#i’m sure it wasn’t even the full angst train

[rhyrhy]

Venom in the veins 🕸️

Spider!Ellie x Fem Villain reader

✦ Synopsis: When trust is broken, and alliances shift. Your local friendly neighborhood spiderwoman! is forced to choose between her love and loyalty!

✦ Warnings: enemies to lovers to enemies..? Angst, violence, death/grief , language, romantic tension, familial issues. 5k words.

A/n: thank you to @s0phi3w4lt3n , because their lovely brain is helping make this possible. This is chapters 1-2. (3-7 will be separate posts!) + Ellie’s suit desc is based off this beautiful art!

October 5th

I guess I finally understand what it means to wear the weight of something bigger than yourself.

Nobody tells you how lonely this gets. They say it’s a responsibility. A privilege. But nobody warns you about the nights when your body’s so sore you can’t move, or when you have to smile at people who would hate you if they knew the whole truth.

And the worst part? I should’ve seen it coming.

I should’ve known the second I woke up with a spider bite the size of a penny and a bad feeling in my gut.

But I was just a dumb kid clinging to Joel’s leg in the ER, sure I was about to drop dead…

Being a hero wasn’t as simple as they made it look in the comics she read. It wasn’t just about the mask—it was about juggling the power, the responsibility, and the weight of knowing that, at any moment, everything could come crashing down.

And in the end? It was always a game of masks. Who’s hiding behind them, and who’s fooling who?

Ellie wasn’t the best at keeping secrets.

Especially not when she had a spider bite the , wrapped in white gauze and held together with SpongeBob bandages that did little to ease her nerves. Her pain tolerance wasn’t exactly low, but weren’t black widows deadly? She could still feel the long-gone venom burning in her bloodstream—or maybe she just thought she did.

“Joel, I’m too young to die!” A younger Ellie whined, tears streaming down her cheeks as she clung to his leg.

“You aren’t dying. They said you’ll be sore at most.” He sighed, patting her head.

“Dramatic” wasn’t the word he’d use to describe the distraught figure clinging to him like she truly believed her life depended on it. Eleanor “Ellie” Anna Williams, at the ripe age of twelve, gave her adoptive father more wrinkles than he could count.

This time, it wasn’t a scraped knee from wobbly attempts at skateboarding, or a burn on her forearm from trying to make him breakfast. It was a spider bite. She didn’t get a good look when she flung her head after the sting set in, but she was almost certain what that eight-legged creature was that had crept onto her hand while she doodled on her notebook in science class.

She rambled about it the whole way from the school’s nursing office to the emergency room. Not even the radio could drown out the frantic girl, who loved all things nature—as long as it wasn’t trying to kill her. She’d just learned to use a training bra. She couldn’t die now.

“I’m not?” she said, her green watery eyes looking up at him.

“No. Weren’t you listening to what the nice lady said? The one in blue scrubs?”

To be honest, she wasn’t. However, she did remember the woman he was referring to—and the way she made her heart race. Even now, as a young adult, Ellie would bring her up when questioned about her gay awakening.

“You’re goin’ to be fine kiddo” He bent down to her level, his Texan accent dragging out his “n”s.

Comforting her had become something Joel mastered over the years. Trying to navigate Ellie’s spectrum between smart mouth and nervous breakdowns wasn’t easy for a man in his early thirties. But he’d found a way to wedge himself somewhere right in the middle—right where she needed him.

If there was one thing Ellie learned quickly, it was that Joel knew best. With legs full of scars and scrapes and a pair of worn-out Converse that Joel begged her to throw away, Eleanor—who preferred just ‘Ellie’—skated into her high school years.

Going from Little Orphan Annie, which she hated when assholes at school called her that, to your average teenager in the big city of Seattle, everything was completely normal.

Except it wasn’t. At all.

In fact, nothing about Ellie was normal. But the unusual started small—extremely small—and Ellie didn’t know any better. At first, she thought it was just the weed she smoked with Jesse still messing with her system.

Because ever since that fateful day in seventh grade, weird, borderline supernatural things had started happening.

She couldn’t tell you exactly how it all started—at least, not without cringing through the many, many journals she kept as a teenager—but somewhere in the mess of scribbled notes and half-finished sketches, there was an entry about a joke gone wrong.

One night, on a dare to see how long she could hold a handstand, Ellie found herself upside down—only she wasn’t just balancing. She was walking. On her ceiling.

The next morning, she convinced herself it was just some weird, half-awake dream. But when she tried it again—yeah, no. She wasn’t dreaming.

“Holy shit!” she blurted out, stumbling back to the ground.

“Language!” Joel’s voice rang out from the living room, blissfully unaware of the very sticky situation unfolding just a few feet away.

Ellie swallowed, staring at her feet. “Holy shit…” she whispered again, this time to herself.

For a while, she tried to ignore it. Between figuring out her sexuality and preparing for an upcoming science fair, she had enough on her plate. So when weird things happened—like catching something mid-fall way too fast or feeling vibrations through the walls—she brushed it off.

But the signs were getting harder to ignore. Especially when she asked Riley if she could hear that sound—

—and Riley just stared at her.

“Hear what?” Riley asked, setting up their volcano project.

“That—” Ellie waved her hand vaguely. “You seriously don’t hear it?”

Riley squinted. “Williams, I love you, but you have absolutely lost it.”

Ellie would’ve argued back, but the sound was coming from three tables down.

“Booger-eater James?” Riley snorted, nodding toward the kid hunched over a glass box of spiders. Not sure how that was science experiment. “He’s just standing there. With his creepy crawlers. I pray for him once we hit eleventh grade—he’s never getting a girlfriend.”

Panic set in—sudden and overwhelming—as her mind spiraled. Was this some weird side effect of the bite? Or was it something worse? She thought about her biological family, about the things she didn’t know, about the one thing she did worry about when it came to her health.

These were crazy person signs, right? Or worse—crazy person genes running through her blood. Torn between telling a school counselor or just locking herself in the bathroom to cry, Ellie excused herself from Riley and approached the table. But the closer she got, the louder the sound became. A crawling, chittering hum that made her stomach flip.

There was no way she was communicating with something that had more than two eyes and eight legs. An arachnid, for crying out loud.

Don’t get her wrong, Ellie loved science. But people who claimed this kind of stuff? They got laughed out of programs. Stripped of titles, accreditations. Blacklisted. Snow White talking to animals was one thing. A teenage girl talking to spiders? That was an entirely different planet.

But the more she thought about it… the more it made sense.

The heightened senses. The weird reflexes. And that bite mark—the one she was so sure would scar? It was completely gone the next morning when her bandage fell off in the shower.

What started as a sneaking suspicion was quickly turning into a daunting realization.

Ellie tried to ignore it. She really, really did.

For the next few weeks, she chalked it up to stress, exhaustion, anything that made more sense than the alternative. But the signs weren’t stopping. If anything, they were getting worse.

The way her body moved before she even had time to think. The way she could feel things that weren’t there—like the vibrations of footsteps before someone entered a room. The way her grip had changed—how she accidentally shattered a glass one night at dinner, how the basketball stuck to her hand a second too long in gym class.

She stopped journaling about it. She stopped mentioning it to Riley. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. this was so , so much worse than the time she wasn’t allowed to leave the dinner table until she finished her brussels sprouts.

And that was how she found herself standing in front of her bedroom window one night, hoodie zipped up, black Converse laced tight.

Sneaking out wasn’t new to her. She’d done it before. Skating out to meet Jesse, tagging walls in alleyways. But this?

This wasn’t just sneaking out.

That night, she got her first real taste of herself without the skintight suit she now wears like a badge.

Little did she know at the time, how important that near miss would be.

“Glad nobody saw that.” An embarrassed Ellie giggled to herself, standing to her feet after stumbling for the hundredth time.

Parkour always seemed a little odd to her—she preferred her guitar or a late-night reading session, but those seemed to lay still on her bookshelf nowadays. I mean, who wanted to potentially hurt themselves running along buildings, jumping from concrete to concrete, brick to brick? Short answer: she did.

Long answer: the stairwell right behind her apartment building, leading to the city’s rooftops. Mariano’s, her favorite pizza joint that always closed way too early in her opinion, the old library that closed down only to be replaced a few doors down, and the laundromat. Dusting off her jeans, she’d do this for what felt like hours.

The back and forth would make normal civilians sick—feet swollen to hell. But for Ellie, after a fight with Joel about curfew or an unnecessarily long school day, as soon as the sun set, this was her heaven.

She wasn’t normal. She’d established that a long time ago. But it’s not like she could exactly tell people she could do these kinds of things. They’d look at her the way Riley did. A FYI, she was so right about James—after graduation, he still never got a girlfriend.

Ellie, on the other hand, had quite a few up until graduation.

A shared kiss with Riley, a faded stick-and-poke cat the girl in her art class gave her, and her unforgettable first time with the first girl she could truly say she loved: Dina.

To say “fair share” was a bit of an understatement. It was more about quality than quantity. Her building real connections, some still lingering around. Some took the high road, choosing to stay the bitter ex. But Ellie didn’t see it like that. She appreciated the good and the bad, even if she did have to get a real tattoo over that stick-and-poke cat.

But times like these, where she let her feet carry her across the city, were when she was allowed to forget about all that, leave it in the past where it belonged, and focus on the future. But even with her tassel turned, she always found herself in that alleyway, climbing up that same fire escape to get to the roof.

The city lights below flickered like distant stars. So many people, but none of them knew her name. Maybe that was for the best. In this city, the only person Ellie needed to be was herself.

The wind against her skin felt sharper tonight, like she could almost taste the city’s pulse. A distant car honked, but she didn’t hear it the same way anymore. It was all part of the rhythm, the energy that seemed to flow through her, the way the rooftops called her to them.

For now, the rooftops were hers. But she knew, deep down, that wouldn’t last forever. Heroes, villains—one day, someone would come looking for her. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe.

Freshly graduated, Ellie was hanging out with friends at her favorite pizza joint, the smell of pepperoni filling the air, and the sound of laughter ringing in her ears. It was one of those normal, relaxed nights. nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least, it didn’t seem that way at first.

But when a hooded figure paced back and forth in front of their table for the fourth time, Ellie couldn’t help but feel a cold chill run down her spine. Her green eyes snapped to the sound, hands slowly lowering the slice of pizza she’d been about to take a bite of.

“That young man stole my purse!” A woman’s voice broke through the hum of the restaurant, her trembling hands pointing toward the culprit.

Ellie’s green gaze snapped to the man now hurrying down the sidewalk, his steps quick, his movements too frantic. The adrenaline surged through her as she pushed her chair back and stood, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the glass door. She didn’t wear her mask yet, but the sensation of needing to act was unmistakable.

She couldn’t just let it go.

The man was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough. Ellie darted into the street, weaving between pedestrians like a blur, the sound of her footsteps muffled by the city’s noise. When she reached him, she tackled him with everything she had, the force knocking the purse out of his hand and sending him stumbling backward.

He didn’t stick around to fight back. In a flash, he bolted, disappearing into the shadows before Ellie could react.

She stood there, chest heaving as she clutched the purse in her hands. The woman, now catching up to her, approached with wide eyes.

“You got it back!” The woman gasped, her voice thick with relief.

Ellie smiled awkwardly, handing the purse back to her. “I… I guess I did.” Heart still racing.

Before she could say more, the woman pulled her into a tight hug. Ellie froze, not knowing what to do. She had no idea this small act of kindness would cause a strange warmth to spread through her chest.

“Thank you,” the woman whispered. “I don’t know what I would’ve done…”

Ellie gently pulled back, her heart still racing. She was pretty sure she was just a regular girl, with no superpowers or any big secret to her name. But in that moment, the feeling of doing the right thing—of helping someone in need—felt bigger than anything she’d ever experienced. Maybe she was crazy. But a little bit of crazy could do good.

And Ellie? She loved justice.

“Bullshit. No way you tackled him like that.” Abby’s voice rang out, interrupting Ellie’s storytelling.

“Alright, maybe I exaggerated a little bit, but I’m telling you, I kicked ass.” Ellie laughed, holding the door open for the tall blonde.

“Uh huh. Sure, Williams.” Abby huffed, walking past her into the bookstore. The familiar chime of the doorbell rang out above them, a small sound that felt like a second home.

Ellie inhaled deeply, taking in the comforting smell of ink and crisp pages being turned. She loved it here, more than the silly pictures of cats online, which, in the Williams world, meant a lot.

Abby, tall and always a step ahead in the teasing department, fell into step beside her. One of the few friends Ellie could confide in. Even if that came with endless ribbing. Ellie could admit that she’d told the “first save” story a million times, but it was one of the few she could tell without giving herself away—without breaking her promise. The promise she made to herself when she officially earned her title as ‘hero.’

But here, in the bookstore, she could nerd out all she wanted. No secrets to hide, no need to pretend. She could throw in the subtle bragging without fear of it getting back to the wrong people.

Ellie wasn’t a huge talker. She preferred humming to herself or getting lost in her own thoughts. As she scrolled past the comic book section, her fingers brushing against the glossy covers of vibrant colors and bubble letters, she was suddenly back in time. A place of nostalgia. Staying up way past her bedtime, reading comics under the covers with a trusty red flashlight.

When the small tv in the corner of the store caught her attention. A new report, crime in the city’s streets. detailing the latest wave of crime sweeping through the city. From petty purse snatching to stolen identities—and sometimes, even lives. It was all too familiar.

“This just in: Another robbery in the city’s streets. Police are still on the lookout for the suspect,” the newscaster announced.

She hated it, the fear in people’s eyes. The feeling of a warm blanket being ripped off all because a few people probably weren’t hugged enough as kids. If anybody knew a rough childhood, it was Ellie, and what she didn’t do was use that and take it out on the world. The last thing she expected years from this moment is trying to be understanding with the one who did.

If anyone knew a rough childhood, it was Ellie. But she didn’t use that as an excuse to lash out at the world.

In fact, the last thing she ever expected, years from this moment, was to try and understand the person behind the violence.

“Jesus, this city’s falling apart,” Abby muttered, her eyes still glued to the screen. “Where are the cops when you need them?”

It made her sick. The injustice. The feeling of helplessness.

“Sometimes, people just need to learn the world doesn’t owe them anything,”

Abby looked over at her, but Ellie kept her eyes on the chaos. The sirens were already wailing in the distance, but they’d never get there in time—not when the damage had already been done. And when the cops finally showed up. Just yellow police, tape and tears.

“Scary, huh?” Abby said, standing beside her, arms crossed. She shot a glance at the scene before turning back to Ellie. “Where are the cops when you need them?”

Ellie scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, they always show up too late. After the damage’s already done. It’s like they just don’t care enough to stop it before it gets out of hand. Makes you wonder if anyone’s actually doing anything about it.”

Abby sighed in agreement. “Someone should.”

Ellie’s mind wandered then, as it often did in moments like this. She’d seen it all too many times—the heroes who talked big but never seemed to get things done. But the ones who really caught her attention were the ones who operated in the shadows. The ones who didn’t care about fame or recognition.

Her thoughts drifted to The Phantom—a mysterious figure who’d been cleaning up the streets for years. Nobody knew their true identity, and that was the way they liked it. No flashy costumes, no headlines, just quiet, effective justice. They worked in the shadows, out of sight, but the results spoke for themselves.

“Maybe someone like that could show up,” Ellie murmured. “Someone who teaches people the lesson that their actions have consequences. Not just words, but real, lasting consequences.”

Abby raised an eyebrow, casting her a sideways glance. “Wait, are you seriously saying you’d want to be like them? A shadowy figure, handing out justice however you see fit?”

“Maybe. I mean, someone has to.”

And someone did. She did, she had to. things quickly escalated from saving purses to kittens out of trees you name it Ellie was there.

So what about the fabric hung deep in her closet. The one she mentions hundreds of times in her journals throughout the years.

Well, It wasn’t like she had a fancy suit. No, Ellie had to make do. Her costume came from a combination of chance and necessity. Absolutely one of those “it just happened” moments that ended up being so much more.

It started with a hand-me-down.

After one night where she barely managed to escape with a bruised arm and a scraped knee, Ellie found herself on the edge of the city. In a forgotten corner of a local alley, tucked behind an old, unused storage unit, Ellie found a discarded suit. It was a mix of gray, black, and green fabric—more rugged than sleek, a little worn out, but something about it screamed potential. Her hand reached out for it, like she could feel the joy she’d bring with it on her skin.

fit like a second skin. It didn’t stand out too much, which was good; Ellie didn’t want to draw attention, not yet. The colors worked too—gray for blending in, black for stealth, and green because… well, why not? It matched her eyes.

One afternoon, Ellie had found herself standing outside a local store, looking out over the city, when a voice caught her attention. It was a soft voice, one that belonged to a little girl.

“How’d you get up there? You move like a spider.”

Ellie smiled beneath her mask, thinking about the first time she made the jump to scale a building. She was very clumsy, but she’d learned quickly. It was funny, she hadn’t really thought much about it until now. A spider… That’s what had started this whole thing.

The bite she thought would kill her.

“What’s your name, hero?” the little girl asked, her wide eyes.

Ellie hesitated. A name?… A spider? This was a loaded question. But That’s what they called her, wasn’t it? She was just some kid trying to do right by the world.

“Spider… uh… girl… woman!” She blurted out, almost embarrassed. Hoping it sounded cool, so in the moment, she went with it.

“Spider Woman. Yeah, that’s it.”

She didn’t mind the title. It was fitting, simple.

Spider-woman. Silly, right? It sounded like something out of the DC Comics stacked in her room. And she loved it.

The name was sung like gospel on the news, printed in bold ink for those who still bothered with newspapers.

On one channel, a reporter stood in front of a cityscape, microphone in hand.

“The masked vigilante, called ‘Spider-Woman’ by the public, continues to stir-up debate. Some call her a hero, while others question if she’s just another masked threat. We hit the streets of Seattle to hear what the people really have to say.”

Cop, off duty: “Look, I don’t make the rules, but I do enforce them. Vigilante or not, she’s got a record, and that means trouble.”

Masked kid in a homemade costume: “She’s like, a ninja or something! I think she’s cool!”

Teen girl with dyed hair: “She’s kind of badass, not gonna lie.” She shrugged.

younger woman with a toddler: “Are you kidding? She’s the only one out here actually doing something! You ever had a gun in your face? ‘Cause I have. If she’s around, I know I’m making it home.”

The tv Cuts back to the news anchor at the desk, straightening their papers.

“You heard it here folks! Love her or hate her, one thing’s for sure. she’s out there. And she’s just getting started.” The news reporter finished.

But every hero had their villain.

And Ellie? She was crushing on hers.

With Brown hair tied back, wheels skimming smoothly across the pavement. No suit today, just a hoodie and jeans, her usual off-duty attire. As a creature of habit, she skated her way to the bookstore like clockwork, the same route.

Had she finished the last two comics she bought? Absolutely. A little faster than intended. But a five-minute ride was nothing for a girl who spent most of her nights swinging across the city, trying to do right by the world. In her own way.

The streets of downtown Seattle buzzed with life, familiar shop signs blurring past her periphery—the record store with the neon “Vinyl Lives” sign, the café that always smelled like burnt coffee, and the corner thrift shop with racks of clothes spilling onto the sidewalk.

Then—“Shit—!”

Ellie barely had time to swerve, nearly colliding with someone standing dead center in her path.

“Sorry!” she called over her shoulder, skidding to a halt a few feet away.

The person barely reacted. Headphones on, phone in hand, just a slight jerk of the shoulder to let her pass. like they’d done it a thousand times.

Ellie shot them one last glance, catching just a flicker of their face. The shape of their eyes, the calm in their posture despite the near collision. No sense of surprise, Weird. Most people flinched.

Shaking it off, she kicked forward again, hitting the sidewalk with a small exhale. Board tucked under her arm, she pulled open the door to the bookstore, the familiar jingle of the bell bringing an easy grin to her face.

“Like clockwork. You are so predictable, Williams,” Josh, the store clerk, greeted from behind the counter.

“What can I say?” Ellie shrugged, stepping inside. “When you’re a comic book connoisseur—”

“—It becomes a lifestyle,” Josh finished, smirking. “Indeed you are.”

Ellie chuckled, already making her way toward the shelves, completely unaware that the person she nearly crashed into was about to become a permanent part of her life.

She just didn’t know it yet. And neither did you.

Just few moments before …

“What an idiot,” a deep voice muttered, entering the back alley. Away from prying eyes.

You rolled your eyes, arms crossed as you leaned against the brick wall beside him. “She was skating. God, do you ever lighten—”

His hand landed on your shoulder, fingers pressing just enough to remind you. Not a threat. Not yet.

Your mouth shut. Swallowing your retort.

He exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. Thinking. Shit. Your gut told you to argue, to roll your shoulders back and step away. But you didn’t.

She wasn’t. You knew that. But your world didn’t allow second guesses.

Unlike Ellie, there were no scraped knees followed by fatherly reassurances. No kissing boo-boos, no gentle words. Hell, in your world, mistakes didn’t just hurt. They burned.

And the man towering over you now, eyes sharp as a blade’s, wasn’t the type to let things slide. The city dubbed him Red Hand, a name spoken in hushed whispers.

But you just settled for—

“Will you relax, old man? I get it.” You scoffed, swatting his hand away.

Old man. Boss. Everything but Dad. He didn’t deserve that title. Maybe once, when you were too young to know better. But now? Now, you couldn’t remember the last time you saw anything close to affection in his eyes. Sure, you’d hear a gruff, “You did good, kid,” now and then—but only after running his errands. Only when you were useful.

That’s how this started. You don’t grow a hatred for the world overnight. It’s molded into you when you’re most likely to sponge it all up. Seeing people for what they really are, learning early that it’s survival, not love.

Your real parents? Nothing but a shadow of the past. A blanket. A half-hearted note. A promise that you’d be “taken care of.” Not loved. Not held. Just… handled.

And he did. In his way. He didn’t mark your growth on a doorframe. He didn’t pack lunches with little notes that said, “Have a great day, love you.”

No, that was too soft. The Red Hand was feared. With just a snap of his fingers, his problems were taken care of—no questions asked.

At first, you weren’t sure who they were—the ones who carried out his orders, the ones who came and went like shadows. Or why he always denied your late-night tea parties with Mr. Bear.

One eye missing. Fur worn and faded from too many hugs. The first toy he’d ever bought you. Well, stolen. But it was a gift nonetheless.

You used to crack your bedroom door open at night, small fingers barely making a sound as you peeked through the gap. Trying to make out the hushed conversations happening just a few feet away.

Never catching much. But it was whispered for a reason. And even as a kid, you knew better than to ask.

Then came second grade. You walked through the door with puffy eyes and a fresh bruise on your cheek. He barely looked up from his paper as he slid an ice pack across the table.

“And did you hit them back?”

Your small legs dangled off the couch as you shook your head. “No…”

The paper rustled as he set it down, finally looking at you. “C’mere, kid. Let me show you something.”

And he did. With careful, practiced movements, he taught you where to aim. How to make it count. Jabs, punches.

“Those little shits won’t bug you too much after this.”

You learned quickly. Not just how to hit, but when. Where. How to read a room. How to never show weakness.

Because in his world? Weakness was a death sentence.

So no, there were no bedtime stories. No reassurances whispered into your hair. Just lessons. And you learned them all. After all, it paid to be useful. Even if that meant the occasional run to the principal’s office

The city doesn’t care. People don’t care. They’re too busy fighting to stay on top. So why bother trying to be something else? Why bother saving anyone when they’ll just let you down? He’d shown you what the world truly was. A place where you had to take what you wanted.

A place where you had to survive, no matter the cost.

You’d stopped asking questions a long time ago. Why did they leave? Why did he allow you to stay? What was that gnawing feeling deep in your gut? You’d stopped wondering about what could be, what should be. This was it. This was all there was.

And as Ellie’s world spun with hope, with the promise of doing right, yours had long since given up. Because in your world, saving lives wasn’t enough. The world didn’t reward you for being a hero. No. It rewarded you for knowing when to stop asking, when to take what you were given.

Dressed in black, learning what was most important: to keep moving.

To be continued …..

Line dividers | 2 | 3

Ellie m.list

Taglist @0h-basic

[orestesimp]

EVERY YOU EVERY ME #9

COLLABORATED WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You get a new mysterious co-worker.

Word count: 8,100

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous] [TBC]

August 1st

Nearly pancaked by grand piano falling from the 8th floor outside of favorite cafe. No casualties (except the piano).

August 5th

Freak blizzard out of nowhere during lunch. Nearly crushed by large icicle dropping directly outside the exit of the Chrysler building. No other known casualty.

August 6th

An escaped hippopotamus from the Bronx zoo ran 11.3 miles, nearly got stampeded when exiting hotel for work. No casualties.

August 12th

Tornado appeared inside the Guggenheim museum, nearly squashed by large falling statue. Nobody nearby was seriously injured.

It's already mid-August now. You've used up more than a month of your allotted three. It means you don't have much more time to waste, but that knowledge does nothing to help you in figuring things out. 

You’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the Universe's ongoing murder attempts, determined to keep track of them all. All in all, there are 37 incidents and counting that you’re aware of… and they’re all different. 

They differ in severity. They differ in scale and they differ in frequency. Sometimes it can take weeks, sometimes days, sometimes within hours of each other. If there’s any sort of pattern to them—anything that might help you predict what will happen next or how to stop it—you can’t see it.  There’s nothing that gives you any hint or clue as to where you can start to make progress with solving this mystery.

The one thing you have been able to observe from cataloging these incidents is that Miguel was right about what he told you that day at Starbucks: the universe is ramping up. Each attempt is becoming more and more bizarre, defying the very laws of physics and nature in its attempts to snuff you out. Before this, in all of your years in New York, you’ve never heard of a blizzard in July or a tornado indoors. 

With the escalating dangers, Miguel is more on guard than ever. Sticking close to you at all times like a particularly insistent herding dog that’s always a few inches from nipping at your heels. Even when he’s seemingly preoccupied by something else—reading a book, folding clothes, eating a crate of kit kats in one sitting—you can always tell that he’s keenly aware of and attuned to your every minute move. 

Practically, the only time he lets you out of his sight is for bathroom visits. 

Work is still a point of contention between you two. He hates that he can't enter the building to monitor you at work and make sure you're safe, and after that incident when you caught a co-worker trying to take a surreptitious selfie with Spiderman while Miguel was loitering around in the windows, you’d banned him from climbing and scuttering around the exterior of the building like some deranged squirrel. 

It’s made him even less pleased about your whole work situation, something he’s not shy about sharing with you. Every morning when you are about to leave for work, Miguel will stand by the door with that ever present frown and ask you: 

“Why are you still going into a job you hate when there’s only two months left?”

This morning, you sigh as you reach for your jacket and messenger bag. 

Part of you completely understands and even agrees with his logic. If the end of the world is only two months away, why go back to that shithole everyday? You could go to Disneyland. Eat fancy croissants in Paris for breakfast. Have Lyla fake a reservation at an all-inclusive yoga retreat in Bali. You could be living your life like every moment is your last. 

The thing is though, as delusional as it may be, you’re not ready to bet on the world ending just yet. 

“Miguel, I fully intend for the universe to still be around in two months. And I don’t want to be unemployed when that day comes. I’m not some trust fund baby. Once we figure this thing out, you’re gonna be free to go, and if you take Lyla with you, then what am I supposed to do? Live on the streets? Rent in the city is ridiculous, and my rent-controlled apartment got blown into a million pieces.”

For once Miguel doesn’t seem to have anything smart to say back. He tilts his head, quietly studying your face. Then after a long pause, he gives you a curt nod, as if something clicked into place. 

"Fine."

You stop mid-way through zipping up one of your boots to eye him suspiciously. 

Okay, that’s… different.

In all the mornings you’ve repeated this argument, this is the first time he’s simply accepted your explanation without sassing you back. He just gazes right back, apparently unperturbed, and holds the door of your hotel room open for you, ready to walk you to work. 

There is definitely something going on inside his head, because this stubborn dummy never lets anything go without a fight. You just don’t know what it is yet. 

By mid-morning, you've forgotten all about your suspicions, too busy dealing with the aftermath of your coworker's incompetence. You're not entirely sure how they managed to corrupt the Excel formula you’d painstakingly inserted to make sure all the numbers add up correctly, but two hours later, you're still trying to get the data to compute properly. 

It’s the kind of mind numbing task that lets your mind wander, and you spend most of that morning wondering what Miguel is up to. He’s probably lingering near the building, eating mini donuts by the dozens from that food truck that is always parked around the corner. 

There’s a pointed series of knocks on your cubicle wall. The noise is grating, and it makes the whole of your back seize up because you recognize that signature knock from sound alone. It’s your boss, probably here to ask if you have capacity to take on more case evaluations. 

And sure enough, as you reluctantly turn to look, you see her, toothy smile and all, looking down at you in that hammy and strained way of hers. 

“Are you busy?” she asks. “I just wanted to introduce you to the newest member of the team.” 

She gestures to the person standing beside her. Your gaze goes up over their insanely long legs, up and over the narrow and tapered waist and torso, up over the wide chest and broad, broad shoulders, and even before you get to the familiar face, you already know who you are looking at, because no one else is that tall.

Your mouth gapes open wide in shock.

This stupid motherf-

“This is Mickey O’Hara,” your boss introduces, simpering up at him. (You didn’t even know she knew how to simper.) 

Has Miguel gone insane?

What is he playing at?!

He didn’t even bother to change his name properly!

And the man looks unfairly good in office casual! He’s dressed in a white, well-fitted button down shirt and dress pants. Wearing ridiculous thick-rimmed glasses that would belong on Gregory Peck. Riotous curls are as messy and wild as ever, not having even bothered to comb it back. You don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, the subdued get-up only makes him stick out like a sore thumb.

“Mickey is our newest hire,” your boss continues, batting her eyes at him. “He's interning with our team as a junior insurance claims adjuster and will be shadowing you for the next two months.”

After that, Miguel truly is with you everywhere you go. 

He spends most of each workday sitting on a spare chair in your small cubicle, the two of you squeezed into 6'x6', shoulder touching shoulder in that tiny, cramped space.

A superhero he may be, but Miguel is a terrible office worker. He seems completely bamboozled by the copier, and you quickly learn not to ask him to do any copying or scanning or even pick your printouts from the printer, because he always manages to mangle the process, coming back with crumpled up prints or half-shredded paper that looks like budget confetti.

Before the week is over, he’s gained a reputation with the rest of the team as the handsome-but-useless junior that can’t even make coffee for shit.

Most of the time, he doesn't even make an effort to look like he’s doing any actual work, just sits right next to you, and reads books all day long. When you scold him and ask him to at least pretend like he's doing busy work, or he'll get fired, Miguel will just shrug and quietly hum back at you, engrossed in whatever latest sci-fi book his nose is buried in. 

"If they fire me, I'll just have Lyla hack into their HR system and rehire me."

Then there’s the way his sleeves are always rolled up halfway up his arm, hugging tight around the firm muscles of his forearm. The peep show of gorgeously tanned skin that is always on display for all to see. It's obscene. 

He’s maddening and distracting. 

Still, you can’t be too mad about his presence. The office is a much more treacherous place than you’d initially thought. It’s a danger zone of death traps. 

One morning when you’re in the supply room, getting a new pad of post-its from one of the massive industrial shelves—the ones that are supposed to be bolted to the wall for safety—suddenly crumpled, taking half the wall with it and nearly flattening you. That was almost game over for you. Squashed like a bug and entombed under a pile of archived TPS reports. 

Then there’s that time with the runaway elevator when the supposedly secure and unbreakable industrial cables snaps, with you in it, falling through 40 floors. And you still shudder everytime you walk past the copy machine because of that time it tried to electrocute you. If Miguel hadn’t been there for all of these incidents, you’d be a goner. 

Another upside is that it’s also nice to have a cubicle buddy. On slow days, the two of you kill time watching YouTube origami tutorials and practicing with post-its stolen from the temporarily-relocated office supplies. 

Despite having hands the size of a giant, Miguel is surprisingly good at it. Delicately folding paper cranes, butterflies and flowers that sit in the place of pride atop of your computer screen, compared to your questionable attempts that usually wind up in a crumpled ball in the trash. 

With Miguel there, your days at the office are never boring or predictable in the way they used to be. It no longer feels like you are just going through motions. It's almost… fun. 

If there wasn’t a cosmic executioner’s ax looming over your neck, you don’t think you would mind spending every day with him like this.

You take it back. You do mind spending days with him like this. Miguel is the worst. 

You've been doing data entry all morning, and the man will not shut up about how primitive Excel is. 

“Malo! I don’t understand how your company relies on this software. There are so many data consistency issues! It completely lacks data validation and integrity checks, and it’s too prone to human error when entering crucial data, which results in–” 

You take deep calming breaths as you continue to type, trying to pretend his rant is white noise.  

The previous day's near death experience—an electrical surge from the printer, trying to finish what the copy machine started—also wiped out one of the file servers, and now you and half your department are stuck manually re-entering three years worth of data.  

Two hours in, your fingers are aching, and you're about ready to start banging your head on the keyboard out of frustration. (Or banging the keyboard on Miguel’s head if he doesn’t shut up.)

Like he can hear your thoughts, the man in question obligingly stops talking, and there’s a moment of blessed silence before your chair glides smoothly and suddenly to the left as Miguel rolls you out from in front of your computer. Your first instinct is to wonder what new danger he’s saving you from, but no… He’s just moving you out of the way to make space for him to drag his own chair in front of the screen. “Enough,” he says firmly, already typing out some unintelligibly complex code at a speed that far outstrips your own personal best of 67 words per minute, “I can’t watch you keep doing this when it’s so simple to automate.”

You sometimes forget just how smart Miguel is. 

True, he can’t seem to work the office printer, but he’s a genius scientist who single-handedly built an A.I. sophisticated enough to hack into financial institutions and topple governments. He successfully invented a machine that travels between dimensions. Every other sentence coming out of his mouth sounds like something that would confound Stephen Hawking. You don’t know why you’re surprised he’s able to automate Excel spreadsheets. 

It doesn’t take him very long at all. 

Within minutes, he’s finished, hitting enter one final time, and then you can see all of the cells rectify themselves one by one. Errors disappear and new corrected information appears, data populating blank cells and aligning itself in tidy rows. 

You lean in closer to get a better look. Your elbow snags the edge of your coffee cup and the cup topples over, splashing runaway hot coffee across your hand.

Before you have a chance to react, there’s a strong pull backwards. Miguel is already grabbing you and pulling you sideways into his lap and out of the firing range.

The cup clatters off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. The rest of the burning liquid never had the time to land on you. 

Then you’re sitting on top of him, confined in the much too small seat of the office chair that can barely fit him and his broad backside, and much less the both of you. But if it’s uncomfortable, Miguel doesn’t show it. He takes your hand in his to inspect it carefully.

The patch of skin burns and stings, but you can’t tell if it’s from the coffee or his burning touch that makes you feel like there’s liquid fire simmering in your veins. 

“You okay?” he says, his voice right in your ear.

He is so close. Surrounding you. Broad arms locked around your waist and the firm muscles of his thick thighs under yours.

“Yeah,” you manage, nodding slowly. Your tongue feels heavy and dry in your mouth.

He quietly drags your hand closer to his face, then blows on the back of your burnt knuckles to soothe the sting. 

“Better?” 

Those stunning eyes are staring into yours from inches away, cut cheeks right there, nose barely brushing against yours, and – god, is he close. Too close. 

Miguel is always in close proximity to you these days. Never more than a couple yards away, but save for life or death situations, the two of you do not find yourself like this. He only ever holds you when you’re crashing through the skies or about to collide with a runaway vehicle. This is different somehow. 

Your heart feels like a trapped bird in your chest, fluttering so fast and panicky it might burst from inside out at the proximity. 

“I– um– ah…” You’re not saying any words, just making strange noises in your throat like a squawking bird. 

Your eyes flicker away from his face avoidantly and from the corner of your eye, you spot Matt from accounting spying on you from the cubicle across. 

Oh god. This probably doesn’t look great, does it?

You’re sitting on a co-worker’s lap in the middle of an open plan office. Compromising does not even begin to describe the position you two are in.

