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wyofabdoms · 3 years

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Undercover I Do - Chapter 11

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted. Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple. As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Warnings: smut, sex with missing memories, "just the tip", Javi being a fucking boy scout, implied cheating.

Word Count: 4287

Notes: Things heat up between you and Javi the morning before you're scheduled to be sent home.

Don't hate me for this chapter, k?!?

Feedback and comments are always appreciated and please let me know if you find any glaring mistakes; I was just trying to get this published since I know some people have been waiting.

Be well!

Read on Ao3

In recent days, mornings had often been hurried and solitary. Since returning home from the hospital (and since your husband had returned to sleeping next to you in your bed) every morning Javi would scramble out of the bed quickly as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been, he would bolt from the bed and hurry to dress or rush to the kitchen to make coffee for the two of you before heading to work as though it were a race to get out of the apartment. Many mornings he was gone well before you even cracked your eyes open, his side of the bed cold and empty, leaving behind only the rumpled sheets and the scent of his sleepy warmth on his pillow. On those mornings you often curled yourself over into said pillow and breathed deeply, trying to find a wisp of memory in the familiar scent of your husband’s lingering presence.

This morning was different.

You were surprised to feel the heavy warmth of his arm still curled around your waist when you slipped from sleep. You felt the solid expanse of his bare chest against your back, the weight of his lanky legs tangled up at the knee with your own. His breath was heavy and relaxed; you couldn’t be sure if he was still asleep or not, but the warm tendrils of hot air slid languidly from his lips, through the strands of your hair and down the skin of your neck, leaving soft trails of goosebumps in their path. You lay quietly for a while, reveling in the feel of him, the security of his presence next to you, the rightness of him lying beside you. You watched as the shadows started to lessen along the far wall of the bedroom and the soft angles of early morning sunlight started to dance through the spaces behind the curtains. The soft light and the easy falling away of the shadows seemed to thrum to the rhythm of Javi’s breath; it struck you that the passage of time seemed like it should always only be measured by the breaths taken by the man laying next to you.

How could you love someone so much and still have so many questions about them?

Carefully, slowly, so as not to disturb him, you turned your head to peer over your shoulder at his sleeping form…

...And were greeted by his dark eyes staring back at you. You blinked in surprise at not finding him still fast asleep; he seemed to be wide awake and you wonder how long he’s been looking at you...perhaps for as long as you’d been listening to him breathe? You shift carefully so that you’re facing him, settling your face next to his on his pillow, your noses nearly touching. His eyes travel across every centimeter of your face as though he’s studying every feature, every frown line, every freckle. You have the sudden urge to lift a hand and lightly brush a finger across the tiny crease on his bottom lip. You’re surprised when his lips purse and he places a gentle kiss on your finger. The movement is so chaste and feels almost timid, in an instant you sense the gulf of space that had, up until now separated the two of you, fall away as he presses his lips to the tip of your finger and closes his eyes. You’re reminded again, as last night, of a man of faith closing his eyes during an act of reverence. When his eyes open again, they burn with something dark and hungry. Your breath catches in your chest.

In an instant his body is pressing into yours, caging you back into the pillows. He pauses and hovers above you, searching your face, your eyes. Behind the question you see something you can’t quite identify: Desperation? Sadness? You aren’t sure and you don’t want to think of it all that much. It frightens you, whatever it is.

You reach a hand behind his head and carefully twine your fingers into his dark hair, pulling him carefully down towards you, not wanting to spook him away yet again, but giving him the permission he seemed to be struggling to find. You hear something that sounds like a choked sob from somewhere deep in the back of his throat as he relents and lowers his lips to yours, allowing his weight to settle onto you carefully. You wrap both arms around his neck and sigh at the feel of him on top of you. Opening your mouth to him, you shift your lower body and widen your legs, allowing him to settle himself more intimately against you. He moans roughly into your mouth as his tongue devours yours and you return the moan when you feel him slowly roll his hips against yours, feeling him hard and ready as it presses against you. You feel like crying with relief: he does want you after all.

In an instant, the softness is gone and suddenly everything is urgency and eagerness, and you’re both fumbling to touch, to taste, to grope, to feel the other. His hand slithers along the hem of your sleep shirt and seeks out the soft mounds of your breasts; you arch into his touch as he palms first one, then the other. His lips and tongue leave sloppy kisses along your jaw, your neck, your collarbone. His hot breath is next to your ear and you know he’s saying something, but it's in Spanish and is so soft that you’re not sure you’d be able to make it out even if you had understood it. He captures your earlobe between his teeth and then gently surrounds the sensitive skin with his lips, applying soft, deliriously delicious pressure. You are suddenly certain that you will never be able to breathe normally ever again.

Your hands scrabble for purchase on the smooth planes of his back, his sides, his neck, feeling the muscles and sinews stretch and contract and ripple beneath your touch. His hips have continued to grind into your and they move faster now, you can feel the urgency, the yearning that emanates from every part of him. He’s heavy and thick against the apex of your legs and the ridge of his cock rubs just perfectly along your crease; the wetness that is quickly accumulating there soaking through your thin sleep shorts. Your hands slip down his back and under the hem of his sweatpants. You clutch at the taut muscles of his ass as he continues to grind himself against you and you desperately start to work the offending piece of sleepwear over and off his lean hips, wiggling your own hips to help move the material of your shorts to the side. When both of your bodies are divested enough of their offending pieces of clothing and your skin makes contact, Javi lets out a sharp hiss and pulls his hips away as though he’s been burned. He buries his face in your neck for a moment, panting heavily and pausing his movements altogether.

You hold him there against you like that for several long moments, stroking your fingers through his hair and making soft, unintelligible cooing noises in his ear. You’re afraid to make a move; afraid that he’ll bolt again, that he’ll run away from you once more or, worse yet, that you’ll wake up from this dream and find only the bed empty next to you. You can feel his breathing become more controlled, but you also still feel his heartbeat pounding furiously where his chest is pressed into your midsection. Your desire to feel him move against you again wins out over your fear of him changing his mind and you slip one hand from his hair, trace a path down along his spine with one featherlight caress of a finger before slipping your hand along his hip and gently around and between you. You grasp him in your hand and begin to stroke him carefully, gently, delighting in the gasp that comes from his buried face and then the quiet, desperate growl of the moan he makes as he raises his head, his lips finding yours almost instinctively, the kiss sloppy and ragged, slightly off the mark from your lips but filled with fervor and heat. You realign your mouth onto his and change the strokes of your hand, twisting, stroking, rubbing and feeling him react to every change of direction with a gentle twitch of his cock or a shallow rocking of his hips into yours.

You pull your mouth away just long enough to whisper his name; he immediately captures your lips with his again, seemingly unrelenting in his need to kiss you. You breathe his name again, this time against his mouth and you move your occupied hand towards your center, gently pulling him along with you. You gasp into his open mouth when you feel the tip of him brush against your opening, then graze against the tiny bundle of nerves just above that throbs for more of the same sensation. You tilt your hips just so, and feel the heavy head of him run alongside your folds again. Every single part of him that wasn’t already hard suddenly goes rigid and he freezes, ripping his lips from your mouth and pressing his forehead to yours, his eyes unfocused, his breath coming in shallow gasps like a man drowning.

“Baby.” He gasps.

You rock your hips up again in response, feeling the tiniest, microscopic nudge of his head slide just barely into you, aided by the wetness you could feel pooling there with each passing second. It’s not even enough to count, you think for a split second, grinning at childish jokes about “just the tip” from your less mature years. You were going to make it count, though, and you braced your feet on the mattress to lift your hips upwards even more. But as you do, he pulls his hips back, breaking the sweet contact and wrenching a tiny whine from the back of your throat.

“Corazón,” he chokes out again, this time with slightly more force. He kisses you again, using his weight to press you back down onto the mattress and into the pillows, careful to keep his hips a safe distance away from yours. When he feels you reaching for him again and attempting to guide him into you again, he pulls your hand away, gently but firmly, threading his fingers through yours and pinning the offending hand in the pillow by your head. Lost in the haze of your desire, your other hand immediately begins to travel south on the same mission, and he captures that one in a similar manner. His lips are on yours again for several long, wet moments and he tries to speak for a third time.

“Cariño.” He kisses your cheeks, your neck, your jaw, your nose. He breathes his next words into your temple, his nose buried in your hair. “Corazón….we can’t.” Unable to reach for him with your hands, you jut your hips up towards him, the motion futile and succeeding in doing nothing but increasing the longing between your legs.

“Javi….please….” You can’t keep the high note of desperation out of your voice as you thrust your hips up again, still unable to find the purchase they seek. You squeeze his hands with yours hard and wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him down closer to where you need him to be. “Please, Javi. Please…” You press your lips against the shell of his ear and breathe your next words into him like a spell. “Please fuck me, Javier.”

You feel more than hear or see his resolve break. One of your hands is released and in the next instant, Javi has himself in his hand, stroking himself carefully as he moves his cock back towards your center. You tangle your free hand back into his hair, nodding frantically as he positions himself against you once more. His mouth is on your breast, gently taking a nipple between his teeth and then dragging his lips up your neck and finding your mouth again as he places his head against your entrance once more. He flicks a calloused thumb through the wet crease and drags it over your clit, eliciting a sharp cry from you that gets lost in his mouth; he uses your wetness on himself to ease his entrance. You feel him brace himself on his forearms on either side of you and build a forward motion to thrust into you with his hips…

...a shrill electronic chirping accompanied with a noisy vibration pierces through the soft, muted quiet that your lovemaking has fostered. You let out a frustrated scream that’s muffled by his lips on yours. You tighten your leg’s grips around his waist and hold him closely to you and rip your mouth from his to hiss into his ear:

“Ignore it.” He nods, and the offending noise ceases, allowing you both to sink back into the moment. He strokes himself once more, twice, three times and then moves again to enter you.

This time you actually scream.

But not because your husband is finally inside of you.

His pager explodes with noise on the bedside table once more, and you can’t hold back the shriek of frustration as you feel him tense up and pull away. You grasp for him frantically, trying to keep him with you in the deliciously sweet moment that you had both been in only moments before. But you can see it already: his eyes are no longer blown wide with lust, no longer hazy with desire and wantonness and abandon. They’re focused and serious, the eyes of Agent Peña, DEA Officer. For a split second, you think you see a flash of horror and realization as he stares down at you. In the next second, the comforting weight of him is gone from on top of you and he’s rolled out of bed, grabbing his pager and hiking his sweatpants back up his hips (and over his painfully erect cock, you can’t help but note) as he reads the message scrolling on the offending device. You hear him swear under his breath and heave a sigh, but he doesn’t turn back to you.

