#imagine being so bad at flirting that someone turned into a tree to escape you and another one literally jumped off a cliff to escape you

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Love how in Greek mythology Artemis saw what Apollo was doing with his love life and said “none of that”

[shadowsinger11]

John Wayne

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Summary: Christmas lights and stunning dresses are enough to spark a desire for a winter romance. But could you have possibly gotten the wrong idea?

Word Count: 2.5k

Genre: fluff, angst

A/N: I might've listened too much to Cigarettes After Sex while writing and this is totally not a song inspired fic, born purely as a result of my procrastination with other projects

Tag list: @susceptible-but-siriusexual @hufflexpuff @neovannii @jenniweasley @theweasleysredhair @harrysweasleys @loony-loopy-lupinn @whiz-bangs78 @slytherinsunrise @starlightweasley @ickle-ronniekins @gcdric @vivianweasley @aprilsrant @idont-knowrn @thisismynerdyself @wonderful-writer @feetoffthetablee @minty-malfoy @vogueweasley @elf-punk @oh-for-merlins-sake @heart-of-tempered-steel @spilled-prose @itseatyourdamnapples @aaannabbanana @l0ttadreamz @potter-redheads @pastanest | message me to be added/removed! (if you're in bold, I couldn't tag you)

You were staring at the crowded dance floor.

Beautiful ladies were being spun around by their partners, gorgeous gowns twirling and swooshing with their every elegant move. Everything was perfect about them; from their smile which lit up the Great hall more than the sparkling white Christmas trees, to the way their wrist gracefully twisted around their lover's neck, eyes piercing into theirs. The music was playing, slow and melancholic, exactly as it had been playing for the last few hours, luring lovers and encouraging them to bare their souls in front of each other.

And so they danced, connected by fearful desire, united by hope and bonded by love.

It was a kind of magic no one could truly understand, mysterious and private as though you weren't meant to witness it that night. So when among the sea of couples lips met in a silent oath, your heart began to ache, pleading you to leave.

It should have been you. It should have been you the receiver of those loving glances, of those kisses which made your head dizzy and caused your knees to buckle, but it would've been no problem as you would've had the arms of your lover to keep you secure. Then, as you'd dare to look up through your lashes, gorgeous eyes would be already on you, their obscure flame consoling you and pulling you in. And you'd simply fall, letting the warm, velvety darkness envelope you.

You flinched from the slight chill, rethinking your choice of a sleeveless dress. The enthusiasm with which you had picked it months ago now seemed utterly ridiculous and foolish as you were sitting a good distance away from where you believed you'd have been dancing your heart out. But, as you took one last look at your surroundings, only to spot your lovestruck friends indulging in the presence of their partners, the comfort of your pajamas seemed far more tempting than the unreasonably expensive piece of fabric which didn't even matter to you anymore.

It was pitifully funny how things could change in the blink of an eye, in a single breath; how fast you had gone from blooming with excitement to wondering how you were foolish enough to contribute to your own heartbreak.

"How come I'm just finding out about this?" Fred exclaimed, chasing after you down the stairs of the Astronomy tower. "I bet I wouldn't have known if it wasn't for those Ravenclaws chatting back in class."

"You were gonna know eventually, what's the deal?"

"My point is, why didn't you tell me and I had to hear from someone else?"

A group Hufflepuffs gave you questioning looks as you practically ran past them, nearly tripping over your own feet in the process, "You're making a fuss about nothing, stop acting entitled to every piece of information in my life!"

"McLaggen? That git?" Fred yelled in frustration and disbelief; he didn't at all acknowledge the small crowd which had gathered to observe the scene, nor did he care in the first place. He stopped in his tracks, gripping the wooden railing tight, knuckles turning white and jaw tense. "You cannot be serious."

Shocked faces now turned to you, and you desperately wished you could use reducio on yourself. Instead, opposite to what your consciousness was screaming at you, you dug your feet into the floor and shot Fred a stern look over your shoulder, "We're not discussing this right now. Besides, what's in it for you anyway? You're going with Angelina."

Had you kept walking, you would have missed the way Fred's chest was heaving with shallow, rapid breaths, and his face was more maroon than you had ever seen. And you? You couldn't quite breathe yourself.

A week ago your untamed happiness brightened every room and hallway; classes seemed to fly by, exams were over and the Yule ball was right around the corner. Your heart was ringing with joy as you were so looking forward to forgetting your troubles for just one night. 

In the midst of shining Christmas decorations and beautiful dresses a dreamy, yet pretty bold idea had begun to form in your head, an idea which Ginny and Hermione encouraged with their support and affirmations. Deep down you had started to believe Fred Weasley took an interest in you, harboured feelings for you even, and your ever-present goofy banter which contained far more flirting than what would be acceptable between two best friends, only fed your imagination and raised your hopes up.

You were aware you were the only one on the receiving end of Fred's teasing jokes, cheesy pickup lines and lingering stares which had you staying up an extra hour in your bed at night. Even his siblings shared the same opinion - there was no way on Godric's sword that a person who clearly wanted to be around you as often as possible and got his hands on you every chance he could, wouldn't be at least a little bit interested in you.

That's why you nearly broke down when exactly a week ago in the hallway Ron casually mentioned his older brother had just asked out Angelina.

The ground was pulled beneath your feet, vanishing along with your oblivious hopes. The news stung sharply, leaving a sour taste in your mouth; never had you believed you’d spend the few days before the ball stitching up your heart, and you were willing to do just about anything to forget about your humiliation. So when McLaggen invited you with an obnoxiously flirty note in Charms class, you didn’t hesitate much.

You could feel a wave of tears burning your eyes as you looked up to where Fred was standing. His face and ears were still as red as they could get, and his chest was vibrating with every shaky breath he took. Fury had disappeared from his eyes long ago, replaced with concern, regret and hurt which you couldn't quite place.

He climbed down the few remaining stairs.

"He's obnoxious! And beyond what's good for you!" Fred stated, though his voice now lacked power and slightly trembled, loud enough just for you to hear. "You're setting yourself up for a pretty bad night."

You swallowed down the dry lump in your throat and finally turned around to fully face him, looking him up and down.

"Seems like I have a terrible taste in men then."

A second glass of firewhiskey did nothing to burn down the growing turmoil in your stomach. You tapped the edge of the empty glass with your fingers and smiled at your friends who were visibly exhausted from dancing to upbeat songs for quite awhile now, but enjoying their time far too much to take a break. You admired their spirit - just because you weren't feeling your best, it didn't mean your friends didn't have the right to have fun.

However, the inevitable sense of regret lingered in your bones, and you found it hard to not focus on how the ball had gone wrong for you, in more ways than you had originally thought.

Even without Fred as your date, there was still a chance you'd have a good time. McLaggen could undoubtedly make it awkward to be around, and with the fact that your heart had recently been sliced open, you weren't sure how much of his ridiculous antics you could take. But at least he was trying; if you put aside his overbearing ego, you could see genuine effort into creating something romantic for both of you. It was going to be okay. Not necessarily what you desired, but somehow okay.

And that last bit of hope vanished the second you caught your former date snogging your crush's date in an empty classroom merely an hour ago.

You didn't know whether to cry or laugh at the universe's bitter joke, but the tears on your face as you ran down the hallway in your beautiful dress were eloquent.

A bitter, bitter joke.

You couldn't take it anymore. The charming smiles, sultry glances and stolen kisses you had been observing for the past hour were too much. And when another slow song made an appearance, you rose to your feet and headed towards the tall doors of the exit. Perhaps sleep would be a decent ending to your horrendous night.

You had barely made it out of the Great hall when loud footsteps echoed on your right.

"Bloody hell, I've been looking for you!" Fred said through heavy breaths, having run all the way to you as it seemed. His ginger hair had escaped its slicked look long ago, now too messy to fix despite his numerous attempts to smooth it back. His suit was no better, slightly wrinkled and shirt open to the third button.

"Why have you?" you asked and folded your arms, feeling a bit chilly in the hallway.

"McLaggen. About him," Fred sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry for having to say it, but I just saw him-"

"I know."

Fred frowned in confusion.

"You do?"

It was your turn to let out an exasperated sigh as you looked down at your feet, "Yes. A while ago."

Fred's features softened.

"I'm sorry."

You barely found it in you to respond with a weak smile, "It's alright. I guess I was right. I do have a terrible taste in men." Then you gave Fred a sympathetic look, "I'm sorry for Angelina too, it's horrible she did this to you."

Your friend allowed the ghost of a smirk to appear on his lips and he shoved hands into his pockets, "I'm not really affected by it in all honesty," he shrugged. "I'm rather angry about the fact that the prat thought he could pull off something like this and get away with it."

Fred's heart ached at the sight of your slumped figure and glossy eyes; he hated himself for having contributed to the failure of the event you were expecting with so much hope. He tilted his head to the side, attempting to meet your gaze.

"I'd gladly prank the crap outta the git until he doesn't even dare to show up to classes… But for now is there a way for me to make your night any less terrible, love?"

You couldn't help but giggle at the thought of McLaggen skipping classes out of sheer fear of Fred. But then your thoughts wandered to the way Angelina was practically straddling his lap, and you wondered if Fred had been doing the same all this time unbeknownst to you; if right after a flirty joke sent your way he'd go to an empty classroom and kiss Angelina with the passion you had just witnessed.

The image of Angelina's lips on Fred's caused you to become nauseous and you attempted to swallow down that lump again.

"No," you replied. "But please, tell me one thing. What was that entire tantrum for?"

Fred didn't really seem taken aback by your question, realizing you'd eventually bring it up. He furrowed a brow, carefully thinking of an answer, and wettened his lips.

“Perhaps it would be inappropriate of me to say it- selfish even, but the mere thought of you being in the embrace of someone, especially with that someone being a foul git, caused me to get unreasonably angry.” Guilt was seeping into his every word and he bitterly chuckled to himself. “Ironic, isn’t it? Attempting to spare you heartbreak by being the reason for it.”

He gently took your hand and looked into your eyes, remorse swimming in his own, "I had no right to treat you the way I did. I'm terribly sorry for being controlling and you absolutely do not have to forgive me. Just know that I truly regret my actions; I never intended to hurt you."

His words were a feather-light caress to your wounded heart and you shuddered. You couldn't stay mad at him. Reciprocated feelings or not, he was still your best friend and you wouldn't let that go.

"Apology accepted," you gave his hand a light squeeze and Fred beamed, the entire hallway lighting up with him. Dread released your chest of its merciless grasp and you could finally breathe. However, one question never ceased to haunt you. "But I just need to know…” you began, absentmindedly playing with his fingers, “...why were you so upset to begin with?"

Fred's shoulders immediately stiffened and he averted his gaze from you in an attempt to come up with a reasonable reply. His jaw was clenched, and his adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "I didn't want you to go with him." He stated simply. "Not when you could've easily gone with me instead."

You froze.

"What do you mean?” you asked timidly, shifting your weight from foot to foot. “What about Angelina?"

Fred only shook his head, fighting back a grin.

"Darling, Angelina was never the catch."

The air was knocked out of your lungs.

You could only stare at Fred wide-eyed, and though his expression was unreadable, maroon had begun to crawl its way up to his ears and cheeks again.

"I'm sorry for putting you through all this," Fred spoke softly as he pressed a kiss to your knuckles, a kiss that awakened the butterflies within you. "I was really too much of a wuss to confess to you and settled for this instead."

"I guess that makes us two," you smiled sincerely, perhaps for the first time that night. Fred returned your smile with a grin, and asked.

"How can I make up to you for this oh-so-awful mess?"

"Dance with me," you said without skipping a beat. "That's what you owe me at least. Let's finally do what we both wanted."

Fred's expression became serious as he intertwined his fingers with yours, and led you into the direction of the Great hall, from which music could still faintly be heard.

"With the greatest of pleasure, my love."

Most people had already gone to bed, leaving just a few couples and you to drench in enchanted serenity. Fred's arms around you felt like home as you both swayed to the soft rhythm of the song, one of the many to follow, but his racing heartbeat under your palm caused your own pulse to speed up as well. 

You looked up at your lover through your lashes, gorgeous eyes already on you, their obscure flame consoling you and pulling you in. There was an odd, enigmatic allure that Fred possessed, and even after years of knowing this man, it only caused you to fall further into the velvety hell you didn't wish to escape from. 

And when his lips collided with yours, they tasted sweeter than the forbidden fruit.

Reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated!

[peeterparkr]

invisible string;tom holland.

summary:  life has a way of pulling you and Tom close to each other, then it pulls you apart. 

 “It is like an invisible red cord or thread which connects you to that one person you’re destined to meet, your true love.” 

soulmate au

word count: 6.4k

pairing: tom holland x reader

warnings: breakup mention, fluff, angst. fluffy angst. 

LOOK I TRIED TO WRITE FLUFF BUT I’M NOT GOOD AT IT SO ANGST CAME BUT I TRIED BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE IT

heavily inspired by folklore and evermore by taylor

thanks @jambrosemc for helping me you’re amazing

So, this is for one of my best friends here, @badhollandfluff, Delaney I’m sorry this took so long but I wanted it to be perfect for you, surprise!!! I’m your secret Santa! Love you, hope you had an amazing Christmas and I wish you a happy new year, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

Thanks to everyone who joined, happy holidays!! 

No one ever has time. We’re always running and rushing and trying to save a little, it’s always like we have it counted and we never truly realize time is passing by. The clock keeps ticking. You were a victim of that, sometimes, always running, never knowing why. Time always going faster than you wanted it to be. 

Until it stopped, it had stopped since last year. 

There you were now. A white mug. These days you don’t really see that. Everyone has the paper cups with the coffee collar. Their names scribbled on black that probably still smells like sharpie. But you were holding a white mug, that now was just slightly stained by your pink lipstick. 

The mug was stained inside too, with the leftover foam of your capuchino. You were letting it set cold, watching as the people would walk in. Waiting. 

You trailed your gaze around the room, there are some couples around you.

You liked the idea of this café, with people gathering around just for the simple fact of drinking a hot coffee out of a mug. You like to come here, to sit out your thoughts, sometimes you’ll find some time to work, read. But you’d be alone. You’ve been lonely lately. 

It didn’t matter, it’s fair to point that out. But today, you were going to meet him. Again. 

But you didn’t know that yet. 

You had once read about soul connections, interested if you’d ever find your own, seemed like most people around had met them. You hadn't. Not the one you were longing to find, that is. 

Bizarre. 

Honestly, you didn’t believe in them. Or you liked to say that to yourself, sad enough to admit you hadn’t found any type of strong connection. 

Or maybe you had. 

But it made absolutely remotely no sense, at all. 

How could you? There was absolutely no scientific proof that there were soulmates, and though everyone said you could feel them, that you’d sense it, and though the extinguished sadness on your friends could be proof enough, you were still sceptic. Maybe just doubting if you’d find yours. Or maybe you didn’t want to accept who was yours. 

Because Tom had left. 

Your friends had assured you that when they’d found it the world had turned idyllic, a pink life. 

Yeah, it had felt like that when you’d found Tom, but now everything was gray. 

However, you knew more about them than anyone else. You had researched about them, you had read about them and you were so informed that you sometimes didn’t even believe it. 

Though you liked to ignore that sometimes there was a song stuck in your head without reason or there was a sudden joy, that had no possible explanation. 

“It’s your soulmate,” someone would point out. 

It wasn’t, it’s just Tom’s favorite song. 

There was also a sense of pain, sometimes you didn’t understand why you felt such a heartbreak, how bad had they hurt them? If they did exist, that is. 

They didn’t, though. 

You’d read about that heart connection, that feelings connect trying to understand how it comes and goes.  

There are three types of connections. Karmic partnership, soulmates and twin flames. Different types of connections. 

First ones, karmic partnership, and it is as bad as it sounds. They’re often confused as soulmates and people like to cling to them. They’re… awful,  being the one heartache that is there to teach a lesson, the one person that is there to show you something about yourself, the one person who is strictly there for character development, let’s say. The one person you fall in love with and keep falling in love, but it’s not love,  no matter how many times they hurt each other they go back. It’s not love, though. Or maybe it is, but there reason they exist is strictly to make you reason. It becomes….Cyclic. Until you finally decide to break the cycle. Intense transformation, the one person that makes you see yourself from a different perspective and change. There is, however, no compatibility. 

Probably what you had with Tom. But… no, it wasn’t… There was too much compatibility. 

You’ve had your fair share of them, maybe you’ve had 

Then there are the soulmates. The perfect compatibility. 

The one connection that is beautiful, a person that you just… feel it. The one person you feel like you’ve waited for them your whole life. Strong compatibility, there are more than one soulmate, that is to say, it could be friends, it could be family. It doesn’t have to be a romantic partner. There are soulmates that you wonder how they can be such an incredible connection. 

Everyone has soulmates. You knew you’d met some of them, the friends one that is. None of them a connection strong enough to be your partner. Not that you didn’t want to, though. 

Or maybe you didn’t want to acknowledge it. 

You’ve read somewhere in the internet that there are connections that go beyond your wildest imagination. Go beyond soulmates. The… twin flames, the one your soul is so attached to, you can feel their pain, their joy. 

Journeys end when lovers meet. 

It’s fair to say, you’ve never believed in that information. Less after a heartbreak. 

You had a million thoughts over your head, oozing you with stress and feeding your not long enough sleep schedule. You were slightly angry, you’d say. You didn’t like him anymore. 

There are two kinds of people when it comes to liking someone. The ones who go forward it, fighting for it, hinting on it. Flirting as if there was no tomorrow. People like Tom. 

And then there’s people who run away from feelings and try to pretend to act natural around their crushes. People who definitely don’t want to overstep boundaries and are afraid of ruining friendships. People like you. 

But there was nothing to ruin now, was there? 

Because there’s also people who give up. People like him. And people who never dare to forget. People like you. 

It was never even. 

But you keep daydreaming about him and can’t help that tinge of red spreading across your cheekbones every time he was near you. You shouldn’t have given in. You should’ve fought, but you were reckless. A sunrise dropping by again, and you wondered what had gone wrong.

Tom wanted to talk, you didn’t. You loved him, he didn’t love you. 

Tom was gone. For good.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object. 

It’s the kind of love that you’d probably want to avoid. You at least, avoided all kinds. After him, who’d want to love anyone else? He was the only one who could tell if you dared to smile with your eyes only. 

How stupid were you to believe he was your soulmate. 

But no, this wasn’t right. Because feelings make everything blurry and it’s something not exact. If it wasn’t for science and numbers you didn’t like to believe anything.  If you don’t know how it’ll turn out then you’ll probably avoid it. And when it comes to relationships, you never truly know. Or sometimes you do, but it’s usually... not pretty. You’d learned that with him. 

Relationships end, and while you don’t want them to. You’ve sensed it, from the beginning. And you just hope that they’ll remember you in a nice way. Did he? Or had he just passed the page. 

You still felt stuck in a chapter. He had stopped reading. So hard to be on different books now. 

But with him, He was an exception. He was pushy and wasn’t giving up at the beginning until he did. You had seen him fall out of love, and that’s the worst kind of thing you get to face, when you see them slowly trailing far from you. 

Plans? Dreams? The willow tree in that park when you had first kissed was still crying over your breakup. Your head had been low since you’d last kissed him. Had you known it was your last, you’d probably would’ve made it last longer, you would’ve held him for more time. You wouldn’t have let him leave. 

But you had had your moment with him. It had been the last time you saw him. The one moment when you realized that his  fake smile was just that, how convenient and cliche. But you didn’t want to give you in, just yet. No, you wouldn’t. He’d changed, and you didn’t like who he was now. Too changed, too built up, too busy, too whatever you could come up with. 

You got tired of begging, and then he was easy to forget, you hadn’t forgotten. Just two years ago you thought he’d made a decision, you had made it. You wanted to spend the rest of your life with him. But he didn’t. And you couldn’t stop him, he was growing and growing and simply he escaped from your touch. 

Then it had been a goodbye, and nobody had seen it coming. You had, you’d known it for a long time. And it was weird, you were so in love with him that you knew that it was the best for you both, to get away because though you loved him, you knew he wouldn’t be happy with you. It’s difficult to let go of what makes you happy. 

You remembered it, how both of you would only smile at each other, like damn strangers, say a few hellos, and a fews how’s the weather, as if you hadn’t spent countless nights in between the sheets, as if you hadn’t danced in the middle of the night, as if you hadn’t given him each of the stars in the night sky, as if you hadn’t shared enough drinks together. Or as if you hadn’t fought for your love. You with that red jacket of his. How every path led to him. How every stupid weekend belonged to him, but now you wished they’d pass by sooner. 

Maybe that’s why you were always rushing, so you wouldn’t feel it. You didn’t like the weekends anymore. 

And now, she looked at him the way you were supposed to look at him. At first, it had hurt just a little, you hadn’t believed it. You knew it, everybody wanted to love him, but nobody knew what it felt, the crushing feeling that was loving him. How much it hurt, to watch him paddling with a precious smile, and those pair of angelic eyes, so pure and then turn into a devil just for you. 

Nobody knew how it felt. Anticipating a heartbreak every time he walked in, and to pretend that you didn’t feel that anymore. 

Last time only you thought you’d give him your heart, and he had pushed you away because his heart belonged to someone else. Then it was forbidden, to think about him, to dream about him, to still smell his scent on your pillows. It wasn’t right. 

How could his heart ever belong to someone else but you? 

And you had to smile, to say you were happy for him. Because you were, and that new girl was a fool because anyone who dares to fall for him is a fool, tangled in between lies. She who dares to love him is willing to have her heart crushed by him. And who but a fool is willing to let your heart be crushed by him. 

Last time you’d seen him had been a friday night, 10pm on that one pub he liked going to. You had gone out with your friends, and he was there, with her against his shoulder, her with the long hair and the perfect smile, perfect laugh. 

To think that had been your place once. You had avoided his gaze, ignored he was there. Pretending he hadn’t seen you. But he had. Pretending you hadn’t seen him. But you had. 

Someone had said there is life after love, but there is not love after him. It’s like you’d thrown everything to the fire, and he had watched it burn. Everyone said it: you’ll be happy. 

When? 

Sure, it’d come, eventually. But it had been a year. 

You’d heard he had broken up with her, a while ago. Then it was that hope again, probably why you were recurring to that café. 

It’s funny to think you’ll love someone forever, and then it just… disappears. Every promise eventually breaks, every kiss eventually fades, and love is eventually gone.

Then why wasn’t it? 

Time was your biggest enemy. 

Your story with him, from the moment you’d first seen him, he was just—perfect, you thought about it, how everyone said it was your soulmate. And you believed it. From the moment you’d met him, you had finally believed in soulmates, because it made sense. How your story had been built up to him, and how many times of sudden joy had you had before meeting him because of how close you were. 

Life had been so reckless. You were supposed to meet him several times before you actually met. It was stupid to think, how you were always thinking about it, now that you were apart. 

The first time you’d ever crossed paths had been when you had been very, very young. You didn’t know he had been there, not aware, at a park. And there had been this sudden joy. You remembered feeling it, you’d said it, felt a spark. 

Just children unaware of a flame burning too deep inside of you. 

That other time, at the supermarket when both of you had gone with each other’s mothers and both of you had been playing with the toys. 

You’d never forgotten that one very time, first time your hands ever touched, and it had felt like electricity. Two kids very confused by that spark, when both of them had reached to that one toy, confused. 

Or that one time at the café when he had walked in, you were sure he had walked in, you’d felt it, how your heart had started to beat so fast,  but before you could even glance at him he had walked out. Lost in the crowds, always. 

How both of you had had a broken heart at the same time. First kiss had been almost at the same time, just blocks away, actually. 

Or how you’d both been at that one party, but didn’t know about it. It made no sense how life had been so desperate to get you together but both your surroundings pulled you away. That night had been so close, both dancing behind each other, singing on top of your lungs to the same stupid song. 

Or that one time when someone had pointed him to you when you were at that one pub, “look, that guy is cute.” 

You had looked at him, he was. Shy smiles had only been directed in each other’s direction. 

You’d later learned he’d sent you a drink but the waiter had mistaken the table. 

That one time when you had run out of cash at that sandwich place because their card machine had stopped working, you were rushing, and you were missing only cents, and Tom had come to your rescue. 

Or how he worked near you and his dad had been friends with your mom at some point. How his favorite song was the same as yours, and how often you’d be at the same park, him on his phone, you reading a book. 

How you’d once met his dog that had run over to you. A dog that would learn to love you and did miss you from time to time. 

How Tom had randomly found that one book you’d lost at the park once, under that willow tree and he’d read it. Loved it and then lost it again at that same park, with a random paper note that read: “Jerry’s 8pm, wine.” he’d used as a book separator. 

Who was Jerry? What would happen at 8pm? Wine? What type? Red? Rose? White? Why were you so intrigued by that note? 

You’d kept it to this day. Still didn’t know what it was. You knew Jerry now, though, he was a friend.  And now you knew that he liked wine but preferred beer. 

You’d given him a pretty book separator. He still had kept it to this day, never used it, he always used random notes or napkins or whatever he found. At first it stressed you, how many book separators did you not have and he’d use napkins or those fortune papers that come with fortune cookies. So you had transformed into a better habit, you would write notes so he’d used them. You’d order chinese food more often, too. 

He said he’d always remember that, your little notes, the way you always stained your cup of coffee with lipstick, your two left feet when you danced, or the fact that your laugh would be heard across a room. He’d always recognize your laugh. 

What a Whimsical thing love is when it’s not the right time. 

How many times have you not felt like there was something missing? Until he appeared, at that one park near the cafe where you are sitting right now. The first time you’d ever officially met. Nothing out of a book, something very casual. Both of you at that café, it had been crowded that one day and the only chair available was the one in front of you. 

“I’m sorry, hello,” he had said, making you look up from your book. “May—I sit here?” He asked. “There’s no other chair left in the room and—“

“Yeah, yeah, hi, you can sit,” you had said, without really looking at him, but the moment you had, the moment your eyes had met his, you had…. felt like the whole surrounding had disappeared and you were the only people in the room, it seemed he had also noticed something.

A cold november evening, both of you had a reason to go home yet neither of you had  gone home. Both of you had found a way to that café, with coffees in a mug. The leaves falling outside.

He had sat right in front of you, you couldn’t help but blush when noticing he was attractive, very attractive. But there was something else about him, maybe it had been the way he couldn’t sit still. He had stared at you, and smiled. 

From the very first time you’d ever seen his smile, you knew three things,

His smile was the prettiest thing you’d ever laid your eyes on

His smile was so familiar 

His smile would eventually break your heart.

The third one wasn’t as cheerful but you could tell, he was one of those guys who could easily break someone’s heart in a blink. 

It didn’t take him a blink to break yours. You’d need a lifetime to break his. 

“I’m Tom.” 

“Y/N.” 

Both of you liked to debate over who’d talk to who first, it didn’t matter honestly. You both remembered how both of you had ordered the same drink, a cappuccino. Neither of you liked it, but apparently both of you had wanted to ask for something new. 

You’d always do that. Taste new drinks. 

And it had been… as if you’d met before. You had, multiple times before, but neither one knew, of course. Not at that point, but like you were meant to find him. The sun had gone down and it had been hours and hours of you talking to each other, like old friends who knew their deepest secrets and were catching up, laughs becoming one melody, and both of you had soon realized the cafe hadn’t been that crowded. Maybe it had been the damn destiny pulling you together. To that cafe near the park with that willow tree. 

He had asked questions you didn’t have the answers to back then. You did now. 

Before you knew it, you were walking with a stranger through the London night, seeing people walk by and not looking at them, because somehow you’d both walked to that one park. Both of you had discovered you both liked to sit on that one bench near the willow tree. How many times had you missed the other jusy by a matter of minutes. 

“You’re kidding, I love this place, I’m always here,” he had said. 

“I am, too, weird we’d never met before,” you had chuckled. 

You honestly didn’t remember how or why it had happened. A kiss. You’d kissed a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger at all. 

“I’m sorry, I-” He had started. 

“No, it’s--” 

And then kissed again. Your stomach had dropped and had been replaced with butterflies. How had a simple cappuccino led to this? 

He’d given you a smile and a promise. You’d met him the next day, and the other one, and the next one. With that stupid smile of his. 

You missed that smile, or how he flirted with you, make you giggle with a stupid joke, or how he’d open his arms to you and kiss you, tumbling down to the couch. The way he’d make you listen to him ramble about his latest discovery. How he always found a way to make you smile in the crowds, always holding your hand, new dates in different places.

“What do you mean you’ve never gone paintball?” 

Weekends only for him, going for breakfast, for dinner, for lunch, for tea, for this, for that. . Then it was the weeknights too, always finding time for you, traditions you created and that you got rid off. Laying down on the grass, looking at stars, kissing in bars, dancing in his living room, your head on his shoulder in movie theatres, his scent on your pillow, his favorite movies next to your dvd, your perfume in his closet and your toothbrush in his bathroom. Notes he’d written to remember things all around your place. Birthdays, new year, parties. 

Endless nights of laugh, of wine and of nothing at all. Kissing. Video Games you didn’t understand, failed attempts to bake, watching sport games he loved and you… tolerated. Him finally agreeing to watch that movie with Ryan Gosling. 

“Why Ryan Gosling?” 

Building plans together, nights of both of you debating on something stupid. Singing on top of your lungs without knowing the lyrics. Getting lost together, that one roadtrip where neither of you knew the way and ended up at that one hotel in the middle of the road. Kissing. Learning to read every emotion, and being each other’s blankets. Hearing each other’s ugly laughs, and crying in front of the other. Being each other’s confort. Hugging him when you were scared at the movie. Meeting the parents. 

“They loved you, don't worry.” 

Always holding each other’s hands.  Fights under the rain. Making up hours later and cuddling to let go of it. Being friends with each other’s friends. Seeing friends getting engaged, going to the weddings. Talking about a wedding. Learning, becoming their best selves. 

Then…. Cold. 