Jumping off his lap, you quickly stand up and turn away, trying to ignore the flustered heat in your cheeks. 

You walk back over to your chair, about to sit yourself back down, but there’s spilled coffee everywhere. The dark brown liquid quickly sinking into the already stained fabric of the seat.  You need to clean this up or else your chair is going to smell like expired coffee for the rest of time. Grabbing for your bag, you start digging for some tissues so you don't have to walk up to the supply closet.

You pull out item after item. Tampons. Sunglasses. A half-eaten chocolate bar. More tampons. New wallet with new ID, (expedited, all courtesy of Lyla). A handful of pennies. A random pamphlet. Still no tissues though, so you upend your bag onto your desk, wincing at the clatter. 

How on Earth have you accumulated this much stuff in the few short weeks since your apartment was destroyed?  And how on Earth do you not have any kleenex or napkins or anything in your handbag?? 

You paw through the mess, hoping for something useful, then swear as some of it spills over onto the floor. Ducking down, you crawl half under your desk, collecting wayward tampons and receipts, until your eyes pause on the pamphlet.

Not just any pamphlet. It’s yellow and bright with Whoopie Goldberg's face in the corner. It's the map you received from the fortune teller lady. One of your many misfires.

Now that you look closely at it, there are faint lines that seem to glow faintly in the dimness under your desk that weren't there when you were looking at it in plain daylight.

You pick it up and unfold it, laying it out on the floor. It looks like it’s been written on with some kind of a glow-in-the-dark marker, but it’s not dark enough for you to see clearly. You need to get somewhere darker to test your theory.

Backing out from under your desk, you get to your feet and head briskly off down the hall. You barely make it three steps before Miguel’s on your tail, his towering height blocking out the bright LED lamps above as he follows after you like the world’s biggest duckling. 

“Cielo, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” you murmur curtly under your breath. The heat from before is still riding persistently on your face, and you quicken your steps, hoping it doesn’t show. 

You half run to the end of the hall until you reach the small supply closet. When you open the door to step inside, Miguel is right behind you, apparently trying to squeeze himself in after you. 

"We won't both fit in here!" you scold as you close the door after you.  His unhappy expression is the last thing you see as darkness envelops you in the pitch black.

There’s a niggling feeling of guilt that wiggles down into your skin. But you remind yourself that you can always steal cupcakes meant for clients from the conference room to make it up to him. All will be forgiven if you appease his sweet tooth. 

Ducking your head to stare down at the map clutched in your hands, you squint your eyes in the dark to study it closely. There's a small star glowing bright in the middle of the map.

It's a literal star map.

She gave you a location.

You're standing in front of an old stone building at 177A Bleecker Street, smack in the middle of Greenwich village with its picturesque ivy covered old brownstone houses. 

Then there's this monstrosity: Sanctum Sanctorum. The infamous residence of Dr. Strange.

The mansion is built in a mix of a Victorian and Gothic style as if the architect couldn't make up their mind and just decided 'why not both?' Throughout the rooftop, there are ornate carvings and intricate stonework that you suspect was meant to lend it a mysterious air, but instead the place reminds you of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride attraction. 

You bring up your hand to the old knocker, gripping it firmly. Your lungs tighten, breath constricting in your chest as you hesitate, unable to bring yourself to pull the brass down to make contact with the wooden front door. Instead you’re holding it still in the air. 

Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all. How are you going to explain this? 

‘The universe is out to get me, please send Avengers to help.’

Isn’t he just going to think you’re nuts? One of those delusional Supes-fan with munchausen syndrome?

"We can still leave," Miguel says. 

The man's been protesting every step of the way here, buzzing in your head about how much of a bad idea this is.

You frown, turning around to him. "I want to do this,” you answer. 

His continued opposition is the final push you need. You bring down the knocker against the front door and tap it repeatedly. 

There's no answer.

Part of you has to fight the urge to turn your feet and flee, saving yourself the embarrassment. But before you do, there’s a loud creak and a heavy scraping noise against the entrance as the double door swings inwards and slowly opens. 

No one greets you by the door. The entryway before you is empty, revealing a grand imperial staircase leading to the second floor, curving upward into a majestic spiral on each side of the room. 

It looks deserted. It’d be impolite to just step inside without someone to greet you and explicitly invite you in. But the doors did open to let you in. 

You look at Miguel, unsure of what to do, but the man does not have the same compunction for politeness that you do, he’s already walked in, shoes and all, straight into the main hall. 

“Can we just get this over with without you making your usual stupid grand dramatic entrance?” Miguel says into the empty room seemingly to no one in particular and you don’t know who he thinks he’s talking to. 

A ring of ember and fire sparks into existence out of nothingness in the center of the room. The ring grows wider, and you can see hints of another room inside of the circle: one decorated in a different decoration style than the current room you’re in: moroccan seats and plush cushions with oriental wooden carved furniture. 

A man steps out from within that room to stand in front of you both. The ring of light closes behind him once he’s made it through. Clad in a rich purple tunic and dark robes that is monk-like in appearance. Miguel steps in front of you, tucking you safely behind him. 

"You're not Strange," Miguel sneers, and you want to smack him. Why does he always have to be this rude?

"Oh, I'm quite strange. But I am not the Doctor. I am Wong. I’m the Sorcerer Supreme and guardian of this place." The man’s voice is calm and formal, and he holds himself with a stately manner as he speaks. 

You pop out your head from behind Miguel’s side. "We’re here to see Doctor Strange." 

At the repeated mention of Strange, the man’s formality seems to fall away, an expression of irritation bleeding into his features. 

"Let me know when you find him. Because he is not here."

"Where is he?" Miguel asks, and there’s that contempt rumbling in his voice again. 

"I do not know. Probably playing hooky again. The man comes and goes as he likes." Wong makes a muttering noise under his breath as he continues. "Treats this sacred place like a summer gig at McDonalds."

Your chest deflates. How are you supposed to get Dr. Strange to help you if he’s not even here?

"I need help,” you plead with Mr. Wong. Maybe he can help you if Dr Strange can’t, he is the Sorcerer Supreme after all, supreme is the highest level, right? This might even be an upgrade from Strange. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think the universe is out to get me." 

Wong just looks at you, expression unchanging, and okay, yeah, that was maybe not the best place to start. You take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to make yourself sound less paranoid.

"I've almost died 40 times since the beginning of the summer. I just want to know why this keeps happening and how to make it stop."

You dig into your bag, pulling out the folded map. 

"We talked to a fortune teller in Chinatown, and she gave me this map. It led us here, and I'm really, really hoping you can help me."

Wong dips his head down to the map, "This is a celebrity home star map," he says, with a straight face and a neutral voice that only slightly betrays that he thinks you're batshit crazy.

“I know it sounds crazy, but-”

“Sanctum Sanctorum opened its doors for you, which means it wanted me to meet with you. I believe what you’re telling me.”

Oh thank god.

You tell him everything, rambling on as you try to explain what’s been happening and what little you know about it as best you can. The near death experiences, Miguel being a Spiderman from another dimension, the destruction of your apartment,  the unnatural phenomena and the universe’s escalating attempts on your life. 

Wong is quiet throughout, studying your face with grave concentration as you speak. 

When you’re finally done, he sighs with deep weariness that emanates from the core of his soul. He looks down on his feet, tapping them in deep consideration.

"I have an idea,” Wong says cautiously, “I could perform a Multiversal Divination on you, that might give us a clearer idea of what we’re dealing with,” 

“What does that mean?” Miguel asks, anger vibrating off his skin and boiling in his tone.  

This man needs to calm down. You clearly need to take him to anger management, because since the moment he’s stepped into this place he’s been on the edge (even more so than usual).

“What does a ‘Multiversal Divination’ entail?” he continues, “Is that some magical mumbo jumbo that’s going to hurt her? Because if so we’re not–”

“I’ll do it,” you say, interrupting his objections, and you sidestep Miguel who is scowling, mouth already parted in yet another protest, to stand in front of Wong. 

Wong looks to you and then Miguel, then back at you again, caught in the awkward stalemate, before you interrupt. 

“Please, I need answers. Whatever it is, if it might help, I want to do it.”

Wong nods, stepping closer to you. "This will feel a little bit strange," he warns with the bedside manner of a patient doctor.

His hand comes to your collarbone and he places his palm there with a gentle push. There is barely any effort put into it, but you feel the force of it as if you had been slammed with the full force of a six ton truck. Your body wants to leap out of its skin. It is the sensation of being dumped in cold water from head to toe. A shock runs through your entire nervous system.

Images flash before your eyes, flickering by too fast for you to process. They’re vivid and bright. Glimpses of a scene: your apartment, your work, your commute home. Each of them expiring in a fraction of a moment before you have a chance to latch on and make sense of any of them individually.

You see yourself in picture after picture. Except slightly different in each. Short hair. Long locks. Curly.

In some you're wearing glasses instead of the contact lenses that you usually use. In others, you’re sporting the piercing you wanted to get at 16 but never did. Sometimes you have tattoos, sometimes not; occasionally you’re covered in them. Dyed hair, in every color of the spectrum: pink, blue, purple. A myriad of versions of you, of every variation of the decisions you could have possibly taken in your life. 

There are pictures of memories you have had and not had. They rush in and flee before you're able to grab hold of one.

Captured moments of lifetimes you have never lived.

It's overwhelming. You don't understand what you're seeing. There’s pandemonium inside your head.

Then everything slows to a crawl.

The scene unfolding before you is one that you immediately recognize. An image that you'll never forget.

Window after window after window flashing you by. You know this view. Have seen it twice before. The same view of the Chrysler building as you were falling. But it's different this time. 

The sky isn’t blue, nor is it gray. It’s a pink and an abnormal purple, a color you’ve never seen on it before and it looks both beautiful and completely wrong. There’s an angry tear in the sky, cracking at the edges with static. The whole of the sky looks like it is going to cleave in two and bring the whole world with it. Is this the future? Is it the past?

There's no pain, but somehow tears run down your cheeks uncontrollably.

In the distance you hear Miguel's voice, muted even though you know from that tone that he's furious and must be bellowing loud enough that it echoes through the walls. It sounds like you are underwater, and you have to strain to make out what he is saying.

"Why is she crying?" He's definitely shouting, voice raw and growling. Is this part of your memory or is it happening in the now? "You're hurting her."

The ground approaches. 

"Stop! Stop!" Miguel's voice is shouting, but there's no way to stop this. Everything is going too fast this time around.

Miguel is here, tearing through the sky towards you. But you know it's too late. He's too far away. He can't save you this time.

Then everything does stop. 

No images in your head. No noise in your ears.

Everything goes black, like the ending of a movie.

Then you hear a thud.

It's loud and close and real.

You snap yourself out of your fugue state, to see Miguel towering over Wong's body where the Sorcerer Supreme lies, limp and lifeless on the ground.

“What did you do!? Are you out of your mind?" you shout, running up to them.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Wong isn’t moving, not even blinking!

"He was hurting you!" Miguel roars. 

"He wasn't hurting me, you big doofus!" you shout back, and it’s only then that the fury in Miguel’s eyes seem to abate. 

"What's wrong with him?” you ask, bending down Wong’s limp body on the ground. “Is he dead!? Did you kill him?” There's a rising panic pushing inside your throat.

"He's just paralyzed."

"He’s para– What do you mean paralyzed? What did you do to him?"

"I just... I bit him," he uses a finger to part his lips slightly, pushing the upper one up just enough to reveal the sharp edges of his fangs. "There's toxins in them that can have a paralyzing effect."

You glance back at Wong. He’s still worryingly still. 

“Is there some kind of way to un-paralyze him!?"

"It was just a small bite," Miguel says, ducking his head down sheepishly to stare at the floor, like a scolded boy. "I didn’t use that much venom... It’ll wear off. He shouldn't be out long. Maybe half an hour or so."

“I’m sorry. So, so sorry,” you tell Wong fervently, hovering over him. You can see his eyes tracking yours and the rise and fall of his chest, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the proof that he’s still alive. “Do you, um… Do you want me to help you up?”

“He’s not gonna want to move for a few more minutes,” Miguel interjects from behind you. “Moving will be incredibly painful until the venom wears off the rest of the way”. 

What the actual fuck!?

You throw a glare at Miguel, as you loop an arm under Wong’s waist, “Well help me move him so he can be more comfortable.” 

At your command, Miguel helps you prop the man up against the wall in what is (hopefully) a more comfortable position, and then you sit next to each other and wait.

"I can't believe you bit the Sorcerer Supreme," you mutter under your breath. “Miguel, you can’t just–” you cut yourself off, too frustrated to find the proper words. 

"I'm sorry,” he says, grimacing at your scolding, looking regretful for once as he ducks down his gaze. “You looked like you were in pain".

Your anger subsides, if only slightly at his repentance. 

“It still doesn’t make it okay. You can’t just attack someone like that! He was trying to help us.”

He doesn’t say anything more to that, just stares down at his feet in contrition. 

The two of you sit in the silence. 

Your mind goes back to the surreal experience you just had. The myriad of thousands if not millions of images that were flashing through your mind at the speed of light.

The warped shape of your world, the jarring images of it distorted and wrong, as it started to collapse. 

Miguel had said that didn’t he? That the universe was going to ramp up its game and if it didn’t succeed, it would eventually self-destruct in its mission to get you.

It takes 26 minutes. The first sign that the toxins are wearing off is that Wong is able to wiggle his toes. His recovery accelerates after that, he's able to move his fingers, then the muscles in his face until he's able to form a grimace. He doesn't look happy, and you don't blame him.

After another five minutes or so, he's able to speak again. 

"Strange way of expressing gratitude, literally biting the hand that helps you."

You get up on your feet to help Wong, and Miguel moves next to you. 

“No, you stay there! Don’t move,” you order, and even though he scowls, Miguel complies. 

You hunch over next to Wong, and help him sit fully upright. He stays seated, but dusts his robe off from the caked soot and fine layers of dirt. 

“This has happened in other dimensions,” Wong tells you. “And if we don’t stop it, our universe will be destroyed.”

“How do we stop it?” you ask. 

“The universe wants you dead. It won’t stop until it achieves its goal.”

Your stomach drops. 

“So in order for this to stop… I need to die?”

There’s a look of barely contained fury burning in Miguel’s red eyes that seems to vibrate out of his skin and pounce. But he doesn't, this time he remains in place, visibly restraining himself, still following your orders. 

“There is that option, or you will need to find the reason for why it wants to kill you. And you need to find it soon, because you don’t have a lot of time left. You will have even less time once the people of this world realize the threat you present to the continued integrity of this universe.” 

“Are you threatening her!?” Miguel demands, and somehow even though you didn’t hear him move, he’s right behind you, red eyes glowing, shoulders rising, looming over Wong, ready to cut him down at any further hints that the man might be a threat to your safety. 

Wong doesn't seem deterred in the slightest. 

You have to give it to the Sorcerer Supreme. He's a brave one. It took you weeks before you stopped being intimidated by the man, and Miguel’s never bitten you. 

“I am only telling you what the universe tells me. And it tells me that you do not belong here at all. The universe thinks neither of you belong here.”

You think back on fortune teller's drawing of the poorly drawn circle and stickfigure of you that’s speared with arrows.

"What if we went… somewhere else?" Miguel asks.

For the first time since he entered this house, his tone is no longer dripping with anger. “What if we left this universe and dimension?”

The image of white blankness enters your mind at his words. You shudder at the reminder. The cold numbness of the void and the sensation of nothingness. Dread fills your veins. A cold clammy sweat flashes hot and cold against your skin at the memory.

Wong tilts his head up in deep consideration. “That might work. This universe would slowly return to equilibrium with her gone. But… This will just start again in any new Universe. Most likely she wouldn’t be able to stay. She might have to leave every dimension she's in for the rest of her natural lifespan. A life spent always on the run.” 

Wong pauses as he glances over to you with sympathy and concern in his gaze. “Is that something you would want?” 

What is the alternative here? To lie down and die?

“Yes.”

“One month’s time, you need to find a way to leave this dimension before then.”

Back at your hotel that evening, you wake up to the sound of distress. Muffled whimpers and quiet moans. 

By habit, your eyes roam the room, seeking out Miguel in the dark. He’s lying on the sofa from across the room and even in this distance you can make out that his body is writhing beneath the covers. But you’re groggy and too sleep-drunk to make sense of what you’re hearing or seeing. 

There’s murmured noises from him, and it takes you far too long to understand what’s going on. 

He’s having a nightmare. 

Tugging off the blanket on top of you, you get up and scoot over to the end of the bed over to him. Miguel looks like he’s in pain. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he tosses and turns, face pinched in pain and distress. Now that you’re closer, you can make out words in the sounds he’s making. 

“Quiero quedarme contigo. No te vayas, no te vayas,” he keeps murmuring. 

He looks exhausted. Which, of course he is. He's been on constant alert trying to protect you. Fighting off supernatural weather phenomena, blocking hazardous furniture and fighting off charging hippos out of nowhere. Of course he's worn out.

“Shhhh, It’s alright.” you whisper to him, reaching out to gently stroke his arm, attempting to soothe him. “It’s okay.”

He groans unhappily in his sleep, burying his head into the cushion.

“Quiero quedarme conti–”

"Hey, hey, Miguel,” you tap insistently at his shoulder now. If you can’t soothe the nightmare away, then maybe you can at least wake him up out of it, “It's okay. Wake up."

This time his eyes slam open, wide with adrenaline and shock, and he shoots upright, head whipping from side to side as he scans the room. Every inch of him prepared to leap into a fight.  

“What’s wrong? What’s–”

“You were having a nightmare,” you explain to him. 

He stiffens at that, dropping his eyes to stare down at his lap unhappily. 

“Shit, did I wake you?” he runs a hand over his face, then lays back down, “Sorry.” 

Silence blankets the two of you, and you don’t know what else to say to him. Except just that you want him to be able to rest–truly rest–after the day, week and month you’ve both had. You don’t want him to have to go back to snatching moments of troubled, uncomfortable sleep on that stupid, too-small couch.

“You could come sleep on the bed with me,” you offer, “That couch is nowhere near big enough for you.”

"It's fine," he mutters, "It's been fine the last month, and it's fine now."

"It's not though. You're clearly not sleeping well.  I should have asked you before.  I'm surprised your back isn't already killing you—that sleeping position looked painful."

His head darts down, eyeing his own spread legs that are sticking out into the empty air from the bottom of the couch. But he doesn't concede the point.

"Please?" you try again, "It will make me feel better."

Apparently all you needed to do was ask, because Miguel immediately complies like your request was a decree. He gets up, pulling the quilt with him, his mop of curls in adorable disarray as he drags his feet over to the other side of the bed and flops down with a loud thump that makes the whole mattress bounce underneath you.

You can feel the pull of the sheets where his legs threaten to brush up against your bent knees, and you're beginning to realize you didn't think this through. Even in the big bed, there's only so much space, and he seems to be taking up most of it.  

He's close, and you can't seem to peel your eyes away from the strong line of his throat. Can't help the way your body reacts. Your pulse starts to race, heart kicking up hard and fast against your ribs.

Miguel turns around to observe you with narrowed eyes. “You okay?” 

Shit! Did he hear you? That timing was too on the nose. You nod at him a little bit too frantically and you sound high-pitched and skittish even to your own ears. 

 “Yes of course, why wouldn’t I be?”  

“Your heart is beating really fast.”

Fuck. He could hear you. Of course he can, he has super hearing powers doesn’t he? 

“I’m just tired,” you stammer out, wrapping the blanket close to your chest for layers as a shield from his super hearing. 

Miguel doesn’t push it. He turns back around, letting his head drop down the pillow. 

The distance between you has been growing smaller and smaller with each passing day together and you think you have been crossing an invisible line that you shouldn’t be crossing as of late. 

You think of the closeness of him in the office, the weight of his arms on your waist as he held you in his lap. His eyes on you. The bare skin of his broad back casually revealed to you when he was changing. The same back that you find yourself staring up at in this moment. 

“Go to sleep,” Miguel rasps from your side, and you nearly jump out of your skin in surprise. 

You close your eyes, but somehow in the dark you become even more keenly aware of his presence in the bed with you. Your heart seems to skip a little bit faster as the seconds pass, each beat a little bit harder. 

There's a quiet sigh, then a much louder exhale, as he turns back towards you in bed. 

"What's wrong?" His voice is still gruff with sleep.

"I can’t fall asleep,” you say, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. “Can you talk? It might help me sleep."

He snorts with a laugh. The sound of it makes something pleasant skitter up the length of your spine. He's got a nice laugh. It's a shame he doesn't laugh often.

"What's so funny?"

"No, nothing. Just... some things never change." Even in the dim of the unlit room, you can see the smile on his lips.

"What do you want me to talk to you about?" he asks.

You tilt your head, considering it. Miguel rarely gives you a carte blanche to ask him for information. Logically, you should use this moment to seize a tactical advantage and ask him for all the salacious details that you know he’s been keeping from you. But as you wrack your brain for questions, the only ones that come to mind are disappointingly ordinary. You just want to know more about him. Small, silly, personal details, the way he seems to know everything about you. 

"Tell me about where you're from," you request, "Your dimension. Your hometown." 

He shifts on the bed, lying flat on his back until he’s staring up at the ceiling with you as he reminisces. 

"It's called Nueva York. It's significantly more technologically advanced than this dimension. Definitely cleaner. People aren't as big of assholes as they are here. Public hygiene is way better, everything doesn’t reek of piss. Oh, and there’s not a rat epidemic in the public transportation system there." 

His head turns to his side to look at your face, and he gives you a small mischievous grin as he continues. "Food is healthier. You don't get junk food there."

The words should be complimentary, but from his tone of voice and what you know of his eating habits, you think it’s probably a win for your dirty, rat-infested dimension.

"Lots of skyscrapers and neon-lights everywhere. It's colorful."

He pauses, as if he's struggling to find anything more to say about the place. Then his head tips to the side, meeting your eyes, and his gaze is soft. 

“I'll take you there," he promises, voice quiet and warm and it makes something sweet and honeyed trickle inside your veins pleasantly. 

“How?” you wonder.

His smile drops, replaced by an unhappy frown. “Not sure yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t we just open up a portal like last time?”

He shakes his head. 

"The last time I took you through the portal, it was meant to take us back to my dimension.  But I built the parallel universe traversal device to transport me—and only me—through the multiverse."

He reaches out to you, fingers wrapping gently around your wrist. The contact makes your skin tingle, but you don’t pull away. 

"I wasn't thinking last time. We can’t take the risk of winding up back in the void.” 

He’s mumbling now, nearly asleep. His eyes half-shut as he blinks slowly, struggling to keep them open as he slowly blinks.

"Someone that disappears in the void, they'll be erased from existence and out of every timeline. No one will ever remember you or know you existed. It's as if you've never existed at all."

You eye the watch on your wrist. The slight sheen of the bed light reflecting against the shiny glass.

"Can we modify the watch?"

"Firstly, not a watch", he reminds you by rote as he fluffs up his pillow with his arm. 

"And second..." he pauses, eyes drifting up to study the ceiling before he shakes his head, "I've tried. It doesn’t work. The power source isn’t powerful and your world is not technically advanced enough for me to build an upgraded self-sustaining fusion power source that would be needed. It’s how we ended up in the void.” 

Worry burrows into your chest, and your gaze drops down from his face. It always feels like you’re taking one step forward and ending up two steps back. Futile and hopeless but that’s what you get for trying to fight against the will of the universe. 

"Go to sleep," he says again, his hand coming to rest gently on top of your head, "I'll figure it out, don't worry.”

You smile, warmed by the comforting gesture and his reassurance. 

“I won't let you get hurt this time."

…‘this time.’

The promise cuts through you like glass. Sharp and jagged and clawing its way into your chest until it hurts you to breathe.

Miguel is talking to you, but you don’t think it’s you he’s thinking of when he says the words.

He attacked Wong without a second of hesitation when he thought you were hurt. He's exhausting himself half to death to protect you. But you know that he’s not really doing any of this for you. 

It’s not your comfort he was thinking of when he cradled your burnt hand and gently blew on your fingers. It’s not your love of egg tarts that makes him save the flaky pastries for you when the two of  you go out for dinner. It’s not you—has never been you—that he’s seeing whenever his eyes linger on your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention. 

You're riding on the emotional coattails of the other you. The unwavering loyalty that he had for her has transferred to you now that she's gone.

He must have really loved her. 

There’s a sharp fissure in your chest, and you try to swallow down the thistle of needles that’s found its way into your throat, only to discover that your saliva tastes sour and bitter. 

Closing your eyes, you can see an image of yourself smiling with him, laughing with him, holding his hand. Except it’s not you. 

It’s her. 

Other-you, with the wedding band and the happy life and– And somehow better hair too, the lucky bitch!

Except… she wasn't lucky, was she? She's dead.

She’s dead, and you still resent her for what she had with Miguel. It's such an ugly feeling. 

You squeeze your eyes shut as hard as you can, but the image doesn’t go away. Nor does that acrid taste in your mouth. You can't help it. This irrational and childish madness is eating into the edges of your mind. You're envious of your other self. 

God that’s fucked up. 

Does someone like you even deserve to be saved at all?

Credits & Dedications: To @thirstworldproblemss for all the rubberducking we do together on this silly little story. Thank you so much for sitting with me and making this fun! I love you 234238472938492374923 x infinity and back again.

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow astroboots-writes and turn on notifs.

[damiansgoodgirll]

could you write rhea x jey x reader smut. Like however you wanna write it just no cheating please

I’VE NEVER WRITTEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS AND I DON’T THINK I’LL MAKE MORE CAUSE THIS ONE IS BAD, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED ‼️

rhea ripley x reader x jey uso

likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated!!

‼️a little bit of angst, feels, insecure reader, fluff, romance, smut so stay away kids, not much of a plot, soft!rhea, soft!jey, dom!rhea, not so dom jey, threesome(?) and more i guess‼️

eyes on me

you didn’t exactly know what led to have you naked between rhea’s and jey’s bodies, but somehow you ended up there. maybe it was the constant tension between you and rhea. the way she would always make sure you were okay after a match, the way she helped you train everytime you were at the gym together or how she always made sure to compliment you, even if you were just wearing baggy clothes and had dark circles under your eyes.

you never meant for that to happen. after the painful break up with dom, rhea needed someone that stayed by her side. you and damian were her best friends so, of course you were both there for her.

she took your advice seriously when you told her that she had to move on. in less than two weeks she was already seeing jey uso and you were happy for her. maybe feeling a little jealous that she didn’t need you as she used to but you couldn’t lie that jey was the right person for her.

jey was always kind and gentle with you. respecting your friendship with rhea and never overstepping.

but if rhea and jey were a happy couple, why were you naked on their bed?

“we don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable…” rhea softly whispered in your ear, gently kissing your neck.

it wasn’t making you uncomfortable. it was making you wonder what had changed during that dinner with rhea and jey at her place.

one minute you were all happily eating and watching a comedy show, the next minute you were straddling jey’s lap, his hands were moving under your shirt as rhea moved to massage jey’s shoulders and neck, leaving soft kisses on his skin.

you remember jey carrying you to the main bedroom, rhea leading the way. you still remember the feeling of rhea’s hands as she undressed you, taking her time admiring you. you remember how jey undressed rhea, him watching her with loving eyes, making you feel a little insecure because you didn’t have someone waiting at home that would look at you like that. you remember how rhea softly dragged you down on the bed with her, bringing a hand to your cheek and looking for any sign of discomfort in your eyes. when you showed none, she tested the water and brought her lips over yours. no rush, just a gentle kiss. one, turned into two, and two kisses turned into a full make out session with her as jey undressed himself and laid next to you on the bed. one of his hands tenderly caressing your hips. leaving soft kisses from your neck, to your collarbone, into your belly.

he stopped his movements when rhea said those words. he was too lost in his thoughts that he actually didn’t think that it might have been uncomfortable for you.

he looked between your faces and noticed the hopeful looked that rhea had. he knew that rhea thought of you as more than a friend, he talked about it with her and they both were on the same page. they both liked you, they both had feelings for you and if you were okay, they were ready to let you in their relationship.

“i’m okay with this…” you soft voice whispered. rhea and jey were able to hear you and they both relaxed when you said those words.

“but you’re thinking of something, aren’t you?” jey questioned, making you nod your head “what is it babe?”

you blushed under his staring gaze “it’s just…i don’t want this to ruin what we have…”

“i promise you, it’s not” rhea added “nothing is gonna ruin what we have…we promise you”

“okay…” you smiled, earning a smile from her side “but uhm…i’ve never been with two people at the same time so i don’t really know what to do” your cheeks turning red.

“it’s okay beautiful, we will take care of you” jey reassured you, making you nod your head.

your heart pounding in your chest when rhea started kissing you again. her lips were so soft and kissable that you were kinda jealous that jey had the chance to kiss her every day. jey moved between your legs, with his big hands, he softly pulled them apart. while rhea was assaulting your lips, jey started kissing your thighs, grazing at your naked pussy but never touching it.

“i wanna taste her…” rhea almost moaned on your lips when she heard jey kissing your thighs. he couldn’t say no to mami so he moved out of her way and as rhea positioned herself between your legs, the twin laid next to you, popping himself up on his elbow as he watched cautiously every movement your face made.

rhea’s lips kissed your clit, making you slightly move on the bed. when she got the reaction that she wanted from you, she began her attack on your pussy. she took her time eating you out, kissing and licking your clit. jey’s free hand moved over your already hardened nipples, giving them equal attention.

you weren’t a typical screamer in bed, you were shy and it was hard for your partners to understand if you liked what they were doing or not. jey noticed how hard you were trying to keep your moans low and he didn’t agree with your choice “i wanna hear your pretty voice” he whispered into your ear, while his lips left kisses behind your neck “moan for us y/n…” and that was all the confidence you needed because in the exact moment rhea licked at your entrance and jey took a nipple in his mouth, a soft moan escaped your lips, making rhea shiver from how good you were being for them.

jey enjoyed teasing your nipples, wondering if you were so sensitive just for him or you were like that in general. his kisses were soft, he was treating you with such care that you found hard to believe that the jey uso was such a romantic lover boy.

rhea told you about the first time they had sex and how he basically destroyed her. of course, she enjoyed it, and by the way she told you that story, you were sure that those two destroy the bedroom at least twice a day. but this was a different side of jey, and a different side of rhea.

still taking the lead, she brought one of her skilled finger over your clit as her tongue was working over your entrance “fuck baby, you taste so fucking good…” she moaned against your pussy, making you shiver. the added pressure over your clit sent goosebumps all over your body. seeing your thighs trembling, jey knew that you were close and he needed to see you coming for them.

he moved his head from your nipples to your lips, gently kissing you, his tongue fighting for dominance “you coming baby?” he whispered in your ear. too lost in pleasure, you couldn’t find a proper answer but the way your thighs shook and the way your body went rigid and limp in a minute was enough as an answer for jey. grabbing the sheets, a very pornographic sound left your lips, shocking everyone in the room, you included. no one ever made you cum so hard in your life.

rhea worked you through your orgasm, stopping only when she cleaned you up with her tongue. when she was done, she brought her face down to your face and softly pressed a kiss onto your cheek “you were so good for me…” she whispered in your ear. she watched your blissful face, eyes barely open and mouth agape, you were a vision for her.

“you should taste how sweet she is…” she grabbed jey’s face and brought him to her lips, making you taste yourself on him. jey moaned into rhea’s mouth, swearing that you were the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.

rhea’s hand teased jey’s cock. you saw it tweaking in her hand as she gave it some attention too. pre-cum already spreading along his shaft, making him whimpering as rhea mover her hand up and down. you watched in awe how confident she was, how confident she was moving and you wished you could have a little bit of her confidence. you were there, watching her pleasuring her boyfriend and you felt yourself getting wet again.

“baby…” jey moaned against her lips “i wanna try y/n’s pussy…” he said, almost as if he was asking for permission. you saw the look rhea gave him, almost a smirk and she couldn’t say no so she nodded, kissing him one last time before sitting on the bed next to you.

rhea fantasised about you multiple times. she fantasised about having you naked just for her, having you naked for her and jey and now she couldn’t believe that you were actually there.

“you doing okay love?” she asked, making sure that you were okay and not overwhelmed.

“yeah…” a whisper left your mouth.

jey checked with rhea and she signed him to go, that you were okay and ready for him.

“if at any point you wanna stop, you say the word and i stop okay baby?” jey asked you, and you nodded. he wanted this to be pleasurable experience for you and hurting you wasn’t his intention.

he was big. probably the biggest dick you’ve ever seen and you haven’t had sex in a long time, you weren’t so sure he was going to fit.

“what about we stretch you out first?” rhea asked, mostly to jey. she might have sensed your worry or maybe she remembered when you told her that the last time you had sex was months and months ago.

jey nodded, understanding that this might have been a little overwhelming for you. he brought his middle finger over your entrance, teasing you, making you whimper. he took time with you. his finger slowly thrusting inside of you. your walls immediately clenching around him.

she’s not going to fit - he thought - she’s too tight.

“let me know if i hurt you…” he whispered, reassuring you with a smile.

“okay…” you smiled back. you trusted jey, you trusted rhea, maybe you didn’t trust yourself much but you knew you were in good hands. they would never hurt you on purpose and rhea reminded you that no matter what, you had control over your decisions, whether you wanted to continue or not.

his finger moved slowly inside of you, jey finding that spot that made you crawl to him. he found it when he heard a strong whimper coming from you “oh, like that uh?” he watched as you nodded your head, not being able to answer him. rhea admired the whole scene in awe. she had dreamed about this multiple times and she couldn’t believe that now you were actually there, naked for both of them. she was mesmerised by your beauty, by the way your body reacted so well to both her and damian. she couldn’t get enough of you.

“i wanna feel you coming on my cock…” jey’s voice was low, delicate even. you nodded, anticipation building in your core “if at any point you want to stop just let me know, i don’t wanna hurt you baby…” jey was dead serious. you weren’t rhea, he didn’t know you or your body as well as he knew hers but by the time you’ve spent together he saw how more of a delicate person you were, he knew he had to be careful otherwise he would scare you.

“i will…” you reassured him.

he brought his dick through your folds, collecting your juices before slowly thrusting his tip inside of you. he was big, probably the biggest one you’ve ever been with. he made you feel inch by inch, thrusting deeper inside of you “breathe baby…” rhea reminded you.

once he was all settled in, he waited for you to adjust, leaving soft kisses on your collarbone and breast, whispering praising words “you can move jey…” you nodded your head when he gave you a questioning look.

he moved slowly at first, his eyes never leaving your face, making sure there was no sign of discomfort.

when he hit that spot inside of you, you couldn’t contain your moans low any longer, pleasure was building inside of you and rhea’s hands touching between your shoulders and your breast weren’t making it easy for you to stay quiet.

“faster…” you moaned, making him smile. he sped up a little, hitting all the right spots inside of you “oh fuck…mh…” you felt tears forming inside your eyes, you’ve never felt that much pleasure in your life.

your thighs shaking a little, making jey speed his movements as rhea lowered her head and took a nipple into her mouth, biting and kissing it “you’re being so good for us baby…so fucking good” she murmured against your skin. you loved her dominant side, you trusted her with your life and you gave control over your own body.

“jey…oh-fuck…” you opened your eyes, meeting his staring look. a few tears fell and rolled down your red cheeks “please…” you didn’t even know what you were begging for.

“please what baby…you like it?” he whispered into your ear, only earning a nod as a reply “good girl…baby, you’re made for us…” he quickly looked down at rhea, noticing how her lips were playing with your nipples and her hands were playing with her pussy, bringing her own pleasure. the room was filled with moans, your skin shining from the layers of sweat upon it. jey’s body moving in sync with yours as you were both chasing your orgasm.

“jey, i’m so close…fuck” your voice whimpered, making jey slowing his thrusts as he could take a good look at you. he brought a leg over his shoulder, moving deeper inside of you.

“oh fuck…come for me baby…” he almost cried when he felt how your walls were squeezing him. you were close and he knew it “keep your eyes on me baby, i wanna see your face…” he ordered and you tried your best to do as he said “eyes on me…” he whispered, voice so rough and yet so soft.

rhea was about to cum as she played with her own clit and her moans vibrating against your skin where enough to send you over the edge.

