell him and the lump returns to his throat, bigger this time as he catches sight of the soft expression on your face.

He’ll never get used to it, he thinks again, breathless.

“What if I’m never ready?” Dazai questions quietly, watching your face carefully for a response.

You’re entirely unbothered by the prospect.

“I hope one day you will be, but if you’re not, that’s okay,” you say as your arms tighten around him, leaning down to bury your face in his hair again—he can feel you smile against the top of his head.

His lips part to respond but no words leave them. Instead, he lets out a sigh and takes one of your hands into his, smoothing his thumb over your palm. “What did I do to deserve you?” he says more to himself than anything else as he lifts your hand to his lips so he can kiss your knuckles.

His eyes flutter shut for a second as he considers what to do, but before he can make a decision, he feels you shifting a bit behind him. He glances back at you, brows furrowing in confusion when he catches the sudden conflict plaguing your expression. He twists around to face you, lifting his hand to cup your cheek, frowning at the downcast look in your eyes as you lean into his touch.

“What’s wrong?” he asks you, wondering if he said something wrong but he has a feeling that it’s something running deeper than that. He keeps his voice soft as he searches your eyes for an answer. You don’t respond at first, and Dazai feels significantly more concerned, shifting to his knees to kneel on the bed next to you, tilting your face to make you look at him. “Talk to me.”

“... I have orientation in a few days,” you finally say and Dazai instantly knows what has you suddenly on edge, swallowing thickly. “For school. On Friday. I can’t not go.”

He runs his thumb along your cheekbone, hoping that the small smile on his face does not convey the nerves that eat at him—he doesn’t need to stress you out any more than you already are. A part of him wants to curse himself for being so selfish; none of this was supposed to happen. You were supposed to live out your life happily without this weight hanging over you; you were supposed to go to school and graduate, not be so scared to leave the bedroom that you hardly even want to go anymore.

God, the guilt is suffocating; it takes all of Dazai’s self control to keep himself grounded here with you and not lose himself in regret.

“Sounds exciting,” Dazai hums, careful to keep his voice light. “You’ll meet all of your new classmates, you better not forget about me.”

He finds a small victory in the way your eyes turn up slightly at his comment, but it’s only brief, returning back to that downcast expression that makes Dazai feel sick to his stomach. He brushes his lips between your brows before pulling back to look at you again, the tips of his fingers running through your hair.

“I’m scared,” you admit softly, “what if-”

“Don’t be,” Dazai cuts you off, doesn’t even let you finish the what if that’s been haunting his thoughts since he came in contact with the Book all of those years ago. If you voice it out loud, he’s scared that it’ll shatter the dam that’s been holding back all of the fear threatening to consume him. “You have nothing to be scared of. Nothing will happen to you.”

“You can’t promise that,” you say, trying to look away, but he forces you to look at him again. His heart feels like it’s in his throat when he sees the way your eyes have welled with tears, one spilling over to trickle down your cheek—he leans down to kiss it away, trailing his lips up to the corner of your eye before hovering over you.

“I can,” he corrects gently. He tells himself the same thing he told you the night he decided to see you again—he has the knowledge, power, and resources, and Dazai is never as motivated when he has you as an incentive. Already, his mind is racing, making plans to get his own men into the building, trying to figure out what would be the best course of action to maybe have Chuuya pose as another enrolled student so he can keep someone close to you. “I can.”

You don’t look convinced, your bottom lip wobbles as you look up at him doubtfully and Dazai is instantly leaning down to press his against yours. Softly. Gently. It’s an innocent kiss, a plea for you to trust him to protect you because he will protect you.

“Do you trust me?” he asks and then falters instantly, reminded of the argument the two of you had two weeks ago. He amends the question and instead asks, “Do you trust me to keep you safe?”

You stare at him for a moment and for a terrible second, Dazai thinks you might be about to say no, but after what feels like an eternity, you nod, and Dazai lets out a breath that he didn’t even know he was holding. He has to go talk to Kouyou, and the Black Lizards, and Chuuya. He doesn’t give a fuck if he turns this into the Mafia’s biggest operation since the Dragon’s Head Conflict, if that’s what it takes to keep you safe.

Dostoevsky won’t win—not this time.

When he comes back to the penthouse after spending nearly the whole day trying to work out plans for your orientation on Friday, he can already tell that you’re teetering off of the edge. Dazai lingers in the door frame for a moment, the corners of his lips turning down and all thoughts of the upcoming operation fizzling away as he lets out a soft puff of air, studying you.

You’re sitting on the edge of the bed staring out the window blankly, hands sitting loosely in your lap. You’re still wearing the pajamas he’d left you in this morning, but there are stains on the front of it—he wonders if you tried to cook something but gave up halfway, it would explain the sudden influx of dirty dishes in the sink.

You look beautiful—you always do, even when you’re littered with stains and half out of it—but you look so fragile that it makes Dazai sick to his stomach. He’s never seen you look so fragile before than he has the past two weeks. You’ve always been willful, the most fearless and headstrong person that Dazai has ever known. Seeing you like this because of him, nonetheless, breaks something in Dazai that he didn’t even know was still capable of being broken.

“I’m back,” he says quietly, so as to not startle you, but you don’t react to his words anyway.

In fact, you don’t acknowledge his presence or even blink as he brushes his hand against your shoulder before coming to kneel in front of you, eyes searching your face. His throat tightens as he reaches up to cup your cheek and it’s only then that your gaze tracks down to him, but he can tell from the distant look in your eyes that you’re probably not even really seeing him.

“What’d you try to make earlier?” he hums, resting his free hand on your knee, drawing absent circles over your skin.

You stare at him for a moment and when your lips part to respond, he can barely hold back the sigh of relief—if you’re still responsive, maybe he can catch it before you steep down into your spiral, he just has to figure out how. He needs to distract you, obviously, drag you back from the ledge as you’ve done for him—not him—so many times before.

“… Cupcakes,” you finally tell him softly. “They burned.”

His lips curl upward into a smile, hand sliding up your thigh to grab your hand, lifting it to press a kiss upon your palm. “We can try to make them together later, hm?” he offers. “I’ve never made them before.”

“... Okay,” you respond quietly after a few seconds of silence, and Dazai considers it a win—or, well, he does until you start speaking again: “I don’t think I should go on Friday, Osamu. Maybe I should just unenroll… at least until things calm down, then I can figure it out. I’ll just start later. It’s fine. A lot of people do it.”

Dazai’s eyes slide shut. He holds your hand to his face and rests his forehead against your knuckles—this time he can’t hold back the sigh that slips from his lips. This is his fault, he did this to you. In a world where you’re supposed to be free of the dark, fulfilling all of the dreams you couldn’t because of him in other lives, you’re too scared to even start school, wanting to drop out rather than step outside his penthouse.

God, what has he done?

He drops your hand back to your lap and looks back up to you, hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your head, fingers intertwining with your hair as he looks up at you. Your expression hardly shifts, watching him absently as you wait for a response, but he doesn’t know how to convince you yet so instead he gives you a soft smile that he’s sure doesn’t meet his eyes, but he doesn’t think you notice in your distant state.

“Come take a bath with me,” he says, half a request, half a plea as he squeezes your thigh gently. “Then we’ll talk, yeah?”

You avert your gaze from his again, but you nod, so Dazai considers it another win. He stands up quickly, helping you to your feet before guiding you into the bathroom. You’d do this for him sometimes in the other universes; when he goes through really bad slumps and can barely bring himself to eat or move, you’ll coax him out of bed and into the bathtub, bringing him a tray of breakfast and letting him rest against your chest as he soaks in the hot water and picks at his food. Sometimes it brings him out of the slumps, sometimes it doesn’t, but it never fails to make him feel less alone so he figures it’s about time he’s able to return the favor to you.

He hums a familiar jaunty tune as he leans over to get the water running in the tub—hot, you always like the water just a bit less scalding than he usually has it—before turning to you. He crosses the bathroom in three long steps, standing in front of where you’re still leaning against the counter. He cups your cheeks and purposely smushes them so he can lean down and place an obnoxious kiss right upon your squished lips. You don’t look amused by his dramatics, but your eyes are tracking him now—another win. He’s on a roll now, maybe he’ll be able to pull you out of this before it spirals.

“Let me help you get undressed?” he proposes, smiling as he lifts a finger to his cheek and waits for your response.

“Okay,” you agree—a quicker response than the last ‘okay,’ a good sign.

Dazai doesn’t waste time as he presses his lips to your forehead, fingers curling around the hem of your soft cotton shirt. He carefully pulls it up above your head, placing it on the counter behind you. You’re not wearing a bra beneath it, so Dazai only lets his hands settle on your hips before he props his chin up on the top of your head.

He lets out a soft breath, eyes tracing the smooth skin of your back in the mirror before he lets them flutter shut. Just as he’s about to kneel down and slip off your shorts and panties so he can get you in the tub, he feels your arms wrap around his waist, and oh. Dazai’s throat tightens as you lean your head against his chest and press your bare body against his clothed one; one of his arms curl around you, large palm splayed against your lower back, while the other cradles the back of your head.

Dazai would do anything for you. Build empires or burn them. He’d gift you the sun and the moon and the stars. He can feel your body trembling against his and he knows that he’d rot in the depths of hell if it meant keeping you safe. There’s no length he wouldn’t go to, no depths he wouldn’t stoop to. His arms tighten around you and he presses his lips back to the top of your head, letting out a shaky breath.

Fyodor Dostoevsky will die. Agatha Christie will die. Both of their organizations will burn. Anyone who’s a threat to you—whether it’s ten bodies or ten thousand, he doesn’t care.

“C’mon,” he says softly, “let’s get you in there.”

He feels you nod against his chest and with much reluctance, his arms drop from where they’re wrapped around you as he kneels in front of you. He kisses your navel as his fingers curl around the hem of your shorts; he pulls them down until they’re loose on the floor around your ankles. When he scoops you into his arms, your eyes widen and he tosses you a playful wink before easing you down into the tub.

Once you’re mostly submerged in the water, you draw your knees to your chest and prop your chin on top of them, staring ahead. Whatever light had managed to return to your eyes fizzles out almost instantly and Dazai bites back a sigh, intent on getting into the tub with you and distracting you from the thoughts plaguing your mind. He slips off his jacket and drops it onto the floor, pulling off his tie haphazardly. He reaches up to unbutton his shirt and-

Oh.

Dazai has made a fatal mistake.

His vision tunnels in on the bandages peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt, envisioning the mess of ridged scars that stain the skin beneath them. Slowly, his gaze draws back to you. To the tub. To the water. If he wants to get in with you then-

You don’t seem to notice his sudden predicament, too focused on whatever spot on the wall you’ve been staring at since he set you down, but Dazai thinks that his world might be on the verge of collapse because he loves you, he does, but he doesn’t know if he’s ready to take off the bandages. Not yet. Maybe the fear is irrational, maybe it’s not—you’ve already done things in this universe that you’ve never done in any other, and he’s terrified that when you see the deep, ugly scars that litter his skin, you’ll look at him differently.

Shit.

His eyes slide shut, trying to figure out what to do.

He could leave the bandages on—he could, but they’ll become soggy and loose and they’ll probably slip off anyway, not to mention it’ll irritate his skin. And he’ll feel gross after. And he’s sure you’ll take notice of the fact that he won’t even take the bandages off to take a bath with you. He’s evaded it pretty casually up until now and the conversation yesterday morning, but this would be so glaring that there would be no denying that he’s actively trying to not let you see beneath the bandages. Yes, that is what he’s doing, but he doesn’t need you to be aware of that, though distantly, he notes that you probably are already at this point.

Or he could just… take them off. He’s going to eventually, he knows that; he’s not going to hide his body from you forever, but he thought he’d put it off for as long as possible. But maybe this is for the best—it happening now. Him putting it off for as long as possible is exactly what he tried to do with telling you about his position in the Mafia and that obviously blew up in his face—not only did it not happen on his own terms but it happened in the worst way possible. At least now, he can control the situation.

It is with great reluctance and severe anxiety that he finally starts unbuttoning his shirt. He fumbles a few times, fingers feeling extra clunky, but he pushes through because his comfort doesn’t matter right now, helping you does. He reminds himself of that over and over again. He can hardly even count the number of times that you’ve put aside your own comfort for him in all of the other universes, even in this one; he shouldn’t even hesitate to do the same for you. His shirt hits the floor and Dazai’s heart leaps to his throat, the first plate of his armor shed. His pants are next, and Dazai feels sick with nerves as his fingers brush the pin holding the bandages of his left arm in place.

Just do it.

His fingers work to unfasten the pin—he tells himself that he’s being ridiculous. That this is you. He wears his bandages like armor, a shield to hide himself from the rest of the world, but you’ve always been exempt from the ‘rest of the world.’ You’re you, the woman he’s loved since he laid hands on the Book when he was fifteen, the only person in the world who has accepted him for all of the good and bad and-

“How could I accept any of this?”

Your words from two weeks ago ring through his head and Dazai freezes from where he’s about to unwrap the bandages. Doubt sweeps through him—fear, cold and debilitating because he really doesn’t think he can handle your rejection. Not now, not ever, especially about this.

You won’t reject him, he insists again and forces himself to continue, but instead of looking down at the scars that line his arm, deep and discolored, lumpy to the touch—gross, he thinks again, ugly—he looks at you. You’re still staring ahead, oblivious to his rising anxiety and Dazai uses it as motivation to keep unwinding the bandages, letting them fall to the ground carelessly.

First, his arms, then the bandages around his calves and thighs, his abdomen and chest, and finally his neck—he grimaces as his fingers graze the rough scar that circles his neck, one of the more prominent ones that mar his body, a reminder of his near-successful attempt at fifteen after he first got his hands on the Book and couldn’t cope with all of the knowledge of the different universes. With the knowledge of Odasaku. With the knowledge of you. He was fifteen. Lonely. In the worst mental state of his life, desperately searching for a reason to live and only finding more and more reasons why he should die. He’d found out he was just as isolated from the world in every other life as he was in this one, just as empty—and that the only people who could fill the gaping hole in his chest died because of him in every other universe.

He was fifteen. It had been too much.

It’s still too much.

His gaze tracks down to the floor again, a heavy feeling settling over him. He’s second-guessing himself again, he’s feeling guilty again. He’s tired.

He’s so tired.

When he moves forward to join you in the tub, he’s hardly present; his body is moving on autopilot and it’s only when his toes dip into the hot water—a few degrees short of his liking, but the perfect temperature for you��that he’s finally drawn back to reality. He’s already in motion, so he can’t stop himself from joining you in the tub, but he is very hyper-aware now of the scars on his body, making an active effort to not let them brush your skin so as to not draw attention to them.

Luckily, his tub is large enough that you can sit comfortably between his legs without being too squeezed between them, so the deep scars that are littered across his inner thighs are not necessarily pressed against your outer thighs. But… the scars on his chest and abdomen are not as easy to evade, nor are the ones that line his wrists. His fingers brush your shoulder from where he was about to pull you back to lay against him and wrap his arms around you, eyes fluttering shut.

There’s no way you won’t notice them when you lay back.

The largest scar that mars his body runs from his shoulder to his opposite hip—he doesn’t remember how he obtained it. It was from before he found himself in Mori’s hands, and everything before his time with the Port Mafia is vague and blurry, if not entirely blank. Either way, it’s deep and ridged, discolored. Gross. And there’s no way for you to lay against him without feeling it rough against your skin.

He barely withholds the sigh that nearly escapes his lips, but he forces himself to close his fingers around your shoulder to pull you into him. He reminds himself that your comfort comes before his insecurity, you’ve put your own wellbeing to the side for him so many times before—it should not be so hard for him to do it once for you.

For better or for worse, you don’t react when your back lays flush against his chest. For better because you didn’t have an adverse reaction to feeling the worst of his scars against your bare skin. For worse because he thinks it might only be because you’re still half spiraling into a dissociative state. He presses his lips against your shoulder, wrapping his arms around your body, and instantly he flinches because he realizes that he’s just rubbed the scars on his forearms right against you and that has seemed to catch your attention. For better or for worse.

He’s frozen when he feels you shift against him, head turning down toward where his arm is tucked against you. He’s angled it so that you can’t see them, hidden in the water and against your skin, but you’re undeterred and Dazai can hardly bring himself to breathe when he feels your fingers curl around his wrist, gently easing his arm off of you to cradle it between your hands like it’s something fragile, turning over so you can look at scars that litter his skin.

He can’t see your face. A part of him is glad, still plagued with the terrible fear that you’re going to see the scars and be disgusted, but the larger part of him wants to know, wants to see you, wants to-

His breath hitches when you bring one finger to his skin. Soft, gentle, you trace your finger across the ridged lines. Dazai’s lips part to speak, he has the distinct urge to say something, to explain even though you haven’t spoken a word, but he doesn’t know how to explain the emptiness that has plagued him ever since he was a child, that only became even more exacerbated once he made contact with the Book. He doesn’t know how to explain that he was so desperate to feel something that he resorted to this to distract himself from the void. He doesn’t know how to explain that the only reason he never actually killed himself was because he knew he had to survive to ensure you and Odasaku’s survival in this universe.

But he doesn’t have to speak, because all of the air in his lungs whooshes right out of them when he feels you lift his arm up out of the water to your face—you brush your lips against the pulse point on his wrist before settling back against him, wrapping his arm back around you and covering his hands with your own.

Dazai’s cheeks suddenly feel wet—it was a simple action, short and sweet, you didn’t even say anything, and he doesn’t know why it affects him the way it does. He should have expected this, right? You’ve never looked at his scars and found them off-putting, you’ve always accepted him for how he is but-

“How could I accept any of this?”

“No amount of time or charm would have made me accept this easily. Accept you easily.”

Again, your words shatter his thoughts and Dazai has to force himself not to physically react. As if you can sense his distress, you shift in his arms a bit to tilt your head back to ghost your lips against his jawline before settling back against his chest, eyes fluttering shut. His arms tighten around you, heart steadying in pace to match yours. He rests forehead against the top of your head, shivering when he feels you nuzzle your face into his skin, nose brushing the wretched scar that mars his neck.

“Osamu,” you finally say, voice soft. He hums in response, waiting for you to continue. “What I said the night of the event…”

Dazai’s throat spasms. He swallows thickly and tries to play off your words with another soft hum and a brush of his lips against your temple. He’s careful to keep his voice light as he speaks. “You had every right to be upset, I-”

“I… have had a lot of time to think the past two weeks.” You don’t even let him finish his sentence and Dazai is suddenly frozen, no air gets to his lungs as he waits for you to speak. “What I said that night… it doesn’t reflect how I actually feel. I said them in the heat of the moment.”

“… Yeah?” Dazai’s voice is too raspy, too quiet, the vulnerability in the single word is so palpable that it almost makes him want to curl in on himself. Without his bandages, without his masks, he feels as if he’s been stripped bare to his core, his rotted heart laying in your gentle hands, thumping erratically as he awaits your judgment.

“The past few months I’ve spent with you have been the happiest I’ve been since my brother left,” you admit, lacing your fingers with his. “No matter what happens, I wouldn’t give this up for anything. If I could go back in time and redo all of this, I’d still choose to meet you that night at the club, and every time after that.”

He’s grateful that you’re not looking up at him now. He stares ahead at the wall blankly, tears streaming steadily down his cheeks. His chest is warm, breath a bit shaky, and he thinks he might be holding you too tightly but you don’t complain.

“Nothing will happen,” Dazai promises you, voice cracking. “Nothing.”

“I know,” you say quietly, and he can feel the small smile on your lips as you kiss his neck gently, right over his scar. “I trust you.”

“I’m so nervous,” you laugh as you smooth out the dress shirt you’re wearing. Dazai watches as you keep glancing at yourself through the window of the elevator leading down to the first floor. He smiles to himself as he leans against the wall, observing you. “Are you sure I look okay? I don’t even know what the dress code is for this thing, they didn’t say in the email. What if people are just wearing jeans? I’ll look dumb all dressed up.”

“You look beautiful,” Dazai murmurs, lifting his hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “You worry too much.”

“I’m not the best at making friends,” you say, voice quick and riddled with anxiety. Dazai raises an eyebrow, lips quirking up because he thinks that might be the silliest thing he’s ever heard you say. “I hope I can at least find a few people to talk to. I hate going to events where I don’t know anyone. I wish you could come with me. What if they all hate me?”

Dazai has an answer to that question, but he doesn’t think you’ll like it, so instead he hums softly, fingers brushing your cheek and smiling lightly to himself as you lean into his touch. “I wish I could come with you too. If only to make sure you don’t forget about me when you find yourself surrounded by all your new friends.”

Dazai wishes that he could tell you that you’re worrying over nothing. That in every other universe, you were quite literally the center of your class. Brilliant, beautiful, kind, Dazai sometimes struggled to get you away from people because you always had someone wanting to grab coffee with you. Struggled even more to understand why you wanted him when you could have any man of your choice. But he can’t say that, and he’s definitely not going to be pleased if he suddenly loses all of his time with you to a bunch of undeserving nobodies, so he resigns himself to just making you feel better.

“Dazai Osamu,” you giggle as you turn your attention toward him. “Nothing in this world would ever make me forget you.”

Dazai’s cheeks heat up, lashes fluttering as he averts his gaze from you. You grin at him and hook your arms around his waist, tilting your head up to look at him. He leans down to press his lips against yours, letting out a pleased sigh against your lips when he feels you kiss him back, smiling against him.

You’ve been better the past few days, a bit more excited over starting school, spent all of yesterday trying on new clothes for him to pick out something to wear for today. Dazai, on the other hand, has been a nervous wreck, although he’s been doing his best to ensure you don’t realize that.

Everything has been put in place—Chuuya should be waiting at the train station already, Albatross will be driving you there, the Black Lizards are going to escort you into Tokyo, and Mishima offered to have his men do sweeps of the streets to scope out for any enemies before your arrival. As long as everything goes according to plan, it’ll be fine. The riskiest part will be the train station with how busy it is, it’ll be easy for you to get separated from your escorts, but so long as Chuuya gets to you, no one will be able to touch you.

“Everything will be fine,” he unintentionally says out loud as he separates his lips from yours to kiss your forehead.

You look up at him, eyes searching his face for something, and he prays you can’t see his growing anxiety. Finally, you say without any doubt, “I know.”

Dazai lets out a soft breath as his eyes slide shut, reaching out to intertwine your fingers with his as the elevator comes to a stop at the first floor. He leads you out of the elevator and across the vast lobby, various lower-ranked members still linger around the room, but much less than there usually is considering he’s sent almost all of them out to ensure everything goes according to plan. For a moment, Dazai’s head throbs painfully—there are so many variables. He starts to question his decision of making this such a large operation but he knows that this is the only way.

He knows Dostoevsky. He knows that he’ll leap onto this opportunity. Keeping this a small, secret operation would do more harm than help when Dazai is sure that Dostoevsky is about to use the full force of the Three Deaths, the Pale Flame and the House of the Dead to make his move. He’d be shooting himself in the foot if he didn’t use all of his available resources to keep you safe.

“Can I ask a silly question?” you suddenly ask, playing with his fingers as the two of you walk across the lobby.

“Ask away,” he says.

“Do you think there are other universes out there?”

Dazai almost laughs, but he refrains. “I do,” he agrees, and then smiles a bit to himself, repeating words spoken to another him by a different you, a joke only he’s privy to. “String theory, multiverse. I think the world’s a lot bigger than just ours.”

“Yeah?” you ask, looking up at him, a soft expression on your face. “Do you think we’re together in all of them?”

This time Dazai does laugh, squeezing your hand gently when you jolt in surprise, giving him a dirty look. “I’m sure of it,” he says, trying to push away the smile that keeps threatening to rise to his lips.

Your smile softens at the edges, gaze averting from him, but before he can ask what’s wrong, you ask: “Do you think there’s maybe one where things aren’t so hard?”

Dazai suddenly has no inclination to laugh, smile falling and throat swelling. He doesn’t know how to respond to that, but luckily, he doesn’t have to.

Kouyou and Piano Man are waiting at the entrance of the building, both having remained behind to guard him while most of the Mafia’s other forces are elsewhere. Kouyou doesn’t look pleased, Dazai can see it in the way her brows are furrowed and her lips are tight, but Piano Man still has the same easygoing expression on his face that he always has, gaze focused on you.

“Lippmann told me to pass along his regards,” Piano Man sighs. “He’s been lamenting all morning not being able to be here himself to send you off. The struggles of celebrity life, I suppose.”

You laugh. Dazai can tell from the way your lashes flutter that you’re flustered by the comment. “It’s not a big deal, really. It’s only orientation. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“It’s exciting though,” Piano Man sighs whimsically. “We never have normal things to be excited about around here. It’s only ever bloodbath after bloodbath. It’s a nice change of pace.”

Dazai’s smile tightens and thins, eye twitching at Piano Man’s blase reminder of their occupation, noticing how you cringe a bit. Piano Man catches wind of Dazai’s irritation and his casual smile widens a bit.

“Sorry,” Piano Man hums, sounding not at all sorry and entirely amused. “But honestly, if you think this is bad, wait until your graduation. Iceman didn’t let any of us attend his kid sister’s graduation, we’ve all been dying to see what one’s like. I’m sure Lippmann and Albatross are already plotting out some type of party.”

“I haven’t even started yet,” you complain, but you look a bit giddy and Dazai can’t help but let his gaze linger on your soft smile, one rising to his own lips as he observes you. “It’s so far out. It’s a three year program.”

“I think they plan on making it the grandest event of the year, so it’s never too early to start planning,” Piano Man says easily, tossing you a wink before focusing his gaze on Dazai. “Speaking of Iceman, he’s on the way back now. Should be back in Yokohama in the next hour or so. Are you going to deign us with the reasoning as to why he’s been called back so abruptly?”

“Nope,” Dazai says dismissively, letting go of your hand to press his hand to the small of your back, leading you out of the building and toward the sleek, black car waiting for you.

Albatross instantly is rolling down the window, grinning wildly. “There ya are, doll. C’mon, let’s get out of here. We gotta make it to the train in ten.”

You suddenly look a bit nervous, turning back to look at Dazai as Tachihara steps out of the car and holds the door open for you to slide in the middle seat between him and Hirotsu. Dazai tilts his head, questioning as he lifts his hands to cup your cheeks gently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you say with a sigh. “I just wish you could come.”

Dazai leans in to kiss your forehead one last time, hands settling on your hips, ignoring all of the gazes of his subordinates watching the two of you. “I know, I do too.”

Dazai thinks that the next six hours are going to be the worst of his life, only able to sit back in the meeting room with Kouyou and Piano Man and watch the CCTV, unable to do anything if something happens to go wrong.

“Stay with Hirotsu and Tachihara,” he finally tells you, voice taking a more serious tone. “They’ll stick with you the whole time. Chuuya is at the station already, went early to scope things out, he’s going to meet you there.”

“Mkay,” you agree, giving him one last long look before making your way into the car.

Tachihara nods deeply at Dazai before entering the car and shutting it behind him. Dazai feels a weight on his chest as soon as you’re out of sight, and he stands there waiting for the car to pull off.

It doesn’t.

After a few moments, the window rolls down, and Dazai watches fondly as you lean over Tachihara to prop yourself outside of it.

“I’ll see you later,” you say, leaning out the window of the car with a soft smile. For the first time in weeks, you look alive. Your eyes are shining, your lips curved upward, and Dazai falls in love with you all over again. The smile on your lips takes a more teasing edge as you push yourself out the window a bit more to grab his tie and drag him closer so you can brush your lips against his and whisper, “I love you.”

Dazai’s eyes shoot open, lips parting to speak but no words leave them, your words leave him caught off guard and dizzy, hardly even registering in his head. You let out a giggle and before he can even think of formulating a response, you let yourself fall back into the car, urging Albatross to start driving already.

“To think I’d ever see the day that the infamous Demon Prodigy is ever rendered lovesick,” Kouyou hums, fanning herself as she watches Dazai curiously. “You’re actually happy now, aren’t you?”

“Refreshing, isn’t it?” Piano Man sighs. “Now, we don’t have to worry about being shot in the head if he has a sudden mood swing.”

Dazai looks to the side to give Piano Man a look so withering that it has him instantly giggling to himself.

“Or maybe we do,” he sings, retracting his words. “Come, let’s go back inside. It’s gross out today.”

Piano Man instantly starts making his way back into the building. Dazai sighs as he casts one last long look to where the car is disappearing around the bend in the direction of the train station, gaze lingering before he turns his attention back to Kouyou, who’s still watching him with a contemplative look. Dazai is suddenly reminded of her late lover, who the old boss had killed after Kouyou tried to escape with him, and Dazai wonders if she’s feeling bitter.

As if she can hear his train of thought, she shakes her head and says, “I’m glad you’ve found someone, boy.” Then hesitates before adding, “For all of our sakes, I hope it lasts.”

Dazai doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he frowns and turns to make his way inside, but he doesn’t get more than a few steps before he’s freezing midstep, the sound of a familiar engine roaring down the street in the direction of the main tower reaching his ears. At once, everything tunnels around him, vision blurring and body stiffening. He can’t even bring himself to turn around. Distantly, he hears Kouyou asking him what’s wrong, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

He swears that his bones creak and ache as he physically forces himself to look over his shoulder, unfocused vision falling upon a familiar head of fiery red hair skidding to a stop in front of the building. Chuuya doesn’t even bother to turn his motorcycle off or prop it up, it thuds hard against the ground, metal screeching against the pavement as he rushes toward them.

“Chuuya,” Kouyou asks, as confused and caught off guard as Dazai feels. “What are you-”

“Get him inside,” Chuuya shouts. “Get him inside now.”

“Why are you here?” Dazai speaks the words so quietly that he doesn’t think anybody hears him. He feels Kouyou grab his wrist, Chuuya reaches them and pushes Dazai from behind, but their touches only feel like faint tingles. His chest suddenly feels cold, numbness spreading from his core to his limbs. “Why are you here?”

“Tolstoy just blew up our main port, Dazai,” Chuuya hisses, and just before Dazai’s shoved into the safety of the building, a bullet whizzes past his head, lodging into the sign behind him. Only a graze, but it stings, and Dazai can feel the blood seeping through the bandages of his left eye, sticky and uncomfortable. “This is happening now. I thought I could make it before they left. All cell lines are fucking down. That rat bastard Dostoevsky did something.”

No, Dazai thinks, head twisting to the side to look back toward the road you disappeared down with Albatross, Tachihara and Hirotsu, but before he can even force any words from his lips, he’s pushed into the building, listening as Chuuya gives sharp orders to immediately lock it down.

Dazai shakes his spinning head, body on autopilot as he’s ushered to the elevator and up to the most protected floor of the building. He tells himself to think, that now is not the time for him to start slipping up, for him to freeze. You’re out there—in danger—he has to think, he can’t afford to make a single mistake.

“You have to go. Chuuya, you’re supposed to be at the station,” Dazai says, finally focusing his attention on the one person who is not supposed to be here. The one person he trusted to protect you.

“You’ve sent three quarters of our forces out on a protection detail for her. She’ll be fine,” Chuuya spits, eyes wild as he turns to face Dazai. “You’re here in this building alone with a handful of men, Ane-san and Piano Man. You’re the one in danger right now. I told you—your head is mine to take one day. I’m not fuckin’ letting you go off and get yourself killed because you’re hyper-focused on your girl.”

“Get to the train station,” Dazai repeats, voice low and cold and entirely too steady compared to the way his mind is falling apart.

It’s happening.

He knew this was going to happen. He knew it. He knew this was coming. He knew Dostoevsky would take this opportunity to make his move, that’s why he had everything planned so carefully. That’s why he sent everyone out. That’s why Chuuya was supposed to be with you, because Dazai isn’t Dostoevsky’s target. He never is. You are.

Chuuya ignores him, stepping into the executive meeting room. Dazai’s blood pressure spikes. Fear begins spreading through him, cold and debilitating. The mindkiller. He needs to focus, he can’t let himself freeze up. Not now.

“Chuuya,” Dazai says. “That’s a direct order. Go back to the train station now.”

At that, Chuuya finally turns a furious look into him. “Me not being there isn’t going to make a difference. Me not being here might. You’re all but fucking defenseless and Tolstoy and Nabokov are coming now. We don’t have time to argue about this. Hirotsu and Tachihara, Atsushi and Kyouka, all of the fuckin’ Black Lizards—they’re all with her or at the train station, she’ll be fine.”

If Dazai was any less riddled with fear and rage, he might laugh or maybe even cry, or both—he feels close to hysterics, really—because of course now, of all times, is when Chuuya decides to grow a fucking brain for himself.

“And if you’re wrong?” Dazai doesn’t even want to speak those words, but Chuuya leaves him no choice. “If she dies because the dog thought himself smarter than the master? What then, Chuuya?”

Chuuya all but snarls at him, taking a step forward, but before he can say anything else, Kouyou clears her throat.

“Boys,” she calls quietly, eyes trained on one of the screens streaming the city’s CCTV feeds

Dazai follows her gaze.

On the top left corner of the wall of screens, one of the live footage is flooded with static—gray, shifting into a deep purple before a familiar symbol flashes onto it. The coldness in his chest spreads so quickly that Dazai almost shivers, dread anchoring his feet to the ground.

Dazai doesn’t have to look at the screen to know what’s coming next.

Oda Sakunosuke is a patient man.

He is. He really is. It’s just that Ranpo Edogawa enjoys testing the boundaries of said patience. He bites back another sigh, watching as the man—man, he questions—complains loudly about an ‘entitled mother’ who had the nerve to ask for his candy to calm her upset child down. Oda has half a mind to step away out of embarrassment, acutely aware of all of the eyes on them, but he knows that if he steps away even for a second, Ranpo is going to find himself lost and then Oda is going to have to track him down again.

Oda sighs, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he tilts his head up to look at the ceiling, listening to the announcements over the loudspeaker, signaling the arrival of the next train. Two minutes until it pulls into the station, an hour to get to Tokyo—gives him plenty of time to go back over the files for the mission. Should be a quick in-and-out case, probably won’t even have to stay the night in the city; a string of ability-user murders in Tokyo that have the TMPD in shambles trying to figure out, so they reached out to the Agency to come take care of it.

Oda doubts it’ll take more than half a minute for Ranpo to put the pieces together once given the known evidence by the TMPD, but the issue will be actually getting the ability user in custody. From what Ranpo theorizes, he has some type of invisibility ability that makes him slippery.

With Oda there, it’ll be an easy grab—with his ability, speed and reflexes, few people can outmaneuver him—but it’s just a matter of when he decides to show himself.

Oda frowns when he notices that Ranpo suddenly stopped rambling, gaze cutting to make sure that he didn’t wander off again, but he’s hardly able to turn his head halfway to the side before his ability is activated. Everything blurs out around him, watching as a girl a few years younger than him—panicked and not looking where she’s going—crashes right into Oda while he’s already off-balanced reaching for Ranpo, sending the both of them hurdling over the edge of the platform and into the tracks just as the bullet train comes barreling into the station.

Oda’s jaw tightens as he’s flung back into reality, surroundings reappearing. His head snaps over to where the girl had appeared from and he catches sight of you just as you’re about to throw yourself out of the crowd, eyes wild and anxious. He watches you trip, hands darting out to steady you before you crash into him; you look up at him, eyes wide and a bit starstruck, lips parting to speak but no words leave them.

“Are you okay?” he asks, voice a low monotone as he helps you stand back up straight on your own feet. His head tilts to the side curiously as he watches the way you stand a bit closer to him, eyes peering around as if you’re reaching for someone. “Hm?”

“Oh!” you suddenly say, looking up at him with a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry. Sorry. That was so rude of me. I… got separated from my friends. It’s really busy today, isn’t it? It’s not usually so busy.”

Oda hums, looking around curiously. It is a bit busier than it usually is—Friday trains are usually busy, but midday like this, people are usually at work. The late night trains are the ones typically packed and impossible to get on, people leaving from work and traveling for the weekend. Today’s not a holiday either, as far as he’s aware.

“It is, isn’t it?” Oda says, scanning the crowd once more before letting his gaze settle back on you. “You look rattled, is everything okay?”

Your smile wavers at the edges, and Oda frowns, eyes trailing over to Ranpo, who’s already frowning, green eyes squinted and trained on you.

“I’m just… not used to traveling alone! I’m nervous,” you answer, a blatant lie, but you don’t seem like a threat. In fact, you seem more scared than anything else. “I want to find my friends.”

“Is someone bothering you?” Oda asks carefully.

You hesitate, smile straining. Your eyes flicker around again, seeking someone out and Oda can see the despair in them when you don’t find whoever you’re looking for.

“I’m okay,” you say finally, nodding. “I’m trying to get to Tokyo. I have orientation today for grad school. I don’t like traveling alone.”

Oda tilts his head to the side, he takes a step closer to Ranpo than you as an experiment, watching as you immediately match his step, sticking close to him as you continue seeking out your ‘friends.’ You don’t seem like a threat, and his ability has yet to be triggered, but it wouldn’t be the first time underground organizations use civilians as decoys to set up traps for the Agency. He spares another look at Ranpo, knowing the man must’ve figured out whatever is going on, only to find him staring at you with a tight jaw and an uneasy expression.

“What school are you attending?” Oda asks in an attempt to calm your nerves and hopefully get some answers out of you.

You look at him, a bit more clarity in your eyes and smile more steady as you say. “Waseda,” you say, brighter now, more relaxed. “Their school of political science.”

“You tryna go into politics?” Oda asks curiously.

You nod. “One day, hopefully,” you say with an easy smile before giving him your name. “What’s your name?”

“Oda Sakunosuke,” he greets. “Nice to meet you.”

“You’re heading to Tokyo too?” you ask curiously, and Oda doesn’t sense any ill intent behind the question so he answers.

“Yes,” he says. “Going there for work.”

“Oh? What do you do for work?”

Oda pauses for a moment, choosing his words carefully on the off-chance this is some sort of setup, before saying: “I’m trying to write a novel.”

You light up. “Really?” you ask, delighted. “That’s so impressive, what about?”

“… Humans. The human experience,” Oda answers, glancing back at Ranpo again with furrowed brows, but the man hardly budges, gaze pinned on you.

“Oh yeah?” you ask, the smile on your lips becomes a bit teasing. Oda finds his own lips twitching up in amusement. “What’s your take on the human experience then, Oda Sakunosuke? Will your story have a happy ending?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he tells you honestly, and then tilts his head to the side and asks curiously, “How would you end it?”

You click your tongue as if to chide him. “Shame on you, Oda Sakunosuke, trying to poach ideas from broke grad students,” you say, voice taking a dramatic lilt, but there’s a light to your eyes that hadn’t been there before, so Oda thinks his plan at least partially worked.

“Almost grad students,” Oda corrects, matching your tone as he lets his eyes drift around again, trying to pinpoint what exactly had you so frightened before running into him. “Take pity on an old man plagued with writer’s block, won’t you?”

“I suppose I can grace you with my boundless wisdom,” you quip, and Oda snorts to himself, eyes drifting back down to you as you grin up at him. After a few moments, your smile falls a bit. “I think a happy ending is nice to imagine… We like to indulge in such fantasies because real life is never so easy. I think if you’re going for an accurate telling of the human experience, a bittersweet ending would be more realistic.”

“Bittersweet?” Oda questions.

“Bittersweet,” you agree. “I think many people die content, or even happy… I don’t think many people die without regrets. So, I think a story on an accurate telling of the human experience should have a bittersweet ending to reflect that.”

“Hm,” Oda hums, considering you in a new light now, the way your eyes are a bit sadder, the smile on your lips soft on the edges. He finds himself far more into this conversation than he expected to be, so absorbed that he hardly even realized that the train has finally pulled into the station. “What about you, then? Do you think you’ll die with regrets?”

“Who’s to say?” You shrug with another bright smile. “I think if I were to die right now, I’d die with one regret. But I’d be happy.”

“Only one?”

“Only one,” you confirm. “I… wish I’d met someone sooner. That’s all. What about you, Oda Sakunosuke? If you died right now, would you die with regrets?”

“Countless,” Oda says quietly. “... But I think I would also be happy.”

“See.” You wink. “Bittersweet.”

Oda’s lips flicker up into a ghost of a smile, lips parting to speak, but suddenly someone is calling your name frantically, loudly from across the train platform. You light up, head twisting in that direction and Oda follows your gaze to where a young man with short orange hair is waving his hand, perched up on a garbage can, looking around for you.

“That’s one of my friends,” you say, looking relieved. “I’m going to head over to him. It was nice meeting you, Oda Sakunosuke.”

“Nice meeting you too,” he replies.

You toss him another wide smile before turning to leave, but before you can even take the first step, Ranpo finally moves, fingers curling around your wrist to stop you in place. Oda looks down at him, alarmed, and you look back, surprised.

“You should… be careful,” Ranpo tells you, more serious than Oda has ever seen him before, and Oda feels a sinking feeling in his gut as Ranpo lets go of your wrist.

You look a bit disturbed, but you nod. “I-I will. Thank you.”

“What was that?” Oda asks, voice low and concerned as he looks down at Ranpo, whose brows are still furrowed. He still looks uncertain, and Oda doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ranpo Edogawa uncertain before.

