#i'm determined to finish it though. i need to know if there's like. a point to the horrors i'm experiencing or not

[raiiny-bay]

making something (maybe)

[silverynight]

Eight years and counting

Contains manga spoilers

The first year comes with so much planning and preparation, Katsuki barely has time to keep up with graduation and the agency interview. He's a war hero, he knows it'll be easy for him to get in any agency he wants and even though that'd make his middle school self excited, he's not that kid anymore.

He cares more about Izuku now. No, he only cares about Izuku now.

Katsuki watches closely as the last ember dies and Izuku pretends it doesn't take his last bit of hope with it; he wants Izuku to be more open with him, to tell him how he truly feels about being quirkless again, but Katsuki knows him well enough at this point to expect something like that.

But he also knows his Izuku won't be completely happy with being a UA teacher, no matter how much he loves that school. Izuku is meant to be a hero, like Katsuki. Actually, he's meant to be a hero and fight by Katsuki's side.

And Katsuki is going to make sure that dream comes true.

So he plans; Izuku needs a new suit, one that can emulate OFA to perfection because if Katsuki is going to give anything to Izuku, he's going to make sure it's absolutely perfect.

It takes a while for him to finish the design and as soon as he does, the first step is to show it to All Might. Katsuki knows he used a mecha suit during the final battle so he probably has an idea if Katsuki's design is possible or not.

"For young Midoriya?"

All Might already knows it's for Izuku, but the question is not exactly about that and Katsuki is perfectly aware of it; he can see it in the soft smile of Izuku's mentor, he can see it in the way his blue eyes shine with knowledge.

Katsuki blushes, but he doesn't look away from the former symbol of peace. He's not that middle schooler hot-heated kid anymore. He's done hiding his feelings behind anger and he's not ashamed about what he feels for Izuku. He's pretty sure All Might knows about that, he's probably waiting for a confirmation.

Katsuki nods, blush spreading down his neck.

"It'll take years to make something like that."

"I'm aware."

"And a lot of money," All Might keeps staring into his eyes, and Katsuki suddenly feels like he's being tested, but he doesn't care. He's going to get Izuku his suit no matter what. "A lot."

"I'll work hard. I can pay for it."

All Might smiles fondly at him before putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You should talk to young Midoriya."

Katsuki shakes his head with a fierce determination. He's not going to get Izuku's hopes up only to shatter them when something doesn't work. This is just an idea and he's not sure how long it'll take.

Katsuki will rather stab himself than breaking Izuku's heart.

"I can't do that. Not until it's ready."

"I'm not talking about the suit."

His cheeks are warm again as what All Might is trying to say finally sinks in.

"I will, but not yet."

***

By the second year he's already mailing the designs to All Might's friend in the US and constantly sending texts and visiting Hatsume in her new lab. She's excited about it and happy to start working on it; she's fond of Izuku too and loves challenges so Katsuki knew she'd say yes.

It takes a little bit more to convince Shield, but she agrees after reading Katsuki's long mail, that looks dangerously close to an essay about the amazing things Midoriya Izuku could achieve with it.

Maybe Izuku is right after all; he's kind of a nerd too.

She agrees to the project and assures Katsuki he can send her low amounts of money every month until the suit it's completely done. After a few weeks, both Shield and Hatsume start working together on it.

Then he contacts his former classmates, because All Might told him they'd want to know about it.

Not only they seem really excited about the project, they offer their help and tell Katsuki they'd like to give him a bit of money for the suit too.

He agrees gladly because he knows Izuku will be happy to know everyone participated in the making of the suit. Besides, he knows it's important to let people help when they can and want to.

***

He's not going to lie, the third year is harsh for him.

Between the videocalls with Shield, the visits to Hatsume and the extra hours he has to work to make more money, Katsuki barely has time to hang out with his friends, although it's not like they have much time either.

He stills sees Izuku a few times a week though because he's physically incapable of being away from him for too long. Sometimes Katsuki wonders if he has noticed, and then he remembers he's a nerd who won't recognize unconditional love even if it hit him in the face.

They talk about Izuku's students, about the UA and Katsuki's hero work; he was a bit reluctant to say anything about his job in front of the nerd at first, but he realized that Izuku genuinely gets excited and happy about Katsuki's pro hero journey.

He notices the nerd gets a bit sad sometimes, especially when he mentions their other friends, because they all are professionals now and Katsuki knows Izuku would like to share that kind of feeling with them.

It only makes Katsuki want to work even harder.

And he does, even if he ends up half dead on his couch after a very long shift; he somehow manages to wake up early next morning with Izuku's dream in his mind.

It's enough motivation to keep him going.

However, his body does get tired and it shows sometimes in the way he acts around others; that's probably the reason why he starts snapping at annoying fans and the videos end up on Tiktok and Instagram; his hero name trends for a while, but he honestly doesn't give a fuck. He's still making money and saving people.

Although, even if he doesn't care, he knows others do.

Because of that, Aizawa starts scolding him about his public image and the way it'll affect to his current ranking.

But Katsuki doesn't care about rankings anymore; Izuku is not there to compete against for the number one spot so it's not remotely interesting to make an effort now.

He'll save that for when Izuku becomes a pro hero.

***

By the fourth year, Aizawa decides to play dirty and use Katsuki's only weakness, so he starts showing Izuku the videos of him growling at civilians.

"Kacchan!"

It's ridiculous how Izuku's sad puppy eyes and his worried expression is the only thing he needs to make Katsuki do as he pleases, but Katsuki has been acting that ridiculous since the war ended so it doesn't matter.

It's not like he's gonna stop now.

"Fine! I'll try not to punch them in the face!"

"Did you actually do that?" Izuku finally snaps his head up from the homework he's grading and looks at him with shock, concern and disbelief at the same time.

"Of course not!" He rolls his eyes. "No matter how much I want to sometimes..."

"Kacchan!"

He does behave a bit better after that and Ashido makes fun of him because of it.

Then All Might figures out he's working too much, and also uses Izuku to make Katsuki take a break.

"Are you overworking yourself, Kacchan?"

Again with the sad puppy eyes! He needs to develop a shield against them. Izuku can't keep using them like a weapon all the time.

"I'm fine!"

The nerd is even better at handling him; Izuku nods and smiles before changing the topic to one of his students (he adores them as much as they adore him) and Katsuki visibly relaxes.

Which is a huge mistake.

"When's your next day off, Kacchan?" Izuku casually asks three days later. He smiles sweetly at him and Katsuki wonders for a moment if he actually knows how much power he has over him. "I would like you to stay over at my apartment someday. We can watch a movie and order takeout!"

"You mean like a... sleepover?" he clears his throat, cheeks turning slightly pink. He crosses his arms over his chest as a shield because he doesn't want to think of any of his multiple daydreams about spending a night with Izuku. It's too dangerous.

"Yes!"

It's not fair. Izuku looks so excited he basically has stars in his eyes as he looks up at Katsuki.

The next thing he knows is that he's asking Hawks for a day off and the whole agency starts gossiping about it because he hasn't taken one of those in years.

Only when he's sitting on Izuku's couch, completely relaxed and happy, it occurs to him it was a trap to make him take a break. And even though he knows now, he keeps falling for it every single time.

Because he can't say 'No' to Izuku.

***

Izuku's gauntlets are completely ready five years after Katsuki designed them. They look exactly like the ones he used before, but they have OFA's puch power and release energy threads he can use as he did with Blackwhip.

They're perfect.

Katsuki stares at them for a moment with a stupid, fond smile on his face and he decides to do something sentimental and even more stupid because he's an idiot.

"Can you change mines?" He asks Hatsume after a while. "I want them to look like Izuku's."

"You want them to match your boyfriend's?" She says so casually that Katsuki realizes she's been thinking of Izuku and him as a couple for a long time now. "Sure! He'll probably love that too!"

Katsuki can tell her she's mistaken, but he doesn't. Instead, he thinks about how it'll look when Izuku finally wears his hero suit and stands next to him.

His grin becomes even wider.

Izuku tears up when he sees Katsuki for the first time wearing his new gauntlets; he immediately recognizes the design, even though they're a different color.

He doesn't ask why Katsuki decided to change his gauntlets, he just walks towards him and pulls him into a tight hug.

"It... it doesn't bother you?" He's so drunk in Izuku's scent and physical closeness, his voice shakes a bit. Katsuki hadn't realized how starved he was for Izuku's touch until that moment. "I mean, are you okay with them looking almost like the ones you used to wear?"

The last thing he wants is to make Izuku upset with his own need to feel close to him, even if it's something stupid like making his gauntlets match his.

Izuku shakes his head, smiling up at him.

"I think it's really sweet."

Blushing to the tip of his ears and making Izuku giggle in the process, Katsuki realizes how much he has changed over the past years.

He's a completely different person from who he was in elementary, middle and even the first year of high-school.

The old Bakugo was made of various layers of anger issues and insecurities that were falling off of him as he grew as a person, leaving only Bakugo Kacchan in their place.

He's Izuku's Kacchan now. The version of himself that was born the moment he met little Izuku and wanted to be a pro hero with him; he's always been Izuku's Kacchan.

And he's mature enough to admit and embrace that now.

***

It's the second time, in years, his parents pay him a visit; Katsuki has been avoiding that moment as much as he could, going to their house instead, but his mother probably got suspicious and decided to find out what was going on by herself.

She takes a look around and quirks up a brow at him, even though Katsuki is doing everything in his power to ignore her.

He focuses on his Dad instead, but Masaru has a terrible poker face so Katsuki can tell he's noticed his son lives exactly the way he did when he started working as a pro hero.

"You haven't redecorated the place yet, huh?" he offers kindly, prompting Katsuki to roll his eyes.

He's aware of what's coming. It doesn't matter how much his Dad tries to dismiss the subject because he knows his son doesn't want to talk about it.

But Bakugo Mitsuki doesn't like that type of approach.

"Why do you still live in this crappy ass apartment?" There it goes. His mother crosses both arms over her chest and Katsuki knows she will not leave until he gives her a good explanation. "I thought you made good money! It's been years, brat! Don't tell me you somehow got attached to this place?"

Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath, sits both his parents on the couch and offers them tea as he start explaining everything to them.

By the time he's done he looks up only to find them staring back at him with a very proud smile on both their faces.

Masaru hugs him before his mother starts ruffling his hair in a way she hasn't done since Katsuki was in elementary.

"He's going to love it," his father assures him; a little bit of the weight Katsuki has been carrying over his shoulders vanishes because even though he knows Izuku, part of him was sightly afraid he wouldn't like it.

They spend the rest of the afternoon looking at Katsuki's first designs as he tells them in detail how each piece is going to work.

"We've been testing them for a while and they work quite well," he says with a satisfied smile.

"What about the measurements?" Mitsuki asks then. "If you want to keep this a secret from him, how do you plan to make this fit to his body type?"

"I know Izuku's measurements," he says with a confident smirk that quickly vanishes as soon as he watches his parents exchanging a look. "Not like that! I've know him my whole life! I know him better than anyone!"

There's an uncomfortable silence before Mitsuki shakes her head with an amused grin on her face.

"You know an engagement ring would have been way cheaper than this, right?"

"Shut up!"

***

The UA students know him quite well now, especially Izuku's students. Uraraka and Todoroki help Izuku too every now and then, but Katsuki is the only one who's always available when Izuku calls.

And no, not all the students are fond of him, especially because he plays the villain quite often and he easily defeats them in the blink of an eye.

"Don't be too hard on them, Kacchan!"

"How will they learn what a real battle looks like if I'm not, Izuku?"

After a while, Katsuki hears a couple of students calling him Midoriya-sensei's boyfriend and he doesn't correct any of them.

Then the rumor reaches social media and Katsuki doesn't bother to deny it during interviews either; he only says he doesn't like to talk about his private life, which only makes everyone think it's true.

He's being selfish and he knows it, but he doesn't care at all.

However, Izuku apparently does because he corrects his students when they call them a couple, and even though he's telling nothing but the truth, it hurts Katsuki a bit.

"What is it, Kacchan?" Izuku notices immediately of course, and looks back at him with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he manages to smile, reminding himself that Izuku's suit is almost done and they'll be hero partners soon.

It's all that matters.

"You're an idiot!" Ashido hits him on the back of his head as they have lunch together outside her agency; it's been years since he has actually seen her face to face, and that's the first thing she does? He shouldn't have come. "Why haven't you told him?"

Katsuki huffs, getting slightly irritated.

"We have already discussed this. If the suit is not rea–"

"Not about that!" She rolls her eyes before taking her phone and showing it to him, almost shoving it to his face. "I'm talking about this!"

It's a picture of Katsuki in his hero suit talking to Izuku; they're in the UA so one of the students must have taken it.

Katsuki doesn't need her to say anything else for him to understand what she's talking about; it's written all over his face, in the fondness of smile and the glimmer in his eyes.

He's sure out of all the pictures of pro hero Dynamight on the internet, that's the only one in which he's smiling that softly.

Because it's the only picture of him looking directly at Izuku.

"I will tell him... eventually," he mumbles in a tone that lets Ashido know he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

Izuku needs to focus on fulfilling his dream first.

***

It's been eight years since Katsuki started this project and now that Izuku's suit is finally done, he has decided that the right person to hand it to Izuku is All Might.

"You should be there too," the man insists, giving him an encouraging smile.

Katsuki shakes his head, looking at the floor; it'd be too overwhelming for him, he's sure he'll tear up if he sees Izuku's face when he gets the suit.

He asks All Might to tell Izuku that everyone funded his suit, that they contributed the same amount to it.

The next day he's back at the agency to keep himself busy; he's about to head to his first patrol of the week when Izuku walks in, wearing his hero suit.

Katsuki chokes, blushes and almost tears up at the same time.

He looks perfect.

"Thank you, Kacchan."

The blinding smile and the happiness in his voice is what ends up undoing him, because what he realizes in that moment is that Izuku hasn't smiled so freely, so sincerely in years and Katsuki is the reason he does now.

He starts tearing up the way he did that day at the hospital, the only difference is that it's happiness what makes him so emotional this time.

Izuku takes a few steps closer and presses their foreheads together.

"Thanks for making my dreams come true."

"It wasn't just me," Katsuki manages to say, but his voice sounds choked. "Everyone-"

"I know you planned it, designed it, got everyone together to work on it and paid the most for it. All Might told me everything."

"The old man can't keep a damned secret now..."

Izuku chuckles and his laughter is music to Katsuki's ears; it's true, he doesn't care how sappy it sounds. Izuku's happy chuckle is the best kind of music to him.

Then, Izuku takes his face in his hands and makes him look down at him.

"I love you too, Kacchan."

Katsuki is sure he's dreaming; it must be getting late, he needs to wake up.

But then Izuku kisses him and the kiss is clumsy and wet, but it's perfect because it's their first and now Katsuki knows it's real.

***

He doesn't need to work extra hours now, which means he has time to help Izuku train to get used to his new suit and the quirks it comes with.

It takes him just two months to accomplish that, and another one to feel ready to apply to Hawks' agency.

"I'm ready to get a hero partner now."

"Really?" Hawks looks at him in disbelief before grinning. "Alright, I have a few suggestions..."

"I want Deku."

Hawks rolls his eyes, but doesn't look surprised in the slightest.

"At least wait for me to hire him first," Hawks continues, staring up at Katsuki with a little bit of irritation. "I just got his application."

"Well, when you do, make him my partner," he's aware that he sounds demanding and although he's not like that anymore, he can't hold back the urgency in his voice because he has waited for that moment for eight years.

"I can't," Hawks says, taking a deep breath, bracing himself for a long discussion. "Even though Deku is a war hero and I'm sure he'll become an excellent pro hero, he has to start at the bottom, like everyone else. However, if I put you with him, you'll have to endure all those boring patrols and easy missions that are given to new heroes in training."

"I know that. Just put me with him. We'll get to the top in no time."

Hawks stares at him and blinks a few times before chuckling.

"Well damn. Guess they weren't rumors after all," he smirks. "Alright. Just invite me to the wedding."

"Will do."

***

Katsuki hears Izuku ramble excitedly about being hero partners and their first patrol together in the comfort of their shared apartment, one that his mother finally approves of, although he has the feeling that she doesn't care that much about the place, but the person her son is living with.

Mitsuki has always loved Izuku.

They have breakfast, Katsuki prepares two bentos for the both of them and they head to the agency, directly to the locker room.

Even though it's not his first patrol, Katsuki notices his heart beating faster as he walks out as Dynamight, right next to Izuku wearing the suit he worked so hard for.

The suit that made their dreams come true.

"Come, Deku," he says, because he can do that now, he can offer his hand to Izuku, knowing he'll take it without hesitation and a blinding smile on his face.

They're partners now, in more ways than one.

It's been eight years to get to this point, but Katsuki know it's just the beginning for the both of them.

***

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[catmiemy]

Things Will Never Be the Same (Lia Wälti x Reader)

Summary: You figure out that your girlfriend hasn’t been paranoid and your best friend is actually in love with you.

A/N: Finally managed to finish something! I have so many ideas, but I'm constantly too busy to actually write them. But I'm hopeful to have more time the next few weeks.

Also I'm definitely going to write a part two for this because I need a happy ending. So if there's anything you want to see, please tell me. :)

“Where the hell is my coffee?”

Your girlfriend’s voice reached you through the bathroom door. Both the actual words and her tone made you frown at yourself in the mirror. Apparently someone had woken up on the wrong side of the bed again. Like most mornings these days.

With a sigh you went back to applying your make up. There was no point in arguing with Jessica when she was like this. Furthermore you had a long day ahead of you and didn’t feel like wasting your energy unnecessarily. It probably, no definitely, wasn’t a good sign that you reached a point where you thought of most interactions with your girlfriend as draining, but you weren’t ready to face that fact.

Unfortunately Jessica was determined to bring the argument to you. Only a few moments after her initial shout, the door crashed open and your girlfriend marched into the room. “Where the hell is my coffee?”

Annoyance flared up inside of you. You did your best to keep a grip on your anger though, this would turn ugly if you also lost your temper, well uglier than it was going to be anyway. You hated what had become of your relationship, but no matter how hard you tried, you continuously failed at turning things around. You used to be so happy, so in love.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were awake, otherwise I would have brought you your cup.” You tried your hardest to keep a neutral tone and an impartial expression, all the anger and pain you felt hidden behind this façade.

Bringing Jessica a cup of coffee in bed had been one of your favorite things early on in your relationship. Her eyes always lit up with sheer joy and an endless amount of love for you at this small gesture. Back then she never got tired of telling you how much it meant to her, how much she enjoyed these few minutes in bed with her favorite beverage and cuddles with you, because of course in the early days of your relationship you would always snuggle back into bed with her. Now it had become chore, which apparently you got yelled at for if you missed it once.

“I sent you a text to let you know!” Jessica pointed out sharply.

You grabbed your phone and sure enough, there was a message from her. You also noticed that you had forgotten to turn off the “Do not disturb”, but you doubted that Jessica would be receptive to this explanation. Another thing that you noticed was a message from your best friend, your teammate at both Arsenal and the national team, Lia.

I’m grabbing us some coffee.

See you at the airport!

These few words were enough to bring a smile to your face, another thing that didn’t sit right with Jessica. She snagged the phone out of your hand.

“Hey!” You protested, grabbing the phone back from her. It wasn’t hard, Jessica relented it easily once she had seen what had made you smile.

“When will you finally realize that she has a crush on you?” She basically spat at you.

 This was an old argument and one that always made your blood boil. Lia was off limits! However you didn’t have the time, or energy, for a full blown fight right now. So you restricted yourself to hissing at your girlfriend that she should really leave Lia out of this and that you would talk later. Then you pushed past her, grabbed your luggage that you had put next to the door, and left the apartment.

Unsurprisingly your uber wasn’t here yet. A quick glance at your watch revealed to you that you were a good ten minutes early. The thought of going back into your apartment and facing your girlfriend again was entirely unappealing, so you decided to stay out here. At least the weather was pleasant enough.

To avoid being seen by Jessica, which might have prompted her to come out and continue your argument, you moved a little further down the street until you were hidden behind some bushes. Standing there you were hit by the realization that this might be a new all time low for your relationship. And if you were being honest the idea that this was what the rest of your life was going to look like made you sick to your stomach. Better not to dwell on it.

The instance you entered the airport and spotted your best friend, you rushed over to her and flung your arms around her. Lia matched your motion, although a little awkwardly since she was holding two coffees.

“Hey Schätzi, is everything okay?” She asked you, worry dripping from her voice.

You nodded your head and allowed yourself to enjoy the closeness a little while longer, before extracting yourself.

“Fight with Jessica,” you mumbled.

Anger set Lia’s eyes ablaze. She bit her lips to avoid saying anything too harsh. It was no secret that the dislike between your best friend and your girlfriend was mutual. However Lia was much better at keeping civil than Jessica.

“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

This time you shook your head, “Nah, I don’t want to think about it right now.”

As was normally the case it didn’t take long before you told Lia everything nonetheless. When it came to her you never could keep silent, no matter how closed off you were with everyone else. Lia’s soothing and caring personality made you feel like it was okay to get it all out. And even if you would never admit it, you usually felt better afterwards.

Lia was a very attentive listener. Her gaze rested on you the entire time and she nodded along, keeping a mostly neutral complexion. If you would have focused on it, you could have easily picked up on the disdain for your girlfriend in your friend’s eyes, but you didn’t want to see it.

And anyway, the more you talked about it, the more explanations you found for Jessica’s behavior. She wasn’t a morning person, she always felt a bit lonely when you had to travel because of work, anger was her go to emotion when she was overwhelmed.

“You know I think I’m going to text her that I’m sorry and that we should talk in the evening,” you announced.

Lia looked at you skeptically, asking carefully, “Why are you apologizing?”

You shrugged your shoulders, finding it more difficult than expected to answer her question. Somehow you always felt like you had to apologize around Jessica. Again, this was something you didn’t want to dwell on.

“For yelling,” you said finally, before quickly changing the subject.

The arrival at camp and especially the reunion with all your teammates that you hadn’t seen in a long time was chaotic and easy to get lost in. Still you noticed that Lia was quieter and more reserve than usual and you promised yourself to question her about it before bed. With a pang of guilt you realized that you hadn’t even asked her how she was this morning at the airport, just instantly unloading all of your stuff onto her.

Dinner dredged on for quite some time and when it was finally finished you realized that both Lia and Ana were nowhere to be seen. First you checked the room Lia and you shared, when they weren’t there you headed to Ana’s room.

You stopped in your tracks when you heard sobbing coming from the room. It didn’t sound like someone having a little cry either, no this was desperate wailing and even before you knew who was in so much turmoil, your heart broke for the unknown person. That being said, the moment you realized who was sobbing their eyes out your heart shattered into a million pieces.

“I can’t do it anymore,” a voice that you recognized instantly as the one of your best friend in the whole world, managed to get out between sobs.

As if these words were pulling you into the room, your body began moving on its own accord. You burst into the room, frantically looking around for Lia, rushing to her side the moment you spotted her on the bed. She was wrapped in Ana’s arms, but this didn’t deter you. You simply threw your arms around both of them.

“What’s happening, Schätzi? Please tell me, what’s going on. If someone hurt you, I swear to god I will kill them!” You would! No one was allowed to hurt your best friend, not when she was the sweetest person on the planet.

To your immense surprise Lia went rigid the moment she heard your voice and felt your arms around her. This didn’t make any sense; you had always been each other’s place of comfort. You looked up at Ana questioningly, startling once again when you saw the anguish in her eyes. What had you missed? Had someone died? One of Lia’s parents?

While you were still trying to make sense of this all, Lia freed herself from both yours and Ana’s arms and with a mumbled apology ran out of the room. You jumped up as well, ready to go after her and get to the bottom of this, but Ana held you back.

“Don’t,” she told you earnestly.

“I…Ana, what the hell was that? Please, you need to tell me, so I can be there for Lia. I’m her best friend, I need…” You didn’t know exactly what you needed; just whatever would help you take away Lia’s pain. You had never seen her like this, not even after any of her breakups.

Ana chewed on her lip, the internal struggle happening in her mind clear as day. In the end she sighed and said, “I can’t, Y/N. I want to because I think it’s important that you know, but it’s not my story to tell. Give Lia a little time to calm down and then try talking with her again, yeah?”

You nodded, even if in reality you had already decided not to heed Ana’s advice. How could you not try finding Lia right this second when she was this devastated? More than anything you wanted to make it better for her and you had a lot of faith that you could. You had always been there for Lia, through everything, just like she had been for you.

Therefore you began searching for Lia everywhere. First you checked your hotel room, but unsurprisingly she wasn’t there. Then you went outside because Lia loved being outdoors when she felt emotional. Again, no luck. The next hour you spent looking through every nook, but Lia was nowhere to be found.

Defeated you went back to your hotel room, hoping she had returned there by now. You held your breath when you entered, disappointment hitting you when you were greeted by a dark and empty room.

You plopped down onto the bed, not even bothering to turn on the light despite it slowly getting dark. Where was Lia? And more importantly what had happened to her? You picked up your phone, debating if you should call someone from Lia’s family. Maybe they had some information.

That’s when your phone lit up with a call from Jessica, an unwelcome remainder that you were supposed to talk everything out with her tonight. However, you didn’t have the energy for that right now; especially not when it would mean you would have to grovel until Jessica finally deemed it enough to forgive you. Lia’s words popped up in your mind, why were you even apologizing?

So you ended up ignoring the call, and you also ignored that this would inevitably lead to an even more difficult conversation with even more groveling on your part. Right now you couldn’t worry about that, all of your concerns were taken up by the whole situation with Lia.

You had lost all sense of time, so you couldn’t say how much later it was when the door was finally opened and Lia tiptoed into the room. Instantly you sat up, startling your friend who had expected, hoped really, that you were already asleep.

