#in some kind of haze behind the counter at work today

[surgicalsequels]

workplace doodles (ft. the drawing I did of norm the other day that I'm posting again under the cut)

the theme of the day was "interests I wound up with due to being a fnaf kid via a weird pipeline of fnaf fan games and YouTube horror content"

[koshkamartell]

Yours For The Night

Chapter 1 - Strangers In The Night

Chapter warnings - mentions of drug use, alcohol, and sex work, reader suffers from anxiety, mentions of sexual harassment.

The town was quiet tonight, even more so than usual. There was some kind of event in the next town over (a carnival or festival, you weren't entirely sure) and a lot of the townsfolk had travelled there in search of entertainment, a distraction from the dreary mundane day to day life of living in a small country town. The usual popular nighttime haunts, like the Bullhorn Bar and the Gin Lounge, still had a steady trickle of regular patrons slink through their doors, but everywhere else was lifeless and somber.

You lean back against the gas station wall and take a sip from the straw of the the slushie cup you are holding. It was around 11pm but you weren't in any rush to go home. You were living with your alcoholic cousin in a trailer park on the northern edge of town and half the time she was passed out or missing for days at a time. There was no warmth to return to, no hugs or smiles to greet you, nothing luring you back there except the guarantee of shelter and a bed. Your small circle of friends have equally shitty living circumstances; you all spend the majority of your time roaming the streets and haunting secret hideouts that have been sacred territory for runaways and strays for as long as the town has existed. The 24 hour gas station was one of the places you frequented and you felt comfortable to loiter there at such a late hour.

You're alone tonight. Some of your friends hitchhiked to the neighbouring town to check out the event. Another was spending the night with her much older boyfriend, the guy who often plied you all with weed and alcohol. Two others had been missing for a week now, rumoured to have disappeared after going to score drugs from a local dealer with a sordid history. With no company and no point in going home you chose to just drift for a while. You didn't mind being alone though. You learned from a young age to appreciate solitude.

You lower yourself to the ground with your back upright against the wall and your knees bent. You put the slushie next to you on the cool concrete and fish in your jacket pocket for the small rectangular tin you had grabbed from your cousin's bedroom a couple days ago. Smoking wasn't a vice you indulged in all the time, but you liked to smoke when it was available to you; cigarettes took the edge off the anxiety and it gave you something to focus on, the nicotine offering you just the right hit of dopamine to keep you afloat.

You retrieve the tin from your jacket and flick open the lid to reveal a thin hand rolled cigarette, the last remaining one from your cousin's stash. You pop the end inbetween your lips and reach back into your pocket in search of a lighter.

"Come on," you mutter lowly in annoyance, the cigarette dangling from your mouth.

After a second of searching it was clear your pocket was empty. Fuck. You must have lost the lighter somewhere during your travels today. You had no money left, either, and the guy working behind the counter at the gas station was nice but you knew there was no way he would give you a light.

You sigh heavily and bow your head, crestfallen. It may have just been a shitty stick of tobacco but you really needed it right now. You needed the comfort of chemicals filling your lungs and decompressing the pent up tension threatening to burst right out your body. Especially today.

"Needa light?" A baritone voice spoke suddenly, shattering the haze of your despair.

You lift your head up. A man stands just a couple feet away from your sitting position on the ground, but his height makes him tower over you. Where did he come from?

He was alot older than you, evident by the crowsfeet and wrinkles etched on his face and the salt and pepper colouring of his patchy beard and in the curls ontop of his head. You guessed he was 50 years old, maybe more. He was also incredibly handsome, with an aquiline nose and plush lips. His dark brown eyes seemed troubled as he stared down at you underneath his furrowed brows.

You were too preoccupied with openly staring at him that you did not respond to his question.

"Well?" The man gruffed, raising his eyebrows and tilting his face slightly downward. There was a hint of authority in his gesture.

"Oh," you mumble, eyes blinking rapidly. "Shit, sorry. Yeah, a light would be good."