Dread weighs heavily on Oda’s chest, his gaze turns back to where you’ve started to quickly make your way across the platform along the yellow line in the direction of your friend, who has finally caught sight of you and is rushing toward you, looking too panicked for someone who’d just found someone they lost.

“Something is wrong,” Oda murmurs more to himself than Ranpo, and at once, he activates his ability.

The world slows and grays out around him, but his gaze remains focused on you. He watches.

One second passes, you take another step forward, your friend is still too far away.

Another second passes, another step forward.

A third second, and something is shimmering right next to you, a gold circle to your left, swirling with patterns—an ability.

A fourth second passes, and you turn, eyes wide and fear painted on your face as a gloved hand darts from the circle and wraps around your wrist; your friend reaches down to his waistband, revealing the gun strapped to his side.

A fifth second passes, and you’re gone.

His ability fades away, leaving him back reeling in reality, ready to act on what he’d seen. He rushes forward, heart racing in his chest, and he can hear Ranpo giving chase after him.

One second passes—you’re still too far away, you’ve made it across half of the platform already, Oda knows he won’t get to you in time, but he tries anyway.

Another second passes—Ranpo is yelling for him, Oda ignores him.

A third second passes—the swirling gold circle appears to your left, and Oda knows that it’s too late.

Oda Sakunosuke is fast, but this time, he is not fast enough.

Chuuya knows that this is his fault.

The sickening scene taking place on the screens set up in the executive meeting room has his stomach turning inside out. He has to manually force himself to breathe, slow and steady, because if he doesn’t, he won’t get any air to his lungs. Next to him, Kouyou stands stiffly, gaze trained on the damning video and on his other side, Piano Man looks resigned, head turned to the side, attention focused on the blacked out windows looking over the city.

Chuuya can’t see Dazai’s expression from where he’s standing, and he’s glad for it.

You’re sitting at a table with Dostoevsky. It’s a small, square table in an equally small, unassuming room. Tiled walls, a thick steel door, no windows—it’s an abandoned office room down in the lower floors of the metro, emptied out besides the table, two seats, and you and Dostoevsky.

A small room. Unassuming. Enclosed and suffocatingly confined. Cold and damp. There is no sun, no warmth, and no life.

Not a place where anyone should die, much less someone as bright as you.

“Ah, there we go!” Dostoevsky smiles as if this is all some big game to him and Chuuya’s temper spikes, blood simmering in his veins and eye twitching as he glares at the Russian. “The cameras should now be connected.”

Chuuya did not hold you in high regard for a long time. He thought you were a pretty face, but more than that, you were a distraction. You showed up one day and suddenly Dazai couldn’t focus on anything but you. He evaded important meetings, and the ones that he attended were spent either zoning out or tapping away at his phone talking to you. It left Chuuya as the one to pick up the slack, so yeah, he certainly did not hold you in high regard, and he’s not entirely sure when it began to change.

Or, maybe that’s a lie.

He thinks back to the day he ran into you coming out of the elevator, when you dragged him around half of the city looking for a very particular brand of white chocolate for whatever sugary concoction you wanted to make Dazai; and the way you pouted and begged and pleaded with him to try some when you make it for Dazai to the point that he wanted to agree, if Dazai wouldn’t have tried to blow his head off for intruding on his time with you.

He thinks that’s when his view on you started to shift, because it’s not often that Chuuya is treated like an actual human being, a twenty-two year old with a love for fine wine and music, instead of the mafia executive he is, a weapon of war that can bring down nations. As irritated as he was having to take time out of his day to babysit Dazai’s new plaything, he found you made for good conversation and that it was nice talking about things other than missions, politics and violence.

You like talking about music with him and you ramble a lot about conspiracy theories and history—he thinks he’s learned more about the classical era of Europe and the Sengoku period the past few weeks joining you on outings than he’s learned in his entire life. Chuuya thinks you might be the first real friend he’s made since the Flags. You have more life in you than anyone Chuuya has ever met before, and Chuuya thinks it’s fucking sick that you’ll be drained of it by the likes of a soulless bastard like Dostoevsky.

Chuuya also thinks, again, that this is entirely his fault.

“I had a nice talk with your lover, Dazai,” Dostoevsky says with a facetious smile. “She’s quite enchanting. It’s a shame that she ended up with the likes of you.”

Chuuya thought he’d be able to make it in time. He really thought he did. He thought he’d be fast enough to get back before you took off with Albatross, Tachihara and Hirotsu; he thought he’d be able to drag you with him and Dazai, lock the two of you up in the most well-protected room in the headquarters to wait out the assault of Dostoevsky’s tripartite alliance; he can still hear the gunfire now as they bombard the lower floors of the building. Chuuya should be down there helping his subordinates but he can’t bring himself to move, staring at what his decision had caused with a heavy heart and more guilt than his mind can come to terms with. It was never his intention to leave you out there to die.

He wouldn’t do that to you.

He wouldn’t do that to Dazai. No matter how much he can’t stand the asshole, he wouldn’t fucking do that.

“I have offered a deal to her, Dazai,” Dostoevsky muses, head tilted to the side as he looks up at the camera in the corner of the room, thin fingers wrapped neatly around your wrist. “A fair exchange. But I leave it in her hands, not yours. Either way, I will get what I want.”

How the hell does that work?

Chuuya lets out a shaky breath, gaze flickering over to Kouyou, who stares at the screen with a tight expression, brows drawn together and lips cut downward. He can hardly bring himself to look at Dazai, but he forces himself to shift to the side, looking down to where Dazai is sitting in front of the wall of screens, eyes trained on where you’re sitting with Dostoevsky.

Dazai’s expression is eerily blank, more so than Chuuya has ever seen it before. It makes his throat swell, the air to his lungs catching in his windpipe. He’s seen Dazai distraught before—the night on the roof years ago when he was drunk and screaming at Chuuya to just let him jump. He’s seen Dazai upset before—a few months after his sixteenth birthday, before the Dragon’s Head Conflict commenced, when he returned to headquarters with an expression so haunted that Chuuya didn’t dare utter a single snarky word to him.

He’s never seen him like this before. Visible eye entirely void of life as if whatever part of him that had been reanimated by your arrival in his life has been killed off. As if he knows exactly what’s about to happen, as if he knows there’s no stopping it. But Chuuya can see the way the corner of Dazai is pinched, the way his face, while blank, is hard, and Chuuya knows Dazai well enough to know exactly what that means: that if there’s any chance of preventing this, Dazai is going to do whatever it takes.

“Fair exchange is a funny way of saying I’ll die either way,” you say softly. Your voice is bitter; you’re not looking at Dostoevsky or the camera, instead your gaze is set on the wall next to you, an unreadable expression on your face.

Dostoevsky turns his attention back to you, eyes curious. “I am no liar, I gave you my word that you’ll leave this room alive, myshka,” Dostoevsky hums, lips curved up into an entertained smile. Chuuya’s eye twitches at the pet name. “Go on and tell Dazai what I ask for in exchange… I am quite curious to see how far he’s willing to go for you.”

How far?

Even Chuuya knows the answer to that, and from the expression on Dostoevsky’s face, he must know the answer too.

Ah, Chuuya realizes, his own question now answered. How does that work? Dostoevsky tells you the deal, and you have to make the decision of whether or not to tell Dazai. If you tell Dazai, there’s no lengths he wouldn’t go to fulfill Dostoevsky’s demands if it means saving you. And Chuuya suddenly understands why Kouyou looks so grave, because there’s only one thing Dostoevsky wants: Yokohama and the Port Mafia out of his way. Dazai out of the way.

Dazai would hand it all to him on a silver platter if it meant saving your life. Yokohama. The Port Mafia. He’d let Dostoevsky put a bullet through his head if it meant you’d get to live.

“Dazai,” Kouyou begins, and her voice wavers. Chuuya doesn’t think he’s ever heard Kouyou’s voice waver in the seven years he’s known her. “You cannot-”

Kouyou doesn’t finish her sentence. Doesn’t need to. They all know what she’s going to say, and Chuuya doubts that Dazai is listening anyway. He looks at Kouyou from the corner of his eye and she meets his gaze, a heavy expression on her face.

“You gave me your word that I’d leave this room alive. What happens when I step outside?” you ask with a sigh, looking back over to meet Dostoevsky’s eyes. “You’ll get what you want from Dazai and kill me anyway.”

You look tired and Chuuya’s stomach weighs down with guilt again. God, what the fuck has he done? You were on your way to your fucking grad school orientation and Chuuya signed your goddamn death warrant. You had so much ahead of you. You never belonged in this shitty world, and an instinctual part of Chuuya wants to curse Dazai for it, for dragging you into this and putting you into this situation.

But even as the thought crosses his mind, he tosses it away, because how the fuck is he supposed to condemn Dazai for clinging to the only damn thing that makes him happy as if Chuuya doesn’t do the same? His gaze turns back down to Dazai, frowning when he sees that he’s no longer staring at the screen intently. He’s leaned back in his chair, still looking at the screen but his eyes are glazed over, as if he’s not fully present.

As if he’s given up.

“So meticulous,” Dostoevsky murmurs, he reaches to brush his knuckles against your cheek. The noise that Chuuya lets out is close to a snarl when he sees the way your lips tighten in disgust as you turn your face away from him only for him to pinch your chin between his fingers to force you to look at him. He glances down at Dazai, only to find that he’s hardly even reacted to what’s happening. “You are very intelligent… I would have loved to have a woman like you at my side.”

“People like you are fated to be alone, Fyodor Dostoevsky,” you reply, lips curved down as you stare at him. “What a terrible fate. I’d always prefer a short and fulfilling life than a long and solitary one.”

Your gaze draws back up to the camera as if you’re desperately trying to convey something to Dazai: I don’t regret this. If I had the choice, I’d do it all the same.

Chuuya doesn’t even think Dazai can understand it in the state he’s in.

Chuuya’s stomach twists and turns, he has to take a step away, breathing in a shuddered breath as he pulls his hat off to run his fingers through his hair. He presses his hand to his face, trying to calm himself down, but his ears are ringing and the black coffee he’d downed before heading over to the train station is threatening to come right up his throat.

And if you’re wrong?

Dostoevsky’s hand drops from your face, but his other remains wrapped around your wrist. He smiles as if telling a joke that only he understands. “Maybe in another universe you and I can work together.”

Dazai jolts at the words and Chuuya looks at him again, watching the way he draws in a sharp, shuddered breath. Chuuya’s lips part. He doesn’t know if he’s trying to speak or force himself to breathe, but his eyes land on Dazai just as the man finally breaks.

If she dies because the dog thought himself smarter than the master?

It’s brief. His expression crumbles and he quietly wheezes for air, hand flying to his chest as if trying to claw his own heart out, as if his brain has only finally registered what was happening. Kouyou and Piano Man are too focused on you and Dostoevsky to notice, but Chuuya thinks if he stares any longer at the screen, he might fall apart. His expression smooths out again immediately after it shatters, his eye takes that distant look again, as if he’s totally separated himself from reality.

“Is that your decision then, myshka?” Dostoevsky asks, voice deceptively soft. Chuuya has to drag his eyes back to the screen, teeth grinding together when Dostoevsky’s hand leaves your wrist to cup your cheek, running his thumb over your bottom lip.

To your credit, you don’t look scared and for a second, Chuuya doesn’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Dazai would do anything for you, give up anything, you have to know that. All you have to do is say what Dostoevsky wants and Dazai will do it no matter the cost. The irrational part of him, the one riddled with guilt and regret, almost wants you to just say what Dostoevsky wants, tell them and maybe they can figure something out, buy enough time to get you out of there.

(Another part of him, deep down, knows that it’s hopeless. With Dostoevsky’s hand in contact with you, your fate is sealed. No one will get there fast enough to get you away from him before he can trigger his ability.)

Chuuya realizes, a bit dully, maybe you do know that and maybe that’s exactly why you’re not saying anything. Whatever Dostoevsky wants of Dazai is not something that you can allow him to give up.

Chuuya also realizes, chest sinking, that Dazai probably knows you well enough to know this too. To know that you’d give up your life for his. He looks over at Dazai, the vacant look in his eye and the hopeless air about him. He knew this would happen the moment Chuuya showed back up on base, desperately trying to get him to go back to you.

A crash against the heavy metal door leading to the room that you and Dostoevsky are sitting in shocks Chuuya out of his thoughts, gaze snapping up as Dostoevsky lets out an exaggerated sigh.

“It appears our time is up,” Dostoevsky hums. “What a pity. I would have liked to talk with you more.”

What then, Chuuya?

Chuuya’s vision spins as Atsushi and Kyouka burst into the room you’re being held in. Atsushi, half-transformed, throws himself at you, trying to get you away from Dostoevsky. Kyouka, with her cell to her ear, commands Demon Snow to sever Dostoevsky’s hand from where he’s touching you, trying to sever the physical connection between the two of you before he can activate his ability.

Behind Dostoevsky, a gold swirl appears, a hand reaching out to grab his arm.

For a moment, Chuuya’s chest swells with hope, breath catching as watches raptly.

And they do it.

Dostoevsky’s expression twists as Demon Snow cuts through his elbow, severing his lower arm from the rest of his body, Atsushi’s arms wrap around you as he tackles you away from the Russian onto the ground. Dostoevsky is dragged backward into the gold swirl��Gogol, the teleportation ability—and Kyouka and Atsushi focus their attention on you.

He watches with bated breath, waiting as Atsushi fumbles to shift you into a more comfortable position. He leans forward, eyes a bit wild and nails digging into the palms of his hands.

Kyouka kneels next to Atsushi, blue eyes wide, and Atsushi’s expression crumbles as he finally turns you over in his lap. Chuuya’s breath slows, he takes a step back as he shakes his head.

What then, Chuuya?

Blood stains the corner of your lips, eyes empty, body limp in Atsushi’s arms. No one is faster than the triggering of an ability. Chuuya knew this. How many people have tried to kill him only to be thwarted in a split second by Tainted Sorrow? Still, he had allowed the hope to claw its way up into his chest, clinging to the thinnest thread that maybe, just maybe, his decision won’t have cost you your life, and in an instant, that hope is stripped and Chuuya is forced to face the consequences of his actions.

Next to Chuuya, Piano Man lets out a shaky breath, turning away from the screen and pacing over to the window. Kouyou makes a soft noise in the back of her throat, eyes sliding shut.

Chuuya’s eyes drag from the screen back down to Dazai. Dazai stares ahead blankly, eye so black and void of light that if Chuuya didn’t know any better, he’d think he was staring into the eye of a corpse.

Dostoevsky might’ve been your executioner, but Chuuya had been the judge to impose the death sentence.

Onto you, and onto Dazai.

You thought that you would be scared of dying.

Your mind is distant and dazed as you fall backward to the ground, familiar hands wrap around one of your arms and your waist as you’re dragged away from Dostoevsky. You taste iron in your mouth, red tints the corner of your vision, you don’t feel any pain but from the way your limbs become numb and heavy, you know what’s happening.

Maybe you’re just in shock, mind unable to comprehend what’s happening, but you don’t think that’s it. You’d known what was going to happen the moment you were pulled through that ability into this room, the moment Fyodor Dostoevsky told you the only way you’d make it out of here alive is if Dazai offered his own life in exchange.

Dazai would’ve done it. You know he would have. He would’ve accepted the deal and laid his life down for yours in an instant, but you couldn’t let him do that. He’d face pushback from his executives, they might even lock him up to prevent him from following through, and then he’d have to live with the fact that he had the chance to save you but failed.

You couldn’t force that choice on him.

Your vision blurs and tunnels, eyes fluttering shut, but your body jolts as someone flips you around, hazy gaze focusing in on someone kneeling next to you, whoever is holding you in his lap. Two vaguely familiar wide swirls of violet, gold, and blue hover above you and your surroundings start to bleed out, the white tiles of the walls around you and the two people who’d barged into the room disappear, the violets and golds and blues spread across your vision, melding into a sunrise painted across the early morning sky.

The hand on your body falls limply to the ground next to you, the tips of your fingers brushing through soft white sand. Your head tilts to the side, something warm trickling down your cheek from the corner of your eye.

You let out a weak breath, your vision clouds red and for a second, you swear there’s a figure laying next to you—lips curved up into a small, sad smile, dark eyes soft as he reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of your face. Dazai wears tan instead of the black you’re used to, both eyes uncovered as admires you. You can feel the ghost of his touch against your skin, warm and familiar.

Osamu…

You can hear the commotion around you, more people bursting into the room. You can feel your body weakening, but all you can think of is him.

Maybe in the next life.

Dazai doesn’t know where he is. Doesn’t know when he is. Doesn’t know what he’s doing. Doesn’t know who he’s with. Doesn’t know who he is.

Every step he takes, every second that passes, his surroundings become more and more indecipherable. He can hear the vague sounds of Chuuya, Kouyou and Piano Man talking around him but he can’t make out what they’re saying or what’s going on. He finds himself walking but he feels like he’s trudging through slush, as if time has slowed around him and he’s trying to impossibly push through it.

“Pull yourself together,” Piano Man murmurs as Dazai mindlessly moves forward, unsure of where he’s even being led to.

Every time his eyes slide shut, he’s faced with the image of you in that room with Dostoevsky, the sight of his fingers on your skin. He turns to look at Piano Man and for a moment, he’s lost, wondering how a dead man is standing before him. His lips part to speak but no words leave them, the black walls fade into the vaguely familiar tan and brown walls of the Agency, the coat he wears lightens and Piano Man’s face morphs into Yosano Akiko’s as she tries to snap him out of the stunned stupor he’s left in after finding your body in your apartment. He’d figured out Christie’s plot, but he’d been too late, and his mind had been entirely unable to come to terms with it. Because Dazai never fails, everyone relies on him to know what to do but-

But when it comes to you he just can’t win. No matter how hard he tries, he’s never enough. He’s never quick enough. Never smart enough. Never enough.

“...ey, hey, boss, are you even listening?”

Dazai blinks, gaze focusing back on Piano Man and he notices that he’s in the elevator, heading down. Chuuya and Kouyou are watching him carefully but Chuuya doesn’t meet his eyes. Dazai realizes Piano Man must have said something—asked something—but he doesn’t know what.

“We’re heading down to the first floor,” Piano Man finally says again. “The onslaught from Tolstoy and Nabakov ended-” Of course it has, Dostoevsky got what he wanted. “Albatross and-Albatross and the others are on the way back… We must be there to meet them.”

Dazai doesn’t respond. Doesn’t think he’d be able to if he wanted to. His brain is slow, still hasn’t comprehended what happened, still doesn’t entirely know where he is. The pages of the Book keep piling around him, endless and suffocating. He jumps from one reality to the rest, each time seeing the same scene in different fonts. He sees Piano Man and Kouyou exchange a look with one another but Dazai’s gaze is already pointed ahead again, staring through the reflective surface of the elevator doors.

Dazai doesn’t even recognize himself.

They still talk around him but all of the words sound muffled and faraway, like he’s underwater and they’re speaking above the surface. As Dazai stares into the doors, he swears he can almost picture you standing next to him, tucked beneath his arm and leaning into his side as the two of you wait for the elevator to reach the first floor. You smile up at him, he watches it through the reflection, heart in his throat as you lean up on your tiptoes to brush your lips against his jaw and he swears he can feel the ghost of your lips, the warmth.

But then the elevator doors slide open and the illusion of you is shattered.

Dazai’s breath shakes as he forces himself forward but he’s careful to keep his expression flat, ignoring the lines of subordinates already awaiting his arrival. They kneel as he walks past but Dazai hardly takes notice of them, eyes trained ahead.

And then-

And then Dazai sees it.

Hirotsu is holding you, your body is limp and lifeless. Dazai stops dead in his tracks. You look small in his arms and Dazai feels bile rise to the back of his throat, threatening to burst from his lips. Even from a distance, he can see the blood staining the corners of your lips and eyes, can see the way one of your arms dangle loosely from your body, can see how you’ve been entirely drained of life by Dostoevsky.

He wants to move forward, wants to pull you in his arms and shield you from all of the prying eyes around you, hates the way everyone is staring at you, wants to scream and curse the gods above who play with human lives like they’re some sort of game, who are laughing at Dazai for thinking he could get away with defying fate.

Most of all, he’s tired, and he wants to be with you.

The crowds of subordinates who’ve gathered on the lower floor of the building whisper amongst themselves. Some of them, who havent seen you around the base with him, are trying to figure out who you are. Others, who know exactly who you are to Dazai, let out low murmurs as they watch Dazai carefully, waiting for some type of reaction from him. A few, likely those who’ve spoken to you personally, lower their heads in respect.

Dazai tries to make himself take another step forward, pull you away from Hirotsu into his arms, hold you close, stop them from taking you away, but his feet are rooted to the ground.

One voice rises above the whispering crowds.

“What the fuck?”

Dazai’s gaze slides slowly to the side, watching as a vaguely familiar figure pushes to the front of the crowd, walking in the direction of you and Hirotsu. He blinks slowly, not recognizing who it is until Chuuya and Piano Man start moving toward him, both with furrowed brows and concerned words.

Ah, he realizes. Iceman.

Dazai had called him back to headquarters from abroad—but why? The cogs in his mind move slowly as he tries to remember why he brought Iceman back, why the man is having such an adverse reaction to the sight of-

To the sight of you.

Dazai’s eye shifts back to you, all of the air pushes out from his lungs when he notices the way your head has fallen to the side. Your eyes are shut but your face is tilted toward him and you look so-

You look so dead.

Everything around Dazai begins to tunnel and crumble. The buildings around him blurting into indistinct blobs and all of the crowds of his subordinates melding into the background. Iceman’s arrival, Chuuya and Piano Man trying to settle him down, it all becomes white noise as Dazai stares at you blankly.

How did this happen?

He’d-

He’d done everything right, hadn’t he? He’d done everything to make sure you would be protected. He’d clawed his way to the position of boss, annihilated all of the Mafia’s enemies to ensure that Yokohama would be safe for you. He’d sacrificed everything, how did it still turn out like this?

The white noise, the buzz of people around him, it all slowly shifts to laughter. The sight of Hirotsu holding your body turns into Dazai—a different Dazai—hunched over your limp form screaming his throat raw in your apartment. It turns into him sprinting through knee deep water with Yosano Akiko at his heels to get to your lifeless form floating face down in the water of the same beach you met him at. It turns into Chuuya catapulting himself through the air, desperately trying to get to you as you fall because Dazai can do nothing but watch—he fails. It turns into Mori stepping out of the hospital room he was treating you in, Dazai can’t hear what he’s saying but he knows—then Mori turns into Fukuzawa, Fukuzawa into Ango, all the same grave expressions, all the same fate.

It was never the Port Mafia’s enemies that were at fault for your death. Wasn’t Mimic or an affiliation with the Mafia, like it was for Odasaku. Wasn’t Dostoevsky. Wasn’t Christie.

It was Dazai.

Dazai is the reason you die in every universe.

The only way for him to save you from your fate is to stay away from you, and he couldn’t even do that. The only chance for him to give you a normal life—a long life—squandered because of his own selfishness.

The laughter gets louder, more manic—they laughed at him when you stumbled into him at the bar, when he tried to stay away, when he gave in to meeting you again. They laugh louder now that things have played out exactly as they knew it would. Dazai danced along perfectly to their marionette strings, as they knew he would from the beginning.

Fate.

Fatefatefatefatefatefatefatefatefatefatefatefate.

The word that’s haunted him since he was fifteen years old tears apart his mind, claws open his rotted heart from the dark crevice it’s slipped into the past thirty minutes. His vision goes spotty and his head feels light. He knew better. He knew this would happen. He knew-

“That’s my sister.” Again, Iceman’s voice rises above the laughter, a broken gasp that jolts Dazai from his spiraling thoughts. “That’s my sister—what the fuck?”

Ah. Dazai suddenly remembers why he called Iceman back to headquarters. Remembers laying in bed with you a few mornings ago—you were in his arms, warm and happy and alive, and Dazai was excited, figured out the mystery that’s been plaguing him for years. He put together who your brother was, wanted to give you the chance to see him again. Wanted to do something good for you.

And now-

Iceman whirls around, eye wild and expression feral as he focuses on Dazai. Dazai doesn’t know what Chuuya and Piano Man told him, but whatever it was has the man unhinged as he pushes Piano Man hard out of the way to throw himself at Dazai.

“What did you do?” Iceman roars. “What did you do?”

He reaches for the gun at his side, pulls it out and clicks off the safety in a split second—quick and efficient, as expected of the Port Mafia’s best assassin. Around Dazai, other members of the mafia raise their guns in defense of the boss, Dazai only distantly has the mind to raise his hand to order them to lower their weapons.

Chuuya stops Iceman before he can steady the gun at Dazai’s head and pull the trigger. He wrangles the larger man to the ground, using his ability to keep him down, yelling at him to calm the fuck down and explain himself. Iceman clearly has no intention of doing that from the way he futilely tries to throw off Chuuya and go for his gun again.

Dazai watches absently until Kouyou ushers him back into the building, not even giving Dazai the chance to hold you one last time. His chest caves in as soon as you’re out of sight, breath weak and ragged. Kouyou pinches his arm hard.

“Pull yourself together, boy,” she warns. “You cannot let them see you weak.”

Dazai wishes that Iceman had pulled the trigger.

Iceman has never been a good brother.

He was four years old when you came into his life, and when his mother tried to introduce him to his newborn sister, he’d turned his nose up and pouted, upset at no longer being the only child.

He was nine years old when his mother died, sacrificing herself to save a child in Motomachi Shopping Center when a drunk driver barreled down the sidewalk. When you tried to cling to him and cry, he pushed you away to mourn by himself, angry and grieving.

He was eleven years old when his father started to see his mother in you, taking out the bitterness he felt for her decision on you with cruel words and crueler hands when he would come home drunk after a long night of gambling away all of his money. A good brother would have stepped in to protect his little sister, but Iceman chose to turn a cheek and plug his ears when you would curl in bed at night and cry.

He was thirteen years old when he came home to you physically hurt for the first time, blood trickling down from a split lip as you curled in the corner of your shared room. Iceman had already started involving himself with the underworld by the point, so it only took a few sniffles and your fingers curling around his wrist for him to stay up all night, waiting for his father to fall asleep so he could press a pillow to his face, smothering him to death and leaving the two of you homeless without a dollar to your name.

He was fifteen years old when he officially joined the Port Mafia, desperate to get a roof over your head. Sixteen when he killed his second man. You never asked questions when he came home covered in blood and wounds, even though you definitely should have. He lied and told you he’d joined an underground fighting ring to try to make some money for you. You took care of him in a way that he never did for you, patching up his wounds with an easy smile and tender hands.

He was eighteen when he met the rest of the Flags after making a name for himself as one of the Mafia’s best assassins. He stopped coming around as much, spending his time at bars with the Flags, afraid that one day you’d figure out what he’s been doing for money, afraid that you would start to see him as a monster instead of the brother you still loved for whatever god forsaken reason.

He was twenty when he cut you off. After his near death experience at the hands of Verlaine, Iceman realized his life was much too dangerous to keep you in it. To provide for you and give you the life you deserve, he had to abandon his name and leave you behind, otherwise you would forever be at risk of people trying to kill you to get to him.

The best thing Iceman ever did for you as an older brother was cutting you off to let you live a long, fulfilling life away from the dark. Away from him.

And for what?

Iceman sighs as he fumbles in his pocket for another cigarette, already on his second pack of the day. He tilts his head back against the tree he’s leaning against, the muddy ground staining his pants. He lights the cigarette and takes a long drag, tilting his head down as a heavy feeling sweeps over him.

And for what?

It’s been two and a half weeks since he came back to Yokohama.

Two and a half weeks since your death.

Your death, the words still make him sick to his stomach, make him feel as if the world is collapsing around you. Iceman had always been sure of the two of you, he’d be the one to go first. The thought of outliving you—his little sister, the one person in the world he’d sacrifice everything to protect—was never even an option in his mind.

He’s spent just about every waking hour with you, trying to make up for the times he didn’t while you were still alive. You’d always hated the dark; he used to bitch and complain when the two of you shared a bedroom because you couldn’t sleep without a night light, and now he feels sick to his stomach thinking of you stuck out here in the dirt alone and in the dark.

The Flags have tried to drag him away, Lippmann pleading with him to come inside and sleep and Piano Man trying to coax him back with promises of drinks and fine food, but Iceman refused to budge. Chuuya sometimes joins him, brings a nice bottle of wine, cracks it open and after three glasses, starts choking over air, apologizing and begging for forgiveness—sometimes to Iceman, sometimes in front of your headstone.

Iceman enjoys their company—he does—but he thinks he prefers to be alone with you.

Which, unfortunately, seems to be a rare occurrence.

He sighs as he hears leaves crunching on the path leading up to your grave, gaze drawing to the side. At first, he figures it must be Chuuya dragging himself back to your grave, ready for another round of drinks and regret, but he pauses when he recognizes the long black cloak and red scarf donning the figure making his way over to your grave.

His fingers twitch down to the gun holstered down to his side, resentment and anger simmering dangerously beneath the surface.

Dazai Osamu kneels in front of your grave for the first time since your death. He did not attend your funeral. Didn’t come to see you laid into the ground. Didn’t pay respects. He’s spent two and a half weeks holed up on the top floor of the centermost building of headquarters with only Chuuya and Kouyou as company.

Iceman thinks he has some fucking nerve, being the reason that you’re six feet under and not even bothering to come see you.

His first reaction is to make himself known, rise to his feet and pull out his gun—an offense worthy of execution in the eyes of the rest of the Mafia, pulling a gun on its boss, but Iceman’s self-preservation was thrown out the window the moment he came back to headquarters to see you dead in Hirotsu’s arms and Dazai Osamu standing there like an emotionless statute as if he didn’t cause this.

But he hesitates when he sees the expression on Dazai’s face, lips trembling and visible eye glassy. Iceman doesn’t think he’s ever seen the boss in such a sorry state before—his bandages are yellowed and grimy as if he hasn’t changed them in weeks, his coat is wrinkled, scarf dirty, lips chapped and cracked. Dazai Osamu is a man that most people see as untouchable and unflappable, and even Iceman, riddled with grief and fury, can’t help but pause at the sight of him breaking.

“I thought I could stop it,” Dazai breathes out. Iceman startles a bit, irrationally thinking that the man is talking to him, but settles down when he realizes that he’s talking to you, eyes slid shut as he kneels before your headstone. “I tried so hard. I tried so hard to stop it.”

Iceman’s eyes lower at the sheer pain in Dazai’s voice, the hoarseness of grief that has his throat red and raw, has him stripped him bare to the bone. From where Iceman is sitting out of sight, he can see the way Dazai’s fingers are trembling in his lap, shoulders shaking.

“All of this was for you,” Dazai’s voice wavers as he speaks, cracking over his words. “All of it was for you-I don’t-what am I supposed to do now? Shit. What do I do? It’s all gone to waste, I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have-”

The noise that escapes Dazai’s throat is more belonging of a wounded animal than of a human. He curls over at his waist, blunt nails digging into the marble of your headstone, forehead resting against the cool stone.

Iceman squeezes his eyes shut, throat swollen, letting out a full body shiver at the sound. He forces himself to his feet, fingers enclosing around the grip of his gun, and makes his way over to where Dazai is kneeling. The man stiffens when he hears Iceman approach, straightening and tilting his head to the side to look at Iceman from the corner of his eye. His mouth dries a bit when he sees the tear streaking down Dazai’s pale skin.

“Are you here to kill me?” Dazai asks, voice raspy and throat sore. There’s a mocking edge to it that makes Iceman’s jaw click, as if Dazai is purposely trying to antagonize him. “Go on then, I left Chuuya behind. There’s no one to stop you this time.”

“You think you deserve to go see her already?” Iceman asks coldly.

He stares down at Dazai, watching as the facade cracks at Iceman’s words. The corner of Dazai’s lips twitch downward and his eye goes a bit hazy as it tracks back down to your headstone. He takes in another shuddered breath and Dazai’s shoulders finally slump over, lashes fluttering.

“I knew this would happen,” Dazai finally croaks out, voice weak and wavering. Iceman’s lips tightens at his words, flicking the safety off on his gun and pulling it from his holster. “I knew this would happen and I still sought her out.”

“Even a blind person could’ve seen how this would turn out,” Iceman spits out, pressing the muzzle of his gun to the back of Dazai’s head. He doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t react at all. A part of Iceman wonders if this is what he wants—to be put out of his misery. “This is on you.”

“I know,” Dazai says hoarsely. “... I know.”

Iceman knows that you loved Dazai Osamu for whatever fucked up reason. The same fucked up reason you probably still loved Iceman even after all of the bullshit that he did, and didn’t do, during your childhood. He forced Chuuya to get him the tape after he’d calmed down, watched the way you sat there with Dostoevsky, accepting your fate. Heard that you were given a choice, and the choice you made. He hadn’t been able to understand it at first—you’ve always been so full of life, excited for the future even at your lowest, he couldn’t fathom what could’ve possibly made you so accepting of death.

So he dug further, got Piano Man and Lippmann and Albatross roped up in his schemes. Heard the way you would act with Dazai, how happy you were and how happy he was. Forced Piano Man to get him tapes from around the base; he saw the way you looked at him and the way he looked at you.

You loved Dazai Osamu, and Dazai Osamu—a man that everyone had been convinced was incapable of emotion, a demon without a heart or conscious—loved you.

He takes in the dark bag beneath Dazai’s tired eye, the glassiness and lack of life within them, the sickly pallor of his skin, and the dirtiness of his clothes. His nails bleed from where he dragged them against the marble of your headstone and he can see a murky redness staining his yellowed bandages, peeking out from where his coat rode up his arm.

Iceman has not been the only one grieving you.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” Dazai finally rasps out. Less of a question, more of a beg, a far cry from the cold and brutal mafia boss that Iceman has come to know, and Iceman knows that Dazai Osamu died in the same moment you did, only a walking corpse remains in his place.

Iceman scoffs, holstering his gun. “Nah,” he says. “Whatever you’re doin’ to yourself. That’s worse than death.”

“…oss. Boss.”

Dazai’s gaze drags from the photo on his desk to where Chuuya has entered his office, tilting his head to the side as he waits for Chuuya to say whatever he came here to say. Chuuya hesitates and Dazai’s jaw tightens in annoyance. He’s been like this since you-

For three and a half weeks. He’s been like this for three and a half weeks. Constantly hovering, afraid to leave Dazai alone for too long. If Chuuya isn’t hovering, Kouyou is. Dazai can hardly get a moment alone and it’s becoming increasingly hard to continue the preparation for phase five, the final part of his plan. Everything is set in place, if all goes according to plan, tomorrow morning will be the long awaited moment.

In a little over twelve hours, he’ll be able to be with you again at last.

Four hours until Atsushi is to go to the Armed Detective Agency with the files that will antagonize Akutagawa into attacking the Mafia headquarters. Dazai expects that by three in the morning, the Agency would have managed to fully infiltrate the building, and Atsushi and Akutagawa will be clashing on the roof of the headquarters.

By dawn, it’ll be time.

But one major obstacle remains.

Dazai’s gaze draws back to Chuuya, who’s still standing in the door of his office, becoming increasingly more irritated by Dazai’s lack of a response. As long as Chuuya is around, Dazai is going to have trouble following through with the final step. The executive will do whatever it takes to prevent Dazai’s death, so Dazai needs to get him out of the way.

“Chuuya,” Dazai hums, “Wh-”

“We’ve captured Gogol.”

Dazai halts, fingers pausing from where they’d been thrumming against the desk as he thought. His gaze sharpens as he tilts his head to the side, “Is that so?”

Gogol. Gogol. The one who captured you, handed you to Dostoevsky on a silver platter. Dazai might’ve been the cause of your-

Dazai might’ve been the one at fault for all of this, but that doesn’t mean he can let your executioners get off scot-free. He rises to his feet, the pads of his fingers pressing into the dark wood of his desk. For a moment, he doesn’t move, his ears ring and his eyes slide shut. Dazai didn’t think he’d get the chance to handle either of them—he’d resigned himself to accepting that he would have to forfeit personal vengeance to ensure that at least Odasaku will be able to live out his life in this world.

But now…

From the corner of his eye, Dazai swears he can see you barge into his office from his apartment, a wild smile on your face as you wave around the TV remote, claiming you found a good movie for the two of you to watch. It’s only for a split second, but Dazai’s heart leaps from his throat, breath catching. He hasn’t dared step foot in the apartment since… everything happened—it’s too big now, too empty. Your coffee mug still sits on his kitchen table, clothes strewn across his room from where you’d been having a fit trying to find the perfect outfit for orientation.

“Dazai.”

Chuuya speaks and the mirage of you is gone. Dazai lets out a heavy breath before shaking his head and making his way toward Chuuya. Neither of them speak again as they make their way into the elevator—they’ve hardly had a full conversation with one another since… since Chuuya chose to disobey orders—heading down to the belly of the headquarters where Gogol will be held. Dazai’s mind spins, lashes fluttering as he thinks.

He knew that Dostoevsky would be well out of reach, that he would have to leave your justice for when the Russian makes his real move in the hands of Odasaku, Akutagawa and the Agency, in the hands of Chuuya, Iceman and Atsushi. There’s no way that Dazai would be able to get his hands on the man in a timely manner, and Dazai can’t risk being in this world any longer than he’s already been. The longer he remains, the more Odasaku is at risk of meeting the same fate you did, and then all Dazai has done and sacrificed over the past seven years would be for nought. The only chance he had to protect the two of you squandered because of his own selfishness and incapability.

But Gogol. He hadn’t dared hope—Dazai lost any semblance of hope the moment he saw Chuuya show up at the Port Mafia headquarters—but he couldn’t help but want.

Kouyou and Piano Man are already waiting in the torture chambers when Dazai and Chuuya finally arrive. Gogol has silver shackles around his wrists, military-grade ability nullifying cuffs that the Mafia had stolen from a government shipment a few months back, and when he sees Dazai, he laughs wildly as if he’s just been told a hilarious joke.

“It’s really you,” Gogol cackles. “Dostoy thought for sure you’d have offed yourself by now.”

Dazai hums, but otherwise doesn’t react to the words. He supposes that they’re not too off the mark, Gogol is only unlucky in that he managed to get himself captured the day before it’s meant to take place.

“Are you going to kill me?” Gogol coos. “Avenge your pretty little thing? Not many people manage to catch Dostoy’s attention, y’know? I was so curious about her.”

Dazai tilts his head to the side and smiles thinly, a cold one that makes Gogol look impossibly more entertained.

“I hear that you enjoy freedom,” Dazai says more to himself than to Gogol, but finds a bit of sadistic pleasure in the way Gogol hesitates. “What makes you think I’d ever give you the mercy of death? The ultimate freedom?”

Gogol does not respond, so Dazai continues, “So long as you live—and you will live—you’ll never take another breath of fresh air or feel the wind against your skin ever again. My men will ensure you live to a ripe old age. They will feed you when you try to starve yourself, force water down your throat when you refuse to drink, they’ll heal you when you try to kill yourself to free yourself of this prison. For the rest of your life, until you rot of old age, you’ll be caged in the basement of this building. A bird clipped of its wings, trapped forever behind gilded bars… I think that’s quite the fitting fate for you.”

Dazai relishes in the way that Gogol freezes at his words, but even that is not enough to heal the gaping wound in his chest caused by your absence. The pleasure is hollow, like the hole you left in him. Dazai is so tired, he just wants to get back to his office so he can finish finalizing the last step for the final phase.

He just wants to be with you.

Dazai turns to leave, motioning for Chuuya to join him, but as soon as he turns his back, Gogol is speaking again, letting out another manic laugh: “Aren’t you curious as to what the deal was? I can tell you.”

Dazai stills, Gogol laughs louder.

“It was a life for a life. Your life for hers. I thought Dostoy was crazy for it, I mean, who would think a random girl’s life would be equal to that of the boss of the Port Mafia,” Gogol snickers. “But looking at you now?”

Dazai’s jaw tightens, he looks over his shoulder as Gogol doubles over laughing and then says quietly, “Her life was worth ten of mine.”

He doesn’t hesitate this time as he walks back toward the elevator, ignoring the way Gogol howls with laughter even as Piano Man has his men drag Gogol back into the most secure cell in the Mafia headquarters. Chuuya follows behind Dazai dutifully, and it’s only when they reenter the elevator does he finally speak.

“You sure you don’t just want him killed?” Chuuya asks, voice a bit stunted and awkward.

Dazai doesn’t respond. “I have a mission for you.”

“Hah?” Chuuya demands. “Now? What’re you talking about?”

“A meeting with Goldoni of the Family in Rome, he’s insistent that it’s done in person. It’s essential that it takes place as soon as possible. I’ve booked a flight for you, it leaves in two hours.”

“Two hours?” Chuuya hisses. “What are you planning, Dazai?”

Dazai doesn’t respond again. Instead, he turns his head to the side, looking at Chuuya dead on. “That’s a direct order, Chuuya.”