You can’t handle it anymore. You throw your arms over your eyes, trying to hold in the frustrated tears that have already begun to spill over. You can still feel the blunt heaviness of the head of his cock against you, feel the slightest pressure as he began to push himself into you...and then, he just….stopped. That look on his face: like he realized how close he had come to making a huge mistake. And then the speed with which he had vaulted from the bed. You heard him shuffling around for clothes in the closet and you roll so that your back was towards him, trying your damnedest to hold in the sniffles that were already traitorously starting to build and seep out of you along with the tears. The shuffling stops, then you feel the bed sag behind you and you’re suddenly swept up and around, brought to your knees, your arms pulled away from your eyes. You find yourself flush against him, can still feel his thick cock pressing through the jeans he now wears and his skin still hot, his chest bare against you beneath the unbuttoned bright blue shirt he’s donned. He kisses you, another kiss filled with fervor and contradiction. So full of promise and lust, his tongue staking claim of your mouth, a soft groan leaving somewhere deep within him, filling you and shooting all the way to the base of your spine.

You want to push him away. To punch him. To scream at him to stop toying with you like this. But you can’t. All you could do is melt into him, into his kiss. You feel the power behind the kiss; can feel the emotion and the sentiment behind the movement of his lips and the slant of his body against yours as his arms hold you tight against him. But that sentiment didn’t make any sense, doesn’t add up with his denial to make love to you. You knew he had wanted to in that earlier moment. You had seen it in his face: all of the fighting he had been doing against some unnamed, unknown obstacle...it had all been surrendered in an instant.

And then the wall had slammed up again.

But the desperate desire was still there. You could still feel it in his kiss, in his touch.

Why wouldn’t your husband make love to you?

When he had finally broken the kiss, he hadn’t said anything, he had simply held you against him for several more long moments, his forehead against yours, breathing in deeply, seeming to steady himself. Finally, he’d climbed off the bed and as he had finished buttoning his shirt, he’d muttered that he had to go. The page was a tip he needed to follow up on quickly. You’d sat in the middle of the bed, still dazed from the whiplash of emotions, trying to puzzle out what the hell was going on.

He had crouched back onto the bed for a few seconds more, leaning into you and pressing a warm kiss on the top of your head. He had hovered for a few seconds more than necessary, burying his nose in your hair and breathing deeply next to your ear, then spinning on his heel and flying out of the apartment. It had only been a few moments from hearing the door click shut when you heard the sound of the apartment phone ringing in the kitchen. You had thought perhaps it was the office trying to get in touch with Javi in regards to the tip he had been paged about, you knew the urgency that came with those tips and you had raced to grab the receiver, searching for a pad to jot down the info to pass on to him. You were surprised when the call had been for you.

It was Dixon. Her voice was strained and she sounded tired as she requested that you join her at the office as soon as you were able. You had felt something turn in your stomach; you couldn’t put your finger on it, but something told you that whatever this was about was not going to be good. You’d agreed, and Dixon had told you she would send a car to pick you up.

You knew you wouldn’t have long, so you’d hurriedly washed your face and teeth, ran a brush through your hair and threw on something more professional than the shorts and tshirt you had grown accustomed to during these last few weeks off. As you had puttered around in your kitchen, you had caught a foul smell coming from the overfilled trash can in the corner. You had been meaning to take it out for several days and now the rank stench made you regret the numerous times you had put it off. You quickly tied up the garbage bag and hauled it down the stairs and out the building’s back door, kicking it open wide with your leg as you tumbled out into the sunshine.

The trash cans were on the backside of your apartment building at the end of the alleyway. Said alley ran perpendicular with another alley; by the time you reached the communal trash cans, you could see almost all the way around the corner of your apartment building and up the opposite alleyway. You didn’t usually pay much attention to the alleys on previous trash runs, but today, just as you were lifting the lid of a can and chucking the bag up and over the lip into it, you caught a familiar flash of bright blue out of the corner of your eye. You did a double take and the bottom fell out of your stomach.

Javier was leaning with his back against the building, his hands on his hips, eyes closed, listening as a woman with long red hair and a heavily painted face, short skirt and thigh high boots whispered into his ear and trailed kisses down his jaw and neck. One of her hands was threaded through his hair where yours had been less than an hour before. Her other hand disappeared down the front of his jeans and you saw the telltale signs of her stroking your husband’s cock as she pulled his face down to kiss him.

It felt as though you left your body. You saw yourself stumble backwards away from the sight in front of you, knocking over several trash cans in your hurry to leave. You whipped back towards the building door and skipped the stairs entirely, slamming into the building’s front door entrance just as a dark vehicle with embassy plates pulled up to the curb. You dove into the back seat of the car and slammed the door shut, hissing at the driver to get you the fuck out of here, which he did after studying your tear-stained face in the rearview mirror for a moment with curiosity and concern.

Javier had known that it was a mistake to leave her. He should have done what she had said and just ignored his pager. He should have just given in, pressed himself inside of her, split her open and fucked her until he didn’t hurt anymore at the thought of how soon he was going to lose her.

But he knew, deep down, that he would never be able to accomplish that.

But he should have just stayed with her. Stayed with her in bed until Dixon had called. Stayed and held her in his arms, kissed her over and over, whispered her name, breathed in the smell of her skin, her hair, her breath against his ear, filing it all away into his memory.

But, as usual, Javier Peña had chosen his work over anything that made him remotely happy.

And now, here he was, eyes clenched shut against his own disgust with himself. When his informant (...what was her name? Valeria? Valentina?) had arrived, she had grinned like a cat as she had surveyed him, trilling in her agonizingly syrupy voice that it looked like he must be VERY happy to see her and looking pointedly at the still excruciating erection pressing desperately against his jeans. He hadn’t been to visit her in a long time, hadn’t felt the urge to seek solace, or information, from one of the many prostitutes he had kept on a rotating basis for years. Even when he had been tempted the day before, he hadn’t given in; he had seen the flowers across the street as a sign (not that Javier Peña would ever admit to believing in shit like that). But the scent of those plumeria had lured him away from the temptation of the brothel that night and seared his partner’s face in his mind. He had had no problem leaving the brothel unvisited in his rearview mirror and returning home to her, even if he knew it would most likely be the last time.

And then this morning had happened.

And all he wanted right now was to rewind time and make it so that the hand he felt on his cock now was his partner’s. All he wanted was to not be here, listening to this woman chirp some d-level information about a suspected lab in his ear as she pumped him inside his jeans. He hated the cloying scent of the vanilla perfume she was wearing, the jingle of the earrings and bracelets she had on, the feel of her too-long painted nails scrapping the sensitive skin of his dick inside his pants. It was all such a sharp contrast to the sweet smell of HER that he had born witness to only a short time ago. He wanted to be surrounded by the smell of lavender and lemons from her shampoo and the soft undertone of plumeria from the vase next to the nightstand. He wanted to hear only the sound of her soft breath when she sighed with pleasure or breathed his name into the skin of his shoulder like a plea. He wanted it to be her soft hand- slightly calloused from her gun, nails cut short from nervous chewing during stakeouts- to be the hand that was jerking him off right now.

For the first time in his life, Javier Peña felt himself going soft as a willing woman propositioned him.

What the FUCK was wrong with him?!?

He knew the answer to that question.

Before he could admit it to himself, he jolted at the sound of metal clanging further up the alley. His eyes sprang open and he shoved the woman’s hand away from him, staring at the trash cans that rolled and teetered from where they normally stood. He didn’t see anyone else around, but he heard a distant CLAP, like the sound of a door slamming shut. He felt bile rise in the back of his throat and his stomach turned to ice.

He ignored Valeria’s….Valentina’s? Protests and questions as he buttoned himself back up and hurried up the alley of their building, racing up the stairs to her apartment and exploding through the door. It only took him a few moments to realize that she wasn’t there. The sick feeling in his stomach only got worse.

“Fuck!”

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 12, Chapter 13

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x female reader #javi #narcos #undercover married trope #undercover marriage #pedro pascal fanfiction #narcos fanfic

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mariniacipher · 4 years

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Gone In Sparks And Light

My gift for the @sanderssidesgiftxchange - this was written for @genderqueer-turtle. I really hope you had a merry Christmas and that you will enjoy this gift!

Summary: Looking at an artefact he's stolen from the archaeology lab, Remus finds a way to travel back in time, to a place where he might belong- to the people who could be meant for him.

WC: 3,830

Ships: Remus/Virgil/Logan, ment. Roman/Janus

Warnings: mentions of resurrecting dead animals

ao3

Remus leaned over the examining table and fiddled with his microscope to examine the shard of periwinkle glass. There had been runes carved into them, and the archaeology lab was being so possessive over it. Something about him destroying the delicate work. As if he’d ever be so careless with something so delightfully strange!

He scoffed and let his scalpel run over the glass without leaving even the hint of a mark. “No, I wouldn’t,” he muttered, looking back through the lens of the microscope. He’d stolen it after hearing about the commotion they’d all made- he just had to take a look at it!

Remus startled as he finally recognized the marks on the glass. Fiddled with the microscope’s lens. Examined the piece of glass again. Cursed.

His scalpel traced over the last rune in a sequence of antiquated letters and numbers and signs that could’ve come from his own lab, if it wasn’t for the fact that whoever had carved this had gone even farther in the convergence of spatial displacement with interplanar conjuring than he ever did. And he’d already revolutionized the field with his out of the box ideas.

His hands started shaking where they still traced over a small mark in the glass. A small mistake had been made there that set the equation off, a single line missing to turn it into the very formula he’d dedicated his life to discovering after he got his doctorate.

And now he was just one line away from finishing it, thanks to whoever it was that had carved the periwinkle glass. A laugh escaped him, hysterical and hopeful and disbelieving, shaking his body and- the noise of this scalpel scratching the glass was almost inaudible, but to Remus’ ears it sounded deafening.

He’d perfected the formula, he realized a moment later. He’d perfected it! He’d finished his life’s work at 27, all thanks to that mysterious soul, that mysterious carver of periwinkle glass whose body must’ve left a trace of DNA on this glass. Who had to be replicable and revivable. They had to be!

Remus was ready to take apart the glass and grind it into molecular pieces to enlarge and search through, looking for any trace of DNA he could give the necromancy department and bring them back to life, or get the spectral summoning folks on the case- anything!

This person, this carver-of-periwinkle-glass, they were the only one who could be his match, in a field filled with industrious dimwits and lazy, narrow-minded geniuses. And this shard of glass could lead him to a person with whom he could share his lab. A person who was actually his match, who knew what they were doing just like he did.

He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment and murmuring the formula to himself, recognizing the inherent rhythm in it- a spell’s melody. Wrapping his arms around himself, he rocked back in his chair, almost hearing the symphony of magic meeting its capturing, of strings weeping and rejoicing.