By now it had become pitch black in the room, and you reached towards the light switch to turn on the lights. When Lia saw your movement, she asked you not to, her voice sounding horribly hoarse. You respected her wishes, instead getting up and walking over to her in an attempt to give her a hug.

“Don’t,” Lia pleaded, cracking your heart in the process

What was going on? What had you done to make her push you away? It physically pained you not to offer Lia any comfort when she was clearly struggling, but again you listened to her boundaries.

“Lia, please talk to me,” you begged, “Ana told me…”

Later you would try to rationalize what you did next, or didn’t do to be more precise, to yourself by saying you were too stunned to stop Lia once it became apparent that she thought you were going to say that Ana had told you what was bothering her, when really you wanted to say, ‘Ana told me to leave you alone for a while, but I can’t do that.’

However a small voice would always point out that you could have stopped her at any time if you had really wanted to. The thing was though, you wanted to know what was going on with Lia, so you didn’t stop her.

“I…look…I’m so sorry! And I promise I can keep my feelings in check. I’ve been doing it for the longest time, so please…I can’t lose you! I know you’ll never love me like I love you, but I still need you in my life. Please….I’m…”

Lia’s voice broke, sobs bubbling up instead. She suppressed them successfully, but there was nothing the midfielder could do against the quiet tears streaming down her cheeks.

By now you really were shocked into silence, your mind reeling. Was it possible that Jessica had been right all this time and Lia did in fact have a crush on you? No, that was crazy! Your best friend had never given any indication that she liked you like this. Or had she?

You looked up at Lia whose whole posture screamed defeat. Her head was bent, her gaze firmly trained on the floor. The brunette had crossed her arms in front of her as if to protect herself from whatever you were going to say.

“Wait what? You have a crush on me?” This was the rather dumb response you came up with.

Lia shrugged her shoulders helplessly, her voice tear-stricken when she spoke again, “I’m not sure if that word is strong enough for what I feel, but like I said, it doesn’t matter. I can deal with it.”

She looked up at you for a moment, but was unable to even meet your eyes. Panic hit you, no matter how much Lia stressed that this wouldn’t change anything, you weren’t too sure if this was true now that it was all out in the open. You couldn’t lose her!

“But wait? Didn’t Ana already tell you this?”

Lia’s question ripped you from your downward spiral and at least for a moment the fear was drowned out by intense shame.

“No, she didn’t. I was going to say she told me to leave you alone, but then you began explaining and I just didn’t stop you because I wanted to know what’s going on so I could help,” you admitted.

Now it all made sense why Lia hadn’t wanted to talk to you about what was bothering her. You wished that you could turn back time and make different choices, so you never found out about this. But you didn’t deserve that, not after basically tricking Lia into disclosing her secret.

“What?” Lia asked in anguish, “So I could’ve...You never had to…I’m so stupid!”

And with that your best friend turned around and fled from the room. The sobs she could no longer hold back shaking her shoulders, and breaking your heart. You deserved all the fear and shame and other complicated feelings that came with this being laid open, but Lia didn’t.

You sank back down onto your bed, staring numbly at the wall, while your mind was beating yourself up mercilessly. If only you hadn’t been so selfish! How did you never notice that the most important person in your entire life was in love with you? What did that say about you?!

There were no tears, just silence and an ever growing pit in your stomach.

When the room to the hotel room was opened again sometime later, a tiny flutter of hope went through you. Maybe you could find the right words and things could go back to how they had been straight away?

This small and probably completely unrealistic hope was crushed instantly when you saw that it wasn’t Lia but Ana entering the room. She rushed over to you, engulfing you in a hug.

“Hey, how are you?”

You didn’t answer Ana’s question, but allowed yourself a moment of burying yourself in your friend’s arms. And anyway it was impossible to reply when you didn’t even know how you were, if you were really still in that hotel room, if this was in fact your life.

After a short while you pulled back, sitting up straight and focusing on the truly important topic.

“How’s Lia?” You asked, fear tinting your words.

Ana took a few seconds to answer, pondering her words. The truth wasn’t pretty, so she wanted to do her best to soften the blow.

“Not too good,” she admitted finally. “There’s just too many emotions hitting her at once. I think up until now she still had some hope that you’d return her feelings. But now that it’s all out in the open these hopes have been crushed and she just needs some time.”

While talking Ana studied you carefully. She had always wondered if maybe you returned Lia’s feelings. Not that she had ever told her friend that, the poor girl didn’t need any more confusing thoughts and emotions to deal with. Part of her wanted to ask you straightforward, but in the end Ana decided against it. Now was not the time for it, not when it was clear that you too were completely overwhelmed with everything that had happened.  

For you the thought of Lia needing time, time apart from you, made you nauseous. There was barely a day where you didn’t see or at least talk to your best friend. A reality where that wasn’t true, even if it was only for a little while, felt unbearable. However you were well aware that you weren’t in a position to make any demands. If Lia needed time, you had to accept that.

“Nadine has agreed to switch rooms with Lia so that she can stay with me. Are you okay with that?”

Ana’s soft words pulled you from your thoughts. The idea of Lia not sleeping in the bed next to you felt like another punch to the stomach. Still you pushed down your emotions and the tears burning in your eyes, and nodded.

“Okay then,” Ana said, a little unsure on how to proceed. If only she could cut herself in half and offer both Lia and you some comfort!

You decided to make it easier for her by standing up and heading to the bathroom. There you gathered Lia’s vanity bag, handing it to Ana when you returned. After that you quickly assembled all the things your best friend would need for the night. Pain shooting through you with every familiar item you picked up.

“Goodnight, Ana,” you said once you had given her everything, before disappearing into the bathroom once again to get ready for bed yourself.

You did so in record time, wanting to be in bed and be able to pretend you were already sleeping when Nadine came to the room.

At least this worked out in your favor and when you heard the door being opened again, you pressed your eyes shut and didn’t react to your teammate’s soft calls. You probably weren’t very convincing, but thankfully Nadine decided to leave you alone.

Sleep evaded you for a long time. You lay there with closed eyes, silent tears rolling down your cheeks as you tried and failed to keep your mind occupied. But no matter what you did, it kept circling back to the horrible image of Lia’s devastation once she understood that she had just revealed her biggest secret to you, the gut-wrenching realization that everything would be different now, and the fear of losing Lia once and for all.

What if she would never be able to move past this? She had so many great friends in her life, Ana, Leah, Viv and so many more, what if she realized that they were much better than you anyway? You couldn’t imagine a life without Lia. The prospect of a few weeks without her was already enough to make you want to curl up in bed and never get up again. But if you never got her back? You couldn’t do that. You couldn’t.

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Jamil Viper - Nightmare Suit Vignette

”From all the children to the witches flying through the sky”

[Halloween Town – Dr. Finkelstein's Lab]

Jamil: Sally-san, I've made a dish sample. Could I ask you to taste test it?

Sally: Of course, I don't mind at all. In fact, I was waiting for you to say something, since it had been smelling good for some time now…

Jamil: Is that so. Well, I do hope it suits your taste… Try it with this sauce here.

Sally: There are a lot of finely chopped ingredients in this sauce. I wonder how it will taste.

Sally: …Oh, this is delicious! You really brought forth the flavor of the herbs.

Jamil: That's right. Do you think the others in Halloween Town will like it?

Sally: I know I like it. But hm… I think the folks in this town would prefer it to be a little more acidic.

Jamil: A little more acidic, I see. Should I add more vinegar, or add fruit to the sauce…?

Sally: There was that one plant with the huge leaves, remember? What if you were to chop up the stem and cook it together?

Jamil: Huge leaves…? I think I know which ones you're talking about, but just in case, can you point out…

???: Sally, help me out here. At this rate, I'll lose my head.

Sally: Jack…! You look so troubled. What's going on?

Jack Skellington: No matter how much I think about it, I can't figure it out, so I feel like I'm going crazy. I need your advice.

Jamil: …Looks as though this is a serious matter. I'll leave you two be.

Jamil: Now that I have received Sally's thoughts, I'll proceed with fixing the dishes. The two of you should have a good talk together…

Sally/Jack Skellington: WAIT!!

Jamil: Eh?

Jack Skellington: I'd like you to listen to what I have to say too, Jamil-kun. I need to figure out a way out of this funk.

Sally: I'd like to ask your help as well. There's no way we can leave Jack like this. Please, help him.

Jamil: …O-Okay, then. If both of you are going to insist like that, I'll join in.

Jamil: So, what's the issue you need help with?

Jack Skellington: It's about the Halloween preparations. I heard that in your world, you guys do some sort of "illumination" event.

Jack Skellington: So I had this thought… What if the Jack-o'-Lanterns light up right as I appear?

Jack Skellington: Wouldn’t it be grand if the lanterns lit up one by one as I walk forward!?

Jack Skellington: …Only, I just can't figure out how to get the timing of everything being lit up right.

Jamil: Wait, so you've already decided to do it!? Shouldn't you determine whether it's actually feasible, first…?

Sally: This is how Jack always works. Once he comes up with something, he won't back down.

Jack Skellington: Sally, Jamil-kun. Please, give me some good ideas!

Sally/Jamil: …...

Jamil: Well… An illumination would definitely liven things up.

Jamil: Back in our world, we have certain programming…

Jamil: We generally have people with specialized knowledge use specific tech to control that sort of illumination.

Jack Skellington: Well, that's wonderfully useful to know. Is that something we would be able to do, as well?

Jamil: I wouldn't really know how to do it. Even in our world, there are only a handful of people who would be able to pull it off.

Jack Skellington: Hmm… I wonder if there's any way we can make it happen.

Jamil: Right… What if you were to ask Dr. Finkelstein?

Jamil: I hear he's an excellent scientist. He may come up with a good answer.

Jack Skellington: I see, you're right! I wonder if he's at home right now.

Sally: No, he's out, helping with preparations. I think he should be in the town center…

Jack Skellington: Alright. Well then, I'll head off to find him!

Jamil: I do hope you find a solution. And with that, I'll go back to finishing my work.

Jack Skellington: What are you talking about, Jamil-kun! You're coming with me!

Jack Skellington: I have no knowledge of how things work in your world. I need you to explain things to the Doctor for me!

Jamil: No, wait, I need to finish preparing the food… Sally-san, can't you back me up here?!

Sally: Once Jack starts saying something, he doesn't listen to anything else.

Sally: I'll let Trey-kun and the others know, so… Please take care of Jack for me.

Jack Skellington: Thanks, Sally. Okay, now that that's settled, let's go right now!

Jack Skellington: COME, COME, HURRY, HURRY!

Jamil: Fine. I understand, I'll join you. …Why am I always resigned to the same sort of role wherever I go?

[Halloween Town – Center]

Jack Skellington: Alright, we made it to the town center. The Doctor should be setting the decorations up around here somewhere.

[nyoom!]

Jamil: !! Jack-san, stand back!

[thud! roll, roll…]

Jamil: Why did half a pumpkin come flying at us!?

Jamil: Oh, it's been sliced so beautifully… Wait, I mean, what just happened?

Halloween Town Resident: Huh? Oh hey, it's Jack and Jamil! You guys just showed up out of the blue, that surprised us!

Jamil: We should be the ones saying that! Was it you who threw that pumpkin at us?

Halloween Town Resident: No, not at all! We didn't do anything! It was all because of this big guy slicing that pumpkin in two.

Jamil: This big guy?

Jamil: Are you talking about this thing with the huge cutter? It just looks like it's a sharp blade held between two long poles.

Jamil: They're using something this big just to slice pumpkins in half? Or maybe… nah, it can't be.

Jack Skellington: Oh, is this your first time seeing something like this? Then, I bet you don't know about this huge box with all these spikes inside.

Jamil: This big box…? I'm afraid I don't. What is it used for?

Vampire: It's to squeeze the life out of… fresh juice! Heeheehee!

Jamil: Ach! He just popped out of nowhere, said his piece and then left again…

Jamil: But seriously, juice? I feel like this would be pretty difficult to use to squeeze fruits… I think I won't think further about it.

???: Ah, Jack-san. So, you were over here. I've come to collect you.

Jamil: Jade? What do you mean collect him?

Jade: As soon as he heard of the concept of illumination, he said, "This won't be enough!" and ran off so forlornly…

Jade: And so, were you able to concoct some brilliant idea, Jack-san?

Jack Skellington: Well, that's… Not yet. I haven't come across something that just screams "This is it!" yet.

Jade: If you find yourself in a quandary, please don't feel the need to keep it bottled up inside yourself. Both I and Azul would be happy to be of help.

Jamil: Hey, don't try to peddle your business here of all places. Seriously, you Octavinelle folk are always on the lookout for opportunity.

Jamil: We're actually searching for Dr. Finkelstein to ask for his advice. Have you seen him at all?

Jade: I'm afraid I haven't. Vil-san should be helping out nearby, perhaps you could ask him?

Jamil: Vil-senpai…? Oh, that might work! Jack-san, what if we were to ask Vil-san for his thoughts?

Jamil: He's an actor… He has experience in working on projects that garner a lot of attention, so he may be helpful for not only the illumination, but also on various ways to implement it.

Jack Skellington: Is that right? I might be able to really learn something by talking to him. Let's head over to Vil-kun right away!

Jamil: Vil-senpai, thanks for taking the time. We were hoping to get your take on something for Halloween…

Jamil: Jack-san is saying that he'd like to appear before everyone in a very flashy manner, with a resounding illumination.

Vil: The most important scene to prepare in any production is when the main character appears, yes. I support your plan to enhance that moment. However…

Vil: Halloween Town doesn't have any sort of specialized equipment of that sort… I feel as though it would be difficult to set up some elaborate lighting scheme as of right now.

Malleus: There's no need to use any human-made equipment. I can enhance Skellington's appearance with my magic.

Jamil: Right, using this guy was also an option, hm.

Malleus: Would you be wreathed in light? Shall we raise fireworks into the sky? Ah, or perhaps we could make it snow.

Jack Skellington: Oooh…! That's amazing, Malleus-kun! I bet you could even make it rain bugs to frighten every…

Vil/Jamil: ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vil: You want to rain down bugs? Absurd! That idea is the worst thing I've ever heard.

Jamil: YEAH! …Ahem. Pardon my outburst.

Jamil: Jack-san, you're the Pumpkin King. Should you not rely on your own strengths to give your townsfolk a scare, instead of using bugs?

Jamil: Even if we were to secure Malleus-senpai's cooperation… This is the only time we'll be able to help you with this, Jack-san.

Jamil: Next time, you'll have to bring about Halloween by yourselves, just like your previous years.

Jamil: If we were to implement a method that can even be executed by the others in this town, then it can be utilized for future years down the road.

Jack Skellington: Jamil-kun… You're an inspiration! You were not only thinking of this Halloween, but for the next ones, too.

Jack Skellington: I get it. I won't rely on magic or bugs. Let's think of something that all of us Halloween Town residents can do.

Malleus: Hm… It seems I am unneeded. Call me if you change your mind.

[Malleus leaves]

Jade: Oh, my… Is he sulking, now?

Vil: He isn't that much of a child… I'm sure. Come now, let's get this discussion started.

Jamil: So, we need to come up with a method to give him a grand appearance without any specialized equipment, or using magic, huh…

Vil: Yes… This may be a cliché, but what about an entrance while riding something?

Vil: The higher up one is, the easier it would be to garner the attention of others as opposed to simply walking. We can even make sure the spotlight is on one focal point.

Jade: That's a good idea. Just like how the tales of the mermaid princess even tell of how her father, the king, would appear before everyone on a chariot pulled by dolphins.

Jamil: I actually was reminded of the legend of the princess of the oasis that's prevalent in the Scalding Sands.

Jamil: With golden camels, peacocks, and various other animals and dancers in tow…

Jamil: A young man presented himself before her in an extravagant parade.

Jamil: Hmm, a parade…

Jamil: Jack-san, I've thought of something good.

[Halloween Town – Center]

Jamil: Jack-san, I've thought of something good.

Jack Skellington: I see that gleam in your eye… You look pretty proud of yourself. What kind of plan do you have up your sleeve?

Jamil: We should throw a parade.

Jade: A parade?

Jade: Back at Night Raven College… At our school, we tend to have one as a finale on Halloween.

Jamil: That's right. We tend to have one at the start of our feasts in Scarabia, as well. …More often than not.

Vil: A parade would definitely be grand and lively. It's not a bad idea to keep the audience's attention.

Vil: However, wouldn't we require a large number of people to put on a parade?

Vil: Do you intend on having the townsfolk learn how to parade march?

Jamil: Not at all. The only one who will be in the parade will be Jack-san.

Jack Skellington: Just me?

Jamil: Ah, well, of course, we'll still need all hands on deck to help…

Jamil: All the townsfolk are looking forward to seeing how you'll arrive on Halloween day.

Jamil: We couldn't possibly ask them to march behind you in the parade!

Jamil: Instead, we need to make sure your gallant appearance is firmly burned into their mind.

Jack Skellington: You're right. It's just like you say, Jamil-kun! I want all my fellow residents to see me clearly.

Jamil: And so, that's where Vil-senpai's earlier idea comes into play.

Jack Skellington: His earlier idea…? Oh, you mean where I arrive while riding something.

Jack Skellington: Jade-kun mentioned the story with the dolphin pulling the chariot. And what was it Jamil-kun said again…?

Jamil: Ah, I hadn't actually mentioned what he rode, right. That young man presented himself riding in on the back of an elephant…

Jack Skellington: An "elephant"? We don't have such a creature in Halloween Town.

Jamil: An elephant is an extremely large animal with a long nose, magnificent tusks, and large ears.

Jack Skellington: I can just imagine something utterly frightful just from that description. I'm getting chills.

Jade: Well, we can't have that. I suppose we should hurry and find an elephant and bring it here to Halloween Town as soon as possible, then!

Jamil: Hey, don't just throw that out there!

Jade: What do you mean? I am simply attempting to accommodate Jack-san's request.

Vil: Jamil's doing all he can to wrap this up quickly, don't cause any unnecessary issues.

Jade: But it would be no fun if the plan were to go off so smoothly without a hitch.

Jamil: It's not like someone like you from Octavinelle would do something without taking a fee, anyway. So, shut up and just let me deal with this!

Jack Skellington: Hey, what are the three of you whispering about over there?

Jamil: We were simply discussing his idea on bringing an elephant into town.

Jamil: As a concept, I don't think it's terrible. However…

Jack Skellington: Oh, is there something problematic about it?

Jamil: Jack-san, you said that you'd want everyone to be able to see you clearly.

Jamil: But if you were to ride on the back of a large elephant…

Jamil: Wouldn't there be people who wouldn't be able to see your expressions, let alone your silhouette?

Jamil: And we want everyone from those brats― I mean from all the children to the witches flying through the sky to see you!

Jack Skellington: Oh no. So if I do that, not everyone will be able to enjoy themselves…

Jack Skellington: I would have loved to have seen an elephant, myself… But I suppose we should leave that for another time.

Jack Skellington: Ahhh, we've come full circle… Urgh… What should I do?

Jamil: THUS!! What if you were to ride a horse?

Jamil: There are many scenes in movies and fairy tales in which a king would appear before his people while riding a horse. Right, Vil-senpai?

Vil: That's true, it does tend to give them a heroic aura. For this production, it doesn't have to be a real one. We only need to make it look just as striking.

Jack Skellington: A horse… A horse, huh! Yeah, that sounds perfect. Now it feels like the last piece of the puzzle just clicked into place!

Jack Skellington: Oh, what if we were to gather up some straw to make a horse? I want to make it look terrifying to perfectly suit the King of Halloween.

Jamil: You want to make a straw horse? That's definitely not something I've ever seen back in my world. What a brilliant idea, Jack-san.

Jamil: Ah, lovely, I'm glad that we've assuaged your worries. I'm looking forward to Halloween day!

Jade: It seems as though everything has wrapped up without any further issues. Although, I can't help but feel a little disappointed…

Jade: You were able to bring some almost impossible request back into the realm of feasibility without rejecting it outright…

Jade: Heh, if anyone could have done it, it would've been you, Jamil-san. I guess it's to be expected… since you're so experienced in dealing with unreasonable behavior.

Vil: Indeed. On top of that, he even found a way to utilize my strengths… Looks like everything was settled thanks to your careful thinking.

???: Jack, Jamil-kun!

Jamil: Sally-san, what are you doing here?

Sally: You didn't come back, so I started to get worried. Have you all decided how Halloween will be kicked off yet?

Jack Skellington: Yeah! Jamil-kun gave us a spectacular idea.

Sally: Well, now...! I'm so happy to see a huge smile on your face, Jack. It's all thanks to Jamil, I'm sure.

Sally: I don't know if me or the other townsfolk would've been able to clear up his worries.

Sally: I only wish Jamil-kun could stay in this town forever…

Jack Skellington: That's a great idea! You should stay here in Halloween Town and help us prepare for Halloween forever.

Jamil: I am beyond honored to have such high praise from the both of you.

Sally/Jack Skellington: So, then…!

Jamil: I appreciate your invitation, but I'll have to respectfully decline.

Jamil: Back home, there are many things that would fall apart without my assistance… I worry for the people I left behind.

Jack Skellington: I see… Well, that's a shame. You truly are a prudent guy. I totally understand why so many rely on you.

Jamil: Thank you.

Jamil: While I'm here… No, while we're here we'll make sure this Halloween will go smoothly.

Jamil: Let's make this Halloween the most enjoyable and scariest one yet.

Requested by @farfalla049.

[killerpancakeburger]

I'm the powder, you’re the fuse

SUMMARY: Soap finds out that his girlfriend is a skilled mercenary. And that he likes it... a lot.

PAIRING: Soap x f!Reader

TAGS: Established relationship, Badass!Reader, Smitten!Soap.

WARNINGS: Canon violence, misogynistic comments/insults, mention of: blood, death, kidnapping/hostage taking, torture, weapons, suggestive content (Soap is Horny), military inaccuracies, swearing.

WORD COUNT: 1.9k

A/N: yes I am still writing the civilian fic with Ghost and Soap... but then I had this idea and thought I could finish it ""quickly"". Written on mobile so if there are mistakes feel free to tell me!!

Soap let out a yawn big enough to dislocate his jaw, staring at his captain with mild resentment.

“This couldn’t hae waited til after breakfast, sir?”

“‘Fraid It could not, John. Actually in just a few minutes you'll be barking at me to know why we haven't gotten a move on already.”

Johnny looked back at his superior with perplexity, before glancing over at his teammates around the table, hoping for a scrap of information. Ghost remained imperturbable while Gaz shrugged.

“We received this video thirty minutes ago. Addressed to a certain Sergeant MacTavish.”

His captain turned on the projector and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall behind him. It was his teammates’ turn to glance at him questioningly, and to him to shrug with ignorance.

The Scottish soldier rubbed his face in an attempt to get rid of his lasting drowsiness as the video projected on the white screen facing them was starting.

A group of armed men in balaclavas were occupying a room. The one in the front spouted the classic ransom demand in exchange for a hostage. Nothing worth being summoned at the crack of dawn for.

Then the spokesman moved aside, revealing their detainee, bound to a chair and gagged, shooting daggers at her captors, and Soap almost knocked over the table with how brutally he stood up. Carried away by white-hot fury, he slammed his hands on the table.

“Fuckin’ - what the fuck is this!? When did this happen? Where are those fucking bastards? I -”

Rage had roughened his usually smooth voice, granting it a gravelly pitch, turning his shout into a growl.

“Control yourself, Sergeant”, interrupted Price, “It's not over yet.”

On the screen, the same man as before grabbed your hair, ignoring your murderous glare, forcing you to look at the camera, and coaxed you with disdain before taking off your gag:

“Come on doll, gonna have to beg real pretty for your man to get him to rescue you.”

The second your mouth was freed, you snarled at him, baring your teeth like you were about to bite.

“I'm gonna rip your throat out with my bare hands, you f-”

“Fuck, someone muzzle that rabid bitch”, swore your agressor, your belligerence clearly having thrown a wrench in his plans.

Soap could not help the flare of pride soaring in his chest at the view of your defiance and your grit.

After receiving their orders, the team left the room to prepare themselves for the assault. 

��A friend of yours?” asked Gaz, while Ghost questioned “Ya know her?”

“That's mah girl”, admitted the Scotsman, a bit sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, looking away. The cat was out of the bag. For your own sake, you had been a well-kept secret, but it was blatant that it didn’t protect you.

“Been together for a year. Never meant to drag her into this, though.”

“She sounds like a bloody riot, mate.” teased Garrick.

“She doesn't seem fazed to be taken hostage. Mainly pissed.” pointed out Ghost, wary.

“She's fearless.” admitted Soap with an enamored little smile. “Doesn't mean we don’t have to get her out of this though.”

His expression shifted from fondness to cold determination.

“‘F course.”

“We've got your back.”

“Gaz? You copy?” called Ghost over coms.

The afornamed was tasked with overwatch. His response arrived, marked by hesitation.

“...  I don't think she needs our help, guys.”

“The fuck s’that supposed to mean?” grumbled the Lieutenant.

“It'd be better if you'd see for yourselves. Third window on the right, second floor.”

Ghost took out a pair of binoculars and pointed them at the given position.

“Fooking hell…”

The expletive was mumbled with a mix of surprise and… awe?

“What? What! Lemme see L.T.!” pleaded Soap.

Ghost quickly passed him the tool, eager to make him shut up. The sergeant hastened to shove them against his face. His gaze took in the sight in front of him and he let out an appreciative whistle.

“Steamin’ jesus…”

He drank in the view that was your bloody display of fierce skill and deadly efficiency. You staggered between the enemies with fluidity, making them seem like clumsy amateurs. Slicing a throat there, shooting a head here, he watched with fascination as you used a dead attacker as a human shield.

“I think I'm hard.”

“TMI,  Soap.” 

Gaz coupled his comment with a gagging noise.

“Can ye blame me! Mah lass is oot there bein’ a bonafide badass ‘n’ that's the hottest shit a've ever seen.”