“jey…oh fuck…i’m…” you weren’t even able to finish your sentence that you were already coming on his cock.

“yeah, i know baby…i wanna feel you” he sped up his movements as you were coming all around his cock. your own orgasm led to rhea coming all over her fingers. jey couldn’t hold himself anymore and he quickly pulled out and came all over your chest. he wanted to cum inside of you but as a first experience with him and rhea, he didn’t want overwhelm you. “oh shit…” his eyes rolled back as he leaked all over your chest and red breast.

you took time catching breath, your chest heavy while rhea softly kissed your reddened skin. your whole body was sensitive, legs still shaking and tears still falling from your eyes. jey moved to get a washcloth from the bathroom to clean you up.

“you did so good baby…” rhea whispered as she moved closer to your body. she laid down on the bed and she gently grabbed your body so you could lay against her. your head over her shoulder as she softly whispered praise words into your ear.

jey admired the two of you, feeling so grateful that you trusted them both.

he quickly cleaned himself before coming back to the bedroom, his hands moving to wash your sensitive pussy and chest, to clean you up from all of his juices and when he was done he moved to lay back down, next to your and rhea.

“are you okay baby?” he asked, meeting your eyes “anything that hurts?”

you smiled “no…i’m perfectly okay, nothing hurts…” and they both believed you. you looked so peaceful in jey’s eyes that he wished this could be a permanent thing and not a causal one.

“i should probably go home…” you whispered, feeling like you didn’t belong there. it was fun, it was good, but you didn’t want to crash rhea’s and jey’s romantic relationship more than you already did.

jey and rhea looked at each other, worried that they might have done something wrong “what are you talking about love?” rhea softly asked.

“i mean…this was just one night thing, right? i don’t wanna be the reason you two break up or have problems…” you mumbled, shying away.

“what? hold up! what is that coming from?” jey intervened.

you took a deep breath “i mean…isn’t this what you wanted? just an experience?”

“absolutely no…baby, why would you think that?” rhea was partially shocked and hurt “what i said at dinner, it’s true…i’ve always thought of you as more than just a friend and just because because jey and i are dating, doesn’t mean we don’t want you too…if you want us” she smiled at you.

they wanted you? not just for the sex, but they wanted you.

“i know that your pretty mind is overthinking right now…” jey murmured leaving a soft kiss over your shoulder “but we want you, if you want us…”

“like a relationship? the three of us?” you definitely didn’t expect that proposal.

“yeah…” rhea breathed “the three of us…we can take things slowly, we are not rushing you and we definitely will never make you do things you are uncomfortable doing…but it’s pretty clear, we like you more than just a friend and the idea of not having you with us it’s killing me…”

“okay…” you whispered, meeting rhea’s face and her hopeful eyes.

“okay?” jey asked, smiling a little too much.

“yeah…okay, let’s do this…” you knew you were in good hands so why not giving it a try?

——————————————————

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I WROTE THIS 🙅🏻‍♀️ enjoy 💋

[lonelystarrs]

𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮’𝐬 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 prt 1.

Barou Shouei x FemReader (slight x Nagi Seishiro in prt 2)

it all started because he bullied your brother, it all started when 12 year old you kicked a ball into his face. Growing up with your eventual sweetheart wasn’t all smooth sailing, life was full of lessons but through the rough and smooth one thing Barou always knew; you were always his girl. Sometimes though even a king needed to lose his throne to realise his true royalties were what built it.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI + virginity loss (both 18+) + angst with eventual comfort + fluff + long fic / Tugs & Texts expansion + established relationship with Barou + smut +

Word count 11.4k

Barou was always king of the field since he started at 6 years old and discovered how good it felt to win, how natural he was at this sport and it was his domain; it was where he belonged. 

This discovery meant Barou dominated the field wherever he went, crushing anyone who crossed his path for the next six years.  

Until one day he happened to crush the wrong person. 

He’d kicked the ball hard towards the goal aiming for it to be a score but some brave kid decided to block the strike. 

He walked over, looming over the boy as he curled into himself holding his face, blood and snot gushing from his as is skin burned bright red. Barou’s hands shoved into his pockets as he half leaned over him. 

“Tsk, what a donkey thinking you’d block that, learnt your lesson?” 

12 year old Barou with his new lingo, new insults to throw at people, left the field and thought nothing of it, just another who got in his way and learned to stay out of it; until the next day he met his karma. 

“You!” 

Barou had been taking part in his strict training routine in the rain, at 12 years old he set his mindset and goals high; creating a routine that he researched and put together through PE, his favourite subject in school.

Red eyes turned to the girly voice that called out angrily in the rain but instead of meeting who was calling him, his face was met with a ball, smacking him clean in the face and actually making him take a few steps back. 

“You asshole! Thinking you can treat people like you do, you hit the wrong boy yesterday Shouei! I’m gonna make your life hell!” 

He never even seen you coming, a mere voice in the rain and suddenly blood gushed from his nose; his hand clamped over it to stop the bleeding. 

Eyes wide he pulled his hand from his face to stare at the fresh blood, even his damn teeth were hurting. 

Barou met your eyes for the first time in his life, shocked to the core a freaking girl had kicked the ball that hard.

“who the hell you supposed to be, the babies girlfriend!?” 

“That was my brother and he’s only 8 you idiot!” 

Barou straightened as he took you in, you looked roughly around his age definitely not as young as the kid yesterday. That fire in your eyes was burning but what Barou was more impressed with was the accuracy and strength of your strike with the ball. You stood in the rain, practically steaming as it hit you because you were so angry. 

Then you spun and disappeared leaving 12 year old Barou with sore teeth, bleeding nose and pounding head. 

Perhaps even his heart thumping more than it should be.  

—0—

You certainly kept your promise; making Barou Shouei’s left hell for the next four years. Although at this point he was convinced it was just habit, no one could hold a grudge for this long surely?

The fact he could see that damn gleam in your eye, those lips twitching in a little smirk when you pushed his buttons, when he squared up to you pressing his forehead to yours and you only pushed back was proof you were enjoying it. 

So he tried to not feed it.

He was the better person, walking away or ignoring you. He did best to avoid you, but found him you always did!

The only one really brave enough to bother him, to get in his space was you. Girls were too scared to approach him in person, deflated by love notes left in his locker; he simply threw them away never even opening them.  Even the guys stayed away from him unless it was his soccer team. 

He became a bit of a loner, seemingly content in his own company or focusing on his football dream. His arrogance and ego grew into something rather ugly, adopting manners of being a king, everyone being a peasant or a donkey.

You’d stood up to Barou from day one, the only reason you survived it was because his patience and morals were incredible; he didn’t believe in hitting girls. Even if you standing up to him wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

However, being sixteen and hormones arriving changed things up.

Where things remained very much the same for you towards him, Barou’s teenage boy mind was starting to mess with his exchanges with you. He’d started to really try to stay away, his gaze noticing things in you he hadn’t before and it disgusted him.

Like how you standing up to him, never backing down and being just as stubborn as he was shifted from annoying to endearing. He argued back less, unable to form insults when eyes dropping down to your shirt that was getting too tight on your chest, your skirt dancing on your thighs, how your waist dipped showing curves.

He was successful for a time, keeping distance from you and avoiding any heads butting. But this week, much to poor Shouei’s dismay, the teacher thought it was a good idea to pair you both together for a project. 

even the whole class fell silent, awkwardly looking between each other. No other teacher was brave enough to pair up you both, but this one seemed to twinkle something mischievous in her eyes over it.

Barou had been unusually quiet with you for the last two weeks and he had been avoiding you like the plague. 

Why? You had no idea. 

You didn’t really care either.

“Get into your pairs and decide what you’re going to do for the arts project.” 

Barou’s eyes darkened as you stood from your seat knowing he wouldn’t move towards you, the rest of the class moved and chatter started throughout the room making sure they had distance from you both. The occasional side glances to see if you’d killed each other yet.

You slid into the high stool next to him with a little too much sass, red eyes glancing down at your school skirt riding up, thigh high socks squeezing the tops of your thighs and he groaned, turning away to glare at the wall and fight the heat crawling up his neck. 

“So Barou,” you sang, he inhaled deeply arms crossing tighter against his chest that was getting bigger every passing month, it was impressive how the guy had shot up like he had. He was so freaking tall and growing more muscle by the week.

“What’cha wanna do with your favourite subject?” 

“Like hell I know. You do it, keep that shit off me.” 

He hated arts and crafts because it was so damn messy, he was already glaring at the paper on the table and the different pencils, charcoals and paints lined up to use. 

“Awh c’mon!” You grabbed the charcoal pencil and started to press it hard on the paper, gathering a nice little patch of black dust before placing it down and pressed your index finger into it. 

Barou actually gritted his teeth at the mess, eyes tearing from the page to look else where whilst you started to draw something with the charcoal. 

You were always good at portraits or forms of the anatomy, he’d seen you work with charcoal a lot and despite its mess the end results were always good. 

He’d give you that.

“So, I’m surprised you haven’t kicked off being paired with me.” 

“You’re good at the subject, you’ll get us a pass. I’m not foolish enough to not take the best in here, means I don’t have to touch this shitty stuff either.” 

Your silence and lack of work on the paper made him turn to look at you, only to see you looking at him suspiciously. 

“The fuck you starin’ at?!”

“Where’s Barou?”

He scoffed and looked away realising he’d just somewhat complimented you to your face. You laughed and scratched your cheek with your finger forgetting about the charcoal coating the pad. 

“I’ll get us passes useless Barou! Don’t you worry!” 

You returned your attention back to the paper and Barou’s eyes moved to you when you weren’t looking. Red gaze watching your face, your tongue sticking out a bit as you concentrated with a small smile on your lips. Eyes beaming with joy at you setting your skills on something you enjoyed. 

Damn it you’d grown up so much, he wasn’t the only one who’d shot up. You started to lose that baby fat on your cheeks, your hair had got longer and you always smelled so damn good. Your shirts were always ironed and perfectly white, he’d notice the material hugging you more as your breasts had started to grow, the shape of you changing as you both hit 16. 

His eyes moved to your face again, noticing a few strands of hair had fallen from your successful attempt of a messy bun to stop it getting in the way whilst drawing. 

He then noticed the black smudge on your cheek and he glared at it, his hand twitching already to remove it. 

How had you got that on your face so damn quickly! 

“Ta-da!!!” 

You held the page up, a dust of black cloud flying off causing Barou to shoot from his seat quickly. 

“Watch it you slob!” 

You looked over your shoulder with a dry expression, 

“You’re such a princess Barou,” 

“Piss off.” 

You blew him a kiss and looked back at you work, your photographic memory paying off as you grinned at it.

“Hmm, just needs a title, how about….” You pondered for a second before lighting up and grabbing a pencil, scribbling down before sliding it to him. 

‘The King’s Strike.’

Barou stared at the page, you slid in front of him. The perfect striking pose, shirtless with just shorts, his long socks, shin pads and soccer boots. Muscles drawn perfectly, the twist of the body and shadowed with the charcoal. The ball moving towards the goal, every detail was there.

Then his hair.

It was him. Striking a goal. 

“It was you at the game last week,” you said boredly, “-s’yours if you want it.” 

“You were there?” He looked at you finally and you shrugged, looking off across the class. 

“Since last year,” 

“Every game?” 

“Uh -yeah. The girls like watching you lot, I find it boring but seeing you prance around like a show pony is midly entertaining.”

Shit why did he suddenly feel so hot? He didn’t even give a shit that you’d insulted him, he was so focused on the fact you’d been watching him and he never knew.

His hands got clammy, his heart accelerating in his chest like it did after he scored at the same time he felt fucking nervous. The bell ringing broke his gaze on the drawing, you jumped down from your stool and turned to leave. 

Barou had other ideas, grabbing your wrist before you got too far you spun back and looked at his grip on you to him. Frowning you opened your mouth to say something but Barou dragged you down with him to grab his bag. 

“You scrub you can’t just leave like that, you’re gonna get that shit everywhere! You’re fucking filthy!”

Pulling out a pack of cleaning wipes you stared at him like he’d grown three heads, before snorting a laugh, then it went full blown. 

“You carry those in your school bag?! Hahahahaha!” 

“Shut it you slob.”

Heat crawled up his neck but he battled it down, his hand lifted your wrist to clean your fingers with the wipe. What the hell was he doing?

“It’s even under your fucking nail -ugh this is disgusting.” He was grumbling to himself and you froze staring at him, he was surprisingly gentle actually, you thought he was finished until he grabbed your cheeks, pushing them together causing your lips to perk and pulled you closer to him. Your breath hitched in your throat as the closeness.

Reaching up with a new wipe to clean the smudge on your cheek. 

“I gotta game Saturday,” he grumbled, voice deep and gruff, refusing to look at you longer than a glance. You were worried he could feel your heart thumping in your chest, or how hot your cheeks felt under his fingers. 

“You comin?” 

You nodded dumbly your eyes taking in his features being this close. Completely forgetting if you even had any plans this weekend, you felt blank at the moment, heat stirring in your chest and you actually rubbed your thighs together.

When did this guy get so damn handsome? His eyes were so… red, his hair looked so soft, he’d grown substantially and he absolutely towered over you now. 

“Front row on our teams side,” 

His eyes flicking to your mouth before locking with your eyes. 

“-got it, girl?” 

Barou released your cheeks and grabbed his bag, throwing it over his shoulder and leaving the room; you stood dumbfounded at what the hell just happened. 

You looked to the table, he’d taken the drawing. 

Unknown to you, the old lady art teacher was chuckling in her seat, fingers pressed together and her glasses glinting watching you both. 

“I knew it.”  

—0—

You’d attended his game, sitting where he told you to and you watched how each game turned him more into an asshole on the field. He was cruel, selfish and egotistical yet you couldn’t stop watching him. 

You’d made a mess more often in arts because he couldn’t stop himself from cleaning you up, accidentally spilling things on your hands and making art class extra messy. Even when you weren’t paired together he’d storm across the room when everyone left.

You’d make sure your tie looked off when you seen him and he’d straighten it because it drove him mad. It amused you endlessly, weirdly liking it each time he got closer to you. 

It all started from Art classes, graduating closer to you, using the excuse he knew you’d make a mess. It started simple, minor until it progressed into pairing with you for projects. Glowering down at whoever was next to you and getting them to move. They were scared whilst your eyes twinkled in amusement up at him, until he glared at you for staring at him.

Where it began it arts to spread to each class he shared with you, seating next to you or keeping you as a study partner. You didn’t find yourself questioning it, a light tease every now and then which he found himself not biting to.

The day he caught you walking home in the rain without an umbrella he let you stand under his, belittling you the entire walk home for being a dumbass and forgetting it.

Your heart racing when you seen his shoulder wet, hanging out from the umbrella to keep you dry. So you made him a bento as a thank you, he was skeptical at first, looking at it with disgust and you didn’t think he’d eat it, until he handed it back clean and empty the next day.

That one walk turned into him waiting at the gate no matter the weather, he’d listen to you ramble on about absolute bullshit wondering why he tolerated you above everyone else; perhaps your amazing bento boxes he had daily now were the reason.  

The morning he caught you running on the weekend during the summer; those shorts riding fair too far up your thighs and ass leaving nothing to the imagination. He couldn’t shift the image of your sweat glistening skin, chest heaving as you sucked air back in, your sports bra pushing everything up and playing on his teenage mind.

He started running with you, leaving his headphones in whilst you had yours in. Every weekend morning he’d be waking you up at stupid times to run and you kept up with him. You’d both stop at a shop to buy a drink on the wall home to cool down. 

“My feet are buzzing!”

“Get better trainers then you idiot,” 

“I did! They haven’t arrived yet.” 

“Then why are you fucking running if they’re hurting?” 

You pouted and prodded his bicep,

“-and miss our morning dates, getting all hot, sweaty and out of breath with you? Pft!” 

Barou handed you a cold bottle of water, pressing the cold bottle to your forehead whilst gulping down his. You side glanced watching his Adam’s apple bob with each swallow. 

His shirt was off, tucked into his waist band of his shorts and sweat dripping down his body. The temperature was already getting unbearable this early in the morning. Ditching his empty bottle he started to walk forwards, glancing over his shoulder at your slower pace and fiddling with the bottle. 

“Don’t say a damn word,” He sighed in annoyance and stopped, crouching to his knee he glared over his shoulder. “-up.” 

His hands gripped your thighs tightly, wrapping them around his sides and feeling you press your body flush against his back, arms wrapping lazily around his neck and resting your head on top of his.

People started gossiping, started suggesting that Barou had his eyes on you, the mutterings and the rumour of being Barou’s girl started circulating around. 

It was all talk, nothing had actually happened between you both but you’d noticed the change in him as much as you had yourself, it was slow but each week over the last year progressed into something. From enemies to practically seeing each other daily, to him eating your bento boxes and being at each game. 

Then a day came after you both turned 17 and attended a certain game that changed it all, sat at the front on his teams side like you always had done for the past year since he first told you to. 

This time you weren’t alone, some guy was sat next to you and you were polite enough to speak with him when he tried to talk with you. He was funny, polite and kept you company. You laughed with him, probably flirted a little bit because you were a natural flirt, what? It was fun! 

It hadn’t gone unnoticed by the red eyed king on the field. Anger boiled in Barou each time his focused slipped to you and by the end of his match he was seething despite winning the scores, his usual fans screamed and wailed for him but it did nothing to distract him of that image with you and that guy.

Barou ignored his team cheering, stomping over he removed his jersey from his last game, sweat and muscles grabbing eyes and girls squealed at the view. 

Before you knew it a sweaty ass jersey had collided with your head, scrambling to remove it only hearing Barou’s pissed off voice.

“Oi, you fucking donkey get lost, she’s taken.” 

Stunned and embarrassed by the show in front of crowds you were left gawking as Barou made his way off the field with his team behind him.

The next day had you stomping up to Barou whilst training, he was warming up by himself as usual taking up his strict daily work out routine. 

Jesus even in that baggy hoody he was wearing he looked massive, his back looked huge as you stomped up to him, inwardly feeling your confidence shaken as you drew closer suddenly feeling smaller with each step. 

“Oi! King douche!” 

Barou grunted and looked over his shoulder at you with a bored expression, eyes giving you a once over before half turning to you; the only one he’d paused his warm up for even if it was only a few moments.

You marched to him, gripping his hoody at the front and pulling him down to your height. 

“What the hell was that about yesterday huh?” 

Barou glanced down at your hand gripping his hoody before meeting you again, eyes bored he cocked at eyebrow. He could have easily pulled back but he remained half bent to your height. 

“Mind telling me who exactly I’m taken by? Cause I seemed to have forgotten that happening.” 

“By me,” 

You sputtered at his bluntness your grip loosened on him and you leaned back. 

“What? You- I- what are you talking about? That’s a two way conversation Barou! You never asked me an-“ 

“Date me then,” 

“Will you stop being so blunt! At least act like you’re actually interested!” 

“Date me, I can tolerate you.” 

You deadpanned at his lazy bluntness and released your grip on him, stepping back you went to leave. 

Barou heard your grumbling about him, his eye twitched at you walking away from him. 

“Always so fucking stubborn.” He sighed, his hand grabbing your wrist he spun you back, other hand threading through your hair into a grip and pulling you to him.

His mouth pressed to yours in a movement too smooth for someone as belligerent as Barou to pull off, but he made up for it with how roughly he kissed.

You could taste the mint on his tongue, his lips were so damn soft, he was uncoordinated and rough, teeth biting your bottom lip too hard and his tongue running over it as if it was apologising. Greedy, messy, impatient and rough yet some kind of softness under it all —exactly what you’d expect from him.

His hand at the back of your head kept you from leaving as he pulled back, his lips shining from spit and your lip gloss. He pressed his forehead against you, eyes peering into you as he towered over you. 

“Got it, girl?” 

“Barou, was that your first kiss?” 

The heel of his hand pressed to your forehead replacing his and he pushed you backwards. 

“Get lost I have training to do.”

It totally was, you snickered and turned to leave, failing to see Barou’s thumb swipe his bottom lip, tongue following savouring the taste of you and your lip balm. A smirk twitching on his mouth as he looked over his shoulder to see you walking away with a little bounce in your step. 

 —0—

Baron always thought the act of kissing was pretty disgusting, the germs and how unclean it was to swap spit, eighteen years of that thought it was all thrown out the window when he realise the taste of your lip balm was addicting. That subtle hint of cherry lingered more than your usual strawberry flavoured one and he groaned into your mouth, sucking on your bottom lip. 

The little moan that left you made his hips roll up into yours, that bulge in his shorts running painfully tight against you, his hands gripping your hips with the intent to bruise. 

You’d come over to his house surprising him in his room when he returned from a shower, the little running shorts you had on were far too short, the loose fitting white sports top and red sports bra underneath left little to the imagination also. The towel thrown over his shoulder, stood in his gym shorts and listening to the giggles of his little sisters signally they were the ones who let you in. 

The distance between you lasted seconds after his door slammed shut, he only half turned around to see you’d strode up behind him, throwing your arms around his neck and jumping up knowing he’d catch you. 

It hadn’t taken him long to walk to his bed blindly, hands gripping your thighs and you kissing him like you hadn’t seen him only yesterday. He turned, fell to his bed and let you straddle him as he sat up, you’d been kissing since, rolling your hips against his.

“So birthday boy, you’re finally eighteen,” 

Barou sneered, rolling his eyes as you lowered your lips to his jaw line, rolling your hips against the bulge in his shorts causing an airy moan to leave him.

“You’re little over a month older, stop acting so superior.” 

You laughed against his neck, straightening yourself and leaning back, his hands sliding up to your lower back to aid your angle, you hands linking behind his neck. 

“Speaking of which, did you know our star signs are the best match?” 

“Don’t start with this shit again, its bullshit-“ 

You laughed, eyes gleaming and his softened watching your pure amusement above him, skin still glistening with sweat from your run here, lips plump from kissing him so hard. 

And his poor heart kicked in his ribs, a sudden burst of emotion swelling up his chest and it spread like heat. 

“I was thinking of what to get you for your birthday-“ you wiggled off him, his grip on you a little reluctant to let you go but your hand pressing against his hard cock made his jaw clench, “-you locked the door right?” 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

It was finally happening huh? It wasn’t often Barou felt himself caught off guard, or any confidence shaken because he was pretty grounded, but his nerves jumped not showing it in his expression and yours didn’t falter either. 

You’d both decided to wait until you were eighteen, given you’d turned that age a little over a month ago he didn’t think you’d be so literal in the agreement when he turned it.

When you dropped to your knees between his, hands gliding up to the waist band of his shorts that were doing very little to hide his dick, you tugged and he didn’t move for a second, red eyes looking down at your pouting face, his hair still down from his shower as it draped over his broad shoulders. 

His hand cupped your chin locking gazes with you. 

“Ain’t no pressure or rush, shouldn’t be doin’ it just cause its my birthday,”

“Your dicks literally flexing under my hand-“ 

“That ain’t the point!” He seethed, other hand gripping your wrist pulling it from his cock and you pouted at him, actually fucking pouted and he sucked his teeth, his self restrain faltering for a second at your pouty ass face.

“You even know what you’re fucking doin?” 

“Kinda, but it gets me off trying it for the first time so, think of it as a joint birthday present!”

You’d watched Barou’s jaw tightened, red eyes sliding off to look at his door in concern knowing his little sisters were running around due to his parents being out, his attention quickly brought back to you when you tugged at his waist band again. 

“I put frozen on for them and bought a bag of sweets -we have two hours.”

You heard Barou click his tongue and he stood, tilting his head down to watch as you leaned back onto your ass, knees still on the floor and looked up at him all doe eyed. His black hair falling to the side he tilted and his thumbs ran under the band of his shorts, pulling it down low enough so his little trimmed snail trail appeared before the head of his dick rested over the band. 

You groaned and licked your lips, reaching up to skim your fingers along his hips. 

“B please,” his jaw clenched, nervous for reasons he didn’t quite understand but he hid it well, his cock flexing at your tongue licking your swollen lips, eyes glazing with something he hadn’t seen before and your whiny little beg. 

“Take it easy-“ one of his thumbs pushed his shorts, releasing his cock with a heavy slap to his stomach, a sticky line of pre linking to his dick and your eyes widened, a smug smirk gracing his face and his ego soared at your shocked expression. Confidence taking over his concern at you faltering, his other hand went for your pony tail, twisting it around his hand and pushing your face to the hilt of his cock, “-I ain’t small so don’t get carried away.” 

His confidence faltered when yours overtook his in strides, tongue pressing to the gap between his shaft and balls, licking a thick, slow line up to the head of his dick before swirling your tongue around it. Barou watched the pre melt on your tongue, you moaned and he fucking melted. 

You laughed when he let out some choked noise at the feel of your tongue swirl around the head of his dick, before kissing the underside of it looking at him like you were in love. 

“Taste good B-“ you hummed against it rising a hand to wrap around his dick not even managing to touch your fingers because of his sheer girth, you pumped up and his body jolted forward the hand tightened around your hair, “-can I suck now?” 

“F-Fuck,” you took that as your go ahead and wasted no time in wrapping your lips around his cock sinking down enough so you were comfortable at your limit, his dick flexed in your warm mouth and when you moaned around his cock Barou was finished, both hands held either side of your face and you gripped him tighter refusing to budge.

“G-Get off, fuck- Hold on,-“ your name left his mouth in a such a whiny tone you looked up to check this was actually Barou, only smirking around his cock at his expression. Eyes blow and wide, mouth agap and he was damn drooling. 

Your eye contact with him, his thick cock in your mouth, hand wrapped around him and that little smirk would stick with Barou until his dying day he was sure of it, he came so quickly he didn’t even have to warn you, your expression changing to shock as thick ropes of cum spilled into your mouth so hard it shot to the back of your throat. 

Hips jolting, six pack flexing as he released his first orgasm with you, lasting less than five minutes in your mouth for the first time. 

You didn’t stop, spit and cum creating a sloppy mess down your chin, hollowing your cheeks and tongue rubbed against the head of his dick you bobbed on his cock; his voice broke as he tried to growl out your name, hand gripping painfully now on your hair trying to pull you off.

Looking back up at him you almost laughed, his eyes borderline cross eyed, drool now spilling to his chin and his hips bucking with each stroke of your tongue. You were overstimulating him and you knew it, you were clenching around nothing and you could feel yourself soaked through your running shorts. Spit and cum dribbled down your neck into your cleavage, knowing Barou would have a fit about it when he managed to uncross his eyes. 

His body recoiled and he sat back on the bed, panting like he’d just finished a soccer match and sweating as much. You rose your hand to wipe your mouth on the back of it, eyes glazed and looking at Barou like he was prey, red eyes drinking in the mess you made but unable to ignore you licking your lips. 

“Maybe the film I picked was too long-“ 

You shouldn’t have doubted Barou’s ability to recover, you shouldn’t have been snarky. He growled and your face faltered for a second, all amusement or taunting left you, blinded with being too cocky and confident with your actions to think that you’d had ever beaten Barou Shouei. 

“You’re dead-“ 

You stood up quickly, a little wobbly from numb knees on Barou’s bedroom carpet and turned to leave, hoping to seek safety in his little sisters downstairs, he was quicker, a thick, strong arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you flush against him with a half screaming leaving you.

“Shut the fuck up-“ his mouth pressed to your ear, his deep warning made bumps rise over your skin, his hand clamped over your mouth stifling your noise and holding you in place whilst the hand around your waist dipped into your shorts. Barou wasted no time in roughly sliding a finger clumsily down your clit right to your hole, your hips jolting forward and your cry was muffled under his hand. “-you’re soaking.”

He growled into your ear, deep voice making you clench around nothing but Barou felt your pussy pulse against the pad of his finger resting at your entrance, he rolled it gathering slick to glide it back to your clit and the pace he set was cruel. You didn’t know if it was lack of experience or because he was trying to be mean, but he was rough with your clit, rolling circles around it with one finger your hips stuttering and legs threatening to give out from under you as you struggled to stand. 

You were begging him but his hand blocked any clarity from your words, your hands finding grip on his forearm across your chest trying to pull it from your mouth. It made you realise how strong Barou was, he was solid, unmoving and had you against him with no match on his strength. His finger suddenly dipped down to your hole and pushed in to the knuckle, your eyes widened and you screamed under his palm, his lips pressed to your temple, tears blurred your vision from the over stimulation and the need to cum.

“Not so cocky now are you?” You weren’t expecting him to roll his hips into your lower back, hard cock gliding along your spine above your ass, “You’re cryin’ from a finger, how you gonna take this?” 

“Mock me again and I’ll put you in your place, nod if you understand and I’ll let you cum.” 

Tears had spilled down your cheeks at this point, weaving between his fingers mixing with your drool under it and guilt hit him, his ego too large to back down resulting in him kissing your cheeks, kissing the tears away and giving you a shhh to try and sooth you. When you finally nodded he sighed and pulled his finger from your pussy, pad rolling back to your clit where he ran soothing circles around it. A relieved sigh left you under his hand, soft moans vibrating against his skin and his only sign before you came was your hips starting to roll desperately. 

“Nod if you’re gonna cum,” you did and he hummed against you, picking up his pace, “-cum f’me then.”

Barou groaned against you as your body stuttered against him, your hands gripping his thighs behind you to support yourself and he caught you when you went slack in his arms, pulling his hand from your mouth he hooked it around your waist to hold you up. The other from your pussy he rose it to his mouth cleaning his fingers off. 

“Shit, you taste good.” 

The slamming on his door made you both jump and his grip on you tightened in response.

“Big brother! Mummy and Daddy are home, so stop smooching your girlfriend!!” 

“Fuck-“

“Don’t swear big brother!”

“Get lost brat!” 

You heard some kind of grumble under her breath as one of his sisters stomped off back down the stairs, seeing Barou flustered was rare and watching him grab clothes to put on, hard dick bouncing with each stride made you cackle. Earning a glare over his shoulders as he pulled a top on. 

“Fuck you find so funny?”

You shrugged and adjusted your shorts before pulling your pony tail back to to tidy up. 

“You’re still hard-“

“Yeah? No shit,” 

Barou sneered under his breath as he sat on the bed to pull his socks on, dressing to go out on a run to match your attire because apparently that’ll hide the suspicion of both your flustered faces. You walked over and leaned down, tucking his hair behind his ear. 

“I like your hair down, never seen it like this before. You’re real handsome you know that?” 

He blushed, Barou Shouei fucking blushed, you didn’t mock or tease him on it, your soft eyes looking directly at his and they had a teary glaze over them. He blinked at you in surprise before rolling his eyes and returning back to his socks.

“Know its my birthday but stop with the crap. Coulda just got me some damn cleaning stuff, I don’t need all the compliments n’shit.” 

His voice was low, trying to sound harsh but he just couldn’t, he just wanted to try and deflect that damn look on your face because it looked like some girl looking at the love of her life in corny romance show. His nerves kicked under his skin, his heart racing and he felt the heat in his cheeks but when he watched your eyes glisten and he hated it. 

He’d known you since he was 12, he’s bullied you, called you all sorts of names. Hell he’s seen other girls get nasty to you but you’ve never cried, you’ve never had those pretty eyes glisten with tears. 

He stood, rare concern suddenly fleeting over him and he cupped your face, thumbs wiping over your cheeks as the tears spilled down them, for a second he thought it was him -maybe he was too rough with you, too forceful and let his ego drive him. 

“M’sorry its so fucking stupid,” 

Barou Shouei was a deep thinker, his mind raced more than he let off and it started to, to the point a fleeting thought of you breaking up with him actually surfaced by his building paranoia. Even if it didn’t make fucking sense that you would, it still annoyingly crossed his mind. 

“What’s stupid?” 

“I think I’m in love with you, B.” 

Shouei stopped breathing, he froze, eyes widening as they locked with your glassy ones and you laughed through crying. 

“Happy Birthday, Barou!” You mumbled through silly tears, trying so hard to deflect it with your shitty humour but watching you laugh through tears almost made a smile form on his own mouth. 

“The hell you damn cryin’bout it you idiot?” 

You opened your mouth to respond but his covered yours before you could start blabbering something out to him, the kiss was slow and messy but it was his own way of responding to your confession. He could taste himself on your tongue, mixed with that cherry lip balm and he groaned into you.

“You’re my girl,” he spoke against your mouth before planting a kiss to your forehead and pushing you towards the door.  

—0—

Blue lock was a shock. 

It wasn’t easy to suddenly have Barou gone from your life when you were so used to having him around for the last seven years, but perhaps it was a good thing. Soccer was his priority and you knew that from day one, you never thought you were above it and quite frankly you didn’t care. Some of your girlfriends didn’t get it, perhaps they were more needy, wanting to enjoy their youths with boys and having that American dream. Driving in cars late and night, recreating the titanic scene with the steam window and hand prints. 

You used the opportunity to do the same as Barou and that was focus on yourself, you concentrated on your studies you perused what you wanted and you taught yourself not to rely on him. 

You sent him a text every Friday about your week, you sent him texts when you were horny, you sent photos, videos but there was never a delivered messaged, never a response. You tried to keep positive, you tried to not let his lack of existence bother you. 

But it was hard, some nights you teared up and called yourself selfish, sometimes you scolded him for not even trying to contact you. What kept you going was coffee and that his future was about to take off with the dreams he had. 

He simply had to do it and you knew he’d be recognised, he’d be successful. 

The day he called without much to say was the day you knew something was up with him. 

“Well, I’ll let you go king~ keep devouring, keep pushing yourself and keep learning Barou. You’re gonna eat them alive and when you’re back, you can eat me alive again~! Turns out that unholy mouth of yours really does show me heaven~!”

You laughed as you hung up and sure enough after he earned his phone back that day, after he asked for a photo of just you -nothing sexual, nothing crude, just a simple photo of you in a summer dress you knew he was missing you. 

He never told you he loved you back but you never felt unloved by him. 

He’d text you occasionally, sounding blunt and trying to come across like texting was taxing on his time, even though he was the one who often messaged first. Waking up at an ungodly hour to say good morning and texting before you even ate with a goodnight. 

When the two weeks off from Blue Lock arrived and Barou appeared at your new apartment, moving out of your family home and the visit was anything but tame. You’d still not had sex before he left and he was about to change it, hearing some of the guys talking in the lockers, seeing your messages and photos, missing you in general made for a messy and truthfully painful first experience. 

“Gotta let me in,” his third finger entered you, twisting before spreading them and you bucked up into him, panting as you gripped the pillows behind you, “-think I’m gonna fit if you're this tight around my fingers? Open up girl,”

His tongue pressed against your clit and your eyes rolled back, pussy spread out from his fingers exposing your hardened bundle of nerves to him. 

“M’cumming Barou!” 

He hummed against your clit, red eyes peering up at you from your pussy as his tongue swirled on you, watching your chest heaving, body stuttering as you came down from another high. 

Barou withdrew his fingers, wrapping it around his cock and he pumped a few times, spreading slick across the head of his dick before pressing it to your entrance. 

“You got the birth control, right?” 

You nodded dumbly, still panting from orgasm and almost too fucked out to process that he’d pressed his thick head to your already swollen hole, until he started to push forward and you tensed at the stretch. Barou clicked his tongue, eyes focused on wanting to watch his dick sink into you for the first time, it flexed at the thought of being the one to spread you open. 

But your struggle made something conflicting lurch in his chest. 

“I-I know you wanna watch b, I need your help though —it’s too big.”

He groaned at your pleading tone, damn well melting for you and sourly reminding him just how easily he’d put you first compared to anyone else in his life, including himself.

Barou shifted, one arm resting above your head to hover over you, the other moved down to press a thumb to your clit and your hips bucked at the sensitivity. 

“Look at me,” 

You did as he asked, teary eyes meeting his and you hiked your knees higher up his sides, one leg curling around his back, sitting next to your hand gripping his ass, the other holding his wrist to tug it off your clit, lacing his fingers through yours and placing it near your head. 

Pushing his hips forward until his thick head pushed through and you moaned, Barou inhaled sharply, restraining himself from just burying himself into the hilt. You were so damn warm and it was sucking him in, that moan was only spurring him to test his self control. 