Without noticing, he raised his left hand in the air, as if conducting the magical energy with the scalpel he still held. The tight bracelet around his wrist started to glow, indicating magic to be near him. Remus didn’t notice that though, too focused on repeating the discovery- their shared discovery! After so many years of solitary work, he’d found a worthy partner, perhaps even a potential friend. No matter that time and space had tried to separate them.

He couldn’t imagine what their life had been like, what they had lived like- if they’d been just as lonely, just as severed from the world around them- if they’d wished for a companion just as much as he did.

His wish, his desire, sent the magic innate to him outward, and the formula gave it a direction. They twisted together and converged to create a beautiful braid of light and sparks, green and dark blue and purple combining with silver thread to hold it all together. It circled in the air, being woven into a circular tapestry that flickered between aether and reality. The silver sparks reflected the light like mirrors, before showing- everything.

Worlds and universes and planes he’d never imagine before and some he had, so different and bright Remus’ breath stopped as he saw it.

But he kept repeating the formula, kept thinking of how its creator must’ve lived, and he saw how the silver mirrors showing the growing portal’s destination shifted, narrowing down their focus: First to only showing images of their plane, then to running back in time, then to finally showing him a small village from hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Remus could almost see himself there, could almost taste the air and feel the breeze and hear the rain that was pattering down from the sky.

And just as his yearning reached its zenith, the silver sparks started to migrate into the centre of the circular tapestry, moulding and growing it. The portal turned into a single image of the small village, each raindrop glittering silver, framed by a braid of blue, green and purple that bled together at the edges. Remus stopped for a moment to admire it, the breath stolen from his lungs.

Then he took a running start and jumped through it.

Virgil rightened the wool cape over their shoulders and fidgeted with the broad scarf they’d wrapped around their shoulders and head. They were still drenched to the bone, the rain not giving them any hint of reprieve. The wool weighed heavily, damp and disgusting against their skin. Why did the market have to be so far away? They’d left their village when dawn had still been streaking the night sky with pink and purple stripes, to find the parts that Logan claimed he needed.

Now, hours later, they were weighed down with a heavy bag filled with scrap metal, it was almost dusk and they were more than ready to let their husband hang up the woollen layers they were wearing and detangle their hair to braid it out of their face with warm, calloused hands afterwards. Their tired muscles ached for Logan’s familiar touch, to kiss and hold-

Why was Roman outside?

The rain and the darkness would usually drive him inside, to work on his costumes or his lines, and besides that Roman had been glued to Janus’ side ever since they confessed. And the snake was nothing if not consistent in their distaste for anything that went against their hedonistic desires. Virgil would know, they loved to watch them pout as they were dragged out of their comfort zone by Roman, pretending not to enjoy it, just like Roman pretended to dislike it when Janus forced him to take a break. If it didn’t devolve into them making out half the time, they would’ve even called the couple cute.

But Roman seemed to be alone out here, and in what had to be a new costume- it was a stark white robe that shone against the drab houses the storm had turned their village into. It went down to their shins, with a similar white shirt underneath, and Virgil cursed under his breath. Light fabric was expensive, and if his friend had gotten in over his head for his creative vision again-

“Hey, whatcha watchin’ for, hot stuff? You wanna get a piece of this?” The person- not Roman, not at all Roman- grinned, so wide it looked almost painful, shaking his hips in a way that was probably supposed to be suggestive but just let Virgil worry about his thin figure. There was a weird tension in his frame that Virgil couldn’t name.

They frowned, hauling their bag higher up their arm to cross them before their chest. “I’ve never seen you here before, are you passing through?” The white robe wasn’t protecting him from the rain at all and Virgil hoped he had friends in town to take him in.

But the man shook his head. “Yeah, you could say that…,” he paused, before perking up with sudden enthusiasm. “Would you happen to know any scientists?”

Virgil mouthed the strange word to himself before shaking their head. “No, I’ve never heard of that- what language even is that? I never… you’re not part of a cult, right?” They changed their grip around their bag again, this time to have a sharp piece of metal in arm’s reach.

“No! I just- wait, let me think how you’d call it… maybe I should have studied history a bit, before- well, too late now.” The stranger hummed to himself. “I’m looking for a person who’s researching magic! Trying to understand and tame it, all that!”

Virgil sighed. Of course, the maybe-cultist would look for someone of Logan’s profession; they ignored the curiosity the stranger had piqued within themself. “Then come along.” They led the way up their village’s main street and discarded the potential weapon in their bag. “My husband and I’s house is on the edge of town, and I don’t want you to freeze to death because the others think you’re possessed or something.”

The stranger followed him, an obvious bounce in his step. “Does that happen often? I heard about possession, but never managed to get it right! I called on so many serial killers, you wouldn’t believe- the whole ritual is so disgusting, imagine how it’d look if it actually worked!” The smile on his face was positively gleeful. “Everything I read sounds positively horrid, absolutely gruesome and-” Virgil bit back a grin at the other’s open excitement. It’d been a while since they’d let themself be so excited about the more macabre side of magic.

“Oh, you should’ve seen the reception at our wedding. I had gotten a bunch of emus and charmed them to come alive again, to carry some drinks. You should’ve seen the faces of the guests, man, it was great. And they were way better at serving the drinks than the chickens Logan wanted-” Virgil cleared their throat, suddenly growing aware of what they’d said. “Just so you know,” they added, grumbling, shoulders hitching up.

Remus’ grin didn’t soften, but they perked up, finding the other to mirror his own interest in the dirty parts of magic and science. He leaned forward as he caught up to them with an expectant smile. “I do know now,” they said, “but you didn’t mention what spell you used at all! How am I supposed to reanimate my own flock of emus? Let alone my own flock of geese!” The scientist cackled at the idea of unleashing a flock of geese onto the archaeology department. It would be glorious and he had to get back to the present to do it at least once!

Virgil snorted, imagining their own friends’ reaction if they had to cope with a pack of wild geese. “I think you’d be run out of town for that one,” they muttered, but they were unable to hide their smile, small as it might’ve been.

“Oh, like that hasn’t happened before! Do you know I’ve been banned from a different mall on each of my birthdays since I turned 13?” Remus bounced on his feet, rubbing his hands together as if he were a supervillain about to explain his devious plan, just to do something with them.

“I’m Remus,” he added, a moment later, “and I’m pretty sure you’ve no idea what a mall is.”

Virgil shook their head, but they were smiling. “Nah, but like, they can’t be that good, if they’d throw you out.”

Remus froze, turning distinctly pink. “Okay. If you say so.” It wasn’t like he didn’t know what flirting was; in the monster romance books he secretly read there was a lot of flirting! He just. Hadn’t really ever been on the receiving end of it. But… looking at the stranger and their smile, their eyes shimmering with mirth, he’d really like to learn.

Virgil cleared their throat, blushing too. The darkness thankfully did its best to hide it. “I’m Virgil,” they said and hoped they could convince Remus to stay a while. “And my husband’s name is Logan- you’ll love him, he’s great. As long as he’s not forcing me into a storm for his experiments, at least.” They chuckled, more fond than bitter.

Remus nodded eagerly at the reminder of what had brought him here. “You mind telling me about those?” He leaned forward, “I’d love to hear about it.”

Virgil laughed, “don’t tell me you’re another one of those logicians- I’ve already got enough with Logan and his attempts to anger the spirits.”

Remus sputtered. “I don’t want to anger them! Just… get to the bottom of them. Are you honestly telling me that you’re happy with just accepting the ways they work? Just like that?”

“No, I just- c’mon, we’re almost home, talk to Logan about your attempt to get struck by lightning.” But their smile belied the disinterest of Virgil’s words. Just what they needed, really, another person to anger the ones above and below.

The two of them had arrived at the top of the hill the village stood on and could look below: the cliff coast, steep and jagged, the grey sea crashing against it, with a small cottage standing at its edge. The thatched roof was dark with rain and the garden around it seemed to be filled with herbs and flowers, some of which Remus had only seen in archaeological texts.

The scientist ran forward as he spotted those, gasping as he cradled the bloom of a dark blue lily that had supposedly been used to dye clothes with its blooms and season potions with the dried leaves. Remus was almost cackling with glee as he imagined what the people at the archaeological department would say if they heard about missing out on this.

He turned around from where he’d crouched down on the ground to face Virgil, not paying attention to the house. “What’re these?”

“My mother always called them gunny’s blossoms,” came the reply from behind him, and Remus could see Virgil roll their eyes before turning around and standing up to face the other man- Virgil’s husband, most likely.

The man was short- shorter than Remus and definitely shorter than his spouse, wearing a too-big woollen coat that probably belonged to Virgil, under which Remus could spot embroidered robes. He could’ve sworn he recognized some of them from either his textbooks or the designs still so popular in churches and temples, but they were covered up by the man’s crossed arms. “And what should I call you?”

“Remus!” he introduced himself with a bow, exaggerated and clumsy, but he carried it with confidence. “I cannot say how happy I am to meet you- is it right that you are working with making magic make sense? Your spouse mentioned, but- I’ve got to be sure.”

Logan looked over at Virgil, face creased with confusion. His spouse merely shrugged. “I am working on capturing the powers that be into clear, replicable form, yes. Are you in the field as well?”

Remus laughed at the question. “In the field, yes- pioneered a good deal, back in-'' he looked around himself as if fearing to be struck by lightning when speaking his breaking of the laws of time and space aloud. “Can I come in? I’d love to talk to you- you both.” He rocked back and forth on his heels; this was the furthest he’d come in making new frien- acquaintances, right now, he reminded himself, even though it hurt- and he was weirdly jittery. Nerves firing and pores excreting sweat. He would’ve been delighted at the grossness had it been any other time.

But Logan nodded, his curiosity seeming piqued as he exchanged a look with his spouse. There was a new light in his eyes and even though this was the first time Remus saw it, he wanted to keep it there for as long as possible. Judging by the softness that gentled Virgil’s expression, he wasn’t the only one.

“Of course,” Logan finally said, turning back to the door. “You’re free to pick some gunny’s blossoms if you’d like. We have more than enough.”

Remus made a high-pitched noise at the back of his throat, grabbing a handful of them and holding them to his nose. It coloured his face blue and Virgil snorted, not as derisive as they’d wanted to.

“It tingles!” Remus rubbed at the pollen and colour on his face.

“Yeah, that’ll be the rash you’re about to get,” Virgil smiled, as though they weren’t already reaching for one of the vials attached to their belt. “Lo, do you-”

“Yes.” Logan already stood next to them with a rag, wetting it with the tincture Virgil had brewed for their husband less than a week before. They both led Remus inside with ease and the scientist would’ve looked around himself if he hadn’t been so focused on the couple now sitting him down on a chair that had to be freed of fabric- “Virgil, you said you’d clear another chair- and what if someone sat here? The magic you embroidered into this would be completely corrupted!”

“Well, you didn’t notice until now, did you?” Virgil shook their head, “I’ll bet you didn’t eat lunch either. Besides, my magic isn’t so fragile-”

“-It is nonetheless worthy of protection!”