“M not blaming you for being a horny bastard, I'm blaming you for not keeping it to yourself.”

“If you two are done bickering, we could go pick her up.” groaned Ghost.

Letting Garrick past, he grabbed Soap by the shoulder as he was walking by him.

“You knew?”

“Knew what?”

“That you were going out with a killer.”

“Nae, but it turned out to be a good thing, didn’t it? Cannae imagine how badly this would have ended with a civilian. The wounds, the trauma…”

Ghost let out one of his grunts that Johnny knew meant “I disagree but it's not worth debating you about it.”

Positioning themselves near that final entrance, Soap nodded in response to Ghost's hand signal, waiting for him to break the door down. They were still on their gard in case some of the assailants survived.

In the ensuing silence, your voice reached his ears through the wall he was propped against.

“Come on doll”, you taunted, imitating your captor's scornful tone from earlier, sickly sweet then venomous. “Tell me who you work for and I won't gouge out your remaining eye.”

Johnny gulped. Eavesdropping on this definitely did not help with the… situation in his pants.

The racket produced by Ghost dealing with the door had the merit to make him focus once again. 

His body moving automatically, his training taking over, Soap charged into the room, pointing his rifle at the only person left standing there. Like a reflection of himself, you were aiming your own firearm at him. Your eyebrows were frowned in concentration, your eyes glinting with cold determination. Then recognition dawned on your face, and you heaved a sigh of relief, lowering your weapon.

“It's you! You scared the shit out of me.”

Relief flooded through him at the sight of you, bruised, battered, and blood-spattered, but alive. He tossed his gun aside as you put down yours, ready to embrace you, but Ghost's voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Back off, Soap.”

An order. Johnny stared at him in shock.

“What the hell, L.T.?”, he hissed in his direction.

You docilely raised your hands in the air as the masked man lined up the end of his gun's barrel with your head.

“Worst rescue party ever”, you mumbled to yourself.

“Sorry, Johnny”, grumbled Skullface, not sounding sorry in the slightest, never taking his eyes off you. “But do your usual conquests take down a dozen armed men on their own?”

Illustrating his words, he gestured with his rifle to the ground littered with corpses. The man you had started to interrogate - the only one left alive - whined in pain.

“So what's your deal? Ya a mole? Shagging Johnny for intel?”

“Ghost!” Soap gasped, offended for himself as much as for you. “M not some clueless newbie!”

You made a face at the question. You understood where he was coming from, hell you’d do the same if the roles were reversed, but that didn’t mean you enjoyed sharing details of your sordid past, especially with a stranger. The less people knew about it, the better.

“I used to be a mercenary for a family who did organized crime. Been clean for years though.”

“Oh yeah? They let you leave just like that?”

“The boss’ daughter had a soft spot for me.”

The lieutenant stared at you for a few more seconds, as if judging the veracity of your statements through sight alone, before lowering his weapon.

A resounding “Bonnie!” rang out. Next thing you knew, your boyfriend's muscular arms closed around you, causing you to yelp, pain running through you at the overeager contact. Soap cursed and apologized profusely.

“Bloody hell, a'm sorry, didnae mean tae hurt ye. Are ye alright? Show me where it hurts. If those bastards leid a hand on ye, I swear-”

There was something both flattering and arousing with how the more Soap lost his cool, the more pronounced his accent became, and the rougher his voice sounded. You placed a finger across his mouth to put an end to his verbal onslaught, an endeared smile on your own.

“At ease, soldier. I'm OK, just some bruised ribs and a busted eyebrow.” you summarized while pointing to the trickle of dried blood on the side of your face.

He leaned his forehead against yours, a gesture that felt terribly intimate, an adoring grin adorning his lips.

“Cannae believe ye wiped out those sorry fuckers all on yer own. Fuck, that's hot.” he confessed in a subdued tone.

You threw your head back in laughter, only to wince when your sore ribs manifested themselves.

“Never heard that one before. Could get used to it, though.”

You laced your fingers behind his neck, nonchalantly leaning against him, not fighting back an impish smile. Soap's hands grabbed your hips in response. Your roguish expression must have gotten the better of his restraint, because one breath later, he was hungrily pressing his mouth against yours. You replied in kind, swiftly deciding you did not care for his colleagues’ presence, and he moaned in appreciation.

After a minute or two, you broke the kiss against your will, remembering an issue that needed to be solved. You smiled, amused by the vision that was Soap chasing your lips blindly, then pouting when you refused him.

“So you guys are gonna take care of the bodies, right…? I can deal with one or two, but this is a bit much.”

The last soldier, the one you didn’t hear from yet, a pretty man with dark skin that Soap would later introduce as Gaz, assured you that they would handle it.

Transferring your attention back to Johnny, you noticed a trace of guilt in those ocean eyes of his, as he was staring at you.

“Something wrong?”

“Ye not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” you frowned.

“It's mah fault if those bastards took ye.”

“Oh, Johnny…” you sighed wistfully, cupping his face. “I knew what the risks were when I chose to date a soldier. Plus, there will always be a chance that my past catches up to me. I was pretty fucking mad when I got a hood shoved on my head and my arms twisted behind my back before getting hauled away in the middle of the fucking night, but not at you.”

Once they gathered all the intel they needed and dragged away the only survivor, the team and you left the building. Your testimony was required for the mission report, so you accompanied them without protest, longing for the care that would be provided by their medical facility.

As you were walking to their vehicule, hand in hand with Soap, you noted how he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

His cerulean eyes kept greedily roaming all over you, like you were a vision so dream-like it was making him doubt your reality, like you would vanish the second he stopped contemplating you.

“Yer one badass lass, y'know that? ‘M so proud o’ ye. Proud tae be yers.”

A/N: Ghost's "grunts that Johnny knew meant “I disagree but it's not worth debating you about it.” " is based on my grandma 💀

[sp0o0kylights]

Adopt a Jock Part One / Previous Part / Part 10.1 (you are here)

A03

Chapter 10 is complete and will be fully uploaded to A03 this weekend when I can get around holiday shenanigans. It's very long so tumblr gets it in parts. I'm sure I could make a Thanksgiving food pun there if I tried hard enough but alas I am not Steve nor Dustin.

Apparently, if you stumbled into supernatural shit, you were rewarded with a mountain of legal paperwork so absurdly thick that Gareth was almost positive it included a government-approved execution clause for anyone reckless enough to speak about things better left unsaid

So, here they were: barely a week past the lab incident, eating lunch, keeping their heads down, like their entire world hadn’t been turned upside down.

(He couldn’t even appreciate the pun.)

“She keeps looking over here.” Tiff’s pen tapped out a furious rhythm, her gaze fixed on one Nancy Wheeler, “And she’s been following us.”

“Well according to Steve she knows about--you know.” Gareth said, keeping things vague in hopes it would prevent any visits from men in black suits.

“I’m sure she just wants to talk.” Jeff said with a note of sympathy.

The fucking traitor.

“I’m sure we’re not allowed to talk.” Stewart muttered darkly, pushing his peas around his lunch tray with a fork.

“Only with people who don’t already know.” Grant tried to argue, and that rapidly dissolved into an argument regarding NDA’s and tricky legal language that Gareth tuned out in favor of his new found hobby--doing his level best not to think about anything beyond his lunch and what new D&D character he wanted to play.

His last one died in the prior game, and though Eddie had--weirdly and entirely out of character--offered to revive it, Gareth had waived him off.

They needed some normalcy right now, and if that came at the cost of Gareth’s beloved druid meeting her maker, then so be it.

Plus a new character was a great distraction.

(He was set on playing a noble elf known as ‘Gregg from Accounting’, but a second dwarf named Iron the Chef had been tempting…)

“She’s coming!” Tiffany hissed, slamming her pen down.

Mourning the loss of an easy, drama free lunch, Gareth sighed and prepared himself.

“Hi.” Nancy said, announcing her presence with quiet determination, books stacked in her arms and chin raised defiantly.

No one said a word back.

“Jonathan let me know what happened, and I wanted to say that I’m sorry you got pulled into all of this.” She paused, clearly thinking her words over, before adding; “Steve, Jonathan, and I used to practice.”

Nancy stopped again, this time blatantly waiting for one of them to say something.

She got more stares in return.

“Given that things sound a little open ended, and that there were injuries, I thought it might be good to start up again. Steve suggested if we do, you all should come too.” She finished, bulldozing right through her own awkwardness.

“Practice what?” Grant asked, confused and trying to cover it with suspicion.

“Defensive measures.” Nancy answered.

Seeing their unchanged blank stares, she gathered her books in one arm, formed a finger gun with her free hand, and mimed shooting in such a deadpan manner that Gareth almost burst into disbelieving laughter.

While he was haunted by visions of Nancy Wheeler holding a gun, Tiff loudly picked her pen back up, making enough noise that all eyes went to her.

“You beat my score on Mrs. Click’s practice test by two points.”

“Uh--yes?” Nancy said, blinking at her.

Tiff's eyes narrowed. “I’m kicking your ass on the final.”

Another dumbfounded blink.

“Okay?”

“Tiff’s coping, as are we--no…defensive measures necessary.” Jeff said, in a desperate bid to soothe things over, “We appreciate the offer.”

She nodded, seemingly placated by his response. “Actually, where is Steve? I wanted to talk to him too.” Nancy asked, changing topics with ease. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Ah-ha.” Tiff muttered under her breath, as if catching out what Nancy really wanted.

Stewart kicked her ankle.

“He’s with Eddie.” Grant said, covering the sound of their resulting scuffle.

“He’s been spending a lot of time with Eddie lately.” Nancy noted, in that same neutral tone the Feds spoke in. All fake nice without giving a single thing away.

It was a little terrifying.

“We all spend a lot of time with each other.” Tiffany shot back, hackles very much raised and not bothering to hide it. “We’re friends. That’s what friends do.”

“Man, we are vicious today!”

“She’s really sore about that grade.” Stewart covered, offering a sympathetic pat to Tiffany’s shoulder (who looked an awful lot like she was going to bite his hand for it).

Did Nancy Wheeler even know about the weird academic rivalry Tiff had with her? Gareth took one look at Tiff’s gritted teeth, and thought better of it.

“I wouldn't be if I was able to properly finish that essay,” Tiff motioned to the now hopelessly crumpled paper underneath her pen, “ instead of rushing it because I had to pull someone out of a lab--”

“Nancy’s right.” Jeff cut in, in another desperate attempt to distract them all from eating each other. “I haven't seen much of Steve or Eddie today.”

He turned expectantly to his right. “Gary?”

Gareth frowned back at him.

“Why would I know where they are?”

“Oh,” Stewart said, far too innocently. “You haven’t realized you’re their assigned zookeeper?”

Wadding up his napkin was second nature. So was launching it at his friend's head, who expertly (and unfortunately) dodged.

“So you’re saying you don’t know?” Grant asked, a smile creeping across his face.

Gareth opened his jacket, fishing around for a moment as if he was searching for something, before pulling his hand back to show off his extended middle finger.

Pity he actually had the answer.

“They’re in the drama room. Steve sweettalked Mr. Barns into letting them set up early for Hellfire’s game.” He grumbled, ruining the entire effect.

“See?” Stewart said smugly.

With deliberate slowness, Gareth raised up his other middle finger before waving them both in a circle.

“Fuck you, fuck you--”

“Not in your lifetime.” Tiffany answered, to multiple chortles.

“Don’t bother them, Wheeler.” Gareth continued, ignoring the assholes he called friends to turn back to Nancy. “They’re setting up for the Hellfire’s last game of the year and Ed’s is a little…obsessive about it.”

As in he was known to be a complete and utter terror in the days leading up to his grand finales but Gareth wasn’t telling her that.

These games were a big deal for Hellfire as a whole. Precious things they looked forward to and the finale game was something they often worked several months, if not a solid year, to reach.

This year's game had more riding on it than any one prior. Hellfire’s shared sanity, for example, and a shining piece of normality they all found themselves desperately needing.

(Plus the problem of Eddie flunking again--and not telling anyone.

See--Eddie had been touchy the first time he hadn’t graduated and even with the appearance of monsters and government lackeys, Gareth expected this year to be even worse--but the Steve of it all added a rather explosive emotional element.

“You still have most of Hellfire.” Gareth had pointed out, when he’d hitched a ride home a few days prior and found the paper declaring Eddie’s super senior year a lost cause. “You know you’ll still have them after they graduate too, right?”

“Because they’re going to be looking forward to their old pal Eddie while in college, sure.” Had been the clipped response.

“They will.” Gareth said, with a level of assurance he hoped Eddie could feel. “And if that’s the concern, then you’ll definitely still have Steve.”

Who hadn’t gotten into college, and openly admitted to refusing to try now that monsters were back.

“I guess.” Eddie had said, looking like a deflated party balloon.

In typical Munson fashion, he seemed to realize he was giving away more “real feelings” than he’d intended too, and changed the subject with an energy that Gareth knew was fake.

He hadn’t called him out on it though, and equally, he had not called out the mania Eddie had slowly been succumbing to since that fateful day. He’d get over it--Gareth knew he’d get over it--if they could just make it past the point where Eddie’s own brain informed him the world was ending to prove it.)

All of them deserved a break, and a place to put aside all the stupid shit and simply have a good time, and heading off Steve’s nosey ex-girlfriend before she could cause problems would go a long way to help.

“I’m sure they can spare two minutes.” Nancy was saying, mid creation of the exact problem Gareth was hoping to avoid.

“No--uh,” He flailed about for a reason she couldn’t, and the longer she frowned at him the more his brain simply vanished all forms of higher thought. “Don’t?”

Nancy’s expression soured, mouth twisting in a line Gareth very much did not like. “I’m sure they--”

“Tell us what other things you practice. Besides, you know. The pews.” He interrupted frantically.

Under the table his foot struck out, and though he had no idea who he’d struck he hoped whoever it was understood what exactly he was trying to do.

“The pews?” Nancy echoed, after a painfully long moment.

“You know? Pews!” Gareth mimed a gun, and then made “pew” noises while firing it.

Besides him, Jeff gave a very Harrington-like sigh.

(He’d been doing that a lot lately, Gareth made a mental note to mock him for it.)

“You cannot tell me you guys only practice with guns.” Tiffany huffed. She had not been the kicked party, but thankfully, hadn’t needed the nudge to catch on. “What happens if you run out of bullets?”

Nancy gave her an odd, almost calculating look.

“We use whatever else we have on hand.” She said flatly.

Which just boded so fucking well for the rest of this conversation (and Gareth’s life, given he was uncomfortably aware of the things that went bump in the night.)

“Well, give us an example.” Tiff continued, and given the now increasingly concerned looks that the rest of Hellfire was darting between her and Nancy, Gareth knew the rest of his idiots hadn’t caught on.

On a piece of paper he scrawled--and the underlined twice, for good measure;

‘Go. Find. Byers!’

--and then chucked it at Grant’s head. Who thankfully opened it, even if he made a face while doing so, before proceeding to pass the note around as Tiff and Nancy traded increasingly pointed words about weapons training.

“When you’re in a situation, you use whatever you have on hand. I would assume you knew this, given what I heard happened the other day.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t it make more sense to train and carry with backup weapons rather than just hoping you find something on the way? What if the--what if we’d been in the woods?”

Gareth watched the note travel from person to person, until it was dropped back in front of him.

‘You go find him.’ Someone had scrawled, followed by multitudes of doodles, two of which featured army-hat wearing dicks driving tanks.

Then and there, he decided that perhaps his friends truly did deserve death should a similar situation arise in the future.

Useless. They were all useless.

“You’re welcome to make a suggestion, Tiffany.”

“I will. I’ll make a list even.”

“Good.” Nancy smiled, with all her teeth.

“Fine.” Tiff returned, looking half feral.

Was this some type of weird mating ritual between academic types? God, they were scary.

‘Well, that definitely won’t come back to bite us in the ass.’ Gareth thought wryly as Nancy stormed off in the opposite direction of the drama room, tapping the note against the table. He glanced at the rest of the group, who appeared to be attempting to tempt Tiff out of her snit by way of asking her what dramatic bullshit she thought Eddie would be pulling in the finale.

If nothing else, he decided, they’d prevented ruining Eddie’s day--and possibly, their entire night.

Nothing, save more fucking monsters or equally evil government lackeys could manage that.

(Pity that Gareth had forgotten the third most powerful force on the planet when it came to wrecking plans.

Middle schoolers.)

xXx

The day had dragged but they'd made it, and Eddie in turn, had made that wait worth their while.

The lights in the drama room were low.

The entire table had been set up with such care and drama that Gareth almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Goblets lined both sides, each filled with a dark red liquid Gareth knew damn well could not be wine.

Candles--real ones, had been lit, casting shadows across Eddie’s face as he lounged in his throne, a master in their element.

A castle, meticulously crafted out of wooden sticks and painted a dark, forbidding gray towered in front of Eddie down at the end, with the layout of the insides crawling down the table atop carefully gridded paper.

Monstrous figurines stood in a row off to the side, like little soldiers, planted right in front of a plain, if not comically large, cardboard box.

It was elaborate, meticulous, and half the items had clearly been stolen from Steve’s house, if not outright decorated by the man’s own hand.

“Welcome, my friends.” Eddie purred, breaking the spell that had fallen over Hellfire.

“Oh my God.” Grant breathed, jostling Gareth’s shoulder as he pushed inside.

“Dude, you outdid yourself!” Stewart added, voice awed as he took it all in.

“He had help.” Steve confirmed, materializing at Eddie’s shoulder. He leaned forward, adjusting something in front of Eddie, ignoring the immediate angry swat and hissed warnings about “ruining the moment, Steven!”

“Glad to see you putting your mom’s party planning skills to good use.” Jeff teased, but no one missed the way he ran a hand down the table, staring giddily at the spread.

Steve gave him a shrug, but even in the dim light Gareth could see how pleased he looked.

It was magical, and Gareth felt something come alive in his chest that he’d privately thought the manticore had killed.

A childish sort of excitement, bubbling up as he realized he was about to have a damn fine time.

This, of course, is when the actual children came in.

“I made a timeline.” Dustin announced, shouldering his way in between Jeff and Grant to slam down a massive piece of paper.

“Oh my God where did you come from!?” Stewart yelped, started as more and more children suddenly swarmed Hellfire’s table.

“The middle school is literally next door. We walked.” Max rolled her eyes as she took a seat next to Tiffany. “What idiot let you guys light candles in here?”

El fell in right next to her, stealing what was clearly intended to be Grant’s chair.

Who looked like he’s about to say something about it until he caught sight of her delighted face.

Gareth would have laughed at the obvious way Grant’s shoulders slumped as he accepted his fate, if his own chair hadn’t just been usurped by Michael Wheeler.

“A timeline?” Steve asked, before Eddie could surge to his feet and kick the brats out.

(They all watched him jerk anyway, like he’d intended to do just that and barely caught himself.)

“Uh, everything?” Dustin scoffed, waving a beat up folder in the air. “We took it all the way back to when we first met El.”

Next to him, Lucas had stepped up to the table, running a hand down it in much the same way Jeff had. “We decided it might help us figure out where the manticore came from.” He said absently.

A riot of emotion exploded over Steve’s face, made all the funnier by the fact that it was entirely at odds with the setup he’d so lovingly created.

“I’m sorry, did we not hear the Chief of Police? He’s investigating this, our involvement is over.” Steve made a slashing motion with his hand, as if that would hold them all off.

(Gareth, who once watched all of these children fight each other over an arcade score for three consecutive days, knew it was a lost cause.)

Dustin made yet another scoffing sound in return.

Given how often he seemed to make them, Gareth wondered if he had problems with a sore throat.

“I thought we all widely agreed Hop’s investigation skills are terrible.”

“Hello?” Stewart said irritably. “We were about to get started?”

Eddie swung himself into a sitting position and made like he was going to stand up, likely to pounce on the opening Stewart had just given.

Pity Steve once again, beat him there.

“Yes, but he’s not investigating, is he? We,” Hellfire’s jock made another motion, this one a circular twirl of the hand. Gareth was starting to wonder if the gestures are directly linked to his stress level. “already did that part. He can now do the part he’s good at, which is fixing it.”

“He’s not good at fixing it, look at what happened with the demodogs!”

It was at this moment Gareth made his fatal mistake. In hindsight, he should have known better than to ask out loud,

“Okay, can someone please explain what the hell’s a demodog?”

Several protests, groans, and pencils are flung his way for it.

(“Do you know how often that word has been thrown around!?” He’d defend much, much later. “You guys keep saying it but not what they are!”

“If you stopped eavesdropping all the time maybe you wouldn’t be wondering about such things.” Eddie had responded snidely.

“It’s not my fault you keep talking about this shit when I’m right there you asshat--”)

“What, you didn’t think there were actually feral dogs in Hawkins did you?” One of the kids asks incredulously, like he can’t possibly believe anyone is so stupid as to buy into it.

“They were like the manticore, but small and more, well, doggish.” Dustin dismissed, this time with a Harrington flavored hand waive of his own. “Ask Steve, he was there.”

Gareth turned to do just that, D&D campaign be damned (He would not apologize for wanting to know what else might be out to kill them all even if the finale was technically on, sue him) to find Steve had slipped right into mother hen mode.

“No.” He spat, charging forward as he flapped his arms around, like the children are a flock of birds he can scare away. “You are not sucking anyone into this, and we are not getting involved! You heard Hop!”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a coward, Steve.”

“I’m not a coward, I’m someone who doesn’t need another near death experience! There’s not a reward if you have five in a row, dickheads.”

Seething and not bothering to hide it, Eddie picked up the massive gold goblet in front of him and took an obnoxiously loud sip out of it.

“I’m also going to remind you that Henderson here,” Steve stopped behind Dustin to rattle his, “is going to camp in a few days? I believe the rest of you also have similar engagements.”

It was Mike’s turn to scoff.

“Lucas is only in summer school until 3 and camp doesn’t start for another two weeks. We have plenty of time!”

“It’s not summer school,” Lucas protested, eyes darting to Max and back as if she wasn’t aware the kid was a nerd. “It’s a creative writing program--”

“Yeah, well, the rest of us are busy.” Steve fired back. “So any theories you have, you can take and shove right up your ass.”

“Why is it always the ass with you Steve? Do you have an ass fixation?”

Gareth watched as Eddie immediately choked on the dyed Mountain Dew he had been chugging down, hacking so hard tears welled in his eyes.

Jeff shared a pained look with Gareth over the table as Grant pounded him on the back.

“I do not have an ass fixation, Henderson--”

“Okay.” Tiffany clapped her hands together, the sound ringing out throughout the drama room.

“Here’s the deal. Summer break is two days away. Steve is right--most of us here are working, if not preparing to go to college. No one needs to go snooping around where we aren’t wanted, and we definitely do not need anymore injuries. Kapeesh?”

Henderson immediately turned on her. “So we’re just gonna trust the guys who fucking started all this!?”

“Given they also have better ways of handling it, yes. We are. Hopper told them about Stewarts goo, they sent some suits in to kill the manticore, and thanks to El’s heads up we caught things ahead of time for once. Can’t we just enjoy that?” Steve was beyond worked up now, repeatedly running his hands through his hair, only to fix it, pick at it, and then repeat the process again. “For fucks sake Dustin, Eddie just stopped limping!”

“I don’t think it’s over.” Mike muttered angrily, pushing a finger against Tiffany’s water bottle.

She grabbed it before it toppled over, glaring at him.

“El, do you feel anything?” Steve spoke like he was invoking a god and not an undersocialized twelve year old.

“No.” She admitted, after a long almost uncomfortable pause. “I do not.”

Steve pointed at her victoriously. “There you go!”

“But--”

“No more buts!” Steve shrieked, before seemingly to realize he’d done so. He coughed, and then said; “I thought you dorks would be storming in here trying to get Eddie to DM for you, not harassing us about the Upside Down.”

“You guys are playing D&D?” Lucas asked, as if he hadn’t been salivating over the spread for the last five minutes.

“I really like your cleric.” Will said quietly to Jeff, having leaned over to look at his character sheet at some point during the argument.

“Will, aren’t you a Dungeon Boss?” Steve asked, to the horror of those around him. “Why don’t you go sit by Eddie, I’m sure you’d enjoy seeing how he does stuff.”

A wince rippled through the members of Hellfire.

There was simply no way Eddie Munson, a man known to be possessive at best, would ever allow any of them to even glance at his notebook, let alone his entire spread laid bare behind his screen.

Those were his secrets--the result of too many late nights and an easy contributor to his failing high school yet again--and this was the grand finale.

Steve sitting next to Eddie had been miraculous enough--and that was with Eddie actively demanding he sit there, in a vain attempt to drag Steve out of his issues.

Fearing the worst, Gareth snuck a glance at their glorious--and notoriously ridiculous--leader.

Eddie sucked on his teeth, the noise painfully loud in the abrupt silence, eyes on Byers the Younger before they drifted back to Steve.

Who clearly had no idea he’d put his foot in it.

Tiff looked ready to break a pencil, eyes glaring a hole in Eddie’s head as if daring him to disappoint the group's golden retriever while Grant, Jeff and Stewart had all magically found something else to look at.

Gareth himself hunkered down, waiting to see how this would play out.

One more painful, pulsing second and then Eddie seemed to come to a decision, rolling out his hand and gesturing Will closer.

“Indeed Baby Byers,” He dropped into one of his many DM voices, something deep but alluring. “come closer and learn from the master of masters. Perhaps you’ll find something here to take back to your own campaigns. Something truly…terrible.”

He waggled his eyebrows at Dustin as Will’s Party groaned, though none of them put up much of a fuss once they saw the sheer smile that overtook Will’s face.

With the unique combination of embarrassment and pride, Will took his place next to Eddie.

Steve beamed in the corner, clearly pleased with himself and it was not lost on Gareth (or anyone else in the know) that Eddie preened only after sneaking an obvious look at Steve’s face.