The man took a small step closer to you, his boots scraping on the dirt of the concrete, and then crouched down to your level. His broad chest and large arms strained under his green flannel, his gorgeous face less than a foot from yours. You instantly felt crowded and overwhelmed.

The man held out a lighter in his large hand and downpresses the ignition button with his large thumb, sparking a flame. He stares at you closely as you lean in and ignite the tip of your smoke on the dancing blue-yellow flame. You pull back and his thumb slips off the button.

"Thanks," you say quietly, your eyes staring into his.

The man just nods and stands back up, his knees cracking audibly as he ascends. He takes a step backward, his eyes never leaving you. You tilt your head to gaze at him while you inhale.

"'S bad for you, ya know," he murmurs, looking back at you with a kind of gentle intensity that causes a tiny pull of desire to whirl in your belly.

"Mmm," you hum softly. You exhale through your mouth and give a little shrug. "Gonna die someday, anyways."

His jaw ticks and something unidentifiable shifts in his expression, a flash in his eyes that comes and goes in a split second. There's a few moments of silence while you regard one another. It isn't awkward but the air between you is loaded.

You have been flirted with since you were 12 year old, been persued by both boys and grown men since you were 14, learned how to use your body to your advantage soon after. You know when someone is interested in what's under your clothes. But this seems different. There is no flirty banter or coy smiles. It make you feel a bit unnerved to recognise that you can't tell what he is thinking, only that he looks like he's struggling with something internally.

You break eye contact first and look down to examine the chipped nail polish on your fingernails. His hands come to rest on his hips and his head turns to look left and right, scanning the area around the gas station. The place has been deserted tonight save for an occasional customer. The man's eyes land back to your face.

"What's your name?" He asks. You glance back up at him and tell him your name, then ask for his.

"Joel."

You nod to indicate you've heard him and take a drag of your smoke. Joel watches you.

"What're you doin' out here so late, all by yourself?" Joel asks. There's a twang to his words - he sounds Texan.

"Haven't got anywhere else to be," you answer nonchalantly. "Why are you out here so late, by yourself?" You parrot back to him with a slight smirk.

"Wanted to get a cup'a coffee. But that ain't a problem cos I'm a grown man, ain't no one gonna cause trouble with me." Joel replies with matter of fact confidence. "But you, well..."

You roll your eyes a little and inhale another drag. Ah, there it is. That is probably his deal - the upstanding citizen showing concern for the safety of today's youth running wild on the streets. You have had similar interactions with strangers before - mainly with self righteous religious do-gooders trying to offer words of wisdom and free meals at their church, which you and your friends declined.

"I ain't jokin' around, little girl," Joel warns. The stern edge of his voice makes you meet his gaze. "It's dangerous out here for someone like you."

You scoff and shake your head. "I can handle myself, so save me the speech, dude."

Joel sighs heavily and runs a hand over his beard. He seems genuinely concerned, almost exasperated by your indifference. You watch him, secretly delighting in how harassed he looks.

"Why do you care, anyway? You don't know me." You sweep away a lock of hair that's fallen infront of your eyes.

"I don't know, guess I feel bad seein' someone so young alone on the streets," Joel mutters quietly. "Where are your parents, they ain't worried about ya?"

You turn your head to the side and pretend to be distracted by a passing car in the distance. "Don't have parents, they're dead."

You hear Joel inhale a deep breath and then exhale long and heavy. You can tell he feels bad. You've gotten used to this reaction; the pitying sadness in the person's eyes, the apologies that spill from their mouth, the awkward tenderness in their need to hug you. You hate it.

"Shit," Joel drawls. "Sorry to hear that."

You take a final puff of your rolled cigarette and then flick it over the pavement. "It's fine," you say flatly. You push yourself up from the ground to stand, taking the sushie as you rise. "Thanks for the light, Joel."

"Where you goin'?" He asks, frowning. You shift the strap of your compact purse further up your shoulder.

"Phone's almost dead, gotta charge it."

You turn to walk away but Joel's hand, warm and so big, touches your shoulder to stop you. "I gotta charger in my room. I'm stayin' at the motel across the road, room 15."