Virgil grumbled in reply to that, but Remus could swear there was a redness to their cheeks that couldn’t be attributed to the cold outside. They crossed the room, folding the piece of fabric as they went.

Remus tried to catch a look at what was painted onto it- were those runes pre-roman?- but Logan stepped into his line of sight, holding the same rag as before, but now it was covered with some kind of liquid. It was kind of sizzling the wool but didn’t seem to burn it.

“Do not worry, Virgil’s version is only so bubbly because it is more fitted to human skin- I’d know, I’ve got it on me at least twice a week.” Logan smiled, fond and soft and so close. Remus watched him, for the first time in his life completely stunned, as the other man gently wiped off the colour from the flowers. He didn’t even notice how his grip on those still in his hands slackened until a few hit the floor. But the wood was already so stained- from potion accidents, runic accidents and cooking gone wrong- that it didn’t make a real difference.

“You, ah-” Remus caught his breath, looking Logan straight in the eyes. They were light brown- a mundane colour, but, for the first time, it reminded Remus of amber, of acorns in the summer, of wilderness in a seemingly calm form. But only seemingly, as the house around him proved. “What’re you working on?”

Logan’s smile grew at that, his eyes shining. “Oh, it’s fascinating- I’m trying my hand at abstraction! You might’ve heard of some magicians in the cities doing it, and I’ll admit their research gave me the base idea, but, looking at their works I’d noticed how contained they all were by only using the written word-”

“-as they should,” Virgil interrupted, but it bore no heat and only caused Logan to continue, louder and decidedly looking away from his spouse.

“BUT by applying some runes and numbers to it I started to get much further ahead- I’m just trying some thought experiments now.”

Remus nodded. “Yes! Are you by any chance working on travelling spells? Because I found some, in-” he rocked back and forth in his chair, fiddling with the flowers’ stems in his hands- “some glass with inscriptions of it, and it led me here when I wished for its creator- I’m from the future, y’see, and I,” he smiled, looking around the house again. Looking at the work desk covered in glass and gems and fragile tools, the corner covered in heaps of fabrics, and thread and needles alongside paints and brushes. Looking at an easel leaning against the construction of glass and metal that looked like a telescope, the tapestries hanging from some walls with painted and embroidered runes, words and old spells. He could spy into another room that was filled with vials and kettles, a chemist’s lab from a long time ago, and he wondered if Virgil’s paints were magic in themselves.

“You?” Logan asked as Remus was captured by the house around him, curious in a gentle way. Remus melted at it, leaning into the hand still cradling his head, despite the blue from the flowers already being gone.

“I’m from the future,” he replied, and something crashed in the background as Virgil turned around quicker than light.

“You’re what?” Their eyes were wide with wonder and they stalked over to them as fast as their legs would take them.

“You have to tell us everything- you said you were working on abstracting magic too?” Logan started flapping his hands as he thought, and the obvious stim made Remus rock again, elated to find the other man was like him. “Oh, would you work alongside me? I’ve been simply stuck at trying to find a way to define a natural element and-”

“-oh, the Gregorian Dilemma? I solved that just a few weeks ago, but you, you figured out how to travel through time and space- you have to explain your process!”

“How do you- I was just about to finish my fine-tuned carving of it-”

Remus nodded- “on periwinkle glass?”

“Yes, how did you-”

“- I found it! It’s what led me here in the first place.”

Logan laughed, stunned and delighted and Remus joined him easily.

Virgil snorted fondly at the display. “But, Lo, you didn’t hear the most important thing yet- he never summoned a thing- they lost it, apparently, in the future. I have to show you how we do it, you would love it-”

“-Yes!” Logan exclaimed. “And you’d get to use-”

“- The new tapestry of luminous elation? I’d thought so too-”

“- “what, like the spirit,” Remus interrupted, and the spouses easily slid into explaining and inviting, just as Remus started explaining and accepting. The three of them didn’t even notice how the time went by until the food Logan had prepared before started boiling over, and they all hurried to the kitchen to clean up the mess and Remus ate slightly-burnt stew with them like it was normal, the three of them making space on the dinner table.

Remus put away the periwinkle glass, enlarged thanks to the cloth it’d been placed on, the formula he’d see through a microscope just hours before now easily legible. It was a magic he had never heard of before, and as he asked Virgil explained, interrupted by additions by Logan and Remus alike but always listened to.

And Remus found himself fitting right in.

#sanders side #dukexiety #analogical #intrulogical #anadukexiety

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yandere-society · 5 years

Note

Watching over you while you sleep? Any member. -A

Under His Microscope

Warnings; Yandere, stalker, extreme lack of boundaries, scent kink?? idk if that’s a thing…

Words; 1.2k

“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.”

You were his favorite film.

He yearned for photographic memory if it meant that he could recall every still frame movement of yours. To burn it into his cerebrum and engrain it into his very dna. To study your little ticks and habits even long after he shared presence with you. His own film projector within the depths of his mind’s eye that never failed to fascinate him.

As if suddenly parched, his pink tongue peeked out to run over his chapped but plush lips. He shifted his weight to lean against the wall a bit more dependently, the prolonged period of standing ultra still having taken a toll on his legs.

Though agile and careful, he didn’t quite calculate the sound of his jeans rubbing against the wall and producing a quiet noise. It wasn’t loud by any means. But in the fragile silence that was easily overwhelmed by any slight sound above a few octaves, it was heard loud and clear.

In a chain of events that caused his heart to drop, you began to shift in our sleep. Unconsciously reacting to the foreign intrusion of peace in the bed a few feet away from him. You released a moan through puckered lips and furiously flipped over to bury your head deeper into your pillow.

Whilst this was happening, Yoongi held his breath and immediately froze. It wasn’t until his feline-like eyes watched your body melt back into the mattress with ease, that he allowed his screaming lungs to breath once again.

Only until he was absolutely positive that you were deep within rem cycle, did Yoongi dare stalk forward to retrieve a closer viewing.

The very shapes and angles of your form was something Yoongi had committed to memory. He knew and worshiped every dip and crevice of your body. Your very being an oasis for his starved senses. Yet the full glory of it was always being kept away from him by flimsy clothing. A mirage of what he could have, but doesn’t. It was tragic in all honesty, to be given a slice of nirvana but never getting enough to reach minimum satisfaction. Yoongi was left always itching for his next fix. On his little nightly visits, Yoongi was always pushing and pushing for other ways to get said fix.

He had only started watching you sleep about a month ago. He knew of your address for a couple months now, but only very recently was he ballsy enough to enter your room through a window to study you. Free from any limitation as the fear of you catching onto him was eliminated.

It started to get progressively worse.

His thirst for you, that is. It was almost more real than his actual human needs.

One week, he went three days without eating. He didn’t even notice it until he nearly fainted while trying to climb up your window that he had been neglecting his needs. Due to this incident, Yoongi now has alarms set up on his phone to remind him of when to take care of himself (eating, sleeping, water, showering ect). He couldn’t risk something happening to him before getting to fully be with you like he was meant to.

On one of his earliest visits, Yoongi was startled by how enthralled he was by watching you sleep. It wasn’t as if he found the action in itself to be spectacular. It was easily deduced that it was because it was you sleeping that he was so magnetized. And like that, little things snowballed into an odd obsession of observing your rest.

When you’d utter something in your sleep that made no sense. (His favorite line being “My waffles are horny~”)

How you’d drool childishly, a stream of it hanging from side of your plump lips.

How some nights you were more active and violent, kicking and punching an unseen person by thrashing crazily in bed.

How you never seemed to be able to decipher if you were hot or cold. One minute, ripping the blankets away. The next, wrapping yourself within their warm hold once again.

His favorite though?

When you had nightmares.

Although he hated it when his baby was scared, he couldn’t deny the sick glee he got when he heard your adorably pathetic whimpers. God, it was his favorite symphony.

The first time you had a nightmare on one of his visits, Yoongi watched like an eager tourist as your face scrunched up in a puppy-like fear. It was too adorable for Yoongi to not want to see again.

He slipped his phone out and carefully captured your face, being sure his flash and ringer were off.

That photo ended up being the first of many, Yoongi finding a new hobby of trying to catch the best expressions and positions he could. He had to be careful with who had access to his device, your sleeping faces were both his lock and home screen.

It wasn’t until Yoongi began to tear his eyes away from you, that he became more aware of his surroundings. There was perhaps no better grounds for getting to know someone than inspecting their room with great focus. Yoongi began to investigate your tiny bedroom, noting the little trinkets and signs of living with fond amusement. Evidence for your hobbies were spread all over, Yoongi was quick to pick up on your love for (subject) and he must say he admired your dedication.

But it was in this period of trying to get to know the person behind the goddess that Yoongi came across his newest addictive tendency.

Your hamper.

Filled to the brim with used clothes that were waiting for their turn at laundry day.

He felt like a sicko, but he couldn’t help it.

Like some demented vulture, he snatched a shirt from the pile and pressed it to his face. And breathed in.

The smell was syrupy like candy but held an underlining of musk that is expected from any mammal. It was in no way gross though, your natural odor being something that was oddly sugary and delightful to Yoongi. If he could make a candle out of it he would.

Now everytime he visited, he was sure to sniff at a shirt or sweater. He never dared touch your underwear however. In some odd twist of logic, Yoongi perceived that as being intrusive to your boundaries. Not keeping in mind that he was technically breaking in, but who cared about pesky details like that?

Yoongi sighed and pulled out his phone to check the time, huffing with disappointment at the lateness of the hour. He had to leave.

But before he did that, he elaborately tip-toed to the hamper.

He needed his fix.

He reached down and plucked out a tank-top before practically shoving his face into the fabric.

He inhaled.

Inhaled. And inhaled.

Never exhaling.

He wished to ingest every molecule of you. As if he thought that if he absorbed enough, you would permanently become a part of him. Hungirly lapping at whatever leftover trace he could get of you. Yoongi would breathe in the blessed clothing until his lungs and nostrils would hum and sting with a vengeance for oxygen. Only then would he pull away.

After the ill deed was finished with, Yoongi swiftly made his way over to your window. He looked back at you, to capture a last lick of his drug before he would flee into the inky black night.

His addiction was never satisfied.

That’s why he made a mental note to bring restraints next time he visited.

A man’s patience can only go so far.

And you had a tendency to get violent in your sleep, anyway.

He couldn’t imagine the hell you would raise when you were conscious.

(Lmao this is kinda bad pls forgive me. Anyway, pls send in anymore requests and this is chinkbihh, 🔮signing off.)

#yandere bts #yandere #yandere yoongi #min yoongi #yandere kpop #bangtan boys #bts suga #suga #bts yoongi #agust d #one shot #horror #suspense #creepy #dark #obsession #admin chinkbihh

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devinstonerpg · 5 years

Photo

INTRODUCING,

NAME: Rupert Ambrosia.