He’d left you when you had been the most in love with him. When you thought he’d shows up with a ring. But he had said goodbye instead. With his picture on your phone and your hand cold with no one to hold. He’d changed your life, completely. 

You’d learned so, so, so much. And at some point you…. Realized it. 

You should’ve known, he was not your soulmate. 

You’d read somewhere about twin flames. Yeah… you had, about the one soul that changes your life. 

You’d learned about the importance of the sunrise and the sunset, how beautiful both of them are, and how dizzy you can get when you get to see both because you didn’t get to sleep because you had laughed and kissed all night. 

They say time is wise, yet you still were hurting and you still loved him. Because it was like his love was a thread still engraved to your own very soul. And though when you were with him it was timeless, you’d learned to give more minutes to the hours you were with him so you spend just a little bit more time staring into his eyes. How you’d learned about the importance of one’s sight, and how the eyes are the doors to the soul, he’d opened his soul completely to yours. And it was so beautiful and so easy to read. 

You’d learned a lot of things, like how to throw pebbles in the ‘right way’ to the river. You’d learned how to lie to your friends so you could go see him, late at night when the moon is the only light shining above yours. You’d learned that mistakes aren’t the end of the world and that you actually are very good at baseball. 

Tom had shown you how to distinguish between a guitar and a bass, not sure why you’d always confused them. And that it’s okay to sometimes leave the clothes on the floor if you’re rushing to get somewhere. Or that sometimes the clothes end up on the floor because you’re both… rushing. That it’s okay to have breakfast for dinner and that you can have dessert before the actual main course. He’d also taught you that facetime isn’t as good as being together but it’s enough to listen to each other’s voice. He had shown you that it’s okay to laugh at sex and that sometimes it’s not as romantic as it should be, that sometimes it is silly and other times it’s passionate. That it’s okay sometimes to say what you want to say before thinking. 

And you’d shown him how to enjoy a bad movie, or how to tie his shoes this other way, and that though the night kept changing, and you both kept growing and learning, you were still the same. You taught him that it’s okay not to know the lyrics and still sing the song, and that if you add a pinch of salt to the cookies you’re baking it’d make it sweeter. 

You’d taught him that Chinese legend. The red thread. 

“It is like an invisible red cord or thread which connects you to that one person you’re destined to meet, your true love,” you had told him. “In China it’s around your ankle, I believe… In Japan, male’s thumb and the female's little fingers, and in Korea are both little fingers.” 

He’d once, jokingly but not really wrapped around both of your pinkies a red thread. 

“I made it visible, see?” He had said. 

“You’re an idiot,” you had chuckled. 

“What happens if you’re apart?” He had wondered. 

“It’s supposed to bring you back together, it…” 

“Can I pull it, if I ever need you?” 

“I guess,” you chuckled. “I’m not sure.” 

“Can it break?” He asked. 

“I… don’t know,” you had confessed with fear.

Because you didn’t know. Maybe yours had been broken. 

But you kept teaching him things, and he kept teaching you other things. You’d also taught him not to never mistake salt for sugar to add to your tea. 

“They’re both a white powder I thought-” 

“Yeah I can think of more white powders that would’ve also gotten us in trouble.” 

You’d taught him that as long as you were his and he was yours, you’d shine as bright as stars. He’d shown you how to say ‘I love you’ to someone for the first time. Because you had, when you least had expected it, just about a weeks after you’d first dated. 

You wanted to order something for dinner, that one night, he was on his laptop ordering food,  you were cuddled against him reading who knows what. 

“Is it weird I want more fortune cookies? Would you be weirded out if someone was asking for more fortune cookies?” He had asked. 

You chuckled. “To get more fortune?” 

“To get more cookies, darling,” he had grinned. “Can’t be more fortunate than this, I am dating you, ain’t I?” 

“Very fortunate” you chuckled as he was ordering. 

“How much food would I have to order for them to send us like ten cookies?” He asked, mostly to himself. 

You laughed, “why don’t you bake them yourself?” 

“We both know we suck at baking, baby,” he reminded you as he kept adding food to the cart. “Besides we wouldn’t get the fortune paper thing, I like those as book separators.” 

He did use them as book separators and liked to randomly leave them on your nightstand  

“Why do you want them? We could buy them next week at the supermarket 

“They’re so good, darling and it’s not the same, they’re not fate then.” 

You only smiled, watching him. 

“Why don’t they sell like… the cookies?” He asked again. 

“They do—“

“No, not but like at the restaurants because they choose which ones to give you, that is fate,”  he continued. “Or like… Okay is this enough food so they think we are like ten  people here? Like if I order enough food they’ll send it to us, right?” He kept rambling to himself. “Like okay, we’d have to eat this for a while but baby look at the bright side we’d have more cookies and that would make me happy because I like the cookies, plus I wouldn’t steal your notes to use as a book separator and we could have like enough fortune things to… I don’t know wrap presents with.” 

And it had come out, so easily, “I love you,” you’d said without thinking about it, interrupting his rambling. You’d felt it for long enough, first time you’d ever kissed him  but somehow you’d never said it. 

And he had stopped worrying for the cookies suddenly, as he only looked at you, he hadn’t been prepared. He had only opened his mouth with surprise. He wasn’t as hungry anymore. 

“I--” he hadn’t said it back. 

“No, I’m sorry, no, no I’m sorry,” you gulped and sat up to get away. “No I didn’t--No, I don’t… I mean, no, yeah I do, I’m… Look you don’t have to… say it…I don’t love—No, I do, I do—“

He had smiled and took a deep breath, with surprise. 

You walked away. “No, baby, sorry—Tom, I’m sorry you don’t have to say anything I’ll just—Yeah.” 

You had tried to walk away but he had tackled you from behind, and turned you around to kiss you in his very way.  “I love you, too.” 

And the food had eventually arrived after kissing for god knows how long and you remembered opening that one fortune cookie. 

“Love, because is the only true adventure.” 

And it had been. The greatest adventure of your life, and it hadn’t been one of those crazy adventures. It had been small, but great. Good enough He’d forgotten one thing, he’d never shown you how to get over him. How to live without him. 

And you had said it, how it would never be too late for him to come back. He wouldn’t, you know. But he knew it, you’d always have each other. 

You had read about twin flames. How the compatibility and energy is so strong, so, so strong, so meant to be.  An intense soul connection, sometimes called a "mirror soul," thought to be a person's other half.  A same soul. And at times it did feel like it. 

But it doesn’t have to be forever. 

It should’ve been, though. 

But Tom was easily scared, and maybe he’d felt like his life with you would be forever, and you didn’t blame him for being scared. Finding the love of your life doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to spend your whole life with them. 

“I’m always going to love you,” he had said. You knew he wouldn’t. 

But he’d never leave your heart or your mind, no matter what, day, noon, midnight. He was always there, but he had moved on. Or had he, really? 

He hadn’t. But both of you had a very different version of the relationship. He had waited for you at that willow tree, you’d waited for him at that café. And it had been like that for a while, both of you waiting at the wrong place, at the wrong time. 

He did miss you, very, very much and he also couldn’t get over you. You didn’t know, but even when he was dating this other girl he kept going back to you. He had kept his promise, he would always love you. With every cell, with every bone on his body. With his entire soul, because it felt like it was missing its other half. 

He had stopped burning when he was apart from you. No light, no nothing.

Because everything led back to you, everything was about you. And he had bumped into you several more times, you hadn’t seen him, but he’d seen you walking in the rain, and he’d seen you when he stared at himself in the mirror. He saw you in every fortune cookie he ate, or in every book separator he found. He had felt incomplete when he wasn’t with you. 

And after you’d broken up, Tom had felt incredibly numb and sad, your pain combined with his. He’d always wondered why that happened how he knew how you were feeling, a hunch he’d say. 

He’d always have a song stuck in his head, and he’d be thinking of you at the most random times. He’d always expect to find your lipstick stain on his mugs 

He always wanted to call, he never did though. But he was there, even if you didn’t notice. Like how he’d randomly send you a coffee with your friends, asking them not to tell you it came from him, or how if he ever walked by your place, he’d clean the dust from the mailbox because he knew how much you hated when it got dirty. How he had become friends with that guy from the Chinese place you liked to order from and he’d told him to always give you extra fortune cookies.

Tom wasn’t the same when he was apart from you, he hadn’t slept, he hadn’t smiled. But he did see one bright thing because it felt like he was being pulled back to you. 

He regretted breaking up because he’d been too scared to admit you were on the other side of the string. He feared it could break. But he was also scared that he would become the person he was before you, and how you probably wouldn’t like who he was before that. 

He also didn’t believe in soulmates, until you came. Because he thought And he thought your connection was too strong to be a simple soulmate. His soul and yours were one. 

But he’d left because he had to learn the last lesson, the one lesson you couldn’t technically teach him, and that lesson could only be taught by missing you. And damn, did he miss you. 

Because no one was you, no one knew his smile like you did and no one could read him like you. Your perfume still lingered and he missed your toothbrush in his bathroom. He missed having to get your hair out of his face when you were asleep. He missed the way you’d leave your books around his house or the way that he heard you sing the wrong lyrics. Tom missed the way you’d kiss his temple when you woke up earlier than him and how you always covered him with blankets. Tom missed looking into your eyes and making you laugh by making a stupid joke, knowing you’d be the only one laughing. 

He missed having you around at parties, when all of his friends were talking about things he didn’t like and he looked for you to give you that one knowing look but you weren’t there. He missed you when he got drunk, he missed you when you he woke up, when he wanted to run to you and kiss your cheek from behind. When he wanted to watch a bad movie and laugh at it, he’d miss you all the time. 

Tom was gone, yes. But Tom was gone because he wasn’t with you, and he couldn’t be himself again. How could he after you? 

Was there life after love? 

And eventually he’d seen you, always running into you but not letting you see him because he knew it would hurt you, it hurt him too. But how many times had his shoulder not bumped into yours without you noticing because your head was low. Or how many times had he not heard your laugh across the room and seen you. You were everywhere. 

And he didn’t know why he couldn’t get the courage like that one first time when he’d first asked to sit with you, that one time when he’d first kissed you. No other pair of lips deserved to be kissed after he had kissed you. 

And life was pulling him back to you but he didn’t know if you’d take him. He was scared that you had moved on, but something told him you couldn’t. He somehow knew that you still loved him because he loved you too. 

So he’d sit there, under that willow tree waiting for you to come back. But he was always running out of time, always having elsewhere to be. Because no one ever has time. 

You did, too, always rushing and that’s why you never saw him. Until today, with that mug in your hands, watching people, couples. Soulmates. And there you were, at that cafe, waiting for him to come, near that one park with the willow tree where you’d first kissed. 

Wishing he would come. 

But life is a strange thing, and maybe it had been the fact that the foam on your cappuccino had spoken to you, or the fact that you’d still kept that one fortune paper on the back of your phone, hidden underneath the case, or the fact that you had almost poured salt into your coffee instead of sugar, or maybe it had been  that thread around your finger or maybe a coincidence by itself, but somehow you’d left that café that day, willing to go to that willow tree for the first time.

Because no one ever truly has time, but he had pulled the string. 

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[magicrowiswritingstuff]

“Flirting” - Gabriel x female!reader

Summary: Gabriel likes to flirt with the reader who unfortunately is easily flustered in general but especially because of her feelings for him. The Problem? The reader can’t tell if he is sincere or only teasing and making fun of her reactions.

Warnings: suggestive themes, mild swearing (because Dean)

Category: mostly fluff (maybe a little sad at one point)

Words: about 12.000 (wow, I always get carried away… would you like long pieces spilt in two?)

Note: I just recently finished season 8 (so please no spoilers, I already managed to avoid them for so long) so I know that the timelines don’t really match but I didn’t want them to still be moving from motel to motel for this. Also, I know the bunker doesn’t really have a living room area but I decided to add one in the library anyway… Note 2: I miss this archangel way too much for only seeing him in like … four episodes? (I cried twice in the episode … I might have been drunk too though) Note 3: I wanted to focus on my final exams but I had this idea floating around in my head and ‘to get rid of it’ I just decided to write it down... so here my very first piece about a character from supernatural.

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“Flirting” - Gabriel x fem!reader

You had never been good with flirting, neither with starting it nor with responding to it. Sometimes you just didn't realize it was sincere flirting and not just teasing or you got too flustered to properly respond and avoided the situation of answering altogether. Or sometimes you just got angry because of it. How could people stay calm and then playfully respond when someone was flirting with them? Whenever someone tried his luck on you he would definitely not get lucky that night. Your responses would either be blubbering like an idiot or not speaking up at all. To be fair these reactions were far more pleasant for the one starting the flirty banter than for the first guy to ever try his luck on you. When that boy tried to hit on you, you hit him back… literally. Well, what did he expect when he used that horrendous pickup line on you. You couldn't remember the concrete context anymore, only that it happened on school grounds and that it was definitely not his time and place to use that line on you.

"How are you not cold? You’ve been naked in my mind this whole time."

You had been fifteen, maybe sixteen years old at that time and at first you had just blankly starred at the boy your age who looked pleased and proud of himself. However, he only had that expression on his face for a second before you had punched him in the nose in anger and embarrassment. You would have liked the story to end there but of course you had gotten in trouble for it. The boy's nose had started bleeding immediately and a teacher had intervened not a second later. You got escorted to the principal and the boy to the school nurse. Your mother was notified, you were forced to apologize and you even got suspended for a few days. But at the end it had been definitely worth it because after you told your mother why you had punched the boy she laughed heartily and bought ice-cream on the way home. "Some people just have it coming."

 Nowadays you don't react as violent to flirting but you still can't handle it normally and often resolve to running away. You just got flustered far too easily which embarrassed you greatly. The problem? You now were a skilled hunter with two hunter best friends who happened to know an archangel who couldn't stop flirting with you. Whatever situation you were in or regardless of the time you weren't able to escape his more often than not very dirty comments. It seemed like he declared it his mission to make you flustered at least once per day, often more than once. The problem? You really, sincerely and without a doubt liked him. Why? You had no clue since he enjoyed tormenting you so much but there was something about him that lured you in every time.

 Maybe it was his eyes. His brown eyes that weren't dark yet warm and with so much depth they dared you to look further and search for answers to questions you didn't even know. An enigma that didn't want to be resolved but egged you on to search for a resolution you would never find anyway. And even though they were brown it wasn't a solid color. Sometimes, when they caught the light just right, you swore you could see specks of green in them like the renewable leaves growing on the branches of an oak tree after a cold, unforgiving winter. But you often couldn’t look at them long enough to find those small specks. Their brown color itself was like a pot of golden honey illuminated by the beams of the rising spring sun that tricked your mind into a false sense of calmness. Because whenever you would look at them for a moment too long, when you would almost lose yourself in them he would notice and his calm demeanor would instantly change into a teasing glare with a smirk to match.

 Maybe it was the way he carried himself in such a carefree and confident way that made you jealous sometimes. Even though being reserved and careful weren't bad traits for a hunter you found it fascinating how easy-going Gabriel's attitude could be and you wished you could let lose more often too or just be surer of yourself like he was. Just a tiny bit. However, that confidence more often than not evolved into smugness that most of the time made you roll your eyes in annoyance. The smile that would form afterwards was always suppressed by you tightly pressing your lips together. His ego was big enough as it was.

 Maybe it was him supporting you and the Winchesters on hunts sometimes. He was quite skilled even without relying on his angle powers because wiping away a whole vampire nest with one finger clicking wasn't entertaining enough for him. No one complained because one set of hands more was always welcomed. (Okay, Dean sometimes complained.) Of course, if something wasn't going according to plan or someone was about to get hurt he would step in immediately. Or well, almost immediately because it seemed like it always took him a second longer to save Dean and Sam than when saving you.

 Maybe it was his sense of humor that made you snicker and laugh heartily when it wasn't dirty or suggestive. You liked his pranks he pulled on Dean and Sam. Mostly because of their reactions though. Whenever you heard Dean yell through the bunker in anger and frustration you could already guess who had crossed his path. Though sometimes you also became a victim of one of Gabriel's pranks but you rarely got mad because of them. If anything you had waited for the opportunity to have a reason to strike back at him for all the times he had made you flustered. However, your pranks weren't anything compared to what he could and would pull off.

 Maybe it was how approachable he could be sometimes. When you felt stressed or upset he would start a conversation with you to distract you and to set your mind at ease. He was surprisingly easy to talk to or at least whenever he wasn't in a flirty mood which unfortunately he was in often since the last couple of days. You would almost say he got more aggressive with his flirting, not even bothered when Dean or Sam would be present which made you even more flustered. You hated getting flustered over it. You were a hunter for crying out loud. You faced monsters no one would dare to even imagine but you couldn't handle a guy flirting with you? That was your pathetic weakness? But what was equally as embarrassing was whenever Sam tried to talk with you about it and how you should tell him about your feelings. At first you denied it, obviously, but Sam wouldn't butch and you gave in after a few awkward conversations.

 "Are you my mom or something? Asking me that question again and again until I finally answer?" Sam gave you a sour look but continued to stare at you with his arms crossed. "Uh, fine" you gave in and rolled your eyes. "You were right all along. Are you happy now?" "It is a first step" he replied and let his arms fall down to his sides. You shook your head and your arms before your chest immediately. "Nope, not happening." "You have to tell him eventually so why continuing to wait? You are a fierce hunter you can tell someone how you feel about them." You rolled your eyes and laid your head in your hands. Why couldn't Sam just let you be? You knew Gabriel's flirting wasn't well liked with the Winchesters but you were the one he targeted so it was your problem and not theirs. You looked up again with a warning glare. "Yeah right, Sam. I'll just walk up to him and have a serious conversation for once. You witnessed how aggressively flirty he is currently. I can't talk to him about it. He won't listen and I will only feel more stupid because of it. I'll just hope it goes away" you explained but let the last sentence be open for interpretation if you meant Gabriel's flirting or your feelings. It was a disaster. Why did you even feel that way about him? He makes you feel so confused and embarrassed all the time and you didn't like that at all. You furrowed your eyebrows, shrugged your shoulders and sighed in defeat.

 "Why the sour face, sugar?" a familiar voice asked that made you tense up immediately. You turned your head to the left and saw Gabriel leaning against the doorframe. Shit! Had he heard you? Your eyes darted back to Sam in question but he shook his head almost unnoticeable. So Gabriel wasn't standing there for long. A wave of relief washed over you. At least something good was happening to you. Glaring at Gabriel again you huffed. "It is none of your business" you replied defensively and crossed your arms before your chest. "Oh, come on. Now I'm really curious" he said and licked his lips which already made your cheeks slightly heat up. 'Traitor' you thought to yourself. "Just a rough day" you gave in with a small, polite smile, knowing that he wouldn't let you be if you didn't answer. By the sight of your smile his eyes seemed to lighten up before his grin grew almost sinister.

"I didn't think you'd like it rough." Your eyes widened in shock and if your face wasn’t red before it definitely was now. "That's not... wha- I didn't!" you began to stammer. Why would he even say that? Did it even make sense? With your nails digging into the flesh of your arms and wide eyes you stared at the smug archangel. Sam gave out an artificial cough of discomfort which made you look at him with one raised eyebrow. "That's what I was telling you about!" you tried to express over your eyes. He only stared right back at you, seemingly as caught off guard as you. You looked back at Gabriel who didn't even bit back his teasing smirk. "I have to go!" you choked out and squeezed through the door and by Gabriel without hesitation. You didn't care that he probably would be pleased by it, you just had to leave right now and he was standing in the only way out of the room. You needed a break from this. You needed some distance before your face would heat up enough to cook a three course meal on it. Luckily he didn't hold you back just followed your movement with his eyes and let you run away. When Sam coughed again his eyes snapped back to the taller Winchester with one eyebrow raised in question. "Really, Gabriel?" Sam asked annoyed. The archangel only shrugged with a grin and buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket before teleporting away.

 In the past you had handled Gabriel's flirty comments far better than nowadays. Maybe the reasons for that were that he didn't do it that often back than and maybe because you hadn't yet realized how much you really liked him. Now it felt like mockery to you. Was he teasing you so much because of it? Did he know? The problem you always had with flirting was that you could never tell if it was sincere or just a way to express friendly banter. Or in Gabriel's case: teasing you just for fun. Did he do it just for fun? Everything would be so much easier if you just knew what his deal was. You would know if you were making yourself false hopes or if you really had a change. But with the current situation you weren't ready to test the waters.

 _________________________________ 

  You groaned and let your head fall on the opened book on the table. Sam and Dean had gone out on a hunt a few days ago and you were left behind with research duty. You didn't hate researching for them or research in general but after a few hours of reading an old and complicated worded book while sitting in the same position the lines just got blurry and your body sore. Even with some sweets as "nerve food" you weren't able to get back to your concentrated state. With your arms draped over your head and your nose buried in the book you closed your eyes for a moment. You swore that next time you wouldn't let them leave you behind again. Especially since it was difficult enough to avoid Gabriel with them around to shield you if necessary but when they were gone you were an even easier target.

 "What's the problem, sweetcheeks? Can't concentrate?" You stifled the surprised yelp and after that the annoyed groan that threatened to spill over your lips. Speaking of the devil ... or well archangel. Now you really wouldn't be able to concentrate anymore.

 You looked up slightly to see Gabriel standing next to you, leaning his head down to take a close look at you. His face was so close to you that you could feel the faintest ghost of his breath on your lips. You tensed up immediately, not able to move away or break off the eye contact. His golden eyes held you captive. But there was something else then golden-brown too. Where those the green specks you sometimes thought you saw? You gulped, biting your lip as you saw his eyes wander down to them. You felt a push, a desire to- but you can’t. Not this way. Straightening up you were finally able to escape his eyes and looked to the other side, not wanting to be so close to his face anymore. He didn't even really do anything and you could feel your face heat up already. What were you? Twelve? Why couldn't you just for once control your body around him?

 "It's just painful sitting on this chair for hours" you said trying to have a normal conversation with him again but you should have known better. "Need a pillow to sit on? I can be yours if you want" he said without missing a beat. Your head whipped around to meet his gaze again. You wanted to be mad and lecture him but the moment you locked eyes with him you were unable to speak up properly. He still was only inches away from you and grinned wickedly, a mischievous glint in his light brown eyes. You wanted to look away, hide your eyes but you were unable to free yourself from his hypnotic gaze. These golden honey pots just lured you in every time. You wished you could drop threw a Scooby-Doo like trap in the floor right now just to escape this situation. Or maybe a monster could waltz in and threaten your life? At least that would be something you could handle. Instead you stammered something not even you could decipher, with your heart beating violently against your rips. How did he even know so many suggestive sayings? Clenching your fists, and digging your nails into the palms of your hands in the process, you leaned back to try and increase the distance between him and you. You had noticed that personal space wasn't necessarily something angels understood by being around Castiel a lot too. However, Gabriel sometimes took it to the extreme. Or maybe it just felt that way because every time he got close to you, your body burned up without him needing to say anything.

 You blinked rapidly while you could feel the blush creeping up your neck and face. The smirk on Gabriel's features only seemed to grow as you drove yourself further into embarrassment. Then he suddenly decided you were tortured enough and took a step back before sitting down on the opposite side of the table, still eyeing you to not miss the slightest bit of your reaction. "What was- don't you ever shut up?" you angrily spit, finally able to form a coherent sentence again. The archangel leaned back in the chair with his arms crossed behind his head. Clicking his tongue the smile vanished from his face as he seemed to think about it for a moment, looking up at the ceiling before directing his piercing glance back at you. His smirk already back on his features. "Only when my mouth is preoccupied with something sweet" he said and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Your face grew even hotter and before he could add anything else to it you grabbed one of the chocolate bars you had brought with you for your research session and threw it at him. He caught it with ease. "Here and now shut up!" you bellowed and shifted your focus back to the book. You swore that you wouldn't look up at him again and instead just ignore his antics. "Not what I meant but also not bad" Gabriel said pleased and unwrapped the candy. You of course knew what he had meant but you wouldn't let it happen. Not in that way.

 _________________________________ 

  The next morning you got a call from Dean, telling you that the hunt has been successful and that they would return now. Though that meant you would still be alone till the evening because the hunt had been far away. You sighed and clamped the phone between your head and shoulder so you could climb the kitchen counter to get a mug from one of the cupboards. It was far too early. Okay it was ten in the morning but you had been up almost all night, ready for any phone calls so you could help if needed. But then you had fallen asleep and Dean's phone call had startled you awake. You had jumped up, ready for any sort of bad news or him yelling a question about the monster through the speaker only to hear that the hunt was successful and finished. So know you needed some well-earned coffee.

 "Are you okay?" Dean asked but you mentally translated it to 'Is he bothering you?'. "No, everything's alright, don't worry" you answered after you stood safe on your feet again with the mug in your hand. You poured the hot, dark liquid into it and sat down at the table. "Does that mean he stopped?" the older Winchester questioned further. You bit back a laugh. "No, of course not. But yesterday wasn't as bad" you lied. Every single day seemed to get worse or at least Gabriel seemed to get even straighter forward with his dirty comments as the days went by. If that was even possible. "If you need an archangel blade just tell us" Dean joked but you could hear the slightest hint of sincerity in his tone too. "Will do, Deano" you laughed back and shook your head. "I'd say drive carefully but I know I would only waste my breath" you grinned and took a sip of your coffee. You could almost see Dean rolling his eyes at you through the phone. "We will be back in a few hours." After that the line went silent and you put your phone back into your pocket.

 You were able to drink about half of your coffee in peace when Gabriel decided to show up. He didn't say anything and if you wouldn't know it any better you would have said that he looked tired. Or hungover. He sat down in front of you, buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes, not speaking a single word. That was unusual. You raised one eyebrow at him. Something was up. You downed the rest of your coffee and stood up to refill your mug. Should you say something? You debated about it in your head but as always your friendly side won. Screw it.

 "Hey Gabriel, do you want some coffee too?" you asked, your back facing him because you were too afraid of seeing his smirk again. You were begging for a normal answer. "That would be great" he only said which made you breathe out in relief. "Coming right up." Knowing Gabriel's sweet tooth habits you poured in a not so healthy amount of sugar into his mug and stirred it before walking back to the table. You set the cup down in front of him and returned to your place, drinking your coffee in silence and avoiding his eyes. "Thanks, sugar" he said and for the first time you blushed but not because of you feeling overly embarrassed or being angry at him. "No problem."

 Then everything was quiet again but you were still debating on talking to him. He seemed really down which was not only unusual for the archangel but also quite alarming. It was also the longest time you two had spent together without him instantly using a flirty comment in a while. You thought about what Dean had said on the phone earlier. Did he stop? Maybe he didn't feel like annoying you anymore. Even more suspicious. Glancing up you observed him for a few moments. He didn't meet your eyes just stared into his coffee mug, his shoulders hanging low. Now that made all your alarm clocks inside your head ring and yell in worry. He would never let an opportunity pass to challenge you with his eyes. Normally he always felt your eyes on him and would meet your gaze almost instantly. You sat up straight. This wasn't normal.

 "Hey, Gabe?" you spoke up to get his attention which he gave you immediately. "Yeah, sugar?" he slightly grinned at you and you hesitated. Maybe he was only playing with you again. It wouldn't be too farfetched. You shook your worries away, your friendly side winning once again. "I just wanted to ask … is something wrong? You seem down" you said. Now a little unsure of yourself because of his grin you began to fidget with the cup between your hands. Maybe this has been a mistake. Maybe you should have just enjoyed the silence for once. "I'm just feeling a little off today" he answered, his smile vanished and he looked back down at his coffee. So your suspensions had been right. You took a sip of your coffee, ready to relax again and breathe out in relief when you caught the smallest glint of roguishness in his eyes. And before you knew it his typical smirk had returned as he looked up at you. "Would you like to turn me on?" Instantly you choked on the small sip of coffee and coughed it back into the mug as it burned your mouth. Now your face really grew hot out of embarrassment. Cursing yourself you tapped against your chest to stop the coughs from fighting their way up. You had to get out of here. "Forget that I said something" you wheezed and stood up with your cup in one hand and the other one pressed against your chest. You had to leave this room right now. "Oh, come on" Gabriel called after you with laughter in his voice. "That one was a real banger." You only groaned audibly and continued your way to your room.

 _________________________________ 

  You had barricaded yourself in your room for the next few hours. Luckily you had made it angel-prove after an incident that had involved Gabriel a few weeks ago.

 After a tiring hunt you had just wanted to bury your head in your pillows and sleep for 24 hours straight. But you couldn't even get as far as sitting down on your bed. You were only able to take one step inside your room before it happened. You saw Gabriel presenting himself on your bed, grinning at you and one second before it happened you realize what was about to go down. But at that point it was already too late for you to react and you were soaked in some kind of strange, gooey liquid. You couldn't force back the yell of surprise and disgust as the cold substance clung to your clothes and hair. "Gabriel!" you growled and wanted to jump forward, ready to strangle him. Normally you wouldn't get to mad at his pranks but your nerves had been on edge all day and this was the last straw. However, you weren't even able to take one step forward. It seemed like you were glued to the ground. Confused you looked down and tugged on one of your legs with all your might but it wouldn't really butch much. "What is this?" you grumbled and wiped off some of the slime that sticked to your face and hair. Only that it stretched a little but other than that it stayed tangled in your hair. You could hear the archangel snicker which made you look at him again.

 "Gum here often?" he asked with a smirk, holding his head up with one hand while lazily lying on his side. It would have been the perfect pose for a magazine cover wouldn't it be for- wait. What did he just say? "Gum?!" you yelled with your eyes wide in horror which only made him laugh even more. He poured liquid gum on you?! "Gabriel, get me out of here" you demanded while continuing to struggle against the gum. "What do you offer in return?" he talked back still in his model position. You groaned and stopped struggling because you only tangled yourself more in it anyway. Rolling your eyes you shrugged your shoulders in defeat, letting your arms fall down to your sides. "What do you want?" you asked annoyed. Gabriel shifted, now lying on his stomach to face you directly with his head in his hands.