You let out a little gasp at the sudden soothing heat that blooms under the unexpected weight of his hand. You stare at up him and he's gazing down at you, his dark brown eyes roaming over your face, and you think you can detect an underlying urgency in his expression, something pleading.

You step away from Joel and look down at your shoes. He pulls his hand back and clears his throat. "'S up to you," he mumbles. "Just offerin', ain't gonna push you."

You kick at some pebbles on the pavement and fiddle with the straw of your slushie. Joel's gaze is intense and you still can't quite decipher what he's thinking. In your experience older men approaching girls your age have little else on their mind but sex. But you don't get that vibe from Joel. There's no hungry lust in his eyes, no sleazy charm in his words.

Maybe he's too shy to outrightly proposition you for a quick fuck in his motel room.

You look back at him and study his face. He's handsome, there's no doubt about that. You'd probably fuck him for nothing, if you were in the right mood. He doesn't wait any longer for your answer.

"'M goin' to get a cup of coffee," Joel murmers before spinning around on the heel of his boot and walking toward the convenience store entrance.

He's only gone for a minute but you've found yourself glued to the spot he left you, unable to muster a answer to decline his offer. You would never admit it outloud but you're lonely. You don't want to return to the trailer and it's dingy mess, the dirty crumple of sheets on the couch you sleep on, the stale smell of beer that permeates the whole place. Just thinking about it makes your belly gnaw with a low level anxiety that you refuse to acknowledge.

Joel's hulking figure strides back out of the store with a paper cup of coffee in his hand. He doesn't show any sign of surprise or satisfaction at seeing you waiting for him and he doesn't stop as he approaches you.

"Room 15," Joel reminds you quietly as he passes by. He takes a sip of his coffee and stalks across the road towards the seedy looking motel, not looking back once. It's neon pink sign glows like a beacon in the night.

You watch him, admiring the broadness of his back and his shoulders, the confident masculine way he carries himself. He reaches his room on the bottom story of the motel and disappears inside.

Fuck it.

You scamper after Joel, your heart hammering in your chest.

The room is what you would expect it to look like given the tacky, run-down exterior of the motel. It contains a queen sized bed complete with a faded patterned comforter and matching pillows, a bedside drawer, a small table with a single chair, an ancient looking television, and a cramped ensuite. There are no pictures or paintings adorning the shabby off white walls, only a broken air-conditioner with dust caked on its vents.

A duffel bag sits underneath the only window in the room, the one that looks out onto the road. The bed is made and looks untouched, as if Joel has just checked in.

You are aware that this situation looks sordid - a young woman in a seedy motel room with a man much older than her, both of them strangers to one another. You know of other girls who have been in this exact situation before after being lured with the promise of drugs and alcohol and money. You've heard the rumours of how cruel men can be, how despite the bruises and the blood the police department don't give a shit about girls who are stupid enough to whore themselves out to strangers.

But you have learned to trust your gut instinct over the tumultuous early years of your life, and your intiution is telling you that you aren't in any danger with Joel.

He crouches down to rummage through his bag while you linger awkwardly by the door. He pulls out a phone charger and stands back up, his knees cracking as he straightens. You are suddenly taken aback by how imposing his figure is in such close proximity and in such a confined space.

"Should do," Joel mumbles, holding out the charger for you to take.

When you reach out to take it from his proffered hand, you can't help but stare at how thick his fingers are. They are rough and calloused. He must work with his hands, maybe doing some kind of labour. For a second you wonder what it would be like to have those fingers kneading into your soft flesh, or sinking inside you to stretch you open. A tug of yearning pulls in your belly and snaps you out of your imagination. With flushed cheeks you clear your throat and gingerly pluck the charger from his grasp without meeting his eye.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

"Thanks," you mutter.

"Can use the outlet by the bed, if ya want," Joel gestures to the socket under the bedside drawer.