Chuuya draws back as if he’s been slapped, but he doesn’t speak up after that, and Dazai knows that he’s won. By the time Chuuya lands in Rome, everything will be over—the last step of the plan will be complete. His eyes flutter shut as he leans back against the wall of the elevator; he feels a type of contentedness that he hasn’t felt since he watched you drive off with Albatross, Hirotsu, and Tachihara.

Soon, he sighs to himself softly, eyes reopening to focus on his reflection. He swears he can see you again, feel the ghost of your touch against his skin as your fingers lace with his. All he has left to do is talk to Odasaku, and then he can be with you again.

We can watch one last sunrise together.

“I had someone once, y’know?” Dazai Osamu says, expression distorted and eyes distant, drawing to invisible figures sitting at the stools with them. Oda stares curiously, watching as he opens and closes his mouth, as if trying to figure out what to say. “It was hard. Without you and her, everything was so much harder. I tried so hard to do things right, to protect this world; I did what I could, but I couldn’t stay away from her.”

Dazai’s words disappear with his ragged breathing, dozens of emotions crossing over his face as he stares at his lap. Oda doesn’t speak, trying to put together whatever piece he’s missing—figure out who this her is that Dazai is referring to so that he can understand what’s going on. He keeps his gun steady, pointed at the boss of the Port Mafia in case this whole thing turns out to be a trap even if he’s slowly starting to doubt it.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to her,” Dazai says airly, talking more to himself than to Oda. “She said she’d see me later. Told me she loved me. I didn’t say it back. Do you think she knew, Odasaku?”

The man in question chooses his words carefully when Dazai looks at him, black eye wide and imploring, much like a child seeking out advice from a trusted adult. After a few moments, Oda finally says, “Women are a lot more intuitive than men. If she said it, I’m sure she knew you felt the same.”

Dazai lets out a quiet laugh, a soft smile on his lips and a fond, but faraway expression on his face. “You always know what to say, Odasaku,” he murmurs softly, saying that odd nickname again. Oda frowns, but Dazai only continues. “She was good. A lot better than me… Deserved better than me. She was so smart, Odasaku, I think you would’ve liked her. She got into one of the best grad schools in the country, y’know? Was on her way to orientation when-”

Dazai stops talking suddenly, takes in a sharp and stunted breath, eye going a bit wild as if he can’t even force out the words. Oda is suddenly frowning, recognition sparking in his head as he remembers you, the sharp girl from the train station that he’d failed to save; the one who's been haunting his mind since the moment that golden swirl appeared and dragged you away. Ranpo had deduced it was mafia business rather quickly, but Oda couldn’t convince himself of it because he couldn’t figure out how someone like you was affiliated with the mafia.

This… It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Still, Oda couldn’t imagine you with someone like the man sitting before him, or maybe he could, he reconsiders, watching the adoring expression that paints the mafia boss’s face as he talks about you, the smile on his lips and the enamored look in his eye, the pride. Oda doesn’t think he’s ever seen a man look so entirely lovesick before.

Dazai looks at him curiously, must have caught the spark of recognition on his face. “Do you know her?”

Oda pauses, trying to figure out what to say. He doesn’t know if he should admit to seeing you in the moments before you were killed; Dazai Osamu is clearly not stable, fickle and capricious with his emotions, Oda worries that the mafia boss might abruptly turn on him, become hostile when he realizes Oda could have saved her but failed.

“You did,” Dazai breathes out, excited suddenly, eye lit up like a child who has been told Christmas is coming early. “You knew her, you did, didn’t you? How did you meet? Wasn’t she incredible? Tell me.”

Oda inhales slowly, testing the words on his tongue before he says: “... I met her at the train station… that day.” Dazai’s smile wobbles at the edges, a glassy look in his eye like he’s looking right through Oda. Oda continues speaking quickly, “She was brilliant. She gave me a good idea on how to end the book I’ve been writing.”

Dazai’s smile softens, the childish appearance disappears as he looks down at his drink. “Will you use it?”

Oda responds honestly, “I think I will.”

Dazai looks as if he’s been given a precious gift and for a moment, Oda hesitates, gaze lingering on the expression that is somehow both sorrowful and content at the same time.

“It’s almost dawn, isn’t it?” Dazai says, a bit distantly. Oda watches carefully as an unfocused look clouds Dazai’s black eye, his head turning to look out the window of the bar. “She loved sunrises… I promised her we would watch one more together.”

The sun breaks the horizon in the distance, Dazai smiles wistfully as the colors spread across the morning sky. Endless pink clouds dance in the dawn, orange paints the skies; he stands at the edge of the roof where you sat with him that first morning, leaning your head on his shoulder as you watch all of the shapes the clouds make.

“Doesn’t that one look like a cat?”

Dazai hums in agreement as his gaze traces the sky; he’s never been able to see all of the figures you point out in the clouds, but he likes listening to you talk. Sometimes, you’d spin stories as you rest on his chest, and he’d doze off to the sound of your voice. He wants to look down to where you’d normally be sitting, but he’s afraid that if he looks, he’ll find you disappointed—sad eyes staring at him as if you know what he’s about to do.

Worse, he’s scared that if he looks, you won’t be there.

Distantly, he can hear Atsushi and Akutagawa still arguing with one another, shouting questions at Dazai, but it all sounds distant and muffled—he couldn’t make out the words if he tried. He’s hyper focused on the sound of your voice in the billowing wind; he can almost imagine that each brush of the gusts against his skin is your touch.

He waits, even as he hears Atsushi creeping toward him, trying to get to him before he lets himself fall over the edge. He promised you one last sunrise, and it would be remiss of him to not stay long enough for you to watch your favorite part.

“She loved sunrises,” Dazai repeats again, this time for Atsushi and Akutagawa to hear. Atsushi halts at the words and he can hear a wavering ‘boss’ escape Atsushi’s lips. He closes his eyes and he can picture you in front of him, a soft expression on your face, lips curved up, and a dreamy smile tugs at his lips. “I’ve waited for this moment so long. I’m pleased, I really am… I just wish things had turned out differently. I wanted her to live, and I wanted to read his novel when he finished it, but I guess what I want doesn’t matter anymore… It’s enough to know that they were able to meet here.”

“Please wait,” Atsushi cries out, and Dazai can hear him moving again, stumbling as he tries to get closer. “Dazai-san, wait!”

“Atsushi-kun, Akutagawa-kun,” Dazai says. He opens his eyes again, watching as the sun finally crosses the horizon in its entirety, basking the world in an ethereal morning glow. His breath catches, and Dazai sees you again standing before him, haloed by the light. He reaches out hesitantly, but draws his hand back before his fingers can graze you, not wanting to taint you with his touch. “I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Dazai takes a step forward closer to you. He ignores Atsushi’s screams and Akutagawa’s shout. His eyes slide shut as he falls, the wind whistling in his ears and ripping the air from his lungs, but Dazai feels at peace for the first time in weeks. A smile curls to his lips, he swears that he feels your arms wrap around his waist, the familiar weight of your head resting on his chest.

Dazai hopes, maybe a bit irrationally, that there might be a universe out there that he missed, one where the two of you are able to live out your lives. Maybe if he’s lucky, Odasaku will be around too. He’ll have finished the novel with your help, just like in this universe; and Dazai will pout and whine whenever you push him out of the room to brainstorm with the older man, but he’ll always smile as soon as he’s out of sight, content, happy. He’ll get to read the novel once it’s published—you refuse to let him get any peeks until it’s done and you yell at him and Odasaku when Dazai tries to guilt him into showing him it—and he’ll get to be with you.

He’ll get to be with you.

Find me again. Next time, I’ll make it right.

I promise.

GUYSSSSSS WATERLOO IS OVER I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO CRY. this series has been my baby for so long i don't even know what i'm going to do with myself now that it's over. :(

some notes to share with u guys:

fyodor's ability. SIGH. the past few chapters fucked up my plans, so we're going to imagine that that his ability is still the kill on touch for the sake of my sanity. or maybe he used someone else's ability to kill her. who knows. i had this scene set in mind from waterloo day one so i didn't want to change it.

THE ODASAKU-READER CONVERSATION WAS ACTUALLY SO ANTICIPATED, i had the idea from side a when dazai chose to bring her to his grave, and then i was like ... wait, what if in side b... and i think it's a neat tie in to the beast movie too, because if i rmr correctly, he sought out fyodor later on and i think witnessing reader's capture & not being able to prevent her would give him even more of a reason to go after the man.

uu!chuuya hurts my heart truly. he really did care sm about reader the more he got to know her, and he blamed himself so much for her death. and then dazai uses the fact that he disobeyed orders and got her killed against him to make him leave so that dazai can kill himself. poor man will never not blame himself for everything

ICEMAN AS READER'S BROTHER. look, i know a lot of you wanted odasaku but it just didn't fit. she would've recognized his name in side a

badlands!reader -> i fear she is dead and gone, as you all probably have come to terms with by now at the end of the uu. but i want to add in HOW she dies because it's touched on in this chapter & i posted an ask about it a few weeks ago.

in badlands universe, fyodor isn't actually the one to kill reader, it's agatha christie when the order of the clocktower finally makes their move on yokohama for the book. for this, i also have to get into christie and what i think her ability might be - obviously we know it's based on "and then there were none" which is the mystery novel that involves 10 people w various accusations against them being killed/dying according to a nursery rhyme. i dont know exactly how i want the ability to be executed, but i know for the purposes of the fic that involves 10 ppl dying in various ways according to how they died in the book. christie targets various ppl that have been close to the agency/pm and reader is one of them. so over the course of 10 hours, the 10 people start dying. it takes to the 5th hour for them to realize that this is an ability user and not coincidences because by that point 2 ppl affiliated with the pm and 2 ppl that have close ties with the ada die and the two organizations approach each other about it, and obviously ranpo figures out during that meeting that it's an ability targeting ppl affiliated with both organizations. and that's when dazai starts getting a really bad feeling, tries to call her but she doesn't pick up, and then ends up ditching the meeting to go find her but </333 he doesn't get to her in time. her death is the death on the 5th hour and it parallels emily brent from the book: injected with cyanide after drinking poisoned coffee. dazai finds her in their apartment </3 he is too late to save her.

also a fun side note about badlands: reader and dazai were, in fact, engaged.

anyways, i love you all, thanks for sticking along the ride with me

(。♡ ‿ ♡。)

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

503 notes · View notes

moonlight-prose · 22 days ago

Text

HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU

a/n: eddie alden has lived in my head rent free for so fucking long. ever since i saw someone like you i was done for. actually in the first five minutes i was done for. this is a labor of love. something i have spent so long writing and editing because i needed to put this somewhere. it's the longest one shot i've ever written and i am so terrified to share it. i hope you love it as much as i do.

summary: being best friends with eddie alden proved a challenge. you knew him at twelve when he'd push you down for fun. you knew him at sixteen when his parents divorced. you knew him at twenty-two fresh out of college and ready to live his life. and you knew him now. yet the version of him that still remained was the one who loved you - hopelessly, endlessly, and entirely devoted to...you.

word count: 26k

pairing: eddie alden x f!reader

warnings: childhood best friends to lovers trope, oblivious reader + obvious eddie, jealousy, possessiveness, arguments, flirting, cussing, teasing, yearning, love confessions, he's in love and it's detrimental to his health, cigarettes & alcohol, p in v sex, masturbation, smutty books, feral eddie, oral (f receiving), cumplay, desperate sex, reverence, hand holding, the nostalgia vibes of a 2000s romcom.

PLAYLIST

New York’s winter left a taste in your mouth that always reminded you of childhood memories you'd never get back. The biting cold stung your nose until it dripped—your fingers numb as you clutched the cigarette between your index and middle, smoke trailing to the cloudy sky.

An ugly brown suitcase that passed from your father, brother, and eventually you sat by your feet. The bottom no doubt soaked through from the puddle of half melted snow. The temptation to get a taxi and meet him there nearly made your choice for you. Seeing as how standing in the fucking outdoors was your only other option. But the argument over the phone left you relenting within seconds—his voice eager and older.

You scrubbed your hands together for some warmth, lips burning on the but of your cigarette, as yet another round of cars passed you by. Soon enough you'd get to chew him out for making you wait. You'd pull out every guilt trip proven to work on him in the past, and get him to agree to some outrageous ask. That's how things went with you and Eddie.

He fucked up in some way or another. Begged for forgiveness with late night food and a soft smile. And like a fool you forgave him...every time.

"C'mon Eddie what the fuck," you muttered, wiping your nose with the end of your sleeve. You were pretty sure you'd freeze to death in another five minutes, and all Eddie would be left with was your corpse proudly presenting a middle finger.

A horn blared beside you bursting your eardrums. Counting down from five under your breath, you eyed the corner of the building, expecting to see a familiar mop of brown hair. When nothing happened you grabbed the handle of your shitty suitcase and began to walk. He'd reluctantly given you the apartment number and address halfway through the call in case something came up.

Something must have come up.

With a huff, you hauled your suitcase up to rest against your hip, the cigarette burned out and crushed beneath the toe of your boot. Waiting felt like a waste of fucking time. When you could instead be inside of his place already, thawing with a steaming mug of the shitty burnt coffee he made with pride.

No matter how many times you offered to teach him—rectify the recipe that shouldn't be ingested by humans—he claimed you drank it. Clearly that meant you loved it. There was no other reason for why you took his coffee with a smile and gulped at it like you'd just paid twelve dollars and all the change in your pocket.

Even after all this time...he still never saw it. The gleam in your eyes as you watched him make it. The ache in your heart that formed when he set it in front of you with a smile. The butterflies you learned to ignore when you thanked him for something so simple. A single slice of the domesticity you would never get with him.

People shoved you to the side as you walked. Doing what you could to refrain from slipping on the icy bits of the sidewalk. Taking a cab was out of the question with what little cash you had stuffed in your wallet. Your boss decided to withhold your paycheck for the second time—claiming you should have come in to collect it.

The temptation to scream at him in person left the second you realized the money wouldn't even cover the rent next month. So like an idiot...you booked a flight to New York (much to Eddie's delight) and packed a bag large enough to stuff two weeks worth of clothes in it. He believed it was his incessant nagging that finally got you here; you didn't have the heart to tell him that you held no other option.

"Watch it," you snapped at a man who's coat probably cost more than your grandmother's gold ring you wore around your neck.

He scoffed, turning back to the conversation he was invested in on his phone. Getting into a fight wasn't exactly a part of the plan. But the anger began to eat away at your heart—gnawing at your patience the longer you were here. Wandering the city streets. Alone.

"Now that's not the Kit I know."

You whipped around, eyes wide and hair upright on the back of your neck as Eddie's broad smile came into view. The leather jacket he wore complimented his tall figure; the once skinny shoulders you remembered now a broad form you certainly didn't expect. Pictures crinkled by the mail didn’t do him justice. Yet the hazel eyes you knew sparkled with a joy that still managed to entrance you in a single glance.

It felt pathetic how quick you turned into a simpering girl in his presence. Still the eleven year old kid he used to push into muddy puddles because it made him laugh. Somehow that made heat spill into your cheeks—a flustered expression flashing across your face.

He squinted, hands on his hips, as he bent down slightly to push his face directly in front of yours. "What'd you do with her? My little kitten?"

"Fuck off Eddie," you scoffed, shoving at his shoulders.

The suitcase slipped from your hands, dropping to the floor. Eddie didn't waste a second before he was scooping up the handle in his large hand, his arm slinging around your shoulder as he dragged you across the traffic infested street. You squeaked at the horns that went off when you sped in front of them; a multitude of cuss words shouted into the cold air.

"I thought I told you to wait at the airport entrance?" The warmth of his body soaked into your frigid form, loosening your limbs slightly. You'd never experienced such bliss.

"You took too long, asshole."

He laughed—loud and boisterous and perfectly Eddie. "Well forgive me for making an effort to try and get you breakfast. The line was so fuckin' long I had to forgo your coffee."

"Shame." Unconsciously you leaned into his hold as you walked down a street covered in barren trees. "Guess you'll have to make me some."

"You always say you hate my coffee Kit."

"I don't hate it."

"You're a fuckin' liar." Yet he still smiled, his face tilting to see the little furrow of your brows as the cold air began to sting your nose.

You rubbed at it, hoping to alleviate the sensation. "It's just always so burnt Eddie. I never got that. Even when I bought you that fancy coffee maker for your twentieth birthday!"

"Hey!" Shoving you closer as a couple walked past, you did what you could to not stumble. "I never said I put coffee making on my resume. So really it's your fault for making assumptions."

"My–" you spluttered. "Oh fuck off Alden!"

He laughed and you felt the sound shoot through your body like the trigger of a gun finally being pulled. Phone conversations did nothing to appease the longing you felt in his absence. There'd been an Eddie shaped hole in your life for years. Now suddenly you were at a loss with what to do once it was filled. You chastised yourself for pining over a man who would never see you as anything but a friend. Yet somehow...he never knew.

Even through highschool and all your blatantly obvious reactions to how he affected you, Eddie Alden remained entirely oblivious to how much you truly loved him. How your heart screamed for him each morning and night. He was the balm to every wound that ailed you—yet you were only gifted with its comfort every few years.

"My place is one block over, but we could grab some food if you're hungry." His voice ripped you from the depths of your mind, shoving you back into the present.

Where you were pressed against his side by an arm that felt stronger than you remembered. You glanced at him, tracing the curve of his side profile before you realized you eventually had to respond. None of this helped the preexisting crush you spent years trying to get rid of.

Whatever feelings you believed to be evicted from your heart came tumbling back with a fury—a vengeance you'd never experienced before.

"Kit?"

You jumped, catching his gaze; to realize you'd been staring at his lips for far too long. "Your place. I'm fucking freezing out here. Could do with some blankets."

His grin deepened. "Blankets I've got. And a bed. Well a separate bed. Had it put in the guest room for when I managed to finally get you here."

Surprise filled your system—eyes wide and mouth parted. "You bought me a bed?" you exclaimed.

"Nah. I bought a bed."

"Right. Sure." He pinched your arm, chuckling at your pained yelp. The hit you landed to his stomach in a feeble attempt at backlash only seemed to make him laugh harder.

Fuck. You missed him.

A horn blared behind you, slicing through your nerves as he weaved the both of you seamlessly through the crowds of people. New York was far louder than you expected it would be. Sure, you'd heard the noises while on the phone with Eddie, but this felt twenty times that. You were surprised that he got any sleep in this place; though knowing him...he rarely slept if the slight dark shadow under his eyes was anything to go by.

He spent days running around at his job, nights chasing the tail of someone pretty, and what time he could spare talking to you. Giving you the dirty details on people he came across, drama with his coworkers. Every little aspect of New York he could shove your way—knowing how much you longed to get away. How your heart ached with the thought of traveling to distant lands.

He bought you the maps hanging on your apartment wall back home; a celebratory graduation gift when you finally managed to accomplish getting your masters. Back then he thought you'd join him out here.

Or perhaps he was merely holding that hope like an oblivious idiot; his mind fixed on the idea of you here for longer than a visit.

Although you could say the same for yourself. The belief that your life would start somewhere other than at Eddie's side began to fester in your heart, becoming a wound you could never heal. Merely a twisted game you played with yourself. The constant push of wanting more when a part of you knew he would never see you that way.

No matter how many times you pushed...he'd never tell you about them. The women that twisted his head around; the ones that brought a familiar flicker of bitter heat to your chest.

Eddie wasn't yours.

You knew this.

You accepted the truth halfway through high school when you stumbled across him with his tongue down a cheerleader's throat. The lingering pain thickened the longer you spent in his warm charismatic presence—like a knife suddenly protruding from your chest. But much to your own detriment...it was your own knife. Not his.

So you swallowed the brief seconds of jealousy, your body leaning into him with a heavy exhale of winter air. If he noticed your split second mental battle, he didn't say anything. You supposed that's what you loved about Eddie. He understood your cues faster than you did—giving you the room to breathe, to garner enough sanity to push through whatever hell you created in your own mind.

He let you anchor yourself to him, willing to drag you out of the well you dropped yourself in whenever you needed a helping hand.

"So I have a proposition," he exclaimed, tugging you across the street to a building that looked eerily familiar.

"I might have an answer."

He snorted, rummaging in his pocket for the jingling keys that were pressed to your side. "There's a bar on the bottom floor of my place that has shitty beer and shittier nachos."

You smiled, wide and stupid and hopelessly head over heels in love with your best friend. This trip would no doubt come back to bite you in the ass eventually. You practically felt the sharp teeth of reality begin to sink into your heart. Ready to rip you open with jaws coated in your own blood.

Really this was your fucking mistake; letting your best friend talk you into this with the claim: 'You're gonna have the best fuckin' time Kit.'

You followed him through the bulky metal door. "I'm listening."

"I know how much you love shitty nachos." The stairwell echoed with your footsteps—a drip from a leaky pipe splashing every few seconds. "It's not much, but I figure it'll get you acquainted with this grand old city."

Saying no to him felt as if you were pulling teeth, but the fatigue from your flight was beginning to weigh heavy on your shoulders. While traversing the city at night with Eddie sounded like a dream come true. You knew that if you didn't get some rest you'd be kicking yourself tomorrow.

"Tomorrow night," you requested, lugging your bag over your shoulder as he fumbled with the door to his apartment. "I'm ready to keel over and die."

He smiled, letting you wander in before him. Eddie trailed after you, watching in rapture as your eyes went wide with awe at the sheer size of his place. Large windows allowed sunlight to spill into the living room, casting a soft yellow glow throughout the kitchen. Ethereal in its simplicity.

You could practically see the spots where he spoke to you on the phone; the echo of him rummaging in his own fridge now put into perspective with the sight of it. How he would smoke on his fire escape during the summer months when the air finally turned crisp with the promise of fall. How he'd lay on his couch, television blaring as you both watched the same channel.

"Ya like it?" he asked, dropping his jacket on the back of the couch.

"Eddie it's..."

"Massive?"

You turned, sunlight forming an angelic silhouette behind your head and Eddie felt the breath get punched from his lungs. Suddenly he wished he wasn't such a shit artist. That dream was discarded long ago in an art class he would later fail. He longed for charcoal, paints, paper, anything to commit your beauty to a canvas. To hang it in his home as a permanent art fixture—a glimpse at what heaven must look like.

"It's beautiful," you gushed, your smile dazzling in the late afternoon sun.

So are you.

He'd never say it out loud, entirely aware of what you'd say—play it off as a joke, pretend he was teasing you—but the fist around his heart squeezed until he couldn't deny the truth. Mentally he cussed out your future lover. Too ashamed to admit that if you kissed him right now, he'd buy a damn wedding ring tomorrow.

"Bathroom is small enough to drive you a bit insane," he said instead, shoving the thoughts in their respective boxes and throwing away the key. "My room. You're always welcome. And this–" He pushed open the guest bedroom. A fancy duvet and collection of pillows was placed neatly on the queen mattress; frames were propped on the empty dresser—images of you and Eddie throughout the years. "Will be your room."

Stepping into the space felt like taking a breath of familiar air—your heart fluttering at the care he took before allowing you here. It reminded you of all the times he put you before anything else in his life. His fierce protective nature that was always placed upon your shoulders. How he claimed you the second he locked eyes on your timid form.

"Homecoming?" You gestured to the largest frame on the nightstand.

Eddie in a red football jersey, his face painted in white streaks, sweat causing his hair to stick to his forehead. He held you beside him—helmet in his hand and a smile big enough to blind half the girls in your school on his face. You could recall that day with vivid clarity. The butterflies you felt at seeing him so happy, so carefree.

Your childhood was filled with memories both good and bad. But Eddie somehow managed to solidify himself in those tinged in warmth and overflowing with a wonder that left you breathless.

"It's a good picture," he replied, running his hand along the back of his neck, cheeks flushed a light rose. "My mom sent it to me a year ago. Said I'd take better care of it."

You smiled, tracing the corner of the brown frame. "Seems like she was right."

"Yeah..." His eyes followed the curve of your hips, pausing briefly on the shape of your ass in jeans he knew you only wore for special occasions.

His favorite jeans if memory served.

The same denim fabric he imagined peeling off you in senior year of college when you showed up with a bottle of wine and the promise of a week spent by the beach. They were in second place, right next to your little red bathing suit that had him fucking his fist for hours in your shared hotel shower. Shame might have burned in his chest at the memory, but Eddie couldn’t help himself when it came to you.

Insatiable, needy. Every fucking synonym in the book would classify how he felt around you.

"So Alden." Your voice dragged him out of his lust addled stupor, heat curling around the base of his spine. He swallowed thickly, forcing it down until he felt comfortable meeting your gaze again.

His eyebrow curved. "Kit?"

"What fun activities do you have planned for me tonight?"

He choked on his spit. "W-What do you mean?"

"Movies? Dinner? Anything?"

"Right."

Trailing to the kitchen with you hot on his heels, he rummaged in the take out drawer full of old menus that needed replacements eventually. Pages were stained, ripped, and crumpled from years of use. You snatched the only pizza place one out of his grasp, eyes flicking through the selections with a grin. Predictable. He could have ordered blindly for you if he'd have known your tastes were the same.

"Lemme guess–"

"Pepperoni–" you began.

"With sausage and jalapeños," he finished.

"Fuck off Eddie."

He smiled, confident enough to have your mind falter on anything except the man before you. How did he do that? Render you a bumbling fool who could barely put the correct words in order to form a complete sentence. One day you might have to ask if that was just his Eddie charm, or if it only worked on you in particular.

"I would. But it's my place kitten." Dialing the number he knew by heart, he left you to wander spots in the apartment that hadn't been on his grand tour.

A corner table held a photo of Eddie's mother, his father nowhere to be seen in the background. You didn't blame him for avoiding the man entirely. After what occurred you were surprised that Eddie hadn't killed him; although he once came close at nineteen. The night his mother spilled the truth over one too many glasses of sherry.

The night Eddie figured out the man he once looked up to had a different family in an entirely different state.

If you trailed your fingers down the back of his neck you'd find the spot where his father slammed him into the banister of their front staircase. The fight bordered on brutal. A viscous act that left what relationship remained tattered and torn to shreds on the floor around them. Both men landed hits with no true aim, teeth bared and seeking blood through the red haze of their anger.

Eddie wanted revenge. His father wanted submission.

They'd always stood on thin ice ready to crack beneath the weight of their baggage. A horrendous cycle of push and pull—each one aware of how to tear the other down with ease. Their bond was built on torment. And to watch the tension explode, drowning them both beneath the glacial waters, left you stuck in a dark chasm of helplessness.

Stupidly you got a scar to match when you threw yourself in front of a near unconscious Eddie, attempting to stop the man from landing a final punch to his son's face. He hit you instead. The scar on your shoulder was small, barely there, but you could still feel Eddie's lips on it when he cleaned the wound. Apologies spilling from his lips until he fell asleep in your bed.

But you supposed that was Eddie. A protector above all else.

The man who would throw himself into the heat of battle before considering the consequences that came with a choice that reckless.

"They'll be here in twenty minutes." He crept up behind you, glancing at the photo of him on his Mom's birthday. "Thinking about that night?"

You jumped, glancing at him over your shoulder. "Yeah."

"Hard not to."

"Has he ever..."

"No." The darkened shadow across his face gave you enough of a response. It was time to move onto a different subject.

"So..." You settled on his couch with a heavy sigh. "Your work."

Dragging the throw blanket his mother knit him over your legs, he clambered onto the empty space beside you. The heater was slowly sputtering to life—radiator giving it all it had to keep the both of you warm. But beside him you felt the heat practically emanate off his body in waves.

What you wouldn't give to curl into his lap and seek it from the source.

"The drama has been exquisite," he stated, draping his arm on the top of the couch behind your head. "You remember me tellin' you about Jane?"

"Goodall?"

"The very one." He settled further into the cushions, legs spread beneath the blanket until he nudged yours. "She and Ray broke up. It's been hell in the office dealing with their confused tension."

"Wait, isn't this the guy who cheated with her?"

He nodded. "Now I'm not saying he's horrible. But you gotta at least break up with the girl before you go with another."

"Ahh you're taking my teachings to heart," you smiled, leaning your head against his arm.

"I have to Kit. Every time I don't I feel like you're gonna pop out and whack me–" Landing a weak hit to his side, he clamped his hand around your wrist, tugging you close with a laugh. "Like that!"

Attempting to free yourself was futile when he outmatched you in strength and speed. Yet you found that you enjoyed being this close to him. Laughing as you once did in the years of your youth. When all that mattered was which movie you were seeing that Friday and what school the team was playing.

Somehow—in the blink of an eye—you were two adults stuck in your own travesties. Forced to forgo the blithe energy of your childhood. You'd jump at the chance to go back; if only to get more time with Eddie. To spend a few more hours in his bedroom watching horror movies that left you both shell shocked and restless.

To cheer him on at every game with the promise of burgers and shakes at the local drive in afterwards. To watch him grow up and move to New York. Only this time...you'd follow him the second he asked.

His eyes softened as your smile slipped from your lips, fingers curling around his fist. Hazel had never been your favorite color until Eddie left. You rarely thought of it when he was home, but as his absence became a reality you could no longer suffer through you began to see the color everywhere. In the trees, in the color of your old blanket you stole off his childhood bed, in the flannel that once belonged to his grandfather.

You found traces of Eddie Alden in every little aspect of your life, except him.

"Kitten," he murmured, a fraction closer than he'd been a minute ago. His eyes dropped to the curve of your lips, how they parted so sweetly at the sound of your pet name.

"Eddie..."

All that remained was the space between your heads—your body practically leaning into him the longer you talked. He could lean in and kiss you. He could finally learn what you tasted like, figure out how you'd sound if his tongue licked along yours. Fuck he'd never wanted something more.

The dazed glint in your eyes made his heart twist, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip. Your gaze fixed on the movement immediately and Eddie felt his cock twitch in interest. One day he'd explain to you how fucking beautiful you were; how his mind went haywire at the sight of your smile. How he'd destroy himself to get you to look at him like he hung the moon and stars.

One day he'd spill his deepest darkest secrets to you.

Starting with three little words that kept him up at night tossing and turning.

He swallowed thickly. "I..."

The door buzzed loud enough to scare the shit out of you. Leaping back, you felt the breath catch in your throat painfully and like an idiot you began to cough. Eddie's eyes went wide, his hand tapping your back as you waved him off to get the pizza. Leaving you to sit there on his couch and choke...on air.

Dumbass.

"Thanks man," Eddie muttered, handing off what cash he had left in his wallet. "Keep the change."

He rushed back to the couch, pizza in one hand and a glass of water in the other. "Kit, you okay? Here drink this before you die on my fuckin' couch."

"Shut up Eddie," you snipped, eyes burning with a glare. Though the smile on your lips told him something else. "Hand over the pizza before it's you dying."

"Yes ma'am," he muttered, flipping open the box and swiping the remote off the coffee table. Taking his spot by your side back with a grin.

"I can't fucking move," you grumbled, leg splayed on Eddie's lap as the movie credits rolled across the screen.

He scoffed, kneading the flesh of your calf. "That's cause you ate five slices of pizza."

"You're one to talk Alden. You ate the other five." Nudging his leg with your socked foot, you tried to get a rise out of the man who couldn't stop smiling. At one point it would have unnerved you. Given you the impression that he was making fun of you, but then it dawned on you as bright as daybreak.

Eddie Alden was happy.

"It's one a.m. Kit," he groaned, head falling to the back of the couch. "I've gotta get up for work at six."

"That's so early," you sighed.

"Yeah well. Some of us work for a living."

Another nudge to his thigh deepened his smile and your heart notched another mark that began to form his name the day you turned twelve. His lethargic form struck you in the stomach. Sexy in his long sleeve black sweater rolled at the sleeves. Beautiful with that broad smile and twinkling eyes of joy.

Bewitching in every aspect that made him yours.

Though that remained a blatant fantasy in your mind that would never come to fruition. If only you took a peek inside Eddie's mind. If only you looked at him for longer than a few minutes at a time. You would finally see that his heart started beating for you the day he met you; unable to find a rhythm for anyone else because your song kept him alive.

Your heart's song held him on his knees hoping.

"So that means curfew?" you muttered.

He shrugged. "For me. Doesn't have to be for you."

Disappointment flickered in his eyes, masked quick enough to conceal the ache that rang in his chest. But you caught onto it, tugged it towards you to inspect what exactly he wanted from you. Perhaps it was stupid to put all your energy into pleasing a man, but when it came to Eddie you couldn't help it.

Seeing him happy made your entire body sing. It brought you a light you didn't know could exist in a life that remained bleak without him.

"I'm fine going to sleep early."

"Are ya sure?" he pressed, his thumb curling around your ankle—the soft brush teasing chills down your spine.

Biting on the inside of your cheek hard enough to distract from his touch, you nodded. "Just make it up to me tomorrow."

This time…he didn't bother to hide the effect your words had on him. A smirk curling onto his lips, eyes dark enough to shove the breath from your lungs. How could a man look so alluring? Eddie was your siren. A predator who called you out to the depths of the sea with his soothing song of love. A man who never knew how your heart broke each night. He'd never know how you cried yourself to sleep that first night he left, never learn that you struggled to breathe without him.

He would go on as he always did and you would watch with a somber smile.

"C'mon," you sighed, sliding off the couch and effectively breaking his hold on your leg (much to his dismay). "You've got to sleep. I'm not gonna be responsible for you fucking up at your job."

With a snort he followed dutifully, hands grabbing for yours as you walked him to the small corner by his bedroom door. "I fuck up already Kit. And try as I might, I could never quite figure out how to pin it all on you."

His smirk cracked into a full blown smile, laughter echoing in the large apartment when you landed a smack to his chest. Wrestling your wrists into his hands, he turned you swiftly until he leaned against his door, a lazy grin on his lips. That fucking grin. A hazard to your own heart.

"You keep hitting me, kitten. Living up to your name every day."

You glared. "Unless you prefer I bite you."

A jolt went down his spine, body warming the longer you stood there eyeing him with a barely controlled fury. The playful anger that landed him in trouble more than once. Endless nights of wrestling like fiends, challenges won and lost, board games that turned violent too quickly to control. You were each other's kryptonite—the weakness never to be mentioned beyond shared looks and bouts of possession.

You were his to love. His to keep.

If only you knew.

"I'm never opposed to biting," he replied, eyebrows raised.

"Gross."

"It's not gross." Leaning down he pressed a kiss to your cheek, thumb running along your pulse point on your wrist. "It's kinky."

You scoffed, shoving at his chest. "I don't want to know!"

"Oh come on Kit! I've got stories–"

Slipping free, you headed to the guest room. "Go to sleep Eddie."

"You don't want a bedtime story?" He trailed after you, leaning against the doorframe, gaze intently watching you dig through your suitcase for a weathered graphic tee he bought at nineteen from a shitty indie concert. To see you kept it all this time made his heart flutter, his stomach twisting into familiar knots he longed for when you were apart from each other. "I can easily put you to sleep."

"Keep being gross. See how long I stay," you joked, pointedly staring over his shoulder. "Do you mind?"

He settled further, arms crossed at his chest. "Definitely not."

"Get out you freak."

"Now there's no need for name calling–" A pillow hit his face. "Or for violence. I swear you keep wanting to hurt me."

"Well if it works."

He snatched the pillow off the floor, tossing it back onto the bed before he jabbed a finger in your face—even as you smiled up at him with those eyes that catapulted him directly into the damn sun. "Behave kitten."

"Oh bite me Alden."

"See now we're talking!"

A shove against his chest had him stumbling towards the door, your entire body being used like a counterweight to push him out. He fell into the hallway with a grunt, teeth clamping onto his bottom lip to silence the laughter that threatened to echo off the empty walls. This wasn't an unusual position to find yourselves in—fighting like children who each held onto one end of a life altering secret.

Nights spent in the comfort of your home in high school with Eddie forced to sleep on the floor (per your mother's instructions) lead to picking on one another until the other caved. A past time you often ached to get back.

Maybe that's why you couldn't stop smiling at the sight of him trying to cling to the edge of your doorway. Maybe that's why your heart was set to burst when he snuck back in to simply hear you shout his name.

Two humans helplessly gone for one another with nothing to show for it but a lifetime of friendship. Never meant to be more than this.

"Night kitten!" he called from his room, the door shutting with a soft thud as you slipped beneath the thick comforter.

"Goodnight Eddie," you sighed, settled atop the mountain of pillows, your eyes fixed on the frame a few feet away.

The smiling image of younger you mocked the current situation; her haughty demeanor formed a sour pit in your stomach, your body desperate to curl in on itself the longer you stared at the past. You were so naive back then. Ready and willing to jump when Eddie gave you the go ahead. But what's changed? How had you moved away from that young hopeless girl? You still gave into his pleas, you relinquished your strength and handed it over without taking a second to think perhaps you should have considered the fallout.

Eddie said jump.

And suddenly you found yourself in New York.

Still naive. Still hopelessly in love with a man who might never see you as anything other that high school girl. The kitten who trailed after him looking for an owner who might show you some love, who might spare you a second glance.

"Pathetic," you muttered, flipping to your other side in the hopes that sleep would find you.

The creak of your partially shut door is what roused you from a restless and fitful two hours of chasing sleep to no avail. Your eyes cracked open in the pitch black, body rolling to see the kitchen light illuminate a rather tall and shirtless Eddie. He rubbed a hand over his face, eyes bleary with lack of sleep, and wordlessly you pulled the blankets back to the empty side on your right.

A smile curled on his lips, lazy and barely there, but it lit you up from the inside out—his feet softly padding on the cement floor as he stumbled through the room. Unsuccessfully if the whispered cuss word muttered under his breath after hitting his leg was anything to go by. You hid your grin beneath the edge of the comforter, feeling the bed dip when he shuffled to find the comfiest spot.

"'S fucking cold in here," he mumbled, shoving the blanket up to his neck.

"It's your apartment."

"Yeah, yeah. Just c'mere." He sighed, long and bordering on defeat. "I missed you."

He didn't give you the option of backing out, his hands grasping blindly for your waist. Of course, you didn't put up much of a fight either. The bed felt desolate in his absence. As if it'd been waiting for him all this time—hoping he might come to fill the gaps where frigid air seeped through. Somehow Eddie remained your knight in shining armor. Your savior against the horrors no matter how minuscule.

Dark bedrooms and empty beds included.

Silence swept over you in gentle soothing waves. The promise of sleep settled contently in your grasp, allowing you a moment to finally rest for the first time since you got on that plane. But you couldn't find it in you to close your eyes. Instead you let your gaze wander over Eddie's face as he sunk into the depths of sleep—his hand clasped in yours and settled between your bodies.

"Hey Eddie," you whispered.

"Hm?"

"I missed you too."

His lips curled slightly, body shifting close enough for you to feel his breath wash across your face. Warm and minty fresh and so much like Eddie it chipped another piece of your heart off. He didn't know how painful it would be to leave. How you'd cling to memories as tiny as this in the dark of your own bedroom.

He wouldn't understand how you broke sleeping next to the love of your life, yet a chasm deep enough to drown you sat between you. Oh, what you wouldn't give to swim across with ease and find yourself on the shores of his love. You wished for him on every falling star, with each set of birthday candles, and yet the powers of the universe felt compelled to keep you apart.

"Hey Eddie." He hummed, his thumb running across your wrist. "Did you buy this bed for me?"

His laugh was low, a mere breath let loose in the wild for you to intake with your own. Yet you felt his hand tighten around yours and the slight shift of his face as his nose nudged yours.

Where you expected to get a firm no—a repeated response from hours before—Eddie Alden still had a way to surprise you.

"Yeah," he admitted softly, effectively setting your heart on fire.

Sunlight illuminated the open doorway, spilling into the bedroom with its soft glow. You ached to sleep for a few hours more, or at least until you could effectively wean the jet lag from your body. The bed was cold to the touch on Eddie's side—his furnace-like qualities doing nothing to keep you warm in the early afternoon air.

On winter nights he made sleeping with a shitty radiator worth the lack of blankets. But that might have just been because it was him beside you and no one else.

You winced when your bare feet made contact with the frozen floor—the shock to your system forcing you to remain awake. The urge to ask for a rug rose to the forefront of your mind, but Eddie had already spent so much time perfecting the bedroom. Each detail catered to your distinct style and taste. A small offering of home in the middle of an unknown city.

A small basket of your favorite snacks—that certainly hadn't been there last night—sat on the dresser. You chose not to question it, grabbing a cookie out of the pack to quell your stomach. Chocolate and peanut butter, a dangerous combination.

The same cookies you shared on the roof of his house—the echo of his parents shouting about everything and anything muffled in the background. A shitty radio propped by his feet to drown them out and the echo of your voice filling his ears. He never complained, so you kept talking. All the way through high school and college and each late night phone call.

You unknowingly became the salve to Eddie's pain.

The bandage that held up when all the others withered away. You kept him stable through endless fights with his father, on nights he simply couldn't take hearing his mother cry anymore. You held him on days when the grief of being the only thing tying their toxic relationship together became too much. The expectation to maintain a perfect standard ate away at him, until eventually…he didn't care anymore.

Until you made him change his mind; the invisible red string of fate connecting the two of you dragged him out of the darkness. Since then he refused to let go—not that you wanted him to.