AGE: Twenty-four.

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis male, he/him.

ORIGINALLY FROM: Devinstone, MA.

OCCUPATION: Socialite and Heir.

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Cider Hill.

" if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive."

BIOGRAPHY,

The affection Rupert Ambrosia has always sought is a kind that cannot be bought. He grew up in a household where financial indulgence was the only brand of love his absent parents knew how to offer, as well as a household where their children remained an afterthought until they were old enough to be considered useful. His earliest memories involve being ushered into the care of his nanny so that his parents, the owners of a renowned alcohol production company, could work in peace. His first words, his first steps – none of them happened in the presence of his mother or father. They missed endless milestones and, on the rare occasion that they were around, were both invariably too busy unsubtly checking work emails to pay attention. They spoiled him with endlessly expensive toys to make up for it, but never gave him the gift of their company, the one thing he’d grown to desire. He didn’t want luxuries. He just wanted love.

A softly-spoken and easily influenced child, Rupert was regarded as something of an anomaly by most. He was a gentle, whimsical little thing that refused to stay cooped up indoors and had a penchant for disappearing off into the grounds of his palatial family home to befriend the local wildlife. He idolised his older sister, Athena, trailing after her when she came back from private school for the holidays and wishing he could emulate her bravery. He also loved to paint from a young age, flinging colours onto canvases with reckless abandon, gifted with an ability to see the world in a kaleidoscope of colour; sometimes he felt as though he saw colours that didn’t even exist, frantically attempting to mix paints to recreate the shades that resided in his mind.

His earliest years, in retrospect, were the happiest he’s known. He didn’t realise it at the time, too preoccupied with the hole his parents absence had left, but he’d soon grow to learn that their attention, like absence, came with its own curses.

As he grew up, there was a distinct change in the atmosphere. His parents began to pay more attention to him, albeit acting in their own self-interest. The family company needed an heir, and Rupert, regardless of his opinion, was going to be that heir. The fact that all he wanted to do was be left in peace to paint was of no consequence to either of them. His parents put him under a microscope, analysing his every action and using it as some kind of moral lesson. He was told to speak louder, to take up space, to make himself heard. He wasn’t allowed to paint or go out into the grounds anymore – respectable young gentlemen didn’t walk around in paint-splattered clothing or have animated conversations with wildlife. He was told who he could and couldn’t speak to, how he could dress, how he should carry himself. His life felt like one lesson after another, and fun became a foreign concept in the Ambrosia household. His parents believed in endless rules, and the strict, implacable nature of family life wore Rupert down. He yearned for the company of Athena, yet she spent most of her time away at school. She was the black sheep of the family, something that Rupert, as the years went by, envied her for. The way they were treated was dehumanising in different ways – both ignoring and idolising someone were their own acts of unkindness – and Athena and Rupert were two sides of the same coin, suffering in a massive, miserable house.

While Athena was arguably stronger and got out from under the thumb of her parents, Rupert has always remained in their grasp. In his teenage years, he decided to give up entirely and give them everything they wanted. He swallowed down his dreams of being a painter and embraced the persona of an impossibly bratty young man. His relationship with Athena crumbled as a result – siding with his parents was the ultimate act of betrayal – and the pair now communicate exclusively through snide comments and eye rolls. He’s still waiting in the wings to take over the family business but, for now, is a man of leisure. He’s a socialite, attending fancy events and networking on his parents behalf. It’s a life of alcohol, needless indulgence and hollow relationships with people who are only ever acting in their best interests. He sees right through it all, how breakable businesses and their reputations are. He’s endlessly observant, studying parties forensically and trying not to be repulsed by how greedy and manipulative the entire scene is. He can be hypocritical – he’s part of that scene, after all – but, at his core, Rupert has never been able to shake off the feeling that he’s an outsider. He looks like he fits in, he sounds like he fits in, yet there’s a niggling voice in his head that tells him he’ll never be one of Them. Sometimes it’s a comforting thought. Other times it breaks his heart.

In recent months, he’s become slightly more outspoken, having grown weary of pretending to be something he’s not. His parents can usually still silence him into submission with a single look, but every time he speaks back, every time he doesn’t immediately do as he’s told, he feels alive. Something he’s managed to claw back for himself is his love of painting. His parents think it’s a messy, pointless hobby, unbefitting of a man of his calibre, but Rupert refuses to give it up. He spends most of his days covered in paint and, even when he’s forced into stiff business suits for events, there’s invariably flecks of it lingering beneath his nails. He rarely lets anyone see his artistic creations, preferring to keep them hidden, but if he trusts someone, he’ll gradually open up. Painting is a tiny rebellion that’ll likely never lead anywhere further but, given his track-record of caving into his parents every whim, his defiance is monumental. Lately, the tides feel as though they could be turning for him. He just has to be brave enough to let them.

+ artistic, well-intentioned, ambitious. - impressionable, materialistic, immature.

PLAYED BY: Pip.

FACE CLAIM: Alex Lawther.

#m #cider hill

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bts-love-sweat-tears · 6 years

Text

Café Potente

Title: Café Potente

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Type: cafe!au, pure tooth-rotting fluff!

Rating: PG

Warnings: Namjoon being a slight perv, kinkshaming if you squint (haha)

Word count: 1,628

Summary: In which Namjoon uses English and Clumsy to get himself a date.

A/N: First ever collab with @sugarcookiesandsins. She just had to re-create so be sure to follow her. She’s also the grand admin of a really amazing Discord fangirl server. This was both really fun and obnoxiously hard to write, bc we kept dying of uwus while writing (I’m old, does this make sense)? Anyway, sorry not sorry for the massive amounts of cheese.

For once in your life, you were hoping that the universe would cooperate. So far, everything was going perfectly: the bus schedule, the weather, the heavenly smell of freshly brewed coffee. But good things come only in threes and you felt it in your gut that the universe would be giving you something bad to balance it out.

Still, you soldiered on; you had been dying to try this new coffee shop, and it did not disappoint. From the soft fairy lights framing the chalkboard menu to the soft murmuring of the people around you, this cafe looked like it had been pulled straight from a fiction romance: the type of place where a meet-cute would happen. You dragged your eyes over the old-fashioned brick wall on the left side, patterned with a collage of art and paper notices, some advertising other stores and other simply messages about loving life.

All-in-all you could definitely see yourself coming back here, perhaps to study, or even just to curl up in that plush bean bag in the corner with a good book.

Walking further into your personal utopia, you entered the line and focused on the menu. It had all the classics, and even a special menu that you were considering making your way through. Settling on your order, you let your thoughts wander until they settled on the other patrons.

There was a tall boy in front of you, clad in all denim and a baseball cap pulled low over his face. You normally didn’t pay much attention to those around you, but the line was barely moving, and he had presence. He was on his phone, speaking animatedly about something or other. As you eyed him idly, you realized that the phone conversation he was having was in perfect English. It had been months since you had had any meaningful conversations, rather than the mindless repetition of colors and numbers you circled though with your students.

Without permission from your social graces, your feet moved closer, yearning to hear more about whatever mundane conversation he was having. Just as you got close enough to actually hear the conversation, it was finally his turn to order. He almost dropped his phone upon hanging up, scrambling to catch it, but knocking over the tip jar in the process. It clanged noisily to the ground and you noticed a blush tint the top of his ears as he bent down to recover it.

It seemed that luck was not on his side however as his hat managed to catch on the lip of the counter falling off his head to the hardwood floor. You picked it up, and handed it to him. He nodded gratefully but didn’t say anything. You had been hoping to strike up a conversation with the stranger, but he clearly had enough on his plate. He moved to the far end of the counter to wait for his drink and before you could think of anything to say, it was your turn to order.

After ordering and paying for your drink, you moved down to the far end of the counter, and stood once again behind the taller man. He was back on his phone, emphatically gesturing as he continued his conversation on the phone. He seemed clueless that he was mixing korean and english into a new language all its own. It was oddly endearing.

You thought that you were at a respectable normal distance, but apparently chaos was a natural state of being for him. Before you knew what had happened, you were covered in the remnants of his drink. Though you knew forces of entropy were present in the universe, this boy must have been prime among them.

Somehow, in the scant seconds between grabbing his drink and spinning around, the two of you collided. You had expected that such a public embarrassment would move slowly, like in the seconds before a fall, but no. In one fell swoop, you had gone from cozy anticipation of your drink to completely drenched in his. You felt like a complete idiot, standing there frozen pondering the statistical probability of what had just occurred.

However frozen you felt, though, the chaotic bilingual boy in front of you was a flurry of energy, moving for the napkins, apologizing profusely, and somehow still managing to maintain that smooth flow of bilinguality with whoever was on the other end.

You decided to choose one for him, with a small grin you pacified the man. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” You rejoiced as the syllables flowed out your mouth, relishing in the rare feeling of speaking english.

His eyes widened comically, whether surprised at your language skills, or lack of rage; you couldn’t be entirely certain. Still he managed to compose himself pretty quickly, before blurting out a final apology, seemingly blank on any other words.

You covered your giggle with your hand, momentarily forgetting about the brown stain on the front of your favorite t-shirt, emblazoned with the words THAT GIRL. But, the passing breeze of an opening door felt cold against the front of your chest, causing you to try to shield your torso from the offending wind.

You glared at the new customer, blaming them for the new awkwardness you were feeling. Yet, you felt the pointed stare of someone. Turning back to the clumsy genius, you raised an eyebrow at the way his eyes were fixated on your chest. Seeing his pupils moving back and forth was the only thing keeping you from slapping his porcelain skin.

“Oi. My eyes are up here you know.” His face bloomed roses as he realized what it had looked like from your perspective. Stumbling over his words, he tried quickly to excuse himself. The next words out of his mouth satiated your rage completely.

“It’s not what you think. Just trying to figure out whether you’re a Marlo Thomas or Phoebe Buffay fan.” Whatever words you had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t these. Instead of swearing off men forever, you were wondering whether you had just met your soulmate. Not only was he a fellow 90s kid, but he also knew one of the original leading ladies of primetime TV.

“And if I say both?” You tease, wondering whether his words would be as clumsy as his actions. Instead, he was surprisingly smooth, and despite his earlier mishaps, his entire demeanor had changed from a gangly awkward youth to someone comfortable with witty repartee.

“Then I would say that we need to meet up again to fully discuss the pros and cons of each of the shows. This is a serious undertaking and we can’t be rash,” though his words suggest gravity, the expression on his face indicates that he is joking.

“Same time next week? And maybe next time, I won’t become your personal coffee dispenser.”

Never in your life would you have thought to yourself that the most obscure t-shirt in your wardrobe would be the reason you fell in love, yet here you were cuddled on the couch, tracing words on the paper as warm breaths caressed your neck.