“God he has it bad.” Stewart muttered, only to hiss when Jeff not so subtly jabbed him with a pen.

Gareth just shook his head, and gave Eddie a grin that said he would absolutely be getting shit for this later.

“Stevie, be a dear and fetch more chairs would you?” Eddie drawled, as he settled back into his throne, baby Byers happily checking out the items he had laid out behind his DM screen.

Which Gareth supposed was Steve’s punishment for inviting the kids along, but then, Eddie may as well have been bossing the jock around all day regardless given the look of the place.

(He’d certainly taken advantage of doing just that while his leg had been healing.)

That was their mess though, and Gareth happily put all thoughts of monsters, murder, men in black and every other awful M word aside to inside pull out his luckiest D20 die.

“Hellfire,” Eddie boomed as the all finally settled, “It's time to show the kiddies how it's done. Let’s roll!”

“And Dustin bitches at me for my puns.” Steve loudly complained as he came back into the room with chairs.

Eddie shushed him again.

[ddaz3d-and-cc0nfused]

HALLO I SAW THE PLUS SIZE BIMBO! X HOTCHER NOTE AND MAY I PRESENT

plussize!goth!bimbo!reader 👀

hotch seems like a man who would be attracted to a plush evil looking person 😭🙏

༉‧₊˚. 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 || 𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐫

— pairing: aaron hotchner x plus size goth bimbo!reader

— summary: aaron's a "scary man" with a big heart who has just so happened to find his perfect match in a trad-goth wearing woman that's determined to bring him lunch - much to Derek's amusement.

— warnings: none! this is probably more sickeningly sweet than it really needed to be, and fluff!

— wc: 761

⋆ a/n: HOWDY!!!! words cannot express how appreciative i am at the recent massive influx of growing support over the past few months despite me being away. i'm happy to present to you my new baby (this fic) also enjoy Derek heavily cameoing in here, i just missed him.

masterlist | AO3

No one was scarier than Aaron Hotchner.

With his stoic face and monotone voice, many unsubs and government officials alike have shrunk in his presence. Though sometimes he was all work-no-play (or a stick up his ass, which is always so fondly put), he was soft towards the people he cared about.

That being said, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when you showed up to the office.

You stood out like a sore thumb amongst the dull office setting, your dark, almost vampiric like clothes deeply contrasted the still-life. Your face was complimented by a piercing here or there; one on your eyebrow, a medusa sitting tantalizing above your top lip – which was painted with black lipstick – and your septum was gauged a few sizes up. 

It should have been a lot, but with your trad-goth makeup, it brought the ensemble together.

The visitor sticker stood out against the lace of your top. 

You were searching for someone, that much was obvious, but your eyes just so happened to land on one Derek Morgan.

“Hi.” You breathed out softly as you made eye contact. The intimidating expression on your face melted into a soft one at the hushed greeting.

“Well hello there pretty lady. Who ya looking for?” You smiled at the man’s flirting. “Hey!” You greeted with a bit more enthusiasm. “I’m looking for Aaron? Aaron Hotchner?”

“Aaron? Oh, he’s –” Before he could finish, the man of the hour came bounding down the steps leading to his office.

“Baby.” You greet so softly, so fondly, so filled with love, that Derek feels like he’s intruding on an intimate moment. 

“You’re early.” Aaron rasped. It was clear that he hadn’t left the office for a few with the way his voice fried from unuse. “Ah – sorry, I kinda got a little restless but… I brought you lunch!” To emphasize your point, you lift up the lovely smelling takeout bag and wave it around in small circles. “Forgive me?” You add with a cheeky smile and a tilt of your head.

With the exposure of your teeth, Derek could see the jewelry of a smiley piercing sitting gracefully against your gums.

Aaron looked at the bag and then back at you before speaking. “I suppose I could, but what would I get out of it?” Oh. So he wanted to be cheeky too? Well played. “Well for one, you get to have lunch with your super sweet and cool girlfriend, and secondly, I control whether or not you get kisses.”

This moment proved to Derek that he really didn’t know his boss and close friend as well as he thought he did, because Aaron looked at you with an expression that he hadn’t even given Haley when they were together.

It was a smirk, one that coaxed the need for a challenge, but it was scrambled by the fact that it was fueled by nothing but pure, butterfly inducing love.

It was sickening.

“Well, I see you’ve got this handled.” Derek remarked with a knowing – albeit shit-eating – grin. 

As if you had been broken out of a spell, you tore yourself away from your boyfriend’s enchanting gaze. “Oh, yes! Thank you…”

“Derek. Derek Morgan.” He finished your unasked question.

“Derek…” You repeated as if it sounded familiar. “Oh!” Your eyes lit up in recognition. “Aaron’s told me about you! It’s so nice to finally put a face to the name.”

“Aw, you sweet talk about me behind my back, boss?” Derek teases.

Aaron’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but there really wasn’t any real irritation behind it. “If I’m not mistaken,” He began, “You still haven’t completed the first wave of files on your desk.” Your boyfriend nips slightly without even having to glance at his subordinates desk.

Derek all but laughs out loud, “You’re right, my apologies bossman.” His eyes were dripping with mirth. “It was so nice to meet you!” You say with a wave. “You too sweetness.” 

As he scrambles away, you turn to look at Aaron with poorly contained amusement.

“Really?” You ask with a raised brow.

“Sorry sweetheart, but I’d rather not have to inhale my food when I can sit there and leisurely enjoy it with my – how did you put it? – super sweet and cool girlfriend?”

You scoff, allowing him to take your ring adorned hand (making sure to steer clear of stabbing himself on your sharp coffin nails) – which has occurred more than once when you two had begun dating.

“Alright, alright, you little sweet talker, let’s go eat.”

Aaron just chuckles.

ೃ⁀➷ my lovely taglist!: @alina02 @louderfortheback @minervadashwood @their-love @fandomsarelifee @theendofthe70s @nomajdetective @mgg-theprettiestboy @phoenixblack89 @celtic-crossbow @hallecarey1 @bunnybabe-babydoll @alixwriter @dixonzzgirl @violettavirus @khxna @moonysreid

[aemondsbabe]

Two Souls, Entwined

summary: dreams & dirty talk || helaena has been plagued with visions; things between her and her lady in waiting finally reach a boiling point

pairing: helaena targaryen x f!reader

warnings: mature/explicit, 18+ (minors dni!), no use of y/n, afab reader, wlw, mutual pining, angst but happy ending, dry humping, breast/nipple play, dirty talk but make it poetic and loving, slight aegon slander i broke my own heart, i love helaena sm, there needs to be more content for her i love her, let me know if i missed anything!!

word count: 4.1k

a/n: happy day ten of 12 days of smuff!! i'm actually very excited/proud of this one, it got a lot more personal than i was expecting! really feeding that scared bi girl i was in middle school idk. i hope y'all enjoy it!!!

12 days of smuff masterlist!

gif creds to @merrypembertons

likes, comments, & reblogs are very appreciated but never required!

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Helaena sighs when she opens her eyes and blinks, disoriented by the early morning light, her head still clouded with sleep. 

“Your friend is not a friend yet not your foe…” She whispers to the emptiness of her chambers, the cryptic phrase a familiar one now as it had been making its home in her head for the past few weeks. 

Sitting up with a groan, she pauses at the edge of her bed, staring blankly ahead as the cloudy figures from her dream seem to swirl around her still. She was growing frustrated with the shadowy shapes, as much as she hated to admit it – she did not often enjoy her dreams, they often brought news of unpleasant tidings, secrets that she alone seemed expected to bear, but for the past few weeks her dreams had been… pleasant. Joyous, in fact. Yet they seemed much further away than the others, only revealing small slivers of information to her night after night. 

She smiles softly as she gives one last glance out the window before padding over to the vanity in her chambers, determined to brush out her hair before the maids have the chance, they were always too rushed and hurried. Her mind drifts back to her dream as she runs a comb through her fair hair; lately, this mysterious dream seemed to be the only thing she could focus on for very long. 

The figure in it seemed so familiar, moving around her as if it was an old friend, someone safe. She sighed again as she thought, blushing despite herself as she recalled her latest vision, remembering how the shadow had moved about her, as if in a courting dance, before it leaned in closely, though if it were for a kiss or to whisper a secret she didn’t know. 

“Your friend is not a friend yet not your foe.” She repeats, as if the repeating will somehow reveal more. 

It puzzles her greatly, the feelings of safety mixed with distinct romantic desire, a deep wanting from somewhere within her. There aren’t many people she even feels safe around, and even less so those she’d ever felt romantic longing for, and a much shorter list followed of people who had ever felt romantic longing for her. She feels secure around her mother, of course, and grandsire and her precious younger brothers, but she cannot help but wrinkle her nose with disgust at the thought of romantic intent with any of them.

She blinks, setting her hairbrush down and biting her lip as she thinks. I feel safe with Aegon, she ponders, brows knitting together, He’s never given me a reason to not feel safe but… She sighs, not bothering to finish the thought. She was well aware her marriage was one of politics, not of love. She remembers there had been whispers of many suitors when she’d finally come of age; everyone from Aegon and Aemond to her half-sister’s bastard sons had been considered, and though Helaena appreciated some more than others… she didn’t desire any of them. 

Before she can help herself, her blue eyes flit over her own curves as she gazes at herself in the mirror, wishing, as she had so many times before, that she could reach out and feel her own reflection – feel a mirrored twin with similar soft skin and supple flesh. She wishes that soft, delicate fingers could touch her as well; she had grown tired of rough, battle worn touches long ago. 

Someone I feel safe with and feel romantic longing for, she thinks again, blinking rapidly as a familiar face immediately springs to mind yet again, just as it had every time she’d pondered this mystery for the last few weeks, only growing more frustrated. It can’t be, she’d decided that long ago, long before this vision began. 

But...

The Gods only ever seemed to show her visions that were assured, that would come to fruition, one way or another. Maybe… maybe that meant that y–

No, she thought, locking eyes with her reflection, Don’t be ridiculous. 

She smiles as she hears her chamber doors opening, at the same time they do every morning, and turns around on the ornate, cushioned chair at her vanity, her eyes locking with your familiar ones as you waltz it. 

“Good morning, Princess,” her heart beats a mite faster at the sound of your voice, at the bright smile that graces your lips as you stride to her, “I trust you slept well?”

“Good morning, sweet friend,” she greets you brightly, standing and pulling you into a hug as she did every day, “I did, quite peacefully, actually. And you?” She asked, trying to ignore the small voice that longed to hold you more closely, as she did everyday. 

“I did as well,” your hand lingers in hers for a moment as she steps away, sitting back at her vanity as the maids arrive, instantly fluttering around the two of you like a kaleidoscope of butterflies, “After we break fast, would you like to come to the gardens with me?”

Helaena merely nods, though inside she buzzes, her heart fluttering like a bird’s wings. 

I would follow you into the Seven Hells, she longs to say. 

You wake with a small start, your hand instantly flying to your lips. You could swear they still tingle for a second from when she’d kissed you, just before you’d woken up. Blushing, you glance around your chambers, as if there would be anyone else there, and finding them empty leaves you both relieved and disappointed all at once. 

Sighing, you slide off of your plush bed and walk over to your small vanity and use the small wash basin to splash water on your face. A small thrill shoots up your spine as you glance over your shoulder in the mirror, knowing from the position of the light filtering through your windows that it’s nearly time to go find your friend. 

Friend.

It’s a funny word, you think, not one you would have imagined assigning to the princess all the many years ago when you’d arrived at King’s Landing, young and eager to be a lady in waiting for Helaena. You can’t help the smile that blooms on your lips each time you think of her, your quiet, captivating princess. You meet your own gaze in the mirror and frown, looking at yourself in the way a disappointed parent would look at a child. 

Not yours, you chide, like repeating it over and over would make it hurt any less, Not yours, not yours, not yours. 

Sighing yet again, you rise from your spot at the vanity and quickly grab your robes, eager to escape your own thoughts. 

“This one is the iphiclides podalirius,” Helaena says, her voice soft as she marvels at the delicate butterfly perched on the back of her hand, “More commonly called the scarce swallowtail, I believe. It’s truly remarkable, normally they don’t travel this far north, though I’m told they’re a common sight in the gardens of Sunspear.”

“Then we are quite lucky to see it,” you smile, setting your embroidery hoop on the bench beside you as you study the yellow and black striped insect, though your eyes seem to drift to the princess on their own; you can’t help but smile as you see the way her beautiful sapphire eyes light up as she examines the small creature, “It’s very beautiful.”

Like you, you think, swallowing down the words. 

“Would you like to hold her?” Helaena asks, looking at you hopefully. 

As always, you nod, aware that you were the only one who seemed to entertain her fascination with insects and plants. Selfishly, you liked that. 

Slowly and carefully, Helaena guides the butterfly onto the back of your hand; the two of you sitting close together, close enough for your shoulders to press together. A giggle leaves you at the feel of the insect's feet on your skin, so small and light, like tiny, faint kisses.  

“Perhaps she was drawn to the hydrangeas,” the princess muses, “Those are new this year, though I suppose any of the other very colorful plants would spark her fancy as well, like the lilac or poppies or…”

It takes you a second to notice that she’s gone quiet next to you and you finally tear your gaze away from the butterfly, frowning slightly when you see the look on her face, her blue eyes hazy and unfocused as they flit back and forth like she’s watching figures you cannot see. 

“Princess?” You ask softly, reaching out to take her hand, only halfway aware of the butterfly fluttering away, “Helaena?” You ask again, a bit louder, gripping her hand tighter. 

“Your friend is not a friend yet not your foe…” She whispers, so faintly that the words scarcely leave her lips. Your frown only deepens, your eyebrows knitting together as you shake your head, trying to make sense of her words. 

“What?” You ask softly, used to hearing her mutter odd phrases but seeing her in a trance was something altogether different, “Helaena? Should I go fetch the maester?” You don’t know why you ask her, not expecting a response. 

The figure danced in front of her again, clouded in darkness, though instead of feeling cold and empty like the dark so often did to her, these shadows hugged Helaena like a blanket. 

She blinked, and suddenly everything changed, becoming clear as if she’d blinked away tears. The clarity was startling for a second as the edges of the figure sharpened before her, still leaning toward her as if it meant to whisper an amorous secret.

Finally, her eyes focused and in that moment, she felt as if she could be knocked over by the air current made from the flittery wings of a butterfly. 

You. 

It was you, just as she’d always suspected, standing before her as if you’d always been there. 

Your friend is not a friend yet not your foe. The phrase repeats in her mind like a mantra as she stares at you, marveling at the way you stare at her. 

Like she’s precious, something to be fawned over. Something to be… loved? 

Her heart hammers wildly in her chest as she reaches out, her fingers finally skimming over your cheek. 

She could cry, perhaps she is crying, she doesn’t know. The only thing she’s sure of is that this feels so right, like a puzzle piece within her has finally shifted and slotted into place. 

Just as it crosses her mind to lean in and kiss you, the vision falls away, words echoing in her mind as the gardens come back into focus.

Not a friend. 

Not a friend.

Not a friend.

Yet...

Not a foe. 

“Helaena, please!” You beg, urgency coating your voice as you lean in closer, closer than you’d ever dared before, praying to see some spark of recognition in the princess’s eyes. 

Suddenly, she seems to come back to herself, gasping as you jump back away from her, startled. 

“Oh!” She breathes, blinking a couple times before her blue eyes finally fix themselves on you, “I’m so sorry, I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.”

You shake your head quickly, moving back toward her and taking her hands in yours once more, your heart twisting as you notice them trembling slightly. “There’s no need to apologize, I’m just happy you’re alright.” 

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, Helaena staring at you in a way that makes your cheeks heat up, as if she’s seeing you for the first time, before she seems to catch herself and look away, much to your disappointment. 

“Was that one of your dreams?” You ask softly, looking down to where her hand rests within yours. 

“Yes.” She says simply, her eyes locked on the way your fingers overlap hers as she desperately tries to ignore the voice in her head telling her to enterwine them. 

“What did you see?” You ask, catching her gaze again. There’s a fire in her eyes now that makes you shiver. 

She’s quiet for a moment, neither of you so much as breathing as you stare at each other – the princess looking at you so intently you wonder if she’s trying to hear your thoughts. You pray she can’t. 

“Nothing of importance,” she says finally, pulling her hands away and standing from the bench suddenly, “They’re just shapes, really. Fuzzy things.”

“Alright,” you smile as you stand with her, picking up your embroidery hoop from where it had been abandoned at your side, “If you ever wish to discuss them, I would be more than happy to listen.” You tell her, desperately wanting to hold on to whatever moment you had just shared with her. 

She merely nods with a small, soft smile and holds her arm out for you to take, “Let’s go, we don’t want to be late for supper.” 

The fire warming your skin from the hearth in Helaena’s chambers normally felt cozy and inviting, but tonight the heat of it was stifling as the two of you sit in silence. Each of you is presumably working on an embroidery piece, although the atmosphere feels more like that of a stalemate with each passing moment. 

You can feel her looking at you, sneaking glances every minute or so. You imagine she can probably feel the same, perhaps that’s why she keeps looking your way, because you can’t seem to keep your eyes off her either. 

Finally, the tension in the room seems to boil over and you can’t take it anymore; your fingers dig into the wood of your embroidery hoop as you gather the courage to speak. 

“Have I… Are you cross with me?” 

“Pardon?” The princess asks, jumping a bit before laying her hoop at her side, her eyes wide as she looks at you unabashedly now. 

“You, well, you keep looking at me. I just, I’m hoping I haven’t offended you in some way.” You chance a glance at Helaena and quickly do a double take, heart clenching in your chest when you see that she looks as if she’s about to cry. 

“You haven’t,” she breathes, shaking her head emphatically, locks of pale hair cascading down her shoulders as she does, “I simply… I was considering the dreams I’ve been having, the one I had earlier today.” 

“But what does that have to do with me?” 

“You’ve been in them!” She says suddenly, loudly, like she has to force out the words. 

“What?” You blink. 

She sighs heavily and swallows, wringing her hands on her lap. “You were in them. You have been for weeks.” 

You wonder if the princess can hear your heart beating rapidly in your chest as you blink, silently praying to whichever of the Gods may be listening that Helaena’s dreams and your dreams were not somehow intertwined. In the back of your mind, you knew your pleas were useless. 

Your mouth opens and closes a few times like a fish that’s been plucked from the water before you finally find your voice, “What… what am I doing in them?” Your whole body buzzes, fearing the answer and desperately needing it all at once. 

The princess hesitates, you want to scream as you can all but see her weighing her options in her mind before she finally, finally speaks. 

“Courting me, kissing me.” 

A small withering, wounded noise passes your lips at her words. You feel dizzy, the room spinning as you feel as though the entire world is crashing down around you while at the same time, it’s as if a mountain’s worth of weight has been lifted from your shoulders. 

“And your visions… they only show things already fated to occur?” You feel frozen as you ask, not a muscle in your body moving. You know the answer even as the question leaves your lips, but you need to hear her say it. 

Helaena sighs and shakes her head, a frown cutting across her pretty face, “That’s why it’s frustrating,” she bites, spitting the words like the mere act of explaining is painful, “This one cannot come to pass, I do not understand why I see it…”

She keeps speaking, talking through her annoyance, but the sound of your own blood pumping wildly through your veins blocks out her words. 

No, your head pounds as you silently scream, No, no, no! Please, just let me explain, give me a chance, I’ll do any—

A loud sob cuts through your thoughts; the world seems to wrench its way back to you as you look at the princess, eyes widening when you see the tears flowing down her flushed cheeks. 

“You could never truly wish to…” She says slowly, brokenly, words fading like she can’t even bear to say them. 

“I do.” The words feel punched from your chest like you’re holding your heart out to the open air.

Helaena’s ocean eyes cut to yours as her breath hitches, the both of you not daring to move a muscle as you sit together on the small sofa in her chambers; the fire crackling in the hearth is the only indication that time has not ceased to exist. 

You aren’t sure who moves first, maybe the Gods have threaded the two of you together so tightly that you move as one, you can’t be sure. 

But her lips are on yours. 

And her hands cup your cheeks as yours scramble to fit around her waist, four hands poised on a knife’s edge. 

You sigh against each other, pulled together like a knot in a thread, and you gasp as you find yourselves pressed together, chest to chest.

Finally, you part for air, panting together as you stare, foreheads pressed together. 

“Princess—“

“You love me?” She asks, swiping a thumb over your cheek; it’s only then you realize you’re crying. 

“Yes,” you breathe, your hands grip her tighter, pulling her impossibly closer to you, “And you?” 

“Yes,” she echos, her thighs slotting over one of yours as she climbs atop your lap, “You are my heart beating out of my body.” 

Her words zap through you and your heart twists in your chest as your hands clamber against her, your lips press against hers again urgently. Twin moans, muffled into each other's mouths, sound between you as your hands cup her rear, pressing her more urgently against you. 

“You are beautiful,” you sigh, hands grabbing at her plush curves through the silk fabric of her skirts, “You’re so soft and —“ 

“Warm,” she breathes, moaning into the column of your neck as her lips move against your skin, “You’re so warm, my love, like the sun.” 

My love. The pet name sends a shiver down your spine as the two of you move together, pressing kisses against whatever patches of skin you can find, rocking together instinctually. The firmness of her thigh presses deliciously against your center, your skirts rucked up enough to bare your smallclothes, which press welty against your core. 

You gasp, pressing a kiss to the princess’s collarbone as her hips move tantalizingly on your thigh, the warmth between her legs nearly suffocating as you whimper and sign against each other’s soft skin. 

“I have always loved you,” you confess, nearly coming undone as she begins tugging at the ties at the bosom of your gown, her hands shaking as she pulls them loose, “Always, from the first moment I saw you.”

She makes a noise between a moan and sob as she finally tugs your bodice loose, and you whimper as her lithe fingers ghost over your breasts, causing your back to arch into her touch. “I’ve always loved you too,” she sighs as her soft hands cup your chest, kneading the flesh in her palms, “I always wanted to court you, marry you, I,” her voice breaks off in a faint, high-pitched whine as you finally manage to unbutton the bodice of her gown, she savors the feel of your lips and hands against her breasts for a moment more before continuing, “Gods, I wished to bed you, I’ve always longed to know what you would feel like, how sweet you’d taste.”

Her confessions nearly make you weep as you kiss over the fat of her breasts, keening into her supple skin as she delicately pinches at your nipples, “I have only ever thought of you, my sweet princess,” your chest heaves as you speak, your words muffled as you lick over her nipple, “When I sleep, when I wake, when I–” The words stick in your throat as you freeze, peering up at her through your lashes, somehow still impossibly afraid of going too far, or too fast, or too anything. 

“When you what?” She asks, her voice so soft and sweet as she stares down at you, her fingers digging into your breast and side as her sapphire eyes flit between yours, “Tell me, my love, when you what?” She urges, her hips moving somehow more desperately against yours, only serving to fuel the fire slowly building within you. 

“Gods, when I touch myself,” you whisper, shuddering as she lets out a breathy moan above you, “When I peak, sweet princess, I think only of you.” Your confession ends in a sharp gasp as she angles you backwards, anchoring you to her with an arm wrapped tightly around your waist. Her lips trail down your neck and collarbone before finally, she presses firm, fiery kisses to your breast, panting as she wraps her petal pink lips around your nipple and sucks, pressing her thigh more firmly against your center as she does. 

“I think only of you too,” she breathes, blue eyes fluttering up to yours as your hands tangle in her pale locks, “Every time I touch myself, I dream of you,” she mumbles around your breast, her touch all but burning into you as she kisses across your chest before mouthing at the other side, “When my brother beds me, it is you I see, my precious lady.”

You practically sob as her admission sends you reeling, each cell in your body bursting like lightning from a stormcloud as you peak. You’re useless to do much else other than tremble in her hold as shivers travel in currents down your spine, your smallclothes no doubt ruined as your center clenches frantically at nothing, your pearl so taut and achy as it twitches against the princess’s thigh. 

You don’t waste a second when your high subsides, moving frantically as you push Helaena back, slotting yourself perfectly atop her, pressing your thigh between her legs like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. Your skirts fan out around your bodies, blanketing your forms in a soft sea of silk, your bare chests pressed tightly together as you rut against her, needing to see her awash with pleasure more than you need breath in your lungs. 

“My love, my sweet princess,” you sigh into her mouth, your tongues swirling together as she all but cries beneath you, her hands digging possessively into your waist, “I am yours, my love, until the end of my days.” You swear, pressing your thigh tightly against her center, and your heart soars as she finally shatters in your grasp.

You watch, enraptured, as she peaks; mesmerized at the blush that blooms on her skin, at the way her blue eyes roll back as her eyes flutter closed, at how her breasts heave as she sucks in desperate breaths. The sounds she makes seem to pierce into your soul, each whimper and moan and cry ripping away parts of you until your heart is stripped bare, beating only for her. 

The two of you lay in a heady silence for many moments, the only sounds being your soft, panting breaths as you each come down and the ever-present crackle sounding from the hearth. 

“Your friend is not a friend yet not your foe.” Helaena whispers, her voice raspy as she speaks.

“Pardon?” You ask, pulling back from her embrace just enough to meet her gaze.

“That phrase,” she explains, her eyes glimmering in the firelight as a smile steadily blossoms on her pink lips, “I kept hearing it, in my dreams about you.”

You stay silent, tracing soft circles on her soft skin, leaving room for her to continue.

“I wasn’t sure at first, but now I see.”

“Hm?”

You aren’t my friend, the Gods spoke truthfully,” she beams, radiating joy as she studies your face, “You’re my love.”

Her statement is simple, but it makes you smile all the same as you press a sweet kiss to her lips.

“Yes,” you nod, pulling back to meet her eyes as you lay a hand over her heart, “Always.”