 "What about a kiss?"

 You bit back an angry remark and instead thought of a loophole in his proposition. You needed to get out of here and maybe even get some revenge. But at first you needed some more time to think. "Really? Pulling of this dirty trick on me to get a kiss?" you asked with one raised eyebrow. "I know some more where that one was coming from" he responded with a wink. You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms before your chest as far as possible. The familiar heat was already tinting your face red again while you grumbled to yourself. "Snap the gum away and you can get what you want" you grumbled and turned your head away from him. He jumped up immediately like a little kid who had heard Santa Claus leave the presents downstairs. "Your wish is my command" he said theatrically and snapped his fingers. The gum you were stuck in disappeared in an instant. Relieved you let the tension in your shoulders out and prepared yourself for what was about to happen. Gabriel walked a few steps towards you with a smug grin on his lips and his arms stretched out. "I'm waiting."

 Your eyes widened. He wanted you to do it? To start the kiss? You groaned internally and bit your lip so it wouldn't threaten to spill over them. "Fine" you growled and walked up to him. You had to make this quick without him noticing what you were planning to do. You stood before him and hesitated for a moment. You felt his eyed looking down on you but you were unable to meet his gaze just yet. Wasn't this something you had wanted? Yes, but not under these circumstances. And you refused to play under his rules. You had to concentrate now so you breathed in deeply before grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and bringing him down to you. You saw the confident glint in his eyes, the sureness of victory, as you pulled him down. He didn't even saw it coming. You took one last deep breath and mustered as much strength as you could in your tired state to headbutt him across the face. He let out a surprised yelp and groaned. You didn't think you would actually be able to hurt him with it you had just wanted to get back at him and his surprised face was all you wanted. After the headbutt you let go of him immediately and pushed him towards the door. "That wasn't a kiss" he complained as you tried to shove him out of your room. "Yes, it was" you hissed and pushed him over the ledge of the doorway and grabbed the door, ready to close it but you paused and looked up at him with a grin. "I hope you enjoyed my Liverpool Kiss!" you sing-songed in a sickly sweet manner before shooting him an angry glare and throwing the door in his face.

 After that you had decided to secure your room because even though you mostly enjoyed his pranks you didn't want them to happen in your room. Also, you didn't need him snooping around there. So if Gabriel really wanted to enter the room you would have to destroy the sigils you drew on your door and walls first. But he would have to give you a good reason to do so.

 Now it was almost four pm so you had spent a good six hours in your room. Dean and Sam still hadn't returned tough, probably because of a stopover at a diner. Your stomach growled at the thought of something to eat. However, that meant you had to leave the room and probably face Gabriel again. But you couldn't stay hungry in your room either. You groaned and stood up from your bed. When you remembered correctly there should be leftover pizza in the fridge. The thought of something to eat spurred you on so you tiptoed to the kitchen as fast as possible.

 It only took a few moments to heat the pizza pieces up again but it felt like an eternity to you. But now you sat at the table again and to ate your favorite pizza with your mouth watering. It was perfect. Only that it wasn't. "You've got a piece for me too?" You flinched and looked up from your plate to see Gabriel sitting in front of you. How did he get there without you noticing? "Ehm" you stammered and leaned back to increase your distance to him. You wanted to be cold and say 'No' but your good, friendly side won once more. "Of course." You shoved the plate in the middle of the table so you both could reach it. You two ate in silence which you appreciated greatly because you wouldn't have been able to handle his flirting right now. And even more surprisingly was that he was the one to put away the empty plate after you two finished the rest of the pizza. He didn't snap his fingers and made the plate disappear, no he stood up and grabbed it before you could and put it in the dishwasher. "What is happening?" you wondered but stayed quiet. Better not addressing it and provoking him to any sort of dirty comments again. You just raised one eyebrow at him as he came to a halt in front of you, looking down at you with a special glint in his eyes you couldn't quite sort into any category. You eyed him skeptically.

 "Want to join me in the library?" he asked and reached out a hand for you to take. Now you raised both eyebrows in confusion. What was he scheming? Tilting your head you glanced suspiciously at his hand and back up to his eyes but you couldn't find anything to support your worries which was the only evidence you needed to know that he really had something planned. "Why? What do you want to do?" you asked too curious for your own good. Even though your instincts told you not to trust his seemingly sincere demeanor you decided to grab his hand anyway. He clasped your hand and the glint in his eyes immediately shifted to something mischievous. But before you could speak up or withdraw your hand he pulled you up on your feet and against his chest, his other arm wrapped around your waist so you weren't able to escape. Your eyes widened as you unsuccessfully tried to push yourself away from him with your free hand. With your hand pressed against his chest and your whole body tense you looked up to meet his smug gaze. You wanted to narrow your eyes, hiss something, be mad or do anything but the moment you locked eyes with him you froze once again. Why was this always happening? But surprising you the most was that the tension in your shoulders released almost instantly. Under the warmth of his eyes you felt like melting, like ice-cream in the heat of the summer sun, with your cheeks growing hot too. His lips were dangerously close again, his breath tickling them in the most challenging way and the only thing you wanted was to accept it, to go along. But you couldn’t and you won’t. Not this way. Not under his rules. Shaking your head you broke the eye contact once again with great difficulties and cursed yourself for ignoring your instincts. You were a hunter! You were supposed to rely on instincts if everything else failed. Angry at yourself you bit your tongue to stifle any unholy outbreaks. Refusing to meet his eyes again you continued to stare at his chest with your free hand clenching into a tight fist and pressed against his jacket. Your emotions shifted in an instant and you suddenly felt the powerful urge to run away and hide but unfortunately for you, you couldn't. Gabriel leaned down to your ear, only slightly before he spoke up again.

 "Preferably you."

 Your body tensed up immediately and you were sure the archangel was well aware of that though he didn't react to it. Your eyes snapped up to meet his in fiery anger you used to conceal how flustered you really were and the familiar heat had already established itself on your cheeks again. You were able to feel his body pressed against yours before too but now after those two words you seemed to be painfully aware of everything. Oh, how you hated the way he had made you flustered with his comments right now. And you hated the fact that you sincerely liked him in that moment too. Your nostrils flared as you huffed, unable to speak up. Or rather you didn't trust your voice not to break right now. "But watching a movie would do it too" he added with a toothy grin and let go of you. Quickly you took a few steps back and tried to regain control over your body. You were so hot you probably could replace the heating system of the bunker. "So" he dragged the word and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Care to join me?"

 After the stunt he had pulled on you, you would have normally taken the first change to run back to your room as quick as possible. You were furious and embarrassed and furiously embarrassed. Still you decided to accompany him into the living room area. Why exactly were you doing this? You weren't able to answer yourself. Maybe because you missed hanging out with Gabriel without having to hear these comments all the time, wondering off they were sincere or not. So you sat down on the couch but as far away from the archangel as possible. You didn't want to fall even further into your pit of shame. Luckily he didn't make a single move to get any closer to you so you were able to enjoy most of the movie. However, after a while you got hungry again and decided to grab some snacks from your secret candy hideout in the kitchen. When you sat down again you thought Gabriel had moved a little closer to your spot. But by the way he lazily laid there you doubted that. Maybe your mind was only playing tricks on you. Though something you did notice, were the glances he threw your way. Eyeing him from the corner of your eyes you realized that he wasn't only looking at you but at the sweets on your lab too. You shoved another gummy bear in your mouth and thought for a moment. Should you offer him some? You mentally groaned. Why were you always so nice? Why couldn't you just ignore him? Battling with yourself you finally gave in, rolling your eyes at yourself and muttering curses under your breath. You were so going to regret this.

 "Hey" you said and turned towards him. His honey eyes immediately focused on you again. You groaned once more before you made your offer: "Do you want some sweets too?" What had you told yourself earlier? Ah, right: You would regret this. And by the tight-lipped smile on his face you now knew you definitely were about to. "You're the only candy I need." You stayed dead quiet, the bag of sweets still hold out for him. Narrowing your eyes at him you scowled. Even though you felt agitated you were far too tired to let it show except through the blush that crept up your neck. Actually pretty convenient or at least better than stammering like an idiot. You pursed your lips, a slight furrow between your brows as you stared pointedly at the archangel who seemed to grow uncomfortable with every second ticking by in which you didn't say anything. His smug grin turned into an unsure facade.

 "But I would take some of the gummy bears too."

 _________________________________ 

  "So how was the hunt?" you asked Dean and Sam when they finally arrived back at the bunker. It was around six or seven pm and you were still seated on the couch with Gabriel spread out on the other side. After your unresponsiveness about his latest comment he hadn't dared to speak up again. You didn't really care. In fact you were even a little proud at yourself for not ending up a totally blushing mess and stammering incoherent sentences but staying silent and stoic instead. Why couldn't you react that way every time he did that to you?

 "Fine" Dean mumbled and directed his attention away from you and to the small fridge to get his hard-earned bottle of beer. You only snickered and directed your eyes to Sam, crossing your arms on the back of the couch and placing your head on them while kneeling on the cushions. "Next time I want to join you two again" you said and made it sound slightly demanding. Sam chuckled and glanced at Gabriel who hadn't turned around, his eyes fixated on the TV screen. The taller Winchester nodded: "Alright." However, you shook your head at him and reached out your hand for him to grab. "Promise me." Sam eyed you confused with a small smile on his lips. His gaze darted back to the archangel and he let out a slight snicker when Dean joined them, handing his brother a bottle of beer. "So bad?" Sam asked while still looking at the archangel for a few seconds more before directing his gaze back to you. You huffed and pushed one strand of hair out of your face before reaching out your hand again which the younger brother finally accepted. "You have no idea."

 _________________________________ 

  Almost two weeks later and you still haven't found another hunt which meant that either the world was uncharacteristically peaceful or the monsters got better at disguising themselves. Anyway, that also meant that you had been trapped inside the bunker with Gabriel for two more weeks. And it slowly but surely got to a point where you weren't sure if you could go on like this. Neither did Gabriel's comments stop nor your feelings for him. Damn that honey-eyed archangel luring you into his trap every time. But at least he had been away for a few days now, giving you some peace at last. He said he had to sort something out and left immediately afterwards. You had to admit that you kind of missed him but at least he wasn't bugging you right now. Or not in person anyway because him leaving didn't make your thoughts stop circling around him. You needed a distraction. Your fingertips and mind ached for a new hunt.

 With a sigh you let yourself fall onto the couch in the library and closed your eyes. The bunker hadn't been this peaceful in a long time. It should have been pleasant so why did it irritate you instead? Did you really miss Gabriel's dirty comments? Did you really miss the feeling of embarrassment all day long? With a huff you draped your arms over your face. No, you missed seeing Gabriel's eyes sparkle with these refreshing specks of green. You missed having a normal conversation with him about a random topic one of you picked. You missed hanging out with him before he decided to flirt with you all the time. You missed him. You shook your head. Damn, you really were hopeless.

 "(Y/N)?" echoed Sam's voice through the bunker and to your ears, interrupting your thoughts. Groaning you opened your eyes and removed your arms from your face. "Yeah?" you yelled back and waited because you could already hear his and Dean's footsteps coming closer. You only sat up to face them when you could hear them enter the library. "Please tell me you found a hunt" you begged and leaned forward against the back of the couch. The two brothers shook their heads in unison. "No, we need your help" Sam started but got interrupted by Dean. "Or rather we need Gabriel's help" the older brother said. You raised one eyebrow in question. Why would they need Gabriel's help? You mustered their faces and noticed discomfort flashing over them for a split second. What were they plotting now? "For what?" you asked and tried to sound casual. You put your head in your hands to keep it upright and to not miss any signs that would tell you what they had planned. "That's not so important" Dean started which only made you even more suspicious. Why didn't they just tell you? Were they thinking about pranking Gabriel back? Or ask him about something for a hunt? But they told you they didn't have one. So what exactly were they up to? "The problem is that that son of a bitch won't answer our prayers" Dean finished and cursed angrily. You rolled your eyes. Typical for the archangel. It kind of became a prank in itself to ignore the Winchesters. "So we need you to try it" Sam added and looked at you with an apologetic smile on his lips. You groaned and leaned your head back. That couldn't be real right now, could it? Hadn't you just thought that you missed him? Well, yeah. But if you called him through a prayer he would tease you about it one-hundred percent. Because it is what he always did. "Do I have to?" you asked with a pleading look in your eyes and pouty lips. 'Oh please, just for once be on my side!' you thought not really directed to anyone specific. "Yeah, sorry. But he usually answers yours no matter what" Sam excused and rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. When he really felt so apologetic about you calling for Gabriel they probably had something serious to discuss with him. You really didn't want to do it, Gabriel would never let you live it down but apparently you had no choice. You groaned again. "Fine" you stretched the word before closing your eyes. They definitely owed you for that and whatever was about to happen.

 "Hey, Gabriel. I need you so could you please send your feathery ass over here? Thanks."

 You purposely didn't say that it wasn't you but the Winchesters who needed him because you had realized fairly quickly that he wouldn't come if you made it clear you were praying to him on behalf of Dean and Sam when he was ignoring them. Would he catch onto that then he wouldn't even answer your prayers. You breathed in deeply to prepare yourself for what was going to happen and then slowly opened your eyes again to meet the golden ones of a curtain archangel. Gabriel stood only a few inches in front of you with his typical grin on his lips. "Couldn’t live without me, sweetcheeks?" he asked and tilted his head to one side. Rolling your eyes you pointed behind him to Sam and Dean. "They need you, feather brain" you explained. You could see his demeanor change the moment he laid eyes on the two Winchesters. His carefree attitude vanished and was replaced by an annoyed glare he directed at the two brothers. You wondered how often they had tried to call him before coming to you to make him so displeased. "I know" he snarled which took you by surprise. Out of instinct you put your hand on his shoulder which made him turn to you again. The mischievous glint in his eyes and the smirk on his lips returned in an instant. "So you had been purposefully ignoring them?" you asked with your eyebrows narrowed. "Yep" he answered unmindful and shrugged his shoulders. His hand sneaked towards your face and before you knew it he had already cupped your cheek. Your body froze instantly and your mind exploded into uncontrollable chaos. What. Was. He. Doing? Your eyes widened and your breath got caught in your throat. Stifling the cough you turned away so his hand would leave your skin. Breathing in deeply you tried to control yourself again but when you heard Gabriel's chuckle you spun back around. Rolling your eyes at him you pushed him into the direction of Sam and Dean. "Be decent" you tried to say warningly but it came out more as a whisper. He groaned and rolled his head back dramatically but didn't say anything else, just walked to the Winchesters who gave you a thankful look. You glared at them, making sure they knew that they owed you one now. Then they turned around to leave the library with the archangel in tow. However, you still had one question to ask.

 "I have one question before you three leave" you said which made them stop and turn around to face you again. Straightened up a little and collecting yourself, you directed your gaze at Gabriel who instantly challenged your eyes. You huffed and tried to withstand his golden ones. You couldn't back down now. "Why do you only answer my prayers?" you asked genuinely confused and narrowed your eyes in question. Gabriel smirked at you and shoved his hands in his pockets while slightly leaning back. He let his gaze wander over your face while casually standing next to the Winchesters who threw warning glances at him. But he decided to ignore them. "Because, sugar" he started as his grin grew even more. You gulped, already knowing that this wouldn't end well for you.

 "You're prayers are the only ones I want to hear, though not necessarily with an audience" he finished with his head held proud and high.

 You choked on your spit and your face grew hot not a second later. Did he really just say that in front of Sam and Dean? You couldn't believe it. You turned your head away, not able to hold his piercing eyes. Your body immediately sunk into itself and you just wanted to hide in the darkest corner of the earth where no one would be able to find you. You just wanted to disappear right now because you felt utterly humiliated which was only worsened by your body's reactions. Your mouth was dry and your nails dug themselves into the flesh of your legs as your eyes darted back to Gabriel's. "What the, what the hell is your-" you stammered, not even sure what you were trying to say and achieve. Luckily the Winchester collected themselves fairly quickly and dragged Gabriel out of the room before you could embarrassed yourself in front of him even more or get even more embarrassed by him. You couldn't believe that you really had thought you missed the archangel. Unfortunately, you still did. You huffed and let yourself fall back onto the couch though you couldn't suppress the small smile from forming on your lips. You were a mess. Why did you like him again? But regardless of how often you would continue to ask yourself this it wouldn't change the fact that you had the biggest crush on him. And maybe, only maybe did you start to enjoy his attention even though you didn't like the type of attention and the way it made you flustered.

 You grumbled and pressed the palms of your hands against your closed eyes. You had to do something about it. Sam's lecture sprung back into your memories. Maybe you should tell him? But would he take it seriously? You turned to lie on your side and furrowed your eyebrows on wonder. Where you considering believing his flirting was sincere? Was it? Or did he do it because he liked to torture you and see your embarrassing reactions? You groaned, your thoughts torn. You couldn't tell him about your feelings as long as you weren't sure if he was sincere with his flirting or not. It was just oh so wonderful that you were incapable of noticing the difference.

 _________________________________ 

  After you had summoned him through your prayers and the Winchesters had a talk with him, even though you had no idea about what, Gabriel seemed to stick around again. At least he had stayed in the bunker for a few days now. However, you had ignored and avoided him as far as possible ever since. You had decided that when you couldn't tell if he was sincere with his flirty comments you had only one other option to stop all this: your feelings had to go away. And maybe it was childish thinking but if you didn't talk to him maybe they would magically disappear? You could wish right? The only problem was that avoiding an archangel wasn't that easy. And since the only angel-prove room was yours you had stayed in there for most of the week so far.

 At the moment you laid on your bed and stared up at the ceiling in a half asleep state when your stomach started to rumble. With a groan you straightened up, debating whether you should risk going to the kitchen to eat something or not. But obviously you couldn't just stay in your room forever which was why you tiptoed to your door and listened for anything unusual before opening it. On your way to the kitchen you noticed how uncharacteristically quiet the bunker was and you began to wonder where everyone was. So you took a detour to the library first. But surprisingly the room was empty. Narrowing your eyes in suspicion and confusion you turned around to continue your search in the other rooms only to yelp in surprise as you run into someone. Taking a step bad you cursed mentally. Of course it had to be him. "Who're you looking for, sweetcheeks?" Gabriel asked with his signature smirk on his lips. He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed before his chest and his golden eyes looking down at you. You felt your cheeks heat up again but didn't let your body have the time to shut down in an embarrassing panic again. "Where are Dean and Sam?" you asked him. "You weren't looking for me? That hurts" he said and put his hand over his heart with a pained look you knew was only for show. Rolling your eyes you crossed your arms before your chest and glared at him with one raised eyebrow. The archangel only chuckled. "They went out on a hunt." Your eyes widened. "They what!?"

 Not wasting one second you pushed past him and ran to your room to get your phone. This had to be one of Gabriel's many pranks, right? After their last hunt they went on without you and after you had called Gabriel for them the owed you! They had sworn to take you with them again. They couldn't just have left you behind, right? Why would they leave you behind with Gabriel? They knew the reason for your little self-quarantine! Biting your lips you suppressed an angry yell of frustration. Did that mean you were trapped in the bunker with Gabriel again? You couldn't believe that. This had to be another prank. In your rush you didn't even notice the archangel following you only after you had grabbed the phone from your nightstand and turned around. He stood before your opened door, unable to come any closer which seemed to annoy him greatly by the look on his face. You couldn't suppress the grin from forming on your lips. Making your room angel-prove had to be one of your best decisions so far. Then you turned your attention back to the phone in your hands and dialed Dean's number.

 "(Y/N)? What's the matter?" he asked after a few seconds of the phone ringing. You huffed, instantly angry again. "What's the matter?" you bluffed and felt your eyes twitch. "You left for a hunt. Without me!" Dean winced at your outburst but you weren't done yet. The owed you, they had promised to take you with them again. You felt betrayed but also panicked. You had to stay alone in the bunker with Gabriel and his comments again? "You two had sworn to take me with you!" you yelled while pacing around in your room, very aware of Gabriel's eyes following you. "Well" Dean started but paused for a moment. "Things sometimes go differently than planned?" he tried to soothe your nerves. Unfortunate for him it didn't change anything. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? You could have just told me that you had found another hunt and not just leave without a word" you continued. So they really had left you behind on purpose and it wasn't one of Gabriel's many pranks. You gritted your teeth. Now you really felt betrayed. "You two will turn around and take me with you" you demand, well aware that they probably wouldn't do so. "Sorry, (Y/N) but we are already a few hours away from the bunker. Next time we will take you with us again" Dean promised and even though he sounded sincere you couldn't bring yourself to believe him. "Yeah, right" you wanted to say more but got interrupted by another voice.

 "(Y/N)?" chimed Sam's voice out of the receiver now. He had probably snatched the phone from Dean's hand after hearing your angry outburst. "Sam" you growled warningly. Especially he knew why you wanted to leave the bunker so desperately and still he had decided to go without you. "Let me explain" the younger brother started. "Yes, Sam. Please enlighten me" you demanded and sat down on your bed, glancing at Gabriel from the corner of your eye. He hadn't moved an inch, mustering you. You couldn't read the expression on his face. "Talk to him" Sam said. Confused you furrowed your eyebrows and stared at the floor in front of you again. "What do you mean?" you asked slowly. Something was up. "You heard me" Sam only talked back. "This has to stop. Tell him." "I'm not the one who started this!" you spat. The reality slowly sat in. You were alone with Gabriel again. You couldn't escape those feelings no matter what you tried to do against it. "I don't care. This dancing around has to stop" Sam only said. "Are you serious? Sam, I swear-" you started but then only heard the peeping sounds of a disconnect call. Did he really just hang up on you? You looked down at the phone in your hands with wide eyes. You couldn't believe this. Perplexed you shook your head.

 "What did they say?" Gabriel asked and interrupted your thoughts in the process. Turning around to look at him you raised one eyebrow. "You couldn't tell?" you asked back sarcastically with the hint of a smile on your lips. "They left without me." You gulped, thinking about Sam's ultimatum. Gabriel only shrugged his shoulders which made you huff in annoyance. "You'd really rather be on a hunt right now?" he questioned. You huffed out a yes, still angry at the two brothers and then put the phone back on the nightstand with a little more force than needed. They better hoped that when they returned to the bunker that your mood had improved by then. "Oh, someone’s panties are in a twist. Want a hand untangling them?" the archangel smirked. You spun around to face him with an angry glare. The only problem was that your body once again betrayed you. Your cheeks and ears were getting hot and you crossed your arms to dig your nails in their flesh again. Your eyes grew wide again, not believing what you just heard. The archangel in front of you seemed very pleased by your reaction which led to you avoiding his gaze. Damn it, you were just too easily caught off guard and flustered. Since you couldn't come up with anything to say to that you grabbed the door and threw it shut. Gabriel's laugh was very audible through the wood as you walked back to your bed and sat down, hiding your face in your hands. You couldn't do this anymore. Your feelings wouldn't just magically disappear, what were you thinking? He needed to stop with the comments or...

 "I have to talk to him" you whispered. Groaning in defeat you let yourself fall backwards on the bed.

 _________________________________ 

  You decided that the only plausible solution was to talk to Gabriel, just like Sam had told you. Though that didn't have to be right now, right? So you waited. You had grabbed something to eat from the kitchen later that day and had sprinted back to your room immediately. Luckily you hadn't run into the archangel again. After that you had spent the rest of the day and the next one in your room, alone. When the third day arrived you couldn't avoid the topic no more. This had to end. You were just being difficult and stupid right now. You couldn't spend the rest of your life in this room, hoping to never run into the archangel again. You had to start talking. Pacing around in your room you told that yourself over and over again. But every time you had hyped yourself up enough to walk to the door you hesitated with grabbing the handle. You backed away every time. "This is ridiculous" you grumbled. You were behaving like a nervous teenager. You could hunt and kill monsters so you should be able to talk to people as well. But Gabriel wasn't an ordinary person. Groaning you hid your face in your hands and sat down at the edge of your bed. This had to stop. You knew you couldn't avoid it. But why was this so difficult? Why were you so difficult? There were only silly comments. He only wanted to toy with you a little, he had been the trickster after all. So why was this affecting you so much? Because you liked him. Grumbling at your own thoughts you had to agree with them.

 "This has to stop today" you mumbled to yourself and stood up again. "I know what to say, now I only have to walk up to him and-" your monolog got interrupted by a knock at your door. For a split second you caught yourself considering hiding somewhere. You knew who was standing in front of the door, unable to open it himself. But then you cleared your throat and walked to the door, your hand on the handle. "You can do this" you thought and opened the wooden door. Looking up you wanted to open your mouth to say the things you had practiced in your mind all day only to freeze on the spot. The moment you locked eyes with him all your thoughts seemed to take the emergency exit, leaving you empty without a clue what to do. Gabriel was standing in front of you, not leaning against the wall like usual. His hands were buried in the pockets of his jacket, a frown on his face that was normally decorated by a grin. What was the matter?

 "Gabriel?" you heard yourself ask before you registered that you had opened your mouth to speak. Biting your tongue you waited for an answer. Was he toying with you again? The archangel turned his gaze away from you for a second, looking at the floor before bringing his eyes back up. The gold in them seemed dull and you were unable to find any specks of green. It seemed like the green leaves had fallen from the branches. "Can we talk?" he asked. You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. The last time he had seemed down he just wanted to catch you off guard with one of his comments. And now you were unsure if you could trust the look on his face. But wasn't talking exactly what you had wanted to do? With a sigh you nodded but stayed on the safe side of the door. Just out of precaution. "Ehm, oka-" you wanted to agree but he interrupted you. "Well they say that kissing is a language of love, so want to start a conversation with me?" Your face grew hot the second he had finished the sentence. He had tricked you again. Your gaze fell to the ground as you just wanted to disappear right now. Grabbing the door to stable yourself you tried to think of something, anything to do or say. But if your head had been completely empty before, then it was crowed now. Your thoughts were running wild while you tried to process if he had really said what you thought you heard. Clenching your free hand into a fist you looked up again, meeting his golden eyes that still seemed rather dull even with the smirk on his lips. "Can't you just stop?" you had wanted to yell, sound annoyed and throw the door in his face but instead you stayed frozen in place and only a drained whisper left your lips. His grin didn't falter though you thought that you saw something shift in his eyes. Was that concern?

 "I'm not in the mood for your remarks" you continued. Why were you still standing there? You wanted to close the door so badly so why couldn't you move? "I could get you in the mood" Gabriel talked back, not missing a beat while your face turned even redder, you could feel it. You gasped and stared at him with your mouth wide open. Did he really just say that? Your embarrassment got mixed with rage as you squinted, furrowing your brows.

 "What's the matter with you?" you asked after you had finally found your voice again. Out of instinct you took one step forward, out of the safety of your room, with one finger accusingly pointed at him though he didn't back away. "Why are you doing this?" Your other hand let go of the door as you took another step forward. "Doing what, sugar? You have to be more specific" he said with a grin, challenging your eyes with a piercing glance. But you wouldn't back down, not today. "Why are you always dropping suggestive comments around me?" you asked more clearly. The archangel opened his mouth to answer: "They're only suggestive if you think they are." Your face fell, eyebrows raised in shock and with the heat returning to your cheeks you took one step back. You stammered something incoherent while positioning yourself in a defensive stance. No. Shaking your head you tried to compose yourself again. Not today. "That's exactly what I mean. Just stop it!" you growled. "And if I don't want to?" Gabriel challenged you further. You felt the unsureness creeping up your back. Maybe you should stop now before you embarrass yourself more. Your mind yelled at you to run, to flee but you couldn't. Your feet were glued to the floor just like during the prank that had driven you to make your room angel-prove. "Then at least tell me why you are doing this" you demanded with your voice slightly breaking. This hasn't evolved how you had wanted it to.

 Gabriel took one step forward and you wanted to counter with one backwards but before you could force your feet of the floor he had cupped one of your cheeks while grabbing your hand that was still pointed at him in an accusing manner. You were trapped and unable to move. Not that you could anyway. The archangel grinned down at you but the grin didn't reflect in his eyes. They were still dull and up close they even seemed tired to you. He pushed one stand of hair behind your ear in such a soft and caring manner that it left you breathless. What was happening? With your mouth slightly agape you tried to find words even though you weren't really sure what you wanted to say. "Maybe because I like to tease you" the archangel started. He slowly moved your hand closer to him until it was pressed against his chest. You could feel his heart beating beneath your fingers. Your eyes darted to your interlocked hands and then back to his golden eyes. "Maybe because I like to see you get flustered so easily" he continued and caressed the side of your face. A tingling feeling began to fight its way through your stomach and up to your chest, to your violently beating heart. What was happening? Why were you letting this happen? "Maybe because I like the way you blush. Maybe-"

 "Stop it" you said, pulled away from him and stepped back into your room. Your gaze was directed to the floor, you were unable to meet his eyes. You felt your heart beat against your rips, you felt your short breaths stutter over your lips. Your eyes were wide and pleading. They were pleading him to stop as you looked up again. "Just stop with your comments I can't continue like this" you couldn’t stop the words from flowing over your lips now. Looking up again you saw that expression in his eyes again, a expression you couldn't read. Maybe it really was concern. "I can't continue wondering if all this is a game to you or if you are sincere..."

  "You can't tell if I'm sincere?" he interrupted you. Was that hurt in his voice? You must have imagined that. You shook your head and choked out a "No". "So Dean and Sam had been right" he muttered more directed to himself than to you. Right? Right about what? You squinted in confusion. Gabriel on the other hand wanted to take one step forward but was stopped by the invisible barrier of the sigils. Cursing under his breath he took one step back and instead reached out a hand to you. Even more confused your eyes wandered between his golden ones and the outstretched hand. He didn't say anything, didn't request you to take his hand with words because what he didn't say out loud, what his eyes said in silence was enough for you to understand what he meant. With the slightest hint of hesitation you grabbed his hand and let him pull you out of the room again. Why were you doing this?