“You done reading baby?” You nod your head once, shift backwards to envelop yourself even more in Namjoon’s embrace. At his words, you put down your book and try to be more present in the moment with the love of your life.

It was a Friday night, almost 2 years to the day that Namjoon had the great misfortune of spilling coffee and inadvertently staring at your chest. You had the great fortune of meeting a cute, nerdy, multi-talented guy who enjoyed the same old tv shows at you, and remembered the same microscopic details that you did.

It had gotten to the point where none of your friends wanted to hang out with you anymore, the two of you finishing each other’s movie quotes and winning incessantly at trivia. But you and Namjoon couldn’t be happier much to your friends’ chagrin. And despite their grumbles, you knew that they were happy that the two of you had found someone so perfectly matched.

You smiled at the memory as Namjoon turned the page for the both of you. It had become a tradition; both of you cuddled up on the couch under the blanket that you had gifted him the first Christmas. There was always coffee on the small table, the dark color contrasting against matching couple mugs.

It was enough to make someone vomit, but you didn’t mind, and neither did he. In fact, the two of you would often try to outdo each other on the mug front, and you were never at a loss for a clean cup for a warm beverage. Some might call you hoarders, but you and Joon maintained that you were collectors.

You finally had the man of your dreams, romantic, nerdy, and caring all wrapped into one being and sprinkled with a dash of clumsy for good measure.

“I guess the world was wrong Joonie?” Your boyfriend lifted his eyes from the book, glasses allowing you to see the shades of brown that painted his irises. He gave you a quizzical look that made you giggle - it wasn’t often that you were able to confuse him.

“Good things don’t come in threes. They come in fours.”

“Spilling my coffee on you was a good thing? You know, y/n, some might call that a kink.” His dimples are out full force, softening your heart and the gentle smack to his arm.

“You know, Joon, for someone so smart, you’re pretty dumb sometimes,” you want to make him sweat a little, but you are unable to keep a straight face.

“I mean you.”

#hyunglinenetwork #btsguild #kim namjoon x reader #kim namjoon x you #bts cafe au #bts fluff #oneshot

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lostinlogicerror · 5 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: ゴールデンカムイ | Golden Kamuy (Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kikuta/Tsurumi Tokushirou Characters: Tsurumi Tokushirou, Kikuta (Golden Kamuy) Additional Tags: Stargazing, Dubious Astronomy, Mutual Pining, Comfort/Angst, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship Summary:

Tsurumi appears to be spiraling downward. Kikuda takes matters into his own hands.

The sky seemed brighter that night. A clear moon provided just enough natural light to assist Tsurumi in his search, making it easier to spot the familiar figure ahead.

He found him a good way further up the trench - in the exact spot he was directed to by Kikuda's close subordinate who seemed to painstakingly keep note of his superior's whereabouts at all times of day and Tsurumi could certainly appreciate such meticulousness — staring off into a distance seemingly lost in thought.

Awake, as expected, in spite of the late hour. Your jittering nerves would often make it difficult if not outright impossible to catch any sleep right before an important event.

Tsurumi thought himself a stranger to that kind of anxiety. Tomorrow had to come (with or without him), there was simply no other eventuality. Yet here he was, experiencing a certain tightness in the pits of his stomach that he couldn't deny, not even to himself. A foreboding feeling. As if his instincts were picking up on signs his mind couldn't yet process.

"Warrant Officer Kikuda." he said loudly enough to announce his arrival, but not too intrusive as to not stir any of the soldiers dozing off nearby.

Once jolted back from his reverie, the taller man hurriedly turned to face him, pulling out his hands from his coat pockets out of reflex. Clearly, he didn't hear him approaching.

"First Lieutenant Tsurumi. Shouldn't you be resting, sir?" The initial surprise etched on his features gave way to something akin to concern. As he's come to expect of the man by now, his face read like an open book. Oddly Tsurumi didn't dislike that trait in him.

"That applies to you as well," he countered easily.

Kikuda only huffed good-naturedly in response, if somewhat exasperated. And just like that, the tangible tension in his shoulders appeared to be gone. An offended frown turned into a grin in concert with his rigid posture relaxing — now looking open, inviting. Tsurumi felt himself pulled forward toward the other man.

"Just between us" Kikuda trailed off, anticipating Tsurumi to step closer before continuing "I'm often having trouble sleeping in the days leading up to a full moon."

"Insomnia. That's quite a predicament."

"Well. It has its good sides." Kikuda looked up briefly at nothing in particular, before exhaling deeply and lowering his gaze again, brows raised in wordless question.

After an extended moment of silence and no further prompting, it became obvious Kikuda must have expected Tsurumi to confide in him. And yet, he couldn't even begin to express what the matter is, didn't want to in fact. For as much pride as he took in his analytical skills, he was reluctant to put his own self under a microscope, to probe around the nooks and crannies of his mind.

Truth be told, Tsurumi had no actual reason or excuse to seek out the man's company in the middle of the night. Everything of strategical importance that needed to be said, was already discussed during officers' meeting when they went over the logistics of the incoming day.

Ever since Kikuda has been promoted to the rank of Warrant Officer and assigned his own platoon, they found themselves separated more often than not. It was unavoidable, of course. Presently, he had to content himself with merely catching a glimpse of him in the chaos of a day.

In all these years they knew each other, Tsurumi realized, he came to associate Kikuda with stability. As agonizingly straightforward as he was — a virtue of his that seemed to be both a blessing and sometimes a curse — he carried a sense of integrity about him Tsurumi could always depend on.

With the threat of Ogata gradually slipping away and Tsukishima shutting him out looming over Tsurumi lately like a guillotine, he felt trapped in this uncertain reality, longing to grasp onto something solid.

"You must be wondering why I'm here." in the end he chose to offer him the truth, stripped to its essence "I was yearning for your company, to put it simply."

A harsh intake of breath - audible enough to send shivers up his spine - was the only indication Tsurumi's rather forward statement wasn't just taken at face value. But considered, carefully.

For a lengthy moment, both of them seemed to be caught up in a self-inflicted stupor, frozen in place. It was Kikuda who finally broke the spell. There was a resolute certainty to his movements as he turned around and indicated for Tsurumi to join him with a slight inclination of his head.

Standing alongside the other man, facing forward toward a vast expanse of land covered in glistening snow, he felt indulged. Yet no longer at ease as the heavy atmosphere has settled between them and polluted the air.

Unwilling to elaborate further and clarify his thoughts, his needs — now wasn't the time to venture into uncharted waters of their relationship, which Tsurumi didn't even have a term for — he settled for changing the subject.

"That reminds me, what were you so immersed in?"

"Huh?"

"You seemed awfully engrossed in something before I so rudely interrupted you."

"You didn't-" he started to rebuff him, but then apparently thought better of it as he just shook his head in baffled defeat "Ah, well. Isn't it obvious?"

Now Tsurumi's curiosity really was piqued, he urged Kikuda to continue with an expectant stare.

"It's not often you can see the stars so clearly."

Oh. Yes, now that he mentioned it. Tsurumi lifted his eyes upward, for the first time that night truly acknowledging the breathtaking display.

Indeed, a myriad of stars illuminated the night sky giving it a hazy quality. And has done it with such splendor, even the near-full moon's silver glow seemed to yield to their radiance. Appearing to enhance their emanating brilliance instead.

"You're right. It's a splendid view." he admitted, before adding teasingly, very much enjoying their easy rapport "Although I didn't peg you for a star enthusiast."

Kikuda only chuckled. From the corner of his eye, he saw him shrug, just a bare lift of his shoulders. "Who wouldn't be taken in by such a sight?"

Tsurumi could name a few.

"I was just thinking..." there was a clear shift in Kikuda's tone as he appeared to mull over his next words carefully.

Tsurumi felt an apprehension settle in his stomach he attributed to cool breeze working its way through his clothing.

"The stars are hanging so low tonight, almost within arm's reach. As if you could grasp them, were you to extend your hand."

They do say the clear cloudless nights are usually the coldest.

"In reality, they're determined to remain distant and unreachable. So stubborn." he scoffed but his next words almost came off as a whisper "Why do you think that is, sir? Tsurumi."

He could feel his heart skip a beat. Whether it was due to softness embedded in Kikuda's voice, a deliberate slip of decorum or that keen gaze piercing through his skin to his very core, Tsurumi didn't know.

"Our perception can be an illusory thing." he breathed out with a note of desperation in his voice. He didn't regret his words. He did.

"Is that so?"

There was a definite drop in temperature. Tsurumi watched his breath condense into mist as he exhaled, almost mesmerized, letting Kikuda's skeptical response hang in the air between them.

Kikuda's expression remained inscrutable, unbearably so, for the first time ever perhaps, out of Tsurumi's reach. And it finally hit him. He really did corrode everything he touched, no matter how durable or flexible the material they were made of, it was only a matter of time.

Above all else, he was also a very selfish man.

So he cast his eyes skyward, wanting them to resume their stargazing as a token of peace offering.

"Are you familiar with winter constellations, perhaps?" he asked while attempting to recall their patterns, the knowledge he still retained from his studies in his youth. A distant past where he was allowed to freely pursue arts and education and wished for nothing more. It felt like someone else's life now. "The constellation of Orion ought to be-"

"I gaze upwards toward the moon in the skies"

Startled by an abrupt interruption, he felt himself freeze, wondering whether he only imagined a whisper in the wind (or the Dead reciting in his ear, taunting him).

"And downwards look when a nostalgia does arise."

This must have been an elaborate dream after all. Not being able to fight the compulsion, he spun around toward the wistful voice, only to find himself reflected in Kikuda's gaze. The tangible longing taking his breath away.

He kept staring into his eyes transfixed as if they were suspended in time until he could bear it no longer.

Stifling the urge to clear his throat, he plowed forward "There, these three stars in a row would be Orion's belt."

He raised his arm and was about to start tracing the pattern in the sky with his index finger when suddenly he felt himself stopped by a tentative touch.

Kikuda's larger and impossibly warmer hand was covering his, rendering him speechless.

"That's enough, don't you think?" After it became clear Tsurumi's not pulling away, he gripped his hand firmly in both of his hands to rub life back into it "You're freezing, damn you."

He was. And Tsurumi couldn't even fault him for his miffled but well-meaning admonition.

He could feel the tingling of blood circulating through his fingers with renewed vigor — it tickled — but still, it was nothing compared to the warmth spreading on his cheeks, once Kikuda brought his hand closer to his face and pressed a soft kiss against his knuckles.

"There. All better."

He couldn't decide whether he was more flustered or irked by Kikuda's self-satisfied smile. At any rate, he would do something about it, if only his limbs were cooperating.

Now that the air was cleared, he felt like all the tension was gone from his body, leaving him exhausted.

"You're aggravating sometimes, you know." Tsurumi had to concede to that one.