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[divine-motion]

the thing about Handler Walter (his full christian name) is that he's a really horrible guy. he's a guy who's decided that he needs to be an extremely cold, pragmatic, paranoid man willing to use anyone and anything to "right the wrongs of the past" (which is to burn it all down and commit genocide, even if he doesn't know that Coral is sentient that is still what he's doing, plus i imagine every Rubiconian dies too in the Fires ending or are at the very least heading towards a slow death of starvation and such)

but

he's also really sentimental, something he's tried really hard to bury to be the man he feels he needs to be in order to fulfill the legacy passed onto him and Carla. this is why he ends up caring a lot about C4-621 aka Raven (aka G13 aka... the list goes on) and probably all his previous hounds too. he doesn't want to do what he's done to them - using them as slave soldiers, attack dogs to throw into the meat grinder as necessary sacrifices even though he himself is at least capable as a pilot. he lets 617, 618, 619, 620 and who knows how many others get killed because he thinks it's better that they die than that he dies before he can finish the mission. this then likely changes with 621 as he determines that they have a better shot at finishing the mission than he ever did and makes sure that they escape rather than him (also maybe pragmatically thinking "if Arquebus re-educates 621 then everyone loses forever" bc he has at this point discovered that he pulled god's greatest killing machine out from the bottom of the bargain bin) in addition, while i think him wanting to get 621 Raven to "buy their life back" and "undo the surgery, become 'normal' again" is a genuine desire for them to attain some happiness or so, i think it is also, mainly, a way for him to feel better about what he's done to them. a way to wash the sins of his father from his hands - sure, the blood of every other hound is on his hands, and there are still plenty of old gens suffering similar fates to 621, being treated like dogs and machines that can just be switched on or off whenever their Handlers want to, but at least this one made it out, at least this one could escape the Coral

and yet. asking them to burn Rubicon. is dooming them. history knows them as the monster who burned the stars from then on. there is no peace for a hound that chooses to carry on his legacy that he imparts to them.

sure, Walter is kind of, textually, Raven's dad. and he's kind of a bad dad. well-meaning and caring in his own gruff way, but still not great. i think he puts it himself best in the post-credits message, where he says "I'm sorry... and I'm grateful." he knows what a burden it is. and despite the fact that he gives Raven a lot of choices in what they do, it doesn't really change that Raven never got to choose to even go to Rubicon, the legacy is still something thrust onto them with little say in the matter. they were switched off by the cerebral Coral control device when they were being transported to Rubicon, and Walter holds the power over them completely since he decides when or even if Raven gets to be awake and about. i think it is very telling that Raven can and will take jobs that are specifically behind Walter's back, and that it's only once Walter's gone that they dare to go against him directly (or when offered protection by ALLMIND, who proves themself to be able to circumvent Walter's watchful eye).

that's not even to say that i think that 621 Raven hates Walter or anything! the fact that in the liberator ending, after he puts the gun down with the "you found a friend" line, Raven is backing away at first, keeping their eye on Walter as long as they can before turning to escape the Xylem being pulled down by Rubicon's gravity, all that i think means that they do care. the emotional core of that ending hinges on the fact they don't want to fight Walter. it's like how you kind of inevitably love your parents even if you know how they've mistreated you (not saying this is universal but it's what i know from personal experience and from a lot of friends i have that have been in similar situations to me).

but anyways. the point is. i really like walter. he kind of sucks! and i think we should explore the side of Raven that isn't slavishly loyal to him, because they very obviously aren't, or else they wouldn't be so comfortable repeatedly going behind his back. Fires ending is an exception tho since, as i've pointed out in another post, the one where you actively choose to remain nothing more than Walter's faithful hound

[writingmeraki]

hazy eyes, clear thoughts I

a roronoa zoro imagine !

synopsis : in which letting your drunken mouth spill your sober thoughts leads you to a very unexpected consequence. ( read: everyone saw it coming except you and **** )

pairing : opla!zoro x gn!reader, idiots to lovers!

genre : disgustingly fluffy fluff, five tablespoons of angst and probable romance.

warnings : cussing, mentions of alcohol and getting wasted, zoro kinda mean, probably terrible humour, shit ton of giggling, also very all over the place but kinda cute? not entirely proofread, also lmk if I forgot to add any other warning !

author's note : well oh well, look we have another totally not self indulgent zoro oneshot/drabble/imagine n e ways I hit a sort of weird point of the series, I'm stuck but i am like 87% done with ch 1?? i hope I'll be able to do it soon enough ^^ tysm for ur patience !! let me know what you think of this! also PART 2?!? ( I need to know if people wanna read this randomness further 😆😅🤣👍🏽)

word count : 4.8k

gif creds !

 “Oh-kay! I think that’s enough!”

You frowned when Nami took the drink from your hand, whining in protest when she kept it further away which she knew your drunken self would be unable to reach.

“B-but it’s good, it’s making me happy!” You giggled as you pointed at yourself and then pouted, pulling your manipulative tactic, one you did a lot when you wanted something especially one you did when you were shit-face drunk. 

With large doey eyes, you pleaded at her, “You don’t want me to be sad right? I’ll be sad if you don’t give me- that.” You pointed in a direction you thought she placed the beer but of course, it was way off.

“See, you can’t even make out where I’ve placed the beer! I don’t care if it makes you upset and honestly, it was fun to see you make a fool out of yourself, but now it’s just…sad.” She sighed, a tone of sympathy as she finished her sentence,

“I know why you’re drinking and it’s not a good way to distract yourself from your feelings! Drinking worsens the problem!” She scolded you to which you now felt a small anger form within you.

“Well then, how else am I supposed to get rid of this dread and just stupidity huh? Being sober is a constant reminder!” 

“Your feelings aren’t stupid! You like him, I’d say even love! You can’t just assume your feelings are invalid not until you know how the other person feels!” Your best friend felt a rage you’d feel if you saw someone you care about demean their feelings, a sort of anger at them hidden with laces of sympathy.

“He doesn’t fucking care! He only cares about his promises and that’s…that’s his life, his own…way of living so it’s fine!”

“Feelings to him are just…distractions.” You gulped as you recalled the way he replied to Luffy when the Captain was teasing him about falling in love. 

[ a few moments ago ]

“Zoro, don’t you think you should consider finding a partner, don’t you also want to fall in love and experience all the magical things that come with it?” Luffy teased as you all sat around a barrel, deciding to just hang out after a busy day. 

Zoro had a beer in one hand as he took a sip and then rolled his eyes, you’d been seeing his reaction, undoubtedly your heart picking up its pace when you heard the question. 

“I don’t need love, or call it a partner if you will. I already have enough on my plate, all that so-called magical stuff is just a distraction.” He replied, with no hesitation which left no option but for the listeners to believe his words.

Just because he’d spoken his opinion, it didn’t mean it hurt less. You knew it though, from the start that Zoro was a determined individual. Despite having his own goals, he also cared about others like Luffy even though he didn't show it much, less that he said it verbally.

It was what made you like him in the first place. After all, what’s more, better than a man who knows what he wants, is determined to get what he wants, cares for those he considers his friends, and the bonus cherry on top being he was quite easy on the eyes too. 

A whole package indeed. 

And you didn’t even know when your supposed “I admire him as a person to look up to” turned into “Oh, I think I am in love with him.” 

But ah, that’s the beauty of love and all the magical stuff, isn’t it? You never know when you’ll be the one who finally falls into it.

That’s why, after hearing his words, you felt your heart sink just a little. Screw it, you think you felt it weigh a shit ton and sink to the very pit of your stomach. 

Nami, oh Nami, what a friend she was truly, because immediately her eyes darted to you after Zoro’s words and she saw your expression go down just as quickly as Zoro downed his bottle of beer. 

Luffy chuckled, of course, he would, the poor lad was just teasing in the first place anyway to irk Zoro and obviously, he didn’t know about poor old you’s feelings. 

I think I need to go. 

It sucked how you couldn’t refute against him. How you couldn’t yell that love is not just a “distraction”, love is something that makes one feel more…human. Love is a wonderful thing and how if someone were to experience it, it makes you feel….it makes you feel just happy at being in the presence of the one you, love. Just…love is not…it’s not-

“Uh guys,” You piped up after sensing the tense atmosphere, tense to you anyway since you felt like a seashell was clogged up your throat. 

“I’m gonna go…get some fresh air. Yeah uh- I’ll be behind if you need me.” You abruptly got up, smiling tightly at Luffy, purposefully avoiding Nami’s questioning yet pitiful look and harshly blatantly ignoring how Zoro’s attention turned towards you, about to question you too, his face showing the emotions he’d not show before 5 bottles of beer. 

Sighing quietly, you picked up the drink you’d been downing, still having an adequate portion in it and you thought about it, saying fuck it as you grabbed two more from the stack that was in the middle.

“Continue with…your shenanigans,” You turned around and let your emotions finally show on your face, words repeatedly swinging in your head as you tried to filter them out. 

It’s nothing but a distraction.

And now, a few bottles (2) and a whole lot of giggling later, you may have truly begun to take Zoro’s words seriously. 

“I feel sick, perhaps it’s my heart breaking, see it hurts here the most.” You groaned as you looked out into the sea, pointing to your chest, though inaccurate as you held your right side, the sun appearing as a blurry blight light due to your vision becoming hazier as you got more drunk.

Nami sighed at you, realizing you should probably just be made to go to bed, despite it being only a few hours away from actual nightfall.

“Come on, let’s go, you’ve thought enough,” She stood up, having been sitting beside you on a barrel while you’d been sitting on the same.

She pushed her hand outwards towards you, to which you giggled and you were pretty sure your cheeks ached now. 

“Namii~how do you have-” you pointed your finger out, counting the fingers “-ten fingers! On one hand?!” You continued staring at her hand in awe as she rolled her eyes, a small grin on her face, finding your drunken self a tiny bit cute. 

Suddenly you felt your world stumble as she grabbed you and pulled you upwards, you now decided you did not know how to walk and leaned your entire body weight on her. 

Now, Nami wasn’t a weak person but considering how you were more on the taller side than her while also being a bit more buff due to the immense training you did every day to practice your own skills, you did weigh more.

She quickly made you sit back down when she realized she couldn't possibly carry you, she needed help.

"Stay here 'kay? I'll be back." She told you to which you obediently nodded, which made a genuine grin form on her face.

Maybe she did prefer drunk you who'd follow her orders with no protests.

You looked back at the sea, the sun even lower than before, a type of golden shining on the blues that reminded you of a certain someone's earrings and oh, there it was.

Your thoughts slowly getting consumed by the moss head who despite drinking so much to forget was so embedded deep into your memory and probably heart at this point that even the slightest similarity you saw, be it colors or flowers, reminded you of him. 

Ah, that's love and all its magical stuff am I right? 

Sighing, she made her way back to where the rest of them were, the crew picking up on her presence,

"Where's Y/N? Weren't you bringing them?" 

"Well, for one they are SHIT face drunk, I don't think they are even conscious of where they are right now so I'll need to take them to bed but also, I can't carry them alone." 

She rolled her eyes at the stupidity of drowning yourself in your feelings, quite literally but she knew she wouldn't complain to the rest of them or more so she couldn't.

"Well I'm sure, one of us can help-"

"I'll help you carry them." Zoro interrupted your captain who was just about to suggest him. If there was one who could probably carry anything heavy too, it was him of course. 

Nami eyed him curiously, she did know he wasn't ready to do…kind deeds, not unless it helped him in some way. Though, she thinks, you may just be an exception.

He stood up and walked towards where you were, which was at the back, Nami followed suit to which he turned towards her.

"It's alright if you don't come, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to carry them myself." He said it and Nami narrowed her eyes, half out of suspicion and half out of spite after hearing the cocky undertone to his words. 

Proving that was one corner of his lips being turned upwards, forming an annoyingly handsome smirk that if you saw it, you'd probably be more on the brink of absolutely losing it.

"Take care of them and if they are hurt-" Zoro rolled his eyes at the over-exaggeration, and Nami knew that but as your best friend and a platonic soulmate at this point, she felt she had to say something. 

"I don't mean it that way, you know damn well what I mean." She told firmly, to which a slight confusion did flash in Zoro's eyes but he didn't make it obvious as he glared at her, ready to bicker.

"Nami!" Luckily, Luffy's timing seemed impeccable as he called her, to which she turned around, allowing no further talk.

Zoro just brushed off her words and moved to where you were.

Despite, Zoro admitting to never wanting a partner, it didn't mean though, that he didn't feel. 

He cared. He cared enough for Luffy to stick with him. He cared enough to fulfill a promise. 

And he cared for you too as he saw you sleeping soundly, laying your head on the ship, using your hands as a makeshift pillow. 

And yet, he somehow knew it was different. It was different from how he cared for others. 

He gulped as he moved closer, now being able to see your features being highlighted by the afterglow of the sun setting. 

It was as though you were the sun's favorite child at the moment, touching parts of your face softly, careful enough to not awaken you yet enough to rest on it to make it golden. 

The evening breeze couldn't have picked a better time to pass as strands of your hair messily moved, your face scrunching up in disturbance. 

He didn't even perceive how he'd reached you and was actually touching strands of your hair to push them back in place so as to not disturb your sleep. 

He wasn't even a gentle person, but he was using soft fingers with even softer touches to push them back. 

He figured he should in fact take you back to your bed, well shared bed with Nami. 

Deciding there was no need to wake you up, he moved beside you, putting one arm underneath your knees while the other looped just above your waist and below your chest. 

You blinked open your eyes when you felt yourself floating, it seemed like you were floating for a brief second, engulfed by warm clouds and a nice pillow that was-

You looked up and saw the side profile of someone. 

They seemed familiar. 

A glint of gold caught your eye as you put your left arm up and poked the earring, giggling as you saw it move.

"Wow, pretty," You think you'd seen it but your eyes being hazier than before after your mini nap seemed to only make your vision more blurry.

The sudden exhale and whisper down his neck almost made Zoro trip as he didn't really expect you to be up.

He was just near your shared room.

"Where are you taking me? Who are you?" You asked the important questions now, your mushed brain being able to form somewhat coherent thoughts. 

"You- you don't know who I am?" He asked you, confusion in his features and then remembering why you were lost. 

Right, practically wasted. And apparently memory loss due to being wasted.

He pushed the door open, as flimsy as it was, careful to not eventually break it down.

You looked around your surroundings, now even more lost as to where you actually were.

You squealed as he let you down, immediately realizing it was a terrible idea when you almost toppled over, unable to hold your own weight as he pushed his arm around your waist.

You held onto the man's shirt as you tried not to trip and fall.

"Here I'll just- I'll get you to bed." He guided you towards your bed, hand still wrapped around your waist as he looped yours over his neck. 

You plopped down with your eyes shut, your head began spinning when you almost tripped and you groaned in regret.

"Drinking too much was such a bad idea, like all my decisions lately." You put your hand on your forehead as you tried to rub the forming headache away. 

Hearing a walking sound, you peered your eyes open. Half-open anyways as you still couldn't make out well anything.

You could see the supposed stranger who'd help you till your bed was going to turn around and likely go but at that moment, you decided you didn't really want to be…alone.

Grabbing his hand before he moved away, you pulled him back with all your force. It didn't phase his movements much though other than him halting. 

Zoro turned back to you after deciding he should probably leave before he either said something he'd regret or worse, did something he'd regret. 

It wasn't his fault though with how…cute you looked as you plopped down, making him want to ki-

"Stay…please." You whispered to him, still holding onto his wrist as you blinked at him.

A familiar green color sat on top of his head but you figured it was a common color despite being sober you absolutely made fun of it when you could about how uncommon it was but also whined about how unfairly good it looked on him. 

The same him who looked at you in confusion and disbelief,

"You want me to stay, right now? With you?"

“Of course! I feel quite alone right now, maybe the company will make me feel better here.” You let go of his arm, the loss of your colder hand in contrast to his warm skin making him slightly frown. 

You pointed at your chest, surprisingly getting it right this time by pointing toward your left side.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, “Does your chest hurt or something?” 

There was a slight concern in his tone, one which made you giggle. 

“Not- not physically silly, it’s- it’s my heart, it feels like it’s been gutted- wait no too- too gruesome, it feels like someone just punched it and it broke.” As you blubbered about your heartbroken state, your words made him more curious and concerned.

He decided he should probably hear you out, after all despite not being a great talker, he’d consider himself a decent listener. 

Grabbing the barrel you used as a chair placed under your makeshift desk, he moved to sit beside your bed. 

“It’s ridiculous. I should have known there was no chance, but it isn’t like you get a choice sometimes on how you should feel about someone, it just…happens.” You spoke softly, as Zoro turned his attention toward you, wondering who was this person who’d caused you to feel so…sad. 

He didn’t realize it but he felt a slow anger build up, one he excused as frustration due to your mumbling but not one out of simply, probably, jealousy.

Yes, he was jealous of….this person because it sure as hell seemed as though you were deeply in love to have been feeling like this. 

Ironic.

“Why do I even like him?” Oh, he definitely did not want to hear you talk about him, he decided.

Screw being a good listener, he was already in a crisis when Luffy put him on the spot asking about whether he’d want a lover or not, and then him trying his best not to divert his gaze towards you, so instead he chose an option ( one he’d regret later on ) and gave a seemingly believable answer. 

Maybe a while ago, he’d have stuck to that answer, and actually no, he was sticking to it, quite well too.

That was until you stumbled onto the crew or more like in true Luffy fashion, were persuaded enough to stay. 

At first, he didn’t care enough. It was more so he didn’t particularly like you too. You were what he was not. Careless, overly enthusiastic at times, and way too optimistic for your own good. You looked to see the good in everyone, believing that there was always some sort of goodness in everyone.

Zoro found that stupid, knowing how reality was always different. Everyone is and will always be selfish for their own greed. He was too, he wanted to fulfill his promise and that was it. 

That was his goal and nothing else really mattered to him.

It’s what he thought would remain the same till he accomplished it but a sudden diversion came in the form of well…you.

He didn’t even realize it but the annoyance he’d get when he heard your lame jokes turned into him looking away from your silly smile to try and hide his own forming grin.

How he’d always automatically be looking for you if they’d stop at an island, choosing to follow you and dismissing Nami’s suspicious glances by saying you’d likely do something stupid that might put everyone in danger if left alone.

It was funny what this could make anyone feel. He didn’t ever feel like this, he didn’t even want to admit he was close to feeling but how long could a person remain in denial?

He was in love with you. 

He couldn’t simply excuse his heart racing at your presence as simply annoyance, he couldn’t excuse finding pretty flowers and them reminding him of you as well….yeah you get the point. 

That revelation honestly made him spiral into a sort of existential crisis. 

So he decided it was best to do one thing.

Ignore it. Ignore everything and simply wait until it all fades away. 

But silly him, he didn’t know one thing about love and he assumed it was something that fades away, yet there it was, in his gaze as it softened and in his heart as it sunk slowly like an anchor. 

Clogging his throat as if he couldn’t simply breathe when you admitted to being in love with someone, someone who wasn’t him.

Ah love and its magical stuff, yet why does he feel like it's more of a curse right now? 

He opened his mouth, and closed it again, resembling a fish and it felt like he wanted to say everything yet nothing.

They probably don’t deserve you. 

The thought resonated in his head, but really who was he to say so because did someone like you even deserve him?

Turning to face him completely, ducking your hand under your head, you blinked at him slowly, a grin forming on your face as you saw the stranger’s hair.

“You…you remind me of him, your hair, it’s that ugly color.” You softly giggled to which Zoro was left in yet a contradiction of emotions, whether or not he should feel offended or light over the sound of your soft giggles. 

Wait. 

“Come closer, I’ll tell you a secret.” He blinked at you, trying not to show any emotions and wondering if you’d ever even talk to him like this sober.

Deciding to follow what you said, something he’d never do if you were sober, he leaned in, putting one arm as support to hold him due to the slightly uncomfortable position. 

“I- don’t laugh at me first of all, it’s ridiculous, Nami says I’m being too much of a coward not saying it upfront.” You looked at him to which he nodded, in your mind you presumed it was reassurance and agreeing to not find you ridiculous.

Somehow, despite you not knowing who was in front of you, your heart was picking up in pace and you felt a slight nervousness, actually, you almost felt like throwing up.

As if you were just about to actually…

“I think, actually no, I am definitely in love with Zoro.”

…confess to Zoro. 

Good thing, Zoro had quick reflexes because he felt his arm slip and if it weren’t for those quick reflexes, he’d have fallen face-first into the ground. He sat up straighter as if what he heard had physically burned him. 

“It sounds ridiculous, falling in love with someone like him but he’s actually a very loveable person, at least once he begins to get more…more comfortable around you. He talks less, shows emotions or any reactions even less, always carrying around a bitch face- Nami says so- but-but he also cares through his actions like-like that one time he found Luffy’s straw hat when he thought he lost- he spent hours helping him look for it and trying to keep Luffy from crying and then, then this other time he stayed up all night when I got hurt and wasn’t able to sleep. And-and there’s sooo many other times he’s done, the small things, he cares for that.”

“You know. I think that was when I knew I loved him.  When he didn’t need to stay up, yet he did to make sure I didn’t die or something.” You finished with a soft giggle as memories of that day flashed in front of your closed eyes. 

Suddenly he felt way warmer than the room was. 

“I know, I know you’ll…you’ll call me stupid for loving someone who’s already in fact rejected me, not-not to my face of course but indirectly I suppose.”

Wait, what?

Rejected you?

How could he do that when- when he didn’t-

“I hate this! I hate the way I feel, it- it’s making me feel pathetic.” Your words slurred as you whined, using your makeshift pillow to groan into.

“Who said love is magical? It’s pathetic! It makes you stupid enough to have stupid hopes that only make you fly high until suddenly the actual reality crashes you down hard.” You spoke somberly, your words slowly fading out as you gave into the alcohol-induced sleep.

“Love is…pathetic. But- but I love him. So much. I love…you.” The last word came out as a hush as you exhaled, shutting your eyes and letting go of the pillow as you finally got knocked out. 

It pained him to see you call yourself pathetic…all while being the reason you felt that way. 

Zoro was conflicted. The contradiction of emotions making him all do,

Nothing. 

He was frozen. He couldn't say a word, couldn't raise his hand to rub your back to perhaps comfort you. 

His mind was in more chaos, your words replaying like a loop. 

And finally, he came to a conclusion.

I need a drink. Fuck, maybe even three. 

Perhaps if you were awake, it’d be a different reaction. Perhaps if you weren’t drunk, you’d have not said it. 

The idea of you then getting over him, probably because you’d think he rejected you indirectly due to his words. This left a more bitter aftertaste in his mouth and mind than the beer he just downed.

He left your side, deciding he needed a breather to process what he’d just been told. He made sure you’d be in a comfortable position, placing your arms to your sides and even draped a sad excuse of a blanket, one that you brought yourself of an old woman when you had stopped at an island and one you loved, sad excuse because it was very thin but apparently you couldn’t sleep without it. 

He had turned back to you, one more time, about to say something but he just sighed and turned around, walking away to where he was now. 

Now, almost halfway through the crate of beers, he still couldn’t get rid of the confusion. 

Did- did you mean it?

It was conflicting because for one you said it under the influence, maybe you’d even meant someone else and just said his name by mistake. He hated that, so he chose to focus on you saying it solely for him. 

“Why-just why are you trying to die of alcohol poisoning? What is up with you idiots drinking like maniacs today?” A voice said in both disgust and concern as she walked up beside him, facing the sea, and then looking at him, the concern being evident as she saw the conflict of emotions on his face.

She knew he wasn’t one to speak up, it was rather his body language and eyes that spoke what he felt. 

He just sighed, taking a smaller sip of the drink, placing both arms on the side of the ship, and observing the waves.

Nami truly wondered what could have happened until she realized. 

“Did something happen with Y/N?” She cooly asked, observing his expression and surely enough a change of emotion was seen with the way he suddenly stiffened up.

“Nothing remarkable–”

“Oh cut the crap Zoro, you look like someone stole your fucking swords and threw them into the sea.” 

Now he turned towards her, a slight look of horror while he narrowed his eyes at her,

“That’s oddly specific.”

“Won’t deny anything. But, don’t change the topic.”

“They told’ you something?” She figured she should just straight up ask it, put it out in the blue, out of the bad.

Zoro contemplated whether he should spill it, feeling like maybe it would be invading your privacy but even if he didn’t want to admit it, he needed some sort of advice. 

“They- uh told me they lo- well see-” He shifted his attention back to the sea, finding it hard to say it to her face without giving away much. 

Technically you confessed but also you didn’t? You ranted about being in love with Zoro and how you wished you didn’t, you did that thinking you were spilling it to a stranger but it was the man himself so is that a confession? 

“So they finally did it?” He turned towards her raising his eyebrows in question, “They confessed?” 

Now he was surprised but how accurate she was, “ They are too coward- no offense- to do it while sober so ‘figured from the way you look like” She pointed towards his face with her finger “They either kissed you, which doesn’t seem evident from your face not being smothered with lipgloss, they confessed.” 

He gulped from his active imagination flashing a picture of you kissing him and how-

“But why are you so freaked out then? Shouldn’t you be happy your silly little crush is mutual?”

“It wasn’t a confession. More like a rant, they thought I was someone else and they basically spewed it all, and wait what do you mean mutual- I don’t uh-”

“Oh don't give that bullshit now. I know- in fact, even a blind person could see how in love you are with them.” 

Zoro didn’t know whether to get offended or embarrassed if it were really that obvious. He exhaled heavily, clearly not satisfied with the situation still. 

“What if they don’t even remember? What if they begin to ignore me because they think I don’t like them?” 

“Well you did say you weren’t looking for a partner or so on, did you forget that idiot?” Nami shook her head as she rolled her eyes at him.

“I-well- It wasn’t intentional! I panicked!”

“And now this is your consequence. Though there’s a simple solution to this crisis which isn’t a crisis actually, it’s pretty straightforward.”