 The archangel looked down at you with questioning eyes, his free hand hesitating to move. You almost unnoticeably nodded. He cupped your cheek again, like before but it felt different though you couldn't put your finger on it. Almost intuitively you placed your free hand on top of his, tilting your head slightly to the side. Your thoughts were running wild again but it didn't feel as chaotic as before. A strange sense of calmness draped over you, let your loud thoughts disappear into the background. Was this a dream? Gabriel led your interlocked hand back to his chest, placed yours over his heart again that seemed to spike by your touch. Were you imagining things? Your own heart skipped a beat when he stepped closer, decreasing the distance between you two. Normally you would have stepped back, tried to escape but surprisingly you wanted to do the opposite. You wanted to get closer. The desire you had locked away for so long pulled you to him. He stroke over the skin of your cheek, let his hand wander through your hair and to the back of your head. This wasn't a game anymore. Has it ever been one? You let out a shaky breath as you found the confidence to get even closer, to press yourself against him as you watched his golden eyes. The dullness you had noticed before was long gone and the greens of the leaves have returned to their full, former glory. You only then realized how close you have gotten to him. So close that you could see the greens in his eyes clearly for the first time and feel the ghost of his breath on your lips. Your heart decided to skip a beat, the smell of him hypnotized you. You always thought that he would smell like candy. His lips parted only slightly, a small grin still present on them. However, it wasn't a teasing one, the grin was sweet, almost shy. The slight push of his hand behind your head was left unnoticed as you gave into your desire, closed your eyes and the space between your lips. You never felt so helpless and full of courage at the same time. So simultaneously out of control and powerful. But these feelings quickly washed away into nothingness. Only the kiss, only Gabriel mattered. Your hand that was pressed against his heart clung to the fabric of his shirt, keeping him close while the other one slowly found its place in his soft hair. It's nothing like you every experienced and nothing like how you imagined it. It was so much better, sweeter, more passionate. The taste of sweets on his lips lulled you in even more, driving you forward to deepen the kiss. The hand behind your head stroke through your hair, leaving behind a tingling sensation that made you gasp. His other hand slowly moved to your waist, caressing your side and pulling you even closer. You never felt so complete, so at peace. The kiss felt like cotton candy clouds, like him wrapping his wings protectively around you even though you had never seen them. You felt safe and protected and like every part of your body dissolved into his. You had wanted this for far too long.

 You parted, pulled away only slightly. Out of breath and with your face flushed, you opened your eyes in an instant. You haven't moved away from him, your knees far too weak to even hold you up on your own so you hold onto him instead. Short, choppy breaths left your lips, your chest heaving heavily. You let the hand behind his head fall down and he caught it immediately in his, interlocking your fingers while the other one was still placed on your waist. You didn't know what to think. You felt overwhelmed and at peace, confused and complete all at once. And without you wanting to you suddenly felt your eyes filling themselves with water and before you could stop it or do anything to prevent it the first tears were already trickling down your cheeks. Pressing your eyes closed you turned your head away and let out the sobs that had waited behind your lips all this time. "You were sincere."

 You freed yourself from his hands and instead clung to him, face pressed against his chest as the battle of your confusion and relief raged. You didn't care that your cheeks were hot and red in embarrassment or how you cried into the fabric of his shirt. He had wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close as you felt the muscles of your chin tremble and the tears shaking your body. And then it was over, and you hiccupped against his shirt as you tried to catch your breath. Pushing away slightly you glanced up at his eyes that shined done at you like the summer sun with a small grin on his lips which you returned. "I hate you." Gabriel's eyes widened in shock as you looked at him with a mischievous twinkle in your eyes. "Now hol- now hold on one second" he laughed out loud. "Not what you expected?" you asked with your smirk growing to the ends of your cheeks. The archangel shook his head, still chuckling slightly. "Now you know how I felt, you feathered dick!" He glanced down at you again, challenged the roguish glint in your eyes. "I guess I deserved that" he admitted and leaned back down to you. You only nodded, still smiling. Gabriel's lips ghosted over yours again, making your breath hitch and your body freeze in anticipation. But he smirked and moved to your ear instead. Your heart skipped a beat as you waited, wondering what he was up to. And then with a husky whisper he asked: "Want to move on to pound town now?"

 You pushed away from him and shot him an angry glare while he only looked down at you with a chuckle. "Moment ruined."

[singeramg]

Are you still doing request for your 500 followers celebration ? If you are I would like to request Nr 4 “Is there a reason you are here?” With Walter Marshall 😊

Oh wow, it seemed this one was supposed to be easy and short. Nope. Didn’t happen that way so here’s part one of three. I hope that you like it and thats much for participating in this!

Title: The Heart Fate Breaks - Part I

Rating: M

Pairing: Walter Marshall ( Nomis/ Night Hunter) / Reader!

Warnings: ANGST!, Implied Alcohol Abuse, Mentions of illegal activity, implied depression, deception, kidnapping, descriptions of violence, but not completely detailed, loss of pregnancy, and of course smut.

A/n: This is my first attempt at Walter Marshall so if he seems to ooc, then let me know ( kindly please), Also there are gifs scattered through this piece and that is because that is how I am imagining him aging throughout the story. Sorry if seeing other Henry Characters throws you off too bad. If I get too many complaints about it I will take them out. Thanks for giving this a chance

Part 1: The end is always closer than you think: 

      This had been a long time coming. Fated is a word many would put to it. You’d spent so much time crying over this man, imagining what the reaction would be once you saw him again that you lost many nights of sleep. Nobody knew the hurt you felt when you realized that all of it had been a lie. That you meant nothing to him. A pawn in a lengthy game of chess all to catch someone else in his net.

You met Marshall back when you were both young, a 18 year old and a 20 something that was still trying to figure out the world. You a young idealistic type, determined to get away from a bad home life and he came in as the bad boy, riding his motorcycle, leathered up, a chip on his shoulder ready to prove to the world he was bad ass, but one look at you and he softened like a stick of butter.

Flashback:

        It had been a typical Friday night. It had been one of your first college parties at least as an actual student. It had been a night of being deemed the Freshman-Fresh Meat and it seemed everywhere you turned some frat was trying to paw you in some misplaced sense of entitlement. You rebuffed many and sent them away holding your drink in hand. You’d gotten bored as the roommate you’d came with didn’t have the same ideals of coming into the party together and leaving together as your phone just dinged with a ‘don’t wait up’ text message from her. You saw a few familiar faces from your Chem. Class, and after a few moments of small talk, you were ready to go back to your dorm, and would have done except, he walked through the door.

He was the type of guy that made you pay attention to him with his tall stature and natural curls, clearly confident, despite having a baby face he was certainly older, and he somehow commanded attention and respect. It was definitely a turn on.  Clearly, you weren’t the only one who noticed him as the sorority girls and other randoms from the party were conveniently finding themselves in his path. You found it interesting that he did it so smoothly, a wide smile and some sort of flirting behavior that got them to move and let him walk through the crowd. Some girlish part of you wanted him to notice you. You wanted him to see you above all the petty makeup and unclothed bodies. It was unlikely to happen so just as you tossed back the rest of the beer from your red solo cup, losing  sight of the gorgeous man and settled for tossing the cup in the overflowing trash. You give a few halfhearted goodbyes as you head for the door but in a twist of fate, you trip over something random on the floor, well actually it was more like something was wet on the floor, but you lose even more chances of staying on your feet, by running into someone else who’d been dancing, he turns around pissed but the missing bad boy catches you in strong arms and defuses it rather quickly.

“Can’t let the prettiest girl in the room crack that face can I?”

His ego is evident in his words. It makes your eyes roll and you straighten up. Removing his hands from your hips, you dust off and step back, not letting yourself become intimidated by his height over you. You put on your armor of fake confidence when faced with an undetermined outcome of a situation.  At your attempted step back he steps forward, not giving you a chance to avoid his cologne and damn him if he didn’t smell like fucking woods, and warmth and everything you liked. You ignore the errant thoughts of climbing him like a tree and push him back, but his grip only loosens, doesn’t actually release you.

“No but maybe she will crack yours if you don’t back up.”

He tosses his head back, loose curls falling away from his face, you bite a sigh at the jawline again.

“Awe is that how’d you repay a man just trying to help?”

He steps even closer but you don’t move back this time.

“Usually no, but for you I’d make an exception.”

“Here I was thinking I’d get a thank you.”

“And I was thinking I’d get personal space. Do you want me to pat you on your back, maybe a cookie?” You know you sound patronizing, but you don’t care. You weren’t ready to give up the ghost yet.

“ I’d settle for your name?”

You can’t deny the big blue eyes that were trying to form something substantial between the two of you.

“It’s Y/N.”

“A beautiful name for the equally impressive woman in front of me.” He is laying it on kind of thicker than you normally go for, but you find yourself unable to turn him away.

“Shouldn’t you return the favor?”

“ Marshall...Walker.”

He offers you and you say to him,

“ Now that we’ve got past the hard part, I must ask Is there a reason you are here? You know still in my face” noting that he was still holding you lightly, He dazzles a wide smile, sharp pointed canine teeth that screams he wants to make you his prey.

“Maybe I am just not ready to let you go.”

The cheesy line works and  you let him take your hand to get another drink.

And so it began...

*End Flashback

       He fell into the place as your protector, nobody ever dared to put their hands on you when he was around, nobody in your terrible family ever even let you see the dark side to what they did again. Mostly.

You weren’t stupid you knew they had been dealing and apart of gang activity for years, but honestly it kept you safe from a lot of outside forces, it just didn’t protect you from the inside.

You were in your 30s now. A decade and a half between the first time you met him and now, you’d made peace that you had done everything you could to escape the feeling of being utterly alone in the world. You were tired. You were tired of putting on a brave face, tired of setting your own standards so high that if by chance anyone could connect you to your family they’d know without a doubt that you managed to land a whole field away from the tree.

You’d had relationships since Marshall but despite everything you couldn’t find that connection in anyone else. The colors had faded with the hurt, leaving behind whispers of memories of time you’d never get back. The memories always hurt when they crashed into you. The late night walks along the creeks and bridges, the talks that lasted hours without trying, how he’d been so gentle in being your first, the way he held you in his arms every time the world got to be too much.

*Begin Flashback #2*

It was a warm summer night, thankfully a breeze came across that made the muggy night just bearable. Marshall had hit it off enough with your family that they had basically adopted him into the fold.

Well everyone except your mother, but she didn’t truly like anyone so it was no surprise he shot thinly veiled insults at Marshall, and he took it like a champ for the sake of loving you.

He worked for them, but maintained a job at the docks too, to help them. Having found time away from his job down at the docks to spend what he could with you made you feel above it all.  He gave you those butterflies in your stomach, made you feel like you could accomplish anything. Despite him getting into the family business he was only doing that so that he could make enough money to take you away from this life. He’d listened when you explained how your family lived and how you tried so many times to get away but they always tracked you down and dragged you back. They barely wanted you to go to college but you’d let them know that if they wanted you quiet then letting you continue your education your way was the only option. You family had always teased you for wanting more but Marshall didn’t. He encouraged everyone of your dreams and pushed you even when you didn’t think it was possible. His duality was astounding for you to witness because he never let anything happen when you were with him, the epitome of strong, quiet, powerful type, a man of very few words, but you always knew he cared. He made sure you wanted for nothing. So when enough time had passed in your mind, you felt he was worthy of your ultimate prize.

Not a decision to come to lightly but you decided that tonight you would give Marshall what many had been hoping to get from you as a means to controlling you or to say they had the untouchable Princess of the local mob family. So many had wanted for you to choose them but you knew it was meant to be Marshall.

So here you were a warm borderline  muggy summer night, spending time just outside the city in the field of a farm in Marshall’s old beat up pickup that he used for transportation, but now cleaned out and blanketed with old comforters and pillows, he’d gotten you away from the chaos of your world, somewhere no one could interfere and ruin it, and made you feel like it was just you and him.

His touches on your body were delicate as he hovered over you, small kisses and few drinks led to heavy petting and an understanding of what you wanted for yourself.

Marshall was it.

Strong hands slide up your heated flesh leaving goosebumps in their wake, folding into your hair, his body pressing yours into the bed of the pickup. Marshall kisses down your neck, peeling the fabric of your sundress off, his following yours, maybe not with the full grace of his hands because yours were shaking, but making eye contact once you lay before him assured you that this was the right choice. The right moment and when he grinds into you, making you hiss and buck into his hardness you pull him down by his curls and kiss him again. Letting him steal your breath away as he always managed to do as he pushes into you, only moments after making you climax on his tongue and fingers, beard burn forming from the stubble he was refusing to shave, from him tasting what you’d been so willingly open to giving him.

“Just breathe. Let me take care of you baby girl.”

You just hold on tightly to the back that has been putting on muscle steadily, as he kisses the side of your face, wiping tears off your skin with such a delicate touch,  and eventually the pain gives way to pleasure. Holding his body against yours, thrusting into you, alternating passionate kisses on your swollen lips to your neck and chest, and letting his hands move all over you once he takes note of you calming down. He feels like he is almost too much, but he just keeps encouraging you. You are making pitiful noises but it just encourages his movement. He knows exactly what to say too as your body gives way to him.

“There’s my girl opening up for me. Taking me all in.”

He grinds for emphasis, pushing his thickness into you harder than he had been and then you moan in his ear again. Soon he is steady, but he is driving you mad, with pleasure. You mildly wondered what had taken so long to experience this, but you also know it wouldn’t be like this with anyone but him.

“M...Marshall yes.”

You feel your walls pulsing against the cock inside of you, trying to force the largeness out of forgein territory but he stays exactly where you need him, even stopping as he pushes you both toward a force stronger than both of yourselves.

“You feel so good...”

His words are like honey pouring over you slow...

*End Flashback*

     It had been more than what you expected. Past the feelings of just lust, he made you feel like nothing could go wrong in this world. The hatefulness of your world, your family felt like nothing in his arms.  

He made you feel like you could do anything.

That had been years ago and now you hated him for it.

You had worked so hard not to feel this weak again but one flash of his picture, years aged came across your TV screen as he received commendation from the mayor had been enough to set you on edge. You don’t know this Walter Marshall.

The longer hair and a thicker beard, he almost doesn’t look familiar, but his eyes. His eyes always gave him away to you. He’d never been able to lie to you with them and his smile.

Turned out those had been the biggest lie of them all.

You’d taken your fair share of losses over the years but you’d also gained. You’d gained a hard earned degree in social work, you’d gained a job that had taken you around the world on missions to save kids, you’d accomplished so much and yet it meant nothing because the feeling of loneliness still persisted. You just purchased a beautiful home far removed from the wasteland of empty feelings and space  you grew up in but it had no life. It had no life because that life had been stolen from you so long ago.

So you go out to have a drink, maybe find a warm body to help you forget the way you felt, but somehow 1 drink turned into only one more but for some reason your head was spinning. You’d know this wasn’t you. You could handle your drinks, but by the time you could mention to anyone that it was sinister doings you were hogtied in some weirdo that had been at the bar basement. It was dark, and cold as you shivered against the concrete. The musk of wood and old damp space invaded your senses as the clothes tied around your mouth stole all the moisture from your mouth and you tried yelling to no avail. The basement door opens the weirdo comes down, his heavy weight no match for yours as he lifts you up from the floor, you kick, you scream, you fight, but he manages to drag you across the floor and down a hallway in that same basement that seems to go on forever, the end is a room. This room has a light but you wish it didn’t. The mattress is filthy and stained in various fluids that you don’t want to name. You mildly wonder if this is how you die.

How many had been in this exact same position as he handcuffs you to the gunmetal colored frame and it shakes barely holding onto your weight. You felt your face wet but you almost didn’t register that they were your tears until a raspy yet cold “my pets don’t cry. Unless I make them.”

You have to be shaking by now as the realization sets in that this was beyond simple murder, maybe beyond rape, he intended on torturing you until you thought death was the gift. You screw your eyes shut, memories of one of the other times you felt worse take over your brain and with no distractions as you normally have, you fall in head first to your own personal hell...

Begin Flashback 3

      It had been a year with Marshall. A full glorious year of just being with him and him protecting you from your family. He’d sat with you through various holidays, played nice with your brothers and father, while working his way up the ranks to where now he was one of the most trusted in the organization. You never questioned how he did it, only that he came home to you. You’d moved in together about two months ago, against the wishes of your mother who didn’t think much of her daughter. In fact she had it made up in her mind that you thought you were better than them, that you were hateful and spiteful when in reality all you wanted was freedom.

You wanted the freedom to love and do what you wanted, not be judged by the legacy of blood your family left in its wake.

You’d only wanted him and Marshall made sure you knew he felt the same. He had a cold streak that could frighten some of the deadliest men you knew. How one look could shut them down and if it didn’t get shut down he...took care of it. However you two were about to embark on a whole new journey.

Parenthood.

Not that he knew. You’d only just figured it out yourself with a handful of home pregnancy tests and then a blood test with your doctor. You loved your child already and he’d talked about a family with you but the time right now was all off, but you knew the kind of man he was would do what he could for you. It wouldn’t be easy but the motto had always been “together”. It didn’t make you any less scared to be a mom which is why despite your strained relationship with your own you went to her for advice.

The house looked and felt just as it did growing up. A large home full of beautiful things but coldness. The lack of cars told you that the rest of your family wasn’t home, which was exactly what you didn’t want. If your father and brothers found out before Marshall, they wouldn’t care how much money he made them, they’d make his life a story of regret from the day he saved you from a face plant at the party. No you had to break the news, but you needed some advice. So you walk in, following the smell of white diamonds perfume your mother loves, up to the grand master bedroom. Taking off your shoes and the maid, takes your coat.

You almost laughed as you walked into the hallways of the house. Before your family transitioned into major players of the drug scene, you remembered the simpler times of a small house, fenced in porch that your grandma would sit on drinking tea and reminiscing as she told you stories about her childhood. Your mom is actually caring about what you wanted and needed. It had been a simplistic time, blissfully unaware of what your father did, your brother just going into high school, and the care of your mother was probably the reason you were pacing outside her bedroom door now.

You knock on one side of the white french doors and wait for an answer like you were taught to do, sweeping your feet across the soft carpet in small half circles.

“Come in Y/N.”

You smirk and open the door , following the light from her en-suite bathroom to where she was sitting at the vanity, putting the last touches on her full face of makeup.

“How did you know it was me momma?”

She laughs at you, a sharp smile on her face, framed by delicate laugh lines, still beautiful on the outside even if you knew how ruthless she could be with what she wanted. You hoped that the joy of a new grandchild would overshadow that you weren’t married to the father first. That he wasn’t some guy of high standing that she’d envisioned married you off to.

“You’ve been fidgety since you were a child, your brothers only knock if it’s an emergency AND your father was here, which considering what he has going on today home is the furthest thing from his mind. Honestly it never is even or normal days dear, but never the less I know you well enough that you aren’t here for just pleasantries.”

So you sigh and look down into her eyes, only because she was still sitting down, but you still felt like a child. Magically, it takes her only a minute and 17 seconds before her eyes widen and she looks at you.

“Oh my goodness *Your full name Here* you are pregnant.”

At her words you drop to your knees at her feet, much like a small child she lets you put your head in her lap as the relief of someone other than your doctor knowing about the life inside of you. She pats your head soothingly and you feel for the first time that she is on your side.

“It’s okay sweetheart. We will be okay, everything will be okay. We can make this go away. Nothing has to change.”

You look up at her this time, confusion filling your eyes and you shake your head.

“No... no that...that’s not...momma that’s not why I care here.”

She looks at you and scoffs, not caring as she stands up.

“Don’t be foolish Y/N. You are still a child yourself.”

You pull yourself to your feet, wiping the tears from your face. Ready to rebel against her thoughts of what you could be and what you were.

“I am not a child mother. I am 21.”

“You are not ready for a child.”

“Is anyone ever really?” You say with an off handed attitude that she clearly doesn’t appreciate. She steps around the chair to get closer to you.

“You most certainly are not. Besides what about all these lofty plans you made for yourself. You are the one who just HAD to go college. We spent all this money for you to go and you want to toss it away by having a child with nobody who can barely afford that hovel you live in much less a whole child.”

Angry she tossed a hand in the air in disbelief of her decision.

“We both do just fine...”

“You do just fine because of us. He works for us. We allowed this to go on for as long as possible because he seemed to keep you out of trouble and more or less distracted. He promised us he would keep you safe, make sure you knew what it means to be with someone in this lifestyle as a true partner, so that when the time comes to let you go to someone worthy...”

“You are lying! You will say anything to get me to do what you want. Marshall loves me and he will love this baby.”

“What did I just say child?! He cannot love you, because if he did he would know this would only hold you back. Your father and I have so much to show you, to give you the keys to be comfortable in such ways we never had growing up and you want to toss it away for a glorified errand boy!”

“ So this is just about control. Just like you always do. You can’t stand to see me happy unless you are the one holding the puppet strings. Well you know what...I am done. All of this is done! Marshall and I raise this child and will be everything that you hoped we failed at. I promise you will never see this child if this is how you view us.”

You turn quickly, determined to get as far away from her as possible, tears in your eyes, you were determined not to let her see you cry anymore. She no longer deserved that part of you.

“Goodbye Mother.”

She says reverting the formal manners she’d paid through the nose for you to develop. She let you get a few down the steps before you hear her race after you.

“Wait! Y/n please wait!��

The pleading tone was new and unexpected for you. You hadn’t heard the tone used for anything other than in childhood when begging your father not to do something stupid. You had never heard her use it in reference to you. She sounded heartbroken and is why you stop. She runs behind you, a step above you as you turn with tears in her eyes.

“I am sorry, Y/N please don’t leave like this. I just worry for you. You are my only daughter and suddenly my little girl isn't a little girl. I didn’t handle it well.”

You turn with a small smile and look at the soft look on her face. Once again not seen much since childhood, but it wasn’t forced.

“ No you didn’t but I guess we can give you a second chance to get it right.”

She wraps both arms around your shoulders and you both let her, touching her hands with a soft pat.

“So tell me, baby doll does anyone else know about this gift yet?”

You feel yourself beaming at her interest, the childhood nickname making you preen, excited that you would have guidance and maybe even get back the mother you’d been missing since you moved into this house.

“No. Actually not even Marshall, I came over hoping you’d give me some advice on how to tell him. I am so nervous.” You say walking slowly because you weren’t close enough to hold onto either side of the railing on the large stairs.

“Oh don’t worry sweetie, I think that will be the least of your worries...”

You turn to look at her but her smile is gone and a strong shove sends you careening down the rest of the steps, terror fills your veins and you panic, your life flashing before your eyes, things you did, things you never got to say. Only sounds of your screams echoing in the foyer. You hear your mother's footsteps as your head spins as you land.

She yells for help, but before anyone can come she leans down and says

“I did this for you.”

You feel the room spinning as you fight to keep consciousness so you could tell someone...anyone about what she did. Just as a maid turns a corner, the front door blasts open with a battering ram. Cops swarm in and you are surrounded, your mother taken to the floor along with unsuspecting maids.

“Help me.”

You manage to breathe out just as you give into the wall of blackness and let yourself fall asleep.

Besides it was more comforting there than knowing your mother had just tried to kill you and your unborn child...

*End flashback 3*

You lost everything that day. Your world shattered on the floor of that marbled foyer and somehow that fear was more than what you felt right now. You wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing you cry again. Of breaking you down to that debased state again.

Turns out that wasn’t good enough for your captor. So he provided the physical pain that gave him the tears he wanted. He wanted to remind you that you had no one who actually gave a damn. Maybe death this way was better.

You could be with the one person who hadn’t left you by volition.  You were once again facing that wall of unconsciousness but this time you were tired. Tired of life. The amount of energy it took for you to live was excruciating.

Without him.

Downright impossible.

You should know. You’d tried. So through your muffled whimpers as the weirdo finally decides he’s spilled enough of your blood and has reached where he can get it up enough to desecrate you.

He is climbing over you, the smell of hard liquor pouring from his pores and gross breath and he gets in your ear about how beautiful he thought you were as if that was supposed to endear you to him. You wake up just enough not to just lie there you start fighting back and he smacks you on an already swollen pain, but you fight even more. That bit of fight in you, won’t let this man break you. So you pull against the bindings and try to make it so he has no footing but he starts laughing more.

“There’s the fight. You were getting boring dear. Now... now... now... you really got potential.”

You pray for the ending as he grinds on you but another harsh sound comes as his weight disappears and in the red dim lighting of the room you hear and see the outline of a struggle. Two men fighting for domination of the other but  you didn’t know who would win, though it seemed your rescuer had some height over your captor. A few well placed punches and a hard kick to the stomach and your result is standing to his feet, wiping his mouth and you guessed handcuffing the weirdo.

“ Detective Marshall, Full breech, victim is alive, one suspect in custody, medical request for full evac on suspect and victims.”

No.

The voice. Your obvious head injuries were playing a trick on you.

He fumbles around the dirty room and manages to find the light switch and it hurts you so your eyes slam shut and squeeze tight as a way to protect you and also so that your mind doesn't have to reconcile the voice to the face.

One of many reasons you went out drinking alone in the first place.

He walks over to the bed and helps untie you and you whimper as the blood returns to your wrists and your eyes open to find Marshall sitting in front of you. He brushes blood from your face, and tilts your head up, finally making eye contact as you begin to get cloudy headed again because despite your conscious feelings about him, your body still knew it was safe.

“Y/N?” He sounds as if he’s seen a ghost, and honestly it probably was like a ghost.

“Marshall please don’t leave me.”

Your torso falls forward onto his and strong arms wrap around you and you finally sob yourself into unconsciousness....

A/n: So as always I am requesting opinions! I hope this wasn’t too triggering for anyone and that you are excited for the next two part which hopefully should be up in the next few days, as they are in the editing stage. 

If you feel so moved reblog, like, comment, follow.

TAGLIST: ( OPEN JUST SEND A REQUEST IF YOU WANT ON OR OFF, ALSO IF YOU HAVE REQUESTED TO BE ON MY HENRY TAG LIST BUT DON’T SEE YOUR TAG LISTED, LET ME KNOW ASAP) 

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[snarky-bee]

Dreams

Zevran was on watch. His back was silhouetted against the low burn of flames. He faced outward into the dark, with an ankle crossed underneath one leg. The stir of bushes and trees rustling in the wind and the occasional pop of wood crackling were the only sounds. It was late. The moon was a mere haze of white light obscured by clouds; a chill hung in the air.

Kallian wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the blanket tightly to her shoulders while a gust of wind tried to strip it from her.

Her footsteps rustled grass and crunchy leaves. She watched Zev’s ears twitch briefly but he didn’t turn. She plopped down on her knees behind him and wrapped her arms, blanket and all, around his shoulders. Her cheek pressed to his shoulder blade. He was warm from the fire.

“Up before dawn?” Zevran murmured. She could feel the rumble of his voice in her chest. It comforted her. “I heard you tossing back and forth.”

She was still groggy, but falling back asleep on her own sounded worse than seeking Zev out even in the cool autumn air. “Darkspawn shit,” she said by way of answer.

It was getting worse. Alistair had said it was worse for those who joined during a Blight, but for the first few months, she had dreams maybe once a week and always fell back asleep right away. Now it was strange if she went a night without the archdemon invading her mind. 

She sighed and nuzzled her nose into Zev’s neck. Blond hairs tickled her face as the wind teased his loose hair. 

“You should go back to sleep, my warden,” he soothed. His hand fell on hers, rubbed the stretch of skin between thumb and pointer finger. He chuckled lightly and scoffed. “What a fool I am. Suffering here under this Fereldan cold and sending you and your warmth away from me.”

That dragged a smile from Kallian and she squeezed him tighter. “Only you would complain when you’re sitting next to the fire.”

“The fire is nothing compared to your body, mi amor,” he sighed dramatically. “While in your presence, the fire is mere sparks but you are the warmth of the sun.”

Her face warmed up. Pure flattery. She laughed it away nervously. “You’re so dramatic, Zev. It’s barely even dipped into fall. Wait til fucking winter comes. The very idea of undressing will make your balls shrink,” she cackled.

“What an appealing image,” he said with a frown clear in his voice. “Makes me want to escape to Antiva before it is too late. You are welcome to tag along of course.”

A heavy silence settled over them.

Neither could escape to anywhere. The Blight was in Ferelden. The Crows were in Antiva. 

“I hate being a fucking warden,” she mumbled.

“If you were not a Grey Warden, what would you do? Who would you be?” Zevran asked suddenly.

What would she do? “I was a thief before so… that?”

“As you have said. I imagine if circumstances were different, you would choose a different life, no? Or have you always aspired to pick unsuspecting patrons’ pockets?”

“When I was little I used to say dumb shit like I wanted to be a ship captain. Me, an elf, captain of a ship - or a pirate.”

Zevran cackled. “I have a certain fondness for pirates. Were I to meet you at a port I have no doubt we would have an exciting tryst. Imagine you and I, a dark tavern on the ports of Antiva city, mm? Wine flowing, shared looks across the room. I offer to buy you a drink, you flirt a little, I flirt back. One thing leads to another and your legs are wrapped around my hips as we tangle in the sheets.”

Kallian sucked in a deep breath. She could almost imagine it. Sea air, a sexy stranger in the dark with a handsome smile… 

“And you wouldn’t even have to try to kill me first.”

Zevran chuckled again. “True at that. I imagine getting you into bed would have taken far less effort on my part.”

“Hey!” Kallian flicked his chin. “I’m not that easy.”

He grabbed her wrist and nibbled on her finger with a playful bite. “Perhaps not, but I am incredibly handsome and charming. If we were strangers meeting for the first time?”

She bumped her forehead softly against him. “Fine, maybe if we were strangers looking for a spot of fun, yeah. And what are you in this then? Still an assassin? What did you dream of becoming when you were a kid?” 

“Like all Antivans, I dreamed of becoming a wealthy merchant. I imagined myself in a palace draped in gold, the finest silks and richest of brandy. I would want for nothing and have everything I ever desired.”