“S’it, let her suck me in, she wants it, so let me damn well give it and stop being a fuckin’ tease.” 

He felt you relax and he took the opportunity, bullying the rest of his way in and pressing into you balls deep. Burying his face into your neck as his hips stuttered, airy moan breathed onto your skin. Your teeth met his shoulder, biting down on him muffling your pained whimper at the burn. 

He stilled himself, fighting himself to not cum as you clamped around him letting you adjust before he gave a test thrust, one turning into two before he set a pace that had your cunt squelching under him in no time. Your hips rolling to meet his and he realised watching your face, your expressions and doe eyes all fucked out was a better first image to have of you like this for the first time. 

Barou watched as your head tilted back, a noise he’d never heard leave you as you moaned in a way that was borderline unholy, it sent a pulse to his cock, flexing it inside you and spurred him to thrust harder. 

“Make that noise again-“ he felt you tighten around him, still keeping your head tilted and your body tensed, “that’s it huh? Right here?” 

You nodded and babbled at him, slurring words to encourage him not to stop, the slapping of his wet balls hitting your ass, cunt swallowing him sloppily as he hit that spot over and over until you came around him for the first time, your hands blinding reaching for him in support as you literally convulsed, eyes rolling back and toes curling. 

“Atta girl,” he groaned into your neck as your body fell slack, breathing heavy under him and his pace turned feral. Chasing his own end and using you under him to catch it, the only reason he lasted this long was because you’d sucked the life from him before this.

You always got so wet with his cock in your mouth, he loved how much you loved it, wrapping your arms around his thighs, sliding his thick cock down your throat like a pro. He’d cum so hard he ended up pushing you off him because you wouldn’t stop, finding it funny he was jolting under you from overstimulation, making a noise he’d never heard leave him before; some beggy whine that made you moan on his cock. 

He didn’t like mess, but hell he loved seeing his cock buried in your mouth with his cum drooling out. 

“B-Barou I’m gonna cum again! Don’t stop! There, there, fuck harder please! Cum in me, fill me up!” 

He groaned at your babbling, tears spilling down your cheeks, your breath hitching when he gave you a harder thrust that had you looking at him a little worried. 

“Who you think you’re barking orders at huh?”  He was panty, breathy as he spoke but his voice still so deep, little bite behind it as he felt himself about to cum. 

“You want me to fill you up? Best hold it in, don’t fucking waste it.”  You nodded dumbly, desperately at him. 

“Hah- I won’t, I’m cumming, I’m gonna -I love you, fuck you’re so b-big,” 

He smiled at you, heart hammering in his ribs; you were all his.

—0—

‘Rising star Barou Shouei and potential love interest sighted again!’ 

Barou’s career took off at 19, three years a now. Both at twenty two years old and you knew better than to be easily swayed by headliners. You ignored posts flying around the internet but this was the third time in a month a photo was posted with the same girl and this one was hard to ignore when she had her arm gripped around his bicep.

He hardly looked amused, if anything he looked annoyed but that wasn’t exactly a rare expression for him to present when dealing with anyone, even you at times you were sure of it.

You chewed the inside of your cheek between biting your nails, anxiety suddenly flooding you about how exactly you should handle this, you didn’t know his team mates to question them or ask if you should be worried, quite frankly you’d never met anyone in this new team of his. 

He wouldn’t do this.. it’s just not Barou. Cheating just isn’t his thing, he values himself too highly for it.

You ignored the notification bars at the top of your phone, pinging from different girl friends who were sending different emojis to express anger, guessing they’d forwarded the recent post to you to see. 

But when Barou’s caller ID came in, covering your entire screen you let out a yelp and flung the phone across to the sofa from where you were sat, holding your breath as it rang and exhaling heavily when it stopped. Placing your hand on your heart feeling it thumping against your ribs. 

Shit. 

Shit why did you do that? 

It rang again but you had frozen in your place, your brain telling you to answer him but your body just wouldn’t move, the only relief was when it stopped ringing. 

The pinging of texts began and you picked the phone back up, watching as Barou started to message. 

B > Answer your damn phone, 

B > Oi! Woman you wanted me to call at seven. 

You thumbs clumsily flew across the screen, your bubble showing as typing and it took Barou less than five seconds to hit the call button again.

“H-Hey B, sorry I-uh,”

“The fuck you sound like that?”

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re doing summit you shouldn’t be, you not been using that damn toy again have you? Told you not to use it unless I’m-“ 

“N-No! I wasn’t doing that, Jesus Christ Barou what if someone heard you!?” 

“Why? You with someone?” 

“No. Aren’t you?” 

Your hand slapped across your mouth when the words left you in a snarky tone, your annoyance getting the better of you before you could stop it, a heavy sigh left him breaking the tension, his gruff voice quieter than usual. 

“Ignore that bullshit online, she’s the new physio for the team, just clingy as hell.” 

“So, she just gets her hands all over you when I’m not there?” 

“Well yeah, she’s does treatment and sports massage, it’s no big deal. Stop with the crybaby shit, it ain’t like you.” 

Oblivious freaking idiot. Your phone tucked between your shoulder and head, because your hands wrung an invisible neck in front of you like Homer with Bart. 

“Yeah, sorry, it’s just me being a brat huh? M’gonna go Barou, I’m tired. speak to you in a few days when you’re not so busy with your team or new physio.” 

The line going dead was far from a pleasant feeling, heart dropping to his stomach he stared at the home screen of his phone, that pretty photo of you in a sundress he’d changed back in blue lock three years ago. Barou being shocked was rare, you were both twenty two now and you’d never acted like this in ten years. It felt different, his guy was screaming at him leaving it to sit heavy in his stomach. 

You’d never gone to bed without saying goodnight, you’d never got angry to the point where you’d literally shut him off and he needed more fingers to count the amount of times he had said something shitty. You usually fired back, that stubbornness you had and that he found always so endearing.

Opening up the chat of you both he stared at your name, but you never came back online. 

It didn’t stop him sending a text goodnight though.  

When he woke to no routine good morning text, despite you having read his goodnight text at 5am it gave a sour start to his day. He didn’t do anything wrong, you were throwing a damn tantrum over nothing so he opted to give you space.

“Heh, trouble in paradise aye?” 

Barou only side glared at snuffy, ignoring his attempt of conversation as the striker sat in front of the obnoxiously large tv playing whatever film took his fancy this evening whilst stretching himself out. 

“Showed in your training today,” 

“If you’re just here to talk shit then fuck off, I ain’t in the mood.” 

Taking a seat on the sofa behind Barou, he hummed and watched the tv. 

“Didn’t wanna say back along but kinda figured this would happen, girls are a distraction y’know?” 

“Didn’t see you looking troubled in the hot tub photos of ya with them girls, go preach to Aiku, my girl ain’t your concern.” 

“Wrong-“ Snuffy twirled the remote to the tv around in his hand, starting to flick through the channels, “-anything that runs a risk to my team playin’ is my concern. ‘Sides whilst we’re on the topic, you not thought about other girls? Instead of being with the same one? Haven’t you been with her for like, forever?” 

“Sixteen and no.” 

“Or not thought about how feels with you being away more than with her? Long distance is such a drag, you’re both missing out on life.” 

The statement didn’t trigger Barou to think about himself, he was living his goals in life and thriving, coming back to you was a reward, a comfort he’d always known so he wasn’t trouble by any of it. But he’d never once stopped to think about you and your life at home, waiting for him to come back whilst he was off travelling the world. You never complained, you never seemed sad and always supported him, but was it all a front? Was he stopping you from living as freely as he was? He hated the thought of someone else making you happy, someone else taking his position and being around you more than he was -someone else fucking you and seeing that dumb, love struck look you gave him. 

He’d never even told you he loved you back, he never felt he needed to because you just got him in ways no one else did.. but if he couldn’t even give you that, how could he give you the type of relationship you deserved? 

You deserved everything and more. 

“I guess we’re all different, I know I sure as hell couldn’t do it. one of the guys overheard your conversation about the new physio, the media has been in a frenzy about it so putting two and two together isn’t difficult. But fix it, it’s affecting your play and you’re headlining at the moment, don’t let this ruin your high.”  

—0—

You never called him back and he hated it. 

He really fucking hated it. 

But instead of biting the bullet and making the move himself Barou festered and festered. His focus on football made the days go quickly but the evenings were agonisingly slow and his red eyes drifted to his phone in hopes to see your name more than he’d like to admit. 

Despite his stubbornness in making the move, because Barou Shouei would never chase anyone, he was starting to wonder if this was for the best. Perhaps you’d both been together too long it just became a habit, something he was so used to that he never thought about anything else or anyone else. 

Did that mean he was holding you back? Were you being selfless and he selfish? 

His move to Italy wasn’t exactly a great distance to be at when things like this happened, you were both so far apart that it was difficult to just reach out, Barou didn’t think long distance was much of an issue until something went wrong. 

“Hey Barou, it’s time for your physio!” 

The man sucked his teeth, not particularly in the mood to deal with this girl who’d been causing havoc in his relationship. 

Oliver came out groaning, swinging his shoulders and arms like tension had been released. 

“She’s so good, honestly babe those hands are magic.” 

She giggled at him and waved him off trying to act modest and Barou sent a harsh glare towards both. 

“I’ll skip tonight, hands ain’t going anywhere near me after touching that slime ball, fuck knows what’s over your hands.” 

She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. 

“I bought all new hand sanitizers and wipes Shouei so get your butt in there!” 

Oliver elbowed him and gave a wink, suggestive and mocking, something that made Barou’s fist curl into a ball. 

“You’d be shit in a threesome,” 

“Get fucked fuckboy.” 

“Eh, that’s suggestive-“ Oliver recoiled with false disgust, “-you really would be shit, didn’t know you swung both ways. I ain’t into that man, only bottom I’m ever being is under a pretty girl.” 

“Will you shut up? You’re disgusting.” 

“You’re such grump! When was the last time you got laid or you still arguing with miss perfect? She’s wasted on you y’know, man she’s wife material, imagine the attention she gets when you ain’t there.”

Barou’s fist swung so quickly it gave zero time for Aiku to get away, just managing to miss the worst of the punch it still grazed his cheek. What he wasn’t expecting was Barou’s knee to end up in his stomach, the man urged from the impact shocked that Shouei actually managed to land a hit on him. Then slightly impressed by the fact it took more than half the team to hold him back, even then he made their feet move. 

“Shouei, that’s enough!” 

Perhaps Aiku had pushed a little more than he should have, but he kinda found it hard to ignore when he’d heard about trouble in paradise with you both, he hoped his taunt would spur Barou into contacting you… that it would stop his tantrum, get his head out his ass and get his head back in the game. 

Cause even Aiku had seen the worth in you and Barou losing that would be foolish.

He just didn’t realise how much worse it had made it instead.

—0—

On day four in lack of communication with your boyfriend left you feeling heavy and guilty. Finding yourself sat at home staring at a letter that had arrived this morning, you graduated your degree yesterday, passing your courses and got a placement to be a paramedic. 

You should be celebrating, you should be happy. Maybe out with friends, others who graduated and family. Your Mother, Father and Brother had attended the graduation and you were hoping Barou would have been there, you weren’t expecting him to be nor blamed him because he was in Italy following his own career dreams. 

You never stopped him, you never expected him to detour from his focus and knew it required the majority of his time. 

A small, selfish part of you was wishing he could have just paused just once to share it with you, a small part of you told yourself how amazing it would have been if him not contacting you was because he was flying back to secretly turn up at the graduation. Instead due to your stubbornness in not calling him back, you hadn’t even received a phone call or text or say congratulations.. was this your fault? Had you been a little too sensitive and dramatic about it? Were you being paranoid for no reason? You’d never been threatened by girls with him before, so why was this bothering you so?

Your gaze returned to your phone sat in your hands, silent and cold, the screen black from being untouched and you knew if you unlocked the phone it would show Barou’s contact details. 

Because you’d been hovering over the call button for the last thirty minutes after opening the incredible offer letter in front of you. 

It was frustrating that he didn’t seem to understand why you were annoyed and hurt, which was ridiculous because he didn’t even actually do anything wrong besides dismiss how you felt. It didn’t help either that only yesterday another photo was posted of him and the teams new physio yet again named as his potential girlfriend. 

Funny how you never seen photos of her with the other boys in the team. 

Nice to see that he wasn’t even trying to solve it. 

You didn’t realise you were crying until little drops fell onto your black screen, your vision clouding as they filled your eyes finally springing free. 

Sometimes you just needed a good cry right? Maybe it would be a good idea to get it out now before you called him, it would make it less likely you’d cry on the phone right? 

The thought of letting go for a minute was enough to let the tears erupt to a sob, one of those ugly cries you needed to get out your system and you started to feel better after another thirty minutes of crying. 

You wiped your tears beforing shoving your hair into a messy bun, sudden courage in you springing forth now the silliness was out of the way. A face of determination as you wiped against at your face before slapping your cheeks. 

“C’mon girl, you’re being silly. It’s now or never!” 

You grabbed your phone and didn’t give yourself a second of hesitation in clicking the call button. 

It felt like it rang forty times, feeling ever so dramatic and like time had slowed because it only took three rings for Barou to answer. 

Okay.

Good start, he answered super fast. 

“Heeeeeey! Shouei’s phone!” 

Your jaw dropped at the girls voice, your breath hitched in your throat and you were pretty sure your eyes almost fell out their sockets like something from Tom and Jerry. 

Your voice failed you, the movement and voices turning into nothing but muffled noises because your heart was thumping so loudly in your chest your ribs were vibrating. 

Fuck why were you sweating all of a sudden? Why did you feel so hot? 

Christ almighty were you about to be sick? 

A deeper voice calling your name eventually brought you back, you had no idea how many times Barou had said it only that by the time you registered it was him saying it you noticed concern lacing into it, because when Barou was concerned he sounded kinda pissed off like he wasn’t quite able to handle the uncertainty of something, like when his control and confidence slipped he faltered.

“Uh, I’m sorry didnt mean to- uh, I didn’t mean to bother you? I’m sorry I just, I’m sorry, we can talk later I -“ 

You babbled, you stumbled and you over apologised for something you didn’t even need to apologise for.

Fuck it should be him! 

The fuck were you saying sorry for?! 

His voice was calm, stern and trying to keep the situation from escalating he called your name in a way that brought tears to your eyes. 

Fuck good was all that crying for if you were getting so easily overwhelmed like this?! 

“Oi, you trust me right?” 

Your hand clasped over your mouth before you could say anything, along with hiding the sob behind it but Barou heard. 

You heard a door closing on his end, you heard him moving somewhere. 

Did you trust him? You were overwhelmed, far too emotional at the moment and confused to even answer that, you faltered because it was all too much. 

You wanted to say yes you trusted him, you wanted to speak, to talk to him about the offer letter because it would be a good thing to discuss, it was good timing. 

But your sob broke through the silence again. 

“Hey, don’t do that shit-“ he was quiet, his voice still carrying his usual deepness but there was something added into it you’d never heard from him, almost soothing, caring and it made you sob harder because it reminded you when you told him you loved him and silly cried over it, stupid emotions! Why couldn’t they just let you be strong for five minutes?!

“-we need to talk, huh.” 

“Yeah,” 

Your heart plummeted into your stomach, its fight to stay in your chest lost as the acid crept into it, churning in your stomach as your gut was telling you where this was going, your heart unable to fight or resist any longer. 

“It ain’t gonna work like this, you deserve better-“ 

How fucking dare he. 

Rage wasn’t something you felt often, it wasn’t in your personality to get angry like this, feeling it burn under your skin and desperate to act out physically. In fact the last time you remember feeling like this was when you kicked the ball into 12 year old Barou’s face for degrading your younger brother. 

It suddenly became easier to hold yourself together a little better, focusing on feeling more angry than upset, them moving together in some aid to feed your fiery side. 

“-if that’s what you want, Shouei.” 

You were sure the lingering echo of tears and upset still clung to your tone, regardless of how strong you sounded on your side your lip was wobbling and your eyes were blurring with tears. 

“I dunno what I want.” 

“If it’s got to that point, then that’s the answer for us both.” 

His silence was disturbing and it was only giving you room to allow another crying session to break through the very thin self restraint holding it back. 

So you took control. 

“Take care Shouei, all the best to you and her.” 

“Oi, I ain’t with her, it ain’t like that I told you to ignore that shit in the med-“ 

Call ended. 

Red eyes stayed down at his phone cutting off back to his background of you, hanging up on him before he was even able to finish his sentence, the regret already firing through his stomach as the heaviness of guilt made even his strong shoulders hunch. 

Fuck, what the fuck did he just do? 

Barou flicked to your name in his call log, thumb not even hesitating over your name as he went to call you back. 

Sorry this number is not available, please call back later. 

Never one for caring about social media until this moment he went to yours, still having accessing to it he scanned through going to click the message button, stopping himself when he realised why you deserved better, deserved someone who would give you the time you should have. 

seeing your photos of your graduation yesterday and being so wrapped up on his own shit he hadn’t even reached out; he didn’t even remember it. Isagi commented on it, of course he fucking did but Aikueven acknowledged your achievement in the comments, he didn’t know you even knew Aiku.

He locked his phone, throwing it onto his bed and pinching the bridge of his nose to try take away the sting flaring through it, his throat running dry as his vision suddenly blurred. 

He cleared his throat, fighting away any progress on that happening he never even cried as a baby!

Perhaps this was for the best, even if it felt wrong. 

The feeling would pass with time. 

Right? 

—0—

You removed Barou on socials, blocking his number and ways to contact until you felt ready to face the music, coming off socials as well to avoid actually seeing anymore posts. 

You needed to learn to be selfish now and focus on yourself, start a life without Barou and maybe learn some new things about yourself, pushing yourself out your comfort zone would be the first place to start… after devouring tubs of ice cream and sobbing over titanic on repeat. 

Jack could have damn well fit on that door!

You could already hear the lyrics at the back of your mind, ready to messily sing along to Near, far, wherever you are believe that the heart does go on, once more, you open the door, and ou're here in my heart and my heart will go on and on. 

Oh it was gonna happen, you were gonna be a mess.

You sat numbly looking at the letter in front of you through blurry tears looking like a blotch of white on your coffee table. You had options to be placed abroad for two year’s experience, you didn’t think your option of Italy would actually get offered, your second choice was England.

You’d got the highest marks and worked your ass off to improve your chances to get your offer, but the idiot Shouei wouldn’t ever know anything about that would he. 

Now all you had to do was decide a box to tick. 

You were calling Barou to tell him you could accept Italy, that for the first time in your lives you could be together longer than a few weeks at a time, maybe finally move in together. 

Once again your life was moving towards him, because of him and it needed to stop. 

England might be a refreshing option. 

You’re pretty sure Isagi had friends there on another soccer team, Nagi was it? 

©pharix/lonelystarrs 2023 permission is not given to repost, translate or post anywhere else.

[suugarbabe]

Origin Stories

(part 2)

summary: baby first year matty arrives at hogwarts and the first person he interacts with seems to not know him at all. matty is unsure how to feel when someone treats him like just another person instead of the dark lords son

warnings: fluff, angst, baby matty, draco being an asshole even at 11

an: thank you @musingsofahufflepuff for reviewing and editing with me. lysm <3

Sleep did not come in the form of rest for Mattheo that night. Every time he closed his eyes he saw your face twisted in disgust, a variation of the same sentence leaving your mouth, “They told me the truth about you. You’re going to be just like your father. Nothing but a murderer. Don’t ever talk to me again Mattheo.” He woke up in a sheen of sweat, panting and trying to catch his breath. 

Each intake of air felt like his lungs were shrinking; he grasped at his sleep shirt trying to feel if his heart was truly beating as quickly as it felt in his throat. The clock on his bedside table read 3:45am. Throwing back his duvet he slipped on his house loafers, glad that Feindre convinced him to take them to school. He made his way from his dorm and across the metal bridge that led to the common room. 

He looked around the expansive common room, deciding on a lounge chair in front of the fire. Mattheo curled in on himself, sitting sideways in the chair and pulling his knees up. He laid his head against the back of the chair, doing his best to breathe deeply and focus on the crackling of the fire. What finally let him fall asleep was thinking about the train ride with you. 

A shaking of his shoulders jolted him awake, “Andiamo, amico.” (C’mon, mate) He snapped his head up, seeing Theo Nott and Enzo Berkshire standing behind the chair. Enzo wore a toothy grin, his ears slightly peeking out from his hair; Theo almost looked concerned. Mattheo pulled the blanket tighter to his chin, though he didn’t remember having it when he fell asleep. 

Theo must’ve seen his confused look, speaking up again, “I noticed you weren’t in bed when I woke up to use the bathroom last night so I brought you down your covers.” Enzo nodded like he was involved with the interaction, “You should probably go get dressed, we’re going to go to breakfast and then explore the castle to see where our lessons are.” 

Mattheo still didn’t speak, instead looking briefly between the two boys. “We’ll wait for you compagno,” Theo sat down on the sofa next to Mattheo’s chair. Enzo nodded enthusiastically, following suit and sitting beside the taller boy. Mattheo silently gathered his blanket, making his way to his dorm. 

He threw his blanket back on his bed before heading to his trunk, digging for a pair of trousers and casual shirt. Students had two free days to roam the castle and the grounds before classes were to begin and Mattheo decided he was going to take full advantage of not having to wear a uniform. 

The door to the bathroom opened, Draco walking out and fixing his dress shirt in his trousers. He glanced at Mattheo as he pulled the t-shirt over his head, running both hands through his curls to fluff them slightly. Mattheo could hear the sneer in Draco’s tone as he spoke, “Is that what you’re wearing?” 

Mattheo didn’t even give him a glance, “Do you have a problem with what I’m wearing, cousin?” Draco let out an annoyed sigh, “Auntie Bella would kill you if she saw you in that.” Mattheo grabbed his wand from his night stand, grip knuckle white but avoiding actually pointing it at his family member, “Well my mother isn’t here, is she.” 

Draco rolled his eyes, “Whatever, let’s just go to breakfast. Theo and Enzo are already there.” Mattheo didn’t bother to tell him they were waiting downstairs. He personally wasn’t sure if they were doing it to be nice or if they were just trying to stay on Mattheo’s good side. 

It was hard for him to assess who was being genuine with him versus who was trying to placate him due to his “title”. He didn’t get that feeling with you. 

Mattheo followed Draco toward the common room, Theo and Enzo still sitting on the sofa where Mattheo left them. “Thought you two were headed to breakfast,” Draco questioned the soon to be dynamic duo on the sofa. “Waitin’ for Matt,” Theo nodded briefly towards Mattheo who couldn’t explain why his cheeks were warming slightly. “Yeah, Blaisey boy is saving us a spot,” Enzo gave a boyish grin. 

“You know he’d curse you if he heard you call him that,” Theo fixed the strings on his tracksuit as they started towards the great hall. Enzo shrugged his shoulders, “That’s what his mum called him on the platform. And he can’t curse me, he doesn’t know any yet.” 

Mattheo never knew how to interact with the back and forth. Never quite felt comfortable with joking with the rest of the boys growing up because his mother always told him that they were not his friends, they were his future followers. 

“Yeah but you’re not his mother, Enzo. And we all know a few curses, you know that. Our parents made sure of it,” Theo was giving a playful tone but his words held true. They all knew it. 

Entering the large doorway to the hall Draco spotted Blaise first. The latter boy had chosen a spot in damn near the middle of the table and Mattheo felt his stomach knotting again. He knew people were already going to stare at him, but this table placement felt like he was on display. 

He would’ve much rather eaten at the far end of the table, where no one would likely notice him. He’d rather eat in the kitchens with the elves. He follows the others anyway, sitting on the farthest end so there’s plenty of bench on his left. That’s something he learned very early; always know where your escape route is. 

Mattheo was too busy pushing the food around on his plate to notice you approaching. Your touch on his arm as you went to sit down was the first alert of your presence and, again, he flinched away. “M’sorr-” he starts to apologize but you’ve already cut him off, “S’okay, Matty, it’s my fault. I forgot.” 

You turn to the rest of the boys around him, “Morning! So exciting we get to explore the castle today isn’t it?” Mattheo isn’t sure if you’re ignoring it, or you just are too blissed out on magic thoughts to notice the rest of his group looking at you nearly dumbfounded. Everyone else at the table knew the rule: never touch Mattheo. Yet here you were, still unharmed at that. 

Draco’s platinum brow was raised, glancing between you and Mattheo, “I mean this in the rudest way possible…who are you?” You hum in acknowledgement, “Of course, m’so sorry I did the same thing to Mattheo on the train,” rubbing your toast hands on your jeans before holding it out to Draco and introducing yourself, punctuating your name with another bright smile.

He stares at your hand before glancing towards Mattheo. Enzo grabbed your hand instead, shaking it enthusiastically, “Lorenzo Berkshire, but call me Enzo, and this is Theodore Nott and that’s Blaise Zabini.” He nodded to the two boys on his and Mattheo’s other side. 

“Just Theo is fine,” Theo corrected, “Can I ask…what’s a badger like you doing wandering into the snake den. Didn’t you hear? We Slytherins are dangerous.” All of a sudden it feels like Mattheo’s body is not his own, like he’s shrinking smaller and smaller inside himself and what’s sitting next to you on the bench is just a shell. 

The back of his neck starts to feel damp and it's reminiscent of when he hears his mother call his name from across the manor. He’s terrified. So fearful that you’ll see the people around him as cruel and immediately associate that with him without questions. Then he’s alone again. 

“You know a badgers bite actually has a BFQ of 109,” your response to Theo’s quip is quick and easy, not a hint of defensiveness in your tone. It’s simply…informative. Your response clearly confused most of the others as well, sweet and naive Enzo the only one open enough to ask for clarification, “What the hell is a BFQ?”

Between sips of his pumpkin juice Blaise speaks for the first time since you sat down, “Bite force quotient.” Theo rolls his eyes, “Yeah, okay but what does that even mean?” You stab a sausage with your fork and set it on your plate, knife in hand as you begin to cut it into smaller pieces, “It means that a badger bite has enough force to crush bone like I’m cutting this sausage.” 

You take a bite from your fork before dancing it around in the air as you spoke, “Mmm, guess I’m just saying to mind your tone because,” you took another bite, “yeah snakes are all in your face, hissing and what not, venom blah blah…but badgers are unassuming. People see them as dumb little furry rodents so no one is quite ready when they BAM!” You stabbed a piece of cut sausage with enough force to rattle your plate and cause all the boys, including Mattheo, to flinch, “they come in for the kill.”

“Anyway, heard we’re going to actually get to learn how to fly?!” You continued with your meal like nothing was the matter, “Personally I’m quite chuffed about it, you lot already know how I’m assuming?” 

Enzo laughed nervously, scratching lightly at the base of his neck, “Yeah we kinda all already know how mostly. But ehm, where’d, erm, where’d you learn that badger thing? You read a lot?” You shrugged, continuing to eat as normal, “I mean, I do like to read. But I did a project on badgers in primary, ironic huh?” You went to nudge Mattheo with your elbow before stopping halfway, seemingly remembering his issue. 

His stomach dropped, fearing you’d never want to get close to him again. Theo spoke up, clearly still confused, “Is no one going to explain primary to us now?” Blaised sighed, though eleven he seemed to have the patience for his peers as that of a seventh year, “It’s muggle school, they start young, like six or seven years old.” 

“Muggle school?” Draco looks at you like you’re covered in filth and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard to Mattheo, “Cousin…you let a muggle sit with you on the train? With us here? At breakfast?” 

There it was again, that sinking, shell like feeling, only now any emptiness was being filled with anger. Without Mattheo’s help you were quick to quip back, “Technically my parents are muggles, I got my letter the same way all of you did. That’s why I’m sitting here.” 

Your obliviousness to the wizarding world and what each of their families and their titles held around you made you unlike any person Mattheo had ever met. He wasn’t quite sure yet if that made him scared or enamored. 

“Watch out for the badger bite, Malfoy,” Theo teased the blond and everyone laughs. Mattheo laughs too, glancing in his peripheral to see your smile reaching your eyes and that his cousins words haven’t offended or have you wanting to run. 

You take a sip of your pumpkin juice before wiping your lips with your napkin and starting to stand up. There it is, Mattheo thought, finally running. “You ready, Matty?” you’re fully standing now, hand across your middle holding your other arm. “W-what?” it was the first Mattheo had spoken since his interrupted apology. 

“To see where our lessons are going to be? We should have most of them together I would assume, unless they separate the houses for most classes, but surely not right?” Mattheo stood up quickly, his heart dropping to his stomach and he scrambled to take out the course list that he had haphazardly shoved in his jeans pocket. 

He smoothed it out on the table before holding it up next to yours, “Oh see, no worries then, we’ve got most of them together.” Theo asked to see your list, comparing it to his, Enzo’s and Blaise’s. You all had a mix of courses together, you and Mattheo seeming to have the most in similarity. 

You asked the other’s to join you both in your exploration. Theo and Enzo agreed, Blaise said he was going to find the library. Draco said he would “find things on his own”, stalking off ahead of the rest of you, keeping a pace that would ensure he was no where near the rest of you. 

“Is he always like that?” You were asking Mattheo, but Enzo answered, “Don’t worry about him, it’s not you. Well, erm…it might be you. But Malfoy doesn’t seem to like anyone really.” 

Mattheo huffed a non-committal laugh, “Yeah, including himself.” The other two Slytherins laughed in agreement. You simply looked concerned, “I wonder where that comes from.” 

You’re too kind for your own good, Mattheo thought to himself. Per usual, Enzo is eager to answer, “Oh his father is a nightmare. Real piece of work.” Theo snorted, “He’s not the only one, aye boys. Kind of a requirement with our group.” 

Enzo barked out a laugh, Mattheo gave a half-hearted grunt. He glanced over at you, trying to gauge your thoughts. You were the hardest person he’s ever tried to read. Your face just held the same look, slight concern and something else Mattheo couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he hoped to Merlin it wasn’t pity. 

All of the lessons seemed easy enough to find. Whether that was due to magic or not Mattheo wasn’t sure and he never truly had the desire or care to find out. Mattheo was just glad you were in nearly all of his courses. 

The only ones the two of you didn’t share were potions and herbology. For some terribly bloody reason potions were split by houses, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs together and Gryffindors with Slytherins. Mattheo was going to Avada himself if he had to hear his cousin and his idiot lap dogs try to get a rise out of Potter and his ginger friend all term. 

Enzo somehow lucked out and got Herbology with you, whereas Mattheo was stuck with Theo and the others. Mattheo couldn’t help the jealousy that seemed to creep into his stomach each time you complimented something Enzo did during that lesson. 

Even though you sat by him in every class, Mattheo craved your presence. He wasn’t able to describe exactly why he craved it, though. Maybe it was because you were kind. Or maybe because you were so smart and able to pick up on things easier than everyone else. Or maybe it was because you were the only person who didn’t give a rats ass who his father was. 

The conversation, or more so argument, he overheard last week, confirmed it. He was going to meet you in one of the empty classrooms to work on transfiguration spells. For someone with founder’s blood in his veins he couldn’t transform a goblet to save his life. 

“Why do you hang around him?” Mattheo heard someone ask, a Ravenclaw who he was pretty sure sat behind the two of you in charms. “Because he’s my friend?” Mattheo stopped in his tracks at the sound of your voice, clearly laced with a bit of annoyance he’s never heard from you before. 

“But you know who his father is, don’t you? Haven’t you heard what he’s done?” The Ravenclaw girl was getting on Mattheo’s last nerve. He was ready to turn that corner, tell her to shut her prat mouth when you started speaking again. 

“Mattheo is not his father, gods, why does it feel like I’m repeating that to everyone these days. People need to stop trying to warn me about him and maybe try to actually get to know him. He’s a really nice boy. And very funny. You’re being kind of a bitch, Padma.” 

Padma scoffed, clearly deciding to walk another way to wherever she was headed as you turned the corner alone, nearly running into Mattheo, “Oh, wow, sorry Matty.” 

So people were talking to you about him. They were trying to convince you to stop hanging around him, not to be friends with him. But you’re not listening, his internal thoughts rang as a reminder. 

Your hand moving back and forth in front of his face brought him back to the present, “Where’d you go? Was like you were looking into another realm, is that a thing here? Can you guys, er, can we do that?” Mattheo completely ignored your inquiry and instead answered your question with another question, “Did you just call someone a bitch?” 

The bridge of your nose seemed to display a light shade of pink and Mattheo couldn’t recall ever seeing you flustered before, “They were being mean.” He couldn’t help himself, a desperate need deep inside had to see if you would admit it, “What were they being mean about that warranted that response?” 

You started walking towards your shared destination, but Mattheo couldn’t let it die. “C’monn,” he dragged the word out slightly, “we tell each other everything.” And that was mostly true on Mattheo’s part. He wasn’t so sure talking about watching his mother use unforgiveables on guests was something you needed to know; or even something you’d understand. 

“Ehm, it was you,” your voice was small, nearly a whisper that Mattheo didn’t catch. “What? What’d you say?” You huffed, stopping in front of the door to the classroom you were meant to practice in, “They were being mean about you, Mattheo. Okay? I know I shouldn’t have called her that but…ugh, I am so sick and tired of people trying to convince me that you’re a bad person.” 

That last part came out in a huff of frustration as you opened the door and walked inside. Mattheo couldn’t move. He was stuck in the doorway. You turned when you couldn’t hear his footsteps following you, “Are we still practicing?” 

“How many people have tried to convince you I’m a bad person?” He truly didn’t want to know the answer. Just asking the question made him feel like his insides were boiling. You shook your head slightly, “I dunno, Matty. I’m not exactly keeping track of every miserable git telling me my best friend is terrible.” 

Mattheo started walking towards you now, “You think I’m your best friend?” He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, his stomach seemingly in his throat and he sort of felt like he might throw up. The sound of your laugh soothed all of that out. 

“Well, yeah ya knob. Am I not yours? Don’t tell me you picked Nott over me.” Mattheo stammered for a moment, “Wha- ehm, Why did you…huh? Theo?” You laughed a little harder now, “You guys are close too, aren’t you?” 

Mattheo’s head hurt a little, “I, uh, I mean…yeah I guess. But not like you and me. I mean…fucking Salazar.” Mattheo ran his hands through his curls, tugging at the sides slightly. You held your hand up as if to calm his stammering, “It’s okay, Matty. I know I’m your best friend too.” 

He grinned at that, your reassurance. It still felt new every time you did it; he’s never gotten it as much as he has with you. “Ready to finally learn how to change a toad into a goblet?” You reached in your pocket and pulled out the amphibian. Mattheo grinned, nodding and setting up beside you. 

The next several months seemed to fly by in lessons. Mattheo never realized how much practical magic he never really learned at home. 

Feindre did all his washings and cooking, he lived in a manor that was centuries old and protected by magic so he never needed to know any repair or fixing spells, and the doors being locked or not were irrelevant as his mother just apparated to where he was if she were to punish him; she also never locked a door if she were torturing. “You need to see the weakness that leaks from those beneath us Mattheo.” 

He shuddered at the thought. He was well aware of what was going to be expected of him. He was half sure his mother only let him attend Hogwarts as a means of gaining more respect and more followers. “You want them to fear you, you’re not looking for friends, you’re looking for followers.” 

He didn’t like that either. Draco was a follower. Draco was afraid. He didn’t want that to be the only type of people around him.  

For someone who didn’t know magic was real until five months ago, you were exceptional in all your classes. You were always trying to study, always trying to soak in more information. 

The last day before Christmas holiday was no exception. You had asked Mattheo, Theo and Enzo if they wanted to start on course work for next term. They had all said no. 

Well…Enzo had looked at you like you’d grown an extra head, whereas Theo and Mattheo declined politely. Mattheo would’ve have went with you in a heartbeat, but he hadn’t packed a single item in his trunk. 

His original school of thought was that if he didn’t pack then he’d have to stay at school for the holidays. The thought of seeing his mother again made him short of breath from anxiety. 

But Draco reminded him that the Malfoy Christmas ball was happening (as it did every year) and Mattheo actually loved his Aunt Cissy. She was the only person in his father’s circle that treated him like any other boy his age. 