Now he was curious, a way to solve this whole catastrophe? 

“Since you think they’ll forget by morning, how about you confront them then?”

“In the morning, you clear out your feelings before you dumbasses end up avoiding each other to purposefully brush this aside and I swear! I swear if it gets awkward because you both won’t look past your egos, I’ll force you into the damn cabin and lock you there to talk.”

Nam smiled sweetly, yet a threat underlined beneath her final words and Zoro thought of the only thing he should do now.

“Fine then.”

“I’ll talk. I’ll…confess to everything.”

all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri.do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest.

writingmeraki Ⓒ 2023

feedback is always appreciated 💗

links : main navi ! | misc masterlist !

[peggyao3]

Relic - Pt. 10 "Fettered Flesh"

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: ✧ Dreams are messages from the deep ✧

A woman from the unknown comes to Feyd in his dreams and his nights become his days as he flees to the dreamscape to escape the nightmares that haunt his waking hours.

TAGS: 18+, smut, she/her AFAB FMC, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, Porn with Plot, Feyd-Rautha's black cum and big cock, Praise Kink, Body Worship, angst/hurt and comfort, drama, fluff, Frank Herbert would frown, some politics, implied/referenced (child) abuse❗, Trauma, mentions of suicidal thoughts❗, Healing, Strangers to Lovers, falling in love, Vulnerable/Emotional/Possessive Feyd, Feyd is a sweet baby who did nothing wrong and I WILL pamper him, nurture not nature, Stockholm Syndrome but in a consensual way, lucid dreaming, implied/referenced cannibalism❗, Murder, Female rage, Teaching the Universe about Feminism, Angst with a Happy Ending

WORD COUNT: 5k

A/N: HELLO PRECIOUS PEOPLE 💕 Shit hits the Giedi Prime fan, so get out your umbrellas!! I feel like with every chapter I'm getting more excited 🥹 And everyone who has left a comment is to blame 😭 I appreciate it so greatly 😭 I've recently started an internship thingy (in a manner of baby's first real job experience lmao), so I have a bit less time to write, but chapter 11 and 12 are finished already, so I do have a bit of food in stock 💪

Reposted from my Ao3 💕| Masterlist | Relic Masterlist

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

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Day 5

Jealousy is a beast, but loneliness is a monster.

Jealousy ignites with fiery tendrils but loneliness drowns you slowly until you're staring up from the bottom of the pitch black sea, yearning for the light.

All day she's been mulling over the three woman-creatures, Feyd's "pets". What is it that infuriates her the most? The physical violence? The fear of what they might have done to her - Death, torture or worse? Their derogatory status? Their beastliness grafted into female bodies, paired with the fact that Feyd has been bedding them at some point?

Without thinking about it, and perhaps it is tactless, she has been pouring her heart out to Lilia while the attentive handmaid is treating her scabbed injuries from last night. Now it is evident that wound management is a well-needed skill around the Harkonnen palace. The sarcophagus is safely folded up and her new weapon is tucked into one of the compartments.

"Am I overreacting?!" She asks, even though - hell no - she knows she isn't, but a part of her soul yearns for human connection, affirmation, camaraderie, friendship. It feels so good to be talking to someone who is not the man she thought she knew or the belittling Bene Gesserit sisters.

"Hmm," Lilia begins tentatively and the glowglobe light brings out the unusual color of her eyes as she tilts her head, so amber that they almost appear golden. "While I'll say it's never been common for the na-Baron to practice monogamy… I'll also say that I'd be quite furious at my husband if he had three women on the side." Her voice quivers upon women, as if it repels her to describe the three beings as such. The spider in the Baron's throne room may be the most harmless monster to roam these halls.

The engineer's questions chip away and it becomes perfectly clear that it's the jealousy that cuts the deepest, even with her superficial wounds cared for, a blade is wedged inside her guts that will keep on cutting.

"And do these 'pets' have handmaids too?" A self-destructive question to determine where her own status truly lies. What's a bride but another pet to him?

"They used to have handmaids…" Lilia hesitates. "But they always ended up eating them. I'm glad to be assigned to you, my Lady."

Great. There she has another horror to add to the menagerie.

Lilia continues: "If it calms you, I doubt there will be any further incidences with them. The na-Baron has been in an, uhm, unstable mood since last night." The maid's posture turns rigid. She shouldn't be speaking about the na-Baron like that, but the Earth woman's emotions are contagious. Lilia will get herself killed if she's not careful. She's been telling that to herself since she was a little girl.

"Unstable, uh-huh, well so am I."

The Harkonnen woman nods and decides it is best not to elaborate on what it means when Feyd-Rautha is having the worst day of his life.

Vladimir Harkonnen chuckles with delight at his nephew's distress and the infantile killing spree that has been painting the halls black since last night.

It took even less time than he expected, for the new woman to be disgusted by his poor nephew and he cannot hold it against her. Feyd-Rautha is a raging child in an unfortunately manly body. 

The Baron is well-entertained by the hollow screams that blare down the hallways. First the three harpies. A shame, they had helped keep Feyd settled so nicely and they hadn't been cheap either. It's also a shame that the Bene Tleilax don't offer bulk discount, considering the number of Gholas the Baron saw himself forced to commission for the little game his nephew and he have been playing.

Next on Feyd's blade was the guard at his little witch's door, then anyone who crossed his path in the night, all the while Feyd was chafing with desire to be cut and hurt. But no one outside of the ring is allowed to raise their blades against the Baron's heir apparent, unless instructed by the Harkonnen sovereign himself.

Some fire has returned to his nephew since the woman's arrival and he appreciates that, yes, he does, but he will keep a sharp eye on the two of them. He has no doubt that she's a Bene Gesserit agent who has implanted phantasms in Feyd-Rautha's mind, but Vladimir is willing to play the sisterhood's game, for his nephew's sake, even though he had sworn to never let a witch enter his fortress again. 

Not since Lady Margot Fenring had tried to steal his lovely boy's precious seed. Luckily, Feyd's blade had worked quicker than the thief's vocal chords.

But Valdimir is willing to adapt. The boy had been boring him to death for the past two years and he used to be so entertaining and feisty!

In the evening hours after a night and day of bloodshed, Feyd still has stamina (a trait the Baron cherishes so dearly about his nephew) and comes barging into the guarded dining room, bringing with him the cloying scent of blood that sticks to the tacky soles of his boots. He wears the clothes of yesterday and blood lust in his eyes.

Careful now.

Vladimir gives no sign to the guards, chews without haste and takes a noisy gulp of wine, making sure a bead rolls down the folds of his massive neck. The muscle at his nephew's jaw twitches and his fingers strangulate the blood-slick handle of his blade.

The eight arm-legged arachnid creature shivers in its basket under the table, eager to get to Feyd, partly because his boots smell yummy, but it doesn't dare move away from the Baron's feed. Smart thing.

"Don't look at me like that. It's not my fault that she doesn't like you, boy."

Feyd halts as if struck by one of the bolts of infrared lightning that cook the atmosphere during the summer months. Tension strains his neck, a bull ready to charge at his Matador and for a second the Baron thinks he'll have to switch on his shield ring. But his nephew turns and barges off with bouncing, stomping steps, draining his stamina and wetting his knives on everything that breathes, when the only one he really wants to kill sits fat and mighty on his throne. 

It's almost cute, Vladimir thinks. The boy could kill him so easily now, if he really put his cunning, little mind to it. He's strong enough, smart enough, but his spirit - that's the crux. Feyd's spirit is broken and riddled with fear of the punishments. The last time he tried was at 17 and then never again.

Ah-h-h, yes, the Baron has conditioned him well and he considers it his retirement plan. Age hasn't left the Harkonnen sovereign unscathed and while his mind may still be sharp (or else how would he have come up with such a genius plan!), his morbidly obese body fully relies on the protection of his shield ring, guards, lung machine and poison snoopers. But as long as the boy still fears him, the deadliest threat within these halls remains on a pretty, silver leash.

The fire of jealousy has dwindled down and now all she does is miss him, sitting lonely in her room, lonely on this planet, lonely in the universe with only inanimate objects and the virtual messages and images of dead people to keep her company. None of this can ever compare to the warm hands of her beloved and his smile, the roundness of his cheeks and his painted teeth. She misses the way his eyes used to crinkle just for her. He had made her believe that only she could make him smile and offer a sliver of peace to his soul.

It's been two years since their last dream. Why wouldn't he have taken other women?

He said he "hasn't touched them". Since when? Since he learned she's alive? Since their first dreams? Ever?

She regrets now that she denied him when he knocked on her door an hour ago. The bitter guilt of disgracing oneself crawls over her when she slowly moves towards the door, but her self-respect has cauterized and become cinders along with her fury. Feeling sick to her stomach, she places her hand on the panel and the heavy door slides open.

Finding herself face to back with a guard in bulky plate armor, she halts. She wouldn't know where exactly to find Feyd's room anyway. The man turns on his heels and salutes briskly before returning his hand to the hilt of his saber.

"Good evening. Ah, wait, are you… New?" She blurts out, not meaning to seem disrespectful. The Harkonnens often do look quite alike to her, but she could have sworn the old guard was a little shorter.

"Yes, my Lady." The man looks right above the crown of her head, avoiding her eyes.

"What happened to the other guard?"

"He was replaced, my Lady."

That does make sense and she's almost a little relieved. She wouldn't want anyone who'd let these bloodthirsty creatures inside to guard her and her most valuable possession. However, she still hopes this incident won't ruin his chances of employment indefinitely.

"I see." She glances cautiously down the austere corridor. Past the windows, there is only blackness and the occasional faraway rumble from the factories. "Do you have to stand here all night? Your feet must be hurting. What about a chair?"

"I'm not allowed such luxuries."

"Says who? You can't excel at your job while being overworked and your feet are aching in those boots." 

The man wonders if the na-Baron's Lady wishes to insult or test him. "I am at full capacity, my Lady!" He salutes again. "I have no complaints about my boots."

"Fine, alright. Could you please point me the way to Feyd's room then? I want to see him. No need to accompany me, I'm sure I'll find it, just make sure no one enters my room, please?"

"Sorry!" The man extends his arm to the side, stopping her advance around him without laying a finger on the Lady. "The na-Baron has ordered this door to be sealed unless he or your handmaid demand entrance."

"Well I don't demand entrance, I want to exit. I want to see Feyd."

The guard grows queasy. That scenario was not included in his instructions. To be fair, the briefing for his new position can be considered rudimental at best but he didn't complain. Up here has been the safest spot in the palace tonight. "The na-Baron doesn't welcome visitors in his private quarters."

"But I'm his…" She swallows uncomfortably. "Betrothed, or am I not?"

"You are, my Lady."

"So, couldn't you perhaps call him?"

The poor guard's expression says 'I'd rather not'. The na-Baron has only just settled, finally, and even the dumbest desert rat knows not to wake a sleeping tiger. All evening long he's been wondering how many of his comrades will be dead come the morning and he doesn't want to be the next one to become fodder for the slaves' food rations. "I'm sorry, my Lady. It is against the protocol to disturb the na-Baron at night unless there is an emergency. Is there an emergency?"

"No…" The woman's expression twists into defeat and she pads backwards with slackened shoulders and somber eyes. "I'm sorry to have bothered you."

The door slides shut and she is too sad to even be angry about her gentle imprisonment. There's nothing out there for her anyway, except for Feyd, and if he doesn't want to see her…

Self-destructive thoughts sprout from the cinders in her chest and grow into the wildest phantasms. The guard was too kind to tell her Feyd has visitors in his room. Perhaps he explicitly decreed that she is not to join him.

To prevent herself from hurtling into a bottomless spiral, she must find a distraction. Nearly choking on bitter tears, she opens up the virtual app drawer that she's most familiar with and selects the 3d-modeling tool. A nice, little task to keep her thoughts from straying is exactly what she needs, and so she settles down on the bed and begins to design a practical, foldable, printable chair for her guard, thoughtfully optimizing stability and the required resources.

The engineer doesn't notice when her tears dry, but they do.

Day 6

She sleeps awfully that night, despite the chip's helpful sleeping program consisting of gentle rain and soothing frequencies. It can't have been much longer than two hours when she is awoken by a knock on the door, followed by another, more insistent one a moment later.

The 3d-modeling interface still overlays reality when her eyes snap open and her sluggish brain activity requires a moment to shut it down. She was almost finished with the printable chair parts last night, but she must have dozed off eventually. 

The knocking persists and she calls: "Lilia?"

A pause. "It's me." An unmistakable, deep and raspy voice comes muffled from the other side. Feyd-Rautha, freshly showered and dressed in a clean, casual suit, leans his forehead against the cool, thick plastic, breathing hard and fast so that his respiration condenses on the door. Waiting, he pleads silently for mercy. He cannot do this anymore, doesn't want to kill anymore just to feel something other than fear.

She freezes, legs half swung off the mattress as anxiety twists her belly. All of her jealousy comes crashing back and a little demon whispers poison in her ear: Go back to your hyenas and toy around with them, not me!

When silence is the answer to Feyd's timid greeting, his stomach drops as if filled with lead. Blood pounds in his ears like the war drums on his birthdays and his breath becomes shallow, so that he no longer even hears the guard's antsy shuffling. What will he do if she never forgives him? 

A harrowing need for violence flashes through him cold and dark and his twitching hand jerks for the blade at his hip but the door rushes open before he can brandish it and his woman faces him with crossed arms, her face puffy from sleep but her eyes are wide and vulnerable.

She beckons him to enter and he follows, eyes racing to the crowns of thorns in the vase, the sarcophagus, the ruffled bed, everything the way it was. How does she deal with pain?!

"Hello," Feyd mumbles, voice reduced to a tiny, grated whisper.

"Hello."

"Can we… talk?"

The relic nods and waits, clammy fingers clutching her sleeves. But then Feyd says… nothing. His eyes are focused on an imaginary point somewhere behind her navel and his jaws strain as if chewing a brick.

So, she begins: "I'm sorry, but I was very upset." She paces, shoulders drawn up. "I know that customs are different around here, I mean, they obviously are," she guffaws quietly and shakes her head. "But where I'm from, it requires consent to have more than one partner and I never gave you that consent. I've never given my consent to anything that's happened to me since I woke up! And then I found out you're alive and I can be with you and I really believed everything would finally be better, but you-" Her voice hiccups. "I'm very upset, okay?" Her lips twist and she lifts a hand to her mouth, sobbing quietly into her palm. "You're so different in real life."

Feyd's frozen limbs regain their agility and he jumps to her side as she tries to turn away, a swift predator despite his anguish. He clutches her by the arms. "Wait! Remind me. H-How was I in our dreams?" 

"I- I don't know, you looked happy." Her arms burn where he's holding onto her with his broad palms and long fingers. "And you were kind."

"Have I not been kind to you?"

"To me, yes. But being kind only to me is not enough." She shakes her head bitterly.

"What do you want me to do?" 

"Be honest with me. Who are these three?! They said you don't play with them anymore like you used to, and they hurt me, Feyd!" She writhes out of his clenched fists and he lets her because when her fingers skim his wrists, all his muscles go weak. She yanks up her shirt, showing off the healing gash on her waist.

Feyd wants to kill his darlings all over again and his sinful mouth twists into anger. "They used to be my pets. Pleasure slaves, if you will. Just some meaningless toys, nothing more, I swear it to you."

"Pleasure slaves!" She blurts out, shaking her head. At least he's being honest but - what the fuck?! "You-" Stumbling over her own words, she backs away from him with disgust. "Who are you? Who the fuck are you?"

More violence waits on her tongue. Does he respect anyone other than himself?

"You know me! You know who I am, where are you going?!" Doesn't she know she knows more about him than anyone else?

"I don't know shit about you!" She yells. "Where were you last night?"

"What?" All color is drained from his face. How could she know?

"Were you with them because I couldn't perform the way you wanted the other day?"

"What are you talking about?!" Feyd tries to grasp her by the arms once more but she twists away. If anything, he is at blame for being unable to make his woman comfortable enough to reach her release. What a pitiful good-for-nothing he is, pathetic down to the last, rotting cell. "I haven't touched my pets since I met you and that's the truth!"

"Oh, yeah? Then why was I not allowed to see you at night?" 

"What makes you say that?" 

"I tried to come to you last night, but the guard at my door said I'm supposed to stay in this room! So, were you with them?!"

Feyd stops his advance and an incredulous shimmer glazes over his blinking eyes. He could have held her last night, against his hurting heart. A dizzying lightness befalls his chest and sorrow becomes anger and anger wings his footsteps when he turns to the door, grinning, then giggling. Feyd slams his veined hand against the panel so hard, the screen cracks and inky blood slips down the valleys of his palm.

"Feyd? Feyd! What are you-"

The baffled guard faces the snickering na-Baron behind the opening door, last night's tiger resurrected like a Ghola for one last kill. A stammered 'my Lord' on diddering lips. Feyd-Rautha looks as bestial as his hyenas with prowling steps and rolling shoulders, searing eyes locked on his unmoving prey.

"You told my woman she couldn't see me last night? S'that right?" A slip of pink peeks out of the ghastly frame of black, gnashing teeth.

"My Lord, I beg your mercy, I didn't wish to distur-"

Metal flashes. The relic screams as the length of Feyd-Rautha's blade carves into the guard's pallid neck, Adam's apple bulging and sitting on the knife like a popped, black cherry. Blood sputters around Feyd's clenched fingers and laughter has faded from his lungs at once. He digs deeper as the guard draws in gurgling breaths, bubbles of air swimming in the blood around the metal.

The relic freezes like a mouse, glued to the spot as if she might turn invisible to the cold eyes of the beast who wears her lover's clothes. He looks nothing like Feyd-Rautha now, his features empty and alien with eyes that don't feel and hands unfazed by the death that stains them in thick, inky streams that roll down his victim's neck. 

This is how the universe sees him.

Feyd's blade slashes sideways, spraying a half moon of blood across the corridor and when the guard stumbles, he falls back into the na-Baron's knife, adding a vertical gash to the horizontal one, tip sinking into the flesh under his jaws, and with a jerk - up into his tongue.

The man grunts, still clinging to his life by a thread, and lurches forwards without drawing his sword. His head falls on Feyd-Rautha's shoulder. Feet shuffle in a grotesque waltz and Feyd's bloody fingers slip around the taller man's neck, holding him there while his blade plunges into his belly between armor plates so deftly, he could find all the weak spots blindfolded. The body slackens, weighing down on Feyd-Rautha whose ichor dripping fingers aren't ready to let go.

Shuk! Shuk! 

Is the sound of his blade sinking into soft flesh and viscera, whipping back out with a spray of blood and entrails.

The Bene Gesserit may have proclaimed her human, but the adrenaline that sets her nerves ablaze is a gift from her ancestors, animals, because that's what humans are at the end or the day when facing a bigger predator.

Fwump.

Feyd looks her way, the dead body dropped, and blood covers his hand like a shiny glove of ink, dripping down the blade tip in a drizzling stream. The light catches on the sharp edges of his alabaster skull and all she sees is a new, terrifying breed of human, birthed by a world of poison and decay. There are millennia between them. They may share the same DNA but that doesn't mean he is not an alien to her. 

In the end, the man from her dreams is not the man of her dreams.

Out the door? - Blocked! Death!

Off the balcony?! - Death!

To the Sarcophagus then. To her gun.

She turns and sprints, feet skidding over the shards of her rose-colored glasses, but Feyd pounces, a beast hungry for carnage, and catches her around the waist, hurling her backwards with the strength of three men. His blade clatters to the ground.

"No, wait. No. NO! NO! You can't go," he howls. "You cannot leave me!"

Wailing, she thrashes in his grasp and slams her elbow into his guts, her foot against his shin, then his crotch and the soft flesh there is squashed by her heel. When his hold slackens, she twists away and bolts, bare toes slipping across icy marble, but blood-smeared fingers find her shoulder, tearing on the fabric. She throws herself away from him so hard, the seam starts coming apart, so his other hand flies to her throat, steel-hard fingers curling around clammy flesh, yanking her around and against the wall.

She can't be looking at him like that, like he's the devil. Like he looks at his uncle.

Desperately, his lips search for hers but she jerks her head to the side, bites, scratches, nails burrowing into his throat. No is the word that Feyd-Rautha raps out between violent kisses that seek her pulse point with his tongue and teeth, no, she can't ever leave him, no, not ever, even if she hates him like everyone else. Her fear poisons the sweat on her neck and her nails don't egg him on, they hurt. He takes a knee to the guts and his lungs pop open for a harrowed cry.

Pain used to be pleasure but everything hurts, she doesn't love him anymore. One more meek and quiet final 'no' as he abandons the assault on her neck and his slackened arms wrap around her middle, hiding his face from rejection in her shoulder's soft flesh. Tears drip hotly, finally. All day and all night he's been waiting for the cathartic downpour, but not even the most pitiful plea could rouse a sliver of empathy in the hollow of his chest. Now he bawls like a baby forgotten in its crib and his blood-soaked hands seek purchase at the back of her shirt.

The woman grows still, nails still wedged inside the bloody crescent indents in his neck. Her lungs ache when she draws a trembling breath and Feyd-Rautha's hard, heavy chest moves with her, no more fight left in him. Quietly, she cries with him and curls her arms around his round shoulders, holding him there as he clings to her like an abandoned child and sheds tears for all the hurt and all the fear.

The man of her dreams is still there, somewhere, under the alien shell, vulnerable, weeping.

"You hate me, don't you?" A broken sob.

Looking over his head, the dead guard's viscera glitters darkly on the hallway and she is surprised to realize that even now, she doesn't hate him.

Feyd continues: "This is why I never wanted you to know who I am. I am awful."

"You're not awful," she whispers, fingers slipping around the back of his head, nails rimmed darkly by Feyd's blood.

"I have to be awful. I was born to be awful." 

"That's not true…" He was groomed to be awful.

But Feyd isn't finished. In a fashion of now or never, confessions spill out of him like poison rain. "I killed my mother when I was four. I don't remember why. I killed my pets. I kill men for sport. I kill people for fun. I kill because it's the only thing I can do. Yesterday, I-" His voice breaks. "I killed anyone I could find and no one fought back. I lo-o-ost count."

A full glass can't get any fuller when pouring more water, so shock and disgust are lost to the acceptance that has smoothed over the crescendo. They're just information to be added into a folder in her head. Feyd killed his mother. Feyd kills people for fun. Still, she holds him, fingers sliding up and down the back of his head as his shaky sobbing turns breathless and ugly.

"Okay," she whispers and rests her cheek on his head, exhaling softly so her warm breath fans his scalp. "For fun?"

"Ye-e-es."

"So, you had fun last night when you-" She swallows. "Killed?"

"No."

She lets out a thoughtful hum and Feyd's grip on the small of her back tightens. Still, he doesn't dare look at her and tears and snot have soaked her shirt. With her emotions currently defective, her ability for logic is still sharp, and so she concludes, it does all make sense.

Her poor Feyd, a current had pulled him under when he was barely a child and then layer after layer, he has been building his armor so as not to drown in the maelstrom of abuse. With every kill, a little boy has been screaming for help in an empty room.

Soft lips press a kiss to the crown of his head and Feyd's breath trembles in her hold, a beast tamed by a loving caress. That's all it takes.

Just because she understands his actions, doesn't mean she endorses them.

"Will you still be my wife?"

"I haven't decided yet." Another kiss so gentle, it taunts the corpses stacked up in the processing hall.

"So, we're no longer engaged?" 

"I don't think we ever were, not to me. But that doesn't mean I don't love you."

Dizzily, Feyd-Rautha raises himself. If not for the fingers twisted into his woman's shirt, he might just topple back into the spinning vortex at whose edge he is teetering now, one foot in heartbreak, the other in salvation. Blue eyes crack open, rimmed with dark blood vessels. She doesn't flinch, doesn't bolt, only her hands slide to the front of his suit and slip under the lapels, thumb rubbing where his heart hammers.

Feyd sees the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks and the shadow of horror tucked away in the corners of her eyes in a way that is all too familiar to him. More than anything, he wants to delete the images from her head and close the door, kick the blade under the bed, pretend it never happened. He tried to do everything right, got her flowers, hid her away in her own room away from state matters, made love to her with all his heart, but at the end of the day he is still who he is when he can't hide within a dream and it'll never be enough.

"Feyd, is… Is Lilia okay?"

"Yes, she is," comes the earnest reply and she exhales shakily, head sinking against Feyd's chest, arms sliding around his waist beneath the suit where his skin is burning hot.

"Thank God." Her voice warbles, the only warning before her knees give out and every other muscle along with them. The pair sink to the cold, hard ground.  "I just want to go home," she sobs and crawls in her beloved's lap which is still the only place in the cold, hard universe that soothes her soul.

Not her sarcophagus, although it is tempting to freeze herself up again and sleep forever. No, it is still him. A new home, not what she had imagined, but a home.

"Me too," Feyd sighs and squishes his cheek against the top of her head, closing his eyes to envision the bedroom of their shared dream, blue pillows, a white bed, a softly rustling fern in a terracotta pot, her in his arms. Home.

How easy it would be to demand of him: 'If you kill one more innocent, I will leave you!' But she might just kill more than she saves that way, and maybe him too, and maybe herself.

"Feyd, can you-" She sniffles. "If you get angry again, please never hurt Lilia. And whoever the new guard will be, don’t hurt him either. Can you do that for me please?"

"I promise." He squeezes her tight, eyes screwed up so tightly that he sees only dizzying stars. "I love you. I'm sorry."

She cannot fix the whole world, but she can start where she can see. It's not a solution, but a sapling, and a sapling can grow.

Mother Father How did I end up here, stone bound? All I feel ist the striking distance to the clouds My flesh is fettered on the skin of the soil But even so I almost reach the sparks in the void Sailing through the vacuum, am I drowned or alive?