“Antivans aren’t the only ones who want nice things.” Kallian sighed a little wistfully. “I never kept any of the shit I stole. Someone would notice if I suddenly had a fancy necklace worth more than a year’s pay. An elf with pretty jewelry can only be two things: a thief, or a whore,” Kallian scowled.

“Ah, I know too well how it feels to not be allowed to keep the things you want. Truthfully, I once ran away to join the Dalish,” Zev said, uncharacteristically muted. “I told you before, that my mother was Dalish?”

Kallian nodded.

“I had nothing but a pair of gloves from her. I made up stories in my head as a child, of what she was like, of what my life could be if I were one of the feared Dalish hunters. Being the son of a Dalish whore made me special, or so I believed. It was a point of fascination for many years.”

“Did you find a clan?”

Zevran stared out into the moonless sky. “I did. When a clan came near Antiva city, I approached them. But as you can imagine, fantasy never quite matches up with reality. I did not fit in. I was too Antivan, you might say. Life in the woods, hunting for your next meal, I was poorly suited to it.”

“So… you left? Wasn’t it better than the Crows at least?”

Zevran chuckled wryly. “I came back with my tail between my legs like a properly chastised street dog. They had me convinced of course, after thorough punishment for my disloyalty, that my talents were best used for the Antivan Crows. Perhaps they were right… The gloves were missing from my belongings not too much later, but these were never lives meant for you and I, were they? It is best to accept my place and move on.”

Kallian felt a rush of affection towards him. A longing to protect Zev from more hurt. “I’m sorry they stole your gloves. I have so much from my mother: her boots, passed down clothes, but the one thing I wish we had was her dagger. It was passed down from her side of the family. Someone must have taken it when she was killed… It had an engraving in elvhen that means ‘Fang’ or so she said.”

“Like your mabari?”

“It’s a fitting name for a warhound, I thought,” Kallian pouted.

“Mmm, indeed.” 

Another pensive silence passed, his thumbs stroked the backs of her hands. “I suppose it does no good to dwell on dreams and wishes that may never come true now. People like you and I are not the product of happy lives of contentment, after all.”

Sorrow pierced her chest. Once she had been happy, happy enough at least for her lot in life. “I never really wondered what I might actually want when we’re all more worried about having a job at all. I fucking wish I knew what I wanted to do. I still don’t and I’m already roped into this whole warden for life deal.”

She hadn’t noticed her hands clenched into fists until Zevran was prying them off his shirt. 

“Being a warden is not what you hoped it would be?”

“I…” Kallian didn’t know how to answer that. “It’s not like it’s bad. Freedom, doing good, saving the world, right?”

Zevran’s shoulders shrugged and then he twisted in his spot, tugged Kallian to his side so he could look in her eyes. His thumb brushed against the skin beneath her eyes. She had bags and the beginnings of dark circles, she knew. She longed for his touch to linger on her skin. Her eyes closed, she leaned closer to him and sighed.

“The lack of sleep, constant darkspawn fighting, and I hear the severance package is utterly terrible,” Zevran teased knowingly. 

“Mmm,” Kallian agreed. Flashes of her dreams played in her mind’s eye - so much screeching, an endless marching and a black void. “I’m so tired.” She could hear it even in her voice, like her throat was parched of water.

“I will wake Wynne early,” Zev said abruptly, “Let us catch more sleep before the sun forces us to rise again.” 

[asterekmess]

S3A - E8

I’m realizing just how damn far behind I am on working on season 3, but I don’t wanna skip any episodes of the rewatch, so let’s get to it! Double time, double time!

Content warnings for discussion of cannibalism.

Forewarning, this one is a doozy, so be prepared to Read More:

Lesgo!:

First thing’s first, Derek has experience with those awful sound thingies? Can you imagine how freaked he must’ve been seeing Chris bring those out when they were tracking Boyd and Erica?

Also, Chris Argent has been hunting Derek one way or another since he was a child. Even BEFORE Kate. Why the hell do we have a Derek & Chris broness in the later seasons? This kind of shit doesn’t just go away. I can’t believe I forgot about it.

I love how awkward sweet bby Derek is trying to run through the trees and tripping on branches everywhere. It’s honestly so much more realistic for a teenager than just the crazy cgi stuff. Also, since we know Derek is comfortable in the woods, it really gives you a hint as to how truly messed up he is from fear right now. He’s off balance in a dozen ways.

DEREK HAS BEEN WATCHING PEOPLE DIE IN FRONT OF HIM SINCE HE WAS 15. I’m gonna CRY. If I wanna hurt myself even More, you could argue that the Random Beta (RB) got shot bc he stopped to talk to Derek. So...guilty minds would assume Derek has been watching people die because of him since 15. I hate everything.

PETER comin’ in clutch. Also, hilarious that they use that arrow catching move so much.

I almost like how they tried to make Gerard look younger by just having him wear a douchey leather jacket instead of the serious grandpa one he wears in S2. He swaggers over to the body of RB, and it’s hilarious.

Okay, what is this bullshit about “Bring them back alive, we go by the code?” If you were going by the code then you wouldn’t be fucking hunting them AT ALL. They’re innocent! Why the fuck are you ‘bringing them back’ in the first place? Chris, you piece of shit. This is supposed to demonstrate that you’ve always been a stickler for the code, but all it does is emphasize how little that code actually means. “We hunt those who hunt us.” Fuck off, you hunt anything you deem ‘dangerous’ and find excuses to kill them so you can feel righteous.

Gonna casually note that RB was shot in the Throat with an arrow, but bc of makeup necessities they moved the arrow down to his chest when he’s shown on the ground. It’s funny. :)

It’s seriously so hard to hate Peter, do the writers realize that? Like, yes, he did horrible shit and I’m not denying that, but when you show him running into the hunter-filled woods to save his nephew’s life at 24 years old, then hiding with him in a cellar for two fucking days when he could probably have escaped on his own, it’s hard to see him as a heartless bastard.

I’m almost afraid to find out why Cora knows the details. Can you imagine? She would’ve been, what, 9-10? Her big brother and uncle both go missing for two days after a hunt and she had to stay at home waiting for someone to say they’d found their bodies. God, the lives of the Hales are so fucked up.

The rain is really making the mood here.

I gotta say, I’m confused about this initial Cora-Stiles interaction. He goes on about everyone who’s died or nearly died, but then Cora assumes he wants Derek to do something about the deaths, and Stiles agrees? Except that Derek currently fits the COD that all the other sacrifices have hit. Missing for about two days. Everything Stiles has said implies that he’s worried Derek is also dead. I don’t get why they go with ‘I’m worried about the missing man that I’ve been helping for the last four months because I blame him for the Alphas even coming to town”?

One thing they got on point here is just how disgusting they made Gerard. The slime and the spitting and ugh *shudders* it’s just so gross.

I’m also...I think intrigued is the right word--that they shoved this whole story into the episode without ever addressing the fact that Derek IS missing and they should go looking for him or something. It starts with Stiles asking where the hell he is, but then everything else is about this past moment. Talk about going off on a tangent. I mean, I don’t blame them, but if I shoved this much character background into one chapter people would call me out for the infodump that it is.

Which is all this episode is. Info-dumped exposition. Here’s how werewolves were made. Here’s why Derek’s cranky. Here’s why Duke’s an asshole. Here’s why the Hales are ‘special’

Again, I don’t blame them. It’s just...a lot.

Just a tiny thing: Why do they both roll up their sleeves when Scott only has to touch Gerard’s hand?

It is also very hard to believe that either Allison or Scott are remotely good people when they’re both lying to everyone about Gerard’s existence.

*finger guns, bc now i have to use the tag* I think this is the longest I’ve ever gotten before using it.

Another thing: Why does Gerard make the gross noises like he’s in pain, when we know it doesn’t hurt to get the pain taken away from him? It certainly didn’t hurt that lady in the ER.

I know this is a weird thing to notice, but I find it interesting that Paige is wearing actual makeup. Not just the ‘natural’ look, but eyeshadow that’s visibly dark. *shrug*

Is she Actually playing the cello? The notes Don’t look like they match up with her bowing and fingerings.

HA that music cut in is fucking Hilarious. Derek turns around like he’s in a teen rom-com, with that casual “I never stop smiling all the way bc I’m the coolest guy around” grin and the music just WHAM. That’s right, Derek Hale used to be a JOCK. He didn’t used to be ‘a lot like Scott.’ He was a lot like JACKSON.

So, this group of cronies Derek has. What is that about? He’s gotta have that posse just like Jackson did in S1? Unnamed people to cackle at his jokes.

Paige’s face, right there? That is the SHIT for me. That’s not hidden attraction, that’s genuinely “What the fuck is my life, why are you so lame?” and I am LIVING for it.

Derek peacocking is also hilarious. Peacocking so hard he (THE WEREWOLF) didn’t notice that she’d left the hall, is even more so.

I hate to tell you this Paige, but THAT is where I could tell you liked him. Giving in to his bullshit offer was the first step, that look on your face when he said, “Hold on” was Blatant “Holy shit, my crush wants to talk to me” but then all you idiots did was make eye contact. Paige, if you’re trying to get the ball, try looking away from those pretty eyes, okay?

Derek, you always go too far. You can see Paige lose interest when she realizes that he’s not actually into Her, he’s into showing off.

OOOF, i guess they weren’t such good friends after all, cus’ they left when Paige did.

I also feel the need to point out Derek is WEARING A CHECKERED SHIRT. *inarticulate screaming* Everyone who makes jokes about him thinking plaid is disgusting owes me five bucks bc he CLEARLY didn’t think checkers/plaid were that bad when he was in high school.

I’ll admit...the instant sorry is like...really good. If they’d had him come in and be More of a dick and then end up together, I’d be a lot more bugged. But his First real introduction to her is an apology.

THEN he goes back to being a dick. But at least this time it’s not about him, he wants to know about Her.

And I LOVE the turnaround! THIS is flirting. THIS is cute teasing. She plays his game Back at him, shows her own skill and forces him to get on her level. Then he weasels out of it, but in a Cute Way.

If there’s one thing that I’m routinely impressed by in TW it’s the scoring. They’re Really good with music to fit the moods and the vibes of the whole episode. For instance, all the transition music in this episode is Cello, bc it’s about Paige.

I hate agreeing with Gerard on Anything, but he makes a good point about the Dark Druid taking and killing someone else right alongside Deaton. Why would she take 4 people when she only needed three? She wouldn’t know that Deaton got a message out or that Scott would save Deaton. Plus the addition of the mountain ash circle is kind of weird, don’t you think?

Yah, I have no clue why your body is producing anything Either. You literally make no sense and you shouldn’t be alive. Period. Bringing you back was a lazy way to have someone who could be a sub-sub plot and hand out exposition and red herrings that are totally useless.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT GERARD? You weren’t There when Deucalion found out he could still see with his Alpha Eyes (Which makes no sense btw, he doesn’t have TWO sets of eyes???) and if you’d interacted with Deuc since then he’d have ripped you to shreds.

SERIOUSLY people, why the FUCK are we getting this information from Gerard when it makes WAY more sense for Deaton to tell them this? He was THERE for the whole thing!

I get that the point of the episode is supposed to be “Unreliable Narrators” (The whole show has an unreliable narrator.) but you had that covered with Peter’s story. You could’ve Instilled TRUST in Deaton by making a contrast and having Deaton TELL THEM THE TRUTH. Show the difference between reliable and unreliable. Gerard doesn’t need to be here!

Stiles, asking the real questions.

AND GETTING THE MOST BULLSHIT ANSWER IN THE UNIVERSE.

Could these writers GET any lazier? Put some fucking effort in and give us some information about Werewolves IN YOUR WEREWOLF TV SHOW.

What the fuck were Paige and Derek into that they knew where an abandoned distillery was when it wasn’t even in TOWN? And you’re telling me they left town every time they wanted to make out? Even worse, are you implying they had SEX in that distillery? And then trying to tell me that none of the fucking Alphas and their packs noticed the smell of Derek and his girlfriend all over the building?

...what...do people seriously not remember being teenagers? What the fuck Peter? In what fucking universe  is “one minute it’s ‘i hate you, don’t talk to me’ the next it’s frantic groping in any dark corner’ remotely accurate to real life?

Teenagers in the majority don’t DO that. I really fucking hate that all teenagers are made out to be like this. Like they’re “run by their hormones” and “everything is sex to you” STOP. Seriously, STOP. Saying shit like that completely negates the fact that Teenagers are Real fucking People. They’re not just buckets of hormones and sweat that need to be shaped into an adult. They’re fucking PEOPLE and reducing them to sex-crazed idiots is lazy and stupid.

Are you ALSO telling me that the hunters dragged RB’s DEad Body to an abandoned building, then strung the corpse up and cut it in half? AND that someone happened to go the abandoned building and found the body and called the cops, or that they MOVEd the two halves somewhere they would be found, Or that They were the ones to call and report the body?

Has teen wolf got even a Single brain cell?

ALSO, what the fuck is this timeline? Derek and Peter went missing for two days after RB was killed, but the packs don’t get together to discuss RB’s death until After Derek has run out of the building with Paige because he could smell blood from RB being hemisected. So, they waited at Least two days before talking to each other about RB’s death? And Derek apparently recovered Instantaneously from his two day nightmare and went right back to macking on his girlfriend and laughing freely the Day he was found? Or did they wait even longer? I’m so fucking confused!

Okay, you tell me that this place is their favorite makeout/groping spot, but they seriously just walk in the door and start kissing in the middle of the room? You guys didn’t bring some blankets and pillows here? You’re gonna stand there the whole time?

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU MAKING PETER A PERVERT? He was fucking watching his nephew make out with his girlfriend through the wall??? WHat is WRONG with you?

ALSO, Cora was alive and active in Derek’s life at that point. She wasn’t That young. She could easily point out that Peter being Derek’s best friend is total bullshit if it weren’t actually true. Which means Peter is telling the TRUTH here. Hell, she doesn’t call out his heartbeat for lies the entire time, and while they imply at the end of the episode that Really Good Liars can just force their heart to be steady while lying so they don’t get caught, that isn’t a thing for the entire rest of the show. Derek trusts KATE when she says she’s not lying. So the evidence actually points toward Peter telling the TRUTH in this entire episode.

THAT is accurate to teenagers. Using the word “like” and “liking” so many times in a conversation that it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

Paige...dude, I’m so torn. Like I’m glad you’re being honest with Derek about your worries, but also it’s a complete dick move to just Assume that he’s gonna bail? To say to his face that you Know he’s leaving you and you’re just waiting for it? Fucking rude.

Ennis...bro...how exactly did your Beta “Accidentally” kill a hunter? How would that happen?

AGAIN WITH THE TIMELINE. If the packs only CAME to beacon hills because of Ennis issue with the hunters, why was RB running through beacon hills when he was killed?

Also, side note: Where are all of these werewolves staying? Are they territorial so they like, all claimed different hotels to take over? Or do they not mind, and THAT’S why the Hale house is so big for such a small family? Because they had a ton of guest rooms for packs that visited to get that sweet, sweet Hale Wisdom?

I firmly believe that werewolves are clothing-optional people. Talia straight shifts into a naked human form in front of over a dozen other wolves.

Also, where the hell is the Hale pack here? Some random chick comes up and gives Talia a robe, but that person is standing with Deuc’s pack. So....what?

I’m so curious about the formation the wolves make when they hear Talia coming. Everybody backs away, except Deucalion. And they do this weird focus on his face as he watches her come in. And her eye contact is JUST with him.

OH GROSS. DID DEUC HAVE A THING FOR DEREK’S MOM????

I will admit that watching things with subtitles sometimes ruins the surprise. There’s that little pause before “I’m just a deputy” like it was supposed to be shocking to the audience, but the subtitle on Amazon Prime just Pops up right away and it kind of ruins the effect.

Here we go! The one piece of concrete information on “Packs” and “pack members” that we’re given in the whole fucking show. Word for Word. “Losing a member of your pack isn’t like losing family, it’s like you lose a limb.”

That is....severe. Now imagine that your entire family IS your pack. And losing almost every one of them. Is it any wonder that Cora, Peter, and Derek are so messed up? That they’re so dark and wounded looking?

I s2g sometimes Peter literally just sounds like he’s a self-insert for the writers. He explains shit that the writer’s are showing Really Badly as if to wave away the fact that the Ennis flashback is pretty much Completely unnecessary. “You just don’t understand my artistic genius, it’s never just a single moment, it’s a confluence of events. I have to show you all these random flashbacks because you need to understand why Derek is soaked in MANPAIN all the time. Which is totally relevant to the current plot bc....bc....bc ART (and also Tyler Hoechlin was busy so we could only get one shot of him for the entire episode)”

That is just the cutest shit oh my god. Derek listens to Paige’s music while he’s in class and doing homework. THAT is love, you realize? He doesn’t just deal with her dedication to her music, he loves it.

THat little wince when he says “Are you sure about that?” Paige knows he’s gonna screw with her.

THAT IS A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. He gives her space! She likes studying during lunch so he Leaves her Alone. I LIKE IT.

What do you mean “Laura told you about the packs being here.” Derek KNOWS they’re here because he watched RB DIE IN THE WOODS. Seriously, I”M SO CONFUSED.

FUN FACT (that I might’ve already shared) Oak wood was liked by the Celts because it was really sturdy and hardy and bore food, but it wasn’t their favorite type of wood! Rowan was the favorite, and Irish pagan practitioners used to sleep in rowan trees so they could have prophetic dreams. After that, it was Hazelwood. :P

I...do not enjoy when they bring up the Celtic Druids. *Scuttles to get my textbook bc this is my nerd shit*

“We’re in a Nemeton” This is the correct wording, actually! A “Nemeton” isn’t a thing, it’s a “sacred meeting place” as Chris calls it. Go chris! Nemeton refers to the entire grove/area around the main tree.

I can’t speak to whether they chose a ‘Large, older tree in a grove” but it does make sense bc if we’re talking about Oaks they were a symbol of food and safety (acorns were a staple to Celtic diets) so choosing an older tree would not only look more impressive, but it would probably bear more acorns for the clan.

“It would represent the center of the world” *Puts on vine voice* THat is NOt Correct! The tree at the center of the Nemeton was called a “crann bethadh” or “Tree of Life” and it was essentially a Totem that marked the center of the tribe’s territory. It was not ‘the center of the world’ it was the center of THEIR world. Their land.

“There was a belief that cutting or harming the tree would cause serious problems for the surrounding villages” Not sure if ‘villages’ is the correct term for the era, but the rest of it sounds like a close mistranslation. See, in Ireland there were raids people would do against other clans where the SOLE PURPOSE was to destroy their crann bethadh, because it was demoralizing. It’s like graffiti-ing the front of a church. But technically, it WAS severely frowned upon to harm the tree in any way.

This is mostly because in most Celtic areas, Oak trees were considered symbols of the “Father of the Sky” or the “God of Thunder.” Of course you don’t wanna piss off Thunder man.

Also, you notice how I’m saying CELTS and not DRUIDS. It’s because DRUID isn’t a cultural label, it’s a SOCIAL CLASS. It’s like saying “The Educated”

Okay, back to the--OH WAIT. Before anyone gets any ideas, the blood on the crann bethadh isn’t human. Estonian Celts smeared animal blood on the tree roots as an assurance for rain and good harvests. This is the same concept as TONS of other religions, including Christianity. (Abraham was supposed to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to God, but God stopped him and had him sacrifice a Ram instead. So, Yes. Christians used to perform animal sacrifices.)

NOW back to the show.

THe fact that gerard doesn’t know this stuff implies that Chris is the nerd of the family.

I LIKE THIS. I hate that I like it bc it’s Gerard, but I LIKE IT. Gerard gets up from his wheelchair. He doesn’t need it All the Time.

I’ve never seen another show that bothered to have a wheelchair user who wasn’t wheelchair-bound, which is stupid because it’s Very Common for people using wheelchairs to not need them all the time.

though it does beg the question of why he’s sitting in a wheelchair when he’s in his own bedroom? Was he going somewhere? Or did he know he wouldn’t have enough chairs and didn’t want Allison or Scott to sit in his chair?

The story of Lycaon, who was considered a savage ruler of Arcadia and Zeus went to his house disguised as a human (this is v common in myth) to find out if he was batshit. Lycaon and his FIFTY SONS (he also had one daughter) wanted to know if the stranger was a human or a mortal, so they fed him human flesh in stew. Zeus flipped shit and blasted the room with thunderbolts, murdering all but one of Lycaon’s sons, and then turned Lycaon into a wolf.

So...this whole ‘myth of lycaon’ is totally fucked up when it didn’t need to be? Like, they didn’t NEED to change it to make it a messed up origin story of wolves. It already was.

There’s three major versions to choose from

Lycaon was a pius man who founded the city of Lycosura on Mount Lycaeus and used a child as a sacrifice to Zeus, thinking it would please him. Zeus flips shit and turns Lycaon into a wolf. FROM THEN ON; at every sacrifice made to zeus a man was transformed into a wolf and if he managed to restrain himself from eating human flesh for 8-9 years, he would be turned human again.

The same story as the first, except Lycaon Knew Zeus was in disguise and the child he fed him was Zeus’ own son, and it was revenge for seducing his only daughter Callisto.

If you want to make it match what you’ve already said about wolves in the show, they could’ve used the last one and it would’ve demonstrated how Ingrained the concept of vendetta/revenge is for wolves.

If you wanted to focus on the Turning Human part and working with Celtic Druids to learn to become werewolves, you could’ve used the second one.

there was no reason to add in the bullshit about Prometheus except as an excuse to make Deucalion look like he picked his name to be an asshole, which he fucking didn’t.

 I’m so sorry about all the classical shit (i’m really not) but I studied it in college and I can’t just let this bullshit stand.

I’ll give them a pass on the ‘the lesser known part’ bc it’s technically plausible for the wolves to have run north to the Celts and beg for help, And the Druids (those who’s education was specifically in magic, not all of them) were known for shapeshifting (though not usually into animals. They did that to Other people, not themselves)

I cannot believe this is so long, i’m so sorry.

But WHY tho, Cora? How is an Emissary supposed to keep you connected to humanity if No ONe KNows Who They Are?? How are they supposed to do their job??

Yeah, well now Deaton is a sour bitch who has a chip on his shoulder against the Hale pack so like...fuck his advice.

I will say though! Pre-fire Deaton doesn’t give me the heebies like post-fire Deaton. He’s much more clear about the advice he’s giving, and it’s actually helpful! He still has a dumb little anecdote/parable about the scorpion and the frog (which...in most circumstances I hate. It doesn’t even match what happens) but he gives Real Advice instead of vague asshole nonsense.

“I’m an Alpha, I never walk alone.” I have an inordinate affection for this line.

Paige is clearly some kinda bad bitch if she thought nothing of going to hang out in the school in the middle of the night with Derek.

Okay, but like...why would he attack Ennis like that if he was the one who asked him to bite Paige? And why is the moment played up “A fifteen-year-old boy against a giant” Derek was literally swatted to the side while Ennis walked out of the building. this wasn’t some big showdown.

If she’d already been bitten, why was Ennis still grabbing at her??

....seriously? Peter is literally right there? And no one noticed?

Again with the “Scott is a genius now” LIsten, bro, why the fuck would Scott know a sanskrit fable? If he Did know a story like that, it would be bc Deaton taught him. In which case he would know the FROG and the scorpion. Come on, guys.

OH MY GOD GERARD DOES IT TOO. GERARD, PETER, AND DEUC all have a CHRONIC case of verbal diarrhea when they’re trying to be intimidating.

I do NOT understand this warehouse scene. It’s a GAS gerard, if you stabbed yourself with some sort of...antidote or whatever it wouldn’t save you from the GAS you’re inhaling. At the very least you would be shouting like everyone else because it HURTS going in.

why did it take so long for Talia to come? It’s implied that Peter left to get her, so why did it take so long? Even PAST peter looks fucked up at seeing that Paige is dying, it’s not like he would wait.

I’ll be real, i get weepy so i’m skipping the actual death. Just know that it hurts me. Severely.

Y’all know how much I hate this ‘innocent life’ bullshit for blue eyes. It’s very True Alpha-y in that it’s impossible to pin down the specifics. What constitutes an ‘innocent life’? What constitutes taking it? With wolf claws? With a gun? What counts and what doesn’t count? Ugh.

Eyyy, so I’m exhausted and this is so long that my computer is fritzing. There are five minutes left and nothing happens in them at all. Just Scott pointing out the heartbeat thing and threatening to kill Gerard (so he’s still fine with murder at this point in time. Good to know). Stiles telling Cora that he doesn’t think Peter was telling the truth (which she would Know if he wasn’t) and that he’s gonna ask Derek about it (which we never got to see). And Deucalion murdering his own Beta (who, tbf, tried to kill him first. Which, again, what the fuck is up with Deaton’s office that wolves are able to rip each other apart in it, but it’s still ‘hard for someone like Scott to cause me any trouble.’ I’m just so confused

Final Thoughts: This episode actually had some interesting stuff in it, which is kind of sad considering there was no PLOT, just Exposition. I look forward to tweezing the bits out that I want and dumping the rest in the garbage where it belongs. Oh, and like I said, the music was on Point.

[roxa-sos]

r u mine? - john b routledge

john b routledge x pogue!reader

tw; mild smut

not requested; based on r u mine? by arctic monkeys john b’s been interested in the reader for a while, they've been sleeping together, and he can't get over her, even when she says it's just supposed to be a friends with benefits thing.

a/n -- i’m an arctic monkeys slut. that’s all. 

i'm a puppet on a string tracy island, time traveling  diamond cutter-shaped heartaches come to find you four in some velvet morning years too late, she's a silver lining lone ranger riding through an open space in my mind when she's not there beside me

“dude, you’re whipped.” jj slurred to his best friend, who was leaning on a tree, watching you down your sixth beer, jumping around with kie as music played from someone’s speaker. 

“fuck it, sure. look at her.” he mumbled back at his friend, rolling his eyes. he was a few drinks in himself. the things he would give to be with you were unimaginable, and he was done arguing with pope and jj about how badly he wanted it - how badly he wanted you - and he had been for a while. they only knew he was interested, not that either of you were actually acting on it.

there were almost always eyes on you at these dumb parties. kooks, tourons, pogues, you usually ended up blowing them off if they made a move. though, you always had other things in mind when you met john b’s gaze, throwing him a smile, recognizing his stare. there was some power knowing you had a guy like him staring at you.

he got drunk off of you. talking with you, your shameless flirting, your gentlest touch, he was obsessed with it. at least, he seemed obsessed with it. 

you were a lot for him. life was worth living fast and short in your eyes, so you weren't looking for anything too serious with him. you two were friends, anyways. the pogues would hate you guys if they found out, you wouldn't blame them. you did dumb stuff anyways, he was one of the dumb things you did. you revved over the speed limit, you jumped off of cliffs, you almost drowned to get good waves, it had to be hell to even be your friend. but to him, you were the silver lining of being friends with you. having you was that good part. 

you had a monopoly over his mind. when you fell asleep next to him, he couldn't help but think about you. he watched you dance at parties, laid next to you in the hammock, talked to you first when you were with the pogues. he couldn't help it.

i go crazy 'cause here isn't where i wanna be and satisfaction feels like a distant memory and i can't help myself, all i wanna hear you say is "are you mine?" well, are you mine? are you mine? are you mine?

he wanted more from you. that was more apparent when you weren't pressing him up against the wall at the chateau, two hours after the kegger, but he knew it. as his hands slid down your side, resting on your hips as you acted like this was the last time you were going to kiss him.

john b wanted to be something with you, but you didn't want a boyfriend. he didn't even know if he wanted you in broad daylight like that. it seemed sweeter to just have your lips on his neck sometimes. 

he tried giving you up before. you weren't exclusive, both of you knew that, but every time he turned his gaze from you to someone else, you were still in his mind. the image of you sitting at the end of his bed, your clothes on his floor. the feeling of your skin against his, it was always going to be there, no matter who he thought he was interested in. he still wanted you, nobody else was going to be good enough.

you slipped your hands under his shirt as he thought, helping it off of his body as he walked you towards his room. he knew you wanted him, but in a lustful way. he was yours, but he knew that you weren't his. 

i guess what i'm trying to say is i need the deep end keep imagining meeting, wished away entire lifetimes unfair we're not somewhere misbehaving for days great escape, lost track of time and space she's a silver lining climbing on my desire

you guys didn't really talk. with the pogues, sure. wasted, yeah. but never sober, never in your right minds, never dressed. he wanted to know how your mind worked, he wanted to know what you thought - of the world, of yourself, of him. he wanted to be something more to you, someone you wanted, someone you talked to.

he couldn't stay away from you, though. there was no ultimatum for him to give without losing. you weren't one for commitment, so casual sex was all you could give him. he wanted you in any way he could have you, so he took what he got. not that looking at you laying in his bed from on top of you was a bad thing to get. he was just wasting his time looking for more. 

even then, he only saw you after midnight. not nearly as often as he would prefer, where he'd rather have you for hours, days, even, at a time. have you where you didn't worry about how long you'd been with him.

the situation killed him, sometimes, but you were the silver lining. you had him wrapped around your finger, and he loved it. he hated the way you treated him in public, but he loved the way you felt under his hands behind closed doors. he hated how other guys were openly interested in you, but loved the sounds you made in his ear.

and the thrill of the chase moves in mysterious ways so in case, i'm mistaken, i just wanna hear you say, "you got me, baby are you mine?" she's a silver lining lone ranger riding through an open space in my mind when she's not right there beside me

seeing as he had you in his bed in the earliest hours of the morning, he thought he had a chance with you. he thought he could say something and it would be alright for him, he'd get what he wanted from you.

but he didn't know if that was his own logic talking, or your reality. you hadn't made it clear whether you wanted him the way he wanted you or not, so he had to wait. that excruciating wait, holding on until you said something. something like asking him if he was yours. if you were his. 

and even though that wait felt like a million nails in his heart, or it felt like it was too much and not worth it, if it meant you, he was going to wait for it. wait for you, or just hold onto you and your casual need for him. 

because you'd always be in his mind, either way. 

a/n -- i don’t love this but here u go either way lmao

[hughiecampbelle]

Inheritance (Shelby!Reader × Peaky Blinders Oneshot)

Character/s: Arthur, Thomas, John, Ada, Finn

Word Count: 1,393

Tag List: @dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt @myriadimagines @lilyswritings @encounterthepast @writerdream22 @death-of-a-mermaid @lotsoffandomrecs @woahitslucyylu @obsessedunicorn24 @thedarkqueenofavalon @fangirlsarah16 @theshelbyclan @captivatedbycillianmurphy @creativemayhems @soleil-dor @thegirlwithoutaname87

A/N: I'm feeling insecure about writing and when I do, the only thing that helps is to write, even if it's god awful lol. I started with the first paragraph, just writing whatever, and it turned into this. I had plans for a completely different fandom/fic tonight, which I hope to post sometime this week. I'm sure this frustration will pass, it's just hard to get through. I feel like a mess with everything. I know its probably just the stress of school, and family, and August coming so soon. June lasted years, but July was gone in a second. Still trying to wind down from the panic I've gotten myself into. Feedback is always appreciated 💜💖💜

Gif Credit: @eylins :)

FIC MASTERLIST PART ONE. / PART TWO. / PART THREE.