You didn’t mind going to the library alone. You often did when the Slytherins wanted to play quidditch. You were not quite as good at flying as they were yet, so you’d go to the library to make revisions instead. 

The content for next term actually seemed exciting to you. But everything about Hogwarts excited you. In History of Magic next term you were going to learn about the origins of wizards sports, quidditch the primary subject. 

I have to tell Mattheo, he’ll be so excited, was your only thought and you rushed out of the library, not quite paying attention to your surroundings as you crashed into someone; dropping your texts in the process. 

You heard Draco’s scoff of disgust before you heard his annoying voice, “Out of my way mudblood.” You let out an annoyed huff, bending down to pick up your books from the floor. 

“I don’t even know what that means, Malfoy. But I know you’re trying  to insult me,” you held your books flush to your chest, “your insults don’t mean anything to me you know.” 

Draco laughed out loud, taking a look at each one of his chubby minions beside him, “Do you want me to explain it to you?”

You adjusted the strap on your shoulder bag, “Not really but I’m sure you’re going to.” The malicious glint in Draco’s eye should’ve warned you of the delight he was about to get from this. You should’ve ignored him and walked away but there were three of them and only one of you. 

“You’re a filthy, little, mudblood,” Draco emphasized each work with hatred and disgust,  “Your blood is dirty, you come from nothing. Fucking Salazar, you are nothing. I honestly don’t get how the others are so blind to it.” 

You opened your mouth to respond, make any kind of retort but Draco kept going, “I’m what you call pureblood. The blood that runs in my veins has centuries of magic in it and Mattheo is the same. Enzo, Theo, Blaise, all of our blood is pure. I don’t know what little spell you put on my cousin, but it’s going to fade. 

“It may not be tomorrow, it may not even be a year from now, but he’s going to realize your worthlessness. Fuck and when he does…I want you to remember this moment. I want you to hear my voice in the back of that empty fucking head of yours telling you I told you so.” 

The tears brimming your eyes were uncontrollable. You didn’t want to believe anything he was saying, you knew Mattheo didn’t think of you like that. But there was a small part of you that couldn’t help but agree. 

“Don’t go running to cousin with your tears either, he’s the Dark Lord’s heir after all. He doesn’t need to deal with whiny babies.” Draco had to deliver one more blow for his satisfaction, him and his friends laughing in your face. 

“You’re a prick, Malfoy. No wonder everyone can’t stand you,” you wiped your eyes with the heel of your palm as you pushed passed them. 

You could still hear them laughing, mocking you all down the corridor until you turned the corner. You were supposed to meet up with Mattheo before dinner, but now you just wanted to be left alone. 

♡♡♡

When you didn’t meet him at the common room entrance for dinner, Mattheo was a little worried. Theo tried to calm him down, telling him they were running late and you probably just went to the hall already. 

But that made Mattheo more distraught, since houses don’t mix at dinner time. He was quieter than usual once they sat down, far more focus on searching the faces and backs of heads at the Hufflepuff table. 

When he didn’t recognize any student to be you, he turned to the group, “You guys didn’t happen to see y/n on the way to dinner did you? I don’t see ‘em here.” 

Enzo and Theo looked over at your house table, shaking their heads. Blaise looked a little guilty, “I wasn’t going to say anything…honestly Matt I thought maybe you had a fight or something.” 

Mattheo turned towards him, “Say anything about what?” Blaise shrugged his shoulders, a slight apologetic look in his eyes, “I saw them crying earlier, I think they were going towards the astronomy tower.” 

Instant panic spread over him, “Crying? Were they hurt? Could you tell?” Blaise shook his head. “Why do you even care?” Draco sounded annoyed, Mattheo got angry. “That's my friend, did you do something to them?” 

Draco rolled his eyes, flipping Mattheo the bird, “Wouldn’t waste my breath on a mudblood.” Mattheo slammed him open palms on the table as he stood up from the bench. 

Everyone in a ten foot radius was staring now. Draco looked terrified, rightfully so. While he only just learned reparo, Mattheo learned crucio at age 5 and he was pretty confident he could cast it on his cousin this very moment. 

Instead, Mattheo stormed off, heading straight to where he hoped was the astronomy tower. After only two wrong turns he started up the mountain of stairs. 

After only two flights he spotted you, curled in on yourself on one of the large steps with your back to the wall. Your face was hidden in your knees but the gold from the hood of your robes gave you away. 

You were crying, muffled and trying to be silent but Mattheo recognized the posture. The shaking shoulders, the small sniffles. He’d done it a dozen times himself this last summer. 

“There��s my badger…what’re you doing up here?” Mattheo’s voice was soft, gentle. It’s what he always hoped was used when he felt this way so he could only assume it’d be comforting to you too. 

You lifted your head just enough to rest your chin on your knees, “I got tired,” you sniffed again, “too many stairs.” 

Mattheo nodded, small smile on his face, “S’that why you’re crying and missed dinner? Too many stairs? Couldn’t get back down?”

You knew he was trying to make a joke, a weak smile was all you could manage before frowning once more, “Wasn’t the stairs…” 

Mattheo moved to sit in front of you, barging into your eye line, “Then what was it?” Your face scrunched and you shook your head. 

Mattheo placed his hands on your ankles, the action was so out of character for him, the physical touch. But it make you lock eyes nonetheless, “If I tell you, you have to just let it go.” 

The tilt in his head was slight but you noticed it, “I mean it Matty.” Mattheo nodded, not speaking in hopes you’d continue. 

“It was your cousin. He just…ugh,” you hid your face in your knees again, taking a deep shuttered breath. Mattheo gave your ankles a small squeeze as if to encourage you to keep explaining. 

You turned your head to the side, not wanting to look Mattheo in the eyes when you said it, “He called me a…mudblood.” 

Mattheo’s hands disappeared from your legs and it made you look at him. People had told you Mattheo could probably get angry. That his father was considered the darkest wizard of our time. 

You never really saw any of that before, but you saw a glint of it in his eyes now, “Is that all he said?” You shook your head, sinking back into the wall slightly. 

“I told him I didn’t know what that meant…then he told me I had dirty blood. Said his was pure. That all of you Slytherins had pure blood and that no matter how hard I tried…I would never amount to the same as you guys.” 

Mattheo frowned. You had started crying again and he felt like someone had just punched a hole in his gut. “He’s wrong,” Mattheo was shaking his head, “Some of the biggest sodding cowards I’ve ever seen are from pureblood families.” 

“Just made me feel really cruddy,” you snuffled, wiping your eyes with the sleeves of your robe. Mattheo could feel a fire kindling inside his chest, “I’ll kill him.” 

You reached out, grabbing Mattheo’s forearm; he didn’t flinch away this time. “Don’t,” you pleaded, “you promised you wouldn’t do anything.” 

Mattheo chewed on the inside of his cheek, “Well I have to do something..” 

“Will you just sit with me for a little bit…please?” You pleaded, your hand was cool against his heated skin. 

“Yeah, erm, I can do that.” So that’s what he did. Mattheo found solace on the step one above yours. He sat as you did, pulling his knees to his chest. 

He sat with you until you felt better, calmer. Then he walked you to your common room, popping into the kitchens with you to grab a small bite since you both missed dinner. 

When he got back to his own common room he grabbed his duvet from his dorm and then back to the communal space and picked the largest couch to lay on. 

He couldn’t sleep in his dorm tonight. Draco was in there. And if he saw Draco, he knew he’d hurt him right now. And if there were two things Mattheo knew he would never do: (1) become his father, (2) break a promise to you.

[taegularities]

entertainer (teaser) | jjk (m)

Summary: Growing singer Jeon Jungkook is as charismatic as he is self-absored – that is, until he meets you. Caught in a web of secrets, he finds a riddle in you he urges to solve; even ready to turn the spotlight towards you until nothing remains… but regret.

➳ pairing: Jungkook x reader ➳ rating: 18+ ➳ genre: strangers to lovers (or something); angst, bits of fluff, smut ➳ warnings: do not fall for this jk i repeat do not f– 🚨 he's kinda hot though; (not so) silent yearning, flirting, sexual tension, he is so attracted to her :'), mystery, oc is a big question mark, full jk pov!, dark past(s), crying, fear, confrontation and fighting, cocky kook, secrets and revelations, explicit sexual content (kissing, fingering, teasing, drunk shenanigans, sooo much lust, big dick jk, etc.), more warnings on drop day once the fic is finished!! not much for the teaser itself, though <3 ➳ wc: 1.8k :') (around 20k for the full thing) ➳ a/n: scratches head. this has been a long time coming and i'm beyond curious how y'all will like it :') very new and experimental, so let's see how it goes!! as always, drop a message to lmk what you think of this lil glimpse, i'll be waiting with dangling feet hehe!! <3

➳ give the Entertainer playlist a first listen! 🖤   

TAGLIST | MASTERLIST | WIPs 

“Why are you the textbook definition of a fuckboy, honestly.”

“Fuckbo—”

“Nevermind.”

If he wasn’t well acquainted with this little game, he would’ve missed your subtle, nearly veiled intent to tease. But he’s done that a million times before — hence, catches the faint twitch of your gorgeous lips immediately.

You’re enjoying this. So he should join… right?

Yet.

You’re not being entirely insincere. In fact, he hates how he picks up on the note of truth in your velvety voice.

Trimmed nails scratch the back of his head, and he barely notices once the two of you halt in front of another piece of work. Distracted, he doesn’t bear the art any mind, instead asking, “You really think of me like that?”

You shrug a shoulder. Nonchalance a constant feature, but so natural, even somewhat gentle, that he can’t help but feel drawn to you. “A little.”

“Well, shit.”

“Don’t overthink it. Enjoy the art.”

“Sure.”

Reluctantly, he glances to the canvas. It’s a mess of hues; a random arrangement of spontaneous emotions. Resembles the masterpieces he used to create in Microsoft Paint, back when his legs would still dangle off the chair.

“So,” he starts, nodding towards the painting, “what do you see in this?”

You hesitate. Or maybe it’s not hesitation — more like… a thinking pause. Sometimes, when Jungkook notices a whirring mind, he sees a steaming brain through a skull. Working at full blast.

But somehow, he only recognises a tranquil ocean as he observes you gather your thoughts. Everything about you is tender, but wrapped in dark mystery.

How much mental training does it require to become this inscrutable?

When you finally speak, you’re saying similarly odd things.

“I see… colours.” Right. Stating the obvious. Jungkook chuckles, delivering a head tilt. “And am wondering how the painter got to create this at all. I mean, this looks so meaningless at first, doesn’t it?”

“But it’s not, yeah?”

“We’re fast to think that. Most of the time, there must be a trigger, or a thought on something, no matter how small. Something might have been bothering him. This is—” A hand gestures towards the painting. “Such a chaotic mind.”

Interesting…

“Is this what you usually think about all day?” Jungkook wonders.

You scoff. “I’m just a person, too. I think about a lot of random things.”

“Ahhh. Like what?”

“Like… seeing all the green in this exhibition made me realise how that colour makes me cry.”

Jungkook takes a haphazard look around. Now that you say it — there’s no hint of a nature theme, but the abundance of green is striking. It’s as calm as you. No wonder you’d immerse yourself in a showcase such as this.

You continue, as if tracing and reading his mind like an open novel, “It’s soothing, right? And unique. These earthly things sometimes make me feel like not all of us are deserving of seeing such beauty. Like it should be reserved for those who've earned it.”

Earned it? How? 

Jungkook can’t see your thoughts as clearly as you’re apparently capable of doing, but he has an inkling of what you might mean. Truly dazzling souls merit the stunning bloom of the world, right?

And then…

If that’s what it is.

He wonders — do you think he deserves to see the colour green? Or is it already over if he has to ask? Perhaps, should he be perceiving it as grey right now? He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know how you think of him — doesn’t know anything about you at all. You’re a tough nut to crack. 

“Hmm… that’s a way to think about it,” he says.

“Only because it’s the same for people. And I’ve had this thought about humans a lot… I…” You hesitate, blink, and then grant him your gaze. “I knew someone who was the colour green. Not everyone deserved them, either.”

Someone…

Poetic minds carry a certain pain in their eyes.

He’s been seeing it in yours. He just doesn’t know how to handle it. So he doesn’t. Yet.

Instead, he asks, “What else are you thinking about?”

“Uhmmm,” you voice, straightening your back a little, as if waking up from a dream — a nightmare? “I’ve been thinking about trying that, too. Painting, I mean. It doesn’t have to mean anything or be good. Just a great way to capture something that resonates with what I feel.”

Every word you’ve uttered today was otherworldly. You didn’t talk like this when you were at the meeting, or in his office. Your soul is somewhat free-floating here, and he doesn’t understand why.

And it’s a behaviour he usually strays away from. The vulnerable ones can be dangerous.

But somehow… you’re too strong of a magnet.

One who shrugs all the puzzles away — and he sighs in despair. Maybe it’s not time to find out what you feel just yet. What resonates with you — even though he’s dying to hear it.

He inquires, “Are you always this much of an open book?”

“No. Not at all.” Of course not. Rhetoric question — he knows this much. “But I like thinking out loud sometimes.”

“I’m glad to be a sounding board then.”

“Hah. Well, I was also thinking how I appreciate that I met you here.” Pause. Oh? What a surprise. Strokes his ego, though. And then, out of the blue again, “You wanna go to the museum restaurant?”

Jungkook has barely inhaled half of the exhibition yet. But just for today, he couldn’t care less.

Perhaps this is enough for now, visiting the overpriced restaurant, watching you from afar as you inspect your nails calmly. You’re not busy on your phone like the rest of the crowd — entertained by the same media that he’s part of.

Maybe he can be a bigger part of their lives one day — be the one flitting over their screens, the one they adore. The one they worship.

But you don’t seem to indulge in those mind-numbing devices for now. You might be an addition to his team, but privately, you float in your own world. Distracted by the thoughts you won’t disclose.

Your hands retreat, arms crossing on the table and lips curling into a smile once he strolls back to you. Satisfied, he informs you, “One cake to go with the coffee. As the lady suggested.”

“Oh. One?” you ask, “Don’t you want one?”

“I do.”

“So…” You stall, and he waits until it clicks, your head tilting in understanding. “Are we sharing?”

Jungkook lifts a thumb, pointing over his shoulder, back to the register, “Those chocolate cakes are sweet as hell. I’ve got a sweet tooth, but believe that it’ll be enough for us two.”

You laugh — a candied, disarming chuckle before you breathe an, “Alright.”

Jungkook doesn’t know you well enough to feel any skip of his heart; yet, you stir something else in his mind. While he does avoid them, it’s still always people like you who intrigue him the most — those who veil themselves in a coat of secrets.

He sighs.

“That was fast,” you note, eyes at a point behind him.

And he understands when the waitress arrives a couple moments later, serving two perfectly prepared cappuccinos and a mouth-watering chocolate fudge piece.

You thank her with a gentle smile, and tuck a hair behind your ear, fingertips grazing your dangling silver earring.

And he watches.

Watches as you nod towards him, urging him, “Start then.”

Observes your smile as he signals you to start instead. And he gazes at you as your delicate digits reach for the fork, tearing off a piece, wrapping your lips around the utensil.

And then… oh God.

He feels his guts twist; hears all background noise fade; blood rushing away from his head.

All the way through his body as you slowly relish the sweetness and then drag the wet tip of your tongue over the fork. Licking away the leftover chocolate.

Jungkook swears it happens in slow motion. And witnessing your elegance in snail’s pace… makes him sick.

When your eyelashes flutter, gape lifting to meet his, the sound around him comes alive again — as does he. He averts his stare from your mouth, covered in the same colour as the coffee, but you notice.

You catch him looking. And it makes you… smile? Shit.

But you don’t boast your effect; only digress as you say, “Well… tastes as fancy as it looks. Try.”

You’re as relaxed with him as you can be. But you always are; with everyone. He craves that bit that���s only reserved for him — and maybe he’s too zealous too fast. He hasn’t known you for long.

Making you smile must be an achievement, though, right? If only… you didn’t think of him like…

He nods, and then leans over the table ever-so-slightly. His knees brush against yours, a soft but deliberate move. He places an elbow on the table, grasping the fork, close to you. If he lifted his hand, he could touch your cheek.

He wishes he could.

His eyes meet yours through his bangs, the cake’s taste irrelevant to your presence. And when his ego doesn’t let him live, he finally asks, almost as if insulted, “Do you actually perceive me as a fuckboy?”

The question catches you off guard. You hesitate, furrowing your eyebrows, and then giggle before questioning back, “Jungkook… that’s bothering you this much? Mmmh. How would you like to be perceived?”

“Just. As a decent guy who wants to get to know you. And I know you know.” You blink, but he doesn’t buy it. So he elaborates, “I’ve been trying to make clear that I find you interesting. And somewhat attractive.”

People usually display a flicker of glimmer in their eyes upon hearing such praise. But you don’t budge; in fact, your eyes remain the same, if not a little darker. Why?

Yet, you cock an eyebrow, sporting a teasing, playful tone, “Somewhat, hm?”

He shakes his head, clicks his tongue.

“You’re pretty and I think you know,” he blurts, “and I don’t want to screw up right away.”

Is it the habit of never failing; getting what he wants? The urge to solve an enigma? The chance to dive into you until you’re bared to him? Why are you so interesting to him?

You’re just a person.

Maybe it’s just the unsettling need to discover what you’re hiding — it won’t let him rest. There’s something about you that screams to him to unravel. 

He doesn’t know what it is. Doesn’t know if you’re even from the same world as him — even though you seem to have crossed his realm before.

No matter what it is; Jungkook only understands for now that he wants to take off your layers.

Wants you to be the colour green for him. 

wrote most of it now and while sick, so it might change hehe! but i hope it's okay so far, and it shall only get better!! i'm so so excited for this, like i've been working on it and putting thought into it since october, so i hope it's worth the wait <3

as always, send your thoughts, questions, complaints lol lemme know what you think or i might perish sniff. super curious to know!! also, here's the taglistttt 🤍 love and appreciate you all <3

[parkerflix]

—corazón despeinado

miles morales x gn! reader

genre: fluff?? angst???

wc: 1.7k

part two here

synopsis: your friendship with miles seemed to hit a sore spot. the reason? his hair.

warnings: atsv spoilers! like big spoilers! canon divergence (miguel would hate me sorry bae)

a/n: this is earth 42! miles! just put it under here since i put the warning okay read at your own discretion from here on!

“Ow! Que te pasa? That shit hurt, mami.” Miles sat forward, rubbing his scalp.

You sighed and rolled your eyes. Miles Morales was such a baby when it came to doing his hair. You loved doing his hair, and him letting you have full control of it, but hated how much he flinched.

“No jodas. I barely even pulled it. If you would sit still, maybe we could finish this faster.”

Miles grumbled under his breath and he sat back in the chair, wincing when you started up again.

You had been doing Miles’ hair for years, Rio being your mom’s best friend. You guys spent summers and most weekends together, always having some sort of party. Your mom owned the neighborhood beauty salon & had been showing the ropes to you.

Miles always came to you when he wanted his hair done, or if he just wanted to see you.

“So, what’s the plan for tonight? Got a steamy date?”

Miles rolled his eyes.

“A date?”

“Yeah, a steamy date with some beautiful woman or man! Or romantic, a nice stroll on the street, the sky full of stars, going to a nice dinner.”

“Ya tu sabes, I’m not the type who does those types of dates.”

“Oh, so it is a date?”

“Mira, I don’t think there’s anyone I would date.”

You reached down in your apron to grab a hair tie to finish one of his braids.

“And why is that?”

You were so focused on his braids, that you didn’t notice his eyes staring at your face through the mirror.

Miles knew that he wasn’t into anyone the way he was into you. He wasn’t sure if you knew that he liked you. Miles thought it was fairly obvious, he gave you little gifts that he knew you would like, and spent most of his time with you. His mom had pretty much adopted you into his family, showing you how to make his favorites like mofongo & empanadas. For someone so bright, you seemed to not catch the hints he threw at you.

His silence caught you off guard & you stared at him through the mirror, a little surprised to see he was already staring at you.

“Miles?”

He seemed to snap out of whatever train of thought and sent you a half-hearted grin.

“Enough about me. What about you? Any plans?”

You shook your head, laughing slightly.

“Nah. Te recuerdas de ese guy que salí con like ages ago?”

Miles hummed as a signal for you to go on.

“Well, he asked me out again and as much as I loved the first date, I just wanted to spend the night by myself. Nothing sounds better than a cheesy movie & takeout.”

Before he could say anything else, you finished his last braid and tied it off.

“Ya terminé. What do you think?”

Miles got up from the chair and glanced at himself in the mirror, admiring your work.

“It looks good.”

You clapped your hands and gave him a hug.

“I’m so glad you like them! I know they’re a little different than usual but I thought they suit you.”

He nodded and gave you a small smile.

You were about to say something, when his phone went off.

“Girlfriend texting you?”

He rolled his eyes and pulled his phone from his jacket, seeing his uncle ask him where he was.

“Ya te dije, I don’t have anyone like that. I gotta go, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”

You nodded and started to clean your station, hoping if you finished early you could leave.

Miles placed a chaste kiss on your cheek & made his way towards the door.

“I’ll take you out for breakfast tomorrow!”

He walked out of the door, leaving you smiling and shaking your head at how cute he could be sometimes.

You had left the salon late in the afternoon, taking a few of your mother’s clients while she handled a few other clients. You weren’t licensed just yet, but you knew you had the skills and experience to get your license as soon as you finished high school.

Your mom had some more clients after you had left & told you she wouldn’t be home tonight as she was planning on having a girls night with a few of her friends.

You had finally got home & changed into a shirt and shorts, ready to just relax and watch some movies. Rummaging through the fridge, you realized that you actually did have to order takeout, since there was nothing already made.

Checking the time, you figured you could swing by the local pizzeria, and stop by the supermarket for some ice cream. Grabbing your bag, you slipped on some easy shoes and made sure to lock the door.

At the pizzeria, you had ordered your food, and were just waiting. Sitting at one of the booths, you were slightly confused when you heard Miles’ voice come from the counter.

You turned to take a peek, and saw Miles there with a completely different outfit, and most noticeably, his braids were gone.

You were annoyed, his braids took you some time & he had already taken them out. If he really hated them, why didn’t he just tell you?

Going up to him, you tapped his shoulder.

He turned around and saw you, giving you a confused look.

“No me das esa cara, si no te gustaron, you know I would’ve changed them!”

Miles gave you an even more confused look, and started to really piss you off.

“Okay, why are you giving me that look? Seriously if you didn’t like the braids, I would’ve fixed them.”

“Braids? Do you have me mistaken for someone else?”

“Your name is Miles Morales, right?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Then no, I’m not mistaken. God why weren’t you just upfront about it with me? I would’ve done whatever you wanted, you know that.”

“Uh—“

“What? Are you too cool for them?”

“No I just—“

“I bet you do have a hot date huh! That’s what it is.”

“Hot date? Definitely not. I am so confused.” Miles said, awkwardly scratching the nape of his neck.

The guy at the counter called your name, and you pointed to Miles.

“Stay here. We aren’t done talking about this.”

You rushed up to the counter, and grabbed your pie, thanking him and ran back to Miles, grabbing his sleeve and dragging him with you.

Once outside, you dragged him to your apartment building, stopping at the stairs, placing your pizza box there.

“What’s going on with you?”

Miles just stared at you, not sure how to tell you that he wasn’t who you thought he was.

“I’m sorry.”

You sighed and frowned. Miles rarely apologized, even when he had done something. He had always sweet-talked you into not being mad at him, knowing that you had a soft spot for him.

“An apology? That’s a first. Miles, I just wanna know what’s been going on with you. You make plans with people and don’t tell me who, which like yeah I guess I’m not entitled to that information but—” you were cut off when he hugged you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and stayed like that for a second. You knew Miles. He wasn’t a PDA sort of person and he wasn’t big on hugs either. He wasn’t telling you something, and it seemed to weigh heavy on him.

Before you knew it, he had unraveled himself from you and you both were standing away from each other.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure this will all make sense eventually but I really gotta go.”

He gave you a look that you couldn’t decipher and left you, pizza still on the steps, getting cold.

You didn’t hear from Miles until the next morning, knocking at your window.

You groaned and threw a pillow in that direction, knowing it probably missed.

The knocking kept going, so you got up and went to open the window not even sparing Miles a glance.

You trudged your way back into bed, making space for the both of you. He laid down next to you, having a debate if he should pull you close to him.

“Amor, what’s wrong?”

“Be quiet. I'm still trying to sleep.”

Miles let out a huff and poked your side.

“Miles, leave me alone.”

“Que hice?”

“What do you mean ‘que hice?’ We talked about this. If you didn’t listen to me at all then why are—”

You turned to face him, quickly realizing the small space in between the two of you.

You stared at his face, the sunlight giving him a soft glow. His eyes even were a different shade of brown, turning more like pools of milk chocolate. But what stood out to you the most, was his hair, in braids, neatly as if they were never out of them.

How was that possible? You saw him the night before and he didn’t have them. What was happening?

Miles called your name and you blinked, face feeling flushed at your gawking.

“You have your braids.”

He gave you a confused look.

“Yeah?”

“But last night you didn’t.”

“Last night? I don’t remember seeing you last night.”

“You’re joking right? I saw you and we talked and you left in a hurry.”

You sat up and sighed, confused and frustrated as to why he wouldn’t remember this.

“Are you sure it was me?”

You stared at him. Why did he have to say it in such a condescending tone?

“Yes, Miles. It was you.”

“It couldn’t have been me.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Maybe a bit delusional. Guess you missed me that much.”

You were beyond frustrated now, and got out of bed.

Without a word, you pulled him out of bed and walked him over to your window.

“What— seriously que te hice?”

Crossing your arms, you looked away from him.

“The fact that you don’t even remember our conversation yesterday, and the fact that you’re acting like it never happened and you weren’t being weird— I can’t.”

“You can't do what?” Miles' voice cracked slightly, and he cleared his throat.

“I can't do this right now. You should go.”

“But-“

“Miles.” you whispered his name, feeling so many different emotions. He knew that you had made up your mind and pressed a kiss onto your forehead.

With that, he climbed out of your room and went down the fire escape.

You sat in your room, confused by everything and feeling something new, something like a heartache in your chest.

[ddaz3d-and-cc0nfused]

aaron hotchner x jacks nanny/babysitter

she’s got a crazy ex that stalked and threatened her so she moved far away to live a simple, under the radar life and started working for hotch. he knows her situation and does his best to look out for her, maybe she’s like a live in nanny ? neither of them is bold enough to make a move first until her ex finds her and hotch and the team race to save her. ends with love confessions and all the sappy stuff

could be a one shot or a short lil series i’m sure whatever you write will be amazing !

༉‧₊˚. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨-𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 || 𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐫

— pairing: aaron hotchner x plus size babysitter!reader

— summary: your new life as a live-in nanny was wonderful, and with your dark past behind you, there was nothing that could ruin this. but as they say, what goes around comes around.

— warnings: heavily detailed violence BEWARE, surprisingly light angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, physical hurt/comfort, mutual pining, abusive ex's :[, guns, and a horribly written action/fight scene (forgive me).

— wc: 1965

⋆ a/n: okay this is a heavy fic so beware once more, but aside from that this takes a fully turn! i don't really have anything else to say besides enjoy!

masterlist | AO3

“Backpack? Check. Lunchbox? Check. Shoes are tied? Check.” 

You placed your hands on your hips triumphantly, a proud smile on your face as you examined the little boy. 

Being a live-in nanny came with being organizational and making sure that Jack was ready for school everyday without fail. It wasn’t like Aaron was super strict on you; he understands when you have your days where things are a bit out of place, but honestly it was a personal preference, and totally not because you have a big fat crush on the FBI agent.

You had been very skeptical about your babysitting position at first because of your ex who was absolutely bat shit crazy. It was a situation you had barely escaped from, and it had taken almost everything in you to get where you were now, so you were a little afraid of men in general. But Aaron was kind, and welcoming, and fatherly, someone that you felt safe with.

And then, you fell in love.

It had scared the shit out of you of course, but now it was a feeling that you welcomed with open arms, even if you couldn’t act on it. 

Your phone began to ring as you searched for the car keys, the contact name read ‘Aaron <3’.

“Morning!” You greeted with a smile as you picked up. “Good morning. How are you guys?” The older man asked. “We're doing just fine, as always,” You successfully found the keys. “How are things?” You knew better than to ask how he was, because if you had the kind of job that he did, there was no way you could answer positively. 

“We pretty much have everything we need, so we’ll probably be able to wrap this case up early.” 

“Oh Aaron, that's great!” You cheer happily and make your way back to where Jack was waiting for you. “You ready to go, little man?” Jack looks up at you from his toys. “Is that daddy on the phone?”

“Yeah buddy, you wanna say hi?” 

“Yes!” Jack’s answer was full of excitement, and you can’t help but smile. “As much as I enjoy talking to you, it looks like I’m handing you over.” You swear you could hear Aaron chuckle.

Yeah, this was a life that you could get used to.

Having the house to yourself was weird.

With Jack away at his aunt’s for the weekend, it was strangely quiet due to the emptiness of the child’s presence. You suppose you’re grateful for the break even though taking care of Jack really isn’t as tiring as one might think. 

Despite Aaron rarely being home, he’s managed to raise the boy well when he could, and it’s honestly very admirable. It’s one of the many things that made you fall in love with him. You gaze down into the wine glass at the thought, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

Ugh, why does love make you such a loser?

Your bashful train of thought was stopped by a suspicious thump coming from the back of the house. Your smile dropped and a feeling of anxiety and worry twisted in your gut as you grabbed your phone that was lying on the kitchen counter.

You’re quick to dial Aaron’s number and your fingernail finds itself in your mouth as you chew on it anxiously. It’s an old habit, one that you had picked up back in your old relationship.

“Hello?” Rasped Aaron. 

You knew he had just recently flown in from wherever he was because you could hear the foot traffic of everyone grabbing their luggage from the plane’s storage.

“Hey,” Your greeting was nervous and it was something that Aaron easily picked up on. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?” He asks with a furrowed brow. “Yeah, just um - I’m just hearing some weird things so I just wanted to know when you think you might be getting home.” I miss you.

“Honey what type of weird things?” Before you were able to answer, there was a loud crashing sound. You instantly dropped to the floor to hide behind the counter; you cradled the phone to your ear, “Okay uh - change of claim,” You attempted to joke. “Someone is most definitely in the house.”

Aaron tries not to panic at the way his insides turn cold, “You remember what to do, right?” He asks with a hardened voice. You gulp, stretching slightly to peer over the marble. You stare out into the darkness and a frightened shiver shoots up your spine. 

“Get to your room and enter the safe.” You reiterated what he had told you almost a year ago when you had first moved in. You’ve never shot a gun before but tonight might be the night where you learn how too.

“That’s right, and do you remember the code?” 

As you went to answer him, you were snatched up by your hair and a scream rang out and into the phone. Even though you weren’t on speaker the others that were currently standing outside with Aaron could hear it.

Aaron desperately calls out your name, and with your silence he takes off without any explanation, but his team knows to follow close behind.

“So, this is what you’ve been doing since you tried to leave me?!”

You cried out as another blow was delivered to your gut but a heavy boot. Your lungs burned and there were tears streaming down your face. He had pulled you so hard over the counter that it made your scalp burn, a blistering headache beginning to form at the base of your skull.

“Fuck you!” You spat as you attempted to prop yourself up on your elbows. 

There was a fine line between anger and fear, and this was one of those moments where they blend together. If you ended up dying tonight, at least you didn’t go down in vain.

This time he punched you in the face before snatching you up by your arms. There was a metallic taste in your mouth, a bruise already developing near your eye. “Why’d you leave me, huh?! We had a good thing going and you just… you just ruined it!”

“I didn’t ruin shit asshole!” You screamed and pushed at him but it was no use. “We were gonna get married but you… but you wanted to play house with an old man, really?!”

“You’ve been watching me.” You said in disbelief. It made your stomach twist in nausea and horror at the thought of him watching Jack, what he could’ve done to him. You had actively put the man you loved kid in danger and it devastated you.

“I had no choice!”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

“Put your hands where I can see them.” Aaron’s voice rang out throughout the house.

Before you knew it you were spun around with a gun to your head, his arm locked against your neck, faintly strangling you.

“Aaron!” You called out in relief, but it turned into a grunt as you tugged further into your ex’s chest.

Aaron’s gun was raised steadily, his eyes focused on your attacker, but he doesn’t hesitate to cast you a reassuring look. When he sees your bloody and bruised face his jaw tightens, the vein in his neck popping and visible through his skin.

“Boyfriend to the rescue, huh?” Your ex sneers into your cheek. You shudder. 

“Put the gun down.” Aaron continues to coax, and out the corner of your eye you can see Morgan approaching through the darkness. 

“Why do you want to save this slut? Don’t tell me you’ve already -” A shot rings out into the fair followed by a scream of pain.

Your ex collapses to the ground, cradling the gunshot wound in his knee as blood spills through his fingers. Aaron was the one that pulled the trigger and Morgan is already in the kitchen by the time he’s tugging you away and into his arms.

“Oh God.” You finally cried. “You came, you came…” His arms are wound tightly around you, purposefully tucking your face into his chest. “I’m here, I’m here.” He shushes and rocks you side to side in order to try and lull you.

Aaron – softly – orders you to sit down while he cleans up the blood when the rest of the team has already left.

You can’t help but watch him from where you’re sitting on the couch with his sleeves of his white button up rolled up and his hands gloved. “I’m sorry.” You decide to say, because you really were. “I’m sorry for everything.” There was so much more you wanted to say, but you felt your throat tighten with unshed tears.

“No, don’t apologize.” He says softly, abandoning the rag that he was using to scrub up said blood. “No Aaron you don’t understand. I put you and Jack in danger because of my bullshit and I thought that I had put it all behind me and I don’t -” 

“Stop.” It’s a bit firmer this time. “I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I offered you to live with me and my son. Nothing that has occurred tonight has swayed my trust or opinion about you, you know that, right?”

“Right.” His hand holds your cheek and strokes the soft skin of it. “Good.”

Your eyes flicker down to his lips before peering back into his eyes, “If I asked you to kiss me, would you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I promise this isn’t like a trauma bond thing. I’ve liked you for as long as I’ve worked for you and I didn’t want to tell you because I have nowhere else to go if you say no. Plus,” You sigh, “I just don’t want to make things difficult or uncomfortable for you.”

“You could never do that, feelings reciprocated or not.” He reassures.

“Well are they?”

He grins at your question, “I’d be an idiot not to feel the same way.” You laugh and he leans forward to join your lips together.

A warm feeling spreads in your gut and you knew that this is what love was supposed to feel like.

ೃ⁀➷ my lovely taglist!: @alina02 @louderfortheback @minervadashwood @their-love @fandomsarelifee @theendofthe70s @nomajdetective @mgg-theprettiestboy @phoenixblack89 @celtic-crossbow @hallecarey1 @bunnybabe-babydoll @alixwriter @dixonzzgirl @violettavirus @khxna @moonysreid

[bandsofmarv]

Cold to the touch

Enemies to lovers Bucky x reader

TW - smut, angst

Part 2

The compound was unusually quiet, except for the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall. You sat at the kitchen counter, nursing a mug of tea, hoping the caffeine would get you through another tense morning.

It wasn’t the missions, the training, or even the threat of constant danger that drained you. No, it was him.

Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Resident pain in your ass.

You had been forced to work together on Steve’s orders, a new partnership meant to “strengthen the team dynamic.” Instead, it had only strengthened your resolve to avoid him at all costs. Bucky was cold, distant, and maddeningly closed off. And worse, he seemed to go out of his way to make your life hell.“Up early, huh?” His voice, low and gravelly, startled you out of your thoughts. Speak of the devil.

You turned to find him leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, his piercing blue eyes fixed on you. He looked as stoic as ever, but there was a hint of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I could say the same to you,” you replied, trying to keep your tone neutral.

He shrugged, moving to pour himself a cup of coffee. The silence stretched, heavy and awkward, until he broke it.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” It wasn’t a question.