"Eddie?" you called, ambling to the kitchen.

Burnt coffee stung your nose, drawing a smile to the surface. But a press of your palm to the half filled cold pot let you know he made it several hours ago. Probably in the hopes that it would rouse you from sleep before he took off for work. You caught sight of a small ripped piece of notebook paper attached to the fridge beneath a overly large magnet of Lady Liberty.

Coffee's for you (since you asked for only the best). I'm at work if you need to reach me, but feel free to grab breakfast at the cafe down the street. On me.

-Eddie

A twenty was stuffed beneath the corner of the magnet, crinkled and folded more times than you could guess. You wondered if he dug it out of his pocket—coat or jacket—and figured it would hold you over until he came home. The gesture simmered low in your stomach, fluttering up in waves of cascading love that longed to drown you. Some other day you would have let it, but today you stood in Eddie's apartment.

Today you got to spend time with your favorite person.

That was reason enough to swim back to the shore and claw your way along wet sand that your hands sunk into.

Dragging your heavy coat up and over your body, you pocketed the spare set of keys Eddie left out on the counter. A set that was always meant for you—not that he told you. Exploring New York on your own was never a part of the plan, but something warm burned bright in your chest at the thought of getting to witness parts of it for yourself. Things that Eddie wouldn't be attached to. Moments stolen for your own safe keeping.

Perhaps one day you'd tell him about this small adventure. Or maybe he'd pry the information out of you tonight over drinks. Either way you felt lighter than you had in years, strolling along the icy sidewalks, your breath forming a cloud with each soft exhale.

People rushed past you, some stuck in a phone call—a briefcase attached to their hand—others weighed down by gift bags meant for the upcoming holiday season. All with somewhere to be.

Clouds of dark gray were scattered across the sky, as if created by a single brush stroke with no real purpose. You longed to have a camera in your hands, to snap photos of your first time in the city. Pictures you would be able to look back on and hold in your hand; time that you'd never get again. At least then you might get to leave with something other than a broken and heavy heart.

The cafe was sparse with a few people sitting at tables, books or notebooks or even a newspaper propped in front of them. Steam rising off their various mugs. Everyone was looking to escape the cold for a bit. For some reason that made you smile.

Fishing the twenty out of your pocket, you barely got two feet into the place before ramming into someone's back. You braced yourself to fall, hands clenched in fists to give your arms the impact, only for someone to grip your forearms and drag you into a proper standing position. People's eyes were fixed on the scene before them. Someone about to make a fool of themselves—a person they would no doubt speak about to their significant others and friends later on today.

"Fuck I'm sorry," you gasped, righting your feet to keep some form of balance.

The first thing you noticed was his laugh.

Dark and raspy and soft enough to fill your body with a flutter that felt unknown to you in the presence of someone else. Your head rose to thank your savior, but brown eyes were all you could see. Warm with honey and amber that lit up with the quirk of his lips. Only once in your life had a man stolen the breath right from your chest, yet there he was. Drawing forth that spark of fleeting want that stirred low in your stomach—filling your head with a haze that felt soothing on your nerves.

"You alright?" he asked, voice a smooth match for his laugh.

Swallowing thickly, you attempted to drag common sense to the forefront of your mind. "I'm…um…okay."

Another laugh left you flustered enough to feel a thrill of panic streak down your spine. "In a rush for coffee?"

"What?"

He glanced at the way your fist was clutched around the twenty dollar bill. "You can go in front of me if it's an emergency."

"Oh. No I'm just wandering," you admitted, a bit breathier than you would have liked. "I'm not from here."

"Ah. Visiting?"

You nodded. "Came to see my friend. Although I guess I'm shit out of luck cause he's at work right now."

"And you came here for coffee?" His laugh was quickly burrowing in your mind, finding space where there's only ever been room for one man. Eddie. "He doesn't have good taste in coffee does he?"

"What's wrong with this place?"

A shrug had him lifting his hands in surrender. "Okay coffee, short lines. Although I guess I can't complain now that you're here."

Oh.

He was flirting with you.

He looked at you with a kindness that melted the armor that encased your heart for one man. The protection you thought was needed to survive loving someone who may never be able to love you back. Countless years of Eddie falling for woman after woman, times that left you broken and bitter simply thinking about the concept of romance in any form. But here stood a man who possibly wanted to get to know you.

Someone with a nice smile and eyes that screamed endless joy.

The grin on your lips came with ease this time around. "Your lucky day."

"Now that you mention it." His brows pulled together in a mock thought. "I did have a pretty good feeling about this place."

"Fate's doing?"

"Could be." Moving his way up to the counter, you quickly took that chance to fix any part of yourself that could be in disarray. "I'll take a latte and whatever she's having."

"That's not–"

The barista clicked the sharpie with an expression screaming of boredom. "Name?"

"Louie."

"Five minutes."

"Thank you ma'am." Snatching a small card placed at the front he scribbled something down and shoved it your way. "For you."

The wary glance didn’t seem to deter him. "The bill?"

He chuckled; you ached to hear that sound as many times as possible before the both of you parted ways. "My number. And name. Figure that might help."

"Louie…Parker."

"That's me."

The both of you huddled near a corner table, his back leaning against the wall and hands shoved into his coat pockets. A part of you dug for faults amidst his perfect smile and sharp nose—any chance for your heart to come to terms with why you should walk away. Useless reasons why you didn't need to stand here entertaining a man you might never see again. Yet nothing sprung to mind.

He was kind. Open and willing to let you pick through his mind—to see that what he wanted wasn’t the opposite of the other man your heart pined for.

Suddenly the name Louie sounded sweet coming off your tongue. The letters mixed with the lyrical melody of a future you didn’t consider before meeting Eddie. A chance to finally grow the way you wanted. You weren’t tied to one single person and to trick yourself into believing that was a disservice to yourself.

His name rang through the small cafe, signaling that your time together was slowly coming to a close. But you found yourself attempting to come up with a way to stay on this page—stopping the story in place.

“Here you go.” He handed over your order with a full blown smile that shone with a nervousness you felt linger in your own stomach.

So this is what you’d been missing all these years.

“I don’t do this much,” he began, tearing open two packs of sugar with a shaky cough. “But if you happen to find yourself free or with loads of time on your hands. I’d be happy to show you around the city.”

You sipped at your drink, biting back the smile that still forced its way onto your lips. “Adventuring with a stranger. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Well I wouldn’t recommend it,” he huffed. “But cross my heart, boy scout honor, promise that I am normal as they come around here."

“Boy scout?”

His cheeks flushed scarlet; you finally understood the appeal of flirting. “Nothing wrong with being a boy scout.”

“No you’re right I’m sorry,” you giggled.

He straightened and graced you with a smile bright enough to rival the spark of caffeine in your veins. “Call me. If you want of course. But…I hope you do.”

At one point in your life this would have been the exact opposite of everything you dreamed of. The small fantasy created in the mind of an impressionable and naive child slowly began to break apart the older you and Eddie got. Some piece of you still longed for the boy who held you when you cried over small mishaps and boys who called you names. But she was placed on a shelf long ago—she served her purpose, she lived with a smile, and you were thankful to have known her innocence.

They say growing up is the hard part, letting go of childhood comfort. They never spoke about letting go of childhood love, of moving past something you counted on. A future that would never be.

“I’d like that.”

“Really?” You nodded, practically watching the relief wash over his tense shoulders as he fell into step with you, heading for the door. “Okay. Okay, yeah. I’ll uh…” He rammed into a woman, nearly spilling his coffee. “Shit sorry miss.”

Latching onto his jacket, you tugged him into you to keep his feet steady—the cuss she offered in response loud enough to follow the both of you outside. Neither of you could discern who laughed first. But the first domino was set into motion, leading to the uncontrollable ache of laughter that burned through your stomach. Your cheeks hurt, the tears were rising to the surface, and Louie fared no better.

The crimson tinge of his skin spread to the tip of his nose with the cold icy chill of the afternoon air. You couldn’t tear your gaze away from his beauty. The both of you were bent over, gasping for a full breath of air, and in the midst of this small joy it hit you. This was the first time you weren’t thinking of Eddie. You weren’t wondering what he was doing, what his days were occupied with.

You were blissfully free from the thought of your true love.

And it felt good.

“I’m going this way,” he gestured behind him, the steam from his cup curling around his face.

“I’m going the other way.”

He nodded. “Exploring?”

“Probably.”

“Well.” He sucked in a breath, reluctance in his stance. But eventually the pages would flip to the final page and even though you both wanted this to go on longer, the understanding of what this was still remained. You didn’t live in New York, he would never hear from you again, and that was the beauty of strangers. “Have a good day.”

You grinned, watching him walk into the throng of people on the street, the head of dark hair melting into the crowd with a sigh. “You too,” you mumbled, heading towards the corner with a lighter heart and weightless mind.

The city sang to you while you walked. A symphony of voices, of car horns and shouts, of people chattering on calls to nowhere and everywhere. You resided in the middle of a civilization that both welcomed and ignored you. Somehow that held a string of familiarity to it. The unconscionable knowing that somewhere in the chaos of New York, you belonged here.

Old sayings came back to your mind as you passed businesses and restaurants. A truth you clung to on the days that Eddie called to relay a week's worth of information from the city that never sleeps. Something awaited you here, a piece of your future yet to come true. Perhaps that’s why you got on the plane and agreed to his constant pleading. Not to appease him, but to find that something.

Your feet hurt after an hour, the cold breaching the thick layer of your jacket, and eventually you found yourself back at Eddie’s place. The pungent scent of fish became easy enough to follow the closer you got. His key felt cold against your palm, the weight of it suddenly looming in the distance now that you crossed paths with Louie. He wanted to get to know you, he wanted to spend time with you.

Eddie left you alone to wander on the first day of your visit.

“Yeah,” you sighed, sliding the key into the lock with ease. “I’ll call him.”

“I don’t understand how you can take so fuckin’ long in here.”

You swatted the imposing hand heading straight for your near perfect eyeliner. “I’m not against biting you Alden.”

The grin he flashed you in the mirror nearly broke the resolve you built up all day—his charm striking your heart with a lethal promise. Two hours of alone time in his place gave you a chance to collect yourself. Louie’s name and number was pressed into the small notebook you kept at all times. You itched to call him, make plans for a date that was long overdue in your life.

That is until Eddie waltzed through the door with the plea for you to get ready for a night out on the town. Some time to finally be the adults who took over for two young and reckless teenagers. Reality shattered clean over your head, reminding you that this trip—this short lived time of fun—was always meant to be spent with Eddie.

He made the plans, he got you here. To spend it with another man felt inherently wrong.

“Again with the biting kitten,” he sighed, sipping his cocktail made messily in the kitchen. “I’m starting to think you like the idea of marking me up.”

Your hand faltered, the mascara wand nearly ramming into your eye. “You’re delusional.”

“Mhm.” He popped the olive in his mouth with a grin, shaking his head at the glare thrown over your shoulder. “You don’t have to be fancy. It’s just a bar.”

“I’m doing this for myself Eddie.”

The slight roll of his eyes didn’t slip past you—his muttered words brushed off with another swipe of lipstick. Rarely did you get the chance to head out at home. Stuffed into cheap back road bars that believed the shitty beer would stop people from commenting on the state of their bathrooms. Forced to listen to nostalgic conversations that always stemmed back to the good old days of high school.

After a year or two of friends dragging you past the thresholds of buildings that’d seen far more than necessary from a string of generations that came before you, it eventually led to the confines of your apartment being your safe space.

Soon…they stopped asking for your presence already knowing the answer that sat urgently on the tip of your tongue.

“Never thought you’d be one to go fancy,” he mused, leaning against the door frame—his looming height throwing you off. “You never used to do it.”

You sighed, bitter and jaded and filled with empty words of irritation. “We had to grow up eventually. Consider this me being grown up.”

“Oh believe me,” he breathed, burning gaze dragging down to how your jeans molded to your hips. “I know.”

Downing the final dregs of his drink, he ripped his eyes from the dark denim with a disgruntled sigh attempting to ignore the ache in his stomach that rapidly spread to the tight confines of his own pants. Discouraging you from putting on pretty things was the last thing he wanted. The exact opposite rang in his mind like a bell without end—a reminder that if he stepped up and opened his fucking mouth this wouldn’t be an issue.

He wanted to reach for you, slide his hands into the pockets that were stretched over your ass and grope the flesh without concern for what it would do to your friendship. He longed for the chance to try and keep you in his apartment, to peel the fabric from your body with enamored words of worship.

The fear held him by the scruff of his neck, sliding down his spine with a vicious promise that this would shatter on impact. The bond stretched tight and thin over years and distance was vulnerable. To tamper with it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. He’d never forgive himself if he became the reason it ripped and frayed.

So he kept his mouth shut and watched as you admired the top that hugged your breasts, adjusting it slightly to pronounce their plushness. The second you puckered your lips, leaning forward to touch up the smudged lipstick Eddie felt his breaking point rush to the surface. With a barely hidden cough, he rushed to the kitchen for a glass of water—desperate to calm the incessant throbbing that stirred his cock to attention.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered, the cold tap water sliding down his throat with a icy burn.

It didn’t help.

“Go the fuck away.” He snarled the words under his breath, gripping the edge of the cold counter until his knuckles paled.

“Are you talking to me?”

With wide eyes, he whirled around at the soft echo of your voice filling the empty space. You with trepidation in your gaze and mouth pulled into a frown. Those pretty lips carved from marble, accentuated in a mauve he wanted smeared over the bare skin of his chest. Shutting his eyes to the sight felt like the only way he could survive tonight, but you were waiting for him to reassure the doubts that spilled into an already hesitant mind.

Worries that overtook your mind at the worst times.

“No,” he blurted out. “Not really talkin’ to anyone. Just uh…needed some water. Sore throat.”

Your brows furrowed, lips curling into a grin. “It’s cause your apartment is fucking cold!”

“Lies,” he retorted, dragging his leather jacket up and over his body. “‘S cause you got me sick.”

“Oh bullshit!” An arm draped over your shoulders, leading you to the heavy metal front door. “I didn’t show up sick. It’s all your own fault for not taking my advice.”

“Advice huh?”

“Get a better radiator or fix it. I’m not getting hypothermia for you.”

Digging his teeth into his lip, he swallowed the smile—eyes gleaming beneath the stairwell lights. “Who says you’re gonna get hypothermia? You’ve got a heater right here.” He gestured down his body with a cocksure smile. “I won’t let you get sick.”

“You have a bedroom of your own.”

“Kicking me out already?” he exclaimed, following you down the steps. “I thought we were bound for life.”

Scoffing, you turned to glance up at his imposing form—the saliva drying in your mouth instantly. “Well…we’re…friends. Not roommates.”

He clutched his heart. “You wound me kitten.”

“Fuck off Eddie,” you laughed.

“I can’t.” He fell into step beside you, guiding you out into the frozen night air. “Unfortunately you’re stuck with me.”

Two bars later and three glasses of beer had you and Eddie stumbling through the doors of his third and possibly final pick of the night. The first wound up being downstairs. A small hole in the wall that served relatively good drinks, yet held no space for two extra people to add to the madness. So he dragged you downtown to a tiny hovel beneath the towering buildings of the city—only to wind up with a shitty pungent aftertaste at the back of your throat.

The space reeked of cigarettes. Butts of smoked joints and Marlboros scattered the floor as people cheered for whatever song came up next. Couples or strangers or first timers danced aimlessly, lost in the alcohol that filled their veins. You wanted to say you fared better, but the days of drinking Eddie under the table were long gone.

A forgotten piece of youth scattered along the back roads of your town.

“I’m gonna grab another beer.” He pressed the words to your ear with cold lips and a tight grip on your hip.

“Sublime,” you drawled, watching him push through the throng of people with a determined gait in his step.

Relenting yourself to the fitful search of an empty table, you nearly rammed your hip into the corner of a booth on your way past a small group of women. A bachelorette party from the veil and flushed cheeks of a soon to be bride celebrating her future. You swallowed the sour tang of jealousy, easing yourself past with a halfhearted grin at the woman who tossed a flawless smile your way.

Marriage was never in the cards for you. Eternally bound, tied by more than the strings of fate.

How could you think of anyone else filling the space Eddie stood in for years? He was the groom in your mind, the man waiting at the end of an extremely long aisle. Replacing him felt wrong. A betrayal that nearly threw you for a loop of dizziness.

Your eyes slid over the groups of people, finding him with ease at the bar—a beer gripped tightly in his hand and a smile on his lips…for the woman on his right. Bile crept up the back of your throat, burning your stomach ruthlessly. This wasn’t jealousy, this surpassed that. What you felt was a possession that settled in your bones the second you looked at him; a part of your mind that screamed he was yours.

But he wasn’t yours.

He was a single man living in New York and you were…his friend.

Swallowing thickly you navigated past another set of tables with your head down to watch the stumble of your feet. Only to feel someone slam into your shoulder, nearly toppling you over. Yelping, you gripped the hands that reached for your shoulders—eyes wide and breath lost at the prospect of getting injured while piss poor drunk. Brown eyes flashed in your vision, a face that echoed with familiarity, and suddenly there you were.

Back in that coffee shop in the arms of a stranger.

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

You blinked rapidly, lips tilting into a grin at the sight of Louie Parker. “But how will I make an impression if we don’t?” you quipped with a breathless laugh.

“Believe me–” He settled you back on your feet, his hands dropping to the small of your back. “–you’ve made an impression.”

“A good one I hope.”

He smiled, still warm, still…different. “A great one.”

Someone shoved past you, landing you right into his chest with a muffled grunt. You longed to get out of this stuffy bar, to find your way back to the spacious yet freezing apartment. But the arrival of Louie kept you rooted to the spot, intrigued to find out what might happen next. His smile drew you in with a serene lull of quiet in this crowded and loud place. The people melted into the background as he kept you close.

A different song came on, people cheered, and yet you found that hanging out with Louie was the best option for the night. You felt bad at the thought you were forgetting Eddie entirely, but he chose to leave you on your own to hit on someone. Why couldn’t you do the same?

“So since this is our second meeting,” he started with a nervous glint in his eyes, cheeks flushed with the alcohol he no doubt drank before this. “I was wondering if you’re free…um…in a few days?”

Sucking in a breath, you felt an unfamiliar flutter echo in your chest—one that solely existed for Eddie. “I’m not here for a long time–”

“Then tomorrow night?”

You froze, eyes wide at the thought of finally getting a chance to live. You owed it to yourself to finally experience this. To give the prospect of love in a different person another chance. So with a smile you placed a hand on his chest and found your footing in an unfamiliar space.

“I’d love to.” Heat spilled across your spine where he touched you; an unexplored path you tried not to be terrified of.

“Really?” His breathless voice echoed with a rasp that had you hanging onto every word. “I can pick you up.”

Nodding, you felt the rapid rate of his heart pump beneath your hand. “Just let me know the place. Easier that way.”

“Well I don’t want you to get lost,” he drawled, eyes half lidded and burning dark with a want that left you jittery. “It is a big city.”

“That it is,” you mumbled, teeth sharply pressing into your bottom lip hard enough to keep you level.

The beer tasted shitty enough to hold him over for another twenty minutes, knuckles rapping on the bar to order an extra for you. Aria slid into the spot beside him, her lips pulled into a knowing smirk that curdled his stomach. She worked at his office, often trading her girl troubles for his. It wasn’t uncommon for him to drink a bit too much and let loose the name of his dream woman—his favorite person.

He swallowed the remainder of his drink as she turned to him, eyebrow raised as silence and the chatter of people filled the space between them. That was the thing about Aria. She refused to let him get away until he spilled his guts. Until the one thing that bugged him fell upon her attuned ears.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

She laughed, taking a sip of the vodka soda pushed her way. “You’re like a dog with a bone, Alden.”

“I don’t know what you’re fuckin’ talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” She glanced over his shoulder, no doubt at the stunning person he’d come to call his best friend. “That her? The soulmate?”

He swallowed down another mouthful. “I didn’t say soulmate.”

With a snort she leaned close. “I believe your exact words were: I met my soulmate at twelve and she doesn’t even know how much I fucking. love. her.”

“I was drunk,” he exclaimed.

“Still said it Eddie.”

Grumbling under his breath, he sipped at the second beer meant for you—eyes fixed on the sticky wooden bar-top that held an infinite amount of rings from glasses set there over the years. It wasn’t the finest establishment, but he found it to be a part of his life here in the city. A piece of the man who learned how to live on his own in a place that nearly throttled him on the first day.

“She’s visiting,” he mumbled into his glass.

Aria hummed. “Sure seems like it’s more than that. Especially with that guy.”

Pain splintered through the tendons in his neck with how fast his head turned, picking you out within seconds. A smile played along your smudged lips, your gaze transfixed on the man whose hands were curled around your hips. The same spot Eddie craved to touch each night, the same body that he longed to love with his teeth and tongue.

Rage simmered at the top of his stomach, his fingers clenching around the glass hard enough to crack it—jaw ticking and teeth grinding at the sight of your carefree laugh directed at someone else.

He never wanted to burn the world more. To ram his fist into the face of a man who might have been astronomically nice.

“Excuse me,” he spit out, getting to his feet with a lungful of air.

Her knowing laugh fell on deaf ears while he shoved past people. He was five seconds from vaulting over the tables to get to you, his heart hammering sharply against his chest. This hostility towards your dating life wasn’t born from malice. Not in any way that was directed at you. He merely hated each man who showed even a partial interest in you.

All through high school he shoved them away with duplicitous words and rueful smiles. Claiming that you were already dating someone, that you weren’t looking for much.

Perhaps it was awful. Maybe he destroyed your love life to sleep easier at night. But he did it because none of them would know your favorite color, or remember the album you played on a constant loop in tenth grade, or envision the home they’d build with you and what color the kitchen would be. They’d never see the depths of your heart even as you blatantly wore it on your sleeve.

He would.

He always had.

Call it selfish, call it insanity, call it hypocritical for bringing you heartache as he slept with half of New York. They all rang with a truth that haunted him—picking him a part with the ruthless edge of a sword he walked daily.

Because he was selfish and insane and a fucking hypocrite. He was everything you’d call him and more the day you found out. And he’d take it with a smile, the taste of you on his tongue as he stole a kiss. He would face the wrath of your anger if it meant you were his.

“How are you liking New York?” The man’s question echoed with a reverence that made the alcohol in Eddie’s stomach churn.

Somehow in such a short time you managed to charm a man before Eddie could gain the courage to tell you the truth. He knew he would be sick the second you guys got back to his place. He’d find himself on the bathroom floor as you pulled and strangled his weeping heart. And he couldn’t even blame you for it. You didn’t know the extent of his feelings, you were completely unaware of how he spent some days thinking of what you were doing—what you were thinking about—and it was all his fault.

“The city is packed–”

Eddie sauntered over with a smile, his hand finding purchase on the small of your back. “Is that why you’ve been trying to get out of visiting me, kitten?”

You froze, expression swirling with the guilt of being caught with your hand in the cookie jar, and Eddie had never felt more pathetic in his life. How could he make you feel bad about this? How could he ruin another prospect that clearly seemed interested in the way your lashes fluttered against your cheeks with each quick blink? Was he truly this inconsiderate?

“Oh!” You glanced at Eddie, your pupils dilating at the sight of his smirk. His ego swelled at the sight. “Eddie there you are.”

“Here I am.” At long last he finally acknowledged the man who clung to you with rapturous awe in his eyes. “And who is this?”

The stranger relented his hold on your hip to extend that same hand towards him. “Louie Parker. You must be the best friend?”

“And oldest friend,” he replied in a snarky tone of reproach, gripping hard enough to see him wince. “Since elementary school. Right Kit?”

“Kit?” Louie grinned at you; Eddie seethed.

You seemed none the wiser of the obvious pissing contest directly in front of you. “Old nickname. Eddie’s mom gave it to me. She used to call me the stray kitten he found next door.”

“It’s cute,” Louie replied. “Kitten.”

Eddie’s fingers curled into fists, eyes burning with enough anger to set the entire bar ablaze. You looked happy with Louie, blissfully so. It dug at the insecure parts of himself he thought he buried in college—the parts that screamed for peace. He didn’t come from a perfect family. He didn’t have the greatest hold of his temper. He wasn’t…the man you deserved. Maybe Louie was and maybe Louie was meant to be your husband—your forever.

That alone left him aching to snuff out the sparks even as they flew above his head. Selfish, greedy, possessive. Eddie was all of that and more, and he refused to be ashamed of things that kept you in his life.

You’d hate him for it later. That he could handle.

As long as you were there to hate him.

“We gotta go,” he announced, hooking a finger into the back belt loop of your jeans to tug you closer. “There’s another spot I wanted to show you.”

Staring at him incredulously made him dizzy with the sight. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Bars don’t close till three kitten.”

The pout on your lips had his heart dropping to his stomach. Fuck what he wouldn’t give to lick the mauve stain off your mouth. He wanted to taste the alcohol off your tongue, to test his theory of it being better off your tastebuds. He wondered what you would do if he were to kiss you right now in front of everyone. Would you push him off? Would you curse at him with vitriol on your lips? Or would you sink into it with the same needy ache that spread down to the tips of his fingers?

He hoped for the former even as he knew the latter was reality.

“But I…” A quick glance at Louie left you floundering for the right answer. Eddie played it up with a ruthless streak of defiance.

Leaning in, he felt you go slack in his hold at the sight of his wide eyes pleading for you to say yes. “Please.”

You sighed, pulling free from Louie’s hold with an apologetic grin. “I’ll call you.”

Pride bloomed in his chest, guilt clinging to the last dregs of beer that sat at the top of his stomach. This vacation wasn’t meant for you to fall in love with someone else. But who was he to make that choice for you? You should have spit at him, cussed at him with the teenage fury handed to him in the past. The girl he longed to see once more.

The one you buried the day he left you behind. A way to escape the pain of his absence.

“This better be good,” you mumbled, hand gripped into the back of his jacket as he led you through the crowd.

His hand itched to slide into the pocket of your pants; instead he sunk his teeth into the flesh of his cheek. “You’ve never seen the city at night.”

“I’m here all week. We could have gone some other day.”

A shrug became his only answer. The opportunity for silence grew easier as you traipsed beside him, the echo of night drumming the chaotic beat he grew to harmonize with. Taxi’s honked their horns, people shouted across small streets. New York in all its glory. A list of spots to take you formed in his head, the bars and cafes still open past midnight. You would loathe most, find no entertainment in others, and so he led you aimlessly—no true destination needed when all he craved was your company.

Much to his surprise you looped your arm around his, soaking in the glow of streetlights and frozen air of an icy winter. Eyes filled with wonder and lips curled into a grin, he knew this was it. The moment he’d think back to after your plane departed, after you finally left him to survive the gaping hole forged in his unsteady heart. You with starlight in your eyes—rapture painted across a face he saw in his dreams.

A haunting angel that saved him long ago.

“You look like you belong here Kit,” he admitted with a whispered reverence.

Your gaze met his—the sparkle bright enough to rival the glow of the moon. “I do huh?”

“A true New Yorker if I’ve ever seen one.”

“High praise coming from you.”

A beat of silence echoed with decades of a future brimming with one single possibility. A life spent here…with you.

“So stay,” he uttered.

The whip of your head sent pain down your neck. “Ha ha Eddie.”

“I’m not joking.”

Your smile faltered. “I can’t stay here Eddie. I don’t…”

“You don’t what?” His brows furrowed—other hand sliding to keep you close.

“I don’t belong here.” With a sigh you ducked your head, the streetlight playing off your hair, forming a halo. “Not like you do. I’d have nothing holding me here, nothing to do.”

His chest twisted, heart stuttering an unknown beat of anguish. “Yes you do.”

“Eddie–”

“You belong here more than you know. With…”

With me.

To wrench the words out of his chest felt impossible. A feat he’d been trying to overcome since highschool. One that grew in size the more years that passed—his secret tucked away from reality, its frail unsure nature reeking with a vulnerability he was too ashamed to reveal. But you knew more than anyone. You knew his quirks, how he dreamt of being a screenwriter, how he broke down crying the night his mother officially signed the divorce papers—splitting his life down the middle.

You’d seen him on his knees begging the world to cease his suffering. And in a way it did. Because with every smile you gave him, all the nights spent laughing until your stomachs flared with that soothing ache, you healed his haphazardly stitched up heart.

A question still burned in his chest, spurting out of his mouth without thought. “What do you think of love Kit?”

The incredulous expression on your face nearly made him take it back. But then…you answered.

“It’s ridiculous.”

He blanched, swallowing back the nausea. “What…”

Truth tumbled from your lips with a spite he’d never seen before—an anger that lay unresolved in your spirit. “It’s all bullshit. The whole romantic true love notion. It doesn’t exist.”

“Kitten–”

“No. You told me a long time ago that the whole true love soulmate shit isn’t real. And I tried to defend it—like really tried—but I think I’ve gotten tired of waiting for the knight in shining armor who doesn’t exist.”

Swallowing thickly, he shut out the piece of his heart perilously close to breaking off. “How do you know he doesn’t exist?” he croaked.

“Because he would have found me by now.” With a weary sigh, you shrugged. “Or maybe he does exist and just doesn’t want me.”

I want you. I want you till the end of time. I want you in this life and the next and each one we wind up in together.

But like a coward…he stayed quiet. “Oh…”

The words damning love—striking it down with a whip of fury—sounded different coming out of your mouth. As if you believed their bitterness. Took it to heart with the vow to escape from the emotions he never knew how to control. Soulmates weren’t bullshit, true love wasn’t fake. He knew that now.

He’d known the second he met you.

If only the stupidity of youth hadn’t dragged him down to a place he could never return.

“It’s freezing Eddie.”

Jolting out of his flurry of thoughts, he watched your eyes wide and shining look at him with hope. A fleeting need that simmered at the base of his stomach. The alcohol was starting to wear off, the lingering effects of a morning doomed with the hangover flaring to life. He sucked in a breath, steadying himself with a needy rush that fortified itself in the back of his head.

Focusing on the sound of your voice became difficult when all he could hear was the pleas to kiss you. His own mind turning against the docile moments of silence meant to swallow his affections.

He was nearing his breaking point. That alone should have terrified him.

“C’mere.” Looping his arms around your back he tucked you into his jacket, his chin finding a spot against your head, hands pressed into the heavy coat that never seemed to be enough.

A perfect placement of two halves unsure of whether or not they fit together.

The puzzle would remain unfinished, disjointed. But that’s how you’d grown to love one another. Perfectly imperfect.

“They sell hot chocolate at a cafe near here.”

You perked up with a smile, chin resting on his chest. “Hot chocolate? With whipped cream?”

“What do I look like? An animal?” he scoffed. “‘Course they got whipped cream.”

“Lead the way Alden.”

Sunlight felt odd when coupled with the frozen air of his living room; a fresh blanket of snow coated his balcony—the tops of buildings layered in what you could only describe as a white winter. The picture perfect background to time spent in New York during the holidays. Only your time was quickly coming to a close, your last two days moving exponentially fast given who you were spending it with. Although you supposed the melancholy of leaving your best friend behind made it worse.

You didn’t want to go home. You didn’t want to spend the holidays in a town scattered with memories of Eddie when he wasn’t around to make new ones.

So you resigned yourself to his couch with a book, a scratchy throw blanket covering your legs and a flattened pillow set behind your back. Both should have made for a time of awful relaxation, but you’d never been more comfortable. Surrounded by Eddie’s scent in his home as he hummed a broken tune in his bedroom. The clack of his keyboard loud enough to drown out the traffic outside—the horn of cars and taxis drifting through the thin glass.

The contrast of the two worlds left you sinking a bit further on his couch, your eyes soaking in the words typed neatly on the page. A love story. Ironic given the conversation the two of you had last night—confusing yet filled with clarity as to what you really believed. What you were unsure of from the start. Yes you believed in love, no you didn’t think true love was about to happen upon you on a random night in the city.

You wondered if Eddie was referring to Louie. The man he couldn’t pull you away from fast enough. Perhaps he saw something in the stranger. A flash of darkness you were too blind to notice.

The game of romance felt brand new, the fear of taking all the wrong steps swelling in your chest the more you strived towards it. Having your heart broken was bound to happen given that you’d never experienced much in love. The past was littered with memories of Eddie, of time spent with him as the only man in your life—the one who should have taught you what to do.

But now you were wading into open waters, desperate to see what lay on that small island of love, the hope in your heart diminishing the more your body ached from swimming.

Louie was nice. You liked him.

That had to be enough.

She cupped his face, lips searching for plush lips and whispers of the next day. The night echoed with the beat of their hearts, a tangled intermingling of souls who searched eternity for the prospect of forever. He kissed her with a husk filled groan, fingers gripping the base of her neck and cock sliding through dripping folds—

“Story must be pretty good to have your nose so far into it.”

You jerked back, eyes wide as Eddie’s broad form filled your eye level. “W-what?”

The sly raise of his eyebrow went unnoticed by your racing mind. “I asked if it was a good story.”

“Oh–” You shut the book on your finger, coughing subtly as your thighs pressed together. “Yeah. Great story.”

The original plan to visit his work was overshadowed by the hangover blinding the both of you into submission. Painkillers were your savior and cheap coffees bought down the street were your resolute salvation. It took two hours of laying in bed as Eddie moaned and grumbled down the hall on the phone in an attempt to snag yet another sick day. Eventually you dragged yourself out to the freezing cold kitchen, wincing as bare skin touched cement and effectively turned to ice.

That was an hour ago. Enough time for you to find the strength to focus your eyes on pages lined with lascivious and vulgar acts that made your heart race. It was a standard bodice ripper, picked up at the airport as a hopeful distraction on the journey here. Only to find that you actually enjoyed the story.

“Wanna tell me what it’s about?”

Heat prickled beneath the cold skin of your cheeks—his gaze unwavering and perceptive. “A love story.”

“Love story,” he mumbled.

“Standard romance. Man likes woman, proceeds to try and woo woman…stuff like that.”

“Ah.” A hand ripped the paperback from your grip quicker than you anticipated, his eyes devouring the page you marked as you sprang to your feet.

“Eddie!”

“He kissed her with a husk filled groan, fingers gripping the base of her neck and cock sliding through dripping folds…” A ruddy scarlet flush bloomed across his face, traveling rapidly to the tips of his ears—his eyes wide and lips parted.

Spit was smeared across crimson lips, his fingers finding a home on her waiting tongue—body curving over her pliant form with a moan. She was spread beneath him, eyes shining in anticipation, a cry tearing from the base of her elongated throat at the first thrust into her drooling cunt.

Eddie couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“You fucker!” you shouted, yanking the novel back with a sneer. “You don’t have to know everything.”

The sharp edge of your words spilled out onto deafened ears as he regarded you with dark eyes, teeth digging into his bottom lip hard enough to split it open. His cock twitched in his sweatpants, leaking into the boxers he knew he’d have to wash the second your attention was elsewhere.

It’s not that he had no self control—he did. Eddie prided himself on his restraint knowing how many times he could have kissed you, how many nights he watched you sleep and held back from caressing your cheek.

All his life he spent every fucking day keeping himself from begging you to take him, to break and ruin him beyond repair.

But at this very moment he felt another strand of the rope around his throat snap; the invasive feral need to have you—ravish you—pounded through his body. It screamed with intent. Clawed at his mind as images of you trapped in that same scenario began to shove their way to the forefront. You in his bed, lips forming around the letters of his name, the comfortable clothes you wore in a heap on the floor.

You taking his cock like the good fucking girl he knew you were.

The nice sweetheart he belonged to.

“We’re going out,” he said abruptly, biting harshly on the inside of his cheek. The sticky wet sensation in his sweatpants felt unbearable when you were here, his body aching to just let you touch him—to drop to his knees and let you have your way.

Except that felt too forward; that would scare you.

“Where?” you demanded, eyes narrowed at his blank face.

“Lunch.” His tongue swiped along the bitten and swollen bottom lip. “I’m starving.”

The audible click of your swallow seared into the back of his head, gratification pouring out into the open at the thought that you reacted to him. That your now flustered expression was due to him. He swiveled on his heel, bee lining for the bathroom as you stood in shock. Your heart thumping a rapid and unknown beat that spread down between the thigh clench of your thighs. You wanted to hear him rasp those words again. His eyes shadowed by the aching need of a man who hadn’t been laid in days.

Even if you could tell the book was the only thing to rile him up. That look alone would plague your dreams for months on end—your fingers working tirelessly to give you just enough.

You didn’t hear the thump of Eddie’s forehead hit the shower wall—his body humming with anticipation. Nor did you hear the gruff biting moan that bounced off tile, soon drowned out by water the second his hand wrapped around his already leaking and blushing cock. What control he clamped onto flew out of his body at the first pump of his fist, a wet grunt tumbling out of parted lips slick with his spit.

The last time he got off this fast reared in his mind. You prancing up and down a beach in a bikini, tits bouncing and the fat of your thighs rippling with each dash into the water. He came in his hand quick enough to make him go blind, his head fuzzy with the high of imagining you on your knees. Mouth parted to swallow his spend with soft breathy moans.

“Fuck,” he spit, thumb pressing beneath the head of his throbbing length.

Embarrassment should have washed over him by now—that twinge of shame tugging at his gut. But your flustered expression stamped itself behind his shut eyelids, desperation his base state in the confines of the small shower. For a brief second you wanted him. You yearned for him to keep going.

A stuttered moan ricocheted off the walls. No doubt loud enough to spill into the kitchen, but Eddie couldn’t fucking care. He was climbing towards a searing release, his body curling forward and hand pressed against the cold wall. The tremble of his thighs was the telltale sign that it would be over soon, but something shifted. Suddenly he wasn’t just thinking about you on the floor sucking him off to a quick conclusion.

Now he pictured you in the bedroom, bent over his kitchen counter as coffee brewed, on the floor of the living room strewn across a heap of blankets. He imagined you writhing in ecstasy with his name on your lips—your back bowed and head tipped as a cry wrenched from your throat. How his cock would slide into you with ease, slick pouring out to make a filthy mess between your sweaty bodies. He’d have you any way you wanted, but this he took for himself.

His imagination was his only solace in a life spent parted from you.

The stutter of your name ripped from his lips with a whine, the slap of his hand bouncing off the walls as he came with a hiss. Spilling over pale knuckles and washing down the drain with a sigh.

Pathetic wasn’t the word to describe how he felt the second he wrapped the towel around his waist, water dripping across the floor as he wiped down the fogged up mirror. He was the mud beneath a soldier's boots. The grime stuck to old cars left to rot in junkyards. Eddie had turned into a whimpering mess of a man at the mere thought of having you—yet he never tried to make that dream a reality.

“Nice going Alden,” he muttered, glaring at his flushed cheeks. “Fuckin’ up one day at a time huh.”

Jumping at the soft knock on the locked door, he felt his heart flutter at the lilt of your voice. Truly he was losing it—a hopeless case with no chance of being salvaged.

“Can I get in there Eddie?”

His teeth dug into his bottom lip, eyes rolling back at the violent twitch of his still sensitive cock. “Y-Yeah. ‘M done here.”

Wrenching the door open seemed to be a mistake given how close you were. Stumbling forward, your hand found purchase on his wet naked chest to steady yourself—the gasp filling his ears soft and high and everything he imagined. Your eyes dropped to the towel that hung low on his waist, the trail of hair leading beneath it, water dripping along the vein you’d seen before. Somehow up close it felt like more, like an invasion of privacy.

It startled you how much you craved to trace the shape of it with your tongue.

Heat flooded your face, hand falling to your side as he smirked, his arm propped against the door frame beside his head. “Take a picture kitten. You can frame it.”

Your face fell. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? Getting to stare at yourself all day.”

“I wouldn’t not like it. Pretty sure I’ve got a camera around here somewhere.”

Shoving him to the side with a groan you set the small toiletries bag on the sink’s edge. “Maybe later. I’ve got to get ready.”

“We’re just going to lunch Kit.”

“Oh I know,” you replied. “But I’ve got a date tonight.”

There were times in his life Eddie wondered what torture felt like. A strange odd thought at the early age of twenty whilst watching a shitty action movie. But there standing two feet from the love of his life, he finally understood.

His heart dropped—stomach churning hard enough for a wave of bile to claw up his throat. He felt surprised he was still up on two feet, his mind reeling with the information you handed over with an air of joy. As if you couldn’t be more excited. Nails dug into his palm as he formed fists tight enough to hurt—the need to slam them into something (or someone) growing by the second.

You were going on a date.

A date.

With a man.

With someone that…wasn’t him.

“Who’s the lucky bastard?” he croaked, anger flaring in his tightening chest.

“Louie,” you said with a bashful smile, eyes bright and beautiful.

Eddie felt the knife slice through his chest, digging beneath the depths of where he could reach. Yet you still smiled without a care in the world. You couldn’t see him bleed before you, could barely notice the wound you inflicted, and he would never blame you for it. Because you were happy. You were overjoyed.

How could he rip that from you?

But even as the question crossed his mind he knew…he’d do it anyway.