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You want to believe you're different from them. That your words, your writing, your work is anymore extraordinary, that somehow the thoughts in your head have not been repeated through history, stamped from one cracked skull to the next. You want to believe your eyes have seen something more, something hidden, that the trees deeply rooted, there long before your birth, and around after you're gone, have not witnessed the same blue birds or soft, summer storms. You think, for an instance, that there us a separation in what makes you you and them them. That the loneliness in your gut, the screams and cries gurgling in your throat, that this pain layered beneath every cell in your body somehow draws a line between you and them. Making you human where they are not. Giving you feeling where they lack. You hoped, and prayed, by some miracle, that whatever it was that created you wasn't in anyone else. Foolish and young, too naive for your own good. Where they bled you bruised. Where you collapsed they stood like stone. You could stare down the same Devil and see two fraternal beings, both wearing a wicked smile.

The funny thing is, you were more like them than you could ever tell.

Passed down from generation to generation, kept warm and safe cupped into two hands. The anger. Dangerous, bloody, boiling. Pricking beneath your skin like bees, tinging, numbing the sharp things that tore through it. It made your gums bleed, hateful words like knives sling your mouth up through and through. A sickening, twisted laughter bubbling, bursting out of you before you have half a mind to stop it. It made you cold, invincible, scowling at the earth beneath your feet and the sky above, somewhere in the middle this god everyone turns to in their time of need. He never showed up for you, though, instead hiding. From you, and from Arthur. The fire in your veins, swollen by gasoline blood and matches for breakfast. Your big brother caught fire with the slightest annoyance. Cagey, unyielding, a force that tore through him until he let it all out. A corrosive being stripping him of skin and bone, making man into monster. You too had been subjected to stares and glares, deemed more weapon than person. A hazard, too dangerous to be around. One more thing you had to watch out for, the bitterness in that Shelby blood.

That anger seething, turning in on itself. Imploding. Not wanting to hurt others, you hurt yourself. Bit the bad end of a barrel, a bullet sitting on your tongue, the broken bits of a bottle. You liked the way you felt when the only thing standing between you and that dark abyss of an end was yourself. That sense of control, of power, came too few times. A high you tried took chase as much as you could in this big messed up world. Hold these standards of yourself on your shoulders only took be crushed beneath them. Falling into a pit of all the things you bottled up and kissed goodbye, setting each jar on the shelf with its own special label. Grief. Guilt. Greed. Building up walls around you, a tomb to crumble in, afraid to let the rest of the world there were feelings beneath your cold complexion. Tommy always had a way of locking things up and never letting them see the light of day. Learning from the best, you guessed. Let them see your pain, your weakness, and it would be used against you. Weaponized. You couldn't survive another loss.

Boarded up, an abandoned home needing someone to crawl in and make it their own. Tidy up the place, see the potential you had beneath those rotten floors and broken bricks, chipped paint and peeling wood. A want, a need, an ache to be wanted, to be loved and accepted. John never could stand on his own, never wanting to face a bed half empty. Tripping over himself, falling too easy for the next set of wandering eyes and slim legs. He loved like no one else. And you did, too. Unrequited. Given the slightest bit of acceptance, lead into another persons word by free drinks and shameless flirting. You wanted to find the one, your other half, the same way he had, once believing the only way he could ever feel whole was with someone by his side. There was someone out there for everyone, there had to be. You weren't sure how much longer you could live so alone. Part of you wanted to think it was a lie, something you'd grow out of eventually, but John never seemed to, and you'd followed that path too far to turn back.

One day, you hoped, despite the anger, the walls, someone would find you, and love you regardless. You hoped for a lot of things. For the rain to stop and the clouds to clear. For the fog of your thoughts to disappear. For this life to be a little easier for everyone. Forgiving, motherly, nurturing, it's sharp edges dulled. To one day find your way out of all this, start fresh, start new, the potential of a freshly healed scar. Your sister had a way of whispering things in your ear, feeding into these delusions. She too wanted something more from what she saw everyday. Lost in a dream world she crested for herself. Often it was the only thing that kept you going, kept you upright. Eyes burning, sobs choking, too fragile for this world, you wanted to crawl inside the one you made from scratch and never leave. Ada told stories, too young to tell the difference between reality and imagination, her spirits high, embedding itself within your bones. The Shelby's were nothing without their dreams, their drive, their want for a perfect world just out of reach.

Without dreams, there was only dread. Fear of the future, the past, the footsteps you'd one day have to follow because that's what was expected of you. Stand tall, gun in hand, vertebrae stacked atop one another. There was no looking down, no flinching. If you weren't the best you weren't anyone. Turn a blind eye to the bad, to the meek, step on anyone who ever got in your way. Placed on a pedestal with broken knees. The baby, the one you helped raise, from cradle to grave. Never seen a second war, thrust into the one your brothers brought home. You both were. The lurch in your belly at the thought of so much red on your hands, of grief being associated with your name. You couldn't bear the thought of taking another soul from this world. Finn jumped at the pop of a gun, cringing at the cries of others. They could get used to it. Desensitized to it. But the both of you? This was new, and scary, and you were sure the softness they'd lost too long ago still lived inside you. The guilt they forgot chewed you alive, haunting your dreams. They could do as they pleased, but you couldn't. You refused to be as destructive as the rest of your siblings.

As much as you wanted to keep your distance, make some definition between you and them, there was too much of them inside you. Their faces staring back at you in the mirror. The sorrow, the hurt, the hate, the ups and downs of a life like yours, like theirs, there was no escaping it. You could run, but you could never hide. Like a shadow, it clung to your soles, dragged across the cobblestone. Escape however you wanted, however you pleased, there was only one thing all of you had in common: no matter how much you tried, no matter how hard you talked yourself into denial, that Shelby blood was a particular kind poison only the worst would become accustomed to. Try as you might, the thoughts, the feelings, all of it would follow you. Stepping on your heels. Breaking down you'd doors. It would bleed when you did, and dream with you, and hide deep within the cage of your ribs when you were too ashamed to admit it. You were of them. Always had been, always would be, no matter how much you prayed you were different.

[be-dazzled]

A Tread-Thin Line

Pairing: Sasuke x Sakura Alternative Naruto Universe

Writer’s Corner: This is some sort of alternative Naruto universe where no parent died. lol.

Borrowed Concepts:

Shinobi – ninja Hokage – leader and protector of the village

Masterlist

—

Sakura came out of her tent very exhausted and very much insulted. Still a seething mess as she marched out of her one-person tent to give that backward-thinking, woman-hater a piece of her mind. Oh, she was going to give it to him good. That Uchiha guy probably sensed her plan, that’s why he wasn’t there at the camp. Her jade eyes automatically searched for his tent standing opposite to hers; it was zipped open and empty of one dark-haired Shinobi. Maybe, he was hiding from Sakura and maybe, it was the wisest decision he ever made since shutting up when her penetrating glower told him to.

“Oi, Sakura-chan!” The golden-haired beamed at her. His toothy smile a total contrast to what Sakura was always receiving from the other third of Konoha’s Team 7.

“You’re still eating?” Sakura walked up to Naruto, deciding against sitting next to him near the fire. She still had some scolding to do. But as she ambled toward him, the young healer winced at him, scrunching her nose at the ramen cup still hot in his hands.

“Wan’ some?”

Sakura only gave him a disapproving look to which Naruto was accustomed to by now. Being the son of the current Hokage wasn’t as grand as they make it out to be, Sakura realized, as she watched the said son slurp up the noodles with the loudest and most irritating sound possible to man. It was one of the young medic’s pet peeves and it was making her want to hit something – or someone.

“Have you seen the Grinch?”

She did not understand his response but Sakura assumed he meant to say ‘Sasuke’. They both came up with the codename since both Naruto and Sakura were at the receiving ends of Sasuke’s subtle but palpable derisive prejudice. The arrogant, ‘my smile is too precious to waste on you’ Uchiha branded the two the second he laid his charcoal eyes on them and quickly decided Naruto and Sakura weren’t worth his time.

Naruto continued to talk while limp noodles hanged between his lips and the vein on Sakura’s forehead threatened to pop. Talking with a mouthful was another one of Sakura’s pet peeves. So, she decided it was better for her and her poor vein to be away from the bumpkin as far as possible.

“Well, I’m just gonna go find him and hammer some manners into that rich snob.” Sakura started for the darker part of the forest.

Sasuke was probably somewhere out there doing some secret training so he could rub the fact on both Naruto and Sakura’s faces that his skill was a hundred levels above the two. But what really pushed her buttons was the fact that Sasuke Uchiha was right. Sakura could never catch up to his skills even if she trained until training actually killed her. She was just a medical ninja, after all, while Sasuke hailed from one of the founder clans of Konoha and one of the strongest, most influential families, a fact he never forgot to remind her. He was the son of the chief of the Konoha Military Police Force and was believed to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother in serving in the force.

She, on the other hand, was a plain civilian before enrolling into the Academy. No family influence, no power, no great feats under her family’s name. But Sakura had one of the highest marks in the Academy despite being a regular Haruno and she trained religiously to become more powerful, even earning the spot to train under the Great Tsunade, one which was highly coveted. She ought to be proud of herself but if given the opportunity; the young medic wished she’d be assign to some other team. Of all the people she could team up with, Sakura had to be stuck with the annoying son of the Hokage and arrogant heir of the Uchiha Clan.

Well, it wasn’t like Sakura chose to be part of that team. So, the feelings were mutual.

“Dammit!” She kicked a pebble so hard that it hit deep a trunk of tree.

Why couldn’t she be with Ino? Hell, she’d even choose Rock Lee any day, despite his bothersome flirting towards her, if that meant she could lose the shackles from the Grinch, the wicked demon lord that walked on earth.

Naruto, she could deal with. But Sasuke?

She remembered the argument they had earlier that day. At the mission briefing, the very first time the three of them were officially introduced to each other, Sasuke had managed to insult her for being a civilian and for being a woman. He not only announced to the world his disappointment being chosen into such a low class team but had gladly pronounced that ‘the girl’ would only slow him down in the mission. He said he’d rather do it on his own.

“What a prick!” She screamed into the air. “He thinks just because he’s an Uchiha that he was above everyone else?”

If the old Oak could talk, he would politely ask the young woman not to glare at him.

“I’ll show him.”

She stopped for a second, shutting her eyes close to concentrate, straining her ears to listen to the muffled noise. She followed the sound, clearing the path toward where it was coming from. With every step she took, the sound of the steady fall of water calmed her nerves down. Her anger slowly ebbed away but was gradually replaced by a feeling of sleepiness. Fatigue slowly caught up with Sakura and her tired muscles was begging her to jump into the promising bath in the waterfalls. What with all the arguing and glaring she engaged herself with that arrogant bastard. It wasn’t such a bad idea, she thought. A good bath could wash away all those anger she’d been harboring against the youngest son of the Head of the Uchiha clan.

The moment her jade eyes found the source, her body demanded she jumped right into the shining water pooling at the foot of the magical falls. She was about to give in, starting to peel off her jacket, but stopped when she realized someone has beaten her to it. A surge of panic and, if Sakura was being honest, a sense of shame too, forced her to hide completely behind one of those large rocks that surrounded the pool. Her decency told her to walk away and return to camp. Let whoever it was to enjoy some private bath time. But curiosity had always gotten the better of Sakura. She poked her head, adjusting her vision to see clearer. Sakura’s eyes widened when she realized who it was – butt-naked Sasuke Uchiha himself, showering under the falling water.

With Sasuke’s back on her, the very curious jade eyes had a full, unobstructed and front-row-seat view of Mr. Uchiha’s butt cheeks gloriously resplendent in the moonlight. Sakura’s mouth ran dry. So much so that she contemplated to drink the water from the pool just for a second. She probably shouldn’t since it wasn’t purified.

Sasuke Uchiha’s gloriousness must have had them purified, a voice in her head suggested. Absent-mindedly, outer Sakura nodded in agreement. Who could blame her when that evil woman-hater possessed that perfect round and firm butts just waiting for a bite?

She slapped herself for thinking such dirty thoughts and scolded her inner Sakura. Weren’t we mad at him?  Inner Sakura said she wasn’t – not at all. As a matter of fact, Inner Sakura could really have a taste of those, “No!” Sakura probably said it too loud as the unwitting Sasuke turned around to her direction.

The young medic quickly plunged behind the rock, slapping both hands over her mouth to keep herself quiet and wishing Sasuke wouldn’t make anything out of what he heard. For all he knew, it could have been a wolf low-whistling when it saw the tushy too. Because who wouldn’t? Sakura hit herself on the head to stop thinking dirty butt-related thoughts.

The peeping tom waited quietly behind a large, misshapen rock; cautiously poking her head out of the edge to make sure Sasuke wasn’t suspecting anything. When he had his back on her again, undisturbed from enjoying the natural shower, Sakura peeled her eyes away from the tushy region – which proved to be a struggle because Inner Sakura was lonely – and up his muscular back and then finally, at Sasuke’s beautiful side features in full view now that he tilted his head on the side. He looked like a character from a romantic novel came to life, bathing under the silvery illumination of the moon. He was hypnotizing.

Go get it, girl. Inner Sakura goaded, snapping the real Sakura back to the here and now.

“Get a grip, Sakura.” She whisper-yelled to herself. “This is the guy who thinks you are nothing but a dust he could just step on.”

Sasuke’s calm and serene face was replaced by that scowl he seemed to have permanently in Sakura’s memory. It was enough to erase all dirty thoughts she had about that despicable woman-hater. Man, those good looks and delicious assets were a waste on such an evil narcissist.

“Yeah, we hate him.”

Yeah right.

Shut up, Inner Sakura.

Sakura looked around to see an escape but the universe did her better. On a line of smaller and drier rock formation nearer her hiding place, there lazily sat a pile of folded clothes. Bingo. A crazy idea hit Sakura, one she’d never dare to do. But with all the humiliation and evilness she had to endure because of one certain Uchiha, it didn’t hurt if she asked for some payback.

The trained medical ninja took steady and furtive steps toward her destination, cautious so her small movements wouldn’t be picked up by Sasuke’s heightened sensory. That guy had the ears and eyes of an owl. Once the package was secured, Sakura got out of there in a whiz. The moment she was out of earshot, the thief let out the evilest laugh she could muster, holding Sasuke’s clothes draped on her arms. She could only imagine his face walking back to camp completely naked and discovering it was this ‘girl who will only slow him down’ who stole his clothes. And oh, how much he’d hate himself because he didn’t even notice her stealing them? What a blow in his face that would be.

“Just giving him a taste of his own medicine.” Sakura reasoned. What she did was only as despicable as Sasuke belittling her and her capabilities. No one crossed Sakura Haruno and got away with it.

The cherry-haired started back to camp and couldn’t wait to tell Naruto what she did to that evil snob. Sakura walked on cloud, momentarily forgetting where she actually was and the dangers that the forest held in its depth. Suddenly, her shining emeralds came confronting two pairs of hungry, glowing eyes. With measure steps, they stepped out from their hiding, revealing their sharp canines, ready to tear skin from bones. Sakura was transfixed in her spot as she faced two hungry creatures ready to pounce at her anytime.

“Okay. No sudden movements.” She told herself, remembering what she learned in the Academy about saber-toothed cats that eat humans; one of which was that these predators usually travel in packs, which meant that they also attack in packs. Quickly reviewing and analyzing her options, Sakura made up her mind. “Nice kitties.” She cooed, as she started slowly backing up while her predators advanced.

“You guys hungry?” Sakura mentally memorized the way back to the waterfalls. At least she’d had some good chance to survive since Sasuke was there; she could throw him at the hungry, killer cats, if push came to shove.

“You guys are nice, right?”

Her predators growled in response, jogging the medical ninja’s memory about the killer cats being hostile too, hence, the name.

“Okay, maybe not.”

The hungry animals picked up their pace, slowly but steadily lessening the gap between them and their cherry-haired prey. Afraid her attackers were running out of patience, Sakura was left with no choice. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Accordingly, she threw the garments in her hands at her attackers to blind them momentarily, then, ran for her life. No looking back.

Her ears picked up the sound of the steady flow of the water and increased her speed, not wanting to wager on whether the hungry killer cats were able to catch up with her. If they did, then, she must be dead by now. But since she’s still breathing, albeit running out of it, then that meant she was able to outpace them. For how long? She’d rather not answer and decided to run as far as her feet could take her.

The sound was becoming clearer which only meant that Sakura was near her destination. As she was approaching the base surrounded by big rocks, Sakura’s trained eyes made out the silhouette of a tall man stepping out of the natural pool. The runaway never thought she’d think it but Sakura was glad the evil snob was still there. So, with one last push, she jumped the man and clung to him for dear life.

“Sasuke!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso, causing the man to sway a little as he tried to balance both their weight on his two feet. Sakura buried her nose against the crook of his neck and tried, as much as possible, to explain the dire situation. “Killer cats.” She cried between pants. “Killer cats. After me.”

“I don’t see anything.”

Sakura heard him say.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Sakura felt him crane his neck to look in the dark. “There are no scary cats after you, Haruno.”

Sakura, ignoring the Shinobi’s condescending tone and, for some reason, starting to trust his words, lifted her head back just far enough to look at him in the eyes. They were deep and dark, like he was always carrying the night sky in his eyes.

Interesting.

But what’s more interesting was that thing poking at her stomach.

Very interesting.

Inner Sakura forced the young medic to confirm her suspicion and, being the obedient woman that she was, the young woman lowered her gaze between her and Sasuke. Both Inner and Oouter Sakura widened their eyes in astonishment.

Blessed and highly favored! Inner Sakura mused. No wonder the guy thinks he’s a gift to humanity. He’s the whole package! For the second time that night, Inner and Outer Sakure were both in agreement.

“T-that’s because you surprised me!”

Sakura tore her engrossed gaze away from the ‘package’ and back to the face she couldn’t recognize.

Is the Great Sasuke Uchiha… blushing?

The young medic couldn’t believe her own eyes; given it was dark and his face was illuminated only by the moonlight. Plus the fact that, from what she had learned about the total snob, it was impossible for him to get flustered, especially because of her. But before Sakura could confront him… and maybe tease him about it, if she actually had the ability to form sentence after witnessing ‘the thing’, the flustered snob unceremoniously dropped Sakura on the ground.

“Hey!” The pang of pain helped her with the ‘forming coherent sentences’ problem. She pushed herself off the pebbly ground, dusting dirt off her hands and butt and glaring at the naked man turning away from her.

“I placed my clothes here somewhere.” Sasuke said to himself, not minding the fact that his back view was in full display to one very angry and very guilty Haruno.

Time to come clean.

“About that…” She began, intense glare softening to embarrassed, looking everywhere but at the naked man.

“What did you do?”

Of course, Sasuke Uchiha had good deduction skills too. He quickly and easily caught on, narrowing his eyes at the possible culprit as he kept his back on Sakura.

Yes, tell him, Sakura. Inner Sakura goaded. Tell the naked man why he is naked.

“The killer cats.” Sakura unconsciously shifted her weight to the side, scratching a finger against her cheek, very telling signs of her guilt. “The ones after me? Well, I panicked a little. So…” A short laugh tumbled out of her lips. She meant it to ease the heavy tension forming between them. Now that Sasuke fully faced her, eyes promising bodily pain, the soft chuckle came out awkward.

And when Sasuke was running out of patience, he took an intimidating step forward, forgetting about his current situation, to force the truth out of the woman.

“Ithrewthematthekillercatsasdistraction.” Sakura blurted out in one breath.

“What?”

He wasn’t just mad. Sasuke Uchiha was boiling in anger.

“You threw them at the killer cats as distraction?”

Protector-covered arms flew to cover Sakura’s face, bracing herself for the coming KO punch. She was sure the woman-hater wasn’t above hitting a girl after what she had done.

But despite appearances, Sasuke was above hitting a girl.

Sakura dropped her arms when a moment passed and she was still standing, completely unscathed. Realizing belatedly that Sasuke was just a foot away from her and becoming hyperaware that Sasuke wasn’t wearing any clothes. Well, because she threw them at the killer cats.

“Oh, your boner is gone.” Sakura slapped a hand over her mouth when she realized what she just said and made sure her eyes were just staring at his deep and dark orbs.

And not somewhere down south.

“Yeah, girls stealing clothes and throwing them at killer cats can do that to a guy.”

Sakura could feel his suppressed anger by the way his hands squeezed her forearms, then, spun her around to the general direction of their camp. Good idea, she thought. Since the jade eyes couldn’t keep themselves from drifting down that dangerous place.

“Now walk, you thief.”

Sakura did as she was ordered, feeling exactly like what Sasuke called her – a thief who got caught in the middle of a sloppy job, arrested and forced to do the walk of shame. Only differences from an actual police arrest were: one, she wasn’t actually under arrest and two, Sasuke wasn’t aiming a gun at her in case she flees.

Speaking of guns… No! No, speaking of guns, the medic scolded her Inner Sakura and continued down the path back to the camp, serving as human shield for the naked Sasuke. All the while uneasy, a little nervous and a bit… turned on because have you seen the size of his thing?

Yeah. Inner Sakura had this silly, all pleased and satisfied smile plastered across her goof-ball face while Outer Sakura had to fight a sudden rush of heat. The clothe stealer mentally slapped the silly smile off that stupid goof-ball. No more thinking about it too, she berated her inner self.

But Inner Sakura refused to listen. That stubborn bitch. So, now, Sakura had to deal with her inner self staging a rebellion.

A part of her wanted to just strangle the guy in his sleep; another part had no qualms jumping him naked. Granting that her reason was life or death, still, she had no business thinking about that woman-hater’s ’business’. But silly Sakura kept forgetting that if there was one universal truth we all share, it was that the line between love and hate was a thin one.

In her case, lust and hate and thread-thin.

—

TBH,  Main girl stealing main guy’s clothes isn’t at all original but honestly, I just wanted a mental image of SasuSaku in that compromising position. And unfiltered Sakura? Yes pls. Ahahaha. I’m sure I’m not the only one! Who liked the return of Inner Sakura?

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Happy | Poe Dameron

✦ pairing — Poe Dameron x Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 3.6k

✦ request — can I request one where reader used to date Ben in secret and then she joins the resistance and starts dating Poe? And then Rey brings Ben back to the resistance instead of him dying in tros and tried to get her back so poe gets jealous but she cant forgive ben and doesn’t love him anymore?

✦ warnings — angst, jealousy, fluff, sexual innuendos.

✦ gif credit

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

You felt someone’s stare, heavy and piercing from afar. Unable to turn around for you were speaking to General Organa, you rolled your healthy shoulder.

“Who’s that?” Rey asked, pointing at the bandaged arm Poe had just observed.

He instinctively smiled. “That’s (Y/N), our only diplomat left.”

Rey hummed, watching you with more attention now. Your form was unmistakable, your profile hadn’t changed much although your mannerisms had — you stood with your head held up high now, with an amazing posture if she may say so herself.

“She could help us!”

“She already does,” he pointed out. “She’s been part of The Resistance for years now.”

“No, no. I’ve seen Kylo’s mind, she’s always there. They love each other deeply. Poe,” Rey turned really serious, “she could end this war and bring him to the light.”

He still remembered the first time he saw you, no long after he joined and was made Commander. Poe had been pacing, impatient to get some news already, in Leia’s office.

You had arrived, annoyed, and snapping at your protocol droid for not shutting up. Then he had ruined it furthermore by ogling at you and blocking your way into the room.

In his defense, the General hadn’t told him the diplomat would stunt him with their beauty. She had scolded him for not letting you in, stifling a laugh when he took a chair out for you to sit.

Poe was captivated by you when he heard you complain about The New Republic. They were refusing to see The First Order as a threat which you qualified as moronic and delusional — he agreed wholeheartedly.

The admission of having insulted someone had never been so attractive to him until Leia asked you if the reason why Lonno Desa refused to maintain talks with you was that you insulted him and you admitted, “not to his face.”

As Snap liked to say, he was smitten. Poe Dameron, the best pilot in the galaxy and the biggest flirt in the system, was smitten for someone who had turned him down on several occasions.

He knew he wasn’t entitled to anything — hell, he appreciated that you hadn’t led him on! But hearing you say you weren’t the relationship type broke his heart. It felt extremely personal, almost like an attack on his ability to be the right person for someone.

And now Rey was telling him you were in love with someone else.

Fuck.

Leia was against the idea of telling you about it, you had the right to continue your life the way you liked it. The more Rey insisted that you weren’t happy without Ren, the worse Poe’s chest tightened.

Then you entered the room, asking if you could help with anything and he lost it. Poe stormed out of there, glaring at anyone who tried to approach him as he made his way across the hangar. He didn’t know why he was so angry, but he felt as though rage was consuming him. His skin was hot, breath ragged.

Wandering around the jungle had always calmed him. It reminded him of home, of those afternoons he spent with his mom, learning how to pilot from the best. He missed her the most when he lost control of his emotions, when he felt again like that little boy scared of his parents never coming back.

He had experienced a similar fear hours before. You were only alive because you left Hosnian Prime earlier than you should have had. And now his newest friend was unconscious in the infirmary while you were talked into going back to your ex-boyfriend.

He had been sure you liked him, there was no other explanation for the way you stared at him and your gentle tone when you spoke to him. Poe had accepted your friendship gladly, he loved spending time with you whenever the two of you were available and seeing the worry leave your features when he came back from a mission. But friends didn’t stare longingly at each other from across every room, friends were never asked how long had they been dating when one reminded the other they needed to eat or get some sleep.

Confusion and anger were a bad combination, and there he was drowning in both of them.

“That was a little rude, Commander.”

Poe jumped to his feet upon hearing your voice. You looked at your surroundings, making sure there wasn’t a creature lurking in.

The aliveness of D’Qar terrified you, how untamed it was in competition to back in Chandrila where the gentle sounds of the lake made calm reign over the chaos of its citizens. You didn’t dislike it per se, but it was a taste you were still in the process of acquiring.

“I just needed some fresh air,” he explained, sitting back on the thick log. You were still staring at the tree to your right, presumably in thought.

“You know,” you mused, “I used to say that when I was a teen. I would visit Lake Sah'ot, sit in front of it, and stare at the crystal clear water with the excuse that I needed fresh air.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re not a better liar than teenage me, and she was embarrassingly bad.”

“I feel furious,” he confessed. “I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I wanted to calm down.”

His confession prompted you to take your eyes off the greenery to look at him. Poe’s head hung down as he fixed his eyes on his boots.

“You’re alive, Poe. That’s normal.”

“The reason behind it is the problem.”

“Fix it.”

He didn’t have to gaze at you to know you had said it with a shrug. You always made things sound easy, maybe it was how used you were to convince people to do what you deemed appropriate.

“Can I ask you something?”

You stepped closer to him, taking a seat on the same lodge he was resting on. “Anything.”

“Are you in love with Kylo Ren?”

A long sigh escaped you. “I’ve never met him.”

“Rey said you knew him as a teen.”

“He wasn’t Kylo Ren back then,” you clarified. The distinction was important for you, for your morals, for your pride, for your heart.

Laying on the grass, hand laced with his, you had asked Ben, “will you miss me?” with the hopes the inquiry would make him change his mind. You knew it wasn’t an easy thing to do, that he actually wanted to stay home, but every option you had given him he had ignored.

You were ready to leave your life behind for him. He had the force and you, what else could he need? The Galaxy was so vast you were sure the two of you could find the perfect planet to hide.

Ben however didn’t answer the question, deflecting by reminding you it wasn’t his choice. There was a wave of underlying anger in his tone that scared you, it had never sounded so deep.

Seeing him leave had been heartbreaking. His promise of keeping contact with you had been the only flickering hope you had, one that never ignited back.

You knew you had lost him no longer after. Oh, teenage love, naive and raw with no way to break the inevitable fall. His promise had never meant to be kept, but you had found said truth too many sleepless nights later, eyes brimmed with tears and disappointment in yourself bubbling up inside your chest.

When Leia gave you the news of his new identity, you didn’t know how to react. One thing was being left behind and another was your first love giving in to what his family had been fighting against for years. Ben betrayed everything he had sworn to love, destroying lives and dreams as mere collateral damage.

“Just… answer the question. Please.”

“I am not.”

“She said you’re not happy.”

She was right, you weren’t. You were fighting against everything you were feeling, things you had once assumed you had already experienced.

It had been cruel, you had wondered if the stars hated you, if there was something in you that had pushed Ben to choose the dark side. And when you started to think you would never go through that anguish again, you met Poe.

There were differences, he would never fall to the dark side, you were sure of that, Poe would rather die than give in to the wishes of an oppressing organization. But you were still you, the first relationship you had was an utter disaster and every time you had tried with someone else hadn’t been too contrasting.