You blinked at him, surprised by his directness. “Not everything is about you, Barnes.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure this is,” he said, turning to face you fully. His gaze was sharp, assessing, like he was trying to read your mind. “What’s your problem with me, anyway?”

“My problem?” You laughed bitterly, setting your mug down with a clink. “You’re arrogant, impossible to talk to, and you act like the whole world owes you something.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened, the faintest crack in his icy exterior. “You don’t know the first thing about me,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

“And whose fault is that?” you shot back. “You don’t let anyone in. You’re like a damn wall.”

He took a step closer, his steel-blue eyes burning into yours. “Maybe I don’t let people in because I know how it ends. People like you—they don’t stick around when things get messy.”

The raw vulnerability in his voice caught you off guard, cutting through your anger like a blade. For a moment, you saw the man beneath the armor, the one haunted by a past he couldn’t escape.

“That’s not fair,” you said softly, your tone losing its edge. “You don’t get to push people away and then blame them for not trying.”

Bucky stared at you, his expression unreadable. Then, without warning, he closed the distance between you, his metal hand bracing on the counter beside you.

“Why do you care, anyway?” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why not just walk away?”

Your breath hitched as his proximity sent a shiver down your spine. His scent, a mix of leather and something distinctly him, filled your senses, making it impossible to think straight.

“Maybe I’m just stubborn,” you said, your voice shaking slightly.

He tilted his head, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Stubborn enough to take a chance on someone like me?”

You didn’t have time to answer. Bucky’s lips crashed against yours, desperate and unrelenting, like he’d been holding himself back for far too long. You gasped against his mouth, your hands flying to his chest, unsure whether to push him away or pull him closer.

He made the decision for you. His flesh hand slid to your waist, tugging you against him as his metal fingers traced up your spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. His kiss was messy, full of teeth and hunger, but it was exactly what you needed.

“Bucky,” you breathed when his lips left yours to trail down your jaw, nipping at the sensitive skin of your neck.

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped, his breath hot against your skin. “If you want me to, tell me now.” But you didn’t. Instead, you pulled him closer, threading your fingers through his hair as his hands roamed, exploring every inch of you like he was memorizing it.

“Hard to love, huh?” you murmured, your voice teasing despite the breathlessness.

Bucky pulled back just enough to look at you, his blue eyes dark with desire. “You have no idea.”

And then he kissed you again, and for the first time, you thought maybe you were willing to find out.

[gpcwsl]

could you do something where reader always tries to make alessia laugh because she loves to hear it? You can include fluff/smut/angst, whatever you want i trust you hehe

Alessia Russo x Reader

- I love your laugh -

MasterList

WC: 815

Warnings: nothing? Maybe short?

Like this new format (ish)?

The first time you heard Alessia Russo laugh, it stopped you in your tracks. It wasn’t just the sound—though it was beautiful, light, and completely infectious—but the way it made her eyes crinkle and her entire face light up. It was pure joy, and you couldn’t get enough of it.

From that moment, it became your mission to hear it again. And again.

You quickly learned that Alessia’s laugh wasn’t always easy to earn. Sure, she’d chuckle politely at a joke or smile at something mildly amusing, but that full-on, belly laugh you’d stumbled upon that first time? That required effort. Creativity.

And you were more than willing to put in the work.

It starts small, little moments where you test the waters.

“Alessia,” you say one day during a team meeting, leaning over to whisper. “What do you call a fake noodle?”

She raises an eyebrow, already suspicious, but humors you. “What?”

“An impasta,” you reply with a straight face.

She groans, shaking her head, but you catch the corner of her mouth twitching upward. “That’s terrible.”

“Terribly funny,” you counter, and she finally breaks, a soft giggle slipping past her lips.

It’s not the laugh you’re chasing, but it’s a start.

From there, it becomes a game for you. You find yourself going out of your way to say or do things just to see her smile. During training sessions, you deliberately exaggerate your moves, tripping over imaginary obstacles or doing an overly dramatic celebration whenever you score.

“Show-off,” Alessia teases one day after you slide across the grass like you’ve just won the World Cup.

“Jealous?” you shoot back, brushing dirt off your knees.

“Of that?” She smirks, but there’s warmth in her eyes.

And then it happens. As you attempt to recreate your “victory dance” a second time, you lose your balance and topple to the ground. The other players laugh, but it’s Alessia’s laugh that rings out above the rest, bright and uninhibited.

You stay on the ground a moment longer, grinning up at her. “Totally worth it,” you mumble, and she laughs even harder.

Over time, it becomes less about the jokes and more about the moments. The quiet ones, when it’s just the two of you.

Like the time you found her sitting alone after a tough game. She’d missed a crucial shot, and while no one blamed her, you could see the weight of it in her slumped shoulders.

You didn’t say anything at first, just sat down beside her and offered her a piece of gum.

She took it, unwrapping it slowly before glancing at you. “Thanks.”

“You know,” you said after a moment, “I was going to make a joke about how bad that shot was, but I figured I should wait until you’re not tempted to kick a ball at my face.”

Her lips twitched, and she shook her head. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And you’re smiling,” you pointed out, nudging her gently.

She laughed softly, the sound like music to your ears.

Then there are the days when it’s effortless. When she’s in a good mood, and her laughter spills out freely, filling whatever space you’re in. Those are the moments you live for.

One evening, after a team dinner, the two of you end up walking back together. It’s late, and the streets are quiet, but you’re both buzzing from the night’s energy.

“Do you ever get tired of being this amazing?” you ask, breaking the comfortable silence.

Alessia snorts. “Pretty sure that’s your job, not mine.”

“Oh, absolutely,” you agree. “But I’m thinking of retiring. You’re making me look bad.”

She rolls her eyes but laughs, the sound warm and familiar.

And then, without thinking, you say, “I love your laugh, you know.”

The words hang in the air, and you freeze, realizing how much weight they carry.

Alessia stops walking, turning to face you. “You do?”

There’s no point in backtracking now, so you nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah. It’s… I don’t know. It just makes everything feel better.”

For a moment, she just looks at you, her expression unreadable. Then, to your surprise, she smiles—not the polite kind or the teasing one, but something softer, more genuine.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, her cheeks tinting pink.

You shrug, trying to play it cool even though your heart is racing. “No big deal. Just don’t stop laughing, okay?”

She laughs at that, and it feels like a promise.

From then on, things shift between you. Alessia starts seeking you out more, sitting beside you during meals, texting you random things that make her laugh, and even throwing a joke or two your way.

It’s not always about the laughter anymore, but it’s still your favorite thing. Because every time Alessia Russo laughs, it feels like the world is a little brighter—and you’re the luckiest person in it.

[lavnder311]

Forced Proximity

Synopsis: In which the strongest and reader confess their feelings.

Themes: female reader, mutual pining, longing, HEAVY TENSION, some conflict, friends-to-lovers. Fluff, little bit of angst, kinda slow burn. Didn’t proofread but if you find something it’s definitely your eyes or screen 🙏 enjoy !

wc: 3.9k

—————————————————————————

When the news about floods and heavy rain rang through the halls of Jujutsu High, you never expected it to be much of an issue. Matter of fact, you thought it was like every other day during the Tsuyu season. Sighing, you took a look out the window from your classroom, coffee in hand, dreading the moment work is over before you’re drenched in rain.

You weren’t a teacher at Jujutsu High for long, only opting to take up the role since your long time friend and colleague, Gojo Satoru, was gone on missions quite often. When he came back, he was often tired and had discoloration around his eyes from the lack of rest, only for him to continue his work as normal, always putting a smile for his students in class. With you teaching, it gave him that time to rest a little extra before training his students one-on-one.

It wasn’t exactly a decision he agreed to, as he believed it was a burden he- as the strongest- should carry. It took many months before he finally considered your proposal. After all, you’d be safe at Jujutsu High, instead of fighting off curses in who knows where, right?

——————————————————————————

“Oh come on Satoru,” you pleaded, reaching up to his eye level before being stopped by his infinity.

“Promise sweets,” he said with a dramatic sigh, reaching out to ruffle your hair before swiftly and effortlessly dodging your swat at his hand. “I’m fine. I’m the strongest, after all!” He flashed you a grin, his tone both playful and self-assured. He took out some candy from his pocket, popping it into his mouth before putting another right above your lips, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. “C’mon, I know you want it.”

You frustratedly sighed, taking the candy and throwing it in the nearest trash bin. Crossing your arms, you gave him a pointed look as he quickly frowned, furrowing his brows in response. “Satoru, I’m bring serious. You can’t even tell me the last time you had 7-8 hours of rest. Or eaten a proper, nutritious, meal.” Emphasizing the last sentence, knowing he loves his sweets. (Of course the candy- not you. Right?) “Let me do this for you.” You pleaded, shoulders hanging in defeat.

His movements faltered for the slightest second before tilting his head back, humming in thought. “Well, I guess it’d be a nice vacation for you. Safer part of the job, no fighting curses, just keeping me company, aren’t ya?” His smirk all too knowing.

Sighing, you softly shook your head and rolled your eyes before giving him a look of worry. “I just.. I want to look out for you,”

He piped up in interest before swallowing another piece of candy he kept safely hidden. “Looking after the strongest will only get ya so far,” he teased, a smirk playing on his lips. “But why?” He asked, his tone shifting to genuine curiosity.

Now that, you couldn’t- wouldn’t- answer. Your friendship with Satoru was.. complicated. It was like walking a fine line between comfort and tension, one moment full of stolen glances and playful teasing, the next filled with casual flirtations- though, you were never really sure if that was just his way with everyone.

Most of the time, it was just Satoru pretending everything was fine when you knew he needed a break. He never let anyone see how much he carried, always wearing that smile. Most of the time, it was you two sitting atop of Jujutsu High, watching the sunset or laughing at a horror movie with stupid plots. Sometimes it was quiet walks to cafes or his favorite candy shops.

But right now? Now you weren’t sure if you’d ever be able to make a decision. You glanced at him, hesitation in your tongue. Finally, you sighed and muttered, “Because you’re an absolute idiot.”

——————————————————————————

“Attention all still at Jujutsu High,” a voice echoed through halls and classrooms, about 40 minutes after students resigned to their homes or designated rooms. “Weather conditions are not safe. I repeat, weather conditions are not safe. Please stay indoors until further notice.”

The thunder was almost impossible to miss, lightning making its way through the clouds, and heavy rain painting all that is Jujutsu High. Clearly, you weren’t going anywhere.

“Looks like I’m stuck,” you muttered, glaring out the rain-slick window. The storm outside almost seemed theatrical in its ferocity. Each flap of thunder rattled the walls of Jujutsu High, as if the world itself wanted to remind you that you couldn’t go anywhere.

A knock came from your door, an all too familiar one. Raising a brow, you sat up on your desk, crossing one leg over the other. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” A voice chimed in as the door opened. A voice too familiar, too smooth and unmistakably teasing.

You softly smiled seeing him come through the door, noticing he decided to opt into more casual clothing rather than his usual uniform and black blindfold.

“Satoru,” you greeted, your voice steady, though your heart did a little flip at the sight of him. It was almost unfair how effortlessly good he looked, even in casual clothes. A black coat paired with a white shirt underneath and black pants tailored to fit his lengthy figure. His hair, usually spiked and tall, looked softer- almost as though he hadn’t bothered fixing it before coming to see you.

He closed the door behind him with an air on nonchalance, leaning back as he crossed his arms. “Missed me already, sweets?” He teased, his lips curling into a lazy grin.

“You mean in the forty minutes since we last spoke?” You quipped, resting your chin in your hand, playfully grinning at him. “I’m not sure if I could have bared any longer without you.” You teased right back, your tone light but betraying a flicker of something deeper.

Satoru’s grin widened, his ego soaking up the attention as he leaned casually against your desk. “See? I knew you couldn’t resist me. I’m the highlight of everyone’s day as the strongest, after all.”

You rolled your eyes, but the playful glint in his expression made it impossible to look away. “Highlight? More like a recurring inconvenience.”

“Ouch.” He placed a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. “And here I thought we were bonding. Guess I’ll just take my charm elsewhere.”

You chuckled, putting your hands up in defense. “Don’t let me stop you.” You replied, though the words lacked bite. If anything, the thought of him leaving sent a pang of disappointment through you. You quickly masked it with a smirk, hoping you wouldn’t notice.

But Satoru didn’t move. He stayed rooted in his place, his usual easy grin faltering just slightly. His gaze lingered on you for a moment longer than it should have, softening in a way that felt almost too intimate. The playful banter that defined so many of your interactions seemed to melt away, leaving something raw and unspoken.

“Actually,” he said, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant, “I think I’ll stick around.”

There was a weight to his words, a vulnerability that didn’t match his usual carefree demeanor. His tone lacked the teasing lilt you’d grown so used to, and it caught you off guard.

You glanced up at him, expecting another sly remark, but what you found instead made your chest tighten. His eyes, visible beneath his tinted glasses, were fixed on you- not with his usual amusement, but with a kind of longing he didn’t bother to hide. The storm outside roared, but in the silence between you, it felt like the world had shrunk to just the two of you.

For a second, you thought he might say something else, something you weren’t sure you were ready to hear. But instead, he shifted slightly, running a hand through his hair in what felt like an attempt to break the tension.

“I mean, who else is going to put up with me in a storm like this?” He added, the teasing edge returning to his voice, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You let out a shaky breath, a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, your own emotions swirling just as chaotically as the weather outside. “Lucky me,” you managed, keeping your tone light even as your heart raced.

He smiled faintly, but it wasn’t his usual playful smirk. It was softer, tinged with something you couldn’t quite name. And as he leaned casually against the edge of your desk, the space between you felt charged. Like both of you were waiting for something to happen- a shy confession, a flirt, maybe even something more- something neither of you dared to name.

Thunder shook the walls of Jujutsu High, causing your desk to slightly tremble. The sound echoed in the silence, as if the storm itself was urging something to break.

Suddenly clearing your throat, you forced yourself to look away, breaking the eye contact that held you captive.

“Well!” You quipped, trying to shake off the heaviness in the air. Satoru’s gaze was no longer on you, but rather the rain outside. His features were softened against the dim light, his jaw- that was usually relaxed and quick to smile, tightened for just a moment- barely noticeable if you hadn’t been watching him so closely.

“You’re unusually quiet,” you ventured, your tone light but curious. It wasn’t like him to let silences linger, especially not around you.

He let out a low hum, finally turning his head toward you. “Just thinking sweets,” he said, his voice smoother now, though something about it felt guarded.

“Thinking?” you echoed, raising a brow. “That’s a dangerous pastime for someone like you.”

His lips quirked into a smirk, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Funny,” he murmured, taking a step closer to your desk, his fingers brushing the wood as if testing its solidity—or maybe just grounding himself. “But even I have my moments.”

You tilted your head, studying him carefully. The Satoru you knew was always confident, always teasing, always larger than life. But now, under the weight of the storm, there was something quieter about him, something you weren’t used to seeing.

“Care to share?” you asked softly, folding your arms across your chest.

He hesitated, just for a second, his hand stilling on your desk. His glasses reflected the flicker of lightning outside, masking his eyes, but you could feel the intensity of his gaze all the same.

“Not much to share,” he said finally, though his tone lacked its usual bravado. “Just wondering how many more storms we’ll have to sit through before someone…” He trailed off, his smirk fading into something softer, almost wistful. “…does something about it.”

Your heart stuttered at his words, at the way they felt so much bigger than the weather outside. You opened your mouth to respond, but the words caught in your throat, drowned out by the thunder that rattled the walls once more.

“Maybe… hypothetically,” you began, your voice softer now, as if testing the waters, “a little push could help. You know, fire things up, I suppose.”

Satoru’s lips quirked into a small smile, but there was something unreadable in his expression, something that made your cheeks burn. “A little push, huh?” he echoed, his tone low and teasing, though there was an edge to it, like he was daring you to say more.

You shrugged, trying to maintain your composure under the weight of his stare. “I mean, sometimes things just… need a spark to get going. Isn’t that what storms are for?”

His fingers drummed lightly against the desk, his gaze never leaving you. “Careful,” he murmured, his voice dipping just enough to send a shiver down your spine. “Playing with fire can be dangerous.”

“Maybe,” you countered, leaning back slightly to put some space between you, though the tension still thrummed in the air. “But isn’t that what makes it exciting?”

For a moment, neither of you spoke, the words hanging between you like the crackle of lightning in the storm. His smile faded into something softer, something that felt almost too raw to look at.

“You’re something else, you know that?” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. His words hung in the air for a moment, heavy and unshakable. “The storm.. it wouldn’t be easy.”

His gaze, fixed on you, was softer now, stripped of its usual teasing confidence. It was as if he wasn’t just talking about the weather anymore, and the weight of his unspoken thoughts sent a ripple of unease and anticipation through you.

You swallowed, your heart racing as you tried to decipher the layers behind his words. “No,” you replied quietly, your voice barely steady. “It wouldn’t be easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth facing.”

His lips parted slightly, as though your response had caught him off guard. For once, he didn’t have a quick comeback, no smirk to hide behind. Instead, he shifted, stepping just a little closer, the space between you shrinking with each beat of the thunder outside.

“Sometimes storms destroy everything in their path,” he murmured, his voice so low it was almost lost beneath the rain hammering against the windows. “And sometimes… they make things clearer. Wash it all clean.”

You felt your breath hitch at the rawness in his tone, the vulnerability he rarely allowed to show. “Which one is this?” you asked softly, your voice carrying a hint of challenge but also something more—hope.

He hesitated, his fingers curling into a loose fist as though he were holding himself back. “That depends,” he said finally, his gaze never wavering from yours. “On whether you think it’s worth the risk.”

Every word, every glance, felt like it could tip the fragile balance you were both clinging to. “I do,” you whispered, the words slipping out before you could stop them.

And for the briefest of moments, Satoru looked like he might close the distance entirely, the hesitation in his eyes giving way to something fierce, something undeniable.

The storm outside roared, the thunder cracking loud enough to rattle the glass panes, but neither of you flinched. Instead, the silence between you seemed louder, charged with all the things you wanted to say but couldn’t find the courage to voice.

“You’re serious,” he murmured, almost to himself, the faintest edge of disbelief in his tone. His hand moved instinctively, brushing against the desk before retreating, as if he wasn’t sure whether to close the gap between you or hold himself back.

“Would I have said it if I wasn’t?” you countered, your voice steadier than you felt.

His gaze searched yours, his usual cocky exterior stripped away, leaving nothing but raw vulnerability. It was rare to see him like this, rare for him to let the mask slip. And yet, here he was, standing before you as if the storm outside had laid him bare.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked, his voice barely audible, almost swallowed by the rain.

“Get what?” you pressed, your heart hammering in your chest.

He exhaled sharply, his hand running through his hair in frustration. “That I’m not afraid of the storm out there,” he said, nodding toward the rain-soaked window. “I’m afraid of the one in here.” His hand moved, just slightly, as if to gesture to the space between you, the unspoken feelings that hung like static in the air.

“I’ll be busy almost all the time, and the little time I do get, it’s to rest and train my students..” he began, worry filling his eyes. “And where would that leave time for you? For us?”

The confession hit you like a bolt of lightning, sudden and blinding. Your throat tightened as you tried to find the words, but nothing came.

“Satoru…” you started, but the sound of his name on your lips made him flinch, as if it carried too much weight, too much meaning.

He looked away, the flicker of worry in his eyes dimming as if he’d said too much. “It’s not fair to you,” he continued, his voice quieter now, almost drowned out by the rain. “To expect you to be okay with… scraps of my time, with someone who can’t even promise to be around when it matters most.”

Your chest ached at the way his voice cracked on the last word, his usual confidence nowhere to be found. He wasn’t just pushing you away—he was scared. Scared of letting you in, of not being enough.

“Satoru,” you repeated, the sound of his name pulling his gaze back to yours. His expression faltered, the weight of his insecurities etched into every line of his face.

“Don’t,” he murmured, his hand lifting as though to stop you, but he didn’t pull away when you stepped closer.

“You don’t get to decide what’s fair for me,” you said firmly, the words tumbling out before you could second-guess them. “I know what this is—what we are. And I don’t care how busy you are, or how little time you think you have. I care about you, Satoru. Isn’t that enough?”

His eyes widened, his composure slipping further as the tension between you reached a breaking point. The storm outside seemed to echo the chaos in your chest, the thunder roaring like an unspoken promise waiting to be fulfilled.

“You make it sound so simple,” he said, a faint, shaky laugh escaping him. But there was no mistaking the way his shoulders relaxed, the way his hand finally reached out to rest on the edge of your desk, inches from yours.

“Maybe it is,” you replied, your voice steady despite the rapid thrum of your heartbeat. “Maybe you’re the one making it complicated.”

For a moment, he just stared at you, the vulnerability in his eyes giving way to something warmer, something that made your breath catch. His hand shifted, fingers brushing against yours—hesitant, tentative, like he was afraid to cross the line but couldn’t stop himself.

His fingers lingered against yours, warm and tentative, before he finally laced them together. The subtle touch sent a jolt through you, more powerful than any thunder outside. His grip tightened slightly, as though he feared letting go would mean losing something he couldn’t afford to.

“You really think it’s that easy?” he asked, his voice quieter now, yet laced with an edge of disbelief.

“I think you’re worth it,” you said simply, the words carrying more conviction than you thought possible. “I’m not asking for perfect. I’m asking for real—for you. Isn’t that enough?”

He let out a breath he didn’t seem to realize he was holding, his free hand brushing through his hair in a rare display of vulnerability. The usual smirk that would have accompanied your boldness was nowhere to be found. Instead, his lips parted slightly, his brows furrowed, as though trying to comprehend the weight of your words.

“You have no idea what you’re signing up for,” he muttered, shaking his head. But his fingers stayed locked with yours, betraying the battle between his mind and his heart. “It’s messy. I’m messy.”

“Then I guess I’ll learn to handle messy,” you replied without hesitation, stepping closer. The space between you was nearly nonexistent now, the storm outside a mere echo to the one building between you. “You don’t have to do this alone, Satoru.”

His jaw clenched, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “You’re not making this easy,” he said, his voice wavering.

“Good,” you said, your tone soft but resolute. “Because the things that matter never are.”

For a moment, his expression cracked, his usual cool façade shattering under the intensity of your gaze. His hand let go of the desk and rose slowly, hesitantly, as if unsure of its place. But then his fingers brushed against your cheek, his touch featherlight, like he was afraid you’d disappear if he pressed too hard.

“Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?” he asked, but there was no malice in his words, only a quiet reverence that made your heart skip.

“Because someone has to be,” you whispered, leaning into his touch without thinking.

The silence stretched between you, charged and trembling, until he finally broke it. “You’re going to ruin me,” he said, the faintest hint of a smirk returning to his lips.

“Maybe,” you said, your voice a little breathless. “But isn’t that what makes it exciting?”

And then, before either of you could second-guess it, he closed the distance, his lips brushing against yours in a kiss that felt both hesitant and inevitable, like the meeting of two storms destined to collide.

His lips were warm against yours, soft and deliberate, like he was testing the waters of something he had fought against for too long. The world outside seemed to dissolve—the thunder, the rain, even the walls of Jujutsu High—leaving only the two of you in the center of it all.

When he pulled back, it was barely an inch, his forehead resting against yours as his breath mingled with your own. His hand still cradled your cheek, thumb brushing gently along your skin as though grounding himself in the reality of this moment.

“I’m not sure what’s scarier,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with emotion. “The storm outside or how much I don’t want to let you go.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and you smiled softly, your hand reaching up to cover his where it rested against your cheek. “Then don’t,” you whispered, your voice steady despite the chaos of feelings threatening to overwhelm you.

He closed his eyes, exhaling deeply as though he was surrendering to something he’d fought for too long. “You make it sound so easy,” he said, the corners of his lips twitching into the faintest smile.

“It doesn’t have to be hard,” you replied, letting your fingers trail down to intertwine with his again. “We’ll figure it out—together. Like we always have.”

The vulnerability in his eyes was replaced by something lighter, something hopeful, and it made your chest tighten. For once, Satoru Gojo—the strongest sorcerer you knew—looked like a man who believed he could rely on someone else.

“Together,” he repeated, the word rolling off his tongue like a promise.

The sound of thunder rumbled again, but this time it felt distant, less intrusive. Satoru straightened, his hand slipping from your face but staying firmly locked with yours.

“Well, we’ve already survived one storm,” he said, his usual teasing tone creeping back as he gestured to the window. “What’s a few more, right?”

You chuckled, shaking your head at him. “Always so dramatic.”

His grin widened, though it didn’t quite mask the sincerity lingering in his eyes. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t fight the smile tugging at your lips. “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t.”

The two of you stood there for a moment longer, the storm outside gradually fading into a softer rhythm. It wasn’t a resolution to everything—there were still obstacles ahead, uncertainties and fears to navigate—but it felt like the beginning of something real.

Satoru squeezed your hand, pulling you toward the door with a newfound ease in his step. “Come on,” he said, flashing you a playful smirk. “Let’s see if we can find something to eat before the next storm rolls in. And maybe you can tell me how you plan to ‘handle messy.’”

You laughed, letting him lead the way. “Oh, you’ll see.”

And as the two of you walked down the hall, hand in hand, you couldn’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, the storms were worth it after all.

——————————————————————————

Ugh it’s been so long since I’ve written and I’ve been so invested with my job. Anyways, here’s this piece for Gojo! 🩷

[aventurineswife]

“You were a wonderful experience... You were everything”

Tags: March x Reader, Sampo x Reader, Alhaitham x Reader, Childe x Reader, Immortal!Reader, Unrequited Love, Bittersweet Romance, Emotional Angst, Character Introspection, Complex Relationships, Fleeting Moments.

Warnings: Angst, Heartbreak, Unresolved Feelings, Mentions of Mortality, Emotional Distress.

March sat quietly in the corner of the Astral Express, her camera resting gently on her lap. The soft hum of the train and the distant stars outside felt oddly calming, but a deep, lingering sadness hung in her chest, gnawing at her despite the outward cheer she usually displayed. She turned the camera over in her hands, her fingers tracing the cold metal as she thought about you.

It had been years since you’d joined the crew, but you remained an enigma to her. Your immortality — your ability to live on while the rest of them changed — intrigued her, but it also terrified her. She didn’t understand how you could bear to watch everyone around you age, lose themselves, and eventually fade. March was young, vibrant, full of life, and yet, she knew deep down that time would claim her, just as it did with everyone else. You had time to spare, but that wasn’t a gift. It was a curse.

"Why do you look so sad?" she asked, her voice as playful as ever, yet her eyes held a softness, a vulnerability she'd never shared with anyone else.

You met her gaze, your eyes betraying your pain, but you smiled as you always did for her. "Just thinking about the future."

March hummed thoughtfully, her lips curving up. "The future, huh? I’m not much of a planner myself." She slid closer to you, her camera in hand. "But I think, no matter what happens, I’ll always have a picture of today. Just like I’ll always have this moment with you."

"You were a wonderful experience," you murmured, your voice breaking the silence that had fallen between you. "A bright, beautiful moment that will never fade."

March blinked, her expression shifting. Her usual bubbly demeanor faltered as she processed your words. "I..." She hesitated, her lips trembling. "I’m not sure if I want to be a moment for you, though."

You reached for her hand, your thumb brushing against her skin. "Then, You were... everything," you whispered, unable to hide the sorrow in your voice.

She pulled her hand away, her gaze shifting downward, as if the weight of the universe had suddenly become too much to bear. "But you can’t keep me, can you?" she asked quietly, her voice heavy with regret.

"You don’t have to worry about that," you said, smiling softly. "But I’ll never forget you."

March looked up at you, her eyes filling with unshed tears. "I wish I could be the one who stays."

But you knew, deep in your soul, that nothing could change the truth. Time would always be against you.

Sampo leaned against the wall, his eyes flicking between the treasure in his hand and you, standing in the moonlit alley. His eyes shone with that mischievous gleam, but there was something in his expression now that seemed different — hesitant, even. For once, he was at a loss for words.

"I never thought I’d see you like this," you said softly, your gaze studying him carefully, as if trying to unravel the layers beneath his smooth talk. "Still scamming, still running, still avoiding the inevitable. I’m surprised you even stopped to talk."

Sampo let out a light laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "Hey, I like to think I’m a man of action. Never standing still, always looking for the next big score." He paused, his fingers playing with the silver cuff on his ear. "But you… you’ve always been different. You never change."

You stared at him, the weight of your immortality pressing heavily on your chest. "And you never learn, do you?"

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a more serious tone. "You think I’m running away from something? Nah, I’m just living my life. People like me don’t get to worry about eternity. They just… keep moving."

You sighed, your heart heavy with the knowledge of your endless existence. "You were a wonderful experience, Sampo," you said softly. "I thought you might be the one who could keep up, but I see now… you’re just running. You’ll run until there’s nothing left to chase."

His smirk faltered, and for a moment, you saw the cracks in his armor. But it was fleeting. "What’s it matter to you? You’re immortal. You don’t need anyone." His words were sharp, but the underlying pain was unmistakable.

You met his gaze, your voice barely a whisper. "But I wanted you, Sampo. I wanted to be the one thing that didn’t slip through my fingers."

Sampo’s eyes darkened as he stepped back, his face unreadable. "I can’t be that for you," he said quietly. "I’m sorry."

"Why?" you asked, your voice breaking. "Why do you always have to leave, even when I’m still here?"

Sampo didn’t answer, his gaze sliding away from yours, as if he couldn’t bear to look you in the eye anymore.

The silence between you and Alhaitham was thick, heavy with unspoken words. He sat at the desk, his gaze focused on a book, but you could tell he wasn’t really reading it. His mind was elsewhere. And you knew exactly where it was: with you.

"I’ve seen your eyes before," Alhaitham said quietly, not looking up from the pages. "The way they seem to carry centuries of sorrow. You’re the same as the others. Detached. Unchanging."

You smiled softly, the weight of your immortality pressing on your heart. "You’re right. I never age. I never forget. I never move on. But you..." You leaned against the doorframe, watching him closely. "You’re different. You challenge me. You make me feel something that isn’t just… the endless void."

Alhaitham closed the book with a quiet snap, finally turning his gaze to you. His eyes were sharp, searching, yet filled with a quiet sorrow. "I know you, and yet I don’t. You live forever, but you don’t really live, do you?"

You shook your head slowly. "No. Not really."

"You were a wonderful experience," he said softly, his voice betraying a rare vulnerability. "But I’m not the one who can give you what you need."

"I don’t need anything from anyone," you said quickly, but the words tasted empty in your mouth. "I’ve learned that lesson long ago."

Alhaitham stood up, his movements measured. "But I can’t be your answer, not when I know that one day, I’ll be gone, and you’ll remain. You’ll outlive me, just as you’ve outlived everyone else."

"And yet," you whispered, your eyes softening, "I would have wanted to share those moments with you. Just once."

Alhaitham’s expression remained stoic, but the flicker of regret in his eyes was unmistakable. "I’m sorry," he said, the words colder than he intended. "But you were everything… and yet nothing I could ever truly hold onto."

Childe’s laughter echoed through the empty space, but it felt hollow. He stopped pacing and turned to face you, his eyes gleaming in the dim light of the warehouse.

"I’ve fought countless battles, seen countless victories and losses," Childe said, his tone growing more somber as he spoke. "But I’ve never fought a battle like this. The one against time."

You met his gaze, your heart aching as you tried to find the right words. "And what does time mean to you, Childe? When you’ve already seen so much and know that nothing lasts forever?"

Childe’s lips curled into a bitter smile. "Everything ends, eventually," he said quietly. "But you… you’re different. You never end. You never fade."

You sighed, your voice barely above a whisper. "You were a wonderful experience, Childe. A fleeting moment of warmth in my eternal life. But I know that I can’t hold onto you."

He moved closer to you, his presence imposing, but his eyes softened with an emotion you hadn’t seen before. "I didn’t think you could, but I hoped… I hoped I could be the one to make you feel something real."

"You were everything to me," you said, the words tasting of bittersweet finality. "But I’m not the one who can give you what you want. Not when you can’t have me."

Childe’s expression hardened, and for a moment, the bravado faded. "Maybe it’s better this way," he muttered, as if trying to convince himself. "You were everything, but nothing that I could ever truly keep."

"You were always too far out of reach," you whispered, the pain in your heart echoing in your voice.

Childe took a deep breath, his eyes flickering with a mixture of sorrow and acceptance. "Maybe so," he said quietly, before turning away. "Maybe so."

[apute11as]

Everything happens for a reason part 5 - Alexia Putellas x pregnant!reader

Summary: the world cup final holds some bumps and bruises.

Warnings: angst, blood, injury (all resolved don’t worry!!)

Notes: We pretend alexia played the full 90 of the final… and assisted the winner🤫and no R*biales situation. ALSO deepest apologies for how inactive i’ve been, i have been busy but… i’ve also been lazy i’ll try and be better from now on im sorry!! ❤️

⭐️My requests are open!