The dress cinched your waist tight enough to expel the air from your lungs. Uncomfortable. Irritating. But flawlessly perfect with its velvet fabric that wrapped around you like a second skin—the maroon shade dark enough to match your lipstick. Within two hours you’d be desperate for it off, aching for the large t-shirt swiped from Eddie’s drawer and sweatpants that held enough coffee stains to change their color entirely.

You weren’t used to dressing up, primping and prepping for someone who may never tell you the words that lingered in the back of your mind. The heels dug into the back of your foot, black and awkward and everything you tried to avoid. You rooted around the bottom of your worn makeup bag, the mascara tube scratched and smudged. Even as you swiped it across your lashes you felt the burden of tonight settle heavy and palpable.

A guilt that stemmed from the very person outside this bathroom.

The man who built your idea of romance over the years—the knight in shining armor who might never come to your rescue.

Fidgeting with the hem of your dress, a silhouette cast in shadows appeared in your peripheral. Statuesque and hopeful with his arms crossed and spine stiff. You could feel the discomfort swirl in the air as he peeked his head around the corner for a small glimpse of what you were doing. At this point you couldn’t blame him. An hour and a half was definitely too long to spend in the bathroom.

“I can see you standing there,” you called, fixing the strap on your shoulder with a sigh. “If you needed the bathroom you could have told me.”

Heels clicked on the cement floor and the whisper of you sliding the zipper shut on your bag echoed in the relatively quiet living room. You passed him with a grin, tossing the essentials on the guest bed beside your coat. The color didn’t go with the dress—a disappointment you had no time to rectify—and borrowing one of Eddie's jackets would only send the wrong message.

The thump of his boots trailing behind you filled the space with a solemn farewell he had yet to bid you. He bit his tongue longer than you expected him to. No jesting or teasing. No jokes or shots taken on your behalf. For all intensive purposes Eddie Alden was suddenly at a loss for words—his blank expression and dark eyes throwing you for a loop that felt precarious.

He’d never done this; his mouth always moving faster than his own thoughts. A trait that got him into a fair bit of trouble back home. It’s what you had in common, what you were both known for.

Tonight however your playful Eddie was replaced by a man who watched you in complete and utter silence. A hawk trailing its prey. Which only made the hair stand on the back of your neck.

“For fucks sake,” you muttered, spinning to find him leaning against the door frame. The scrutinizing eyes you were unable to escape trailing down your velvet clad form. “Out with it you bastard.”

“Kit–”

“No. You’ve been tailing me all night since you heard about this date. So let it out, get all the jokes and sly comments out now before I leave. Because after tonight I’m not giving you the chance.”

With a heaving chest and wild eyes, you watched in utter shock as Eddie Alden…cracked a smile.

A fucking grin that stretched from one side of his face to the other. You should have felt peeved by the sheer nerve for him to pick at your temper this way, but the slow steps as he walked closer left your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth. Warmth found a home in the base of your already thumping heart—your hands picking at the hem of your dress to distract from his slow gait.

He looked you up and down, sizing up your body with a soft chuckle, before knocking the tips of his boots to the front of your heels.

“You look beautiful tonight kitten.”

Breath felt nonexistent in a space as small as this. You searched for it, clamored for even a morsel of oxygen, but found yourself standing there—mouth parted and eyes wide—with empty hands.

Beautiful.

Eddie called you beautiful.

How could you respond to something so shifting? Life altering, world teetering. You hadn’t felt this hopeless for something to say since he dragged you to prom kicking and screaming with a tux wrapped around his body and a gown around yours. Where you might have laughed—called him out on whatever bullshit he would pull any other night—you instead were left with absolutely nothing in your arsenal of spiteful vernacular.

And he seemed to be thrilled with the speechless flustered woman before him.

“Cat got your tongue sweetheart?”

Sweetheart.

Heat burned right down to your core, the strength in your knees suddenly weak and brittle. As if you didn’t know how to stand on your own.

“W-What?” you managed to choke out, unable to rip your gaze away from his glowing face.

“No response for my compliment?”

“Oh…um…”

He shuffled forward, knocking you back slightly. “I mean I was pretty nice and even if it is the truth don’t I deserve something nice back?”

Sucking in a breath, you felt the edge of the bed hit the back of your thigh. “Nice?”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I am your best friend after all.”

Best friend.

Cold water drenched the top of your head, pouring an icy reality check down your spine with enough sense to wrench you out of whatever twisted fantasy your mind was conjuring. He was fucking with you. Pulling this move on purpose to keep you from making it to your date on time. It should have irked you—should have sent you into a state of fury—yet you couldn’t help but wonder if something else was hidden beneath his saccharine words.

You scoffed, shoving at his chest and drank in the satisfaction when he stumbled back with a gaping mouth. “I’m gonna be late.”

“Wait but–” The echo of his footsteps rushing after yours resonated off the window panes. “I’ve got something to say to you.”

“Can’t it wait until later? I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

An audible snort reignited the flare of irritation in your chest. “Who? The joke of a guy from last night? You barely know him and don’t forget you came to New York to see me not to–”

Whirling around you met him with pent up emotions that began to spill over an already full cup. “Not to what? Not to have a good time on my terms? Not to go out with a man I actually like?”

“You don’t know him!”

“But that’s not your decision!” Biting down on the inside of your cheek, you swallowed the wave of hot tears that rushed to the surface. “You always do this to me Eddie. You drag me along in your adventures and yes I go willingly, but you never—not once—allowed me an adventure of my own. Why? Why can’t I choose for once in my life?”

Somehow the silence hurt more than anything he could have said. Any excuse he might have offered as a shitty apology that would never come. He simply stood there, unable to form a decent string of false promises he’d never live up to. And for the first time you welcomed that unnerving sense of clarity with a bitter wave of your hand.

No matter how much you yearned for it to be true, the reality would always remain the same.

Eddie Alden would never love you.

Not in the way you loved him. He’d never feel each piece of his heart fracture as you slowly and yet all at once slipped from his grasp. That was the truth and you accepted it with a resigned sigh of utter heartbreak.

“Stay,” he finally admitted, eyes shining with tears that would eventually dry up and vanish. “With me.”

“Eddie–”

“Stay here and we’ll talk about this. And I’ll order a pizza with jalapeños and make you shitty coffee and let you hit me and yell at me.” Moving swift enough to throw you off guard, he gathered your hands in his. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do to make this right.”

You wished it were enough.

You begged it to be enough.

But you’d taken too many hits from a love life that suddenly felt fictional in comparison to what he offered you tonight.

Pulling away with a sigh, you didn’t see his expression of false joy crack right down the center. “I’ve got to go Eddie.”

“But–”

“Don’t wait up, okay?”

The door shut with a thud that bounced off each wall, settling unevenly against his hammering heart. He felt sick to his stomach. The grief of losing you—of quite possibly fucking up the only good thing in his life—rushed to the surface. Clawing up his already burning esophagus with a hostility that consumed him. His mind screamed to run towards the open door of the bathroom; his body wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment.

But his feet remained glued to the floor. Eyes trained on his now shut door simply waiting for you to come back. To waltz in with a different opinion, to rehash an argument that festered in both your minds for far too long.

He could hear his own heartbeat and the rush of blood in his ears.

He could hear the horns blaring and people shouting as the city took on a new persona as night came calling.

He could hear every breath he took in, every stunted exhale he let out.

But you were nowhere to be found.

The leather jacket was gripped in his hand before he could think it through, keys shoved into his pocket without realizing it. He acted on fear. The terrifying knowledge that this was it. That the moment he’d been waiting for all his life passed by and he fucking blew it. He watched it crash to the floor and made no attempt to save would could have been.

This love was written in the stars long before you met one another. The makeup of your hearts were carved directly into the makeup of the universe, forged by celestial beings and stray comets colliding together. You were more than best friends, more than soul mates. You were split down the center, always meant to find your other half in the touch of one another. If only he could make you see that.

Heavy footfalls echoed off the stairwell as he rushed out onto the busy street and into the icy cold. This wasn’t Eddie Alden the adult fuck up rushing after yet another notch in his belt. This was the boy who held you when you cried. The teenager who walked you home after classes. The high schooler who dragged you to parties you never wanted to go to. The football player who sprinted directly to you when they won each and every time.

The man whose heart was etched in the letters of your name.

Bundling the coat around your neck tight enough to stop the chill from seeping into your skin, you dashed into the open entryway of the restaurant Louie talked about last night. A fancy space filled to the brim with sparkling holiday decor, a tree that towered over you, and waiters dressed fancier than the patrons. You felt out of place the second you crossed the threshold. A fish out of water and dropped into waters that didn’t belong to you.

It shouldn’t have deterred you. A man wishing to take you somewhere magnificent on a first date; something you hoped might happen one day.

“You’re here!”

Louie Parker seemed to blend right into the glamour and opulence in a three piece suit—a golden chain dangling from his waistcoat and wool overcoat folded over one arm. He belonged. A member of a society you may never find yourself in again, but for tonight you met his stunning smile with a sheepish grin and cheeks filled with blossoming warmth.

“Sorry for being late. I couldn’t find the place,” you said, choosing to ignore Eddie’s blatant act of annoyance.

He shrugged, leading you to a coat check stand as if this were second nature—perhaps to him it was. “You’re new to the city. Bound to get lost at times.”

“You’ve got no idea.”

“Our table is safe.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder—effortless enough to throw you off balance. “I ordered a bottle of wine beforehand. Something decadent.”

“Wine’s good.” The words slipped off your tongue awkwardly as you handed off the coat with a soft thank you.

“I promise it is.” How his eyes trailed along the shape of your dress wasn’t lost on you, nor was the shift of his shoulders in his attempt to stand taller. “You’re stunning.”

The word should have made your heart flutter. It should have elicited the exact same response Eddie’s softly spoken beautiful did. Yet all you could offer him was a tight smile layered in a false air of hope diminished and dashed long before you entered this place.

He wasn’t Eddie. He’d never be Eddie. And you loathed that all it took was that simple fact for your heart to grow disinterested before the night truly began.

“I didn’t think I’d get to wear it on this trip,” you admitted, speaking directly to his back as you trailed after him to the table.

He spared you a glance and yet another smile. “I’m glad you did.”

“For your benefit or mine?” The tease felt wrong when directed at him. It felt like a lie.

“Mine I hope.”

Digging your teeth into your bottom lip to swallow the grimace, you shifted in the seat. “Guess you’re lucky.”

“I’m luckier than most.” His words were punctuated with a hand gesturing to the nearest waiter. “I think we’re ready.”

Floundering, you dug through the menu as Louie tossed his already thought out order into the air. There didn’t seem to be any reason for rushing, but there you were. Forced to quickly choose a meal before you even settled fully into your seat. The waiter glanced at you, eyes flashing with a look you’d seen before. A piteous apology he couldn’t say out loud.

You were stuck with a man who couldn’t see how out of place you felt. Someone who didn’t know how to read your pages.

“And for you miss?”

“Um…I’ll take–”

“She’ll have the same. Steak medium rare with an extra glass for champagne at the end.”

With that he signed off on what you were denying the whole way here. You weren’t meant to be sitting here with a man more interested in showing you off than asking what you wanted. But silence was all you could muster, swallowing the bitter wine with a hidden choked sneer of disgust. You longed for jalapeños on pizza and shitty beer and the promise of a good movie on Eddie’s horrible couch.

Oh how you’d rather be holed up in that apartment.

“So do you work?” he asked offhandedly, pouring another glass of wine for you.

“I do,” you replied, nails digging into your palm to stave off snarling at him with a rudeness Eddie would have enjoyed.

“Good. I prefer women who work.”

The meal dragged on the longer he spoke, barely giving you a chance to respond before he started up again. Topics you could barely keep up with, statements that felt one sided and drastically different than what you believed. Until finally you were halfway through chewing with a steak that cost more than your plane ticket and Louie directed his questions to you.

A surprising turn of events given his track record through the whole evening. You were annoyed, the dress dug into your waist, and the heels felt restricting even as you sat still and silent. A doll primed to perfection for a place that would have otherwise tossed you out.

“So you’re in New York with your friend?”

Swallowing the food with a sip of warm water, you nodded. “Yeah my best friend Eddie.”

Louie hummed. “Your best friend is a guy?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Did you two ever date?”

The itch to toss the remainder of your wine in his face grew by the second. “No we haven’t. We’re just friends.”

Another soft hum left his throat—another strike on your tally of shitty responses. “I just wanted to make sure. Don’t want to enter a state of drama in case things went further between us.”

“Further…”

“I have tickets to The Nutcracker in three days.” His hand slid across the table, laying over yours with a warmth that felt wrong. “I was hoping you would go with me.”

“Oh…”

“You could wear this dress again if you want.”

“Louie…”

His grip tightened, smile widening at your hesitancy. “You’ll be the prettiest guest there.”

“I’m not sure…” A flash of a man bursting through the doors caught your eye—a whirlwind of commotion that left you distracted for a moment.

Eddie’s face came into view, slightly red and distraught as the hostess attempted to grab his attention. He stood with his hair ruffled and clothes in disarray, eyes scanning the tables for someone. Until he landed on the one person who watched him with a flicker of need. The world melted away, Louie’s voice now a muffled echo in the background, as Eddie smiled wide enough to outdo all the shining lights in the room.

Any piece of decor paled in comparison when he looked at you as if nothing else of importance mattered. You were here, sitting in a red dress, and Eddie could feel hope surge in his chest.

Louie pulled you back to the present moment before you caught Eddie slipping past the front. Directing his way to the table and dragging a spare chair behind him he set it up at the edge of your table, plopping into the seat with a grin—shedding his jacket with ease. Like he’d been invited all along. You were irritated, angry about the stupid fight from earlier, but a small piece of you that longed to be rescued now rejoiced at his presence.

“Can I help you man?” Louie demanded, fingers tight around your wrist.

“No,” Eddie replied. “Just came to get some extra time with my best friend.”

Louie scoffed. “Alright come on, you can give her one night out without you clinging to her.”

“Am I clinging?” Eddie turned to you with a deep faux frown. “Kitten, you'd tell me if you needed space right?”

“Do us a favor and fuck off,” Louie snapped.

You flinched, pulling away the second his attention was off you. Unfortunately Eddie caught onto it with a grim expression and fists curled against his thighs. Always the protector, the dog with a fucking bone. Some days you relished in his nature to keep you safe, to snarl and bite at anyone who dared to pick on his favorite person. But tonight his otherwise cherished nature suffocated you where you sat.

He drowned you in the waters of his familial love as romance slipped between your fingers like sand.

“I’d watch your fucking tone,” Eddie warned, turning his glare to your date. “There’s a lady present.”

A biting laugh echoed in the still air—Louie finally reaching past the limit of tolerance. “She told me you guys didn’t date, but of course she fucking lied.”

“No I didn’t–” You gaped, sitting upright at his accusatory tone.

“You don’t have to lie for him sweetheart.”

Anger burned hot and painful in your chest, growing the longer you sat there stuffed between two men who couldn’t give a shit if you were hurting. With a sharp intake of breath, you snatched your purse off the floor and headed towards the coat check—leaving them behind to gather some sort of fresh air. Even as Eddie no doubt followed with blatant intent in every step he took.

You couldn’t take this anymore. The push and pull of a best friend who would never let you go. He’d never allow you to find a life that didn’t include him.

He’d never let you move on.

Tears spilled over before you could stop them, your fingers shaking as you tied the coat at your waist. The cold air filled with the stench of gasoline and nicotine became what you latched onto. A way to drag yourself back to the shore; a chance to survive Eddie’s dark waters before you were swallowed whole by them. He called your name while you walked, rushing to catch up with your quick pace—the heels doing nothing but slowing you down.

“Kitten wait!”

The familiar touch of his hand on your arm set off the wave of fury desperate to topple over. You turned with a shout, ripping away from his hold with a curse loud enough to startle him back.

“You are unbelievable!”

“Kit–”

“Do me the favor and shut the fuck up for once! It was a date. A date! That’s it! I get that you can’t handle when the attention isn’t focused on you and when I’m pulled somewhere else, but you had no right to act like an asshole!”

Heaving in a gasping breath, you watched as his pained expression blurred with the wave of fresh tears. “I can’t do this Eddie. I can’t live half a life until you decide to finally give up on our friendship.”

“That’s not why I showed up–”

You laughed, bitter and loud enough to garner looks, but you were past the point of caring. “No? You didn’t show up to embarrass me? You didn’t fuck up the one chance I had at a romantic relationship because you weren’t included in the choice I made?”

“No I didn’t,” he retorted. “And even if I did, why don’t you just admit it? Huh? You weren’t having fun on this fucking date anyways.”

“Why because you said so?” you shouted.

“I know you better than anyone.”

“Oh that’s rich. Just because you’ve known me longer doesn’t make you the final hammer in the nail that is my life. Mine Eddie! My life! Not yours!” Throwing your hands up at the first advancing step in your direction, you turned away from the man who saved you with the intent on ripping you open for an autopsy you never asked for.

A surgery of your still beating heart.

“Let me explain myself, would you?” he called, chasing after you down the sidewalk. “But of course you won’t, because you always run. You’ve run away from me your whole life!”

“Fuck you Alden!”

Down city sidewalks and past groups of people having fun, Eddie followed you every step of the way. Though his words died down, the anger dropping to a slow simmer in your chest, he still remained behind you—his hands tucked into his jacket pockets and eyes trained on the slight wince of your body with each step. The heels were digging sharply into your already raw skin but you refused to give him the satisfaction of helping you.

Not when the apartment was so close. Mentally you formulated a list of things to get done before your flight in a day. Pack your bags, flip Eddie off, cuss him out until the sun came up, and leave him behind as you stewed in your heartache and fury.

He couldn’t fight his way back into your good graces today. Certainly not during this trip.

This didn’t come from nowhere—you were entirely aware of that fact. The anger that spewed out of every word dipped in vitriol and pain stemmed from the deepest parts of your pining heart that screamed for him. A piece of yourself you buried continuously over years of hope. Time that you might never get back. You loved him without end, begged silently on every star that he might one day feel the same way. Only to understand he was stuck in his old ways.

Merely a boy loitering around in the body of a man.

Someone who never found the time to grow up—to become the man you needed.

The stairwell echoed with your footsteps, a melancholy beat to a song that should have ended long ago. Your time was up. The clock had run its course. And all that remained was the final goodbye to a friendship that began to fall apart long before you came to New York.

“Please talk to me.” The soft lilt of his voice nearly made you jump as he shut the door behind him.

“I’m tired Eddie.”

“We’re not done with this.”

Pain felt familiar in this moment, a new push of rage finding its footing in your weary form. “Give it up would you?”

He gripped your arms, turning you with a bruising yank that shoved the breath from your lungs. “I’ll never give up on you Kit. Don’t you get that? Giving up stopped being an option the day I met you.”

“Why?” you yelled, shoving at his chest. “Why can’t you let me go? Why do you have to keep me in this fucked up pattern of friendship? Don’t you get that it hurts Eddie? It hurts to see you chase after women, it hurts to never get a chance to do the same with someone else!”

“Tell me why,” he begged. “Tell me why it hurts. Keep yelling at me. Keep calling me a fucking asshole. Just talk to me. Please.”

“No!” Finally free from his touch, you stumbled back into the counter—your face a mess of tears. “You are an asshole. You’re the reason I can’t move on with my life! You’re stuck in my veins and I can’t get rid of you! The most pathetic childish man who can’t seem to handle his best friend finally getting a life of her own. Well I’m sorry Eddie but things don’t revolve around you.”

What little breath you had dissipated as you heaved between choked sobs. You knew he would leave your life eventually. You knew he’d get bored with the friend he barely saw in person. But this felt like torture—an agony he refused to take accountability for.

“Why?” you sobbed brokenly. “Why do you want to hurt me so much? What did I do to make you so angry that I’m finally moving on?”

“I’m not angry.”

“Then let me go!” You wiped roughly at your cheeks, uncaring that he stepped close enough to touch you. “Why can’t you let me–”

“Because I love you!”

Gaping stupidly at him the words failed to process—silence swallowing you before you could even fight against it. “What?” you whispered.

Chilled hands cupped your cheeks tenderly, his forehead falling to rest on yours—cold nose pressed to your frozen one. “I can’t let you go cause I’m fucking in love with you kitten. I’m yours.”

“Eddie?”

“I’ve been yours since I pushed you in that damn mud.” His sigh was warm, washing across your face and filling you with the wake up call you needed. “Through everything, through all the games you came to and nights on my roof.”

Disbelief colored your world as you gazed up at him, fingers curling around his wrists. “You…love me?”

He nodded, leaning close enough for his lips to brush yours. “Desperately baby.”

“You love me,” you murmured, lashes fluttering as he tilted you closer.

“I do.” Sighing, he pinned you to the counter until you had nowhere to go—no escape from the man who longed to wrap himself around you. “Let me kiss you, yeah? Can I kiss you? I’ve been dreamin’ about it since high school.”

Since high school. Since…

At this point you couldn’t tell if you were standing in the midst of reality or if your mind started to play tricks on you. Even as he said the words they felt misplaced. A way to keep you there instead of explaining himself. But for once you finally divulged in the dream you’d been harboring since childhood. An extraordinary moment of romance—a bliss you might never get again.

Catching him off guard you leaned up and slotted your lips against his with a soft sigh. He met you with a sharp inhale, fingers digging into your jaw as he kissed you back with a fervor that threw you off guard. His lips were chapped with the cold yet warm enough to soothe every ache in your body. Each sliver of pain now a fading memory with the swipe of his tongue along your bottom lip.

You should have pulled away. You should have forced him to talk, to explain everything in great detail. But the feel of his hands sliding down your back knocked every ounce of sense from your mind as need took over the cognitive choice for your actions.

His tongue found yours with a hoarse moan, your fingers twining into his hair still mussed by the weather outside. A sharp tug had him careening forward, his hand slapping against the counter behind you—a wet groan swallowed by the soft whine wrenched from the base of your throat.

You never thought kissing him would feel so exhilarating. You were nothing but a sharp bundle of nerves ready to be set alight with each touch, each lick into your mouth.

“Eddie,” you gasped, his mouth finding purchase at the side of your neck. Teeth scraping the soft skin and hands digging into the plush flesh of your ass.

“Stay with me,” he begged, hips canting against yours as a dizzy side effect of kissing your best friend rose to the surface. “Let me love you.”

“But the argument–”

“Fuck the argument,” he growled, biting down on your bottom lip. “Let me not be an idiot anymore.”

Your lashes fluttered, mouth falling open with the soft touch of his tongue sliding against yours. A heady moan dripped onto his taste buds, needy and wanting as you gripped his hair hard enough to elicit a sharp slice of pain. His cock throbbed in his jeans, mind hazy with the taste of wine off your tongue, but Eddie could feel the hesitancy in your veins. The knowledge that his words left you unsure of his emotions—lost in the sea he dragged you into.

He loved you painfully.

With every fiber of his being that slowly ripped itself to pieces at the thought of you never knowing the truth. You needed to know his heart beat for you. That his entire body screamed in agony at the lack of your touch—the need of more ripping at his chest.

He was yours to do away with.

Yours to toy with.

Yours to love and cherish.

However you wished to have him, he’d do it. Eddie would fall to his knees with the prayer of your name on his lips—begging to drink from your crystalline waters with the parched tongue of a dying man. He was in agony until you looked at him. Offering your own love on a silver platter.

“Can I?” he whispered, holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Can you what?” you asked dazedly, lips swollen and slick with saliva. The sight made him voracious for more. For the sight of you coated in his spit.

He grinned, stealing another kiss with a whimpered sigh. “Can I love you how you deserve baby?”

The nod was subtle, a slight shifting of your head as glazed eyes darkened by lust met his searing gaze. But it was all he needed for his lips to find yours again, hands leading you into a stumbling walk to the guest bedroom lined with your things. He dug for the zipper of your dress, tugging it down quickly as you wrapped your arms around his neck—intent on keeping his mouth on yours.

A soft breathy moan emanated from your parted lips when his bare hands touched the skin of your back, sliding the velvet fabric off your body until it pooled in a heap at your feet. Nerves leapt beneath layers of hot flushed skin, your heart a ramming echo in the silence of a room filled only with his breaths.

But you heard him loud and clear.

The soft uttered fuck of a man who acted like he just witnessed a religious miracle. He was doomed the second your eyes finally opened to find his gaze. Pupils dilated and mouth open as he drank in the sight of you.

“You’re…” Sucking in a breath, he slid a hand over your stomach up to where the lace of your bra connected in the center with a jeweled bow. “Perfect.”

Rucking up his t-shirt, you let him kiss the breath out of your lungs. You fell into his hold with ease, because this was your path. Life led you straight to him, holding your hand through the heartache, promising you love at the end of it all. You just never expected his love would burn this way—a needy ache that built and built until you were ready to detonate. A hand curled around your thigh, hitching it over his thigh as he dropped you to the mattress.

His shirt beside your dress and jeans unbuttoned as they hung off his hips. With a shuddered breath you traced the vein along his stomach, smiling at the way his muscles contracted. A shudder running down his spine. He gasped, tongue sliding between your breasts—teeth nipping at the flesh with a growl.

“Wanna taste you.” Grinding his hips down hard enough for his cock to catch on the wet spot of your black cotton panties, he grinned at the soft cry that echoed by his ear.

Dragging him back up with a fist in his hair, you licked along his back teeth—hooking your other leg over his hip. “You already have baby.”

“Oh fuck,” he gasped.

Baby.

You’d never said that before, your voice pitched high and hazy with a hunger that curled at the base of his spine. Devouring you the way he wanted might be too much for you to handle.

He certainly didn’t want to scare you. Not when he’d been dreaming of this moment since his adolescence. But the thought of pounding you into the mattress, your melodious cries bouncing off the walls and the wet squelch of your pussy drove him to the brink of insanity.

“Say it again.” His teeth latched onto your nipple through the lace, sucking with a groan.

“Baby–” The pad of his fingers slid through the slick mess over the soft fabric, circling your clit hard. “Eddie!”

He smiled. “Want to taste you the right way.”

That unfamiliar high began to pull at your insides, spilling into veins and latching onto the base of your spine. He pulled the soaking scrap of cotton to the side, his thumb finding the source of absolute bliss and toying with it mercilessly. As if he wanted you unable to form coherent sentences. Your legs shook, hips meeting the gentle touch of his fingers.

“Look at her.”

The haze in your mind muffled the sound of his voice—his words taking a second to fully register. Until you realized who he was talking about. Or rather what.

“Gorgeous fuckin’ girl,” he muttered, transfixed by the drooling slick that clung to the lips of your cunt. Smearing it down to your fluttering hole, he felt the familiar wash of starvation creep back in.

He licked his teeth like a wild animal, panting at the sight of you so spread open and vulnerable. Your bottom lip was sucked into your mouth to muffle the wanting cries that slipped free anyways. Fuck what he wouldn’t give to keep you here past the point of no return.

“Want you to—ah—” Teeth found the inside of your thigh as his finger slipped in with ease. “Fuck. Y-Yes.”

“Yeah?” Another pressed in tight, his palm sticky as he plunged them in a quick paced rhythm.

Pitched high and cresting at the top of your lungs, his name rang through the room, the hot slide of his tongue through your folds pulsing heat between spaces in your body you didn’t know could exist. He sucked at your clit with a moan, nose buried in your mound and eyes bleary with an overwhelming need. The taste of you drove him feral, the squelch of his fingers as they found that patch along your walls loud enough to drown out anything else.

Eddie knew he’d never get enough once he got a taste. He just never expected it to feel this consuming.

“I’m fuck–” Gripping his hair, you dragged yourself along his tongue, biting back a cry of his name. He fell into it—drowned in your cunt with a hoarse moan. “G-Gonna. Eddie–”

“Please,” he mumbled, sucking at your clit with a sloppy languid kiss. “C’mon give it to me.”

“Wait,” you rushed out. He stilled at your touch, fingers still buried knuckle deep while you dragged the words to the forefront of your mind. “I need…”

Kissing your thigh softly, he nuzzled the skin with a satisfied sigh. “What do you need baby?”

“You.”

“You’ve got me.”

“Up here.” If your mind was in the right state you might have winced at how pathetic you sounded. But Eddie leapt at the softly whispered request, crawling up your body with the drag of his lips against skin—his tongue following, tasting the salt of your sweat.

Finding your mouth with a hum, he let you explore the tang of yourself off his tongue. That burning flame roaring to life at the sight of his chin coated in you. His hazel eyes were swallowed by the darkened pupil. The only time you’d seen him this way was after football games when the adrenaline was high and you were intent on celebrating in shitty burger shops. Which later turned into hole in the wall bars.

He ate your body and soul with one look. A man who lost all sense the second you kissed him in the kitchen. Even if you were still unsure of the verity of his words.

“I want you to fuck me,” you breathed against his lips, hoping the sultry echo of your voice was strung with each syllable.

Eddie fell over your with a harsh groan, fisting the sheets as he buried his head in the crook of your neck. “You—fuck baby.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Wrong?” he chuckled. The flicker of distress clouded your mind, a different kind of sensation pulsing in at the top of your chest. But Eddie caught it before you could open your mouth, his tongue sliding into your mouth with a zeal that shocked you.

This kiss was different. No reverence bled through the sharp bite of his teeth against your lip. This was Eddie pouring gasoline on your shame and burning it with the flick of a match. He sucked the breath out of your mouth, replacing it with his own until you were sure you’d never breathe right again. Pulling away, you felt him chase after your lips with a hoarse growl—his body settling over yours before you could move.

“You can’t say shit like that to me,” he gasped.

“But I thought–”

A bruising grip around your wrist cut off the meek response—the coarse hair at the base of his stomach filling your mouth with saliva. He guided your hand beneath the elastic of the black boxers, the hot sticky head of his cock brushing your palm. Your eyes went wide, mouth falling open as he moaned loud enough to echo towards the kitchen—his brows furrowed and teeth bared.

“Oh…”

He grinned, letting you touch him gently, the soft pads of your hesitant fingers enough to stimulate him close to the edge. “Gonna make me cum in my pants like a fuckin’ teenager.”

Stroking him slowly, you watched with a prideful sense of exhilaration when he crumbled to pieces before your very eyes.

He hissed through his clenched teeth, fucking your clumsy version of a tight fist. Although that didn’t seem to matter to him. All he gave a shit about was that you were the one touching him. You were getting him off with dewy wide eyes and a mouth he dreamed of having around his throbbing cock.

“Shit,” he grunted, leaking over your skin at the soft gasp you uttered. “W-Wait. Hang on.”

Ripping himself free, he sucked in a breath with eyes squeezed shut and body stiff as a board. Somehow his experience didn’t seem to matter when it came down to you. All the years building his stamina vanished at the first pump of your hand, and Eddie held back his quickly rising orgasm by the skin of his fucking teeth.

Trembling above you, he managed to right himself enough to keep going. That still didn’t stop his cock from twitching at the sight of your parted lips—gaze burning into the side of his face.

“You’re dangerous kitten,” he finally said, pushing his jeans down and tugging at your panties before you could offer a response. “I want that off too.”

You nodded, undoing your bra quickly and failing to notice how his eyes immediately dropped to your breasts finally exposed. Eddie was dumbfounded. Mouth open as spit pooled on his tongue and eyes glazed over with the sight of you naked beneath him. You smiled at the blush that crept over his cheeks, spreading down to the top of his chest—his fingers digging harshly into the thin sheet he’d tear eventually.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, swallowing thickly at how your chest bounced with each shift of your body.

The wet heat of his mouth on your nipple surprised you, his hand twisting and tugging the other. Your back arched, nails clawing at his back but that’s not what dragged out another side of you—unmistakable in the flutter of your heart. A part of yourself that buried itself beneath years of pain. It burst forward, snatching what he gave you with a greed you swallowed happily.

His cock sliding through your slick had your head tipping back, hips shifting to catch any pressure on your pulsing clit. Eddie seemed to understand long before you could wrench the words out of your chest. The pad of his thumb found the bud, his mouth a hot cavern against the skin of your breast—other hand shifting to line himself up where you needed him most.

Reality dawn on you then.

The weight of this moment. A dream you held for near a decade.

Cupping his face, he fixed you with the heady glaze of lust that mirrored your own. That untenable feeling flowing from your chest to his—a permanent mark of forever you finally managed to unearth. He sunk in slowly with shallow thrusts and caught your lips in a kiss you felt down to your toes. Love, heartbreak, longing, it all collided at the back of your mind. Shining with a glow that left you breathless.

Doubt begged to rear its ugly head, but Eddie demolished it with a final short thrust—his hips settling atop yours. Sex wasn’t unknown to you. Merely a quick itch to scratch in your years of loneliness. But you’d never experienced being so full.

“That’s it,” he murmured softly, circling your clit to loosen your tight walls. “Let her open up for me.”

“Move,” you gulped. “Need you to–”

Pulling out he shoved his way back in with a harsh bitten out curse against the skin of your throat. The pleasure blinded you. Each thrust short and wet enough to echo in the room. He gripped your hips as he moved, slowly and then all at once. As if he couldn’t fathom the thought of sliding out of you completely—the heat of your cunt drawing him back in before he knew what was happening.

Eddie lost himself in you. He groaned and sunk his teeth into your shoulder and fucked you the best he could. And you cried against his neck, clinging to his back with each roll of his hips into yours. Something wound tight in your stomach, that oh so familiar sensation of bliss and you chased it. You spread your legs wider, your nails digging into his lower back, as the head of his cock brushed right where you needed.

The high whine he ripped from you had his head flying up from your neck—eyes glimmering with a wild haze that should have scared you.

“There it is,” he grinned—grinding down until you sobbed his name. “She’s singin’ for me, kitten.”

Sobbing a string of incoherent pleas, you felt him do it again. Slamming into it with an accuracy that shook you to your core. Come morning an array of red lines would be marked across his back, but the rasping shout of your name told you he liked it.

He soaked in the sharp pricks of pain as his balls began to draw up, heat building on his spine with insistence. But he was greedy and wanton and the thought of you never finishing first drove him off the edge.

Fucking down into you, he witnessed your face crumple with the intensity of it all. Your mouth permanently formed around the broken cry of his now incoherent name. Skin slapped against skin, the wet echo of your cunt sucking him back in spilled into every crevice of his apartment. And Eddie felt himself nearly fly off that tantalizing edge.

“Need you to cum right now,” he snarled, slapping your clit softly.

The air caught in your lungs, thighs trembling as he did it again, splashing your wet slick along his stomach. Yet no matter how hard you reached for that high you couldn’t grasp it in your hands. You longed to tell him—shout what you needed, but the words were lost to your dizzying state of ecstasy.

His lips sealed over yours, fingers pinching your clit. “I love you kitten. Fuck. I love you.”

Your back arched, walls clamping around his cock tight enough to hurt, as you came with a broken sob he swallowed. It poured through you like lava. Burning you alive with a mind numbing bliss you’d never be able to live without—an addiction settling into your veins. He panted into your mouth, crying out like he’d been scorched with the same fire, and followed you off that cliff.

The hum in your ears set in before you could hear the string of mumbled I love you’s he pressed against your tongue, his cum dribbling out and making a mess you could feel between your thighs.

He collapsed with a grunt, face burrowed into your neck as you tried to catch your breath. The thump of your heart finally in sync with his. Sparks trailed down your body where he touched you, fingers kneading soft skin, lips sliding up your throat with the last licks of his hunger. A man starved for the love of his life. He was helpless in your post coital presence, unable to even think straight while his cock softened inside you.

But he knew this would happen. He knew he’d never be able to let you go after this—forever attached to your heart with an invisible string now wound into a knot.

“Stay here with me,” he whispered against your lips.

Stay.

Even with the thick fog that filled your head you couldn’t deny that was what you truly wanted. This was the forever you always longed for. So why couldn’t you accept it without a hint of doubt? Why couldn’t your own mind settle on the words he spoke like a prayer. Something you always dreamed he’d whisper to you in the middle of the night.

You blinked up at him, brows furrowed until he kissed them with a grin. “Okay,” you said, hoping it would click the final piece into place.

The tears are what woke you up. A flood you couldn’t control, wave after wave that poured down your cheeks and stained the pillow beneath you. Though the dream remained a translucent memory right on the fringes of your mind, you knew what it was. A rendition your mind never seemed to let go of.

Eddie saying goodbye on his way to New York. Eddie making the choice of a different life.

Eddie leaving you behind.

His snores filled the room with a gentle echo you sunk into, his arm wrapped around your waist and face buried in the back of your neck. A morning you never thought you’d get. A dream finally come true.

You wanted to smile, to wake him up with another round, but the pain in your heart grew the longer you lay there in silence. The problem wasn’t last night or even what he said. The problem was what came next. You couldn’t just leave your hometown and Eddie would never make the choice to let go of New York. A city that burrowed itself deep in his heart, carving into the space that belonged to you.

This would always be his path.

A man with a future far too big to give it all up for a girl from his past.

You didn’t belong in New York. You knew that now.

Swallowing the harsh sob, you managed to wrangle yourself out of his grip, gathering a fresh pair of clothes to change into. But the sight of him splayed on the bed, sheets around his waist and arm tossed over his head left you breathless. A picturesque painting come to life. He was your muse, your whole heart on display for the world to see. The person embedded in your very DNA.

You would love him until the day you died.

And even after that.

The small suitcase remained packed near the dresser, your dress from last night a forgotten memory that lay strewn on the floor. You left it behind as you shoved on the only jacket you owned, your purse and wallet gathered next. The pulse of your racing heart nearly forced you to sit down somewhere and gather your thoughts. Yet if you did that…you’d never buck up the courage to finally let him go.

This wasn’t fair to him. You knew that.

You knew Eddie would fight you on going, his words lingering like a bruise on your heart. The softly whispered I love you still scratched into your skin. He loved you. He loved you.

He…loved you.

So why couldn’t you accept that? Why were you taking one final glance as the door shut behind you with its familiar thud. Loud enough to echo off the empty stairwell? Though you’d never say aloud, you knew the truth.

Fear.

The type of fear that clung to every breath, choking you from the inside out. You didn’t know how to love someone who finally loved you back. After so long pining, you suddenly felt like you were sailing out into the treacherous open waters of a heart you didn’t actually know. He loved you and yet there you were acting like a coward and running from the promise of more. The hope of a life fully lived.

Eddie jolted awake with the thud of the door, his body catching up with sluggish thoughts that filtered through his mind. Half awake and bleary, he reached for the other side of the bed expecting to find your curled up body on the edge of the mattress. Always pulling away in the middle of the night, always running. He grinned, blinking away the last dregs of sleep, and found an empty room.

“Baby?” he asked, leaning on his hands.

His gaze darted to spaces in the room that once held your things. The suitcase by the dresser, the purse on the desk. The jacket draped over a singular chair. Only to find nothing but the dust outline that remained. Eddie’s heart stuttered, stomach rolling painfully, as he clambered out of the bed and pulled up his jeans still in a heap on the floor.

Beside your dress.

“Baby!” The kitchen was empty, void of any life and Eddie frantically searched the fridge for a note, for that key he gave you.

It was discarded by the coffee machine, sitting in the lonesome shine of the afternoon sun.

“Shit,” he whispered, the burn of tears cresting.

Rushing to grab his things, he didn’t bother to check if the door was locked before sprinting down the stairs. Nearly tripping on his way down. You couldn’t have left him behind after last night. You weren’t capable of that kind of pain—that amount of soul crushing agony. Yet you endured it all through his time in New York. You listened to him ramble about his life here, about the women he never outrightly told you about—the memories that didn’t include you.

He left you behind without a second thought.

How could he think you wouldn’t do the same?

“Taxi!” he shouted, grabbing the nearest one to him with a panicked rushed out order to take him to the nearest airport.

The only place you could have gone.

“Where to miss?”

Sighing, you offered a tight lipped smile and set the worn suitcase by your feet. The chatter of the airport blended together, forming a mad rush of emotions you’d never witnessed before today. People coming home from a flight. Families going out for the holidays. Lives that rushed past you even as you stood still at the counter, explaining the details of how you’d like to move up your flight date.

A chance to get home before any bad weather sets in. Half a life.

“Perfect,” the attendant replied with a grin. “There’s one in twenty minutes. You can head straight to security.”

“Thank you. And happy holidays.”

You were given a curt nod in response, their arm extended to your gate number. The final goodbye to a life half lived.

“Can you hurry up please?” he begged, glancing at the line of traffic that eventually led to the front.

“I’m goin’ as fast as I can buddy.”

Eddie sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Alright yeah. Here’s fine.” He tossed the cash on the passenger seat, swinging the door open before the car stopped. “Thanks! And happy holidays!”

His boots pounded on the pavement lined with melting snow, people moving out of his way as he ran fast enough to nearly bowl them over. Apologies flew out of his mouth left and right, the edge of his jacket catching on stray luggage and shoulders slamming into groups of people. He couldn’t give them a second thought as he sprinted faster. His mind entirely and solely focused on the other half of his heart.

The piece that refused to beat without you there.

Even though he wracked his brain on the drive here he still couldn’t understand why you left. What made you decide to turn tail and run? Until it suddenly hit him hard enough to bruise the inside of his chest.

You never said you loved him.