- Cepheus by Fewjar

A/N: Okay, I promise promise this was the angstiest chapter, we're climbing uphill from here!! 🥺🥺🥺 Hand over your guesses, what do you think will happen from here? 😌💕 Thank you so much for all of your time!

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[wileys-russo]

blurb request:: meeting alessia’s family for the first time, and surprising them all that you can speak italian. you get into a conversation with mario in italian about which teams better, ac milan or inter milan ultimately you both agree (which ever team you prefer out of those) are the best. Alessia gets hot and bothered at ur italian but you make her wait all night and throughout dinner and movies with her family until you both go to her bedroom to let her get her neeeedy kiss. and pls that girl will be needy for you all night, hands on your body somehow, always trying to kiss you even infront of her parents, always wanna be near you.

mambo italiano II a.russo

"what if they don't like me?" you drummed your fingers nervously against your bouncing knee, your heart rate accelerating the closer and closer you got to your final destination.

"what's there not to like?" your girlfriend grinned, reaching over and placing her hand on your knee as it stilled and you exhaled deeply. "alessia i'm serious!" you frowned at her jokes, your stomach in your throat at this point from the nerves.

"okay my love please try to breathe. i'm only joking around because really i'm more than confident they're going to love you." alessia assured calmly, squeezing your knee before retracting her hand and turning into the driveway.

"i think i'm gonna be sick." you mumbled to yourself, head thumping gently against the headrest as alessia quickly parked behind her brothers car and shut off the engine. "hey, baby look at me." the blonde grabbed your hands in hers as your head lulled to the side to meet her soft gaze.

"i adore you. they know that and they're very excited to meet you i promise. they've been pestering me about bringing you home from the very moment they found out i was seeing someone. i didn't even need to tell my mum she said she could just see a change in me, a positive change, genuine happiness. and they want to meet the girl whose responsible for it!" alessia smiled sincerely, poking teasingly at your cheeks as your own lips curled upwards and the blonde lent in, peppering a few sweet kisses across your face before you cracked a smile and lightly pushed her away.

"i'll be by your side the entire time principessa, i promise."

~

and true to her word alessia had stuck by that, right up until her mum had called for her help in the kitchen to finish the last of dinner, a stern look shutting down any sort of protest.

before she left your girlfriend wordlessly checked in with you, sending a look as you returned a small smile and a nod, assuring you were okay as you sat conversing with her dad and brothers.

who of course already adored you just as alessia knew they would, having watched on with amusement as her brothers battled one another for your attention, determined to get to know you.

they'd already gone out of their way to embarrass her as she feared they would, sharing all sorts of stories, nicknames and memories from her childhood with you, ignoring their sisters murderous warning glares and bright red cheeks as they did.

she'd breathed a sigh of relief seeing her dad sweep you away for a one on one, her mum ordering her brothers around to set the table for dinner.

though it was during your little one on one with the older man that alessia learned something that would change the course of your relationship for the entire foreseeable future.

at first she wasn't sure she heard correctly, pausing what she was doing as her focus zoned back toward you. ignoring her mum calling for her as she watched your lips intensely, shaking her head as all seemed normal again.

she must have been simply imagining it.

though as alessia heard her dads boomingly familiar laughter and he wrapped an arm over your shoulders and pulled you into a side hug, she heard it again.

and this time she definitely hadn't imagined it.

the strikers head shot up and her eyes narrowed, jaw slackening once the realization dawned on her that she had been correct the first time.

you were speaking italian, fluent and effortless in your diction with her dad who looked on in marvel as the two of you exchanged conversation back and forth. listening a little more carefully she realized the reason for the mans grin, you were discussing football.

or more specifically italian football, her dads childish grin due to the fact you'd professed your own love for his favorite thing beside his children, his beloved ac milan.

"you didn't tell us she spoke italian lessi." her mum had also noticed the exchange with a surprised smile of delight at the new information. "i wasn't aware that she did." alessia laughed in somewhat disbelief you'd not shared this with her before.

"can i help with anything carol?" you suddenly appeared, her dad breaking away to try and wrangle her brothers who'd started to bicker over who was sitting where making the blonde roll her eyes.

"no nothing darling, lessi's on top of it." her mum smiled with a wink making you grin at the way your girlfriend rolled her eyes and the older woman stepped out for a moment as her phone rang.

"you." alessia pointed to you accusingly with narrowed eyes. "me?" you echoed back with an innocent smile. "why didn't you ever tell me you spoke italian?" your girlfriend huffed crossing her arms over her chest with an annoyed frown. "non hai mai chiesto amore." (you never asked love) you quipped with a smile, retreating to the table as mario called you back over, patting the seat beside him with a grin.

feeling her cheeks heat up alessia cleared her throat, feeling an all too familiar feeling coil in her stomach as the foreign language dropped oh so casually from your lips.

lust, want, desire, need.

alessia had never associated her families home tongue with any of those feelings, though hearing you speak it drove the striker absolutely mad.

to the point where she couldn't help but let her thoughts drift to how pretty you'd sound begging and whining in italian in an entirely different situation.

it also went without saying that you didn't need her to tell you for you to have caught on quickly how much this had affected her. the blonde throughout the entire night making sure to show you exactly how she was feeling without needing to utter a single word.

like the way her hand slowly crept up your thigh at dinner meaning you continued to move it away and send her a subtle glare until eventually you'd had enough and stamped on her foot as a much more firm warning.

or the way she'd snatched possessively at your arm once you'd all finally moved away from the dinner table, tugging you around the corner and out of sight from her family before attempting to quite literally shove her tongue down your throat.

"lessi!" you'd laughed in shock, ducking out of the way and pushing her off. "your family is right there." you smacked at her chest playfully as the blonde groaned and her head thumped against your shoulder.

"you speaking italian is killing me baby. killing me!" alessia emphasized, again leaning in and trying to pull you into a kiss as you turned your head and her lips met your cheek instead. "keep it in your pants russo." you shook your head with a teasing smile.

"e poi forse potrai entrare nel mio più tardi." (and then maybe you can get in mine later)

that left alessias jaw almost on the floor as you pecked her lips and strode back away into the kitchen to help her mum clean up, chattering away to her dad and brothers in italian, sending her a knowing smile every time you'd catch her eye.

alessia's mood only worsened when her mum offered for the two of you to stay and watch a movie, right as the striker was mentally preparing her goodbyes, internally groaning as you eagerly agreed.

"you don't want to head off amore? you've got work tomorrow." alessia had sweetly smiled through gritted teeth as you waved her off.

"not until midday tesoro it's fine." you'd assured her, kissing her cheek in thanks as her brothers pulled you both away for their goodbyes, headed back to their own homes as alessia so desperately wished the two of you were as well.

her neediness only escalated during the movie, the two of you pressed side by side under a blanket on the lounge you once more found yourself wrestling to wrangle her hands which slipped and snuck beneath the material of your clothes.

"stop it." you warned quietly in her ear, shooting her a glare which she only returned with a charming smile, stretching her arm over the back of your shoulders and tangling a hand in your hair instead.

"oh have you shown y/n your old room lessi? it's still the exact same way you left it." carol smiled affectionately as the movie finished, alessia perking up at the opportunity as she shook her head, grabbing your hand and practically yanking you up with her.

"i'll go give her a proper tour and we'll be back down in a bit to say bye before we head home." the striker smiled sweetly though you saw right through it as she pulled you upstairs, recognizing the real intention clouded beneath her ocean blue eyes.

and sure enough the very moment the two of you passed the threshold of her childhood bedroom, the door clicking shut behind you, hardly giving you a chance to look around before her body crashed into yours.

"alessia!" you laughed as your girlfriend tackled you down onto her bed with a cheeky grin, balling your top in her hands and feverishly connecting your lips.

you withheld the urge to moan as her tongue traced your bottom lip, taking it between her teeth and nipping teasingly as your head spun and your hands came to rest on her shoulders, pushing her away as your chest heaved.

"baby your parents are literally right downstairs and we only just met and-" you were cut off as once more her lips smashed into yours silencing you, her hand resting on your cheek deepened it further before she was now the one to pull away.

"say that again in italian and maybe i'll listen."

[reystenius-01]

Champagne Scenes

You had done it.

Arsenal had done it.

Your best friend, your confidante, your partner-in-crime, and arguably your everything had done it; scored the winning goal, no less. 

You and your team had won the Conti Cup, for the second time in a row.

It had been a really tough and physical match, and had only gotten even tougher mentally after seeing your Arsenal teammate go down suddenly as the extra-time of normal time trickled away. You and Stina had been right by Frida when she had gone down, and though team mentality had wavered throughout extra-time, Stina’s determination had only burned brighter, leading to her goal in the 116th minute.

The final whistle blew, and the stadium erupted into cheers and yells from your teammates. But for you, it was a moment of overwhelming emotion. As the tears welled up in your eyes, you fell to your knees, the weight of the match, Frida's collapse, and Stina's heroics crashing down on you all at once.

Stina immediately rushed to your side, concern etched on her face. “Hey, hey, what's wrong?” she asked, crouching down beside you and enveloping you in a comforting embrace.

You buried your face in Stina's shoulder, the weight of the match and Frida's condition crashing down on you. “I'm just... I'm so relieved we won, but seeing Frida like that…” Your voice cracked with emotion, and you struggled to articulate your feelings.

Stina held you tighter, rubbing soothing circles on your back. “I know, kärlek,” she murmured softly. “It was… terrifying, but she's going to be okay. We'll make sure of it.”

The rest of the team gathered around you, offering words of encouragement and support. “We did it, girls!” one of your teammates exclaimed. You could make out an Irish accent somewhere in there.

After a few moments, you managed to compose yourself enough to stand up with Stina's help. She kept a reassuring arm around your waist as you made your way over to Frida, who was surrounded by the medical team.

“Frida, are you okay?” you asked, your voice trembling with worry as you placed a tender hand on her shoulder.

Frida managed a weak smile. “I'll be okay,” she reassured you, though her voice was strained. “Just need some rest.” She put her gloved hand on top of yours. “Go celebrate, I’ll be fine. One of the med staff’s getting my phone, so hopefully I can get talking to Emma soon. Let her know I’m alright.”

You nodded, still teary-eyed, and leaned in for a loose hug, which Frida returned before talking to Stina as you waited by the medical room’s door. 

Stina squeezed your hand, a smile tugging at her lips. “Let's go celebrate with the team,” she suggested, guiding you back towards the pitch.

As you rejoined the rest of the team, the atmosphere was electric with joy and excitement. The trophy presentation was a blur of cheers, applause, and the glint of silver as the cup was hoisted into the air. You stood shoulder to shoulder with Stina, your heart swelling with pride as the trophy was handed to your captain.

Once the formalities were over, the team gathered in a circle, arms linked, as the fans in the stadium erupted into the tune of “The Angel - North London Forever.” The sound was deafening, but amidst the noise, you could hear the voices of your teammates singing along.

Stina caught your eye, a playful glint in hers. “Come on, let's join in,” she said, pulling you closer.

You laughed and joined in, singing at the top of your lungs alongside Stina and the rest of the team, joint at the shoulder, swaying to the music. The moment felt surreal, a culmination of all the hard work, dedication, and camaraderie that had brought you to this point.

As the pair of you had finished interacting with fans, now heading down the tunnel towards the locker room, Stina leaned in close to you, her voice barely above a whisper. “I'm so proud of you,” she said, her eyes shining with love and admiration.

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes once again, but this time they were tears of joy. You leaned in to press a soft kiss to Stina's lips, “Thank you.”

Stina smiled against your mouth, her arms wrapping around you in a tight embrace. “No, thank you,” she replied, her voice filled with love and pride. “For being you.”

“Thank you for being you, too!” You chuckled lightly. “You won us the game with that goal. Our Stina ballerina, the matchwinner.” Stina playfully rolled her eyes at the nickname bestowed upon her by the fans, her hand reaching for your medal, gently fidgeting with it. Your eyes met hers, and the pair of you (almost comically) glanced around the tunnel. 

“I’m sure we can find a storage closet–” “Or we can wait till we get home.” “Can you?” “Can you?”

--------- first little fic <3 [need a lay down after today, UTA!]

[donniesgirlie]

I’ve reacntly just read your “kisses and kips” and I freaking loved it! But I was wondering what if reader reacted differently after the line “Y/n, I'm perfectly capable of determining what I do or don't need. Just go to bed, I'll be there soon.”

As someone who doesn’t really handle “getting in the way” of someone else’s business very well, is terrified if they are bothering someone, specially a special someone (like an s/o) I’d froze up after that line, even if his tone isn’t directly at reader per say, I know I’d probably closed off to the point of leaving and sleeping back to my place out of fear I’ve made Donnie upset and getting in his way. Do you mind making a scenario out off this reaction? If not, you can ignore this request

Thank you!

First request, LET'S GOOOO!!

Me too - I hate the thought of even potentially being a bother😭

Hope you enjoy!

Original

Kisses and Kips - Alternate Version: Donatello x F! Reader

.

"Donnieeeeee~" You pull at the side of the doorframe, swinging yourself in and out of the lab as you draw out his name.

He had told you he'd join you in bed an hour ago under the guise of "5 more minutes." You get why he is working so hard; you do. With the recent uptick of Foot Clan activity, he needed to get the truck up and running again as soon as possible, but goddamn it- you just want to cuddle your boyfriend. You don't think it's too big of an ask, especially considering he's been working on that damn gadget for days now with little to no breaks.

With a sigh and light shake of his head, Donnie sets down his soldering iron. "Yes, love?"

You can hear the edge to his voice, strained from disuse and tilted with frustration. He slips his glasses off to pinch between his eyes, exhaustion clear on his face.

"Come to bed?"

He slips his glasses back on and swivels back to his work. "I can't. I need to finish this."

You let go of the frame and walk over to him. "You've been up over 48 hours, you're clearly exhausted, and you need rest - even if just for a little bit."

"Y/n, I'm perfectly capable of determining what I do or don't need. Just go to bed, I'll be there soon." You know he's not upset with you, but his sharp tone makes your heart drop; you can feel your stomach turning sour and your mouth going dry.

"Oh." You swallow, feeling your eyes start to prick with the threat of tears. Your voice comes out in a whisper as you turn to leave the lab, "okay..."

You know it's stupid, that he's been frustrated with the truck, and you shouldn't take it personally, but logic doesn't quell the small voice in the back of your mind whispering that he's upset with you and that you're smothering him. You calmly walk back to his room, ready to hide your tears in your pillow.

-

It's hours later when Donatello decides to come to bed. The first rays of sun are surely starting to peak over New York's surface, but all he can think about is you.

He knows he was harsh; he knows that you didn't deserve the cutting tone when you were simply expressing your concern for his well-being. He has just been so frustrated with the truck - the nunchucks are sticking and he can't figure out why despite taking them apart three times now, and the grill won't properly shut after shooting manhole covers. Not to mention the various other upgrades that he's itching to start but can't until the main problems are fixed.

He refuses to use that as an excuse, though. You're not his verbal punching bag that he can toss attitude at whenever he's inconvenienced.

So, as much as he hates to wake you, he refuses to go to bed without apologizing.

His heart breaks when his sits on the edge of the bed and looks at your sleeping face. Dried tear tracks streak your face as you grip his pillow.

Reaching a hand out, Donnie gently shakes your shoulder. "Y/n... Honey, please wake up?"

After a few coaxes and prods, you finally stir - slightly curling into yourself before stretching back out. "Dee?" You mutter, eyes slowly blinking open. "What time is it?"

"It's still early," he replies easily, moving his hand to lightly trace his thumb along your cheekbone. "I just didn't want to sleep without telling you that I'm sorry. I was upset because one of the circuit boards was giving me trouble, but I shouldn't have snapped at you; I'm sorry, love..."

"It's okay," you say, scooting closer to drape your arm over his lap, lightly nuzzling your face into his side.

"It's not," Donatello pulls from your hold just long enough to properly lay next to you before pulling you back against his plastron. "You didn't deserve to be yelled at just because I was annoyed."

His hand splays out on your back, rubbing up and down it as he buries his face in your hair.

He feels the soft press of your lips to his collar before your muffled voice mumbles, "Well, I forgive you," against his skin.

[pacifymebby]

Hi! I was wondering if you can do a HC of the peaky blinders men having a lover who sings, like they sing so beautifully, and they like sing privately to the boys like love songs to them or a song they made up while slow dancing with them in a room (omfg that would be cute!) Thanks!! Hope your day goes well!! 💜

Aw this is so sweet <3

Warnings: nsfw in some places

Tommy

🌿He heard you singing before he heard you speaking. He was stood behind you in the queue at the bakery and you were singing to yourself under your breath.

🌿Even though you were only singing quietly he could already tell you were a good singer, that he'd like to hear you singing properly.

🌿 So he leant down and spoke quietly to you, "sing a little louder love, shame to waste such a pretty song by keeping it to yourself..."

🌿 Naturally you hushed up pretty sharpish, turning with a little gasp, a blush flourishing on your cheeks. You even apologised upon seeing who it was you'd disturbed with your little song...

🌿But he just chuckles and asks you again, "No I mean it, I you have a lovely voice, I'd like to hear a little more..."

🌿Then you're really blushing because this is Tommy Shelby you're talking to and he's asking you to sing for him in the middle of the bakery, and no one refuses him when he asks for something...

🌿 So you do, because you have to. You're trembling with nerves when you begin to sing a little louder, and you feel the eyes of other people in the shop watching you. You know that impromptu singing isn't exactly normal for a Thursday morning...

🌿 But its Tommys eyes on you that are doing the most damage. He's watching you so intensely.

🌿And when you finish your song, trailing off because your nerves have caught up to you and you feel ridiculous - which you tell him - he just takes your hands, tells you you're shaking, and then tells you again that your voice is beautiful.

🌿He pays for your shopping as a thank you and you expect never to see him again however that isnt the case and you seem to see him more often than ever. Its like he's searching you out...

🌿And he is... After hearing you sing for the first time he's obsessed with you, he thinks you've the most pure and angelic voice... It soothed him, calmed him when he needed to be brought back down to earth and he's determined to get close to you, have you all to himself.

🌿And naturally Tommy gets what he wants, he always does. He goes to the bakery at least once a day, always vague about why he's there, never lying about it because he isn't embarrassed or ashamed of that kind of thing. His determination has always been a strong point.

🌿 "In here a lot lately Tommy, and you don't have a sweet tooth in you..." "No, no you're right Sammy I don't... I'm just looking for someone, figure they do have a sweet tooth," shoots the baker boy a knowing half smile, like they're sharing an in joke, because he knows that being friendly with this lad will get him the information he wants.

🌿"Comes in first thing Saturday mornin and first thing Mondays too, sometimes shes in on a Wednesday for bread flour..."

🌿 So the next Saturday morning he's there bright and early and he finds himself in the queue behind you again, but today you know hes there and youre shy and embarassed remembering what happened last time... So you're not singing.

🌿And Tommys very dissapointed. "Quiet this morning little bird," he muses quietly, leaning down behind you, talking right beside your ear, making you jump and blush when you turn around startled by him. He enjoys seeing you startled and made shy by him, if he's being honest he really likes the sight of that, but he apoligises to you anyway, ever the gentlemen and he just like that he tells you he needs someone for a job, he needs a singer... See his little boy has these terrible nightmares since his mother died and well, he needs someone to come and sing to him at night, help him sleep.

🌿"The money'd be good I promise, don't sound like a real job I know but it'd pay like a real job... Better than a real job..."

🌿And how can you refuse when a man tells you his motherless little one isn't sleeping. So you don't even think about the money, completely taken in by Tommys little white lime. Because its Tommy who needs singing to, Tommy who's getting those horrid nightmares...

🌿You start visiting every couple of days, in the evenings for an hour or two, singing littlw Charlie to sleep whilst his father sits over his crib, stroking his hair. You realise that this must be a side to him Tommy doesnt let anyone else see. You start to see him as someone with vulnerabilities, with a tender side, capable of love. Something you've always been told Thomas Shelby is incapable of.

🌿And as time passes you start to realise that it isn't Charlie who struggles to sleep, that its Tommy. And so as time passes you start staying later, pretending you cant tell Charlie's settled, singing until Tommy has fallen asleep too. Sometimes you're there all night singing and then falling asleep ib your chair at the end of Charlies bed, because its too late to walk home alone.

🌿Things between you and Tommy took a long time to blossom but by the time they did you already felt like you knew him so well.

🌿Tommy is the one who brings your confidence out, always telling you how beautiful your voice is, how lovely it is to hear you sing. How you should be singing for people all the time. Before Tommy you didn't really sing for other people but now he's built you up to a place where you're not affraid to sing for others. In fact you often enjoy it.

🌿The night he kissed you for the first time it was late, Charlie had drifted to sleep and you were doing your usual, pretending not to have noticed, keeping up your singing until Tommy drifted off too.

🌿But Tommy had been watching you, tormented by these increasingly affectionate thoughts he'd been having whenever you were around. And he decided to do something that night.

🌿"y/n love, c'mere," he said, he looked sleepy and you were tired too, "Cmon come here, Charlies asleep and you look so lovely tonight, let me dance with you?"

🌿You were shocked but you were secretly thrilled because over the weeks you'd been visiting little Charlie you'd found yourself growing increasingly soft on Tommy. Perhaps it was that tender side you'd been seeing, that no one else saw, but he made you feel all kinds of happy whenever he was around. Everything felt sweeter, warmer, better.

🌿And although you were still shy when his serious eyes fixed on you and you felt him studying you, you had to admit that it thrilled you to be the center of his attention. And lately youd been wondering how it would feel to be held by him. To have him stroke your hair from your face. To have him look at you with that intensity, but from close up instead of from the otherside of the room.

🌿So you did as he asked and you crossed the bedroom floor to him. You gave him your hands and he held your fingers delicately. And when he stood up his hands moved to your waist, smoothing down the fabric of your dress gently, holding your hips.

🌿You didn't know what to do with your hands so he placed them for you, one on his shoulder, one palm flat against his chest.

🌿"Now," he said, "we need music..." he gave you a teasing, knowing smirk, "sing me something sweet angel, somet as sweet as you eh?"

🌿The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife but it was good tension. The atmosphere close and warm, the two of you gentle and sleepy and soft with one another. You felt so shy you has to close your eyes when you began to sing your favourite slow song, one which was really an old scottish lullaby but which could be danced to slowly too.

🌿"Good girl," Tommy lets out a little sigh, kissing your forehead, beginning to dance you slowly, rocking you. When his lips brush your cheek you open your eyes, look up at him like a doe in the headlights. You've thought about what it would be like to be kissed by him too but this is nothing like anything you could have ever imagined.

🌿Him telling you your songs beautiful as he leans in to kiss you on the lips, your mouths meeting and the two of you suddenly realising that this was something you should have done much much sooner.

🌿And when the kiss deepened and the two of you felt the moment heating up, the swell of need for him, and his for you, almost catching you both by surprise, he lifted you up off your feet and carried you to his bedroom.

🌿Now naturally, you'd stopped singing, your mouth a little occupied... However as he dips to kiss your neck, your collar bones and your chest, as he begins to undress you carefully, delicately, he asks you not to stop singing.

🌿"Keep singing angel," he murmurs to you between kisses, and he keeps repeating himself, even when youre undressing him, even when hes lifted you up off your feet and your legs are wrapped around him. Even as he slips into your for the first time, taking it slow and gentle, yoir voice shaking, your melody interrupted by your breath catching in your throat as he pushed into you slowly...

🌿He'll sing to you too sometimes and he has a far lovelier voice than you imagined he would. His voice is low and just a little rusty/misty sounding. It has that sweet woody tone to it. He'll sing to you when you're sad or scared.

Alfie

🐻 Alfie didn't know you could sing for a long time. It was something which, he'd always imagined you probably could do, because your low voice was always so sweet and resonant even when you spoke, but when he overhears you singing he has to say, he's surprised.

🐻And it niggles at him too, he's almost a little annoyed you've never sang to him, you don't even sing around him, not even in the evenings when he's got the wireless on.

🐻 He probably gets a bit grumpy about it as if he thinks youve been keeping your beautiful singing a secret from him on purpose.

🐻 But in reality you're just shy, and you don't think you do have a beautiful singing voice. You definitely don't think its beautiful enough to warrant singing for other people as if you believe yourself to be something special...

🐻 But Alfie stands just the otherside of the kitchen doorway listening to you sing as you kneed your bread dough. Thinks your voice is the most enchanting sound he's ever heard and he loves it.

🐻 Pretends not to like it, just to tease you, he comes into the kitchen behind you, grumbling and chuntering away. "Now whats all this racket then, whats all this... This noise bloody awful noise right keepin me awake..." but he can't keep his trick up for very long at all, not when you look mortified, wide eyes and imediately apologising over and over.

🐻He has to laugh, he can't believe you believe him for a start. But he feels guilty for teasing you and immediately opens his arms up to you, hugs you and kisses your cheek.

🐻"I'm only teasing zieskiet, obviously I'm only teasing you... As a matter of fact yeah, your little song you were singing just now, well, as a matter of fact my dear that was the most beautiful little song my fussy old ears, have ever been fuckin blessed to hear..."

🐻 Alfie thinks your voice is so inspiring, and he's a lover of music himself, a lover of the arts, he always tells you you should be singing on stages, in operas, for an audience with the knowledge, the cultured palette to appreciate you.

🐻You're his muse when he starts writing his opera, in fact your voice alone is half the reason he has for trying to write it in the first place. He wants to write an opera fittinf of youe glorious voice. But whenever he asks you to sing for him, whenever he asks you to inspire him, you just get shy and you try to hide away.

🐻And you always tease him to, reminding him, "I thought my singing was just a bloody great racket..." you'll refuse to sing for him just to watch him get grumpy and grumbly and then you'll giggle and sing for him running your fingers through his hair or his beards.