Rejecting him had been painful from the beginning. Having a man so handsome and charming, so brave and dedicated, interested in you after having to put up with the worst kind of men you could ever imagine to exist, sounded too good to be true.

Poe never tried to pressure you into accepting to date him. He would ask if you had changed your mind when he caught you staring for too long. You had wanted to say yes really badly, but it wasn’t right — you weren’t ready to experience heartbreak again, to ruin another person.

You felt lonely, of course you did. Every time you saw him you wondered how it would be like to wake up beside him, hold his hand and play with his curls, to be held by him, to be his and for him to be yours.

“Are you happy?”

Poe turned to his left, where you were sitting. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t think anyone is happy when we’re at war.”

You had to agree with that. “Then why would my unhappiness be caused by an ex-lover?”

“Rey—“

Interrupting him, you told him something you hadn’t planned to, “I know what she saw, but she only saw his version — mine’s different. I am not suffering because of him.”

“I’m jealous.”

“I know.”

“Is it bad that I want you to suffer for me?”

The question sounded cruel which he hadn’t intended. He just wanted to be in your mind like you were in his. He wanted you to have vivid dreams about him and to fantasize of him only to become disappointed because you didn’t have him. He wanted you to want to have him, that was all.

“You know I already do.”

But Poe didn’t know anything anymore. He wouldn’t hold against you a past relationship, what kind of person did that? But he did hold against you the adamancy on pushing him away when now you said to be suffering because of him.

“Do I?” He cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve turned me down hundreds of times.”

You nodded, wetting your lips. “And it makes me suffer. Those two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” he huffed.

Resting your hand on his shoulder, you leaned forward. As you left a kiss on his cheek, you murmured an apology. Poe turned his face, lips brushing yours as his eyelashes batted against yours — you didn’t move, staring at him while trying to fight the urge to kiss him.

It was a battle you would have never won, first because you didn’t want to and second of all because Poe knew you well enough to know you were about to pull away so he kissed you before you could do it.

To his delight, you kissed back immediately. His arm snaked around your middle, pulling you flush on his side while his free hand held your face. Sliding your healthy hand toward his farthest shoulder, you tilted your head to kiss him deeper.

Slowly, you parted from him, breathing in his own harsh breath as he inhaled and exhaled on your face. You expected Poe to say something, but he only kissed you again.

“This is the worst moment to say this,” you mumbled against his lips, “but I have to make a holo call in a few minutes.”

He whined. “Will you pay attention to me later?” His lips caressed yours as he said it.

You gave him another kiss, short and sweet. “We’ll see.”

With another whine, he stood up, his arm still around you as you did the same. The two of you walked in silence toward the base, him finding adorable how weary you were of your surroundings.

Rey tried to talk to you again, you could see the desperation in her eyes. Poe tightened his arm on your waist, but you slid off his grasp momentarily. Assuring him you wouldn’t take too long, you pulled Rey to the side.

Giving explanations wasn’t something you were used to, but this was a war we were talking about. So you told her your reasons behind not getting near Kylo, and although disappointed she respected them.

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

You ran into his arms, forgetting his rank and the fact that you weren’t alone. Poe buried his face in the crook of your neck, hugging you the tightest he had ever done.

Keeping the tears in was a challenge. You had thought you wouldn’t see him again for a moment, that you would have to live without his stupid jokes and his bright smile. You wouldn’t have been able to take it.

But he was there, kissing your forehead and reminding you everything would be okay from now on. The First Order was gone and Palpatine was dead.

You assumed Rey was staring, the intensity of the first time she looked at you almost made you part from Poe and ask what was wrong. Almost. Poe didn’t let you move, trapping you into his arms.

Complaining would be foolish, his hugs were your favorite. Everything about Poe could be cataloged as your favorite, from his kisses to his sense of duty.

You only parted from Poe to hug Finn who reminded you he was there too by kissing your hair. You had grown to see him as a brother in the past year, to proudly watch his progress and his now unwavering belief in the cause.

As you moved to then hug Rey, you froze. Beside her, the face you had expected to never see again smiled softly at you.

Frowning, you cleared your throat to politely say, “I’m sorry for your loss, Ren.”

Kylo opened his mouth to thank you, until he realized you hadn’t called him by his name. “It’s Ben, actually.”

“Noted.”

Finn shrugged when you stared at him in search for an explanation, Poe didn’t even meet your eyes. Your boyfriend started cleaning BB-8 in the middle of the hangar, humming as the droid beeped quietly.

The consequent three days felt way longer, you had assumed a week and a half passed due to how exhausted you were. Poe was constantly in a bad mood, fighting with Rey over little things and ranting about it to you.

His attitude made you regret giving up your individual quarters at times. You loved sharing everything with him and wouldn’t change him for the entire galaxy, but you were really, reaaaaaaally tired.

“Babe,” you interrupted his complaining. “Why don’t you take a day off? Just one.”

He frantically shook his head, as if the idea of having a good night of sleep was heinous. “There are a lot of things to do, darling. And not enough time.”

“We’re not at war anymore,” you reminded him.

Something crossed his eyes. Poe rolled on the bed to lay on his side, draping his arm over your belly to pull you closer. “Why don’t we talk about something else, gorgeous?”

Facing him, you felt the frustration leave your system. Poe always looked at you with too much devotion, his expression was neutral yet his eyes were shining — you had never seen anything prettier.

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

Waking up next to him was a dream all on itself, his messy curls brushing your arm and his warm body burning yours up — both literally and metaphorically.

Never had you felt more at peace nor happier than in Poe’s arms. At times you felt as though nothing else but him existed — you were positive the past year or so would have been unbearable without him. He was everything you had, and for once it was enough — every fear and insecurity had slowly been erased, between a few fights due to his recklessness and your stubbornness but nothing a long conversation wouldn’t fix.

All those doubts of losing his valuable friendship vanished a few months into the relationship. Now your conversations were longer, intimacy functioned at every level, his jokes were funnier and dirtier. You were happy, Poe made you happy.

You would have loved to stay in bed cuddling, but between your duties and his, It didn’t sound realistic. Soon you would be able to, if everything went according to plan and the survivors from The New Republic accepted to hear him and Finn out; you weren’t sure what their entire plan was made of, but you trusted them.

Rey and Rose joined you for lunch, exchanging looks every few minutes. The dining hall was almost empty, you didn’t have any excuse to ignore their antics.

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

Biting her bottom lip, Rey nodded. “I talked to Finn, but… look, Poe is taking it a little too far.”

“A little too far with what?”

Rose started playing with her glass, avoiding looking at either you or Rey in case the topic sparked a fight. She hated being in the middle, and as much as she understood you often took Poe’s side because he was your boyfriend, she was on Rey’s side this time.

Poe smiled brightly as you walked toward him, angling his arm for you to fit against his side. Not wanting to cause a scene, you hugged him by the waist with an arm and whispered in his ear that you needed to talk to him.

You followed him to his and Finn’s office, keeping your mouth shut although you were about to lose control.

He took his jacket off, reaching for your hips. You placed your hands on his chest, he looked as good as ever, but you weren’t there to fuck him.

You went straight to the point, “Why did you make Ben a janitor?”

Oh, so he was Ben again, huh. Poe shrugged. “He has to start somewhere.”

“Poe…”

He removed his hands off your hips, opting for crossing his arms against his chest. “Why do you care so much?”

Sliding your hands down his torso to free them from the tight grip of his forearms, you deadpanned, “Because there are protocols for these kinds of situations.”

“He’s a war criminal.”

“And there’s a protocol for that,” you repeated, lifting your eyebrows.

His first mistake was stuttering, “T—the protocol can’t be followed right now.” His second mistake was forgetting you knew more about those things than him. “When we re-establish the New Republic—“

“Do you really want to make those mistakes again?”

“No, and that’s not the point, you know it.”

“You’re being petty, that’s the point.”

“He should be punished.”

“Punished by cleaning the base, that will teach him!”

“Keeps him busy.”

You rolled your eyes. “He’s Leia’s son.”

“And your ex-boyfriend,” Poe gritted. There it was, the real problem. He had seen the idiot, trying to spark conversation with you and asking about your family.

How dare he ask when you had lost many loved ones because of him? And why weren’t you furious?

Pursing your lips as your shoulders dropped, you grabbed him by the neck. “I don’t care about him, we’ve talked about that.”

“What if he wins you back?” Poe wondered out loud, not really meaning to do it.

Dropping your hands to his forearms, you made him uncross his arms. Guiding his palms to your back, not withdrawing yours until his touch turned firm, you leaned forward.

You found astounding how often you regretted not having started dating him earlier but this time was different, it wasn’t only regret but shame. If you had, he wouldn’t be so stressed and in consequence you wouldn’t have to put up with people telling you to calm him down or talk him out of things.

“I love you.” You wrapped your arms around his shoulders. “Only you.”

Closing his eyes, he leaned into your touch. “I don’t want to lose you, much less to him.”

You kissed him. “You won’t.”

“Never, ever?”

“Nope,” you popped the p. “You’re stuck with me, General.”

You knew what being called by his rank did to him. Poe smirked, kissing you more heavily than you had kissed him as he turned both of you around, trapping you between his torso and the desk.

His tongue slipped inside your mouth only for you to suck on it, moaning as his hands came up to cup your breasts. His fingers worked quickly in undoing the buttons of your shirt as he dragged his lips down to your neck, sucking gently on your skin.

The doors slid open. “Hey, P— oh, man, not again!”

You turned your head to the side while Poe lifted his face off your chest in order to look at the doorway, where an annoyed Finn was glaring at both of you. Poe blocked the view as you buttoned your shirt back up, asking Finn if he needed anything.

“For you two to not have sex there, first of all. It’s my desk too!”

You gave Finn a sheepish smile before half-heartedly apologizing. “I will leave you two to talk about important matters.”

As you left the office, you could hear Poe complaining about Finn’s awful timing.

[langdons-little-witch-bitch]

In the dark of the night

(gif by @violadvis)

Summary: Gathered around the bonfire the creepy story being told scares you, but Xavier has his own way of comforting you.

A/N: Y’all can thank (or blame 😅) @itsmelunamoon for this. Our conversation about the gif above inspired this little OS.

Since the season didn’t aired yet this is nothing valid. The characterization is solely based on my imagination of how he’s gonna be like after seeing the 2 trailer. Idek if that’s really gonna be his name, but we’ll see. I can tell I already love this precious lil fuckboy 😄

Also I finished this around 5am so it’s probably not the best 🙈

(English is not my first language)

Pairing: Xavier Plympton x fem!reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut, fingering, public sex, unprotected sex

Word count: 1499

————————————————————

The crackling of the fire held a comforting effect compared to the disquieting noises that echoed through the nightly wood. The screech of a distinct owl, rustling in the brush, branches snapping. A shiver run down your spine. From the upcoming cold or fear?

It was your free evening, but instead of just relaxing in your cabin your roommate convinced you to come to the bonfire with the other new counselors. You all gathered closely around the warm fire, grilled marshmallows, drank some booze that one of the guys had smuggled in the camp and now one of your co-counselors was telling a spooky story about some psychopath that was rumored to roam this forest and slay people with a huge knife. Just one of those classical bonfire stories to frighten people, nothing to worry about, you told yourself. But you couldn’t help feel a bit at unease.

Suddenly you felt someone sit down next to you on the big branch. Confused you looked to your left where you expected to discover your friend, but she was gone. You were so focused on the story and your own thoughts that you didn’t noticed her leaving. Instead of her small face, surrounded by hazelnut hair, you looked at the sharp features of Xavier. The blonde had propped himself on the wood casually, legs spread widely as he leant into you closely with a smug smile on his lips, his little earing glistening in the light of fire.

“Are you scared?” he asked with a hint of amusement in his deep voice.

“N-No. Why would I?” You didn’t wanted to admit that the whole situation, the scary story plus the surroundings do creeped you out a bit. You thought he would laugh at you.

“Mhh are you sure? You are shivering.” He leant in closer, his arm resting behind your back, not fully touching just brushing against it.

“It’s just getting cold, that’s all.” you tried to brush it off.

“How about I warm you up a bit then?”, his voice low and seductive, his hand suddenly on your thigh caressing your skin.

You swallowed hard, the whole situation overwhelming and confusing to you. He was so close, his arm now grapping around your waist, his lips close to your ear, his warm breath making goosebumps erupt on your neck running down your entire body. His nose brushed your cheek lightly, his smell intoxicating. You couldn’t think straight anymore. What the hell is happening here? you asked yourself.

Never would you’ve imagined of finding yourself in such a situation. You and Xavier weren’t close or anything, neither did you thought he would be interested in you. You shared a bit small talk about the work at Camp Redwood here and there, that’s it. He was loud and confident, always center of attention, a bit cocky. The complete opposite of you. Not to forget he was kind of a fuck boy, always flirting with practically everyone. Especially the camper were constantly gushing about him, throwing themselves at him. Not that you could blame them.

Xavier was incredibly handsome. Soft, fluffy, blonde hair with those cute little strands falling on his forehead. Dazzling blue eyes, that shimmered like the lake in the sunlight. Plump, pink lips that almost always held an  arrogant smirk. A sharp jawline that could cut through glass. And you couldn’t help but stare at his thick thighs and firm bottom whenever he wore those super short, tight shorts.

“What do you say, how about we get away from here?” his smooth voice abruptly pulled you out of your train of thoughts.

You looked at him slightly shocked to find him wiggle his eyebrows suggestively at you. The silly gesture made you laugh softly. Sneaking away in the middle of the night to god knows where probably wasn’t the best idea, but the liquor from earlier and Xavier’s proximity made your head spin so you couldn’t think straight. You just nodded your head, and he immediately snatched your hand, leading you away from the bonfire, further into the woods.

“Where are you going?” you asked concerned.

“Somewhere more quiet of course.”

“Why can’t we go back to our cabins, they’re all empty now.”

“Nah there are way too many people at camp. I’d rather be alone with you.”

He suddenly turned around and backed you up against a tree, his arms trapping you, making you gasp. You could barely make out his face in the dark, the only source of light was the moon shining through the branches of the trees.

“I just don’t think it’s really safe out here.”

He started laughing. “Why? Because of that silly story? Don’t worry sweetheart. I protect you from the big, bad serial killer.”, he grinned, leaning his head down to catch your lips with his.

The kiss was a bit sloppy but nice. His lips were soft and warm, and you could taste the faint peppermint flavor of the gum he was often chewing. His hands found your waist and yours wrapped around his neck while the kiss deepened, becoming more passionate. Tongues swirling together, teeth nibbling at bottom lips. Xavier released a low growl as he pulled you in even closer, rubbing his growing bulge against your covered core. You moaned softly, your hands gripping at the back of his hair.

“Fuck I want you so bad,” he whispered huskily in your ear, taking your top and bra off hastily. His eager hands roamed your upper body, groping the tender flesh of your breasts while he kissed and sucked at your neck. Soft whimpers and moans fell from your lips at the feeling of his lips and hands caressing your body. One of them made it’s way down your stomach past the waistband of your shorts and panties. A loud moan escaped you as he started rubbing your clit.

“So wet for me babe,” he stated with satisfaction, your arousal coating his hand. He slowly inserted one finger, thrusting at a slow pace at first until he felt you grind down on him, the feeling of his long, slender finger caressing your inner walls so good. But you needed more. As if he could read your mind Xavier added a second finger. His thrusts at a steady pace now, his thump circling your sensitive bundle of nerves, while his lips had started sucking at the swell of your breast, before paying attention to your hardened nipples. The sounds of your pleasure resounding through the forest. Thankfully you were far enough away from everyone else, so no one could hear you. As Xavier hit the right spot deep inside of you, you let out a small scream.

“Fuck, right there. Feels so good.”

Just when your body started trembling from the pleasure and you were about to reach your high, he retracted his hand.

“What the fuck?” you panted.

“Sorry babe, I can’t wait any longer.” He worked fastly at his belt, pulling his pants and boxers down to free his neglected and rock hard length. A relieved moan escaped his lips as he wrapped his hand around his cock, stroking it. You bit your bottom lip at the marvelous sight, your heat throbbing with want and anticipation.

Xavier pulled your bottoms down and grabbed your thighs, hoisting you up against the tree. The hard bark grazing your skin, making you hiss slightly in pain. You wrapped your legs tightly around his hips. He rubbed his length against your core, moisturizing it with your juices before pushing inside. He groaned deeply at the feeling of being buried in your warmth. He started rocking his hips into yours at a rapid, eager pace. Your hands clawed at his shoulders as you meet his thrusts, trying to keep up with his rhythm.

Loud moans and pants echoed through the night.

“Fuck baby, you feel so good. So wet and warm.”

He hoisted you up higher against the tree, creating a new angle. The next deep thrust hitting your sweet spot. You moaned out his name.

“Do that again,” he growled, pumping his length in and out of you in a hard, fast pace now, trying to reach the same spot over and over again.

“Xavier,” you squealed loudly, “I’m so close.”

“Me, too baby girl.”

He started rubbing at your clit again and soon you felt warmth flood your entire body, your stomach tightened, your breathing turned into panting before that feeling of complete euphoria took over your entire body and you reached your high.

Xavier, lost in his own pleasure, watched you fall apart. The sight of you, eyes closed in pure bliss, head thrown back, moaning and whimpering incoherent expressions of pleasure accompanied by his name, triggered his own release. With a deep grunt he came hard, his head burrowed in your neck.

“Ah fuck, that was good.”

Just as you were about to reply your shrill scream filling the air as you spotted a dark figure right behind Xavier, a huge knife raised in his hand.

Tagging: @officialcodysfallenangels @hplotrfan @divinelittlelight @kalam22 @luthienshavenlove @stupidocupido @sojournmichael (hope it’s ok I tagged y’all)

*Usually I wouldn’t tag my work in tags where it doesn’t belong, but since the situation is a bit different here I’m gonna make an exception. 

[dancedelion]

Through the Desert

Genre: angst with a happy ending Word Count: 3458 Summary: Jaskier is hungry for the world - even before he flirts with the wrong woman and gets turned into a vampire. Jaskier is not a bard anymore, he is a creature. (And witchers kill creatures, don't they?) ao3: Through the Desert Each song is like dust on Jaskier's tongue. Jaskier walks around a little too quickly, like he is hastily trying to find a place to jump up and down, like the room is too small. Jaskier's voice goes down then up then higher and higher, like he's trying to find the place in his throat where he can scream. He looks over the people who are laughing and singing with him and who can't or don't want to see the way his jaw is clenched a little too tightly in between the singing. They know Jaskier, the bard, but they don't know him.

The crowd likes him. Here they are looking at him, clapping for him, here is everything, but the room is not roaring loudly enough.

He notices a woman to the side, who, unlike the other people, stares at him with purpose. Jaskier winks at her, tries to charm her with a smile, one that doesn't look too stilted.

It's the last song of his set, so he bows into the direction of the woman with a flourish, just before he wishes everyone a good night. He raises his eyebrow at the woman, like he's telling her maybe it will be a good night yet. She is still staring at him when everyone else has turned away.

Jaskier turns away from her and walks towards the bar, like it's a game. He feels her gaze in his neck.

It's not just a farce, he is thirsty, really thirsty, so he orders a pint of ale. Anything to feel better. Finally, the ale is in front of him and he takes a sip. But he chokes on it, chokes on dust, chokes on nothing.

“Are you alright?” Jaskier looks up at the honeyed voice, still coughing. The woman from before slides into the seat next to him.

“Splendid,” he says, once he's caught his breath and smirks, “now that you're here.” And here she is, everything about her an offer, from the way she is angled towards him to the suggestive tilt of her lips.

“I listened to your songs... Not bad.” “Oh? You liked them?” “Quite a lot.” “Then maybe I could interest you in a more... private,” he leans forward and says the last word quietly, “performance?” This is a duet he has sung a thousand times before.

“I'll lead the way,” she says.

He doesn't go with her because her hair flows like moonlight or because her eyes draw him in, but because he doesn't want to go back to his room in the tavern with the single bed.

He goes because he wants nothing and he wants it so, so badly. She grabs his hand and drags him out of the tavern.

“The woods?” Jaskier says. “That can't be comfortable.” “Oh,” the woman says smiling, “here I thought you were a strong gentleman able to protect a lady, but if you're scared...” “I'm not scared of anything,” Jaskier answers and it's more true than is healthy.

So he follows her into the woods, even though it's dark and he can barely see. But what else is he going to do, play the lute in his room? Get drunk again? Go to bed hungry?

She wants him and isn't that nice?

“Are you certain it's necessary to go this far?” he asks wearily. “I don't want any interruptions,” she says, her grip gentle around his fingers. Finally, she slows down and turns around to face him.

Jaskier lets out a sigh and leans in for a kiss. She turns her head just before he can meet her lips. Startled, he pulls back again. This time, she is grinning at him.

All teeth.

Pointy and sharp.

“Okay, I'll admit it,” Jaskier rasps, “now I am a little scared.”

He takes a small step back, but stumbles directly into – his head whips around – the hard chest of a man.

“Leaving so early?” the man says and grins, too. Teeth pointy, too. Kind of like... fangs. Oh Melitele. This is why Jaskier can never have nice things.

The man fixates his gaze on Jaskier's neck.

Why can't someone ever want him just for his charming conversation and nice company? (Here is the lesson learned.)

Jaskier doesn't have a weapon with him and he already knows he doesn't stand a chance.

He wishes Geralt were here.

He wishes he were a witcher and made for killing monsters like these ones. But he's just a bard - with his neck exposed.

“Now, now,” he says quickly, “let's not do anything hasty. I was only expecting one person, but I am amendable.” The man growls.

“No? Not into that? Yeah, me neither, it was a bad idea, I should just go.” He tries to step to the side, but the man catches his arms.

“Not so fast,” he snarls, right next to his ear.

Jaskier tries to struggle a little, but the man has an iron grip and his arms are pulled behind his back painfully. The woman steps closer, but Jaskier can barely see her in the moonlight.

He doesn't want to die so hungry, so, so hungry.

If a monster is going to kill him, it should be when he stupidly followed Geralt into a fight again, not here, not like this.

And then her teeth sink into his neck and she starts taking from him.

It's a lonely way to die.

It's Jaskier betting on the wrong horse again.

She is sucking his blood slowly and he just wants this over with. He wants to close his eyes. He wants to rest. He is torn between the urge to fill a vessel and the urge to destroy it.

He can feel himself growing weaker, becoming more empty. Not like something is missing, but like he's spread thin.

“Hurry up,” the man says.

“No, I want to make this one last,” the woman replies against the bruised skin of his neck.

So on the upside of things, at least his blood is tasty.

Spots of light show up at he edge of his vision. His knees give out and it's just the man holding him up. Not a man, probably. A creature.

He imagines Geralt coming through the village and finding a contract. Tracking the vampires. Finding his corpse. And that thought hurts more than anything else.

Suddenly, there are more teeth in his mouth, too many to be comfortable. Suddenly, he doesn't feel weak anymore. His vision sharpens.

It's two against one. He doesn't have a grip on this strength, he doesn't even know what it is or where it comes from. It's uncontrollable. He's injured, he has little blood for a human.

But it's a lot for a vampire.

And most importantly, he has nothing left to lose.

He snaps forward so suddenly that neither of them see it coming and he can escape from the tight grip of the vampire. He is at her neck so quickly, she can't twist away. He bites down hard and then rips.

She makes a gurgling noise, and he draws away quickly, keeping his eyes on them.

“Fuck,” the other vampire says. All of his attention is on the woman.

So Jaskier turns and runs, faster than he's ever run before.

All Jaskier wants is to stop wanting. But now it roars in his stomach louder than ever before. He runs first to get away and then just to run.

He slows down miles away, finally out of breath. He's never been this cold, he's never been this scared.

He's somewhere in the forest and he doesn't know where and he's all alone and Geralt didn't save him.

Jaskier can suddenly see everything, the tall trees and each leaf, he can hear each rustle, each breath, each chirp. It's the world through different eyes and too much of it. In front of him, there is a lake and Jaskier steps toward it. In the moonlight, his reflection shines. His eyes are red, whether from bloodshot or just general vampirism, he doesn't know. On the pale skin, there is the bruise, bad but not fatal, but he has lost too much blood and he shouldn't be able to see anything in the darkness.

“Oh fun,” Jaskier says weakly, “I'm dead.”

A vampire. How fucking cliché.

It could have been something more mysterious, more interesting. This is too on-the-nose. It's the lamest monster to be. He's gonna dramatize in the ballad.

Jaskier turns around, at the trees and trees. There is no village to be seen. He doesn't know where he left his lute. And he is hungry in a way he has never been before.

Huh. Maybe there won't be a ballad.

(He has to get better at being dead. Dead people don't write songs.) (There is no end of the line anymore. There is no reason to head to the coast.) He turns around suddenly, erratically, has a feeling there's someone behind him. There is no one behind him. He paces back and forth and back again.

The woman had behaved so suspiciously, what a stupid way to die. Just wait until I tell Geralt about this. Except Jaskier is a vampire. And Geralt is a witcher.

And if they ever meet again... that'll be that.

Maybe that should be that.

Maybe he's already lost everything there is to lose.

Jaskier tears at his hair and there's no one here and Geralt is not here and he screams and he screams until his throat is raw and then a little longer.

*** Death is the opposite of rest.

Jaskier roams the woods, desperately, until the hunger tears his stomach apart. Rabbits are quick, always too quick for him, but now he is quicker.

He has eaten a rabbit, but never drunk one before. He was human before.

But he is used to being hungry. Has the monster always been there, lurking, waiting, until the rest of his humanity was stripped away?

He is not a bard anymore. He is nothing but hunger. Teeth and blood. One who brings death or maybe death itself.

Somewhere in a tavern, there must be the man he used to be, but he doesn't go looking.

He is waiting for something, only there is nothing to wait for anymore, nothing to satisfy. There are too many teeth in his mouth and there is too much blood on his fingers.

He is not Jaskier. He is a creature. He is someone tearing himself apart from the inside.

He doesn't sing.

*** The creature sleeps, but never restfully. It tosses and turns and dreams of teeth in its neck and a man on a mountain with razor-sharp words. But even in its sleep, it hears too much. It jerks awake at the footsteps.

It blinks and sees too much in the darkness. At least ten Nilfgaardian soldiers approach it in the clearing. They are here for him, but there is no him, only it, and it has too many teeth. And they have swords but they are not as quick as it is.

Here I am, dead, why don't you join me?

It snaps two necks before anyone can even touch it. It kills like it was born to do it, because it was, just about a month ago. But they have it surrounded and there is nowhere to run except over bodies that are still breathing so far.

The third one stabs his sword somewhere in its abdomen, but it's not lethal. It doesn't know where it is lethal anymore. How do you kill a vampire? Separate head from throat? Lethal, that. Wooden stake? Silver, for monsters? But the soldiers only have steel and steel doesn't stop it. Pain doesn't stop it. It tears through another two of them with its bare fingers and strength it didn't know it had. It is tackled to the floor, the ground hard and solid beneath its back. It closes its eyes and keeps going because even after all it still wants. Half a dozen bodies on it, crushing it, but it keeps going in the way a monster does, with every fiber of its being. With teeth, fists, legs, too.

Another wound in its leg, one in its arm, one just below its heart.

Finally, it gets grip of one of the swords and yanks and slices and three heads fall and must be lethal, that. It's still, then. With the last of its strength, it drags two bodies square over it off of it. It smells like blood so strongly and it is disgusted with wanting and it needs to get away.

It gets up on shaky legs, bodies to the right of it and to the left of it and everywhere and is this its life now? The empty eyes of the soldiers stare up at it and it doesn't close them because it won't let them rest. Oh. A heartbeat. One so slow it didn't notice it before. It straightens its back and turns around slowly, bleeding from at least four stab wounds, blood trickling into its eyelid.

Man on a mountain, razor-sharp words.

Creature on a mountain, razor-sharp teeth.

“Geralt,” it says. It is absolutely exhausted. “Fancy meeting you here.” It nods to the bodies.

“You're a little late to the party,” it continues. It's so tired. Geralt's hair glistens silver in the moonlight, and so do his swords. One of them silver. For monsters.

“I don't suppose there's a chance you'll ignore that giant pile of bodies behind me,” it keeps talking because it always talks or at least it used to. And this – maybe this is a way to die, maybe this is not lonely.

“Jaskier,” the witcher says.

“Oh no,” answers the creature. “Jaskier died a month ago.”

The witcher steps closer, carefully maneuvers around the bodies. The creature doesn't flinch. And it won't run. And it's not scared. (It's never scared when it should be.) “Jaskier,” Geralt says.

There might be tears on its face, but probably not, because vampires don't cry, do they? There is something deeply violent inside of it and maybe it would be better to snuff it out.

“Jaskier,” Geralt repeats like it's the only thing he knows how to say.

“Stop -”

It can't speak because it is crying and it is interrupted by a chocked out sob.

“Stop calling me that.” Geralt is too close. And too far.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says quietly.

Jaskier looks up at him. He looks into Geralt's yellow eyes and his knees nearly buckle.

“I know what you have to do,” Jaskier says and swallows.

He's understood by now, of course, that Geralt doesn't like him and maybe never has, but he still never would have thought that Geralt would kill him. But some things, he's sure, are unforgivable.

“Don't you think it would be easier,” Jaskier says, “if you would stop calling me Jaskier?”

“You're a vampire.” “Yes. Great. Ten out of ten for observational skill.”

He smells Geralt's mutated blood and here is finally something he doesn't want. It's a relief.

“Nothing like a good killing spree to reunite the team, am I right?” Jaskier carries on. “Bet you didn't expect that when you got rid of me on the mountain.” “These soldiers attacked you.” “So?” “So you defended yourself.” Jaskier sniffs once and carefully avoids looking at the bodies.

“Well, all anyone would see is a monster and some dead humans, so – so why don't we get to it, right? Lovely talk, but – but we both know what you need to do.”