He repeated the words over and over until his tongue went numb and lips went raw from kissing you. But never—not once—did you say it back. Did you love him? Did you want him? Or were you simply rushed into something without knowing what it was. That alone made him sick with fear. The thought that you didn’t want what happened last night and simply gave into him based on his need alone.

“C’mon kitten where are you,” he muttered, glancing at the lines of people that stretched on for miles.

“It’s just clothes,” you said, heaving it up onto the table. “Nothing unusual.”

“Good,” the man curtly responded, unzipping the suitcase with a sharp tug. Eventually you would have to find a new piece of luggage, but leaving again might not happen for quite some time. At least until you gathered the courage to finally flee your hometown. “Seems like it all checks out.”

You grinned, unable to make it reach your eyes. “Thanks.”

“You can go on to your gate.”

“Excuse me, where can I find this flight?” Eddie frantically asked the attendant at the front desk, his eyes still scanning the never ending crowd.

“Straight to the back. But you’ll need a ticket–”

He was gone before they could finish their sentence, his heart jumping with each step he took. The blaring echo of people everywhere he looked set his teeth on edge, his eyes burning with unshed tears as he searched for you everywhere he was able to see.

Rushing past groups of families and friends bidding their farewells, he finally spotted a familiar worn out brown suitcase gripped tight at the side of the final step in his path.

“KIT!” he shouted, watching with bated breath as you stilled, body going stiff at the sound of his voice.

With a gasping breath, you turned on your heel, catching sight of a ruined and broken version of the man you belonged to. The man who held your heart in his hands. Who could shatter you upon contact if you weren’t careful. He’d be the one to destroy you, but oh how you longed to be ripped apart by him. Oh how you ached to be that broken toy he did his best to fix—the stained glass window he might piece back together.

“Eddie, what are you doing here?”

“Stopping you,” he harshly breathed, striding towards you. “You’re gonna stand there and you’re going to fucking listen this time.”

“I’ve got a flight–”

“Do me a favor a shut the fuck up,” he cut you off, lips curling into a smile that sucked every ounce of willpower out of your limbs.

Your mouth clamped shut, eyes going wide as he finally reached you. His hand wrenching the suitcase out of your grip without even asking. But Eddie was done asking. He was done with appeasing others.

The boy torn to shreds by the hands of a father who never loved him. Only to be put back together by the girl who did.

“I asked you to stay.”

The dip of your head and frown painted across lips he could still taste shattered his strength. “I know Eddie. I just…”

“You just didn’t think I would say I love you?”

Your eyes met his, a fire flickering back to life. “You don’t love me Eddie.”

“Bullshit.”

“Eddie!” you squawked.

“You heard me, kitten. I love you. Of course I love you. How could I not? And you love me too. I know you do.”

“Don’t flatter yourself Alden,” you snapped, fighting against the tears.

“What about homecoming?”

“Homecoming?” you exclaimed. “What about homecoming?”

“You kissed me! And you expect me to forget about that? About the day you killed me?” Before you could argue, he glared at you—his lips still pulled into that fucking grin you adored.

“I have loved you since I was twelve years old and pushed you in the mud baby. I’ve loved you through every rooftop conversation, after every argument with my goddamn father. After every football game and college party. I have loved you through every fucking second in this city, because I don’t know who I am without you kitten. I never have.”

“Oh…Eddie.”

The suitcase dropped to the floor with a thud as he rushed towards you, hands cupping your cheeks stained in fresh tears. “I’ll love you till it’s me in the ground right next to you. Cause that’s where I belong, Kit. At your side. I am hopelessly, undoubtedly fucking in love with you. Forever.”

“I love you,” you admitted, finally letting go of the one secret that kept you going every fucking day of your life. “I always have.”

Smiling, he swooped down and pressed his lips against yours hard enough to hurt. But you welcomed the pain with a choked gasp of his name, burying your fingers in his hair to keep him close. An arm wrapped around your waist, yanking you forward with a breathy chuckle. A sound you burned into your mind as you kissed him back with everything held in your heart.

“Stay with me,” he begged, gripping the back of your neck tenderly. “Live in New York with me. Fuck marry me one day. But stay.”

Sucking in a breath, you searched for that sliver of doubt that always reared its ugly head and found nothing but warmth. The piece finally set in place. Where it belonged.

“Yes,” you whispered. “I’ll stay.”

Maybe you didn’t belong in New York, maybe you weren’t meant for the big city life. But you belonged to Eddie. You were always supposed to be with him, stuck to his side like glue—wrapped tight and safe in the arms of your protector.

He laughed, wrapping you in a hug tight enough to crush your lungs. “Let’s go cancel your fucking flight.”

Grabbing your hand, he dragged you past the people saying goodbye, past the families saying hello. Onto a path you knew well, a future overflowing with the warmth of his love. Eddie Alden loved you. He’d loved you all along. And it was everything you could have wanted. He offered you a life fully lived—a home inscribed in your story—and you took it without a second thought.

His fingers looped with yours, keeping you close, and you smiled at the sight. Leaning into his touch with a contented sigh.

“Hey Eddie?” He glanced to the side with a hum. “Will you make me that coffee now?”

A smile crossed his lips, arm wrapping around your shoulders as his lips found yours. As if he’d been doing it all along.

“You got it, kitten.”

FIN.

note: i still kinda can't believe that it's all over. but to those who let me know how excited they were for this story i want to thank you! i wouldn't have found the drive to finish it without you guys.🖤

#eddie alden x f!reader #eddie alden x reader #eddie alden x you #eddie alden x y/n #eddie alden smut #eddie alden #my writing

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piastappies · 1 year ago

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🔮 OPPOSITES ATTRACT

synopsis. a quiet slytherin and a loud gryffindor find themselves on a chilly evening, which results in something unexpected — at least for people around them. the oldest weasley’s daughter finds herself infatuated with nott’s only child and vice versa, even if their worlds seem so different, being apart just doesn’t feel right.

notes. theodore nott x weasley!reader. slightly sunshine x grumpy (pretend you’re a ginger if ur not). part 2 containing the date, thoughts?

theodore nott never thought he would be given a chance to love and be loved, upon all the terrible mistakes he has made. and maybe it seemed silly for a sixteen years old to say, but with an upcoming war, he wasn’t so sure if he could live through it.

theodore nott never thought he would have someone to call his own, someone to help him, when times get tough or someone who would understand him wordlessly. to be fair, theodore nott never thought he deserved anything like that, so the surprise on his face, when he found someone who was involuntarily willing to be his person was enormous.

he was walking around the crowded streets of the city, the dim lighting allowing him to see muggles running around with different expression on every other face he has passed — some of them were happy, cheering the slowly creeping holiday on them, some of them were exhausted and/or angry, probably from trying to find a perfect gift for someone and failing. just watching them gave him some sort of comfort, he had never had to look for gifts too much, his father wasn’t keen on being all festive and christmas was just any other day. the exception itself was looking for presents for his friends, which never had troubled him so much he looked exhausted.

he was in his thoughts, when he felt like he collided with someone. his eyebrows were squinted as he looked down on the red-haired girl, whose face was all red, either from cold or embarrassment. though, there was something so familiar about the girl that made him study her face for a brief second, the tea stain on his unzipped jacket didn’t seem to bother him at all, not as much as the familiarity of the girl.

“oh my god, i am so sorry, sir.” she let out ashamed that she didn’t look where she was going and that she probably ruined someone’s evening with her no sugar, lemon tea. it was then, when the familiar girl finally gave up and looked at the person she rudely bumped into.

“nott?” her words weren’t coated with layers of disgust and regret that out of all the people in london that night, she bumped into theodore nott. her words had surprised and confused undertones, almost as if she didn’t mind seeing him there. now, he obviously recognized his attacker — y/n weasley, a girl he sits behind in history of magic, a twin sister of potter’s best friend, someone who should hate him with burning passion.

“are you alright?” redhead’s question took him off guard.

theo was expecting something else, like a mockery of the fact that he was walking amongst muggles without hexing them all. though to be honest, theodore never hated muggles, well, yeah, he said some stupid shit, when he was younger and he was far from proud, but it was the need to appease his father. he definitely didn’t expect to see the worried manner in her, her brows scrunched as she tried to read his emotions, while standing in front of him in silence.

“theo…?” repeated y/n. he wasn’t alright and he didn’t know if he should show it. for merlin’s sake, he really wanted to get so much things out of his system, but venting to a weasley? he knew better than that — she would probably go around, and spread out the word about everything she heard from him.

nott was about to mumble something in response, when her eyes flickered with concern, demolishing all his justification why shouldn’t he talk to her for longer than needed. she was genuine, not caring that ron and harry weren’t on a good terms with him, she wanted to know, and help if possible.

so, theo simply gave up the act. “uh, no. not really.” he confessed, confirming all the suspicions she got to gather from observing him for a few minutes, when he thought of an answer. her expression changed from concerned to slightly sad, even.

before the boy could realize, he was sat in one of the small coffee shops beside her, a half empty, steamy cup of hot chocolate in his hands as they talked. something was so incredibly off about the way they conversed, first time in a while, he never wanted to conversation to end, just like when he was talking to his friends. his body itched at the thought that soon both of them would have to come to their respective houses and the talk would be just a memory that never happened again.

he had to admit that y/n’s presence was soothing. it was like the smell of a freshly printed new book, a cigarette on a foggy morning, a sensation of someone’s nails gently scratching the inside of his palm. the last one was a habit his mom developed to calm him down before she died, leaving him with an aching need for someone to find out about his perk and do it when he needs.

her muffled laughter filled his ears as he watched the girl cover her lips with a palm, he couldn’t help but smile. the gloomy atmosphere that he brought with his tiny vent was long gone, since she declared it her mission to make him feel better. so, since he wasn’t a big talker himself, she let him listen to all the stories from when she was growing up. even though he never experienced a family like hers, a family that cared for each other, it was comforting.

his eyes darted to the clock hung up on a wall, followed by hers and a long sigh that left his lips. his fingers ran through his curls as he parted his lips to bid goodbyes, though y/n was faster. “we could meet up here some other time, if you want.” she gave him a shy smile, the one he never thought he would see on her face.

y/n weasley wasn’t the shy type of girl, she was a big talker, a smart-ass with witty comebacks and a obnoxiously loud aura coating her small frame, though right now, upon his gaze that wandered around her face for quite some time now, she grew shyer.

“uh.” stuttered theo. “yeah, i guess it’s a good idea.” his reply made her smile go bigger, and in the back of his head, it felt like a reward for the decision he just made, some kind of reassurance that he did something good.

“perfect.” she grinned, taking the two of their cups and taking them to the shop’s kitchen, revealing that either she works there, or she’s just insanely crazy for barging into someone’s workplace as an unwanted stranger. “there’s a fireplace in the back.” weasley added, taking his hand in hers before he could even refuse (he wouldn’t though).

the tips of her long nails gently grazed his palm, when she led him the back, greeting a few of her coworkers. her touch on his skin ached, almost burnt, although if that’s what the insides of a normal, fireplace without floo powder felt like, he could grow to like it, only if a part of her body was pressed against his. few minutes later theo’s hand felt empty as he watched her disappear in green flames, having bid their goodbyes.

***

theo hated that feeling. this warm, strange feeling that coated his heart whenever he thought about the obnoxious gryffindor, who he met at those muggle streets. nevertheless, he found himself unable to think about someone else. he was replying to a letter pansy has sent him, and the only thing he had on his mind was y/n, he wondered if ginny told her about her little getaways with theo’s best friend, if all her brothers got back to their house, and — if she thought about him.

his hands throbbed. his fingers wrapped tightly around the quill, before putting it down on his deck. why on earth would he text her? it was one accidental meeting at some crowded street, one conversation that shouldn’t mean anything to them.

nott squeezed his eyes, the muscles on his face tensed as he focused on the paper in front of him, scribbling down a few words in his neat handwriting. a long sigh has left his lips, his eyes tracing the sentence he wrote for her. shit, why would he even do that? if any of his friends knew, he’d have been doomed — one weasley hanging around their friend group was enough, but he didn’t want to push draco nor blaise’s limits.

on a christmas’ eve, he went out for another walk, slightly hoping in the back of his mind that he’d accidentally bump into her again. this time, theodore would make sure to hear her laugh more often, to see her teeth, when she smiles or to watch as she gets shyer upon his gaze on her face.

his feet got him into a familiar looking café, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion — he couldn’t pinpoint from where he knew the place — and looked around. then, he heard it.

“theo!” a female voice rang in his ears. the boy turned his face, a smile slipping onto his lips as he realized where he was. the god damned café y/n was working at. “what can i get you?” a grin spread across her face, visibly delighted to see him there, almost as if she hoped for it.

her forearms laid on the counter as her body leaned a little closer, her hair pinned up in a ponytail that probably got ruined during her shift from running around the place, having a chat with each customer every now and then, a pinkish tint on her cheeks, maybe from the heat in the back or maybe, because he was there.

it took him a second to realize that he was staring with his mouth slightly parted. “uh—” he stuttered, getting a small, barely audiable giggle in response. “i just came to see you.” he blurted out. thank god his ears were covered by the beanie, because just by saying those six words got him all flustered.

“theo.” his name sounded so well coming from her. theodore wanted to hear it again, again, and again. it was melodic, like most beautiful song he’s ever heared. how could he get so whipped after one hangout?

“i hoped you’d come by.” she confessed shyly. “i have something for you in the back, could you give me five minutes? i gotta tell the manager i’m taking a break.” she beamed at him sweetly, rushing off to the back, taking off the green apron that hung on her waist in the meantime.

when she came back, she was still wearing the café’s shirt with a small, green logo, black jeans, and was carefully walking towards his table with a neatly wrapped package and on a top of that a plate with a big piece of some sort of chocolate cake, two drinks (the same as last time), and a cookie. her hair wasn’t in a ponytail anymore, ginger strands falling into her shoulders as she gave him the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.

“you– you got me something?” a question left theo’s mouth, leaving him all surprised — the strange feeling warming him up from the inside. he took a big sip of the hot chocolate in front of him, hardly minding that he burnt his tongue, he didn’t want to say anything stupid. “y/n, we talked once and you… got me something?” he asked once again, not believing his own eyes.

the girl just smiled wider, passing the box towards him. “uh. yeah.” she answered, shrugging. “last time, you said that you never really celebrated christmas the right way, so… please open it.” she tried explaing herself, but gave up at the end, pushing the box further with her fingertips. “please?”

shit.

if she didn’t ask, if she didn’t give him those eyes and that smile. maybe he would be able to refuse, think of some lame excuse that wouldn’t hurt her feelings and give her the box back. but y/n was so sweet, and thought of him hard enough to prepare him a gift.

for half a second, theodore could see something flicker in her eyes, when his lean fingers gently pulled the green ribbon, ripping the gift paper afterwards. the gift turned out to be a sweater, a hand-made one that made the feeling come back to him.

the sweater was dark green, in the similar shade of his tie or the snake symbol on his robes, it had a large, dark blue letter T with a silver outline. his eyes scanned the piece of clothing, the corner of his lips going slightly upwards. “you got me your mom’s iconic sweater?” asked theo.

his mind was filled with different thoughts and emotions right now. he could never call y/n weasley a sweet girl, not because it wasn’t true, but because it would be an understatement — she was the sweetest, or at least somewhere in that range. his cheeks almost hurt from smiling at her, and never in his life nott had felt it.

“actually…” her cheeks started getting a little more pinkish than usual. “it’s based on my mom’s sweaters, i did it on my own. it might not be perfect—" y/n started rambling in nervousness, afraid that the boy won’t be happy about getting a meaningless piece of fabric from her.

“y/n, i love it.” theodore’s words were like honey to y/n’s ears, she gave him a small smile, not really expecting him to gently grab her hand out of sudden. the reason behind it? even theo didn’t know (probably to ease her nerves).

when he realized what he did, he wanted to take his hand back and mutter a quiet apology, the crime scene awkward as much as only possible. although, from the corner of his eye, he noticed that the pink on her face intensified, few more minutes of skin-to-skin contact, and she would turn into a tomato, so his hand stayed on hers, taking the chance and intertwining their fingers together.

“would you– uh,” the redhead started, stumbling over her own words, easily losing focus, each time his thumb stroked her hand, a tiny smirk hovering over his lips. “like to, uh, come here once in a while, you know… until the break’s over? keep me company, maybe?”

and he did. how couldn’t he? this girl was constantly on his mind ever since she bumped into him on the streets and spent literal hours at the café.

although, beside just keeping her company during the winter break — but also at school. he grew so fond of her (and believe me, it worked both ways) that cutting their fresh friendship short was something he couldn’t let happen. so… even though her younger sister was already swaying her way into theodore’s friend group, y/n seemed like a different topic.

theodore nott liked sharing. as unbelievable as it sounds, he really did. whenever he had something he enjoyed, he was willing to share, he was the type of person to give away his last cigarette to one of his friends, but the thought of sharing y/n weasley never crossed his mind. he wanted her all to himself, so… their hangouts always contained just the two of them.

small study dates in the library, late night walks around the courtyard, meet-ups in the room of requirement, picnics in the astronomy tower, while smoking some pot and cigarettes together.

back then, it felt strictly platonic. even if they called it their little dates, nott had a feeling they weren’t moving past the friendship line, while his emotions towards the girl were getting more and more serious. nevertheless, theodore was confident, but not confident enough to ask her out — to confess his silly crush without the fear creeping up on him that y/n would reject him and turn his dreams into nightmares.

***

the weather outside was getting better with each day until spending time inside the castle was unbearable. it was around the time, theo decided to finally push his luck and ask the girl of his dream out. ever since he woke up, he was nervously fidgeting with everything that got to his hands and when then classes were to start, it only got worse.

“you alright, theo?” a whisper left y/n’s mouth as she stood next to him in potions, her elbow nudging him lightly, trying to catch his attention.

merlin. the way his name sounded so wonderful on her tongue. if it wasn’t for the small attention-grabber, he would definitely accidentally ignore the question to daydream about how sweetly her voice is.

“no, i mean– yes, yes i am.” he stuttered. “i just– can i ask you a question?” she nodded, making his stomach turn around. “would you, uh– like to go out to hogsmeade with me? like on a date?” the question left his lips.

his throat went dry as he waited years for an answer (which was actually just about two seconds, theo’s brain just got really dramatic from stress), legs giving up, so he had to lean his palms on the table.

“f’course.” weasley grinned, not minding the blush that spread all over her face, just from the ask. “i thought you’d never ask, really.” she giggled, turning her eyes away for a second, before flashing him another beam of hers.

nott’s face was now bright pink. “i– what?” he was struggling to form a logical sentence. “you wanted me to–?” the boy was supposed to finish his thought, though it didn’t really sit well with snape who interrupted their little talk, postponing it until the evening.

the two of them were walking somewhere outside, laughing about something so insignificant, when the situation from classes popped into his mind. “so… about that date. you really want to?” asked nott.

he expected any kind of answer — yes, no, maybe, you should guess, nah — whatever was only possible. however, the feeling of her lips on his wouldn’t cross his mind. she kissed him. y/n has kissed him, leaving him breathless, when she pulled away.

“does that answer your question?” redhead chuckled, her fingers still curled up against the collar of his white shirt. he shook his head, still mind-blown. “yes, theodore faustus nott, i was dying to hear you ask me out on a date. whatever we have between us, i wanted it to move forward and go on a date with you.”

she laughed. “you really think i’d spend hours crotcheting a sweater for a guy i met few days earlier if i didn’t feel something? theo, i almost passed out when you touched my hand months ago.” another laugh left her lips that were now so close to his, clouding his mind with one certain thing.

upon hearing all those words, the boy couldn’t stop himself anymore, he pressed his mouth against hers, savouring the moment. cherishing the fact that she wanted him like he wanted her.

“the date is still a thing, yeah?” y/n smiled as her nose brushed his.

“you’re gonna love it.” he answered, grinning.

#theodore nott #theodore nott x reader #theo nott x reader #pansy parkinson x ginny weasley #harry potter fic #harry potter fanfiction #theodore nott fic #theo nott x you #theo nott fic #slytherin boys #slytherin boys x reader #slytherin boys fic #theo nott rec

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dinogoofymutated · 7 months ago

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SFW!Nightcrawler/GN!Reader - Part 1 - part 2 - Part 3

kdhbcjshbc I know I said I was gonna work on my Wolverine fic rn but I got sidetracked. This was originally going to be one long ass fic but since the first half ended up already over 4k works I decided to split it into two! It's basically a friends to lovers fic and I know the beginning is a bit of a jumpscare but they're both adults by the end of the fic I promise!! Edit: I totally forgot to add!! Another special thanks to @blue-devil-of-the-lord for their help with german translations!

Tws: Mentions of animal cruelty in the circus. The ringleader is an asshole. I might have made Kurt's brother a bit of an asshole too sorry. Kurt's backstory is going to be kinda a combination of all the shit I've read/know so please be patient lol. I'll go back and add more tags if I think of any.

You were sixteen when you first met Kurt Wagner, although, he went by Kurt Szardos back then. You had never been to the circus before, and you hadn’t really paid to be there anyway. The show had already started when your father had taken you into the tent, sitting you down in an absent seat near the front. You didn’t want to get in trouble, but he had assured you it was fine. He had business to attend to, and told you that his future employer had given his blessing for you to sit and watch as your father handled business. After all, the two of you were a combo deal, and if you were to be working for the circus, you might as well know just what you were getting yourself into.

The circus tent was loud with laughter and the sounds of an awed crowd. It was a little overwhelming, to be honest. There were simply too many voices, too many lights- and yet when you finally set aside your grievances to try and enjoy the show, you still struggled.

The monkeys were annoyed with their handler, and every shout towards the crowd was an insult. The lion was young, and still afraid he wouldn’t make the jump through that vicious ring of fire- still healing from the burns he earned by brushing against the flames during the last performance. The doves from the magician act were a bonded pair, rejoicing the time and attention they were being given in the spotlight- and yet the male was already dreading their moments after the show and the dark, dirty cage they would kept in. The female was trying her best to cheer him up. Every animal was unafraid to keep their voice down, and you had never heard animals speak so loudly before. Part of you wonders if it was simply because they were so used to being ignored, they had grown used to letting their voice free- speaking from the heart and yet always being unheard.

You didn’t like this part of the circus much- and although the tricks these animals did were beautiful and amazing, you couldn’t manage to enjoy it like all the others around you did. You were frowning while all others were smiling and laughing so joyously- perhaps that was what drew him to you in the first place.

“And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present-” All but one of the spotlights have started to circle around the tent, the ringmaster standing completely within the only lingering light. “Our Flying Fiend… the Daredevil Demon… The one and only, Nightcrawler!” Every moving spotlight lands on a single man standing on one of the high beams. He’s smiling so brightly that you can see it from where you stand feet below him. He’s… strange. Elf-like ears, yellow eyes, and blue skin. A pointed tail sways eagerly behind him, and he takes a deep bow in front of you. His yellow eyes peer open as he does so, and for a moment, you swear he looks straight at you. You’re not entirely sure if he was wearing a costume or not anymore.

The performance starts out with one hell of a beginning. Every flip and jump is an incredible act of athleticism- and you find your eyes following Nightcrawler throughout every trick. Two other acrobats join the fray, and yet he’s the only one who catches your eye. At one point, they bring out these long swings- ones that sweep right above the audience with every swoop. There’s one swing for every side of the audience- and the acrobats switch with a dramatic flare every few swings.

On the very last switch, Nightcrawler is the one who swings over your seats.

He’s much more handsome up close, you realize, blushing even where you are now. You swear with every swing, he’s looking at you. It makes your heart flutter a bit, and on the very last swing of the night, he takes out a rose, pretending to throw it to multiple groups of screaming fans, before he swings again with a dramatic flair. Unlike the other times, he’s holding onto the swing with his feet and tail. He’s so close to the audience without touching a single hair on anyone's head- and then he gets to you.

You could have sworn that time had slowed, no matter how quickly it happened. The two of you finally lock eyes, and his hand stretches out. The rose falls into your lap, the air whooshing by your face as he’s gone just as quickly. You pick up the flower, a genuine smile finally on your face, and you find that all the other voices of excitement around you have finally drowned out.

That was the first and last time you had watched the show at Herr Getmann's Traveling Menagerie. After that, you and your father were behind the scenes instead of in the stands.

It had been about a week and a half since you and your father had been walking to the circus to work. He knew every path and every road like the back of his hand, insisting the two of you walk instead of drive to save money on gas, and he just so happened to know a few shortcuts through the woods. Usually, you were able to rely on him to guide you, but today you woke up late. Your father had already left without you- which you’re not entirely sure wasn’t intentional. He did leave a note for you, giving you instructions on how to get there on your own.

Needless to say, that didn’t actually work out too well. A thirty to forty-five-minute walk had quickly turned into an hour, and then an hour in a half. You were trying your absolute best to follow the instructions, but this was hardly a cohesive path in the middle of the woods. It wasn’t exactly easy.

You’re beginning to give up at this point, stumbling through the brush as you try to find the general direction you think you’re supposed to be going. Your feet have started to ache and blister, and you find yourself beginning to lose hope.

“Hello!” If the sound of the voice hadn’t scared the shit out of you, the strange man hanging upside down from the branches of a wild Crab apple tree certainly did. You shriek in terror, your feet slipping as you fall back on your butt. You hold your hands over your heart as the strange acrobat from the circus jumps down in a panic, holding his even stranger hands out in front of him.

“Oh- Es tut mir Leid! I am so sorry! I had not meant to startle you!” He says frantically, kneeling down to help you up in a very gentlemanly manner. You’re wide-eyed as you look at him, letting him help you up without a fuss. Up close and in broad daylight like this, it was very clear that he certainly was… Blue, to say the least.

“I-it’s okay.” You stutter. He smiles warmly at you, tail swaying excitedly behind him, and it simply confirms to you that he wasn’t wearing a costume at all. You open and close your mouth a few times, trying to find some words. He blinks at you as you do so, patiently (if not obliviously) waiting for you to speak.

“You’re from the circus, aren’t you?” Is what you finally land on, still a little startled from before. The acrobat nods eagerly.

“I am. I'm happy that you remember me! I’ve been told I leave a bit of an impression.” He jokes, and you find yourself smiling again. He was charming, for someone so strange. “The farrier is your father, right?” He asks, taking you by surprise. You didn’t think that anyone had taken the time to notice you, your father’s shadow in every sense of the word. It makes you feel a little funny, but surely he didn’t remember you from that first performance, right? Maybe he’s just very observant of those who come in and out of the circus stables.

“Well, yes.” You affirm, starting to anxiously fiddle with your fingers. “I didn’t really expect you to know who I was, to be honest.” He lets out a happy chuckle at that.

“Of course, I know! A face like yours is hard to forget.” He chirps, sending you a wink. “But I must say, You’re a bit far from the circus, Meine Freundin.” You make a bit of a grimace at that, and he sends you a questioning smile.

“Yes, well… To be frankly honest, I’m a bit lost.” You admit, eyes locked solely on the ground, taking the time to notice the various fruits that had fallen from the tree and gone bad. You can see the acrobat’s tail swaying in your peripheral vision, and still feel his eyes on you. It makes you blush a little from embarrassment, a little flustered that you had become so lost.

“I’ll gladly show you the way, I was just about to go back myself.” Your head snaps up to look at him in bewilderment at that, before you realize just how lucky you are to have found him out here. He picks up a basket of crab apples that you hadn’t noticed before, and you offer to carry it for him as a thanks for guiding you back. He won’t let you no matter how hard you try, certainly the first gentleman you’ve met in quite a while. He tells you that your profuse thanks is more than enough for him.

The two of you get to talking while you make the long walk back to the circus, and he tells you about his mother, Margali Szardos, and how she had asked him to wander over this way to pick the fruit from the crab apple tree for her. She was fairly adamant about him doing so, telling him that it was of great importance, but he didn’t quite understand why fruit could be such a pressing matter. He’s very funny, and you find yourself greatly enjoying his company. The two of you feel like close friends already, and you hadn’t even realized that you didn’t even know his real name until you’ve already arrived at the plethora of brightly colored circus tents.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t believe I ever asked for your name.” You say, the awkwardness of the question not even registering with how happy you are to simply be in his company. He sends you another dazzling smile before he holds his hand, offering it for you to shake.

“I’m Kurt.” He tells you. You introduce yourself as well, happy to have made a new friend today. You hear someone calling your name from not too far away, and spot your father waving his hand at you, calling you over.

“I have to go, but thank you so much for your help!” You say, once again thanking him adamantly.

“Walking with you was lovely. I hope to see you more often.” Kurt says, right before you go. You can’t help but blush a little, unable to keep yourself from smiling widely. You couldn’t help it! He was just so handsome in both looks and personality, the strangeness of his skin color and three-fingered hands being something you easily begin to care less and less about.

“Likewise.” You agree, almost completely flustered. Your father calls for you again, and you quickly say your goodbyes before you rush off to him. You find yourself in a rather good mood for the rest of the day, despite your sore and blistered feet from the long journey here.

Many months flew by very fast while you and your father worked for the circus, and you and Kurt had grown very close. He visited you when he could sneak away from practice and performances, and although you were more concerned about him staying out of trouble, you began to appreciate the company beyond the way a simple friend would, finding yourself blushing and flustered while around him.

A fact that hadn’t changed throughout your time there was the treatment of many of the animals. All of them had a grievance or problem of some sort, and it broke your heart to have to stand by without the ability to help them. In the eyes of the circus, you were just the Ferrier’s assistant, nothing more. At first, you were, in the very least. Some of the animal trainers had noticed how good you were with the horses, and how even the most skittish of the equine animals would calm around you and let you handle them without any trouble. Things like that don’t go unnoticed, and soon enough many of the animal handlers had heard about your “gift” with the live attractions. Part of this was due to your Father’s constant bragging about your special skill with animals, although you were the only one who knew the truth about it all. After a while, the frustrated animal trainers began to ask you to assist them with the other animals as well, noting how it hadn’t taken very long before they were at ease around you. The size of cages and the attitudes of the trainers were something you couldn’t change very much, but even if you could only help out with a few things here and there, you were happy- and the animals were too.

Today, you were doing your best to handle an absolute disaster.

Tonight’s animal show was a new set, with lots of loud noises and the pops of fireworks launching far, far above the tops of the tallest tent. With so many new lights and colors, they should have known something was bound to go wrong- and boy, did it. The smallest pony in the show was a stunning Blue Roan mare named Bubbles- and unlike many of the other mares in the show, she was very skittish. Her trainers mostly knew to be careful around her, but that consideration slipped under the radar when it came to all the new changes. Her show went by relatively seamless, with only a few issues here and there- but it was enough to put her on edge. When the fireworks finale went off as she was being led out of the main tent, it was just her last straw.

I don’t like them. I don’t like the loud noises. Bubbles is pacing anxiously in the back of her tiny stable, still having trouble settling down. Every bump or noise from outside and even the neighboring stables sends her spiraling again. You’re standing at the gate, giving her a cautious amount of room to pace and worry so that she doesn’t feel trapped by you.

“I know, Bubbles, It’s okay.” You whisper. You’re so concerned for her, and angry with her trainers, too. It makes your blood boil to remember how one of them had gotten frustrated with her tonight, eventually giving up on settling her completely and thrusting her reins at you, telling you to “take this stupid thing somewhere else!”. The lack of patience and understanding makes you rage, but you know you can’t say a thing if you want to keep this opportunity to work with the animals.

Please don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so scared. I’ll do better, I promise. Bubbles says again. The words almost bring tears to your eyes, hurting for her. You hate seeing her so scared.

“Hey, hey. Easy, I’m not mad at you, I promise. You’re safe with me, okay?” You tell her, starting to slowly approach her as her pacing begins to slow. She whinnies once, huffing as she tries her best to calm herself down. Eventually, she begins to settle, letting you get close enough to reassuringly pet her nose and flank. She leans into the comforting touches, finally beginning to relax after being high-strung for so long. The two of you sit in a comfortable silence for a minute, enjoying each other's company as you hear the sounds of the circus begin to dwindle and die.

I’m sorry for all the trouble. Bubbles apologizes quietly.

“You haven’t been any trouble, Bubbles, I promise.” You say soothingly. “Do you want to talk for a bit before I go?” She nods her head, and that’s all the answer you need.

The two of you talk for a long, long while as you take off her tack and brush her down, pampering her as you ready her for bed. You talk about food, trainers, the new horseshoes she’s getting next week- anything at all. Even Kurt comes up in conversation, eventually.

I like him. She says decisively. He sneaks me leftover apples. You can’t help but giggle at that, already having a hunch that he had been giving the horses treats while no one was looking. Not that you really mind, it was nice to know that they had someone other than you and your father looking out for them.

“I agree. He’s very nice.” You say, smiling brightly. She noses you in response.

I think he likes you, too. You instantly blush at her words, shaking your head at her with a flustered smile. You honestly doubted he saw you as much more of a friend, even if the two of you have had somewhat sensitive moments sometimes.

“I really don't think-”

“Guten Abend!” You can’t help but shriek at the greeting, knowing just who it was as you whip around in the stable, spotting Kurt leaning against the gate with a cheesy smile.

“Kurt! You have got to stop scaring me like that!” You scold, throwing the dandy brush at him. He pretends to be wounded, holding a hand over the spot it hit him dramatically as he laughs.

“I’m sorry. Seems I couldn’t help myself.” Kurt says, and you lightly slap his arm again for good measure when you can reach him, trying and failing to keep yourself from smiling at his antics.

“You could have startled Bubbles. It took forever for me to get her settled after the show today!” You scold him again, smile not letting up for a second. Kurt smiles a little nervously at that before he looks behind you to see the completely unbothered Bubbles.

He wouldn’t have- I saw him come in. She says. You wave her off discreetly. That’s not the point, Bubbles! But even without being able to understand her, Kurt seems to get the hint that she wasn’t even a tad bit bothered and jumps the gate with such ease you can’t help but be a little jealous of his athleticism.

“Then I’ll apologize to you too, Bubbles.” Kurt cooes, lavishing her forehead and muzzle with pets and kisses that she happily receives. You watch him with a smile, a warm feeling spreading through your chest. You knew you were absolutely gone on him, this little crush of yours having developed into true and deep feelings of affection. But how could you not? Even watching him right now it’s clear to see the kindness and support he gives to every living thing regardless of status or species. That meant more to you than you think he might ever know.

“How was it out there?” You ask eventually, leaning against the side of the stable.

“So-so. The crowds have started to react less to our sets. Mother says that we’ll get better reactions if we change the performance a little.” Kurt shrugs, tail tucked tightly around his own waist- something you noticed he did every time he entered the stables so that he wouldn’t startle the horses with the snake-like limb. You frown, eyebrows furrowing at the news. You knew that they had been trying some new things for the animal shows, but the acrobatics had always been so incredible and immaculate. It’s strange to you that anyone would look on at that part of the show with a straight face.

“And how does Ringmaster Getmann feel about that?” You ask. Bubbles huffs through her nose angrily at his name, and you join Kurt by her side, petting her shoulder. You can see that Kurt is frowning, not responding to your question as his eyes stay squarely on Bubbles.

“...Kurt?” You’re really worried for him now, knowing that the look on his face can only mean that nothing good will come of it.

“It’s nothing for you to worry over.” Kurt responds after a minute. “He wants us to do riskier tricks, but Mother keeps telling him it’s not the best idea. He’s rather adamant about it though.” His voice is soft while he delivers the news, and it makes you wonder how on earth he’s not angry about the blatant disregard for both his and his adoptive siblings’ safety.

I knew I had a good reason to hate that man! Bubbles speaks angrily as she flicks her tail, Kurt being the only reason she hadn’t bucked or stopped in frustration. Your worry begins to deepen as you think everything over.

“I- You won’t get hurt, will you?” You ask, worry clearly spilling into your tone. “The animal injuries are already bad enough, but if he starts risking human lives-”

“I’ll be fine, Schatz.” Kurt cuts you off, stepping away from Bubbles to take your hands in his own. The nickname had a tendency to make your heart flutter, but right now all you could feel was the anxiety of an impending disaster. “Please don’t worry for me.” He tells you, brushing a lock of hair away from your face. You’re breath catches at the act, and when you look at him there's a fond, reassuring look on his face. Still, it did not ease your worries in the slightest. Kurt takes a step closer to you, his hand cupping your face now instead.

“I can’t help it. I worry because I care.” You whisper. Kurt smiles softly at you, leaning in to rest his forehead against your own. The two of you sit in silence for a minute, reveling in the fond moment. Still, your lips tingled with how close the two of you are, eyes darting down to the shape of his lips as you ran your tongue across your own. Kurt’s pretty eyes don’t let the action go unnoticed. He begins to lean in to close the gap between the two of you, and your eyes flutter closed as he does so.

“Kurt.” The voice startles the two of you, separating immediately. It’s Stephan, Kurt’s adoptive brother. He’s not only startled you and Kurt, but Bubbles too. She spooks in the tiny stables, rearing up before you immediately turn to her, doing your best to calm her down once again. She’s breathing a little hard, but she’s not pacing again, which was much better than before, although you were certainly peeved to have backtracked already.

“You know you’re not supposed to linger around the stables after the show,” Stephan says to Kurt, who only frowns. The two had begun to form a rather strained relationship as of late, but neither of you would have expected him to go out of his way to catch Kurt like this. You glance back at them as you finish settling Bubbles, staying silent as the two of them share a look. Kurt’s tail sways a bit, and you can see Stephan roll his eyes at Kurt before he nods his head to the door and begins to leave. Kurt sighs deeply before he turns to you with a remorseful look.

“I’ll see you soon- promise,” Kurt says, taking your hands in his own and giving them a reassuring squeeze. You’re frowning, unable to help it at this point due to the moment being ruined. Kurt leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead before he leaves, and you smile a bit. He gives you another quiet goodbye before he jumps the gate again, and follows his brother out.

You're left standing there with Bubbles, and despite Kurt’s promises, you have an uneasy feeling in your chest. You want to blame it on the disappointment of the night, but you can't help but wonder when you'd actually get to see him again.

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 8 months ago

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Chapter 16: Please Come Back To Me

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy. This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter sixteen of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 7.6K (You know you love it)

Warnings: References to sex, Cursing, Angst, Alot of Angst, Crying, Heartbreak, Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC, Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

Additional Warning: This chapter contains severe amounts of fluff and angst. Ben is SUPER OOC and really soft in this chapter, I will not apologize for that, but I will say you're welcome 😉 If you don't like either of those things, then probably shouldn't read this?

When you wake up you think you dreamed it all, but one look at your blotchy red face in the mirror of your bathroom, dried snot on your shirt, and your inability to find your phone means that it did happen.

Ben was back and you didn't know where to go from here.

Bits and pieces of the conversation explode in your head like fireworks and your grip on the bathroom sink tightens so much that the countertop cracks beneath your hands.

Shit.

You extract your fingers from the marble that crumbled like gravel in your iron grip and glance down at your watch. You’d been asleep for 7 hours, which meant that now it was 10 pm and you probably weren't going to sleep tonight.

As if you could after everything that just happened.

Honestly, you were surprised that you had been able to, but you figured it was just the exhaustion of everything that happened, the heartbreak, the shouting, the tears, the inability of you to let go of the past, and Ben's confession of love that you waited 80 years to hear. You had wondered in the past if he wanted to say it the night that you decided to come with him, if he really did care for you as much as you cared for him all these years. Now that you knew, you wish you didn't. You wish that you could let him go, let go of the things that happened all those years ago, and wish that you hadn't fallen for him and expected him to catch you.

You think about crawling back into bed and hugging your pillow until you fall asleep so you don’t have to think about Ben. You wince at the thought of his name.

He apologized, admitted that he loved me, said that what he did was wrong, said that he wouldn’t leave- The urge to cry lodges in the back of your throat. How do I have any tears left?

You think about how much you wanted to run to him, to throw yourself into his arms, but you knew that you shouldn't want to. Ben broke you. What he did weighed on your heart everyday, but you wanted to forgive him.

How can I still want him as much as I do? How can I want him to fix this even after he did everything he could to push me away?

The look in his eyes when he confessed his feelings to you flashes through your mind in black and white.

Ben admitted weakness, said that he was scared of all things. Ben wasn't afraid of anything.

Over 40 years of friendship meant that you knew every part of him, but the part you had seen in your apartment, him practically begging you to forgive him was not one that you were used to and was not one that you had ever seen.

It was unusual for him to look broken and vulnerable.

The closest you'd ever come to seeing it was on the nights back in Philadelphia when he tapped on your window, on nights when his father gave him a hard time and Ben needed a place to crash. When the look in his eyes made you want to pull him into your arms and never let him go, to tell him that everything was going to be okay, that he wasn't a disappointment. Because despite everything with Countess, Ben wasn't a disappointment to you.

Everything was easier when you were kids, when Ben would fall asleep beside you in your bed and when you woke up in his arms, you wished that he did it on purpose.

I guess he was trying to say that he did it on purpose. You sigh as you walk into your closet to find a soft t-shirt while avoiding the duffle bag that you threw inside the double doors before you collapsed onto the bed.