🐻 And you'll sing little love songs, tell him you wrote them for him and he'll get a little embarassed. "Don't know what you're wasting your time writing songs about me for zieskiet... Just an old man..." "My old man..."

🐻 He writes arias for you to sing and tries to get you to sing for other people but you won't do it. Your voice is something you trust only Alfie with, and he grows comfortable with that, begins to feel like he wouldn't want it any other way. Your voice is this precious secret that you share, something so precious you'll only give it to him.

🐻 Calls for you to come sit in his lap when its late and hes just come home from the office or that late night business that always sees him come home with blood on his hands. He sits himself down at the kitchen table or in his big armchair by the fire and he calls for you to come to him.

🐻 "Zieskiet my precious angel come sit down with your old man, it's been a fuckin godless day and he's tired..." and you go to him, let him pull you down into his lap, let him bundle you up in his arms, kiss you and growl into your neck. Running his hands over your waist, squeezing you possesively.

🐻 Holds your face in his hands and looks up at you, into your eyes with his own, which are so cold and steely for everyone but you. For you theyre molten, soft and dark and full of adoration.

🐻 "Sing me a song zieskiet, one with a sad little story right? One where the hero dies somet tragic yeah... Will you do that for your old man yeah, sing him a nice fuckin tragedy?"

🐻 Because he's a strange eccentric he will absolutely send Ollie or someone running half way across the city to find you having been told its an emergency, a serious fuckin emergency.

🐻 And when you get to the office Alfies just frowning, "Ah zieskiet, poppet thank the heavens you are here... Finally..." "What is it Alf, whats the matter?" "Ive tuned in and out of this bloody wireless yeah, and I've searched this whole bloody box of records yeah, ain't any fuckin music anywhere to be found..."

🐻 He really scared you half to death, had you running across the city with Ollie, just so you could sing him his favourite song.

Arthur

🍂 You've never really thought of yourself as particularly musically gifted and you don't really think your voice is anything special, however you love to sing and sing all the time. You adore music, you use it for emotional regulation, you hate to sit in silence. You hum when youre nervous, when you're happy, when you're sad you listen to sad songs and you sing along and pretend that your pain is just as bad as the pain of the man singing about his dead love.

🍂 And its something Arthurs always loved about you. How you're always singing, how you brighten a room with your good mood and your happy humming. How when things get tense and the kids need soothing and distracting, you're there to sooth them with a little song.

🍂 You teach Johns kids and Charlie and Ruby little songs, nursery rhymes, or songs to learn the alphabet and how to count. Songs to learn the days and the months. Arthur loves how you have a song for everything.

🍂 Its just something that makes you so different from everyone else in his life. You're so sweet and goodhearted and you're never too serious and your singing puts him at ease. He loves to listen to you and it always leaves him feeling warm and good inside when you sing.

🍂 When hes stressed out he'll ask you to sing for him and thats the only time you ever feel self concious, when he asks you to sing just for him and you can tell that hes depending on you for something. Then you question whether you're really good enough at singing... Because you know he'll actually be listening and expecting to hear something beautiful.

🍂 He likes to share a bath with you, share some wine, share some snow and then have you sing whilst you massage his shoulders. Loves when you wash his hair and sing for him, when you sing soft and low and sweetly in his ear, just for him. It makes him feel so safe and pure.

🍂 You sing to him to calm him when he's struggling to come down from one of those raging adrenaline rushes triggered by his PTSD. When hes having flashbacks you sing to him and hold his hand, kiss his temple. It helps to keep him grounded, helps him to stay on this plain in this reality instead of getting lost in a bad memory.

🍂You sing to him when youre cleaning his wounds, when youre washing other men's blood from his hands, scrubbing his nails and singing soothing little songs to calm him, to let him know you still love him, still think he deserves to be sung to. To be treated like a human.

🍂 He has favourite songs he'll ask for. And sometimes if youre singing and he doesn't feel like the kids are grateful enough that you sing to them he'll tell them to hush up and listen to you, "Dont know how lucky you are gettin to hear your aunty y/n sing for you like that, other kids would kill to have someone so beautiful singin to them!"

🍂Actually can get grumpy if he doesn't think other people appreciate your singing enough.

John

🌼 Is such a git and teases you relentless about your singing because you sing to yourself all the time.

🌼 "eh up that crazy lass from Watery Lanes singin to herself again, what a looney..." he's only joking but he doesn't know when a jokes stopped being funny, or that hes taking the joke too far.

🌼 Doesn't realise you think he's being serious or at least means it a little bit when he says its embarassing the way you wander round singing to yourself all the time, "whole of Birminghams gonna think you're losing the plot flower, gonna think you've gone nuts..."

🌼 So after awhile his jokes get to you and you take his thoughtless teasing to heart. You stop singing, or you try anyway. Its an old habbit and it dies hard and slow, so slow that John doesn't notice how you're singing less and less, or how sometimes you'll be singing to yourself but you'll stop just as he walks into a room.

🌼 Basically he's oblivious to the damage hes done until its too late and you really have stopped singing completely. Now you don't even really sing to yourself and its his fault...

🌼 Then one day he realises how quiet it is, how quiet you are and he gets upset, suddenly really worried for you.

🌼 "Y/N lass whats going on eh? You're upset or somets happened? Am not stupid I can tell..." but he is stupid, hes a stupid fuckin dinlow because even now he doesnt realise whats really the matter. When you tell him nothing is wrong, that everythings fine he argues back and says

🌼 "No, nah somethings not right flower, you don't sing anymore or anything, you're so quiet..."

🌼 You look at him, a little bit confused, a little bit wounded. "Thought you didn't like my singin...why do you care if I don't sing anymore?" you sound more sullen than you think you do and suddenly John knows exactly why you've stopped singing and he feels like such a fucking idiot.

🌼 "Oh bloody hell," he sighs, getting annoyed with himself for being an idiot. "Fuck sake, I'm sorry love..."

🌼 Tells you that he loves your singing and always has, that its one of his favourite things about you and thats the whole reason he used to tease you for it. Because he loves it so much he just thought that it was obvious he was only teasing.

🌼 So then he has to chip away at you the other direction, teasing you until you're singing for him again. Because obviously John isnt going to learn the error of his daft, boyish ways.

🌼 And finally you relent and give in and sing a little love song for him which has you both blushing.

🌼 His favourite thing which he used to love watching was how you'd gather all the wains up in your bed with you at night and if a story wasn't working to send them all off to sleep, you'd sing lullabyes for them.

🌼 He liked climbing into bed with you and the children and getting cosy, one big happy family, all huggled up together whilst you sang for them.

🌼 When one of the wains starts singing and copying you, singing with you sometimes John is overwhelmed with pride and he loves it. Loves you for teaching his littlens something he could never have taught them himself.

🌼Will get jealous if its been a long day and all he wants is to spend a little alone time with his girl, but he can't get anywhere near you because the kids want you to sing for them. He'll end up packing them all off to bed with the promise of one last song and then when finally its just you and him he'll tease you, singing your song back to you, making fun until youre giggling and blushing and actually getting quite wound up by him.

🌼 Then hes all kisses and grabbing you, pulling you close, singing and kissing you all over until youre laughing too much to fight him anymore.

Bonnie

🍀Has always loved to listen to music, ever since he was a little boy. And because you grew up together travelling around, hes always known you could sing. Always loved listening to you sing.

🍀Once when you were a little girl one of the older lads teased you about your singing voice telling you to shut up, telling you it wasnt cool to sing, it was cool to know how to hunt and do manly things. And little Bonnie threw a rock at him, "You shut up dinlow!"

🍀He didn't win that fight and in fact he got into a fair bit of bother for throwing that rock at one of the Boswell boys. A lot of trouble actually, more than it was worth as far as youre concerned.

🍀You didn't stop singing, you were a smart girl and you knew that most of the time the boys that said mean things to you were only doing it because they were daft and didn't know how to speak to girls. Had to be mean because they were scared of pretty lassies.

🍀Thats what Bonnie always told you anyway.

🍀Now you're much older and Bonnie is your boy, your champion, and you still sing all the time. You sing to the wains when you're helping to look after them. You sing when you're doing your chores, doing the washing in the stream, preparing the meat when the lads come back from hunting.

🍀You often sing around the fire in the evening when the men get their instruments out and some of the others dance with their wives and children. You'll sing at funerals too, when everyone needs a sad song to fill the silence whilst you watch the flames burning and the remember those who have passed.

🍀Sometimes Bonnie watches you with the youngens, when youre singing your lullabies to the babies, rocking them to sleep... He can't help but imagine you singing to his babies one day. Sometimes watching you singing with the children gets him in the mind that he wants to give you children sooner rather than later.

🍀Has definitely told you this too, he isn't shy about it. Will kiss your cheek and your neck, nibble your ear and then say something about how he's gonna have you singing lullabies to babies of your own in no time at all.

🍀He's a superstitious lad, has his pre fight routines... And the most important is that you come to his changing room, that just you and him get at least a minute or two alone for you to sing his lucky song to him whilst you wrap his hands up. He'll close his eyes and focus on your voice, how pure and pretty it is, he'll slow his breathing, get himself in the zone and then he'll kiss your cheek, give you one of his cheeky over confident winks, and off he goes to fight like a champion yet again.

🍀Teases you, says one day you'll be singing folk songs about bonnie Bonnie Gold champion of the world.

🍀 Fond of a post fuck lullaby, loves to hold you in his arms and listen to one of your sweet little songs. Loves to feel the vibration of your voice in his chest when you're resting on top of him.

🍀 He thinks of your singing when hes scared. He doesnt really get scared so easily, he enjoys most of the work he does for the blinders, doesn't really mind the killing, he's always been very laidback about those sorts of things, always been very calm. But sometimes when he's in a dangerous situation and he's realising quite how dangerous what he's doing is, when he realises he might not get out of a place alive, he remembers one of your songs, pictures you singing in a field or by the fire or with the wains, or how sometimes you sing just for him in the middle of the night, and the thought calms him.

🍀When he's injured after a fight, or after a blinder job that went wrong, and he can see that you're scared by the sorry state of him, he'll force you an easy smile and ask you to sing for him. Partly because he knows it'll give you something to focus on instead of powerlessly worrying, and partly because he'll take any excuse to hear that gorgeous voice of yours. "Pretty as bird song in the morning dove, thats how your singin sounds...."

🍀 Bonnie can definitely sing and he definitely sings for you, little lullabys and sad ancient folk songs with mysterious stories threaded into them. He'll lie with you under a tree at the edge of misty moorlands and sing to you a little irish lament about a girl who went wandering into the mist to find her lover never to return again. He'll tell you she haunts the moores and then he'll tease you when he scares you with his little ghost songs.

Isaiah

🐀You're the life of a party when you sing down the Garrison and Isaiah is always glad to be able to see you dancing and singing spreading joy, stirring high spirits.

🐀He's also pretty pleased because it was him who told the Shelbys to hire you as a barmaid, told them you were a wonderful singer and that you'd have the place buzzing and busy all night.

🐀And its true, you have the power to pick exactly the right song and get every man up to the bar or dancing with his lass or remembering times gone by. You're a real crowd pleaser thats for sure and Isaiah is very proud to have found you. Always tells Tommy "you owe me for that Tommy, my girls the main reason this place stays open..."

🐀But Isaiah has a jealous streak and he doesn't like watching the way the other men at the Garrison admire you. Hates to see other men falling in love with his lass, falling for your voice and the pretty songs you sing, the bright light which seems to radiate from you when you smile through the notes of a happy song.

🐀So he spends half the night planning how he'll get you alone, soothing his jealousy with thoughts of what he'll do when he finally gets you alone and he can tease you and touch you, kiss you all he likes without feeling jealous eyes on him.

🐀Taking you into the private booth and locking the little door so that its just you and him and you can't be disturbed. You getting flustered because he's just stolen you from the floor and you're supposed to be working.

🐀"Saiah whatre you doing, theres pints to pull! You'll get me in trouble..." "Nah love, ain't gettin in any trouble if you're with me, am a blinder aren't I..." winking at you being cheeky, teasing you and pulling you into his lap, holding you there one hand on your hip, one holding your chin and stearing you to loom at him.

🐀"Sing me a song love, one thats just for me..." he says giving you a needy little stare, his eyes fixed on yours, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. He enjoys seeing you blush, seeing you get a little shy. That shy smile so beautiful. "Sing us a song thats just for me and promise you'll never sing it for anyone else yeah.."

🐀So you do, and you promise you'll never sing it for anyone else, so it becomes your song. When you get married its the song you share your first dance to.

🐀At home, and only when no one else is with you he'll join in your songs and dance you around the kitchen or the bedroom, only interrupting your melody when he can't keep his lips from your lips any longer.

🐀You can tell his jealousy and how possesive he is over you and you love it, and you want him to know that you love it and you love him, so you write him little love songs and laments and you sing them for him in that private booth at the Garrison or in bed when the house is quiet and the streets outside are hushed by the late late night sky.

🐀He LOVES your little love songs and he can't even begin to express the effect they have on him. Hearing the words you wrote for him, hearing a whole song inspired by him... Its incredible and it stokes his ego but it also makes him feel so loved...

🐀Theres also probably something precious to Isaiah about the fact that you admire him and think hes good enough to be the subject of a song because obviously racism is aggressively prevalent in 1920s birmingham and he spends a lot of time very aware that if it wasnt for his peaky cap and even despite his peaky cap, there are many who would think him unworthy even of acknowledgement. So the fact that the love of his life is writing pretty little songs about how much they adore him, how handsome he is, how he makes their whole world turn... Well, he feels very proud and very honored and touched and he never quite knows how to express it.

🐀Tries to write you one too but it ends up being a silly little ditty that ends with something dirty that makes you blush and laugh and climb straight into bed with him.

Michael

☘️ There are many parts of himself Michael keeps secret. All the things he thinks people might think him a "soft lad" for.

☘️ One of these is that he can sing beautifully. His adopted mother used to play piano and have him and his brother sing hymns from church.

☘️His mother knows he can sing too, she makes him sing for her when she's worried, when the voices of the dead are too loud or painful to listen to. When shes unwell and suffering. Michael will sing for her but he'll be sullen and embarassed and he'll berrate her for even asking it of him.

☘️ The other hidden secret is that he loves to be sung to sleep. He loves to lie with you, him between your legs, your thighs wrapped around his waist, his head resting on your belly as you comb your fingers through his hair and sing him a soft soothing melody.

☘️Probably because he has mummy issues. He loves to be spoiled and taken care of like that, to be treated gently.

☘️After the Changretta hit on him, when he's in the hospital, you visit him every day, you're so worried about him but he's got glad to have his "little songbird" with him to sing for him and keep him from killing himself from the boredom of being cooped up like that.

☘️He asks you to sing songs for him whilst you change his bandages and wash his wounds. He likes the distraction from the pain and he tells you you have a healing voice. Tells you its a gift, that you were a gift sent to him from some higher power.

☘️If you want to sing professionally, which michael will definitely encourage, he will pull the strings to get you singing in tge fanciest hotels, to have you climb the ladder to stardom. Partially because he wants to see you happy and will do anything to keep you happy, but also partially because it feeds his ego and makes him feel powerful to have a famous girlfriend, one who is admired by so many for her beautiful voice. You're a real star, shining bright, and you're all his. No one elses.

☘️He keeps his own talent hidden from you for a long long time because he's worried you'll think him less of a man, worried you'll think he's soft. But one day, the day your father dies, you're so distraught, exhausted from all your grief, and michael wants to help you so he holds you in his arms and strokes your hair, rocks you gently and sings you to sleep.

☘️He doesnt think youll remember, thinks you'll have forgotten it because you were in such a state, but you remember how beautifully he sang and when you ask him about it he gets so self concious and blushes and tries to deny it.

☘️ "Must have been imagining it sweetheart I can't sing..."

☘️You beg him to sing to him again, and again and again...

☘️And finally he gives in, says that if you'll sing him a song he will join in. And you sound really lovely together and you can't keep the smiles off your faces.

☘️When you have children michael sings them these lowly lullabies and you love to fall asleep holding the baby in your arms, the both of you lulled to sleep by daddy.

[nicxl333]

LAUNDRY ANTICS- GOJO SATORU X FEM!READER

warnings: 18+, smut, semi-public sex, oral sex (both parties receiving), praise, washing machine as vibrator (technically)

summary: what happens when an extremely handsome individual catches your attention one late night at the laundromat?

word count: 2.3k

"y/n i'm popping out for a bit!"

said the woman who owned the launderette. you were about to wash your dirty clothes you had used. the only thing you had on were shorts and a tank top. since you were related to the owner, she trusted you to be left with her store alone. it's not like you showed any evil intent anyways.

the only sound that could be heard was the faint music playing from the speakers in the corner. you hummed along to the tune while sorting out different colour categories.

ding

the single bell on the door of the laundromat resounded through the store, alerting the arrival of a potential customer.

looking up from your current task your vision was welcomed by a man with a head of white hair, pure as snow. this was accompanied by an all black high necked jacket with matching pants and chelsea styled boots. to top it all off, he had a blindfold on, which confused you a bit to say the least.

he was holding a black duffel bag, presumably full of dirty clothes. your assumptions were confirmed when he started walking over towards one of the machines to start a cycle.

you carried on with what you were doing when you stopped, feeling a pair of eyes in your direction. looking up, your eyes met, or what you assumed, his eyes looking straight towards you.

"umm, can i help you?"

"i don't seem to know exactly how this washing thing works so can you assist me please?" the man replied with a ghost of a smirk on his face.

you stopped what you were doing and walked over to him, who stepped to the side to allow you to do your thing.

"alright, you're gonna need to use three machines if you want to get out of here quickly so i hope you have your coins." you pointed towards three machines in front of you two. "colours go in one machine, darks in another and whites in another too. i'm trusting you know how to separate your clothing into those categories?"

the man in front of you stood there with a blank face.

you sighed to yourself. if he didn't even know how the damn machine worked then he sure as hell wouldn't know how to do anything else.

"oh god...ok let me show you. your whites are literally any piece of clothing that is white. your colours are any piece of clothing which isn't red, black, grey or dark blue and your colours are anything else. seeing as you're a newbie i'll show you."

you grabbed the bag which held the clothing so that you could sort through the items when you paused and turned to the man before you.

"may i?"

"sure, you're helping me after all beautiful." you froze at your pet name given to you by him. after a few seconds you shook it off and started wafting through the clothing, unbeknownst to the man staring you down and licking his lips in delight. from where he was standing, he could get a clear view of your ass and that seemed to be where his eyes stayed stuck the most.

"you're not as slick as you think you know? don't think i haven't noticed you staring me down." continuing with your task at hand while calling over your shoulder.

he stopped, surprised that he was actually caught red handed. he didn't let it deter him though;

he loved playing hard to get.

"well how could i help it? you've got a good body on you. you got a boyfriend?"

there it was, his first move to determine wether or not to carry on the chase.

"and if i did? how would it affect you in any way?"

"oho, it would trust me on that one."

by this point you had finished your task and the machines were starting their cycle. you turned to face the man in front of you who had taken his blindfold off. you studied his eyes, they were a beautiful blue and seemed to have so much detail in it which helped to boost his overall appearance. he was a highly attractive man, no doubt about it, and it seemed you had caught his attention.

"no i don't."

he started closing in on you until your lower body was pressed against one of the machines, the sound of water sloshing faintly heard in the background. he came down to your ear, whispering the words;

"feel like having some fun then?"

you were down nonetheless, but you suddenly grew self conscious of the full view anyone had into the laundrette.

"sure." you said, while simultaneously walking towards the window shutters, rolling them all the way down. looking at the time, the shop was due to close soon anyways so it didn't make a difference. you locked the front door and walked back over to him with a smirk on your face. jumping onto the machine you spread your legs, showing him that you were his to toy around with.

"do your thing."

the man liked your confidence. something that was a huge turn on for him. he leaned forward and reached for your shorts, which slipped off with ease. he smirked when he came into contact with your wet cunt. he slipped the fabric to the side and began eating you out.

"ohhh...fuck!" you were in ecstasy from the sheet movements of this man's tongue against your clit. he knew exactly what to do with it, meaning that he had experience, you could tell that much.

a string of curses were pulled from your mouth, egging the man on further. he stopped licking on your bud, going down to lick your hole, then inserting two fingers in straightaway.

"s-shit-"

"call me satoru darling."

you suddenly grew quiet, feeling shy to say his name. this only caused him to curl his fingers upwards in retaliation, while continuing his thrusting

"say my name or i'll make you scream it."

"...s-satoru..fuck!"

"i can't hear you darling~" he starts increasing the pace of his fingers, causing you to grip onto him for dear life. he was bringing you closer and closer to the edge and soon enough you'd reach your high.

"ahh! satoru please make me cum!!"

"your wish is my command..."

gojo then dropped down to his knees, carrying on with his thrusting while simultaneously beginning to lick your clit. the pleasure you were feeling was too overwhelming and within 30 seconds your arousal was slipping into his open mouth. he of course, licked every drop, overstimning you at the same time.

"damn princess, you taste good. i think it's my turn for some action though."

you barely heard what he said, as you were still trying to come down from your high.

"aww, did i make you cum too hard? that was just the beginning baby. better prepare for what's coming."

you eventually gained control of yourself and slid off the washing machine, getting on your knees infront of gojo.

"suck it good sweetie." he said while pulling out his dick. once you came face to face with it you saw just how big it was, veiny and pink at the tip, curved slightly to the right. you were contemplating on how it was going to fit in your mouth. you just had to make do and hope for the best.

you gave his tip a kiss and a few kitten licks before collecting the saliva in your mouth beginning your descent down his dick. it was hard to accommodate but you were determined to make it all fit. by gojo's grunts though, you could tell you were doing something right.

"mmh...fuck princess, you're doing so well for me."

his hand found purchase on top of your head, guiding you down further and further until you gagged and came up for air.

"do that again for me, it was hot."

you started bopping your head back and forth, using your hand to take up whatever space was left. your other hand stayed fondling his balls, earning frequent grunts. you knew gojo was nearing his end when his groans started becoming more intense and slightly whiny. it was like music to your ears and you could feel yourself pooling once again at your core with arousal. you reached one hand down and started pleasing yourself.

once gojo felt one hand leave his dick he looked down and saw your hand rubbing your clit he instantly let out a loud, guttural grunt and climaxed, pushing your head all the way down, until he hit the back of your throat. you gagged once again, when you felt the familiar hot liquid go down your throat. you couldn't really taste it since his cum didn't get the chance to land on your taste buds.

you took a second to gain your breath, which didn't last long since you were lifted off your feet back onto the washing machine with your legs spread.

"who the fuck said you could please yourself while sucking me off?"

"looked like you enjoyed it from the way you cummed in my mouth after seeing that."

"oh you're asking for the incapability to walk after this darling."

"so do it. seems like you're all talk and no show to m- oh fuck!!"

gojo had enough of your comments and slid into you mid sentence. you didn't actually think about how big he'd be inside you and you could feel a tinge of pain among the immense amount of pleasure you were feeling. you liked the burn though.

"what was that again?" he said while starting to thrust into you at deeply.

"seems now like you've finally submitted. if i had known shoving my dick inside you would shut you up, believe me i would've done that a lot sooner."

you couldn't do anything but cry out in pleasure. he was hitting all the right spots and you were loving every bit of it. as if that wasn't enough though, he placed your legs around his waist and placed his two fingers in your mouth. 

"suck on them." you complied with his request, swirling your tongue all around his thumb.

in this position, he was hitting deeper than ever and you knew you wouldn't last much longer.

"fuckfuckfuck!!! satoru please!" you didn't even know what you were begging for at this point. you could feel the washing machine under you start to vibrate as it was fully underway in its cycle. it was then that gojo stopped his thrusts and pulled out of you. he flipped you around and placed your one foot on the ground with your knee resting on the machine.

you could feel the machine vibrating directly on your clit now mixed with the cold metal, adding to the pleasure. you felt gojo enter you once more, this time thrusting hard and fast at the same time. it was overwhelming, and you started babbling incoherent words. he then wrapped his hand around your neck, keeping the other hand on your waist, to enable those deep thrusts.

"cmon baby i know you've got one more in there for me, how about you be a good girl and give me one more yeah?"

the machine, his thrusts and his words were too much for you to handle and you were brought over the edge, squirting all over his dick with a series of moans that echoed all around the shop. gojo wasn't expecting that and from the way you were squeezing down on him brought him over the edge too, thrusting into you with a last moan to accommodate. it was silent for a few moments, while the pair of you caught your breath. the only thing that could be heard were the whirring machines.

"didn't know you had that in you princess."

"to be honest, me either."

"what, you mean you've never squirted before?"

you shook your head from side to side while gojo stood there in shock. his face transitioned into a smirk.

"i'm definitely gonna be the last then."

"wait what do you mean by that? oh...." he wanted to see you again, which you were down for. he made you see stars, something which many of your previous hook ups couldn't even dream of doing.

a sudden beep resounded throughout the shop. it was the washing machine, alarming its customer that the clothes were finished and ready for drying. you both started putting your clothes back on. gojo started loading the wet clothes back into his duffel bag and zipped it up, slinging the bag over his shoulder. you assumed he had a dryer at his house since the clothes weren't dry.

"so i've got to go now, i have work to complete. could i get your number and we'll see about meeting up again?"

you rolled your eyes, holding out your hand to input your number. he did so and you slotted it in, handing the phone back to him.

"y/n? what a pretty name," he said while walking to the door. "till next time!"

and he was gone.

you sighed to yourself and walked over to the machine so you could place your wet clothes in the dryer. the owner then walked in through the back door.

"oh y/n, you're still here? sorry i took so long i got caught up in a chat with some fine men!" she started walking around, switching off all the machines so she could close up for the night. she stopped by the machine that was 'active' where you and gojo were.

"ahh was someone using this y/n? seems like someone dropped some water here or something."

you thought nothing of it until you stopped and realised;

that wasn't water.