"My apolo-"

"Shhh."

Kikuda finally let go of his hand just so he could unbutton his thick coat and open it to him in clear invitation.

"Come here, you're not the only one feeling cold."

Honestly, Tsurumi didn't need further prompting, now that all the hesitation from earlier appeared to be gone. He maneuvered himself and leaned with his back against the other man, settling his head under his chin, it didn't take much to make himself comfortable. Huddled like this together, Kikuda's coat shielding them from the wind, it really felt warmer. He didn't even realize how numb he was until now.

He hummed, in contentment, when Kikuda's hand clasped his again and started rubbing comforting circles with his thumb. He was getting so drowsy already.

"Speaking of constellations." this close, with no actual space between them, Tsurumi could feel his voice reverberate through him "What do you think would they name us? I have a couple of ideas, myself."

Tsurumi couldn't tell when their relations evolved, exactly, but at some point, it became imperative they remained in each other's orbit. Everything else was details.

"Do you ever wonder what kind of picture do we make?" Kikuda went on in his hushed voice, wholly unbothered by Tsurumi's silence and he began to suspect he was trying to talk him to sleep. It appeared to be working. "I bet we would shine just as brightly. More so. Adorning the sky for eternity."

Tsurumi didn't correct him. He chose not to tell him that even the star's life is finite or that the brightest stars burn out quicker. That these celestial bodies he's gazing at in wonder are in many instances gone already, and only their traveling light is still reaching them, like an afterimage. Ghosts left behind.

He squeezed Kikuda's hand in reassurance and chose to focus on the warmth of their embrace instead. It made him feel safe, wanted. He could still sense the light tingle on his skin left behind in wake of Kikuda's lips. Even dead people walking should be allowed some fleeting happiness, he figured.

#golden kamuy #kikuumii #kikuda jonas #kikuta #tsurumi #my writing #otp: poppy and chrysanthemum

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sugarcookiesandsins · 6 years

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Café Potente

Word Count: 1.6+ Warnings: slight perv, slight kinkshaming if you squint Notes: collab with @/bts-love-sweat-tears - please give her all the love and affection! She was wonderful to work with!

All-in-all you could definitely see yourself coming back here, perhaps to study, or even just to curl up in that plush bean bag in the corner with a good book.

“Same time next week? And maybe next time, I won’t become your personal coffee dispenser.”

You finally had the man of your dreams, romantic, nerdy, and caring all wrapped into one being and sprinkled with a dash of clumsy for good measure.

“Good things don’t come in threes. They come in fours.”

“Spilling my coffee on you was a good thing? You know, y/n, some might call that a kink.” His dimples are out full force, softening your heart and the gentle smack to his arm.

“You know, Joon, for someone so smart, you’re pretty dumb sometimes,” you want to make him sweat a little, but you are unable to keep a straight face.

“I mean you.”

#kim namjoon x reader #bts x reader #collab #café potente #kim namjoon #bts-love-sweat-tears #café series #one-shot #sugarcookiesandsins

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winemilywin · 7 years

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family shows up.

“If you haven’t seen the latest Jane the Virgin episode, you must watch it,” read a text I received from a good friend last week. This friend wanted me to watch it because she knew an episode titled “Jane the Heteronormative” would spark my interest. While watching Jane discover that her boyfriend is bisexual in the storytelling beauty of a telenovela is fun and dramatic, I caught a morsel of wisdom in the secondary plot. In the midst of Jane’s dating fiasco, her baby daddy comes to stay after being hit by a car and losing all of his money, his love, and his career. After she wakes to check on him in his vulnerable physical and emotional state, he thanks her for all of her help despite their rough history. Her simple reply is, “family shows up.”

Her response echoed in my head for the rest of the day, begging to be written down, reflected on, and thought out. Family shows up. All season I had been reading through many books and devotionals yearning for a verse, line, prayer, or reflection question to jump out and guide me to processing something. I never thought I’d find it in the middle of a Netflix series (for those who don’t know, I’m not a big TV watcher). Family shows up? Indeed Jane, they do.

Yes, two months ago I was hit on my bike by a cargo van that didn’t stop after speeding through an intersection. Immediately I had enough awareness to know I was going to be somewhat okay. The true pain came from isolation, discomfort, and unfamiliarity. Laying on the road alone, riding in the ambulance, and even waiting for my housemates to come to the ER proved to be the scariest parts. I kept thinking “Thank God I have people who care about me enough to come and sit.” My housemates entertained me into the night while texts and calls were rolling in from many loved ones. The next morning my mom showed up and a few days later I was on a flight home, only to be welcomed by flowers, cards, presents, and friends all wishing me well. I had never felt more thankful for my friends and family than in those first few weeks of lifting me, feeding me, showering me, and changing all of my bandages. I often felt myself getting extremely emotional because I knew I needed them all to show up in the ways that they did and I couldn’t offer them anything in return. It was the ultimate test of receiving with open arms. And for that, I really do thank God. This wide open space for receiving and healing left many hours to distract myself away from what was really going on in my head.

About halfway through my healing time at home I FaceTimed with a very good friend to exchange year-of-service stories. When he asked me how I was “really doing” I described my emotional/mental state as “all of the questioning, challenging, and theoretical thoughts of a year of service without any of the fun or joy from my placement or community.” For six weeks I’ve been evaluating my home-self under a microscope: How much have I consumed today? How much is appropriate to spend/eat? Is watching too much TV a sin? What does my annoyance with the small inconvenience of my health tell me about my privileges? Why is it that I am blessed with the ability to have a “month off” and others are not? What does it mean to have a day off of serving and working towards justice when others are living on the other end? To what extent is control a privilege? Am I really living simply? Should I be giving up more right now? Do I need to change my future plans because they don’t serve any particular need? These are what I call ugly, but important, thoughts. They weigh me down, taunt me, poke at me until I speak back and act up. These past two months have challenged me in more intellectual and emotional ways than I ever thought possible. It is becoming clear to me that the hidden and heavy parts of JVC are in the choices, actions, and thoughts outside of the JVC community (which is the goal of the program...go figure). This whole post-college year-of-service life comes with its obstacles and barriers, but I am always reminded that family (extended and all) shows up to offer gentleness and assurance.

For me, family literally showed up: at the scene of the accident, during the aftermath, and continuously through the days and weeks. The phrase “family shows up” sparks my soul because the sentence implies so much more. Family shows up even if you can’t show up for them. Family shows up even if you haven’t called them in weeks. Family shows up even if you’re in an argument. Family shows up even if it costs thousands of dollars. Family shows up even if it’s across the world. Family shows up even if it means rearranging your schedule. Family shows up even if you think you have complete independence, proving that you don’t.

In the two months I’ve spent healing at home I have felt the power of family showing up. Intense, emotional, crazy, silly, and unconditional, I know now that family will always show up for me even if I’ve done nothing to earn it. There is a bond so much deeper than holidays and vacations, nights out and final exams, that is present in all of my family that shows up for me. So thank you, family (in all of its forms) for showing up and challenging me with unconditional love and comfort.

From one heart to another,

Emily

As an aside, I’m currently reading two reflection guides in response to my spiritual weariness: Awareness by Anthony DeMello, SJ and In the Sanctuary of Women by Jan Richardson. Both have aided and challenged my soul in the quest for meaning and finding God in all things. In Richardson's first chapter on Eve and beginnings, she references the poem “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon. In response, she writes her own poem in the style of Lyon’s and offers the thought that a reflection of your past beginnings can be a map to your future. In the midst of my intimate time with family and thinking through current vocations as a response to my ugly thoughts, I find this poem to be extremely relevant. She asks readers to create their own, so I did.

Where I’m From

I come from Rainbow.

From a small house

with big dreams,

from people who worked

hard to start a life

different than their own

I come from sandy dunes,

mountain climbs, backyard shenanigans,

Northern sunsets, long car rides

From loyal dogs, friendly neighbors,

Catholic schools and Midwestern hospitality

I come from Tun--

Eastern in tradition, strong in study,

steadfast in discipline, tough on dreams,

A rock in the beginning of an American family

I come from storytelling--

from a world of imagination,

day dreaming and conquering my fears

From dress-up princess to playful parades,

firework shows, fairy tales, sing-a-longs,

believing without seeing and

cherishing all that is given

I come from layovers

thousands of miles across

many seas and skies,

From Salty Dog reunions

And Disney getaways

I come from curiosity,

from exploring the world

first through Florida, then

elsewhere. From eating, drinking,

dancing, dressing, learning from

you, her, him, them.

#harrisonphoto #&design janethevirgin family bond friends reflection awareness JVC

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groovy-hottub-llama · 7 years

Text

Domestic Appliance Abuse

Short fic here :)

Pairing:Kakasaku Rating:General, Fun for all :D

Domestic Appliance Abuse

She was only walking that way out of curiosity. The screeching sound was mechanical, but that was as much as she could tell. There was a small group of people, all worried civilians that had paused under the balcony of the apartment to find why the dying screams of an appliance echoed mournfully across the street. Several of the neighbours had poked their heads out of various doors and windows in the hopes of finding out exactly what was going on.

Walking around the group of people outside she hopped up the steps, flinching as the volume increased the closer she got to the door. She knocked on the door forcefully, but couldn't hear her own knocks over the noise coming from the apartment.

"KAKASHI-SENSEI?" She yelled above the racket, "IS EVERYTHING OKAY?"

There was no answer save a sudden flurry of high pitched screeches and a sudden shriek of shattering metal. An instant later she was breaking down the door with a chakra charged fist and flying across the hall and into the kitchen.

"Kakash-, oh my god…what…why!?"

Kakashi squatted over the torn remains of what looked like a washing machine, fist still buried in the wreckage. From the ruins of the washing machine water puddled at his bare feet and bled out across the floor in an odd parody of one of his less publicised, previous occupations.

"Hello Sakura. On your way to work?"

Taken aback by his nonchalance in the face of massive destruction in such a domestic setting she paused to gather herself and then take in the situation.

"Kakashi…why have you destroyed your washing machine?"

"Would you believe it was a wardrobe malfunction?"

Sakura stared at the older shinobi, then at the floor and noticed the puddle approaching her feet and stepped around it and up onto a chair, where she resumed staring at him.

"Only you could come up with an excuse like that Kakashi-sensei."

"Hey now, I haven't been your Sensei in such a long time Sakura-chan!"

"And yet you teach me, even after all this time, about the stupidity inherent in ninja, in spite of your age and experience."

His mask shifted and she raised an eyebrow as she folded her arms across her chest, fixing him with a disapproving glare.

"Stop pouting." She ordered.

His eyebrows furrowed slightly. It was the only indication of whatever annoyance he might be feeling that showed. She kept her smirk to herself as he rose and absently shook off his hand, unclenching his fist and stretching out his fingers experimentally. Sakura noted there wasn't any injuries on his hand, despite him not wearing his usual gloves.