But even if he was sorry, how do I know he won’t just act like the boy I used to know and tomorrow pretend he doesn’t exist? It was so easy for him to do that, to say that I meant nothing to him, to act like he didn't care.

You think about the morning after your birthday, when he looked soft and happy in your bed and how quickly he shifted into the cold mask he wore as Soldier Boy. How easy it was for him to push you away and ignore you, act like you didn’t exist and cling to Countess at the premiere.

How do I know he won’t do that again? How can I trust him? How can I forget everything he did?

You think about the night you found him with Countess, think about the moments before at the premiere, when she made you believe that you were the ugly little girl who watched Ben prance around your birthday party with Missy Callahan. Your mind stutters on her name, remembering the last time you heard it in conversation on the night that you wished would never end.

"Don't be jealous of Missy Callahan. She's nothing compared to you. Never has been, never will be."

You hear Ben whisper it to you while your song played and remember that it made you feel like you were floating, made you feel understood and seen for the first time in your life. The memory of the night you spent together rises to the surface and you allow yourself to remember, remember how it felt to finally have him completely, how much it meant to you for him to be there with you, and how he made you feel special and loved.

Your jaw clenches as the image of him with Countess sours the memory of the perfect night you had together, as the memory of the words he shouted at you rip through the happy glow you had the morning after your birthday when you told him everything you'd always wanted to.

And then the memory of what he said to you a few hours ago rises.

"We made love. I understood that when I woke up the next morning and I was happy to be there with you. I knew that I loved you and I wanted to tell you, but I fucked it all up instead. I fucked Countess because I was scared of what loving you meant. But I'm ready now, I'm not scared anymore. I love you!"

Damn it why does it have to be like this. You clench your teeth together in anger and frustration. Why did he have to do this? Why did I have to love him? Why couldn't he have just stayed gone? Why did he have to come here-

"No. I love you and I'm not leaving!"

The words reverberate around in your skull, shaking through your body like an avalanche, shaking the foundation that you built to push him away. Because you didn't want to. You didn't want him to leave. You didn't want him to leave ever again. But you weren't sure if you could survive again if he did that again. If you opened your heart to him only to have him crush it under his heel all over again.

It was so long ago. 40 years. 40 years that he said he spent regretting what he said that night. We both said things that night.

Sometimes you wondered if Ben was as broken as you were after the fight. You think about how he looked when you went into your room and think about what he said.

Maybe he was.

Apart of you didn’t want to forgive him and didn’t believe that he really understood what he did to you. The other part wanted to leave your apartment and find him, ask him to stay, forgive him and let him back in to your heart.

More frustrated tears slip down your cheeks as you look for a pair of your soft sweatpants. When you walk out of your closet you think about going back to bed again, but you knew that sleep wouldn't come.

Maybe I should call Rosie. She'd be proud of me for not forgiving him, but probably would be mad that he came here. And I should probably tell her that I didn't have to go to Russia.

That thought gives you the strength to leave your bedroom, bare feet padding down the cool floors of the hallway back to your living room. The lights are all off, save from one single lamp on the coffee table next to the plush leather couch, the same one that you'd thrown Ben over when he grabbed your arm.

But when you cross from the hallway into the living room, you realize that you aren't alone.

Ben is sitting on the couch, leaning forward on his forearms, a blunt perched in his right hand where his arm rests against his knee, looking down at his feet. He looks up at you when you walk in, eyes piercing in the warm light of the lamp, familiar in a way that almost makes you start crying all over again.

"What are you still doing here? I thought I told you-" You begin to say, voice hoarse from crying, trying to summon up enough anger to push him away, but then your eyes shift to your kitchen counter.

A pretty glass vase of fresh cut lavender sits on the counter, the sharp clean smell floats through the air soothing the anger and frustration that you drew on to speak.

Despite your age and the way most considered them to be classic, you thought that over the years roses had become generic. But you loved lavender. It reminded you of the country home your family lived at over the summers when your mother declared that the smog in the city was too much and you all needed a holiday. She always seemed softer in the countryside, all the sharp edges of the city melting away. She didn’t snipe at your figure or your paint stained hands, if anything she gave you more freedom. You spent your summers outside in the garden staring up at the clouds missing Ben, painting and sketching, while the smell of the flowers enveloped your senses. You used to send letters to him and some sketches of flowers or small painted doodles after pressing fresh lavender into the envelopes so they would smell like it when they got to him. You wanted him to think of you whenever he smelled lavender.

He remembered how much I loved lavender?

Your eyes shift to the cigar box that lays open next to it, focusing on the slips of paper that seem to spill out over your countertop.

Are those-

You reach into the box and pull out the yellowed pages of letters delicately, eyes drifting across the paper, recognizing your handwriting, remembering the painstaking moments you spent writing them to Ben, hoping that he got them, and hoping that he missed you as much as you missed him. Underneath the ones from the summers are the ones that you sent him when he was at boarding school and then finally the faded pencil sketches and faded watercolor paintings you sent him. Each piece is folded and refolded as if someone continued to look at them over and over again.

Your fingers drift over a small doodle that you did of Ben and you sitting on a bench in Philadelphia, the one that captured you laughing at something Ben said.

It was so much easier then.

“You kept them?” You breathe while looking down at the pages.

Ben stands from the couch, putting out the blunt in one of the decorative glass ashtrays on your coffee table, watching you with the same expression in his eyes that he had when you were there earlier, when you told him to leave and not come back.

"Ben-" Tears begin to fall all over again as you meet his gaze.

"I hated those summers when you were gone. I used to sleep in your room and read the letters." He whispers. "It made me realize how much I needed you in my life. I never needed anyone before." His jaw clenches together as if the thought makes him angry.

“You asked me once why I didn’t stay at those schools. It’s because when I was at all those shitty boarding schools the only thing I could think about was getting back to you, coming back home.”

The word rings in the air between you and you suddenly understand what he is saying, remember what he said the day you were together at your first baseball game and you asked him why he didn't like staying at the boarding schools.

"I don't like being there. It's not home." He had said it so casually, but you remember being confused at his reply, but now you know.

He was saying that home was with you and it made your heart feel like it was ripping itself in half because you were still so angry with him but you didn’t want to be. Not when he was saying the very thing you’d known from the beginning. That being with him was home.

“Ben-“ You say, trying to strengthen your resolve, trying to summon the anger you’ve kept close to your heart for forty years.

"Every time I came to see you, tapped on your window I thought you would push me away, turn your back on me and you never did. And when all this supe shit happened I needed you with me too, that's why I asked you to come with me. Those years before and when we were on Payback, you put up with all my shit. Even when I did horrible things to other people, you stood by me. You know more about me than anyone else, have known me for longer than anyone else-" He takes a cautionary step forward.

Tears continue to fall from your eyes, sobs shaking your shoulders, but you can't speak.

"That night with you, felt different. Even before when we were at that restaurant it was different. I didn't want to leave. It was like nothing changed, like we were in your room again just talking, before all this, when we were still in Philadelphia. The only memories that I have from Philadelphia that are worth remembering are the moments I spent with you. And when I asked if I could come back to your place I-" He sighs rubbing the back of his neck. "I thought you would say no, but you didn't. And then you told me that you had wanted me almost as much as I'd wanted you all those years, that you needed me. I always thought that it was only me that needed you."

"Ben I can't-" You voice breaks looking away from him.

Ben is close enough now that his fingers come under your chin to tilt your face up to his. “I shouldn’t have said what I said or did what I did. I didn’t want to need anyone. I thought that I had to push you away because loving you meant I was weak. But it’s not true. Loving you is the only good thing that I’ve ever done and loving you is the only thing that makes me strong.”

You close your eyes to avoid his gaze, you wanted to believe him, but you weren’t sure that you could.

"I've fucked a lot of women in my life y/n, I won't apologize for that. But I've only made love to one." His thumb brushes away another tear that falls from your eyes. "And when you told me that you wanted me to be your first, it did something to me. I wanted to be everything you needed. I didn't want just one night with you. I wanted all of them. When I woke up the next morning with you in my arms, I didn't want it to end. All those nights when I showed up at your apartment, I didn’t want to go home. I just wanted to stay with you because it was home. Even when we were kids, being with you in your room it was the only place that I felt like I belonged.”

Your hand can't help but come up between the two of you, resting solidly on his chest. Apart of you wants to push him away, but you can’t.

Ben is still touching your face, holding it up to his. Your bodies are so close together that you can feel the heat of his skin through the air between you. Another tear falls and Ben's thumb brushes it away. The smell of the lavender is intoxicating, broken up only by the familiar smell of Ben's aftershave and soap.

And somehow you find your voice. It shakes, but you hold his gaze. "I hated you for a long time. What you said broke me. I was broken so many years. I still am-“

“Sweetheart-“

“No.” You inhale sharply. “I want to believe you, but I don’t think you understand what you did. I want to believe that you’ve changed but this is exactly what happened that night on my birthday. Don’t you see? How can I believe you? How do I know that you won't pretend to be everything I want, pretend that you’re the boy I fell in love with and then the next morning you’ll push me away and act like he doesn’t exist-“ Tears leave warm trails down your cheeks. "I’m not strong enough to go through that again.”

“I promise-“

“Ben you’ve promised in the past. And I-“ More tears come. “I’ve tried so hard to put it behind me. I want to believe that you’re still you but I don’t know if I can trust you again like I did.”

"Y/n." Ben looks deep into your eyes. "I didn't pretend that night. The only time I pretended not to care was in the morning and at the premiere-"

"And how do I know you won't do it again?" You sob. "When you think that it's too weak to admit that you care about me?"

"I do fucking care about you."

"You say that now."

"I love you."

"Ben I can't-"

"I said those things because I-" He sighs, shoulders tight in frustration and anger. "I thought that I needed to push you away, that I shouldn't care about anyone as much as I care about you. But I do. I fucking care about you more than I've ever cared about anyone in my life. I didn’t want to need anyone but I do. I need you. That’s why I kept showing up in your life. That’s why I spent so many nights in your bed. I couldn’t survive the night alone and I needed you with me, even after we took the damn serum.”

“But-“

“That night when you told me that asshole, Howard proposed I knew that I couldn't lose you. I didn't want you to marry that fucker. I wanted you to be with me. He didn't know you the same way I did, he didn't understand you. He didn't deserve you. And the night we danced together I called you ‘my girl’ because I wanted you to be. I wanted you to be mine. Not because I wanted to piss him off. Because I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you. You’re the one, the only one.”

You drop your gaze to his chest, sobbing quietly to yourself. Ben tilts your head up towards his one more time, to look deeply into your eyes. There's an unfamiliar vulnerability that stares back at you, the same one you saw when Ben would come to your bedroom and wait for you to ask him to stay because he thought you would push him away the way everyone else did.

"I promise that I will never do that to you again. I know it doesn't make what I did or what I said okay. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix it because I can't lose you. I’ve spent forty years away from you and I don’t want to spend anymore time away. I love you. And I hate that I fucking hurt you this much."

You can see the sincerity in his eyes, hear the raw emotion in his voice, but you’re still unsure.

“Please y/n I want to fix this." He says again.

“I know you do. But you can’t just show up 40 years later And expect to fix it in one night. I know it’s not your fault that you didn’t come sooner but, you hurt me-“

“I know I did-“ his eyes drop to your shoulders as the memory of how he grabbed you that night blankets his mind.

“No not like that. Ben you don’t understand. Sorry isn’t enough. And yes hearing you say all these things was nice but it’s not enough to make me forget everything that happened.”

“But-“

“No. Ben I loved you, more than I’d ever loved anyone I-“ You shake your head tears falling fast. “I lost pieces of myself to make you happy to make sure that you had someone in your life that cared for you. I stayed for so long with you because it was all I thought I could do. And every time I thought I could leave to do something for myself you would do something to pull me back in like you had a fucking radar and knew oh if I do something that she wants I’ll get her to stay with me a little longer!”

“I knew you were unhappy! I was trying to make you happy! I wanted you to stay with me-“

“By manipulating me?”

“No it wasn’t because I wanted to manipulate you I-“ He exhales in frustration. “You told me that you wanted someone to come home to, someone who loved you, a family, I wanted to give you those things! I saw how you were looking at the other couples, I knew what you wanted. That’s why I held your hand at dinner, gave you the necklace, and that’s why I kissed you-“

“But then you pushed me away. You pushed me away when I needed you the most, when I finally said what I'd been trying to say for years.” Your voice shakes. “I can’t go to bed every night with you and wake up with the dread that you’re going to push me away again and say that I mean nothing. That you’ll be cold and unfeeling and- I can’t do that to myself again.”

“I promise I won’t-“

“I don’t know if I believe you. If I can after everything."

"Please just tell me what I can do to fix it."

"I don't know!" You shout running your fingers through your hair pulling back from him. Because you wanted him to fix it. You loved every bit of the words he said, the love he confessed to you. You loved the way he was looking at you, the way he wanted to make this up to you, but your heart wouldn't let go. It couldn't let go of the things he shouted at you, couldn't let go of the image of him and Countess, couldn't forget how happy you were to tell him you loved him and then he just acted like you were nothing. The words he said that night begin to circulate, bringing you deeper into the dark pit that threatened to swallow you whole, the pit that you'd fallen into when you thought he died.

"Ben I-" Your voice catches in your throat. "I wish that I knew what you could do to fix this. I want you to. I want to forget all of it. And I want to forgive you because I still fucking love you, but I can't do it in one day. I can’t -" And despite your better judgement you crumple against his chest, tears smearing against the front of his shirt, body shaking with sobs, and trying hard to not think how it feels the same as it always has to be pressed against him.

Ben's arms come up around you to wrap you in his embrace, tucking your head under his chin as he begins to drag his hand up and down your back in a soothing motion.

The gentleness of his touch makes you cry harder against him, hold on to him so tight that you think you'll break him in half, but he doesn't complain, he just stands there with you. It reminds you of when he came to hold you in the hotel room when your brother died, when he drove for hours to be there for you. Because despite everything that had happened between you, Ben was always there with you before that night with Countess.

You don’t know how long you standing there together, but finally Ben picks you up and carries you down the dark hallway to your bedroom and deposits you on the bed.

He waits a minute on the edge, standing as if he's unsure, brow scrunched up in frustration and anger.

"I didn't mean to hurt you this fucking much. And I don’t know how to-“ His jaw tenses and he shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut like he can't look at you. “I don’t know how to- fuck- I can’t lose you.” Ben grips his hair so tightly you think he’s going to pull it out.

“Ben.” You sigh and despite everything , you stand up from the bed to hug him, allowing him to press his head into your shoulder and hug you so tight it hurts. It breaks something deeper in your chest because you can see how broken he is, how much he wants to fix this, and how much of him he was willing to let you see.

You didn't understand how he was being so open, how he was allowing himself to be like this after all the bullshit toxic masculinity he usually spouted and how he pushed away his feelings for so long. You wondered if after this he would push you away because you had seen him like this, or if he really did love you and that was why he was doing it.

“It’s okay.” You soothe, running your hands up and down his back. “It’s alright.”

But you’re not sure it is.

"If you still want me to leave I will. I can sleep on the couch.” Ben whispers. The emotion that flashes in his eyes when he says it, breaks your heart. It's vulnerable and raw, so different that the mask Ben wore as Soldier Boy. “But please don’t make me go.”

"I don't want you to go." You whisper. “Even after everything. I want you here with me, it’s just hard.”

“I’m sorry-"

“I know you are Ben.” You both stand there for a minute and you weigh your options.

You think about making him go back out on the couch, making him sleep alone, but you don’t want that. You knew that you’d spend the whole night thinking about him. And as much as a part of you wanted to push him away, you couldn't. So you do the opposite.

You take his hand and gently entwine your fingers with his. Ben stares down at them for a moment confused, before you sit on the bed, scooting back and tugging softly, but he hesitates.

“Are you sure?” He asks in a whisper, gaze raising from your hands to catch your eye.

You nod once tugging his hand again and this time he follows you down into the mattress.

He slides in next to you beneath the covers, keeping your hands entwined between the two of you so that they are locked against his chest as you face one another on the bed, heads resting on different pillows, but close enough that you can feel his warm breath every time he exhales.

Ben's eyes search yours. “I tried to call after. I picked up the phone but every time I did I couldn’t-“ He sighs. "I was such a fucking pussy. I didn't know what to say. I should have just come over-"

"I wouldn't have let you in." You breathe. "I didn't want to see you, didn't want to see anyone. Stan Edgar tried to come talk to me and I broke his nose."

"Really?" Ben smiles.

"Yeah." You try to smile back, but you can't.

Ben raises his free hand to push back your hair and tuck it behind your ear, but his eyes drop to your shoulders tracing the imaginary bruises that he left behind all those years ago. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I didn’t mean to-“

You press your lips into a tight line. “I think that’s the only time I’ve ever been afraid of you.” You say in a whisper. You hadn’t wanted to admit it aloud, but it was true. You had been angry and heartbroken, but the fact that Ben had laid a hand on you, was prepared to hurt you had scared you. It was what solidified that the thought that boy you loved was gone.

But the look on his face breaks something inside you, pain and anguish flashing in his eyes.

"Ben-" You sigh, shifting forward closer to him, but he releases your hand and instead wraps his arm around your waist to pull you into his chest, pressing his head into your shoulder. You know that he can't say what he's thinking right now, but he doesn't have to.

“I also remember doing something to you.” You say because you don't know what else to, you’re not used to seeing him look so broken.

“I deserved it.” He mumbles into your shirt.

“You didn’t deserve what I said about your dad-“

“I did. You were right.”

“Ben you’re not like him.”

“But I am. Everything I did to you, is something he would have done.” He mutters, pulling you tighter against him. “I don’t know how to fucking fix this.”

“This is helping a little bit.” You whisper against your better judgement, while you inhale his shampoo and lean further into his chest. It was weird to be here with him after all these years, after all the years you spent hating him. You didn't want to forgive him, you wanted to be angry but at the same time you wanted to believe him, you wanted to believe that the boy you fell in love with was still there.

And laying here with him holding you the way you always wanted him to, made you remember that boy.

“Yeah?” He breathes, raising his head from your shoulder.

“Mhmm.”

You lay there for a minute in his embrace and it's like he never left. It's the same as when you were kids and you laid in bed together. And finally you say. "As angry as I am, I still love you. You matter too much to me for me to let you go. I think that's why it hurts so much, because you're all I had Ben and I-"

"That's why I can't lose you. You're all I have and that’s enough. You are enough. You always have been and always will be.” Ben states his eyes are wide with his confession, the pain of what he did to you flashes through them. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. But I never could think of a way to say it.”

More tears spring from your eyes and you wonder when you’ll stop crying.

Ben leans his forehead against yours. His expression softens as he looks into your eyes, his touch gentle against your cheek. “But if you’ll let me, I’d like to show you how much I love you and how sorry I am.” The look in his eyes is softer than you’ve ever seen it, reminding you of how he looked on those early mornings still half asleep and reminding you of how he looked the morning after your birthday before he ran.

You know he means well, and you understand what he’s asking, why he’s asking. He’s trying to make it up to you the only way he knows how, but you can’t do it. It's too soon. Too much after everything that happened and too much considering you're still trying to come to terms with the fact that he's here and he's finally saying everything you ever wanted him to. Not to mention that you haven't completely forgiven him.

“Ben?"

“Yeah?”

“Can you just hold me tonight?” You breathe. You felt disgusting. You had snot and tears all over your face and your cheeks were bright red and splotchy from crying. “I’m not ready for that. Not after everything. I don't think I can-”

You watch disappointment flicker in his eyes but he recovers with a soft smile. "It's okay. We can take this slow, whatever you need."

Ben drops the hand that was against your cheek and wraps his arm around your waist to pull you into his chest. You snuggle into his arms breathing in the familiar smell before bringing your arms up to wrap around the back of his neck in a tight hug.

“Did they hurt you?” You ask before you can stop yourself.

Ben’s arms tighten around you and you know that he must be remembering the past 40 years.

“What they did doesn’t matter.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come for you." You pull back to look into his eyes. "The others told me you were dead. I wouldn’t have left you there if I knew-“

“I know.” Ben leans his forehead against yours. “I would have come for you too.”

“I know.”

“It means a lot to me that you were still willing to come get me after everything I fucking put you through.”

“That’s what love is.”

“No.” Ben whispers. “That’s you.”

“Ben-“

“I don’t deserve you. You’ve stood by me, put up with all my shit all these years and you never turned your back on me. What I did to you is unforgivable and yet you want me here with you-“

“Ben.” You sigh. “I know that I shouldn’t want you here and a part of me wants to push you away. I should make you leave, but I can’t. You’re my best friend and I love you. And that means that even though you’re the one who hurt me, you’re the only person that I want here, comforting me. As fucked up as that is, I don’t care. What you did was horrible, but I promise that I’m going to try my best to forgive you. It might take a long time, but I want to trust you again, because I love you and I never stopped.”

He frowns despite what you confessed. “You don’t regret-“

“I said a lot of things that night. And you did too." You push his hair back over his forehead. "And for the record, I don't think your father would care about making it up to someone else. We both know that he didn't care about anyone but himself. And even after everything that happened you're proving that you aren't him, right now, by being here with me."

He presses his lips together in a tight line. "Okay."

It’s quiet for a few moments as both of you stare at one another in the dim light of your bedroom.

“Have you really loved me since we were 8?” Ben whispers.

“Yeah. Since the study.” You're not sure if you should be embarrassed or not.

He smiles. “I was 10. It was the night of my mom's funeral. My dad was giving me some shit about something, but I couldn't stop thinking about you so I climbed up the tree outside your window. I wasn't going to ask you to come in, I was just going to sit on the ledge and watch you draw. I like watching you draw, it's like you're in your own little world and you forget about everything else. You always seem so happy." Ben smiles wider. "I like seeing you happy."

You remembered that night. You had a weird feeling that someone was watching you and when you looked out your window you had seen Ben sitting there. You had made a joke about him stalking you, but then invited him in. It was the first night that he had ever spent in your bed.

"And then when we woke up the next morning, you were laying there snoring-" Ben snorts.

"I do not snore." You smile with a sniffle

"You do. It's cute." Ben's smile turns softer. "And I didn't want to wake you up, because it meant that we'd have to move and I didn't want to ever move. Because moving meant that I would have to go back to my dad and I didn't want that. I just wanted to stay there with you."

More tears pour from your eyes with his confession because again you can’t see Soldier Boy, you just see Ben, but you know it’ll take a long time until you’re completely healed.

“I didn’t want to say anything. I thought that if I did you would push me away and I didn’t have anyone else that mattered in my life. And you deserved better than me. I was always getting kicked out of boarding schools I was a fuck up. A disappointment.” Ben sighs, brushing away your tears again. “Even after we took the serum I was. You deserved someone who was-“

“I didn’t think you were a fuck up, Ben. I’ve never thought that. I hate what your father said to you, what he did to you. I hate that he made you feel like you didn’t matter.” You stroke your fingertips through his hair and Ben sighs, leaning his forehead against yours and closes his eyes. “You are worth so much more than what he told you. You mean so much to me, more than anyone else ever. That’s why I never told you. I didn’t want to lose you. You’re everything to me.”

“You’re not going to lose me. I promise I’m never going to leave you again. I missed you so fucking much sweetheart.”

“I missed you too.” You continue to move your fingers through his hair. In the past you had avoided the urge to do so, but now you wanted to comfort him. Because as much as you wanted to forget the last forty years, you wondered what they had been like for him. You wanted him to tell you what they did to him.

“Feels nice.” He murmurs, arms tightening around your waist.

“Your hair’s a lot longer.” You can’t help but smile at his reaction.

“Didn’t have time to cut it.”

“So is your beard-“

“If you don’t like it I can shave it off-“

“No don’t.” You say it quickly and Ben opens one eye to smirk at you.

“Guess you like it.”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’ll keep it just for you Sweetheart.” He leans further into you. “You know I think you look pretty good too.”

You snort. “You don’t have to butter me up just because you feel bad. I’m wearing sweatpants, I haven't brushed my hair, and my face is all puffy-“

“You look beautiful.”

“Well-“

“Stop. You do.”

“Ben-“

This time Ben raises his hand to cup your chin. “Will you just let me compliment my girl?”

The nickname is familiar. You remember the last time he called you that, when you were dancing and he finally kissed you for the first time. “Do you really mean it this time?”

“I always meant it. You are mine and nothing else matters.” The look in his eyes is determined, as if he wants you to understand how much you mean to him.

“Does that mean that you're mine too?" Your voice is almost a whisper, frightened of his answer. Although he had apologized and said that he wanted to make it up to you, you were still afraid. Afraid that Ben couldn't do this.

"Y/n." Ben's expression is pained. "I promise I will never do that again. I will never hurt you like that ever. Believe me when I say that."

"I'm trying to."

“What can I do to fix it?” He asks again.

“I don’t know.”

And you don't. Because you understood that Ben was trying his hardest to make up for what happened, and yes you loved that he was like this now, but you were afraid, afraid that the next day you'd wake up and he'd be gone and Soldier Boy would be back.

Ben sighs. "I am yours and I don’t want to be anywhere else." His eyes are focused on you, determined, but filled with a softness that turns the beautiful emerald into a clover that reminds you of the soft grass at the park the day you painted him.

You weren’t used to him looking at you like that, like you were the only person in the world. It had only happened one other time, the morning after your birthday when you were more happy than you'd ever been in your entire life.

“Okay.” You whisper back because you don’t know what else to say. “Ben?”

“Mhmm?”

“What did they do to you?”

Ben’s body tenses. “It doesn’t matter now.”

"Please tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because you were there for forty years and I-“

“It doesn’t fucking matter. Just drop it.” Ben snaps, eyes blazing green.

You wait for a beat, watching the blaze of his eyes turn down to a simmer. “It’s okay to admit that the last forty years haven’t been easy. I won’t judge you for that or think less of you Ben. And if we’re going to do this, be in a relationship, you’re going to need to share things with me. It can’t be one sided-“

“It’s not going to be one sided, I just don’t want to talk about that.”

“Okay.” You sigh, settling back down next to him. You couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. You knew that Ben kept his cards close to his chest, but you wanted him to be open with you about things like that.

The silence grows between you filled with unspoken things.

“They wanted to see if I could die, if they could make me fucking normal again.” Ben mutters into the top of your head. And then he tells you, tells you what happened that day in Nicaragua, tells you about the testing, about the nuclear bomb they put into his chest, about every single thing they did to him over the past forty years. With each revelation of the last forty years your arms tighten around his body in a hug, holding him to you while his words make anger surge in your chest like an uncontrollable fire.

How could they do that to him? How could they hurt him like that? And Payback? They were our teammates. How could they turn their back on Ben like that? Give him up so easily and not for any kind of money?

You think about what Countess confessed to you, when she said that she purposely drove you two apart.

They were right to. If they had tried any of that with me there, I would have ripped them all apart if they tried to take Ben away.

Your fingers fall into Ben’s hair, gently dragging back and forth at the base of his skull while he continues, trying to bring him some comfort.

“Ben I’m so sorry.” You say when he finishes.

“It’s okay-“

“It’s not. Nothing they did to you is okay.”

“I deserved it.”

His words make an ice cold chill travel down your spine. It was the second time that he had said something like that tonight.

“Ben.”

You lean back from him to look him in the eye, but he won’t meet your gaze. Your hands cup his cheeks, his scruff prickling against your palms as you bring his attention to you. He looks lost and it scares you. Ben never did that. He was always together, it was you that usually had that haunting look in your eyes, but you could see what they did to him reflected in the familiar green. He looked worn.

“You didn’t deserve what they did to you. No one deserves that. And yeah maybe you said some shit you shouldn’t have and maybe you did something bad, but I never want to hear you say that again. Do you understand me? Never say that again. You didn’t deserve that. And I promise you that you’re never going back. I will not let them take you again.”

Ben nods once and your hands slip from his cheeks to go around his neck once more to pull him into a tight hug.

“I didn’t mean to hurt those people.” He mutters into the top of your head remembering what happened in Mid-town.

You had heard about it through Rosemary, who had several patients who had been hurt in the explosion, not to mention every news station seemed to have it on 24/7.

“I know. It’s okay. You just lost control. It happens to all of us.” You think about killing Countess. “It doesn’t make you a bad guy.”

“Hmm.”

It was weird for Ben to allow this, to allow you to hold him, but somewhere deep down you wondered if he always wanted you to, but he just never said and didn’t want to admit it out loud.

Weirder still was that he was holding you to him too, curling his arms around you and pulling you into his chest like you belonged there. And despite everything that happened, despite how angry you wanted to be, being here with him felt like you were coming home.

“You should sleep.” He whispers after a little while, as his hand trails down your spine, moving up and down in a soothing motion.

“Will you be here when I wake up?”

“If you want me to be.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I always want you here.” You breathe into his skin. “I lied when I said I never wanted to see you again.”

“Then I will be.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head that makes you cuddle further into him, tightening your arms were they wrap around his neck to pull him into you.

And you hope that one day it won't hurt, that one day you won't hear the words he yelled at you, and that one day you can believe and trust him again like you did.

Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to the taglist, please let me know!

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sweetbans29 · 9 months ago

Text

Hey You - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x reader

Summary: You and Caitlin have a history - from growing up together to dating in high school. You both decided that it would be best to end things before going to college and that's what you did. Little did you know that seeing each other nearly four years later would have you both admitting things should have been different.

Warnings: You are looking at some angst, some suggestive themes and some fluff, nothing too crazy ;) mentions of head injury

Word Count: 6.0k

Hey You PART 2

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Hi and welcome! This is my first writing and would love any feedback or ideas! I hope you enjoy!

You were sitting in the backseat of your friend's car rubbing your hands on your jeans. Your friend Jamie was driving you and two other friends to the women's NCAA basketball game in Cleveland. All of you attended a university in Pittsburgh and thought it would be a fun girls' day to go watch the championship game. It was going to be iconic and deep down, you knew you wouldn't miss it for the world. You had been following the teams closely this year despite the squeeze to your heart that came with seeing her name. Looking out the window you continue to rub your hands on your pants.

Your friends all knew Iowa was home for you and that you played basketball growing up. They knew you had friends who ended up playing college ball but an injury you suffered junior year of high school caused you to shift gears when it came to college. They also knew that you and Caitlin Clark had played high school ball together - but that was all they knew on the subject. They didn't know you had grown up together and had been best friends since the first day of sixth grade or that she held your heart in high school and may or may not hold it today.

As you look out the window your mind begins to wander back to when you were young...

It was the first day of sixth grade and your family had just moved to Des Moines, IA for your dad's job. Starting at a new school at the start of junior high was not ideal but you were determined to make the best of it. As you entered homeroom - you took a seat next to another girl who wasn't completely dolled up due to it being the first day. You didn't say anything as you sat down and pulled out a notebook that was completely covered in NBA stickers. The girl next to you perked up when she looked over and saw several familiar faces, even some of her favorites.

She leans over and points to one of the players and says, "That is one of my favorites." I look up at her with a huge smile and reply, "He is great but not as great as Kobe." She nods in agreement and we continue talking about other players who made their spotlight on your Fivestar notebook.

Fast forward to freshman year of high school - you and Caitlin are at pre-season training. Both of you had a single goal in mind which was making varsity. You knew she would make it no problem, but for you, it was going to take a little more. The two of you put in the work, when you weren't at training you were either at a park practicing or at her house training. When you found out you both made varsity after all those hours of hard work you went out to get froyo to celebrate. The night ended with a sleepover at yours that included a movie marathon and many many snacks.

When you snap back to being present with your friends, you realize you are already at the arena. You take a deep breath and get out of the car with your friends to brave the lines to enter the stadium. It was amazing to see the attention women's college basketball has gotten during March Madness this year. The spotlight on all the teams in the Sweet Sixteen, then the Elite Eight to the Final Four all leading to today had brought a lot of attention to the sport and the players. Not only the spotlight on the teams but the spotlight put on Caitlin was something that never really surprised you as you knew how incredible she was and is. Seeing how much she had blown up made you proud of the player she had become but also rattled the box you had put her in that lived in the deepest part of your heart. As you are standing in line to get in, your mind takes you back again...

It was the summer before junior year and your mom and dad just surprised you with your own car. You freaked out and couldn't stop thanking them. Of course, it was their pleasure as you were almost the perfect child. Caitlin was already on her way over as you had plans to go out to get food before having a lazy day. The two of you always worked hard but on the other side of that, you both had major lazy days throughout your friendship. These lazy days consisted of movie marathons, pillow forts, naps, and all the snacks you could ever imagine. The beginning of these days stemmed from making plans one day but you were both so tired you ended up napping on the floor in Caitlin's living room, never seeing the light of day.

Caitlin pulls in and you come running out pointing at the car in the driveway. She jumps out of her car and you both freak out and jump right in. After grabbing food you headed back to yours and settled into the pillow fort you had set up before she got there. You throw on Princess Diaries and you both are knocked out within the first 20 minutes.

When you feel yourself come back to consciousness, you notice the only light in the room is coming from the TV screen. You also felt extremely hot. As you begin to move you feel a squeeze around your torso. Looking down, a smile appears on your face as you realize Caitlin is cuddled into your side and hugging you as if you were a teddy bear. Your arm is draped around her back as her head is nestled into your neck. Her breath is steady - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. It was slightly comedic as she has a solid few inches on you but when she was curled up into your side she looked like a little girl. You slowly start to rub her back and you hear her groan and bury herself deeper into you and butterflies erupt in your stomach.

This wasn't the first time that you both had ended up cuddling next to each other on a lazy day. It had become more common over the last few months than it had been before. You noticed it was typically Caitlin who ended up cuddled into your side but every blue moon you ended up in her arms. Once one of you woke up, you would usually break apart almost immediately - secretly both wishing it would last longer. It all felt so natural that neither of you questioned it. Due to how dedicated you both were to your sport neither of you really had time for boys or relationships so you both just leaned into each other.

You continue to rub her back until you feel her fingers play with the backside of your shirt - this is your signal that she is no longer asleep. Neither of you made a move to untangle yourselves from the other and that was when you knew that the feelings you were pushing down for your best friend might be reciprocated and that alone was enough to hold her even tighter.

Later that night you took your new car and went to get ice cream. You both sat there for hours talking and laughing. That night held your first kiss with Caitlin. It was in the parking lot of your local grocery store, a pint of ice cream in the center console. It was nothing crazy but as you drove back home with her hand in your hand, neither of you could wipe the smile off of your face.

You are brought back to reality when your friend nudged you for the tickets as you were next to get them scanned. While you didn't have to worry about the drive, you were tasked with getting the tickets. Grabbing your phone, you open up your tickets for the guy to scan. As you all pass through security at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, you make your way to your seats before braving the sea of spectators to grab yourself some food and a drink (there was no way you were getting through this whole event without a drink by your side).

The usher directed you to where your seats were and you were insanely grateful that you were the one to choose where you all sat. You choose the same section you always supported Caitlin in your senior year of high school...

It was the championship game junior year of high school and you were in the starting lineup. The game was going to be a tough one but you had no doubt in your mind that it wasn't yours for the taking. Everything was perfect. You were already talking to a couple schools to play in college. Caitlin and you had been dating for a few months and you were going to ask her to be your girlfriend your next lazy day which so happened to be tomorrow. Everything seemed it was going your way.

The seconds were counting down in the second quarter and the score was 38-38. If there was one thing you knew, it was that you were not going into halftime tied. You were passed the ball as the seconds ticked away. The other team had just scored, which gave your team possession with just enough time to make something happen. As you made your way down the court you scoped out the scene in front of you. The other team was doing everything in their power to avoid yours from scoring.

Your first vision played out was getting the ball to Caitlin, knowing she could make it happen but the girl defending her was doing a damn good job of keeping her just out of reach. You then scanned to my other teammate Jada who you knew was great at getting the ball where it needed to go in the nick of time. As you were about to pass it her way you took one final look at the clock and realized that time was just about out. You made the decision to take it up the middle, faking the defender that was covering you and going for a quick layup on the left side. As your last foot left the ground, before you knew it you were back against the ground with a pulsing head and pain shooting everywhere.

You don't dare move, you have no idea what just happened. There is a ringing in both of your ears and your vision is blurry and the pain - the pain has your body shutting down to protect itself. Your eyes start to close slowly as you faintly feel someone grab your arm as someone appears in your sight. It takes you a second to realize it is Caitlin - you give a small smile. Then everything goes black.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. That is the first thing you hear as you start to regain consciousness. Confusion hits almost immediately as the last thing you remember is getting ready to play the championship game. You begin to wiggle your fingers and they feel sore, now that you start to feel more - everything is sore.

Before you decide to open your eyes you try to take a deep breath. Yet another thing that is painful to do. You decide you need to open your eyes to figure out where you are and what has happened. As your eyes open, it takes a few blinks to get a clear picture of what is in front of you. You are in the hospital, in a hospital bed. The sun is shining in through the window and you start to look around to see if you can find any clues as to what has happened. There are no casts or bandages that you can see but when you make a minor move in the bed it felt like you got hit by a truck.

Your mom was in the room reading a book. When you began to move, you let out a groan which caused her to look up and quickly make her way to your side. As she gets to your bedside, your dad makes his way through the doorway.

"Baby girl, oh baby girl," your mom begins as she gives you a hug which really only causes more pain to shoot around your body but you weren't going to push her away. Your dad comes and sits on your other side and takes hold of your hand.

"Hi sweetie," your dad says. You look up at him and with your eyes try and get him to explain what had happened, knowing your mom wasn't in a state to do so.

"You were taken out seconds before the halftime buzzer went off," he began. Your eyes lay intently on him. He takes a moment before continuing. "You were going for a layup to put your team ahead going into halftime and a girl from the other team misjudged your movement and body slammed you causing you to go head-first into the ground."

It then all started coming back to you, the pain that shot straight to your head and trying to not pass out. You let go of his hand and start to feel around your head. It had a wrap around it which you didn't even think about when you were making your first assessment of what had happened. Your dad continued.

"You were rushed to the hospital due to your ears bleeding and you not waking up. The doctors determined you had a skull fracture and took you to an emergency surgery. Everything went smoothly and you are recovering well," your father says with sad eyes. If there is anything you know about your dad it is that he shares your dream of going to a D1 school to play basketball in college. The way he was looking at you right now, you immediately knew that even though the surgery went well, everything you had hoped and dreamed about was all about to change.

You continued to listen to how your parents were so happy you were alive and okay and that you should make a full recovery - even though you knew deep down that it truly wouldn't be full. You had learned that it has been almost 2 days since the game. Your parents step out of the room to give you some time to rest - even though you couldn't look at a screen that just left you sitting there with life-changing news. You looked around to see if you could find your phone to text or call Caitlin when she made her way through the door.

She looks just as beat up as you feel. As she walks up to you, she avoids eye contact which you so desperately wanted. Without saying a word, she comes up to your bedside and slowly makes her way into the hospital bed with you. You lift your arm and allow her to curl up by your side. A deep breath finally escapes your body and as you exhale you can feel her body release silent sobs.

All you can do is rub her back. Lying there with her has jogged your memory that she was the last face you saw before you blacked out on the court. Knowing her, these past two days were probably a living hell. You muster up all the strength you have to lean down and kiss the top of her head.

Not many people knew about your relationship. It was really only family and your coaches. Being on the same team, you both decided it would be best to keep your relationship between the two of you. It was a challenge at times but everyone knew the two of you were best friends so there were a lot of things that you did that people wouldn't look twice at.

One thing about Caitlin was that certain things were enhanced when you two started dating. Most of the things didn't affect your day-to-day like the amount of sweatshirts she stole doubled (which didn't bother you as you would just steal hers to replace the ones she had taken, it got to the point where it started a playful argument over a sweatshirt that she swore was here but was actually originally yours). Another that affected her more than either of us really realized was how protective she had become.

You first realized this when you got fouled at practice and Caitlin got all up into her space yelling at her. You had to grab her and pull her away which then led your coach to call for everyone to do suicide sprints. You don't even want to think about the girl who fouled you in the game and caused you to be hospitalized.

"Hey you," you say as it had sort of become your way of saying 'hey babe' without the world knowing. You feel her shift in your arms as she brings her hand up to wipe away her tears.

"You scared me," is all she says before letting out a few more silent sobs. You continue to rub her back and give her shoulder a little squeeze.

"You can't get rid of me that easily," you respond with a laugh. The laugh hurts but decide to keep quite about your pain, only quiet to Caitlin, never your doctors.

The two of you spend the rest of the afternoon cuddled up on the hospital bed. When the sun starts to go down you tell Caitlin she should head home to get some rest. She protests, of course, but ultimately folds to your request. She comes over and gives you a quick peck which leaves you unsatisfied. You grab her hand and pull her back to give her a proper kiss. As your lips part you mumble a breathy 'I love you'. It was the first time it had been said between the two of you in a manner that wasn't referring to your friendship. The smile that spread across her face lifted your soul.

"I love you," she replies as she leans down pressing her lips against yours. "Well not I REALLY don't want to go," she says with a laugh.

"One night won't hurt anyone - also you need a shower," you say making a face to try and sell the fact that you just called your girlfriend smelly. She scoffs and waves you off.