Other parts here!!

~~~~

Things had been a lot calmer since yours and Alexia’s phone call. The morning sickness and overall fatigue was ever present but the mind numbing arguing had subsided. Alexia still wasn’t overly impressed that you were still playing, as you were nearing the end of your first trimester. The management staff now knew about your pregnancy but after a medical checkup and lots of reassuring, they cleared you to complete the tournament.

The World Cup final was soon and you’d just finished the match that saw you get through. As the final whistle blew, relief flooded your system at the win.

“YES WE’RE THROUGH Y/N!” Screamed Mary, picking you up and hoisting you onto her back.

“I know I can’t believe it!!” You shouted back

The rest of the girls were celebrating as you remained on the goalkeeper’s back, her carrying you around like a carriage.

“Oi careful Mearps don’t want to damage the little princesa!” Bellowed Lucy, upon seeing you on her back.

You were pretty sure Alexia had threatened Lucy in some way in order for her to look out for you whilst Alexia couldn’t. You couldn’t go a day without the older brunette either piling extra food onto your plate, shouting at someone for touching you lightly or simply calling the baby “La princesa”.

——

Later that evening, you were splayed across Lucy’s bed, Alessia beside you as the two of you had decided to bombard the older girl until she agreed to let you come in. A Disney movie was playing in the background as you rested your head in Alessia’s lap, your hand absentmindedly tracing patterns on your small bump.

“Ughh why are my tits so sore!” You groaned

“I don’t think your wife would be too happy about me partaking in a conversation about your tits” joked Lucy sarcastically.

“oh shut up! Everything just hurts all the time now, my whole body just kills, especially after the matches” you whined.

“Old age feels the same” laughed Lucy.

“Well both of you are complaining an awful lot considering we only have the final to go, surely that’s exciting no?” added Alessia

“I mean sure it’s exciting but i’m not really looking forward to playing against my wife and half of our team”

“Yeah me neither honestly” agreed Lucy

“Ugh you’re both so miserable, we’ve made it to our first world cup final!” Alessia insisted

“I can’t wait to go home honestly” you began. “I mean obviously I’d love for us to win and this tournament has been incredible, but I just miss my wife and my dog” you explained, eyes filling with tears.

“Oh honey are you crying?” Alessia asked, pulling you into her embrace

“shut up i’m not crying” you huffed in disgust, causing alessia to squeeze you harder. “it’s the baby it’s not me” you sobbed

“look at that la reina is controlling you through her spawn even when she’s not here” bellowed lucy

“Piss off bronze” you sulked

———

Training leading up to the final was exhausting to say the least, and it really wasn’t helped by the helicopter parenting you got from half of the team, regarding the baby. The running joke of you “carrying the heir to the throne” caught on quick, even Sarina had played into it, which really didn’t help the teasing you were already receiving from the girls.

Alexia had managed to call you every day recently, inquiring after the health of her “princesas” and somehow managing to hover more than anyone, despite not even being there in person. That is how you found yourself, the day before the final on the phone to your wife, despite you both swearing not to speak to each other before the match.

“Yes Alexia i have been eating well” you huffed

“Are you sure mi amor? How is the sickness?” she replied

“Still exists but it’s definitely better now, it’s only in the morning so it’s not draining me quite as much.”

“That’s good bebita, how are you feeling about tomorrow?” Your wife questioned with a frown.

“Hey i thought we agreed, no football talk” you asked, raising your eyebrows.

“sí but i couldn’t resist mi amor, it won’t leave my mind”

“i know Ale but just think, after tomorrow we’ll be together again, regardless of the result” you smiled

“i miss you so much” she sighed

“i miss you too baby” you agreed

———

Dinner that evening was tense, it was evident that despite the excitement in the air at the prospect of a world cup final, the anxiety levels were also high. Even Georgia who was infamous for her inability to keep quiet, was relatively subdued. A strange sense of dread overcame your body as you realised your little bubble would burst as soon as the World Cup was over. Which was not to say that that you didn’t miss your wife because you most definitely did but you knew that this would almost certainly be your last game of competitive football before the baby arrived which was bittersweet when you really thought about it.

“How you feeling darling?” Questions Mary, lightly bumping your hip as she passed her plate onto the chef to be loaded.

“Nervous but excited i think” you half laughed.

“You’ll be amazing, you’ve saved us multiple times in this tournament. I know how hard it’ll be to be up against her but you deserve it y/n! Celebrate that regardless of the result tomorrow”

“You always know what to say Mary” you smiled, bringing the older woman into a hug.

You hadn’t slept so well since the tournament has started, sometimes all that was needed was a friend.

The journey to the match saw you receiving a good luck text from many people, one of which being your mother in law. Although you knew she’d be supporting Spain, as would Alba, you knew that the pair would be proud of both you and Alexia regardless of the result.

——

The bus arrived at the ground after a short 30 minute drive, something you were thankful for as that pregnancy travel sickness was no joke. You were seated next to Alessia much to your delight, the younger girl had been nothing but supportive of you the entire tournament. Ella and Mary were sat opposite you two on the table, playing a rather competitive game of uno.

“You ready?” Alessia sighed as she stood up.

“As ready as i’ll ever be” you said, mirroring her sigh.

“LETS GO GIRLS!” Bellowed Ella, the brunette forever having no filter.

You stepped off the bus, only to be greeted by masses of fans behind the gates, waiting to cheer you in. Many of those fans were adorned in Spanish shirts, likely hoping to get a video of you, Lucy and Keira as you noticed a couple of them with Barça scarves around their necks.

You smiled as you high-fived the row of mascot children to your right, carrying a bottle of water in your other hand.

As you found your way to the changing room, the atmosphere started to sink in as you realised you were actually at a world cup final, something that 5 year-old you had dreamed of since the day your idols Ronaldinho and Rivaldo had stepped onto that same stage 21 years ago.

Pitch inspection was up next as you wandered beside your captain with her reminding you of formation and reassuring you of your importance to the team throughout the tournament. You looked across the pitch and saw the Spanish team doing the same thing, wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to go and greet them.

Lucy being Lucy, beat you to that thought as she bounded over in the direction of Ona and your recognisably pink-haired girlfriend. Alexia was adorned in a navy blue tracksuit that proudly (or rather not so) displayed the RFEF emblem on her heart.

You wandered over, slightly more carefully than your counterpart, locking eyes with your wife as she looked up from her phone. Her gaze softened as it met yours, the both of you knowing that a conversation would result in tears, no matter the nature of it. Instead, you chose a simple hug, a hug that said more than words ever could. One of her arms was settled on your back, the other reached gently over your hoodie to caress the small bump that formed there.

“I love you” she whispered softly in your ear.

“Te amo” you responded, before breaking the hug and wandering back over to join the rest of your teammates, knowing you both needed the focus before the match and any further interaction would have to wait for the sake of concentration.

Upon reaching the dressing room, you began to change into your warmup kit, placing your hands where your wife’s have been just moments ago and smiling.

“Starting to show are we?” Questioned Leah with a smirk

“Hmm yes a little” you smiled

“How do you feel seeing her?” She inquired after Alexia

“Honestly relieved to be with her again” you sighed

“Well that’s good darling, we’ve got a game to win now come on!” She cheered as she dragged you by the arm, onto the pitch.

——

You readied yourself into position, you spared a simple glance at your wife, knowing that regardless of the result today you would end up in her arms and that thought alone was enough to calm some of the nerves currently enveloping your body. You glanced into the stadium briefly, scanning the crowd where your gaze met your mother and sister in law, cheering frantically. You noticed that Alba was in fact wearing an England scarf on top of her Spain jersey, a detail that made you grin slightly at her love.

The game kicked off relatively fast paced with Spain holding much of possession but luckily the majority of that possession was through their defence and midfield and far from your backline. The actual tempo of the game was relatively calm with the majority of Spain’s attacking opportunities being closed down through the talented midfield and sharp defence that England possessed.

However this all but changed in the 29th minute as Lucy made a risky run out into the middle and you were torn between covering her and staying on Jenni as she’d positioned herself perfectly onside, ready to receive any loose ball that came her way and likely put it in the net, knowing the talented feet of the 33 year old. Ultimately you stood your ground with Jenni, calling on Georgia to come back and cover. Before Georgia could grasp what you were saying over the volume of the crowd, Spain had regained possession via Alexia as she slotted a pass of pin point accuracy across to Olga Carmona who running at full speed down the wing, the wing in which Lucy should reside. Damn Lucy Bronze and her spontaneous spurts of energy. Your legs moved faster than your mind as you raced across the pitch, attempting to thwart Spain’s promising attack but before you could get there, Carmona struck the ball with a perfection that many could only dream of. You watched as the ball soared across the goal, straight at the right post and hit the back of the net as Mary stretched out fully.

The save never came.

Everything went silent.

Spain had scored and there was nothing you could do about it.

Your ears tuned back into reality as you watched Olga lift her shirt to reveal a message in celebration, you watched as her teammates, including your wife, rushed to pile her into a group hug. You watched as your own teammates sauntered back to the half way line in despair, knowing that your decision to stick back could’ve been the decider that cost a goal in potentially the most important game of your career.

Despite all this, you couldn’t help but feel a warmth inside you as you saw Alexia, the look of pure passion and happiness on her face, a look you missed seeing when she played. Your wife had assisted the goal to put her team ahead in a World Cup final and despite it being against your beloved England, you couldn’t help but feel a small sense of joy for the woman you loved.

——

Half time couldn’t have come any sooner as you wiped your brow and plodded off the field, exhausted from both the physical and emotional battles that the first half had brought.

The dressing room was tense, Sarina was in the centre of it offering a motivating team talk, a team talk you payed little attention to as all you could think about was how you selfishly hoped she’d pull you off at half time. You’d never ask to come off but if she did decide to take you off in that moment, you couldn’t help but feel you’d be happy for the rest as the pregnancy was seriously impacting your energy levels.

To your disappointment, your prayers were not answered and you were forced to likely endure another 45 minutes of football, despite the ache that persisted throughout your body. You gathered into the huddle of your teammates, just as the second half was about to commence.

“You alright y/n?” Asked Lucy, concern etched in her face

“Mhm just a little exhausted” you assured the older woman

“Well vamos chica let’s kick some Spanish ass!” Cheered Lucy, as the huddle broke up and everyone returned to their positions.

——

The second half started slowly with near enough no excitement, England has their chances throughout but none of them connected, hitting the crossbar or going just wide every time.

That didn’t stop Spain from fighting for a second all throughout, a second they might be coming close to.

Aitana dribbled through the English midfield as if they were cones in her training drill, leaving each one for dead and proceeding to boot in your direction. You met her run, using your body to shield your goal as she curved to the left, in an attempt to foil you but you stood your ground. Hands behind your back, body perfectly positioned as you blocked her powerful cross that would’ve found Jenni, unmarked in the box had it not been for your body. The ball went out for a corner as you let out a small sigh of relief which didn’t last long as you moved to mark none other than your wife on the edge of the box.

“Hola bebita” alexia grinned, in an attempt to distract you

“Shut up Putellas” you countered, causing her to roll her eyes and laugh from behind you, where her body was flush against your back, albeit a little softer than usual. Likely due to the precious cargo you carried.

Mariona aligned herself at an angle with the corner flag, holding one arm in the air to signal the corner routine.

A split second later she struck her foot to release the ball, a ball heading in your direction. You jumped and full power, in an attempt to beat a most definitely taller Alexia to the ball. Alexia jumper almost in sync, mind set on nothing but ensuring the ball reached the back of the net. However, neither of you made it to the ball and Alexia’s head collided sharply with the back of your head, causing a wave of pain to wash over you and your whole body to crumple forwards due to the shock, Alexia landing half on top of you.

You screamed out in pain as everything went black.

“Y/N!” Screamed Mary as she watched blood drip from your head.

“MEDIC NOW!” Yelled Lucy as the medical staff came rushing over to your unconscious form.

Alexia rubbed her head in pain as she sprung up at the commotion, met with the sight of her wife bleeding on the floor. Her pregnant wife, hurt, because if her. Reality kicked in at that moment.

“No no no no mi amor.” She pleaded “Lo siento, lo siento” she beckoned as she crouched down, eyes wide in horror at the sight in front of her.

She felt an arm grip her shoulder and pull her back and was met with the faces of Chloe Kelly and Lauren James as they shoved her away, screaming abuse in her face.

You’d regained consciousness as this point as the medics shone a light in your face and began assessing the wound.

“She’s pregnant” Mary announced to the medics, as they nodded with a look of pure worry that elicited a sinking feeling in the stomachs of those present.

Your teammates huddled close by, with concern present on all of their faces. Alexia fought her way back through pleading to you.

“Go away Alexia” was all you could manage before you slipped back out of consciousness.

Alexia’s heart broke at the sight, you blamed her, you thought she’d done it on purpose, shock set into her body as she watched in horror as the medical team loaded you onto a stretcher and stretched you off to medical.

“¡Quiero ir con ella!” Alexia demanded towards Vilda who shook his head and began lecturing her in Spanish. She protested consistently but eventually agreed to play the final 10 minutes, out of fear of punishment, not to herself by the younger players, should she argue any further.

The final whistle felt like an eternity later. Alexia having done nothing but fight the urge to run off the pitch in the final 10 minutes. Spain had won the World Cup but Alexia had no desire to celebrate with her team, all she wanted was to run to her wife and ensure you and the baby were okay. She was stopped by a firm grip on her hands as Vilda shoved her in the direction of the team. She shoved him right back, a moment she knew would be plastered all over social media later. A problem that could wait for the future.

As she was stopped again, Alexia spotted her mother in the crowd and signalled for her to find you and her mother did so, barging past security and into the tunnel.

Alexia slipped past everyone, ignoring the beckoning of the Spanish staff and bolted into the tunnel, knowing that the media would tear her apart later, calling her “cocky” “overrated” and “ungrateful” for her obvious disinterest in the trophy and general celebration but she did not care. The only thing on her mind in that moment was her family. No medal, trophy or football game was more important that you or her child.

After a frantic search she located you, accompanied by your medical staff and her mother and sister.

“Mi Estella, lo siento mucho” she pleaded, tears welling in her eyes

“I know Ale you didn’t mean it” you mumbled weakly

“No of course not amor! Are you okay? El bebé? Is the baby okay?” She rambled, ignoring the look of pure shock on her mother and sister’s face.

“We’re running tests now, just prepping an ultra sound machine” informed one of the doctors, as he squirted a blue gel across the gentle curve of your stomach.

“I’m so sorry querida” tears were streaming now “I hurt you! I hurt our bebita” she spluttered cupping your face as you felt the doctor begin to move the probe over your stomach.

“Ale no it’s okay, i’m okay look” you gestured towards the ultrasound machine

A steady heart beat filled the room.

A grainy image of your baby filled the screen.

The baby was okay.

“Oh, gracias a Dios” her mother exclaimed, relieved at the health of her grandchild that she’d only learnt existed moments ago.

“YOU’RE PREGNANT?!” Yelled Alba

“Sí lo siento for not telling you both, I found out during the tournament, we’ve been trying for months” you smiled, tears in your eyes.

The ultrasound technician wiped the gel with a tissue before printing out several copies of the image.

Your wife was unbelievably silent, staring, mouth wide at the ultrasound.

“Alexia” you called

“Te quiero más que a nada” she breathed. “I’m so sorry mi amor, I’ve missed you so much” she placed a gentle kiss to your lips, squeezing your hands firmly with her sweaty ones, before she placed a second kiss to your bump.

“I’m so glad we’re together again mi vida” you replied with a smile, touching your foreheads together.

“I so hope it’s a girl so she can be alba junior!” Raved the younger Putellas sister

“ALBA!” Alexia and Eli retorted simultaneously.

~~~~~

Thank you so much for reading this series, please send any requests in my inbox and any feedback too i love you all <3

[nicxl333]

hello

Could you write about bllk boy accidentally hurting their s/o badly.

It's okay if you're too busy. No pressure

BABY YOU SOLD ME A DREAM

characters: isagi yoichi, mikage reo, nagi seishiro, barou shouei, itoshi rin

content: major angst, reader is female coded (wears a dress, heels and makeup), mentions of smut in barou’s part but nothing actually happens (lol), vulgar language

☆彡 ISAGI YOICHI

“you think you know better than me? do me a favour and go find someone else who has the time to put up with your bullshit. ‘cause it won’t be me.”

you lay in your cold, desolate bed for the umpteenth time this week alone, which, considering it was only wednesday showed just how often isagi trained past late hours. as much as you understood his passion to climb to the top, it was simply neglect at this point. to you and to himself. you woke up, he was gone. you went to sleep, he wasn’t beside you.

of course, things were never like this in the beginning. he used to be around, take you out, nurture you and show you devoted love for you each and every time.

until he wasn’t.

once his team reached the quarterfinals of the champions league a while back, he changed. 2 hour training sessions in the evening turned into 4, and the time he spent with you halved as a result. it made you feel lonely and simply put, abandoned.

your texts querying his location and when he was coming home lay unanswered and unopened, probably within the confinement of his phone which lay in his bag during training. so you went to bed alone like you always did, missing what your relationship used to be.

as you stared at the pristine, bare white ceiling you heard a key in the lock of the front door. a few moments passed and the door pushed open, pads of feet resounding in the apartment.

you decided to go meet him in the living room, wanting to know if he’s at least okay.

as you entered the room, you were met with his figure, donned in black sweatpants paired with a black compression shirt. his normal post-training gear. the same gear that never failed to make you melt each and every time. he glanced at you in your nightwear and weary expression, due to him returning back so late.

“hey ‘ichi, how was training?”

“alright.”

you immediately frowned. outside the pitch he was never so curt and void of language. especially with you.

you ventured closer towards him, trying to debunk his guarded persona.

“are you sure? did anything happen to you?” you stepped closer still, till you were right in front of him, immediately noticing his dark circles, even in the dim lighting of the living room from the hallway light. you attempted to give him a hug, shrinking back in disappointment once he shrugged you off.

“i said it was alright. i’m fine, just go back to bed, i’ll join in a bit.”

bullshit. you knew full and well he would just retire to the sofa, watching playbacks of his games to further evaluate his performance. even when he wasn’t working physically he would somehow manage to work himself further mentally.

“yoichi. what’s wrong baby?”

“y/n, i won’t repeat myself again. go to bed.”

you stood there in disbelief. as far as you were concerned, you hadn’t done anything wrong, so it’s quite unbelievable that he would take whatever happened today out on you.

“isagi,” you made sure to use his last name to make aware you weren’t fucking around. “come correct with me please. i haven’t done anything to you and i’m concerned for your well-being. you’ve been going to sleep late, training until ungodly hours. this isn’t good for you and i’m now on the receiving end of your misery, god knows why.”

the tone in the room shifted, isagi, now displaying a scowl across his features at your rebuttal. yes, he was well aware he was maltreating himself, but to have you acknowledge his moment of weakness gave him an displeasing itch of anger that no one could scratch, not even you.

before he could think, the next words that flew out of his mouth changed the status of your relationship, whether he meant to or not.

“you think you know better than me? do me a favour and go find someone else who has the time to put up with your bullshit. ‘cause it won’t be me.”

you instantaneously drew back, his words punching you in the gut and twisting your insides. your heart leapt and fell, never expecting those words, out of isagi’s mouth of all people.

it was deathly silent for a moment, both parties having a staring match. you fought back tears, trying so damn hard to not allow him to see how his words affected you. alas, your emotions got the best of you.

you lightly sniffled, before balling your hands into fists. “you know what yoichi? fuck you, i’m done.”

you turned on your heel and made a beeline towards your shared bedroom, grabbing your biggest duffel and shoving clothes into them, not minding what it was that you picked up. only once isagi was the only individual in the living room did he snap out of his state, realising the weight of his words. he listened to the loud shuffling, registering that he may have just fucked his relationship over for good.

he swiftly followed you, watching you in a frenzy, having just changed into an outfit suitable enough for outside. it was then that he grasped you were serious, and slipped into full panic mode.

“y/n! y/n please baby, i didn’t mean any of that! don’t leave me.” he reached for your arm, falling apart, the same way you did moments before, when you pulled away from his touch. you knew if you succumbed to his pleas you might— might just stay. but you couldn’t. his words resonated within you and made you accept that fact that you needed space at the most, before your relationship delved into something irreparable.

you stood, duffel bag slung on your shoulder, tears running down each cheek, until they conjoined at your chin.

“isagi, i can’t. not right now. not when emotions are running this high. i need space. we should probably talk when we’re both calmed down. i’ll be at meguru’s house so you don’t need to worry about where i am.”

he respected your wishes, he had no choice. if he wanted this relationship to survive he had to.

so he let you go.

☆彡 MIKAGE REO

“you’re very much subpar, do you think i need to keep you around? my name alone will help find me someone better than you.”

one thing about mikage reo that really ticked you off was his obsession over his best friend, nagi. simply put,

he was always there.

when you were chilling together, when you went out, even after date nights he would come to your shared condo, playing video games with your boyfriend until who knows what time in the morning. it always felt like you had to share and fight for reo’s attention, which was pretty much a losing battle considering reo gave nagi as much of his attention to nagi as he did.

you did your best to not voice your concerns to him, withholding your true feelings, that you did. but sometimes there’s just moments where you can’t help but snap.

and that moment came at your first year anniversary dinner with reo. hell, you should’ve called it your first year anniversary dinner with yourself, considering the fucker didn’t even show up.

you had dolled yourself up so nicely, a sexy silk black dress (purchased with your own money, you didn’t like to depend on reo too much) with matching heels. your makeup was done flawlessly and not a hair out of place.

you sat at an expensive table at an expensive restaurant, sipping over-expensive wine while you waited for him to show up. you hadn’t seen him since this morning, due to him training all day today, but you had planned this dinner with him together a month ago, reservations and all, with reminders here and there about the upcoming date.

you had waited for about an hour, taking into consideration that there could be traffic, although you hadn’t experienced any on the way here, thus giving him the benefit of the doubt.

however, when no signs showed of him arriving you turned to a waiter and excused yourself, paying the bill and walking out to collect your car from the valet.

once it was brought to you and you were seated, ready to drive off, the first thing you did was call reo via the bluetooth feature, beyond pissed off.

after a few rings he picked up, the sounds of video game gunfire audible in the background.

“y/n? what’s up? where are you?”

you scoffed incredulously, ignoring the city lights whizzing past you as you drove on the highway.

“what’s up? where am i? reo, do you know what day it is today?”

“no, why?”

you gripped the leather of your steering wheel, your frustration hitting a boiling point. “you cannot be serious. does our one year anniversary ring any bells, huh? the fact that i’ve reminded you, time and time again? you stood me up reo! what could you have possibly been doing that was more important than remembering a big milestone in our relationship?!”

he didn’t even have to answer for you, because the answer came in the form of a “reo, why did you stop? our team just lost.”

nagi seishiro.

if you weren’t angry before, you were absolutely livid now.

“reo, so you mean to tell me that spending time with your friend was more important than remembering your one year anniversary with your girlfriend? do i mean nothing to you?”

“y/n it’s not that deep, we can just reschedule for tomorrow or something.” you could hear his exasperation through the phone. the audacity of him, considering he was completely at fault here.

“not that deep? not that deep?! you let me sit there for over an hour in an upscale restaurant by myself and didn’t even think to worry about where i was! why is it not getting through to you that you missed our anniversary to play games? you see nagi everyday, whether it’s at training or at home. you mean to tell me that you couldn’t bear to not see him for one singular day out of the week?”

there were probably a ton of possibilities and explanations for why he said what he said next, but if you had to choose, it would probably be the fact that nagi could most likely hear the argument over the phone, which lead reo to attempt to regain control over the situation, by any means possible, to not appear weak.

“you’re very much subpar, do you think i need to keep you around? my name alone will help find me someone better than you.”

oh. you see how it is.

his words stunned you into silence, knocking the wind out of you. the only sounds that could be heard was the continuous tapping from reo’s controller and the low hum of your engine as you drove.

“look y/n i’m busy now, so we can talk later when you’re ho-”

you didn’t wanna hear what else he had to say, hanging up the call via the steering wheel and letting out a deep breath you didn’t realise you were holding.

without fail you indicated to turn off the highway, making your way to the nearest hotel. nevermind the fact that you didn’t have any clothes, you simply couldn’t handle seeing reo after the way he just wounded you.

once at the hotel and settled in your room you lay swaddled in the crisp white blankets. without any external eyes being able to see your state you let all walls crumble, tears cascading down in waves as you let all the previous bottled emotions fly free.

unbeknownst to you, your phone lay on the side table, softly vibrating whilst the screen lit up to show a picture of you and reo at a theme park, a call coming though from him.

it lay unanswered.

☆彡 NAGI SEISHIRO

“being in a relationship is a hassle already, i shouldn’t have to deal with you bitching and whining on top of that.”

you awoke to the sounds of rapid gunfire emanating from the living room, sighing to yourself. once again, nagi was devoting himself to a night of endless gaming.

it was a never-ending cycle. when he wasn't gaming, he was training and vice versa. as much as you loved and embraced the fact that nagi was lazy, he could at least make some effort to give you attention every once in a while.

rubbing the sleep away from your eyes you trudged your way through the apartment wearily, before being met with his figure, hunched on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen in front of him.

"sei, when are you coming to bed? i miss you."

"in a bit y/n."

"sei baby you said that last night, and i came back to you passed out on the sofa. the bluelight isn't good for you, especially so late."

he barely was around as it is, but when he was, he either slept, or was parked on the sofa.

it made you feel unappreciated, and majorly unloved. he never made the effort to take you out, tell you that you ever looked pretty or even acknowledge you anymore. to you at this point he was practically a roommate with a shoddy title that really shouldn't apply to the both of you.

"y/n, just leave me alone for now. i'm too tired to get into it with you."

"so you're too tired to argue with me being concerned for your wellbeing, but not too tired to invest your time into games, which ultimately drains your thought processes more? really sei?"

he was still focusing on the tv instead of your words, which ticked you off. so, determined to get his full attention, for once, you walked towards the tv and stood directly in front of it, blocking his vision, arms crossed and frowning.

"what the hell y/n? you made me lose."

"seishiro, can you stop being an ass for just a second and focus on me and what i have to say?”

faced with no way out, he had to oblige, placing the controller down with a heavy sigh, letting you know he was agitated. you couldn’t give a flying fuck though. you’d had enough of being neglected by nagi, and weren’t going to let him off this time.

“you don’t spend time with me anymore. you never take me out, we don’t ever talk to each other anymore. is it so bad for me to want to spend time with my boyfriend? is a game really more important than me? or is being with me detrimental to you in some way?”

he rolled his eyes, sinking back into the soft material of the sofa, irises piercing into yours. you shrunk back at his change in demeanour.

“being in a relationship is a hassle already, i shouldn’t have to deal with you bitching and whining on top of that.”

huh?

“nagi, where is this coming from? what do you mean being in a relationship is a hassl- i’m a hassle?”

he shrugged while rising to his feet, placing a hand behind his head and massaging his neck.

“i said what i said didn’t i? look, i’m going to bed, happy now? i don’t wanna argue with you, you’re too loud when you’re angry.”

you stood in shock, registering his words fully before swallowing and deeply inhaling.

“forget it nagi, i’m leaving. lose my number.”

“leaving to go where?” he watched as you briskly walked to the bedroom, following you in as you changed, grabbing your phone and keys.

“that’s none of your concern anymore. i’m breaking up with you.”

he said nothing as you walked to the front door, leaving with a final slam.

he should’ve stopped you, he really should’ve, for he would come to realise soon enough that allowing you to go,

would be one of the worst decisions he ever made.

☆彡 BAROU SHOUEI

“oi, i didn’t get into a relationship with you just so you can make my life harder. fix up or leave.”

when you asked barou out, you knew damn well what you were signing up for. considering he was so headstrong, particularly when it came to football, there would be moments where he might be nonchalant or absent.

what you didn’t anticipate, would be just how bad he would get.

once his mind was focused on football, specifically climbing his way to the top, there were no distractions, especially from his girlfriend, who at times he deemed his biggest distraction.

you did try to help and aid him every way you could, cooking him meals to eat after late night practices, tending to his injuries he may obtain after over-intensive sessions, cleaning up the apartment flawlessly so he wouldn’t be tempted to do it himself. all you really wanted in return was love.

surely that wasn’t too much to ask for, right?

wrong.

even after 7 months of dating, public outings with attempts to hold his hand resulted in subtle swatting away, instead opting to walk side by side. laying in bed together? don’t expect any cuddles from him. quite laughable actually that you’d ever think he’d be willing to do that. don’t think movie nights will be any different either. you’d better be keeping your hands to yourself.

fucking was a rarity, only really when he was very much pent up with frustration from football, libido overflowing from lack of release. and even then, while you were able to cum, that’s pretty much all there was to it. no making love or anything like that. he wouldn’t display his emotions to you enough in the first place for that to ever happen.

when you asked barou out, you knew damn well what you were signing up for. but you didn’t know it would be this hard. you figured he would loosen up eventually, getting used to at least some form of affection towards you. a little peck on the lips, or a hug from behind every once in a while would be nice.

one day, you simply grew tired. you were sitting on the dining table with him, having just finished dinner. barou stood up, ready to leave the table to shower.

“shouei.”

he stopped in his tracks, pivoting on one heel to turn and face you. his face remained blank, save for his usual signature eyebrow, arched in waiting.

“hm?”

“i-” you suddenly grew self conscious, afraid to voice your concerns to him. if you wanted things to change however, this conversation had to happen sooner rather than later.

“can we do more stuff together?”

his face now contorted into utter confusion, genuinely puzzled by what you were trying to say.

“what do you mean? i do enough with you do i not?”

“no, not that that sho’, i mean more couples stuff. like…couldn’t you just be more affectionate? i just— i don’t know how you feel about me at certain points, you don’t tell me anything as it is.”

he looked at you, playing with your hands, trying to look anywhere but him, clearly uncomfortable about this conversation.

“cmon y/n, you know how it goes already, i’m not into shit like that. i may like you and all, but all that lovey-dovey stuff? that ain’t me. never has and never will be. surely you should understand how i feel about you? the fact that i’ve kept you around this long should say more than enough.”

damn. fucking cold. either way, you weren’t backing down. you stood there, holding a firm staring competition with him before opening your mouth to speak.

“shouei, it’s been 7 months and news flash! it doesn’t. when you do shit like this, it makes me feel fucking inadequate. like i’m not deserving of you. long story short, you make me feel like shit. i’m tired of it sho’.”

“y/n, regardless of how you feel, i told you how i feel, and that ain’t gonna change.”

you couldn’t accept what he was telling you, believing that what you were saying weren’t getting through to his thick skull. his stance was too relaxed for your liking, arms simply crossed over the other, looking slightly bored.

“you’re not getting it shouei!” you raised your voice slightly, not quite shouting, but about two thirds of the way there. “you’re not understan-”

“oi, i didn’t get into a relationship with you just so you can make my life harder. fix up or leave.”

you halted, making sure you heard him correctly. to hear that he basically wouldn’t fight for 7 months worth of memories and time with each other left you in denial that it would be so easy for him to let go.

“excuse me?”

“did i stutter? fix up, or leave. two choices, one answer. it’s up to you but whatever you pick is your business.”

he gave you an out, an out from what you were currently going through. and as much as you did love and care for barou, you’d be a fool not to take it. things would only get worse.

you chose the latter, opting to leave, considering how little value your relationship held to barou. weeks passed, and the items you once held in the apartment decreased, leaving a half completed house, just like your heart.

he continued as normal at first, trying to get used to the newfound ‘freedom’. but as days passed on, the emptiness of the household became more apparent. the meals you used to cook were no more, barou having to take on the tasks himself. his injuries were taken care of in a subpar manner. while he could do it adequately, they weren’t bandaged or plastered as well as you used to do it. yes he would clean, but having it done already when he came back from training and to his standard…made him start to realise just how much you really did for him.

and maybe— maybe you weren’t so bad to have around. you did give him a sense of comfort that he could not achieve on his own, filling him on things that happened during your day gave him a sense of normalcy which alternately gave him that balance from his meticulous life as a quickly rising footballer.

he missed you, he missed what you had,

it’s a pity he realised only when it was too late.

☆彡 ITOSHI RIN

“honestly i don’t understand why i got with you in the first place. you’re so lukewarm it hurts.”

you were both busy. you both knew and understood that. rin was constantly abroad on travels for football and you had your own stuff going on at work, often leaving the office late at night.

when your schedules would occasionally match up and you’d both be home, most of the time it would still be you alone. rin would go off on his own to his usual training ground and work himself to the bone. he wouldn’t even tell you he was leaving, disregarding your worries or concerns that may surface.

you jolted awake randomly, looking to your left to see disturbed duvet covers, but an empty side. yet again. next you turned to your phone, squinting at the light from the screen which temporarily blinded you.

2:34am

you could take a guess or two at where rin was. specifically because you knew he lost his last match abroad and was pissed off about it, meaning double the training he usually did. you threw on some clothes, splashed water on your face and grabbed your car keys to drive to the open football field.

the massive stadium style lights lit up the field, illuminating it in a cool white, as you pulled up next to rin’s car. even from the car park you could hear the discernible sounds of rin’s foot booting a ball repeatedly. once closer, you could see him in his normal training gear, sweating profusely, enough to fill a small bucket.

“rin!”

he stopped, just short of making the next ball his victim, making eye contact with you, not expecting to see you there of all places this late.

he waited until you had crossed the distance between you, and stood in front of him to speak.

“y/n, why are you out here this early? i thought you were sleeping.”

“rin, i should be asking you that. it’s too early to be this active my love. come home please, i’m worried for you.”

all was silent for a moment, the only audible sounds on the pitch being a crow cawing in the distance, and rin’s heavy breathing.

“…i’m fine. just go back home. it’s too early for you to be up.”

you stood, hand on hip, showing your determination to get him to give up, not taking no for an answer.

“rin, you need to sleep. you’re overworking yourself. what happens when you’re fatigued and you leave yourself open for mistakes to happen? it’ll be worse for you in the long run.”

“tch, i wouldn’t expect someone who does office work all day to know the inner workings of an athlete. you don’t understand y/n.”

you sighed exasperatingly at his attempts to disarm you. he could be so stubborn when it was really for his own good.

“rin, i don’t need to be an athlete to understand that this isn’t good for you. anyone with two working brain cells can understand that constant working out and lack of sleep isn’t healthy.”

he rolled his eyes and turned back to the football in front of him.

“fine. whether or not you leave isn’t my problem, but i’m not leaving. stay or go, the outcome is the same either way.”

he took position, aiming and shooting flawlessly at the top left corner of the goal, the ball spinning against the net before falling to the ground.

he grabbed another ball, ready to complete the same procedure before you interrupted him once more.

“rin, just please come home, you can come back tomorrow. just because you lost your match doesn’t mean you should overwork yourself like this.”

this time when he turned back towards you, the tone had shifted. his face immediately darkened, eyes thinning into dark slits, eyebrows forming a crease on his forehead. his teal eyes shot daggers into yours.

“listen. we may be together, but that doesn’t mean you get to talk to me like you know what i’m going through. i’m going to be the best football player out there, and if i need to work double to make that happen, then so. be. it. i don’t need someone like you telling me about what i should or should not be doing.”

you stood in silence, effectively stunned and insulted simultaneously. you couldn’t say anything to counter yourself, rin’s harsh words opening up a side to him you’ve never seen before. that wasn’t the worst of it though.

“honestly i don’t understand why i got with you in the first place. you’re so lukewarm it hurts.”

your heart shattered, face hung in desolation and disheartenment.

after not hearing you argue back for a while he scoffed, walking to the side to collect his training bag. “whatever, i’m leaving now.”

he left you there, standing while the gears turned in your head to make some semblance of his words.

you didn’t even register you were crying until the cold nipped at your cheeks, decreasing the temperature of the liquid against your face. you pulled yourself together, just about enough to shakily make your way back to your car and press the ignition button.

you spent the whole car ride crying your eyes out, before wiping your eyes as you arrived back home. rin’s car was nowhere to be seen.

you walked up to the front door, slotting your key in and twisting your wrist to align with the lock.

pushing the door open, you stepped in to see the lights off and the aura dark.

“rin?”

silence.

“rin, are you there?”

nothing.

you sighed, tossing your keys on the table next to the door, making a beeline to your shared bedroom. it was empty, no signs of life present.

you stripped out of your outside clothes and slipped under the covers,

leaving you to cry yourself to sleep, wondering when it all went wrong.

baby you sold me a dream pt.2

[suugarbabe]

Origin Stories

(part 4)

summary: it's second year, and baby matty is hopeful that this year will be just as good as the last. what could screw up getting away from his home, being back with his friends, being with you and finally trying out for the quidditch team. probably the chamber re-opening.

warnings: some classic magic child abuse, angst, hurt but comfort, sad baby matty, and draco being a dick

an: as always thank you to my love @musingsofahufflepuff for his magnificent idea contributions, helping me edit, our constant yaps to help build the story & helping motivate me <33; yes there is another part, there will always be more

You had convinced your parents to get you to the platform about half an hour sooner than they did the year before. They had heard you drone on and on about your friend Mattheo all summer and how important it was that you get the same car. 

“It’s tradition mum, I can’t break it! I need to make sure I get it for us,” you gave your mum a big squeeze and she hugged you close. Your dad gave you a brief hug as well and then you headed on to the train. 

You made your way down the aisle of the train, passing multiple open cars on your way. You entered the last compartment, walking up to the second to last door on your left.

Opening it swiftly you nearly jumped, not expecting someone to be in there. Hand on your chest you breathed deeply, “Salazar’s sake, Matty you scared me.” Mattheo continued to look out the window, chin seemingly sitting on his fist and elbow on the armrest of the seat, “Sorry.”

You sat down next to him, digging into your pants pocket, “I got you some fizzing whizzbees..” You pulled the packet of sweets out and sat down next to him. You held the packet towards him, “They’re still your favorite right?” 

Mattheo turned towards you, his head still down, “Yeah, they’re still my favorite.” You handed them over gently, “Are you mad at me or something?” Your brain instantly went to the worst thing, but you couldn’t help yourself. 

Theo had written to you over summer holiday, as soon as it started. He said that it ‘probably wasn’t the best idea to try and write Matt as his mum would not be too keen on it.’  But maybe he was wrong, you should’ve tried. Now Mattheo was angry, he couldn’t even look at you. 

Mattheo shook his head in answer to your question. “Then why won’t you look at me? I wanted to write, I really did but-” Mattheo cut you off, “Was probably best you didn’t.” He looked up at you finally, allowing you to get a full view of his face for the first time. 

There was another one now. A scar. It was the same side, but below his eye. This one went clean down his cheek from right under his eyelid to just below the apple of his cheek bone. “Oh, Matty,” you reached your hand out like you were going to touch it; Mattheo flinched back. 

You pulled your hand back quickly, “M’sorry, I didn’t mean-” He cut you off again, “No, s’fine, I’m sorry. It just gets some getting used to that not everyone is out to hurt you. I’ll be better tomorrow, promise.” 

You shook your head, crossing your arms, “Why did she do it? I know it was your mother. What now?” Mattheo pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around his knees and holding on to his wrist, “I just…didn’t want to do something she asked.” Kill someone. That’s what she had asked him to do. 