Geralt looks a little confused, his eyebrows drawn together, but then his expression clears up.

“Ah,” he says, “you're right.” And Jaskier wants so badly, too badly, maybe, and he tries to hold still so it will be quick.

It's not fair, having to die two times, but it's also a bit of a relief not having to want anymore. It's not any easier the second time around.

“You weren't there,” Jaskier says, almost sobs.

“I know,” Geralt says. And there's that. Now he's stepping closer, closer than he's ever been before, and Jaskier wishes he had a little more time. A little time to memorize how Geralt's eyes look up close. A little time to relish in the breath on his face.

Not enough time to remember that he has seen Geralt kill a vampire before.

And finally, finally, Geralt steps closer still and Jaskier holds his breath. Tries to decide between closing his eyes so he can finally rest and keeping them open so he can see Geralt's face.

Then the collide -

chest

arms

fingers

in the nape of his neck

Is this how to die? I find

I kind of like it.

“Am I dying?” Jaskier says, “I think I'm probably bad at it.” “I hope you won't want to keep practicing.” “Ah, no. I think I've had my fill for a while.” Silence.

Only it's never silent. Not if you're a vampire.

Not if you're a witcher.

“Geralt?” “Hm.” “Why are we hugging?” Jaskier almost expects another hm. “I... missed you. I heard these Nilfgaardian soldiers were tracking you down. Because they were trying to find me probably. Because of Ciri. So I tracked them down.”

“You were a little late.” “I'm sorry.” Geralt's breath is in Jaskier's neck now, and then his cheek touches him and it's nice.

“I'm really sorry,” Geralt repeats, “for everything I said on the mountain. For making you leave. For... not being there.” Jaskier presses a little closer, not caring one bit about his injuries. He feels like they're healing up already.

He doesn't want to kill the mood, but he is too confused to keep quiet, so Jaskier asks: “Don't you think you should kill me, maybe?” “What? Why?” Now Geralt sounds confused too and a little hurt.

“I don't know. I'm a vampire. I'm dangerous. I... drink blood. It's disgusting.” “Oh, come on, Jaskier. In terms of gruesome vampires I've met – you don't even make the top five.”

Geralt releases him out of his hold again and Jaskier tries not to lean into him again.

“How did this happen?” Geralt asks gently.

“Oh, you know how it is. Flirted with the wrong woman again.”

“Fuck.” “Pretty much. But you don't need to worry about the uncontrollable bloodlust. I'm quite well-versed in wanting what I can't have.” Geralt looks at him unhappily. And Jaskier knows he must feel guilty because he's Geralt and he feels guilty about everything.

“Let's get away from here,” Geralt says. He starts trudging back where he came from and Jaskier follows him slowly because every step hurts. Geralt steadies him quickly and together they leave the clearing behind. Jaskier feels – found.

Once they've reached Roach by the road, Geralt turns to Jaskier again.

“It's not your fault, you know that, don't you?” Jaskier says softly.

Geralt works his jaw.

“You,” he says, “you were always too human for me. And you know destiny has a soft spot for fucking me over. And. Warping everything I ever wished for.” “You... wished for me not to be human?” “I wanted you not to – die.” Geralt looks distraught, and he clutches Roach's reigns, then lets go again.

“And you – what did you want?” he asks Jaskier.

Jaskier's heart leaps into his throat.

“Everything,” he says, dumbfounded.

And he does.

He wants the world, ripped open and bleeding underneath his fingers.

He wants to drink the sunshine and eat half the sky.

He wants to fall into Geralt's eyes.

He wants Geralt wanton, violently and there is no glutton like this one.

He wants Geralt's heart and he wants it beating.

He wants Geralt's teeth gnashing against his teeth.

Geralt leans forward and grips his shoulder and Jaskier moves towards him with his other side, like it's a dance.

I want you to want to bite me.

It's the gentlest touch. Like caressing lips with lips.

I want you to hunger for my blood.

Jaskier moves his hands to cup Geralt's cheeks, like he's holding the world and he is.

I want life, your life, and I wanted it on the mountain. I selfishly wanted to grow old with you.

But he has Geralt, has him where he wants him, under his fingers. Something inside of Jaskier – stills. Stops running.

Jaskier is talking and always talking, but finally – his lips come to rest on Geralt's face.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Well, howdy there. I’m up to episode 8 of Ranma 1/2, the second episode of the introductory arc for the best boy in anime history, Ryoga Hibiki. Last episode gave us a general idea of who he is, but it’s this one where we’ll get to see him and Ranma actually fight, as the title gives away. I’ve said it before, but I absolutely adore titles like this. One time I was writing a fanfic for this series, and I won’t lie, making up similar styled titles for chapters was one of the best parts. So, excited to watch it, next paragraph I’ll have done just that!

That...was kind of disappointing. I was really looking forward to this episode, and while there was a ton of stuff I really enjoyed about it, there was a lot I did not care for in the slightest. But before I talk more about that, I’ll do my recap.

Though there is a bit of an issue there, too. About half or more of this episode is Ranma and Ryoga fighting. I’m recapping the episode to you in a text-based format, so going blow-by-blow to describe every move of the fight would be pretty boring, I’d imagine, even if a lot of what happens is actually really great and ties together well. But on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of the plot momentum in the story is carried by the ebb and flow of the fight scene, so just glossing over it wouldn’t work either. I’m going to try for a middle path, but I apologize if I don’t stick that landing.

The episode starts at Furinkan High School, in the middle of the night, as the school’s Chemistry Club is secretly meeting to put their finishing touches on an...explosive mine? Which then blows up? I’d love to tell you this makes sense later...but it does not.

We cut from there to Ryoga, who is dramatically monoguing about how badly he wants to kill Ranma. NEXT SCENE. At the Tendo Household, Ranma and Akane are discussing again why Ryoga wants to beat Ranma up so badly. He’s still confused, since he was sure it was because of the bread. Speaking of Ryoga, Kasumi shows up to deliver a letter that arrived from Ranma, from his rival. It’s a letter of challenge, but the date on it was the day before. Ranma doesn’t think that’s a problem though, considering Ryoga’s relationship with timeliness. To accentuate that point, we get a small scene of Ryoga misunderstanding someone’s directions and going the wrong way, again.

The next day, in what looks to be between classes or during lunch or something, one of Akane’s friends comments on how long her hair has grown out. Akane notes in narration that it’s “finally” longer than Kasumi’s, to really connect the dots we see she’s thinking of Dr. Tofu. But there’s no time for that, Ryoga is back again! In the sports field! While sports are going on! He gets knocked out by a stray ball, but in no time Ranma is down there to fight him, and most of the school has gone down to watch.

Nabiki and her henchwomen, which she has apparently, smell an opportunity, and organize a betting ring on the fight. There’s some brief banter between Ranma and Ryoga, during which it’s revealed it’s actually been a month since the last episode and Ryoga ended up on Okinawa while lost (meaning he’s now been to all four of Japan’s main islands), but then the fight finally begins. Ryoga starts by mainly using his umbrella, and Ranma sticks to dodging.

From there, we get a few audience cutaways. It turns out everyone put their money on Ranma, so Nabiki realizes she’ll need to do something to make sure Ranma loses and she doesn’t lose a ton of money on the bets. The Chemistry Club shows up, and they realize that if Ranma dies, they’ll have a chance to...do something to Akane they never clarify, but is implied to be somehow taking ownership of her. Yeah.

Back to the fight, Ryoga tosses his umbrella at Ranma as a distraction, then pulls out a length of wire and throws a handcuff onto Ranma’s wrist. Now they’re chained at the hand, so they’ll have to fight close quarters, which favors Ryoga more. The umbrella ended up landing near the audience, and some of them try to lift it, only to realize it weighs an incredible amount. Even Akane, who is quite strong, can barely lift in less than a foot off the ground. Realizing that Ryoga’s been carrying this monster of a weapon with one hand this whole time, seemingly with no difficulties, Akane tries to warn Ranma that his opponent is far stronger than he seems.

We cut from there to a student running to see Kuno, and let him know Ranma is fighting some really strong guy who seems to be around Ranma’s level. Kuno claims he is “meditating”, which turns out to just be looking at posters of Ranma in his cursed form and Akane while trying to decide if he likes one more than the other.

Ranma finally decides to take this fight seriously, and uses Ryoga’s trick to his advantage by tangling Ryoga into being grappled, with only one hand to use and Ranma sitting on his back. It’s a great move, but Ryoga is in fact so strong that, with one hand, he can throw both of them dozens of feet into the air, where they start fighting mid-air. That was a miscalculation on Ryoga’s part though, as Ranma is basically built for air juggling.

They end up outside the initial fighting area, right where the Chemistry Club hid a bunch of their explosive mines. They don’t blow up as they’re stepped on though, and after several gags they end up trying to beat up Ranma by jumping out with mallets...right as the fighters dart away for somewhere else, setting off their mines and blowing themselves up. And that was the last anyone heard of them. I guess they’re actually dead. It’s canon now.

Nabiki runs after Ranma and Ryoga as they leave the school entirely for their fight. They’re just on some random street of the city now, and the handcuff tether broke as they left the filler characters behind. Nabiki approaches Ryoga as they’re fighting, offering him what she claims to be a steroid, but is actually just some vitamin pills. Ryoga takes them anyway, and with that plus Nabiki’s thorough encouragement, he acts as though he’s suddenly far stronger. Thanks, Placebo Effect! In fact, he lefts a cement telephone pole out of the ground and uses it as a melee weapon. Amazing.

Ryoga chases Ranma through the city and into the zoo, where some animals are let out from the carnage of their battle. By this point, Ryoga is getting tired of Ranma running away all the time, and says he’s acting like a girl. That hits Ranma’s Berserk Button, and he starts fighting back, breaking the weaponized piece of public property and several other things just as the other students start arriving to keep watching the fight.

The only problem is that A) Ranma broke a water fountain, making it spray water everywhere; B) Ryoga dodged the water using his umbrella, but Ranma got splashed and his curse activated; C) Ranma’s favorite shirt was slashed in the chest area earlier, meaning now parts of his breasts are showing. Ryoga is confused for a second, and Ranma actually gets really emotional, making it clear how much he hates his curse, how much of a struggle living with it is. From Akane’s face in the background, she finds it a bit overwrought. Kuno also briefly shows up to leap at Ranma, only to be taken out with a kick.

If Ranma thought the reveal of his curse and his explanation of how bad it makes him feel would make Ryoga take it easy on him, he thought wrong. In fact, Ryoga seems even more angry now, pissed off at the idea that looking so attractive could be a genuine problem. (Some fuel for you Ranma/Ryoga shippers out there.) Ryoga reveals a new trick. Apparently he has a bunch of bandanas, and he can throw them as sharp boomerangs? Okay.

Worried about him, Akane tries to help Ranma get out of there, sure he wouldn’t be able to win in his cursed form, only for Ranma to have to protect her, picking her up into his arms to run away to get some room away from their assailant. They then have a brief moment of realizing how close they just were, and each struggling with whether to go into why they’re upset at the other or say something about their cute moment. They both decide to go with the former. Oh, and there’s a brief cutaway scene of some zoo person trying to catch an animal, seeing Mr. Saotome come out of a store in his cursed form, and assuming he’s an escaped animal too.

While Ranma and Akane argue in a tree, or as Ryoga accurately calls it, “flirting”, he cuts down the tree using his best, which can apparently become tense and really sharp? Anyway, he’s on the attack again, and in the heat of the moment Ranma says a very bad thing, insinuating that he doesn’t like Akane. She slaps him, absolutely done with him. After all, she’s been worried about him, tried to help him, and in response he’s gotten angry and insulted her. Ranma tries to recover, going after her, but she dramatically turns around to say she is done caring about what he thinks...right as one of Ryoga’s sharp weapons falls from the sky, cutting off a large chunk of her hair mid-turn.

That’s the end of the episode! It was a lot, but it also wasn’t. Hmm...where to start, where to start...should I begin with what I didn’t like, or what I did? I think I’ll actually get the rougher parts out of the way first, so then I can relish talking about what I enjoyed.

There are no two ways about it: this fight, which I had remembered so fondly over the years, is full of filler material. To no one’s surprise, the Chemistry Club are anime-only characters, and unlike other such new elements from later in the series, which I enjoy to certain extents, these characters are nothing. Actually, nothing would have been better. They add no stakes, nothing worthwhile at all, they break up the fight in the process, and what we see of their characters is genuinely despicable, even worse than Kuno. It is left vague exactly what they want Akane for, but it’s left open to interpretation enough that it could be anything from getting her to join as their only girl club member, to being their shared sexual object. If you think I’m reaching for that, please, watch the episode. These are the inceliest incels who ever inceled, and they kind of scare me.

They’re not the only rancid fat in this episode. Kuno did not need to be here. At first, I was happy to see we’d get a little bit of him during this story, but his first scene was just a boring repeat of an already becoming stale joke (Hahaha isn’t it funny that he’s in love with two people at the same time?) and his second scene lasts for about four seconds and is a dull moment in the middle of an emotional scene for Ranma. Genma’s cutaway scenes aren’t as bad, but they’re not really good either. They’re the most neutral.

Of all the side-stories going on here, the only one I actually liked was Nabiki’s. It affected the plot a little, it was in-character for her while driving further to show how money-obsessed she is, she got some anime-only henchwomen out of it (Kikuko and Ryonami for those who care), and I never felt like it was hurting the fight itself. I get that a lot of these other elements of the episode were there for comic relief, but in my opinion it was bad comic relief. It undercut what the other parts of the episode were trying to do, not accentuating them like they should have, and they were just unappetizing. My last complaint would just be a lot of the opening scenes, which were basically mini-recaps about who Ryoga is and what he’s like, didn’t really feel needed.

All of that out of the way, allow me to now gush over what I love about this episode. This fight isn’t the best Ranma vs. Ryoga fight in the series (In fact, I don’t think it would make my Top 3. Yes, if you haven’t seen this show, they really do fight that many times over the course of it.) But it is still a pretty good fight with lots of memorable moments. Ryoga is the first opponent to actually test Ranma’s strength in any real ways, and there are some really killer bits of action here, such as the grappling, the mid-air fighting, and the telephone pole weapon.

What makes this more than just a cool looking fight are the emotional aspects to it. On Ranma’s side, he doesn’t really care about fighting Ryoga, up until his pride is hurt by Ryoga’s comments. For the first time, it’s Ranma getting mad, and from that we get to see how Ranma feels about his situation. That draws out some hints to the mystery behind why Ryoga is angry as well, if you’re paying attention to the clues. (I couldn’t think of anywhere else to mention this, but I am still reeling from how often Ryoga this early in the series relied on weird weapons. Where does he get them? I am quite glad (if I remember correctly) that they phased that part of him out with time.)

On Akane’s end, in addition to another case of Ranma saying the wrong thing to really hurt their attempts to connect with one another, we also learn more about her hair. While a little clumsy, early on it’s made clear, without being outright stated, that the reason Akane wears her hair long, and has been actively growing it out, is so she looks more like Kasumi, hoping to catch Dr. Tofu’s eye. Thus, when the episode ends with that hair being accidentally rendered far shorter, we know that means something to her.

I’d also say this episode does a good job of getting us further into the idea of a status quo developing. After all, it’s apparently been another month of Ranma living with the Tendo’s now, and the school at large seems to be settling into what Ranma brings to them with his presence. They’re not stunned by someone showing up to fight Ranma, they’re chasing after them to watch it. Only other thing to note is, in addition to Nabiki’s minions, Akane’s best friends finally appeared, Yuka and Sayuri. I actually wasn’t sure at first, since Yuka’s hair is a lot shorter than will be her norm later on, but I did confirm that they are in fact her equivalents to Ranma’s Hiroshi and Daisuke. They get even less characterization than those guys do, but they’re a nice addition to the growing cast regardless.

I still have a few characters who have shown up that I haven’t done a spotlight on, but none of them really featured in this episode, so I decided to do my first repeat. That’s right, we’re talking about Ranma again, and because I’ve already discussed his voice actors and actresses, I won’t need to go over them again, except to say I still love his Japanese voice actor for his uncursed state, but find his actress in that language to not quite work for me.

So, it’s been a little while since the first episode, and we’ve gotten to see Ranma a little more. Since this was an action-heavy episode, I think I’ll start with talking more about his fighting style. I said in that first episode that Ranma is fast, and he is. So far, he’s spent most of his fights dodging his opponent, rather than attacking them, and when he does it’s sometimes with such speed that they don’t even see it happening. It’s the very fact he’s more defensive that is occasionally shown to annoy Akane, and you can see it having another layer to it: Ranma would much rather avoid things he doesn’t like, rather than face them head-on.

But he’s not just quick, he’s quick-witted. To match his meticulous mobility, Ranma thinks on his feet, always looking for ways to outmaneuver or outsmart his opponents. We can see from how easily he lifts Ryoga’s umbrella, even in his cursed form, at the end of this episode that Ranma is also very strong, but he doesn’t rely on that strength, he uses his brain instead. Personally, I’ve always thought that was evidence that, at least with Ryoga of all people, he would probably lose a straight-up strength vs strength fight, but I’m not sure if that’s ever openly stated. Still, I also don’t see Ranma lifting telephone poles out of the ground.

In terms of his personality, I’d argue that through the episodes thus far, Ranma has shown to be a complex protagonist. On the surface layer, he’s a fairly abrasive person. He enjoys nettling people, at least those he knows are easy to rile up, and frequently says the worst possible thing to someone without realizing the damage his comment will do.

But there’s also more to him than that. Whether he wants to admit it or not, and he clearly doesn’t want to, Ranma does care for Akane. He does go out of his way to try and comfort her, cheer her up when she’s down, give her advice with her problems. When she might be in danger, Ranma runs in to help, and is upset that she’d endanger herself during his fight with Ryoga. In other words, Ranma is a tsundere, leaning fairly heavily on the tsun side.

One other important piece of who he is that we’ve gotten only hints of here or there so far is his pride and how it relates to his masculinity. Ranma is a very proud person, and he’s clearly not a fan of people taking him lightly or treating him in a way he doesn’t like. That includes being treated as though he was a girl, because he isn’t.

That is honestly understandable. Sometimes, completely outside of Ranma’s control, his physical body changes into something he doesn’t feel comfortable with. When he’s in his cursed form, people see him and treat him differently, and he keeps trying to assert his masculinity, to no avail. Ryoga gets Ranma angry by saying he was acting like a “girl”, completely unaware of the curse at the time. As I’ve said before, I think this actually relates quite well to the transgender experience, in these cases specifcally gender dysphoria and midgendering. I can’t remember how much we’ve seen of it up to now, but Ranma’s rejection of femininity in any way, something he does to try and preserve his masculine pride, often leads to him acting rude or even misogynistic to others. It’s an interesting part of his character, but I do feel the need to say right now that I absolutely hate the stereotype with trans men where some people claim they act misogynistic to try and be more masculine. Like, I know some people do it, but using that brush on all trans men is just wrong and transphobic, no thank you.

Welp, that certainly was an episode. Even after going into all the really interesting and good parts of this episode, I am still left with a bad taste in my mouth. By no means did the bad outweigh the good, but the fact the worst parts of the episode were frequently interspersed among the best parts of it broke up the pacing in a bad way for me. It’s still in the top half of the episodes so far, as I’d put it between episodes 6 and 4. The current ranking is now:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

This storyline isn’t over just yet though! Next week, we’ll be looking at the fallout of Akane’s impromptu haircut in episode 9, “True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!”. See you all then!

[avoutput]

Gaps Between Worlds || Live, Love, Link

Nothing keeps a story going like a love interest. In almost every adventure story, at some point, the hero flirts with love, falls into it, is blinded by it, or is even betrayed by it. Love is the strongest emotional connection we share as humans, a double edged sword that can drive us, but also hinder us. Even when a story lacks a love interest, the listeners might begin to imagine one just to keep themselves interested. One adventure series has lacked cannon love for such a long time, it's hard to imagine how it’s been kept alive in our collective consciousness for as long as it has. The Legend of Zelda has jump-cut to Link saving Zelda so many times, but remains nebulous on what kind of relationship blossoms from their journey. As a longtime fan, I have been starving for more from the world of Hyrule, and I think fans across the world agree with me. The official Nintendo Hyrule Timeline wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for pressure from the fans. Before that release, it had been locked inside the mind of Miyamoto, creator of the series. But it didn’t really whet my appetite, because what I wanted is to know of Link and Zelda. Today, we are going to explore the facets of Link and Zelda’s many re-incarnated relationships, which could have turned into love, and where they must have gone after Gannon was sealed and their adventure came to an end.

Before we go any further, the usual caveats to my writing, just so you can get where my head is at. First, I am not going to be super concerned with minute details of the timeline in its purest sense. It has a tenuous linear connection from one game to the next, but it still can provide a little fun for us to speculate on. Second, I have completed every mainline adventure with two exceptions. I have made it to the end of Link’s Adventure and Twilight Princess, but I just never walked up those steps to beat Gannon. I can’t really put my finger on why, but usually I just lost interest by the time I made it to the end of the game. Everything else, including the GB, GBA, and DS releases, I have completed.

In the beginning, one of the most bizarre parts of the overall Zelda lore is how little we actually discuss Link’s obligation to do anything for Zelda. As the games mature, they motivate Link in more realistic ways, but I felt that they mostly lacked a real punch. Lets imagine you DID NOT read the manual for the NES titles, the original LoZ, it just starts by breaking the 4th wall. I always thought it was funny that it just drops you into the mountains with absolutely no direction, as if to say, “You bought the game, dummy, do something! Press a button… ooo… check out that cave!” However, what actually happens is Link saves Zelda’s handmaid, Impa, from an attack by some of Gannon’s henchmen. She then begs him to find the 8 fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, which Zelda has hidden in 8 dungeons, and he just resolves to do it. In the next game though, she’s just struck with Sleepy Disney Princess disease. Classic. But have you ever noticed that true love’s kiss wasn’t an option here? That’s because Link is not her true love in this incarnation, so he has to kill the curse maker. LoZ and Link’s Adventure are directly related, so we know that in between the two games, they never became lovers. And I don’t know if you need any more proof about these games, but if you ever watched the 80’s Zelda cartoon… you’d know she’s better off.

Climbing up this timeline, we end up at the incredible Link To The Past, a story that’s titular description kind of defies its storyline unless you are really paying attention. Either way, the game has Link, a descendant of Hyrule Knights, being woken up by a psychic message from Zelda. As usual, Link has no real discernible parentage, but he does start off with an uncle. As I grew up, I often wondered if this was his real uncle or the Asian kind of uncle, just an older man with the same familial distance as an actual uncle, just not actually related. (It goes without saying that the west has this kind of uncle as well, but rarely does it rear its head as ubiquitously as in the east) Who knows what happened to his parents, the game never really goes into it. Either way, he runs into his possibly real uncle after following Zelda’s request, only, he is mortally wounded, and with his final breath, he begs Link to take up his blade and his responsibility. Again, he is motivated simply by some sense of obligation, but there is never a moment's glance of flirtation or love. By the end of the game, he revives his Uncle, the Priest, and the King, only to get on a boat and end up ship wrecked on Koholint island, where he dreams up a girl who is much more likely to become someone he could have a life with rather than Zelda.

Let’s take a quick moment to recognize Link has about 5 or 6 games that have nothing to do with his relationship to Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Majora’s Mask, and Minish Cap to name a few. In these games, it rarely meditates on his relationship to his previous adventure or the girl he left behind. Link is a very forward thinking… little boy? Adolescent? Teenager? It depends on the game. The more I think about this, maybe the more obvious it really is supposed to be. Zelda, Link, and Gannon are reborn into conflict over and over again. It’s possible that the stories that we play through are the only time they are born into a point of conflict. Basically, Link and Zelda might be born into a world without each other. Maybe the world only falls into chaos when all 3 of them are born. Maybe only when a certain amount of power accumulates on the dark side. The story just makes room for whatever it finds appropriate.

Climbing up the timeline, we get to the only game that implied young romance, Ocarina Of Time. Granted, it kind of dashes this with Majora’s Mask, but it's possible he could return to Hyrule for love. He is only 10. Still, in OoT, Link is the only character that keeps his memory of both the young timeline and the teen timeline. When you think about it, Link is pretty mature for a 10 year old, but waking up in the body of a 17 year old would throw you a bit. People in the future might have found him odd… if they weren’t scattered to the winds and mostly worried about famine, death, and Gannon. In both his young and teen timeline, the Zora princess is very interested in him, and yet, the game still ends with a longing look between Zelda and Link, Link remembering everything, Zelda new to the whole thing. Now, I am willing to admit that as a kid, I probably misread this as a longing look, as an adult, it's really just the culmination of Link’s struggle to finally right all the wrongs, but I was a young shipper, and I wanted everyone to fall in love. (You are reading the thoughts of a boy who was super upset that Ash wasn’t awakened by a kiss from Misty (or Pikachu), and instead the tears of all the Pokemon. I almost walked out of the theater. I was a fresh-faced 13.) Given everything we know about both games, and that we know the timeline splits here, it would stand to reason that since in either case, triumphant or not, Link doesn’t end up making baby Link and Linkles with Zelda. In the Triumphant Timeline Child Era, none of the games end with Link in love, including Twilight Princess. In the Adult Era, the Wind Waker series of games always finds Link closely aligned with Zelda, but the whole cell-shaded, PG universe basically ensures that all the people of Hyrule are grown out of the ground, like palm trees on the beach. In the end, Link always makes for the nearest boat or horse and follows the sun, trying to escape the PTSD that haunts him.

Finally, at the very beginning of the timeline is the largely maligned Skyward Sword. As of this writing, SS is the supposed beginning to the entire legend. It is also one of the few games where there does seem to be an infatuation between Zelda and Link. Throughout the game, they share what looks to be a mild flirtation. When I thought about this budding romance, I began to think it only appears that way because of some cultural filters. First, Nintendo likes to make games for kids, so they aim to get an E rating by the ESRB. So if we ratchet that up to M, the standard for modern day games if you want people to take them seriously, we can adjust the love meter on scale with E = Sesame Street and M = Breaking Bad. They might as well be engaging in some hard sexting, maybe a couple of low-cut Link bathroom mirror selfies. Don’t worry, he has his famous hat over the goods. Why do you think its shaped like that? Secondly, mild flirting in Japan is the equivalent of hardcore furry S&M in America. In actuality, what you are really seeing is the courtship of Link in a Wolf costume and Zelda dressed as a Fire Keese batting eyes at each other. Truly, in this world, Link and Zelda are destined for each other. They are the only freaks in the sky! With this assumption, I can conclude that the legend only continues because once, at the very beginning of their timeline, the Triforce of Courage and Wisdom banged it out. This could mean there is a whole series of games we have never played where the timeline is split at the top. One in which they have children and one where they don’t. Personally, I look forward to their kids journey in The Legend of Steve, the new holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. Let a girl save the boy for once!

There is always hope for our legendary heroes. You may not want them to be joined in glorious, child-making coitus, but I always have. I have always found it odd that it doesn’t end like most JRPG’s with a very obvious death of the “mains” so that love can’t blossom, or with a lavish royal wedding. The worst part is that often, Link has many love interests, but none of them are Zelda. There is some hope for them in the new Breath of the Wild timeline, which is supposedly the furthest in the future of the “official” timeline, so much so that there is no connective tissue left, so it might as well be a “new beginning”. I would actually hate for them to finally, really, fall in love in the BotW universe, mostly because it's my least favorite Zelda game of all time, squeaking past Skyward Sword and Wind Waker.  All 3 of which I dislike for a combination of gameplay-style and story, though honestly, the best part of BotW is the story. It's just a game I never want to play again. Rambling aside, I look forward to the fate of love between Zelda and Link in their next chapter. Maybe we’ll finally play as their love child some day. 

[sydnee-kom-spacekru]

Sneak Peak at "I Wanna Ruin Our Friendship"

I decided to be basic and go with the song lyrics as the title. This is Cassian (His real name is Colby Brock and I think pinterest is stalking me because right after I posted his description, a picture of him popped up. Exactly how I imagined him, not in the dream though.)

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You screamed your throat raw that night, and you'd been screaming every night since, but tonight you couldn't make a sound. This was the night you finally escaped.

Two years ago you were locked up in the psych ward, for being depressed with homicidal tendencies. Bullshit. You were fine, besides the occasional crippling anxiety, but you had no intention to ever accidentally murder someone.

You and your friend, Cassidy, decided to escape. Get on the good side of an ugly nurse named Noah, he flirted with everyone there and you just so happened to convince him that you loved him. It was rude, you know. You'd heard it a hundred times from Cas, but you were going to leave that nasty place.

He had "lost" his key card, that somehow found itself in your back pocket. He told you to meet him by the tree out back -an old, twisted Oak- but you and Cas you climbing the fence out front.

It was a risk, but Noah wouldn't take the chance of being fired for giving you the card. "Fuck." You heard Cas mutter, you assumed she had scraped her hand against the rust of the metal.

As soon as you swung your leg over the side of the fence, a light came on, shinging right in your face. "Come'n Cas! Hurry up!" You jumped down, twisting your ankle slightly. You heard someone yell over the microphone, but you couldn't tell what they said.

She was finally over the top, and she hopped down, stumbling as you both ran to the trees. The cold air burned your throat, but you had to keep going. You could hear Noah and the others not ten yards behind you. You heard a crash, and glanced to your left, your curvy friend still upright and beside you. So you took a sharp turn to the right, grabbing her hand and yanking.

You could feel a bit of blood trickling down your face, due to the thorns that decorated the tree branches. You didn't think that they were behind you anymore, so you took the chance to slow down, and take a breather. You hadn't thought to bring anything with you, so you were screwed until you found somewhere to stay. Hopefully soon, it was snow season. And in Massachusetts, that's bad.

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That's just a little of the first chapter. Lmk if you like it! I'll probably edit it when I actually do post the first chapter, like the friends name, definitely changing that, I want Y/n to call Cassian "Cas"