"I'm not, and are you implying that I don't act my age? If you are, I have to inform you that I find that rather offensive given our illustrious past."

"I've heard our past described as quite a few things ~sensei~,” she stretched the title scathingly and continued, “but I don't think I've ever heard our teams mission history called 'illustrious' before."

She glanced between the mess that was Hatake Kakashi's former kitchen and the owner of said kitchen skeptically.

"You know, you could have just unplugged it."

"Ah, well, the thought had crossed my mind-"

"-let me guess, the wardrobe malfunction was of such offense that the Fashion Police were practically banging down your door, and you had little time to dispose of the evidence."

"That is a lot more fun that what actually happened. Can you tell my landlord that while I go and replace my laundry device and find a carpenter to…" he turned away from her to peer into the metallic ruins at his feet, "…repair my neighbours ceiling?"

Kakashi looked at his right hand in confusion.

"A little overboard perhaps?" He muttered, mostly to himself.

"What actually happened? Tell me, or your landlord is going to hear a completely different story. A MUCH worse one. Believe me."

He turned a close-eyed smile at her and chuckled lightly, scratching the back of his head in a brief display of awkwardness that would have been endearing if the smell of ozone and seared metal wasn't permeating the air. She unfolded her arms and placed her fisted hands firmly on her hips, cocking her head at him expectantly.

"Well?" She prompted.

Kakashi sighed and dropped his arm back down to his side, shoulders slumping in defeat.

"I got back from a mission and put my jacket in the machine."

Sakura looked confused.

"I left something in it."

"And you couldn't just turn it off and take it out?"

"It was a scroll."

Comprehension dawned on her face.

"An explosive scroll?"

He nodded.

"Time delayed, but only for a moment. I didn't have time to open the thing up and deactivate it. I had to destroy it before the seal fully released."

Sakura's hands shot up and fisted in her hair.

"You were so tired that you forgot you left a weapon in your jacket before you tried to wash it?!"

"I woke up pretty sharply afterwards."

"You Chidori'd your washing machine Kakashi! I should report this and have you put on compulsory leave! If it'd been someone else here they'd have you on a psyche-evaluation too!"

The older ninja has the decency to look a little sheepish, but he brightened as she groaned and put her face in her hands.

"Thank you Sakura."

"Don't thank me you idiot."

"Ah, but you really do have my eternal gratitude, Haruno-sama." He says with a grateful crease of his eyes and a quick tug of his hitai-ate.

She tries to hide her smile behind her hands, but the man is infuriatingly charming when he wants to be and she's always been ridiculously overwhelmed by praise, especially from people she respects. Even if they are complete morons occasionally.

______

Omake:

"So you're telling me that it was," pages flip quickly as the kunoichi behind the desk, "an electrical fault with the machine?"

Sakura laughs genially and nods in time with Kakashi who is nursing a bruised hand. She tucks the reason for said injury into her thigh holster under his yearning gaze. He was not going to be reading that right now. Or, from the looks of things, for a while.

Suzume checks and re-checks Sakura's report, face stony and unreadable, even as she moves her focus from the paperwork to the two ninja sitting.

"Electrical fault?" Suzume turns an evaluating gaze on Kakashi, who merely coughs politely behind a closed hand before shrugging nonchalantly.

"I'd had the machine for a while. It was a cheap model, not really designed to take care of the more…interesting stains that are a consequence of the profession."

She studies him not unlike how Sakura remembers Shizune examining blood samples under the microscope. To his credit he doesn't flinch.

She doesn't either when that look turns to scrutinise her. The smirk that follows it, however, catches her completely by surprise.

"Haruno-san, it says here that you were thanked for your prompt arrival to the scene by Hatake-san. I hope he expressed his gratitude for your concern appropriately."

"Yes." She wheezes out, forcing chakra to her face to prevent the reddening she knows is blooming there. "He was nothing if not appreciative considering the situation."

The older woman nods, smirk still firmly in place. She puts the paperwork into a neat stack, taps it on the desk to square it up and pops it into a folder without further comment.

"Your new washing machine will be with you by tomorrow morning. And your floor?"

"Tenz-" a sharp elbow well placed quickly corrects him, "-at ten tonight Yamato-san is coming to see to it personally."

"How kind of him."

"Yes, it certainly is."

#Kakasaku #Sakukaka

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ofhoratio · 7 years

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we carry the lives we might have lived

Mama is cooking kamounia again, her knife slicing through thick beef liver and cutting meat into chunks on the chopping board. Liver, she often complains, is much harder to find in Italy. She does not get to cook often. Hector does not have many memories of her cooking, just the indistinct phantasm of summer sun marking crosses on Mama’s skin through the window, the sharpness of the mint plant on the windowsill, water running in the sink.

“How was school?”

The meat is mixed in with the onions and the spices, brine and paprika and salt. He can smell it from the doorway, pungent like vinegar.

“It was good.”

“Is papa back yet?” Hector is thinking of class, of the oleanders outside the biology lab window, salmon pink and full.

For a moment, Mama does not reply. Just long enough for Hector to realize something is wrong.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh. Yes.” Stomach churning, gravity heavy. Cicadas in the garden.

Mama is looking at him, disappointed. “How could you forget?”

Hector is sick of this dream.

Sometimes, Hiran looks at him as if Hector is something holy. He touches Hector as if he is pure.

He does not know if it is from a dream or if it is from reality, he remembers Hiran had smiled and said he was the sun.

Hector does not shine nearly as bright to be a star.

Stars are meant to burn brighter before they die. They are meant to die as supernovas, massive and bright and cataclysmic.

When Hector dreams he is not burning. He is in fifth grade, he is by the sea and he is looking down to the waves, watching them crash against the rocks. He slips. He falls into the sea. He knows it is a dream because in fifth grade he had slipped and fallen and he must have been metres away from the edge. There had been a railing.

Hector dreams of crashing into the ocean, except it is not a crashing at all but an enveloping.

Salt water does not taste of anything, It is the kind of suffocation that in dreams he becomes resigned to.

The sunlight is in cold strips on his skin, passing through the water and glimmering through the waves. There is just enough pain to be painful. Just not enough to struggle.

Hector is still drowning when he opens his eyes.

He realizes he is saying it all wrong. Hiran looks at him as if Hector is the sun. Hector is not the sun. The paradigm shifts on its axis.

The axis is this: he is afraid of the way Hiran looks at him.

Orion is like an entomologist. Hector had learned the word in third grade, chubby fingers pulling back pen-scrawled pages of a biology textbook. Someone who studied insects for a living. Peeling them open, taking out a little microscope, cutting and dissecting and vivisecting.

Orion is only like an entomologist. He is not one. He will stop in the middle, after he has finished with Hector’s limbs, cut away his eyes, his lungs down to his heart. Orion is only interested in the dissection.

Hector arches his spine. He is thinking about the snakes in Egypt, spotted and dusty like the sand they glissaded across, jawless mouths opened wide as they ingested their prey whole.

He presses his slick skin against Orion’s shoulder, turns his head into Orion’s neck. Salt on his teeth. Orion smells of sweat and cologne, Italy’s sweltering summers and the brackish Adige tepid to the touch.

Hector thinks of swallowing and being swallowed, of the hibiscus bloom he had drawn in fifth grade, mapping its drooping pistil in his little notebook, pencil smudging on the stamens. Peeling petals to chart the organs of the flower, splitting its stem to discover the veins beneath. What had been the point?

Orion’s hands are on his stomach, fingers wrapped around his side, pressing him down, taking and taking and Hector lets him take. Darkness, lamplight, the smell of gasoline burning, soreness in every motion as the parted blinds let the moon through.

“I hate you,” Hector says, and he thinks it could be a dream, he thinks it could be reality: Orion’s eyes are liquid amber in the dark, the lamplight making his dark hair glint.

“I hate you,” Hector repeats.

“Do you?” Orion asks.

Cicadas on steel railings, strung up on the trunks of streetlamps.

"Wait.” He says. “Please wait.”

Hiran waits.

“I’m sorry.” He is helpless, breaking, broken, there are cicada shells on the trees and cicada calls from the grass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to say.”

He does not remember what Hiran says, after that.

He thinks it might have been: it’s too late.

“I didn’t know you drew.” Hiran says.

Hiran knows he draws. Hector had used to draw him in fifth grade. They had made jokes about it, he’s sure.

Hector wakes with the taste of sunsets and ink in his mouth.

Grasshoppers in the summer. Air conditioning a constant hum at night. Using a knife to slice an orange. Scraping out the white pith in the middle. Counting segments. He wants to find his childhood again.

In the evenings he strips his gun. Frame, slide, magazine, pushing the bore through the barrel once, twice, four times. The smell of gun grease, solvents poured on brushes, pressing oil slick hands to his eyes and heaving dinner into the sink.

Fuchsia and prussian blue staining on his throat, blossoming, fading. He closes his eyes to the sotto voce of strangers in nightclubs and hotels, he lets them take the pieces of him they want. The atriums of his heart are a little too punctured for anyone to want.

It’s not enough. Hector yearns for a connection he is helpless to find. He tries to find it in Orion, in all the moments inbetween. If he presses close enough his skin might break and everything empty in him will split open and cram Orion’s softness into his flesh. Cruelty is very much like softness when Orion gives it to him.

Hector is dazedly, achingly, terrifyingly consumed.

"I wish I could hate you.” Hector says.

Orion’s cuffs are white as reaches into Hector’s chest and pulls out his thumping heart.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“It’s alright.” Hiran says. “I’m here now.”

What would it have been like? 2017, art exhibits in Milan and Florence, drinking coffee on the street, meeting strangers in high-rise buildings and following them home with kisses on his wrists and wine stains on his mouth.

Any life but this, artist, engineer, teacher, buying cat-food at the supermarket, looking at recipes on google and trying to bake three-tier raspberry cakes. Filling his life with things he wanted, things he liked.

He is curled up on the floor, trying to get rid of the hole inside his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Hiran asks.

Hector’s voice dies to silence. His tongue is heavy. Under the clammy muscle the words have stuck like a communion wafer, tasteless and stale. The first time he had eaten one it had stayed there until he pursed his lips and took a sip of tepid grape juice, felt the dry flake dissolve into salvation.

He doesn’t have any water now. Not even grape juice.

He should say something. He can think of all the things he wants to say.

Like a poem, all his words have formed in his thoughts. He remembers a phrase from somewhere, a half-remembered sonnet, a quote from a book of poetry-

We carry the lives we might have lived.

I feel as Sisyphus does. I cannot help this absurdity.

Would you forgive me if I left you?

“It’s cold,” Hector says, and then, “I was thinking there’s no heat in space.”

@orionmassetti @h-godrej

#writing #moa rcharac t e r s t u d y screams #1300 words of angst

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