“Bella, please. Not yet. He’s just a boy,” Draco’s mother, Narcissa, pleaded with her sister. She looked at Mattheo, the fear in her young nephew’s eyes. Even down at his side, his wand hand was trembling. 

Bellatrix did not seem to have the same soft heart as the younger Black sister, “It must be done, Cissy. It is his destiny. His father is still gone, so he must step in for his duties until he returns.” Bellatrix held steadfast to the curse that kept the muggle man suspended in front of them, body twisted and contorted. 

Mattheo didn’t know who the man was, or why his mother chose him. He could be a nice man for all he knew. Knowing his mother he was probably someone random, chosen specifically to test Mattheo; to see if he would be up to the task for that of a young Dark Lord.

“You know the spell, dear boy,” Bellatrix leaned down towards his ear, “kill him, Mattheo.” With a shaky arm, Mattheo raised his wand. He pointed it towards the man, whose eyes were now boring a hole into Mattheo’s. 

Mattheo opened his mouth, “A-Av..Avada..” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say it, couldn’t kill this man he didn’t know. Couldn’t kill something or someone for no reason. Someone defenseless, who didn’t hurt him, didn’t threaten him. How could he?

“Oh you useless boy, out of my way,” Bellatrix shoved Mattheo aside and to the ground. Her wand hand pointed straight at the muggle man as she said the curse effortlessly, “Avada Kedavra.” A bolt of green light shot from the tip of her wand and hit the man square in the chest. 

His body hit the ground with a hard thud. 

Bellatrix then stalked over to her son, boots clicking against the marble floor like a time bomb waiting to blow up in Mattheo’s face. Mattheo tried to crawl backwards until his back hit a wall. 

Bellatrix pointed her wand straight at his face, “What a pathetic disappointment you are.” In a swift motion, a clean cut was made below his right eye. A hiss left Mattheo’s mouth as his hands covered the bleeding wound. 

Narcissa ran over to Mattheo quickly, “Bella! How could you? Your own son?” Bellatrix looked at him with a look that could only be described as disgust, “No son of mine would be so weak.” As she walked away, she shouted over her shoulder, “You can fix him up, Cissy…but leave the scar.” 

But he couldn’t tell you that. No, you’d think he was crazy, or worse…be scared of him. “Matty…I’m so sorry,” the frown you wore nearly shattered him. Mattheo shrugged, “S’okay, you actually helped me through it.” 

You tilted your head slightly, “Whaddya mean?” Mattheo put his hand inside his cloak, pulling out the stuffed dragon you had made him last Christmas. “He, erm, got me through some tough nights.” The three in a row that Mattheo cried himself to sleep after the incident specifically. But you didn’t need to know that detail. 

Your frown grew into a grin and Mattheo seemed to relax a little more, “I’m so glad he helped, that’s the whole reason I made him for you. A little extra pal when I’m not around.” 

Mattheo smiled shyly, tucking his dragon back between his robes right as Theo and Enzo burst into the space. “Oi oi! Whatcha reckon, mates? No longer bottom feeders this year, what’s our new titles, hmm?” 

“Git one and git two have a nice ring to it, aye Matty?” You pointed at each boy across from you respectively, Mattheo laughing in the process. 

Theo would have none of it, “Scusa! I will not have you put me together with him!” Theo tore the leg off his chocolate frog, who was already missing its head, before tossing it in your general direction. 

A pout fit itself upon Enzo’s lips, “Why do I gotta be git two?” Theo raised his hand to smack Enzo, but the latter boy must have worked on his reflexes over the summer and was able to dodge. Mattheo stifled a laugh, “Gettin’ quicker, Enz.” 

Enzo nodded, “‘ve got to be, quidditch tryouts this year!” At the sound of sport Theo and Mattheo bound into a long conversation. You, on the other hand, began to drown them out. Instead, you dug out your new Defense Against the Dark Arts text, an overly cheery wizard on the front, and started flipping through different pages. 

You felt yourself drift off during a debate that broke out on if the Chudley Cannons were going to best the Montrose Magpies this year. The boys must have let you sleep the rest of the ride, as the next thing you knew you felt yourself jolting forward before an arm wrapped around your middle. 

Mattheo quickly pulled his arm away once you’d settled, “Erm, sorry.” His cheeks tinted the lightest shade of pink as everyone began to stand. The four of you followed the crowd of students off the train and onto the platform. 

You peaked at the group of first years being led to the boats by the gameskeeper, Hagrid. Turning back you grabbed lightly onto the hood of Enzo’s robe so as to not lose your friends in the crowd. As second years you got to take the carriages and skip the water ride. 

Approaching the long line of carriages waiting for students, Mattheo stopped in his tracks. Leading each carriage was what looked like a horse with a skeletal body, its face having reptilian features. On its back sat wide leathery wings like that of a bat. Upon his abrupt halting, Enzo, and therefore you, bumped roughly into his back. 

“Oof, sorry mate. Why’re ya stoppin?” Enzo brushed himself off, you doing the same. Mattheo just shook his head. If no one else was going to mention the death horses then neither was he. 

The ride to the castle and walk to the Great Hall held idle chatter. Mattheo slumped on the bench of the Slytherin table, leaning his chin in his hands as his elbows rested on the table top. He hated that you couldn’t sit with them. And he hated that the Hufflepuff table was all the way on the other side of the Great Hall. 

Theo shoved one of Mattheo’s elbows out from under him, his head falling slightly before he straightened himself up. “Nott, what the hell?” Theo nodded towards the other side of the hall. Mattheo turned, seeing you waving enthusiastically. 

Mattheo waved back, albeit a little shyer than your display. You then pointed to his left, meaning you wanted Enzo’s attention for some reason. Despite the growing heat in his chest, Mattheo complied, smacking Enzo in the shoulder. 

He had about the same reaction as Mattheo originally, but looked for you across the hall all the same. Once you knew you had Enzo’s attention you waved as well. However once he began waving back you turned your hand round, choosing now to give him the middle finger with a wide grin. 

Enzo gasped slightly, turning towards his friends, “Did the little badger just flip me the bird?” Mattheo kept his eyes on the table, not trying to hide his smile in the slightest. Theo just shrugged, “If you don’t deserve it now I’m sure you will later.” 

The rest of the sorting ceremony and feast went on without much excitement. The new DADA professor was announced with a chorus of swooning sighs that had Mattheo rolling his eyes unamusedly. 

Prefects led each house to their dorms after the meal concluded. The new slytherin password was pura sanguinis (pure of blood). Mattheo rolled his eyes again. Instead of staying up with the others he decided to go straight to bed. 

Pulling his dragon back out from his robe’s inner pocket he sat it on his bed as he changed. With all the others still in the common room catching up, Mattheo was left alone. He crawled under his duvet, pulling it tight up to his chin. 

Once all good and snug, he pulled your dragon close to his chest. He hoped tonight would be the first peaceful sleep he got since leaving Hogwarts for summer. And even better, the sooner he slept, the sooner he could wake up. And hang out with you again. 

Mattheo woke about two hours before the others. He had showered and gotten dressed before anyone else in his dorm had even subconsciously thought about waking up. He wanted to get to breakfast early. Partly to make sure that you guys got your same spot (it was crucial) and (more) partly to possibly get some one on one time with you before everyone else made their way up to the great hall.

If there was one thing Mattheo had learned about you over the last school year, it was that your excitement often kept you from sleeping. So he really shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was to find you already sitting (in your group’s spot) at the Slytherin table. 

A lone Hufflepuff in their black and yellow sweater sitting at the table with a green and silver runner lying across it. Mattheo walked over with a growing grin, taking his rightful spot next to you on the bench, “Morning. Really thought I’d beat you here.” 

You turned to face him, now straddling the bench, “Couldn’t sleep, too excited. How’re you? Better than yesterday?” Mattheo’s face heated slightly, but he nodded, “Yeah, much better now that I’m here.” You smiled a little bigger at this, Mattheo mirrored your expression. 

Mattheo could tell you wanted to say something more, or maybe ask him something. You were gnawing on your bottom lip and looking around a lot. “Was there something else?” Mattheo’s heart rate rose, wondering what you could be nervous about asking him. 

Stuttering through your sentence you asked him shyly, “C-could I, erm, do you t-think I could give you a hug?” Your cheeks blushed and Mattheo could feel his face falling to one of shock. “I just..” you were gnawing on your lip again, “I just missed you a lot over summer, and I couldn’t write so we didn’t get to talk at all and…if it’s a weird ask I understand. I’m still learning wizard friend protocol.” 

Mattheo couldn’t help but smile at your ramblings, “There’s no wizard friend protocol.” There was a long pause then. You still obviously waiting for him to answer your original question. His skin felt like it was getting warmer, he’s never been asked that by anyone before. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever actually been hugged before. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted you to know that, though if he said yes you might find out right away. You spoke up first, “S-sorry, I dunno why I asked, it was weird, wasn’t it?” Mattheo shook his head, “No, no I’m sorry. I missed you too. Terribly so, actually,” he scratched the back of his neck nervously, “y-you, erm, you can give me one. A hug.” 

Your smile returned then, leaning forward and wrapping your arms around Mattheo’s shoulders and pulling him into you. He felt a little awkward, not knowing what to do with his arms. He’s seen people hug before. He tried to mimic that.

Wrapping his arms around you as well, giving a small squeeze as you did. 

It was over quicker in real life than it probably felt in his head. He felt warm all over after. You just remained smiling, turning back towards your plate and starting to fill it with food. Mattheo turned and did the same, Theo and Enzo entering the great hall looking still half asleep. 

“Well don’t you two look cheery,” you teased as the last two to your foursome joined you for breakfast. Enzo gave a grunt as he made himself tea. “Vaffanculo,” Theo grumbled, leaning his head on his fist and closing his eyes again. 

Mattheo stifled a laugh but you narrowed your eyes, “Don’t you curse at me, Theo.” Theo peeked an eye open, eyebrow raised, “I did not curse.” You just shook your head, “Lie. I looked up all the Italian curse words this summer so I’d know when you were trying to be sneaky.” 

Theo rolled his eyes. However, Enzo found this thrilling news, “Oh that’s perfect. He’s been saying shit around us for years.” 

“You’ve never thought to, I don’t know, try and translate what he’s been saying?” You looked back and forth between Enzo and Mattheo. The latter boy giving a noncommittal shrug, “Too much work.” 

You shook your head at them all, “Ridiculous, the lot of you.” There was a brief silence as you all loaded your plates before you spoke again, “Anyone else notice the new pompous arsehole that will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year?” 

“Oh so I’m not allowed to curse but you are?” Theo complained. You just rolled your eyes, “You can’t curse and try to hide it.” Enzo interrupted your spat before it continued further, “I noticed him. It’s hard not to when our entire collection of text for that class is his bloody smiling face.” 

Theo rolled his eyes, “I’m not opening a single one of those books this year. There’s no way we’re learning anything. Matt over here could probably teach us more than that loser.” 

Mattheo shifted a little in his seat, trying to hide any uncomfortableness with a smirk, “Probably, but I’m not teaching anyone else but you three.” The four of you continued to laugh and make fun of Lockhart until you noticed Enzo dropping small bits of food into his shirt pocket. 

“Erm, Enz…what’re you doing?” You were looking at him curiously, but that seemed to give him no indication of what you were wondering about. “Hmm? I’m eating breakfast like the rest of you?” 

Mattheo gave an incredulous look, “I think they’re talking about you stuffing food in your pocket, mate. What’re you doing? Saving a snack for later?” Enzo gave a small laugh, “Ohh, no, no. That’s Mocha’s breakfast.” 

The three of you just stared at him blankly. Enzo shook his head with another small laugh before sticking his hand in his pocket and pulling out a small light gray frog with brown and black branding. “A tree frog?” Theo sat up a little straighter, “aren’t those things poisonous?”

Enzo huffed out a laugh, “Mocha is a mission golden-eyed tree frog. And she only secretes poison if she feels threatened.” 

“A milk frog named Mocha…” Mattheo was doing his best to suppress a smile. “Yes,” Enzo smiled proudly, “I got her this summer, was a birthday present to myself. I’m a father now.” The rest of you groaned.

“Aren’t frogs supposed to eat like..bugs and stuff?” Mattheo inquired. Enzo shrugged, “I give her bugs too, but sometimes she likes a special treat. What kind of father would I be to deny her of that?” 

Theo quickly tried to change the subject, “So..quidditch. We’re all trying out this year, yes?” Mattheo and Enzo nodded enthusiastically, “Tryouts will simply be a formality, they’d be stupid to not let us on the house team.” 

Theo turned to you, “What about you, badger, trying out for your house team?” You barked out a laugh, “Merlin, no. Won’t catch me dead on that pitch.” The three boys looked at you with slight shock.

“But, erm, I’ll be supportive of you guys. What positions are you trying out for?” Your question seemed good enough distraction, Enzo going into a long spiel about trying out for chaser. You really did your best to pay attention, Enzo saying something about practicing all summer and learning a new move that should ‘really help him outshine anyone else’. 

Theo mentioned that he was going for keeper, but wasn’t hellbent on definitely making the team. “I just think it’d be a fun time, yeah?” Mattheo and Enzo nodded. “And what about you, Matty? What position are you trying for?” 

He shrugged, “Probably beater. Might be helpful in getting out frustration.” You frowned briefly, but Enzo and Theo both gave a small laugh. 

“So you’ll watch us try out then, little badger?” Enzo asked enthusiastically. You gave a smile, “Sure, Enz. I’ll come watch.” Mattheo felt that pulling sensation in his stomach again. It was mixing a little bit with anger, but he wasn’t sure why. Enzo was his friend. You were his friend. You guys could be friends too, then. Right?

Mattheo was starting to believe that second year was going to be far better than last year. So far he had transfiguration, charms and potions with you, and now he was on his way to DADA with you, Theo and Enzo. 

“I bet you ten galleons all he does is talk about himself,” Enzo started placing bets as you all walked into the classroom. Once through the doors you couldn’t stop yourself from giggling. On either side of where the desks in the classroom sat were a line of photographs of Gilderoy Lockhart posing in front of different adventure spots. 

Even more horrifically was a large 12-foot tall framed painting of himself painting…himself in another smaller canvas. 

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s taking that bet, mate,” Mattheo’s grin was large as he sat down on your right. Theo and Enzo sat at their own table on your left. Enzo opened his mouth to respond only to be interrupted by your new narcissistic professor and his grand entrance from his office.

“Let me introduce you to your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher…me,” Lockhart declared from the top of the stairs. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five times winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile award,” he punctuated his speech with a toothy grin.

Half of the class seemed to swoon at Lockhart’s theatrics. You and the rest of your friends sat chin in hand, bored looks on each of your faces. Halfway through Lockhart’s speech about himself and all his glorious defeats Enzo was lightly snoring. 

Mattheo and Theo were not much better. Matty’s head slipped from its place in his hand, his jerking down slightly before he sat up straight again, “What I miss?” You laughed lightly, “He actually just performed all the unforgivables.” 

Mattheo narrowed his eyes, “Are you fucking with me?” Rolling your eyes you stifled another laugh, “Of course I’m fucking with you - oh no…that..that is not good.” Mattheo turned to where you were worriedly staring. 

Lockhart placed a large bird cage full of cornish pixies on the table next to him. Most of the class started laughing. “Cornish pixies?” Seamus, a Gryffindor student asked in amusement. “Freshly caught cornish pixies,” Lockhart corrected, “laugh if you will Mr. Finnigan, but pixies can be devilishly tricky little blighters.” 

You pulled on Mattheo’s robes, “We gotta get out of here.” Lockharts hand was on the latch to the cage of pixies, Mattheo just smiled, “What’s wrong? Badger afraid of some little pixies?” 

Shoving Theo awake you turned to Mattheo with a glare, “This badger happens to be pretty proficient in magical creatures, you fucking knob. And those pixies are bloody riled up good. We need to leave.” 

“Rilassati, amico,” Theo groaned, looking like he was about to fall back asleep. You scoffed, “No, Theo, I will not relax. Ugh, why are you lot not listening to m-” Lockhart flicked open the cage. 

In an instant, roughly fifty cornish pixies barreled out of the cage and around the room. Students were shrieking and ducking under desks. One grabbed onto Hermione’s hair and Potter used his textbook like a beaters bat and thwacked it away. 

Neville, another Gryffindor student seemed to be getting the worst of it, being lifted up by his ears by several pixies before being dropped to hang on the chandelier by his robes. 

“Fuckin’ Salazar, look what they did to Longbottom,” Enzo pointed at the stout boy now dangling. At that same moment, two pixies began to grab and pull on each of Enzo’s ears. “Hold on, mate,” Theo reared his hand back before smacking Enzo hard on the back of his head. 

Both pixies let go and flew away as Enzo nearly smacked his face on the desk in front of him, “What the hell, Theo?”

“Come on,” you pulled both Matty and Theo with you through the doorway, Enzo following quickly behind, still rubbing the back of his head. “No, that’s alright. You lot just go on without me, I’ll stay here with the pixies who tried to attack me.” 

“Oi! I got them off of you didn’t I?” Theo had a small smirk on his face. “You didn’t even hit them, you just hit me!” Enzo shouted with a pout. 

You fell in step with Enzo. “Awh, poor thing,” you cooed, “did big, bad Theo hurt your head?” 

Enzo grumbled, “He’s not big.” Theo let out a laugh, flexing his muscles, “Not big huh. We’ll see on the quidditch pitch this weekend.” Theo and Enzo started laughing and shoving each other. Trying to one up back and forth the rest of the way to the great hall for lunch. 

“Are you still gonna watch me tryout?” Mattheo asked, his shoulder bumping yours briefly as he came to walk beside you. A warmth spread through your chest, “I said I would, didn’t I?” 

Mattheo grabbed your arm, halting both of you from following the others into the great hall, “Do you pinky promise?” He held out his hand, pinky out, just as you did to him the year before. 

You hooked your pinky with his without any hesitation, “Yeah, Matty. Pinky promise.”

October in Scotland could be a hit or miss when it came to the weather. Thankfully, the day of the Slytherin quidditch tryouts were sunny with just barely a breeze. You sat on the wooden bench of the tall stadium seats, watching a decent sized group of students fly around and ‘warm up’ for whatever the tryouts were going to entail. 

You hugged the cardigan you were wearing a little tighter around as a particularly large gust of wind blew by. Marcus Flint, the current captain, shouted out plays and orders for everyone to follow that was more confusing than when Theo spoke strictly Italian.

Mattheo hovered in front of Flint, Theo and Enzo on either side as they were given instructions for tryouts. Apparently they were going to go at it like a scrimmage, Marcus splitting the teams up to go against each other. 

It didn’t go unnoticed that one side heavily outweighed the other in talent and age, but Mattheo wasn’t too worried about it, he felt confident in his abilities as a beater. Thankfully, he and the other boys were on the same side. 

Despite their younger age, the three of them were quite good at their positions. Enzo’s current smaller stature than the older students was given him an advantage in diving between attempted blocks and avoiding bludgers on his way to the goal posts on the other end. 

Theo’s ever growing limbs were assisting him in blocking the posts on their end. Mattheo flew back and forth across the pitch, tracking both bludgers and their directions, whacking them towards the other team's players when needed. 

On his way back towards his own team’s side of the pitch he flew by where you were sitting. You gave an enthusiastic wave as he did, him doing the same when he noticed what you were wearing. 

Green wasn’t typically a color you wore, considering your house was Hufflepuff. Mattheo also couldn’t recall your initials being L.B., or your family crest mimicking that of Berkshire. Were you wearing Enzo’s cardigan?!

“Matty, behind you!” you were pointing over his shoulder, clearly distressed by whatever was headed his way. Turning he saw the black iron ball whizzing in his direction. Gripping the bat, Mattheo swung with the full force of his frustration, the bludger launching towards an older Slytherin on the other team. 

He heard you cheering, and deep down he knew it was for him. But all Mattheo could think about was you in Enzo’s clothing. If you wanted to wear something to support them, why didn’t you ask him?

Another bludger was coming near, Mattheo smacking it away with great force once again. He had plenty of green clothes you could’ve borrowed. He was practically bred to be a Slytherin. 

Mattheo was losing sight of the purpose of the game, strictly seeking out the bludgers himself just to beat the hell out of them into another direction and chase them down once more. You said yourself that he was your best friend, wouldn’t you borrow from your best friend?

Flint called the game, saying he’d seen enough. Everyone flew back down to the ground of the pitch, forming a small huddle. Mattheo was ignoring everything said, still reeling internally about what he could have done to make you feel like you couldn’t ask him for something. 

“And for beaters, we’ll take Bole and…Riddle,” Mattheo was snapped from his thoughts as Flint announced he had made the team. Theo and Enzo clapping him on either shoulder in congrats. 

“Good job, mate,” Enzo smiled at him. “Bravo, amico,” Theo gave him a small shove. Mattheo allowed himself to smile at his feat, “Thanks, erm, did you guys make it too?” 

Theo and Enzo both looked confused. “What, were you not listening? You are the only small person that made it, the class under,” Theo shook his head with a laugh. 

“Theo, mate, you can’t call them that. Those ‘small people’ are goblins. Mattheo’s a wizard,” Enzo wore a shit eating grin. 

Too focused on his sarcasm, Enzo didn’t notice you walking up behind him. That is, until you landed a particularly hard flick on the side of his head, “You’re an idiot, Berk.” Theo roared with laughter, “That’s one, badger. Now you’ve only got one free flick left from last Christmas!”

“How are you gonna injure me when I lent you my best cashmere jumper to support us,” Enzo wore a wounded pout. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, “You basically forced me to wear it. Can you believe he told me I couldn’t wear my own house colors? Like I’d somehow be bad luck?” 

So you didn’t ask, Enzo was just a prat, good to know. “I’d say if anything, you being there was good luck, I did make the team after all,” Mattheo was grinning now, true and genuine after his earlier worries were squashed. 

You flushed slightly at his words, feeling it reach up near your ears. You would play it off as a cause from the wind if anyone had said anything, but thankfully no one seemed to notice. 

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in. We’ll make it next year and then we’ll really be unstoppable,” Theo hoisted his broom over his shoulder, Matty and Enzo doing the same as you all headed back towards the castle. 

Enzo and Theo, per usual, started walking ahead. Leaving you and Mattheo in makeshift seclusion. “You looked pretty impressive out there,” you linked your arm with his as you walked. 

Mattheo did his best to stay relaxed, “T-Thanks, erm,” he cleared his throat, “thank you. And, erm, thanks for coming and cheering us on.” He ran his hand through his curls before pulling them down slightly.

“I wouldn’t miss it. Not when it was something important to you.” 

His face immediately flushed. He could feel it all over, from the tips of his ears, across his nose, even down his neck. You had to have noticed, but you didn’t mention anything. Instead you just allowed the peaceful silence to fall over the two of you for the rest of the walk. 

The best part about October at Hogwarts was the very end. The very last day to be specific. Because the last day of October meant one thing: Halloween Feast. And while Theo and Enzo, and many more students, were chattering about what food the castle elves would be cooking up, Mattheo could only think about one thing. 

You two couldn’t enjoy it together. 

Special event feasts meant you had to sit at your house table. Mattheo hated that your house table wasn’t his. But that didn’t stop him from sitting where he could look for you. 

Nearly willing you to look his way. You always did. And you always waved. It made his heart happy. He still couldn’t believe he was able to make a true and genuine friend. One who didn’t care about his blood status, who his parents were, what he was destined for. 

Theo gave Mattheo a quick nudge with his elbow, pulling him back to reality with those around him. The feast was now apparently over, Mattheo had barely eaten anything.

As the four tables of students slowly became a giant mass, Mattheo’s eyes never left your form. Weeding through students as if they were nothing in order to get to you. “Matty, hey!” your hand rose high in a wave, Mattheo pretending like he wasn’t already looking in your direction. 

Theo and Enzo were quick to appear behind him, immediately speaking as if they were already in the middle of a conversation with you, “So we’re going to a party, yeah?” 

Mattheo shot you a questioning look, you rolled your eyes. “A party Theo? How are second years supposed to get into a party?” Mattheo threw an arm around your shoulder, facing the two, “Yeah, what bright and brilliant idea have you two concocted in order to get us in?” 

“Why do we want to get in?” You add on. You’re all moving with the crowd from the great hall towards the main split off of corridors for all the houses. Enzo lets out an exasperated sigh, “Because I heard a bunch of fourth years that were going talking about it and they all sounded very excited. Must be a good time.” 

You glanced at Mattheo, a smirk forming on his lips, “And where is this party taking place exactly?” 

“Ravenclaw Tower” “Gryffindor Tower” 

Theo and Enzo spoke both simultaneously and opposite. You and Mattheo exchanged a glance, “So neither of you know. Are you even sure you heard the right information?” 

Enzo opened his mouth to reply when the four of you all seemed to run into the people just ahead. Hushed whispers fell over everyone, and for good reason. High on the corridor wall in front of all the students was a message seemingly written in blood. 

The chamber of secrets has been opened…enemies of the heir…beware

Mattheo grew rigid. He glanced around the crowd of students. No one seemed to be staring at him, which was good. Then the nasally sound of his cousin rang over the crowd. 

“Enemies of the heir, beware? You’ll be next, mudbloods!”

A scowl flashed across Mattheo’s face. You grabbed his arm, “Leave it. He’s not worth it.” Mattheo looked at you, your eyes seemingly pleading for him to just let it go. 

Dumbledore’s voice then boomed over all the murmuring. “Prefects lead your houses back to your common rooms. The fun seems to be concluded for the night.” 

Enzo let out a groan, “So no parties?” 

Mattheo slumped into the puffy yellow sofa in the Hufflepuff common room. You sat next to him as Theo and Enzo sat in two adjoining lounge chairs across from you. “Sorry you lost the game, Matty,” you really were empathetic, even if you didn’t know what was going on. 

“Match,” Enzo corrected, "It's called a match not a game”. 

 “Whatever,” you rolled your eyes, “M’still sorry.” Mattheo shrugged. The match wasn’t really on his mind. At least not in the way that everyone was probably thinking.

Last week someone had started a rumor that Mattheo was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets. That he was the heir to Slytherin and the one who’d been threatening everyone. 

When a first year with a camera was rumored to have been petrified a few days ago, everyone started to avoid him like the plague. Everyone except you, Theo and Enzo. There were even a few other Slytherins that had actually congratulated him, whispering to him students he should attack next. 

Theo encouraged those students to shove their wands up their ass. 

Before the match this morning Mattheo had found out that it was Draco who had started the rumor. He immediately wanted to pulverize his weasel of a cousin but you had encouraged him to ‘channel his anger towards the bludgers instead’. 

Mattheo had planned on doing just that. But it didn’t seem like he really needed to. Any time he flew near someone they almost immediately went the other way. He could only assume they were thinking what the rest of the school was, too. 

“I honestly thought the rumor Malfoy spread would’ve helped you guys win today, just have you fly by anyone with the quaffle and they’d avoid it,” Enzo meant it as a positive comment. Mattheo hadn’t mentioned to anyone that he technically was the actual heir. 

But he wasn’t the one who opened the chamber. He hadn’t even heard of it before it was written about in blood on the walls. 

“Golden boy Potter always manages to get the snitch though doesn’t he,” you huffed out annoyed, “even breaking his bloody arm in the process.” 

Mattheo ran his hands through his curls, “Can we talk about something else besides the match…and people thinking I’m on a petrifying spree or something.” 

The barrels to your common room rolled open, a group of fifth years coming in. They stopped short seeing three slytherins sitting on their sofas. A sour look crossed over the tallest one’s features. 

“Who let the killer in our common room?” a few of his friends snickered behind him. 

You were immediately on your feet, wand drawn, “Go fuck yourself, Cedric!” Enzo stood up with you, “Yeah, Diggory, ya cockwomble, how about you all go have a group wank and leave us alone.” 

Cedric gave Enzo the finger, which the younger boy gladly returned in double and a show of his tongue. The older Hufflepuffs went off to their rooms, leaving the four of you alone in the common room once more. 

You sat back down, immediately apologizing for your housemates. Mattheo waved it off, more so secretly thrilled that you defended his honor. Theo brought everyone’s minds back to center, asking the real question, “Enzo what was that word you used? Cockwiggler?”

You and Mattheo couldn’t suppress your laughter, Enzo rolling his eyes, “It’s cockwomble, mate. It's like…an idiot, a person who’s being an idiot.” 

Mattheo shook his head, “You’ve gotta be fucking with us, Enz. There’s no way. You made that shit up on the spot.” You agreed with Matty, “Yeah, Berk. I swear you’re just saying shit with confidence and assuming everyone else won't question it.” 

A playful argument then ensued, everyone asking Enzo what other words he’s been making up. As Mattheo readjusted in his seat, a letter fell out of his robes. You grabbed for it, seeing the front for only a brief moment before Mattheo was snatching it from your hands. 

“What’re you doing? Did you reach in my robes?” 

You looked at him confused, “What? Of course I didn’t. What’s wrong? Who’s that from?” Mattheo could feel the other two staring now. The earlier light hearted conversation now traded off for this one. 

“It’s from my mum,” Mattheo held the letter face down, choosing to stare at the broken wax seal of his family crest instead of his mother’s scratchy scrawl. Enzo inhaled through gritted teeth, his face in sort of a grimace. Theo just looked like he felt sorry for him. 

You wore a small frown, clearly remembering the terrible things Mattheo’s mother has done to him over the last year. “Are you in trouble?”

Mattheo shook his head, “Kind of? But not really. She just sort of said that ‘my presence wasn’t necessary during the holidays’. It’s fine. I don’t want to be around them anyway. Especially fucking Malfoy.” 

You nodded in agreement, it seemed to be what Mattheo needed. But your heart ached at the thought of him staying at the castle for the holidays. 

Eventually the conversation shifted, Mattheo saying he was tired and should probably head back to the dungeons. You walked them to the barrel door, before walking directly to your desk in your room and grabbing a quill and parchment. 

The rest of December until break was not very kind to Mattheo. Another student, a Hufflepuff this time, became petrified. If people were weary of him and the boys hanging in your common room before, it was extremely frowned upon after that incident. 

You had suggested just hanging out in their common room instead. Mattheo was extremely against this at first. Stating that there were ‘too many people who thought like Draco’ and that you would stick out like a sore thumb in your yellow and black attire. 

When you suggested just borrowing a sweater or two of his, he came around. 

That was how you were able to get into their dorms without much question to help Theo and Enzo (mostly Enzo) finish up their packing for the holiday break. “Merlin, Enz, did you even start packing before we came up here?” 

Enzo threw a pile of clothes near his trunk, “Nope.” Theo grumbled at him in Italian and Enzo just stuck out his tongue in response. 

“Did you at least remember to pack your frog?” you were teasing him, assuming Mocha was already somewhere safe like his pocket. Enzo turned around at the mention of his amphibian child. 

He patted the shirt pocket on his chest, then picked up his robes and started feeling in each of those pockets. “Merlin’s beard…I’ve lost my daughter. Holy Helga, I’ve lost Mocha. Mocha! Where are you sweetie? Daddy’s worried about you!” 

He started lifting the pillows of his bed before turning behind him and tearing apart Theo’s as well, to much protest. You started to look around the dorm when you noticed Mattheo smiling. 

Walking over to him you crossed your arms, “What did you do?” Mattheo didn’t make eye contact. Instead he just kept smiling, holding his gaze towards something higher, almost like he was trying to concentrate on keeping a spell going. 

Following where he was looking you saw Mocha floating a few feet above Enzo’s head. Having enough of the Slytherin shenanigans you poked Mattheo between his hip and ribs, the boy letting out a small yelp, however you succeed in breaking his eye contact. 

Mocha landed right atop Enzo’s head. He was so relieved to see her he didn’t even question how she got there. 

Once you had assisted in getting them somewhat organized you had walked with the three Slytherins to the carriages that would take students back to Hogsmeade station. 

Theo and Enzo had gotten in with a few other Slytherins, Enzo abruptly wrapping his arms around you in a farewell hug. 

You, of course, hugged back after the initial shock wore off. Enzo went to do the same to Mattheo. Who immediately held up his hand to stop him, “Absolutely not.” 

You stood with Matty as the carriages rode off. Watching them get smaller and smaller the farther they got away. 

It took him a moment before he realized you were still standing next to him. “W-what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you have gotten on the carriage with them?” 

You gave Mattheo your biggest smile, “Oh, didn’t I mention it? I’m staying here too. We’re going to spend Christmas together.”

[odileeclipse]

Choosing Her

Pure Vanilla X Reader angst (I wanted to hurt my feelings)

And when it’s all said and done, it wasn’t you he skipped class with. His eyes held that softness in them always. But when he looked at her, his eyes were all knowing. The look exchanged between them had always said more than the words exchanged. While you stood at the sidelines hoping that if you stayed just a second longer he’d look at you this time.

“Pure Vanilla, please be careful, you shouldn’t skip out on class so much…I-I can’t keep covering for you. I think the professor is going to find out.” You pleaded with him selfishly. While your reasons for wanting him to not skip, your real motivation was stopping him from being with white lily. Pure Vanilla looked conflicted. He furrowed his brow but ultimately sighed out and said “Don’t cover for me anymore (y/n) cookie, it’s not fair to ask you to hold my burden I’ll deal with it” He said to you with that compassionate voice. You wanted to scream at him to let him know how selfish he was being to you. But at the end of the day he doesn’t owe you anything, and yet still extends his kindness to you. “Pure Vanilla, please don’t go, we shouldn't go looking for answers that aren’t given to us. Forgive me for crossing a line but don’t you think her hunger for knowledge is insatiable? Once White lily finds out whatever truth she’s looking for do you think she’ll stop there?” Your words held resentment towards white lily cookie, sure white lily was a dear friend to you and you’d love and support her. But jealousy is an ugly monster tainting the depths of your heart. Pure Vanilla’s usual serene face faltered. Before he could say anything you spoke up. “I hope you know what you’re getting into, stay safe, Pure Vanilla and please don’t do anything rash.” You said with a soft smile. ”Or I’ll have to come save you and white lily”.

That was the last time you spoke with him in an attempt, to get him to understand. Even after the academy was left behind in its ruins, you still thought him a fool to search for her. But in your heart, he was your fool. When you heard rumors of Pure Vanilla founding a kingdom, you felt relief. Perhaps he and white lily hadn’t settled down and you still had a chance. But again, your hope was crushed in front of you, there she was white Lily standing next to Pure Vanilla as he received his title. You thought about turning around when that familiar comforting voice called to you. “(y/n) cookie! I’m so glad you made it…I thought you were upset with me. I was hoping that by extending my invitation to all my friends you too would be here. My dearest friend, how have you been?” He said clutching your hands together, this made you forget your jealous heart and you smiled radiantly as you used to all those years ago. When you still had the hope he might be yours. Of course, reality hit harder than a derailed train. “You’re being unfair to me again” those words came out as a whisper meant for your ears rather than his. How dare we clasp his hands around yours, when he didn’t belong to you. And if it was kindness he was offering, you didn’t want it. Not like this. “Sorry I didn’t quite catch that, well regardless how have you been holding up, I’ve heard you acquired your own Kingdom.” That’s right in the time away from him, you built a kingdom from nothing making it’s walls tall and high. To hide the love you hold, but those walls crumble fast when you see his gleaming eyes. You acquired the light of patience. A virtue you’ve always held, waiting and waiting hopeful it’ll be you. “Oh yeah my kingdom is my pride and joy, we’ve been able to construct high walls ensuring protection from everything. Of course it’s not without it’s flaws but time will only tell.” You were just rambling, attempting to seem like you had everything in control. “As expected of my dear friend, patient and full of humility” his words only pricked at your heart. A friend is all you’ll be and you’re not sure there’s enough time to heal this wound. “So you and white lily…?” you asked hesitantly. He practically beamed “Actually there is one thing I ask of you, please be at my side when I ask her to be mine. There is no other friend more beloved and fit for the role.” You stared at him with wide eyes feeling tears prick at your eyes. “I-I would love nothing more.” in the stir of emotions you embraced him seeking comfort in the arms that wound you.

A/N Im sorry <3

UPDATE: Pt 2 is up enjoy!!!