Following getting out of the hospital, it was a hard reality to face that you weren't going to be able to play ball for a long while. The journey ahead was a long one and you couldn't be more thankful that Caitlin was right by your side.

Two of your friends were coming back with beers when you snapped back to where you were. It was just about time for the athletes to come out and begin their warm-ups. Your heart began to race as you heard the announcer call the teams out.

As both teams make their way onto the floor, your eyes scan for her. As much as you didn't want to, you couldn't help yourself. It took about a whole 5 seconds to find her. Your heart stops and it feels like time slows as you see her running out and making her way to warm up. The first thing you notice is how even after four years, she starts warming up from the same spot. She is on the opposite side of the court facing where you are sitting getting ready to start her pregame ritual. You then notice, how her upper body has filled out a little more as she has matured and increased her strength training. Her hair is in a neatly pulled-back pony with a headband to catch her flyaways. She was as cool as a cucumber.

There were so many things that amazed you about Caitlin but one of the biggest ones was how calm she was before a game. Especially a game like today.

She was completely mesmerizing. You couldn't help but smile, knowing that she was living her dream. You watched her as she continued to warm up and couldn't wait to cheer her on.

The seats you had chosen were right across from Iowa's bench. every game you watched your senior year of high school was from this exact location.

As the warm-ups come to an end and they are just about to announce the starting lineup, your heartbeat begins to quicken...

Going into senior year, your relationship with Caitlin was better than ever. It was a tough journey to come to face the fact that you weren't going to play ball your senior year but you put all that extra energy into loving and supporting Caitlin. You still went to practice and your coach sort of brought you on as an assistant coach. It was great still being a part of the team.

You decided to play the role of the supportive girlfriend during games rather than sitting on the bench with the other players and coaches. It wasn't that you couldn't sit on the bench, rather it came from knowing how competitive Caitlin gets. She didn't need another person telling her how things could have been different or better, she needed someone who was going to cheer her on no matter what and get her out of her head when she got tunnel vision. She was the hardest person on herself.

Before every game when they called her name in the lineup as starting point guard and she made her way down the line of girls she got to the end and pointed to you with a smile. Then at the end of every game, you would wait down the hall of the girls' locker room and greet her when the team got out of their post-game meeting. It became your guys' things.

You weren't expecting it. It didn't even occur to you but when they announce her name and she makes her way down the court and at the end of the line she points directly in your direction and smiles. Your heart stops and she stops in her tracks, her smile dropping immediately. She does a double-take and just stares at you for a second. A small smile starts to creep onto your face and her eyes are on yours. You give her a little nod and she finally breaks away shaking her head with a smile growing on her face. She joins her team for their first huddle of the game.

Your heart feels like it is beating out of its chest. You had imagined it a thousand times since your friends mentioned wanting to go to the championship game. It was the reason you chose these seats. Even in all of the fantasizing about seeing her - you didn't imagine it to actually happen. There were thousands of people in this arena and her eyes found yours.

As the team is in their huddle, she stands up and looks back over at you. A smile now playing on her lips in full view as she can't stop glancing over to the familiar spot.

You want to go down to her and tell her to focus on her coach. Her head needs to be in this game and not turning to look up at you. Although the frequency of her looks brings butterflies to your stomach with every glance.

Once they break, the game begins and you can see Caitlin lock into the game. You cheer with all the other fans as the final game of her college career is underway.

The game is a complete nail-biter. There were times when Caitlin absolutely was killing the game, shooting her signature threes and playmaking. At other times, she let the ball slip and you knew that she would hold onto that but never let anyone see how much it truly affected her. She was really good at shaking off her mistakes in the eyes of others but you knew her too well.

As the game begins to come to an end and you can see the victory slip away from Iowa, your eyes focus on your girl. She is staying composed but you know she is feeling it. In the final minute of the game, Caitlin makes her way to the bench, hugging each one of her coaches then takes a seat with a blank stare.

Your eyes try to stay away from her but she naturally draws your attention. In the final seconds of the game, as South Carolina begins to celebrate Caitlin's eyes make their way to yours. You only hold them for a second but that was all you needed to know she was hurting.

The game ends and you see the team head into the locker rooms. Your friends decide to head to the floor to see if they can talk to any of the players (more like the player's brothers), You use this time to sneak away and try to find the Iowa locker room. You know there is no way they would let you in but you start sweet-talking the security guard. In less than 2 minutes, you were pacing in the same spot you would always wait for Caitlin after a game. As you wait for her, your nerves pick up as your mind continues to take you down memory lane...

You and Caitlin had just graduated high school and you were celebrating in your favorite fashion, with her curled up in your side. The plans the two of you had for the summer were laid out on the floor next to you. It was going to be the best summer and indeed it was until it wasn't.

It was a few days before Caitlin needed to head off for off-season training at the University of Iowa. You were hanging out at her house in her gym. You both had been avoiding the elephant in the room.

It was a conversation you both knew you needed but didn't want to have. You knew that Caitlin's only commitment was to play D1 ball which was once your dream too. You also know to do that, she couldn't have anything holding her back.

The two of you finish some conditioning which leaves you both panting and sitting on the floor.

"As much as I love you, I hate doing cardio," you say in between breaths.

"Ya well, my favorite form of cardio involves a lot less running and a lot more of you..." she says with a smile. "Caitlin!" You gasp and push her over as she bursts out laughing.

You let out a few laughs yourself but then hear her quiet down. Looking over at her, you see her whole mood shifts. She comes in and hugs your torso, burying her face in you. You scoot closer to hold her, knowing what is about to come next. It feels like hours pass before you decide to speak.

"Caitlin, you know I love you. And I want the world for you. You are and will always be my best friend," you say rubbing her back. She squeezes you even more. "We both know where your head needs to be when you head to training. You will always be my person but in this next season you need to be your teams' person."

Silence fills the space again. Your eyes begin to fill with tears and you swallow the sobs that taunt your lips. Then she finally speaks.

"You are my person," she says just above a whisper, you almost miss it.

"This doesn't mean I will stop being your person. Like I said, I will always be your person. We both knew this was coming and we have done a really good job of putting it off," you try to lighten the mood. She doesn't budge.

She lets go of you and sits up. You wipe away her tears. They just keep falling.

"I just don't like the idea of losing you," she says as she starts playing with a piece of your hair. "You aren't losing me, babe," you reply but both of you knew that wasn't true.

"This was always the plan," you start. "And I will always be cheering you on," you say with the best smile you could muster. No matter how much it would hurt you would support her until your last breath.

"So that means you will be at the championship game when I take Iowa to the NCAA championship?" her question lightening the mood.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," you say as you give her one last kiss.

You are pulled back to reality when you hear some of the players head out. Caitlin was typically the last one out of the lockers and with the way you knew she was feeling it was going to be a minute.

It is about another 15 minutes of you pacing in the hallway for the door to open again. Your head whips around to see her coming out. She looks completely defeated. She would never show this side of her to the press.

As you turn to face her, she looks up. You say the only thing that felt right.

"Hey, you."

She immediately makes her way to you. Your arms wrap around her as her head buries its way into your neck. Despite her being taller, Caitlin loved to be held as if she was the shorter one. Your heels were definitely helping.

"I really wanted that," she mumbles into you after a few moments. You rub her back like you always used to. "I know...I know."

"Your legacy is so much more than that one game and I am so beyond proud of everything you have accomplished," you begin. "And with that, I know this was one of your dreams." Caitlin stays quiet and sinks into being held by you.

The two of you finally break apart, her hand doesn't leave your arm and you can't complain. You missed her touch so much. You missed her. She keeps rubbing your arm and you feel like you will melt.

"I have to head into a press meeting, but can we catch up later? Are you staying in town?" Caitlin asks.

"I came into town with some friends, we are staying at a hotel a few blocks away. Call me when you are done with press?" You reply hopeful.

"I'll call you the second I am out," she ways with a smile. Oh how you missed that smile.

You head back to the hotel you are staying at to change into something a little more casual. Your friends checked in and told you they were going out to a bar and wanted you to meet up with them. You let them know you were catching up with an old friend and that they shouldn't wait up for you. You get ready to meet up with Caitlin - changing your shirt and shoes into something more comfortable, keeping the jeans you wore to the game. Right after you finish changing your phone begins to ring.

"Hey you," you answer as you begin to gather a few things in your purse.

"Hey babe," Caitlin responds causing your cheeks to blush and your stomach to fly. A smile is plastered on your face. "I am out of press and am going to head to my hotel, would you be up for meeting me there?"

"Of course, just shoot over the address and I will head that way," you say as your phone pings. She was already sending it as you asked.

"I will see you in a few," she says before you both hang up.

You make your way to her hotel which is surprisingly only a 10-minute walk. You follow her directions on how to get up to her room and knock on the door. The nerves begin to build up and you feel like you are back in high school. Your hands make their way to rub against your jeans, a familiar place for them today.

Caitlin opens the door with a huge smile on her face as she moves away to let you in. "I thought it would be better to meet here, a little more privacy," she says as she closes the door.

The two of you spend the next 4 hours catching up on life and how college has been. She talks about all the records she has broken and how she can finally start looking at what comes after college ball. She talks about her family and how much they miss you. You follow her by also mentioning how your parents are so proud of her and miss her as well. You continue by talking about how you are going full-time with the company you are working for post-graduation. You talk about all the traveling you have been able to do and she gets to pitch in with the travels that she has done. It was like no time as passed, I mean above all you were best friends.

As the conversation begins to die down you realize how close the two of you became. You are sitting on a couch with your legs hanging over her lap and her hands on your knee.

A sigh escapes your lips as you close your eyes and take in the moment. You feel her hand begin to make its way to your thigh.

"Seeing you in the crowd today was something else," Caitlin begins. You cut her off, "Well I made a promise once to be there if a certain someone that if they made it to the championship, I would be there."

"If???" Caitlin yells with a fake offended tone and slaps your knee. You let out a little yelp, "Okay, okay, when." Your eyes roll as she starts to draw patterns on your leg.

After another long pause, Caitlin speaks again.

"I think we made a mistake," she says not daring to look you in the eye.

If you were going to be honest, you never wanted to end things when you went to college but you weren't going to make things harder than they had to be. Long distance wouldn't have worked for the two of you. You would have managed but with her schedule and yours, it would have done more damage than good. So you didn't fight her but there were numerous times that you wish would would have fought for her on ending things.

"I think I made a mistake," she continues as she finally looks up at you. You take her hands in yours and reply, "It was the right decision at the time. We didn't know better, we were young."

You continue. "But that was then and here we are now," touching her arm and giving it a little squeeze. After seeing her and how she has filled out, you have been waiting to get your hands on her arms. "And we are both about to graduate and my plan was to come back to Iowa..."

"There is no one like you," she says as she leans closer to you. You let out a little laugh.

"No Caitlin, there is no one like you," you say as your hand comes up to cup her face. You both smile as your lips meet. It is like no time has passed, her lips are still so familiar.

After a few more kisses, you both moved to the bed. She curled up into your side and your arms made their around her. You are her home and she is yours.

"I love you," you whispered as you kissed her head.

"And I love you," she responds as you both drift to sleep, more at peace than either of you have felt over the past four years.

AN: TADA! Let me know your thoughts! And as always, thank you for your love and support 🤍

Now go check out PART 2!

#caitlin clark #cc #caitlin clark x reader #iowa hawkeyes #caitlin clark imagine #iowa wbb

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max-nico · 3 months ago

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Sonic is feeling abnormally sentimental, everyone around him thinks it's warranted, but it doesn't stop the fact that he feels like he could burst into tears any moment. Gosh, he's just so proud. He essentially raised this kid from a toddler to almost an adult, because he's only sixteen, but still! That's his baby brother!

His baby brother who is doing an amazing job, giving his amazing speech, at this amazing venue. He's gotten tall, his tails are thick and bushy, and he looks so confident. Sonic knew he would see that day Tails could stand on his own, from the moment he took the little fox in, he knew.

And the kid looks all grown up in his brown suit, he's wearing pants and everything! If Sonic was a lesser hedgehog, he'd be a blubbering mess of tears right now. Watching his little buddy be presented with an incredibly prestigious scientific award, that Sonic doesn't fully understand in all honesty, has his heart squeezing in so many emotions he's getting overwhelmed. He's big enough to admit that there are bittersweet feelings tied up in all his big brother pride.

"Euhg, you reek of ego." Knuckles says, walking up to Sonic.

"Can you blame me? I raised that kid."

"Barely."

Sonic rolls his eyes, leaning against the stage walls. He's unperturbed by the echidna's rudeness. Some people never change. Though, if anyone should stay the same it's Knuckles, not that Sonic would ever tell him that.

"How'd you even get back here?"

"Your lowly guards are no match for a warrior." Knuckles puffs his chest out, like beating up poor unsuspecting security workers is a flex. "They could not stop me from congratulating Tails after his acceptance speech... Also, Amy's going to be late and she wanted me to make sure I give Tails a bouquet of flowers."

"And we all know how Amy gets about her flowers." The two say in sync, matching smiles on their faces.

Amy opened a flower shop a few years ago, a business that she and Vanilla are teaching Cream how to run. It's sweet, and her own opinion, what gift shows love better than a bouquet. Sonic would argue that a good chilli dog beats flowers any day, but Amy also says he has no taste, so truly, what does he know.

The two lapse into silence as they listen to Tails talk. He answers questions fluidly, with a charismatic ease you could only get from spending time with Sonic the Hedgehog. Even rude comments from the audience are taken in stride and spun in his favor. Geez, maybe Sonic should've taken those PR classes with Tails a few years ago, the kid is much smoother than him when it comes to the media.

It feels like no time at all as well as a hundred years have passed by the time closing statements are being given. The crowd has begun to get antsy as well, the energy shifting as the award ceremony comes to an end. Not without Tails giving a concluding speech obviously, because his little brother has officially cemented himself in history, and is very clearly the most important person here.

"And of course, I would like to thank my older brother, Sonic The Hedgehog!" Tails gestures to backstage, and the crowd goes wild at just the mention of Sonic's name. "I know right. The guy who's devoted his life to saving the world is the same guy who raised me, sometimes I still have a hard time believing it myself!" He chuckles. "That is, until I remember he's also the same guy who refused to eat vegetables until I was old enough to start hiding them in his chilli dogs."

The joke got the crowd to laugh, and Sonic promises that's the only reason why he doesn't go out there and set the record straight. Because first of all, he didn't refuse, he just never felt like making a second serving! Tails got his vegetables and that's what mattered! Some brother he is, lying on Sonic's name like that.

"I would like to thank the rest of my family as well! They're your heroes, but they're the ones who gave me the confidence to do anything even close to this! I don't know where I would be without them so I kinda think this award belongs to them too... Still going to my trophy shelf though, they can get their own."

There's another laugh from the crowd, and a little tear wiped from Knuckles' eye. Sonic isn't doing much better beside him, the hedgehog is holding it together as well as straw holds up a house. Hell, Sonic barely listens to the rest of the speech, too focused on keeping it together until his little brother comes off stage.

All too soon there's clapping and cheering from the crowd, and Tails is beelining towards them. The curtains are coming down, blocking the stage lights, and within moments the fox's mic is removed and his blazer is thrown to the floor. None of them have ever been much for the restriction of formal clothing, Tails being no exception.

"Did I do good?" He asks. Sonic's heart clenches at how deep it's gotten. "Gosh, I was so nervous."

"You did very well." Knuckles scoops up Tails from behind, giving him a good noogie and messing up his tamed fur. "Couldn't have done it better myself."

The fox beams at the praise. For a moment, all Sonic can see is that little 8 year old smiling at him like he's the only good thing in the world. That same sweetly sharp grin, packed to the brim in naivety, but obvious intelligence below the surface. He's trying so hard not to get all mushy, Tails will make fun of him if he does. Hmm, he wonders where Tails gets that from.

"You did great, little brother! I told you that you could do it, and look, you got that fancy medal and everything just to prove it."

Tails flushes as Sonic pulls him in for a hug. He's a little taller than Sonic now, and the thought makes the hedgehog slightly nauseous... When did that happen?

"I dunno about little, I think you're more deserving of that title now!"

"As if!"

Now it's Sonic's turn to noogie the fox, much to his chagrin.

"You may be getting tall, but you'll always be my baby!" Sonic says obnoxiously.

"Ew, you're being so gross right now."

"C'mon keed, can't take a little affection from your big bro?"

"Not when you're acting like this, and stop calling me that, you weirdo!"

Sonic and Knuckles laugh at Tails playful disdain.

Hopefully he knows how proud they both are of him, Knuckles might beat it into the fox if he doesn't. Not even Sonic can save him from that fate.

Yeah I'm gonna participate in whumptober I said. WRONG !! WHOLESOME WEDNESDAY ATTACK 🌈🩷🫶🏾

I've had this fic in my drafts for ages, please take it away and treat it with care lol, it's been waiting so long for me to finish it

Also, someone give me an idea for a lil fic to write for Tails birthday !! I could just do the whumptober prompt but if anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears !!

My askbox is always open !! Come yap to me !! Let's be friends !! @max-nicoxfandom is my general fandom blog if you're interested 🩷🩷

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k-aay · 2 months ago

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☆ HEY, NEIGHBOUR. HEY, LOVER. (PART 1)

☆ SYNOPSIS : : There once was a boy who had feelings for a girl but didn't know how to express them. As a kid, he didn't know how to get her attention, so he beat up the guys who did, which only lit the flame to a long-lasting hatred between them. That was sixteen years ago, and now you both are twenty-one with homes too close for comfort. But what you didn't know is how attracted you were to him now.

FEATURING : choso kamo

NOTE : this took a little too long to write pls enjoy <3

WC ; 5.2k

CREDITS! : this work is owned by @k-aay on tumblr. please dont steal my work! (i do not proof read, sorry for any mistakes !!)

16 YEARS AGO !

"I hate you!" you screamed, stomping your small foot as your eyebrows furrowed. It was true, you hated the way he was acting right now. He stood there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy, denim jeans, standing not far from you. And on the ground beside him was your classmate wailing with a bruised eye. Choso couldn't care less about the trouble he caused. He kicked a tiny rock before him, "I did you a favour, stupid." You were seeing red at this point as you clenched your fists. "What is your problem!?" you grab him by the collar of his red shirt.

"Hey, let go!" Choso pushes you away, not using much force. "What the hell are you doing!? I was helping you!" he yells, pointing a finger at you. "You punched him! I didn't ask you to punch him!" He frowned. Of course, you didn't ask him to punch that jerk, but he did it anyway. He knew that you wanted that kid far away from you so he punched him. Why were you upset at him?

PRESENT

Choso Kamo was one of the staples of your childhood. He was notorious for leading the other boys in your elementary school like minions and demanding them to create as much chaos with him as possible. And he'd be damned if any of his minions stepped out of line. But that was almost a decade ago and you haven't seen him since middle school. Right now, you're unpacking your boxes after moving into your new apartment. As you sit on your brand-new couch and rest your feet on the cardboard box sitting snugly on the floor, you crack open your last can of beer.

"I thought you said you'd manage to handle unpacking everything yourself," your friend, Shoko says as she grabs the beer from your hand and chugs it. "Ugh, slow down! That's the last can." She wipes the excess from her mouth and hands you the can. "I deserve to drink as fast as I want after you enslaved me today." You roll your eyes and place your lips on the cold, metal top of the can, taking a sip. "And here I thought my best friend meant it when she said I could call her if I needed anything."

"No one means it when they say that. You're fucking stupid for believing that. I only helped because I wanted to see your new place. Maybe even design a room for myself." Shoko shifted her position on the couch, her legs over the top as she sat upside-down. "Why the hell would I give you a room?" She hits your legs, "Because I helped you clean the place with these hands. For hours, if I should add. And you live so close to campus and that gas station."

"I did get a good place, didn't I?" you say, fidgeting your fingers around the can. "'Good' is an understatement," Shoko says, pointing her finger at the window. Specifically the gas station near your house. "Now it's time to pay off your debts and get us some beer and cigarettes. Your treat." You groan, sitting back on the couch. "Go. I'll watch over your lion den." You stand up straight and zip your grey sweater up, slightly covering the shorts you were wearing.

"Fine," you say, slipping into your shoes as you hold onto the wall for support. You place your phone into the back pocket of your shorts and open the front door, stepping outside.

As you made your way to the gas station, you wanted to make the trip quick. Speed-walking through the store to gather the things you needed: bottles of beer, snacks, cigarettes and hangover medicine you know you'll need for tomorrow. You dumped the pile of happiness for the night onto the check-out table and carefully placed the six-pack of beer down too. As the cashier scanned everything, you faintly heard a group of male voices from outside gradually getting closer and louder until they were right outside the door. "Your total will be forty dollars. How would you like to pay?" the cashier dully says, tapping on the screen before him.

"Jesus... forty..." you mumble. "Card." pulling the shiny credit card from your purse, you pay for your items as the cashier puts them into a white plastic bag. You grabbed the bag and headed straight for the door. Right as you were going to push it open, someone had already pulled it open instead. "Yo, Kamo, you gonna go inside? Oh, shit-" the white-haired man cuts himself off after laying eyes on you. "y/n?" he says, a smirk forming on his face.

"Gojo.." you mumble, dreadfully. And in front of him was Choso Kamo. The little leader of it all. He towered over you, his eyes looking down to meet yours. And you hated the feeling of it even more, damaging your ego slightly. "Drinking with someone or are you all alone?" Gojo leans forward, resting his arm on Choso's shoulder who was staring at you with his hands shoved into his pockets the same way he did all those years ago. You didn't want to admit how good Choso looked with his long, jet-black tied back into a bun with a few strands falling in front of his face. "Fuck off. I have to get going. Because unlike you, someone's waiting for me at home."

"Who?" You looked up at the man who spoke coldly to you. It was just one word that sent shivers down your spine. His tone was nothing short of rough. He said that one simple word as if you owed him an explanation and you had to quickly remind yourself that you didn't. "That's none of your business." Gojo chuckles, removing his arm from Choso. "You'll let us in your apartment if we ask to join right? Seems like a lot of drinking for one small person." You were about to refuse them before the other one, Geto did for you. "Satoru, it's rude to invite yourself like that. Especially if you aren't wanted." His tone sounded soft and sincere, but you already knew Geto well enough from previous years to know that nothing was sweet under that angelic voice.

What you couldn't figure out was the man still intensely staring at you, Choso Kamo. You looked away from him and shook your head before pushing past them and walking off. "Not even a goodbye?" Gojo calls out yet you ignore him like you've been doing all these years. But you still felt as if eyes were on you.

Once you hurriedly made it back to your apartment, you placed the white, plastic bag on the floor and opened a beer. Shoko watched as you chugged the entire thing, reminiscing bad memories of not only your recent encounter with Choso and his little minions but old, previous ones as well. "Damn, who got your panties in a twist?" She asked, opening a beer for herself as she took a small sip. "Those wannabe-frat punks."

"Gojo and Geto?" Shoko asks, laying her stomach flat with one hand holding her beer bottle dangling off the couch. "Oh, and don't forget their little don," you aggressively place the bottle on the ground, but not strong enough for it to break into pieces. Your reminder of the two boys' leader grabbed Shoko's attention. "He's back?" You nod your head, not bothering to look at her. "Is he still hot?" Now you look at her, disgusted in fact. "Ye- no!" Shoko raises a brow as she takes another sip of beer, skeptical of you having to correct yourself. "I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"He pisses me off! I swear I wanted to beat him up with my bag when I saw him! Right on the spot where his little dick-sucking friends could see." You chugged the bottle, every last drop of the drink was gone. Shoko looked at you, realizing the extent of your anger. You opened another beer bottle and started drinking. "Once I get my hands on that deadbeat, motherfucker-"

It was hours later before the effects of multiple beers kicked in. Shoko left early due to an assignment that was due the next morning, leaving you drunk and alone. You were lost in your thoughts, mainly about the man you dreaded. You laid flat on your back, the coldness of the wooden flooring was one of the few things you felt after those beers. Suddenly, loud music startled you and you looked at the wall where the apartment next door was on the other side of. That was where the music was coming from. You were already upset and annoyed by the encounter at the gas station. Being drunk meant your decency to be a good neighbour, especially on the first day of moving in was kicked out of the window. You put on your slippers and exit your apartment, knocking on the door next to yours.

No answer...

So you knocked again. It's louder this time. Only now, the door finally opened. The muzzled-out music was louder and gave you a minor headache. Standing on the other side of the door was Choso, looking as calm as you were shocked. "Can I help you?" he asked, his eyes lowering to your body which was covered in a short, white tank top and jean shorts that almost fully covered your thighs. You felt his gaze lingering for a few seconds and a blush crept onto your cheeks when Choso's eyes met with yours again. It was like a staring contest you were determined to win. Even when he had his hair messily down, making it ten times harder for you to look at him, you weren't going to face defeat. Instead, you cleared your throat, trying to be as intimidating and nonchalant as possible as you slammed your hand against his door. "Turn down the music, dork. You're gonna wake up the entire building with that shit."

Unfortunately for you, your eyes lingered down on the very shirtless person you were berating. Choso's arms were crossed, covering half of the view of his chest. Secretly, you were praying for this man to let his arms down to his side. It felt like you were a high schooler all over again, drooling over guys from magazines but instead, you were drooling over the man that was physically impossible for you to get along with. But your intoxication left no room for shame and locked it behind chains and a metal door.

"No," he spoke. "Are you drunk?" You rolled your eyes and walked closer, stopping right in front of him, your slippers almost touching his feet. "Turn. Down. The. Fucking. Music. Got it?" Your arm leaned against his door as you waited for his answer. As much as you were scared, you stood your ground with confidence, until Choso leaned down to reach your height level. "No." You unknowingly backed up an inch, causing him the slightest smirk plastered on his face. "I'll-" Choso raised a brow as you stammered. You didn't know what you were gonna do if he refused. His smirk widened at your loss of words. "What? You'll what?" Being tongue-tied meant you had already lost the argument right when it started escalating to threats.

Unfortunately, you had no threats in mind. Damn him and how good he smelled right now. It ticked you off how weirdly attracted you were to him at the moment and you did everything you could to put that energy into thinking of a way to piss him off. "I'll call the cops and file a noise complaint."

He rolled his eyes and stepped back, leaning against his doorframe again. You were waiting for a response from him, but secretly regretting the threat of calling the cops. It wasn't like you were going to go through with it. Your mind was running with thoughts you knew shouldn't belong in your head, slightly fidgeting with your fingers as Choso's gaze remained on you. Burning heat spread across your cheek as his stare slammed into your eyes. "Okay. I'll turn it down," he finally speaks. "On one condition." You tilted your head, placing your hands behind your back. "Who did you have over tonight?"

"What?" His heavy eye didn't falter for a second after he spoke. "Answer the question and I'll lower the volume." You were delighted with the easy condition but as happy as you were came confusion. Why did he want to know? "I answer the question and you'll have it lowered?" you repeat, seeking reassurance. "As low as you want, sweetheart." Sweetheart... Why did it feel as if any of your rational and sane thoughts had escaped your head right when that name so casually rolled off his tongue? Especially in a way that shouldn't have you fantasizing about him. You blamed the alcohol for causing the way you felt. "So? Spit it out," he demanded, snapping you out of reality. "Cat got your tongue or are you too scared to admit that you were with someone and had some fun?" What was this guy thinking? Never mind that, the way he was acting suddenly gave you a little ego boost, reminding you about who has to be in charge of this situation.

"So impatient, Choso. Didn't you hear? Curiosity killed the cat," you smirked. He leaned forward, "Everyone always leaves that saying unfinished. Didn't you hear? Satisfaction brought him back, sweetheart." The way his mood was dead serious only pushed the situation to make you feel even hotter. "Now I hate to rush the moment, but I have a party to get back to. If you want the volume to be lowered, then you better fess up and tell me who you were with." You clenched your fists, fighting the urge to give him a piece of your mind by the way he was talking down on you. "Fine, fine! I was with Shoko. Shoko Ieri from high school." Choso steps away from you, placing his hand on his door. "Alright. Goodnight then." The door closed, leaving you with a lowered volume from the other side and still a heavy head.

Choso leaned against his door, his heart pounding against his chest as he replayed the encounter with you in his mind. He had always been aware of your presence; you were the girl who captivated him in a way he couldn’t articulate. Sixteen years had passed since those chaotic childhood days, yet the memory of your fiery spirit and stubbornness remained vividly alive in his thoughts. Even now, when you stood before him, looking so determined and slightly intoxicated in your little tank top and shorts, he couldn’t help but feel drawn to you. As he turned back into his apartment, a stark contrast to the chaotic swirl of emotions inside him. Gojo and Geto had organized a small gathering, and despite the noise, he wasn’t in the mood for a party anymore. Not when he was buzzing from your confrontation.

“Choso! You’re not just gonna stand there all night, are you?” Gojo called from the living room, pulling him out of his thoughts. The white-haired jokester was sprawled across the couch, a beer in hand, while Geto lounged in an armchair, flipping through his phone with a disinterested expression. “Yeah, man. C’mon, don’t leave us hanging,” Geto chimed in, looking up from his phone. Choso trudged over, taking a seat on the edge of the couch, his thoughts still lingering on you. “What’s the plan? Just drink and laugh at stupid shit?”

"No fucking shit. Who was at the door?" Gojo asked. Choso shot him a glance and shook his head, "Just a noise complaint from my neighbour. It's nothing. Just continue where we left off." Gojo and Geto looked at each other before nodding their heads, continuing their yap. As the night wore on, Choso felt increasingly restless. He leaned back, crossed his arms, and tried to immerse himself in the conversations, but every laugh reminded him of you. The familiar faces of his friends were around him, but all he could picture was the fiery girl who lived just next door.

THE NEXT MORNING !

It had to be at least seven in the morning or even six by the way the sun was shining too brightly through the curtains of your window. Your alarm was found on the ground and seemed to have been knocked over. You rolled around, grabbed your pillow and roughly muzzled it over your face attempting to shield your eyes from the brightness. A hard-hitting headache kicked in but your tiredness from the previous night hadn't left. You threw the pillow to the side and sat up straight, stretching your arms. Going through your morning routine was nearly impossible with a hangover present. So you just brushed your teeth, got a hot cup of water and made your way to the balcony to take in some fresh air. The mug you took a sip out of was warm, heating your hands as the cool breeze from outside hit it. When you turn to your left to glimpse more of the view, you catch a sight you wished you hadn't discovered.

A still shirtless neighbour staring directly at you from his close balcony as he sipped on something from his mug. Choso's hair was tied back and eye-bags were visible even from the distance you were at. "Morning," he spoke. His voice was still deep and raspy after having just woken up. You nod your head, memories of last night flooding back into your head. "You get any sleep?" he asks, his expression showing that he doesn't care about what your answer is going to be but your gut told you otherwise. "No, not much." You kept your answer short and simple, keeping your distance from him. The feeling he gave you wasn't something that could be easily trusted especially after years of knowing him. Even with the sounds of cars and ongoing traffic outside filling the air, it still felt awkwardly quiet now that none of you were talking. You took a sip out of your cup, uncomfortably tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear afterwards.

"Do you still think about middle school?" Choso breaks the trend of silence. You raise a confused brow, caught off guard by his sudden question. "Middle school?" you repeat. He leans against the railing of the balcony, the small gap between yours and his being something you could be grateful for. "Yeah," he answers. "That's... random." You take a moment to think about it. It was so long ago that you don't remember that much about your days there. "Not really. Why?" Choso smiles. "You had a record for being a goody-two-shoes if I remember correctly." You roll your eyes, "And you had a record for causing all the trouble there. You didn't even have a reason most of the time." Before you even knew it, he managed to get you all fired up with only a few sentences. “Not really. You were always so serious. I wondered what it would take to get you to loosen up,” he says, his gaze steady and probing, those dark eyes searching for something in yours. You laugh, the sound is almost incredulous—a mix of disbelief and amusement that dances in the air between you.

“And you thought causing trouble was the way to do that?” Choso nods. “Absolutely,” he replies, leaning in slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as if sharing a secret only you could hear. The air between you crackles with unspoken tension, charged with memories of past escapades and the thrill of possibilities. You can almost feel the warmth radiating from his skin, the casual intimacy of the moment drawing you in. “You still seem like you’re stuck in that same routine. Being stuck in the same loop of following nothing less than the rules, aren't you, sweetheart? ” His words hit a nerve, and a rush of defensiveness rises within you. “Maybe I like my routine,” you counter, crossing your arms tightly, a shield against his probing gaze. Yet, even as you say it, doubt flickers in the back of your mind, a tiny voice questioning whether you truly find comfort in the mundane.

You glance down, noticing how your fingers fidget with the hem of your shirt, a clear sign of the restlessness brewing inside you. It’s a familiar feeling, one that has settled in your chest like a weight over the years. The thrill of spontaneity seems like a distant memory, and the thought of breaking free from your carefully constructed life sends a jolt of adrenaline through you. He's getting to you. You remember who you're talking to and snap out of the reckless thoughts. "Not that it's your business anyway," you add to your previous sentence. "When did you even move here?" He shrugs, "Before you. Maybe three months prior." His answer causes you to raise a brow, "I've been coming in and out of this apartment for almost a week now. How come I've never seen you even once?"

“Guess I’ve been keeping a low profile,” he replied a hint of a smirk playing on his lips, his dark eyes glinting with mischief. “I like my peace and quiet. But it looks like that’s changed now that you’re my neighbour.” You felt a mix of irritation and something else—something you weren’t ready to confront. “Right, because peace and quiet is exactly what you’re all about,” you said, crossing your arms again, trying to project confidence despite the flutter in your stomach. Touché,” he said, his voice dripping with amusement, leaning back against the railing with easy confidence. “But hey, it’s not all bad. Maybe you just needed someone to shake things up a bit.” You roll your eyes. “Shake things up? Is that your idea of fun?” You raised an eyebrow, attempting to keep the conversation light, but the air around you thickened with tension. You could feel his gaze tracing your features, and it made your pulse quicken.

“Maybe,” he said, leaning in slightly, the space between you charged with an unexpected energy that felt almost electric. “You ever think about breaking out of that ‘goody-two-shoes’ routine? Just for one night?”

Your heart raced at the suggestion, thoughts whirling as you considered the implications. “And what would you suggest? A wild night out with you?” Your tone was half-joking, but a part of you wondered what that could entail. "Cute," he replied, sarcasm dripping from his words, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. "But I meant going out with your friends if you still have any, sweetheart." You stepped closer to where the railing was, feeling the cool metal against your palms as you leaned over, looking out at the sprawling city below. The morning light bathed everything in a warm glow, but your focus was entirely on Choso.

"What's that supposed to mean, asshole?" Choso feels satisfied at the sight of getting a rise out of you. He leans casually against the railing, the morning air crackling with tension. “Just calling it like I see it. You’ve got this whole perfect image to uphold, but everyone breaks eventually." You narrowed your eyes, crossing your arms defiantly. “So, what? You think I’m just sitting around waiting for permission to have fun? I have a life, you know.” You narrowed your eyes, crossing your arms defiantly. “Right. A life filled with study sessions and early bedtimes.” He chuckled, clearly enjoying the banter and the sound was both infuriating and oddly charming. The way he carried himself—carefree, a little reckless—made your heart thump in a way that both excited and terrified you. “What's wrong with that?” you challenged, trying to regain some control. “Not everyone wants to be reckless like you, Kamo.”

"'Fun' doesn't just mean trouble and recklessness. It's really upsetting how you and many others look at it like that," he countered, causing you to run out of excuses. "I'm perfectly happy with where I'm at right now so what are you trying to do, hm? What's the scheme here?" Choso crossed his arms, the front pieces of his hair flowing with the wind slightly in a way that made your stomach do a flip. "There is no scheme here. And since you're getting so defensive, I'll back off. Goodbye, Ms. Neighbor." He took a step back, sliding the door closed behind him with a finality that left you standing there, breathless. The silence that followed felt heavy, pressing against your chest as you turned back to the view, the city sprawling below you, full of life and possibility.

Frustration bubbled up within you, mingled with an unexpected yearning. Did he really think he knew you? Your routine? The familiar comforts of studying and early bedtimes were just that—comforts. But the way he challenged you made you wonder if you were missing out on something.

You stared at the door he had just closed, the weight of his words lingering in the air. Maybe he had a point. The thought of breaking free, even just for a night, sent a thrill through you. But the idea was terrifying. As you stood there, you felt the urge to retreat back into your safe little world, but the thrill of possibility tugged at you. What if you did reach out to your friends? What if you let loose for one night? The thought of laughter, music, and dancing sent a shiver down your spine.

With a deep breath, you stepped back inside your apartment, heart racing. Maybe it was time to shake things up. A wild night didn’t sound so bad after all. You glanced back at the door, a spark of rebellion igniting within you. Perhaps it was time to see what life could be like beyond the confines of your routine. You pick up your phone and dial Shoko's number. After a few rings and a wave of anxiety washing over you, she picks up. "Do you wanna go out to the bar tonight?"

10:45 PM.

You walk into a local bar, Shoko standing by your side. "Are you sure? I get that you're trying something new but you hate everything that's sloppy. And a guy is literally over there making out with a woman and pressing up on her. Gosh... they need to take it somewhere private soon." Shoko's suggestion sounded like heaven to you right now. The apartment building was calling your name and you felt a rush of regret hitting you in the face. "I'll be fine. It's only a night anyways." You glimpse around the bar and see a familiar set of eyes latched onto yours. "What the fuck is he doing here?" Shoko looks into the direction your eyes were latched on after hearing your question. There standing was Choso Kamo. As you stood frozen, the air between you and Choso felt electric, charged with all the unspoken words and unresolved tension from earlier.

Shoko sighed and shook her head, "You have fun with that. I'm gonna go get some drinks." You nodded and she disappeared to the bar. Choso walked towards you, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black zip-up hoodie. He smirked, that infuriatingly charming smile playing on his lips as he moved closer, the crowd around you seeming to disappear. “What a coincidence, huh?” he said, his voice low and teasing. “Fancy seeing you here, sweetheart.” Your lips pursed. “Right,” you shot back, your irritation flaring. “Just because I’m trying to have a night out doesn’t mean I’m okay with your... little show here.” You gestured vaguely at the bar scene, and his gaze narrowed slightly, the challenge sparking in his eyes. “Little show?” he echoed, leaning in a fraction closer, his breath warm against your skin.

“You mean the one you were just about to join? Seems like I actually got to you, hm? You're gonna have more fun here than you think.” Choso's tall figure towered over you, he watched as you avoided eye contact with him. “Fun?” you scoffed, crossing your arms. “This isn’t gonna be anywhere close to fun. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Look at that guy over there—making out with a total stranger like he’s in a bad rom-com.” You nod your head towards the couple Shoko pointed out earlier. Choso moved his eyes towards them and then back at you, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smirk. "Jealous?" he teases. "Of what?" He leans down, his mouth right beside your ear. "That she's actually kissing someone. I mean, you're so pent up all the time... It's almost obvious that you're not getting enough action. I almost feel bad." He pulled back away from you. "Tell me, sweetheart, how long has it been?"

"You- That's none of your business." He chuckles, "There's no need to be ashamed. I can offer some help, I'm quite the catch after all." Your cheeks flushed a slight red and he didn't need to see. You couldn't let him see. “Please,” you rolled your eyes, but your heart raced beneath your carefully constructed facade. “You’re more of a distraction than anything. You think you can charm your way through life and not get called out for it?” Your fists were clenched, wondering how much longer Shoko's gonna take with those drinks. “Maybe I like a little mess now and then.” He stepped closer, the warmth of his body radiating toward you, his voice dipping into a low, teasing tone. “Not everyone wants to play it safe. Not someone like you.”

“What's someone like me supposed to mean?” You took a half-step back, an instinctual move to reclaim your space, but it felt like a losing battle. “Someone who hides behind her books and schedules,” he said, his gaze piercing into yours, unrelenting and intense. It felt like he was peeling away layers you’d meticulously constructed, leaving you exposed. “You appear to be afraid of a rush, but I can see it. You crave it.” Your eyes slightly widened, “Stop pretending you know me,” you shot back, your pulse quickening with irritation and something deeper—something that made your heart race in a way you couldn’t quite understand. “You don’t have a clue what goes on in my head.” He leaned in closer, the air thickening between you. “Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.”

The noise of the bar faded, replaced by the rapid beating of your heart. “But if you think you can just dismiss me, then maybe you’re the one who’s scared.” Your breath caught, the heat between you palpable and electric. “Scared? Of you? Don’t flatter yourself.” A smirk tugged on his lips. “Not flattery, just observation,” he replied. “But maybe you should be scared. I might just get you to do something reckless tonight.” You shook your head. “Reckless?” you echoed, your voice laced with a mix of annoyance and a flutter of excitement. “You think I’m just going to drop everything and follow you into chaos?”

“Why not? You’re already here.” His voice was smooth and seductive, the challenge hanging in the air like a promise. As he stepped even closer, the world around you seemed to dissolve into nothingness. The offer was tempting. Too tempting for your liking. You purse your lips, a faint smirk playing on his lips as he sees you considering it. "C'mon, you know you want to." You nod your head, "Fine."

TBC...

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