You sit on the stained carpeted floor and plug the charger into the wall and connect your phone. Joel sits at the table and drinks his coffee. The only sound in the room is the occasional slurp that comes from his lips. You busy yourself with your phone but there are no new texts or calls for you to respond to and you soon get bored. You toss your phone to the side and sigh. When you look up at Joel, he is already watching you, a pensive expression written on his features. His beautiful hooded brown eyes look tired. He is still wearing his boots and his legs are spread wide, his thighs straining against the denim of his jeans.

"Why are you drinking coffee at night?" You ask. "Isn't that more of a morning kinda thing?"

Joel looks down at his coffee. "Didn't feel like drivin' around lookin' for a bar. Felt like a coffee instead."

You tilt your head to the side and study him. "Won't it just keep you up all night?"

Joel scratches the side of his face and sighs a little. "Nah. Don't sleep too good anyway."

"Is that black coffee?" You scrunch your nose. "You don't even take milk?"

Joel rolled his eyes and takes a sip from his cup. "You always ask this many questions?"

"You always invite girls to your motel room?" You bite back without thinking.

Joel freezes mid sip. He frowns and looks at you with a hint of sad reproach in his gaze. "No," he mutters, lowering his cup. "No, I don't. You can go, if you want."

"No," you blurt out, "no, I wanna stay."

Joel just nods curtly. Neither of you know what to say next. You idly scroll through your photos and old text messages in silence. After a minute Joel clears his throat and lightly raps the tabletop with his knuckles.

"So, where do you live?" He asks softly, his head tilted slightly to the side. You glance up at him and stretch your legs out infront of you, sighing.

"About two and a half miles from here, at the Twin Peaks trailer park. It's near the Chalfont diner."

"You live alone?" Joel quirks an eyebrow.

"With my cousin. But she's not around much." You reply quickly, matter of factly. You don't really want to discuss your cousin's drinking habits or just how depressing your living circumstances are to somebody you just met.

Joel hums his understanding and doesn't question any further about your cousin. Silence falls upon the room for another minute or two before he speaks again. "You got a job?"

"Nope," you mutter. "Worked at the supermarket across town for a while, until my boss showed me what a creep he was. Said I had to give him 'special attention' if I wanted to keep my job."

You aren't really sure why you're being so open with him when you're usually reserved with people you don't know. Maybe it's because his questions aren't prying and they lack judgement, but for whatever reason you find the words come tumbling out of your mouth without any thought.

You don't see the way Joel's body tenses at your revelation, how his fist flexes or the annoyed tick of his jaw.

"Sounds like an asshole." He gruffs.

"Mmhm," you nod in agreement. "He was. That was a few months ago, haven't really found another job since. What about you?"

Joel runs a hand through his salt and pepper curls. "I'm a contractor. Build houses and things like that. I live in Fallsview but got a project in the next town over. I'll be stayin' there for a few weeks."

"Cool," is all you can say in reply. You knew his hands weren't those of a man who worked in an office. Your eyes flicker to them now and you notice his ring finger is bare. "Are you married?"

"No," Joel answers with a small shake of his head. "Divorced."

"Oh." You purse your lips and frown a little down at your lap. You are concentrating on trying to construe just what Joel's intentions might be now that you have this tiny morsel of insight into his life. He's not married. He doesn't seem like the churchy self righteous type. And he is staying at this shitty motel alone. Maybe he really is looking for some action from you.

Joel can see you are clearly conflicted by your thoughts. He looks at you expectantly with a raise of his eyebrows.

"What is it?" He asks. "Seem to have somethin' goin' on in your mind over there."

"Dunno if I should ask it," you mumble and chew on the tip of your thumb sheepishly.

Joel makes a 'come on' gesture with his fingers. "Ask what? Let's hear it."

"Uhm," you clear your throat awkwardly, somehow mustering the courage to look at him as you speak. "I just wanna know...did you offer me the charger, like in exchange for something?"

Joel stares at you with an uncomprehending frown that makes you feel even more self conscious.

"You know," you blurt out. "Like maybe you were inviting me here for the charger but also expecting me to give you something in return.....you know, like sex?"

"Hold on a minute," Joel groans, pinching his eyes shut and holding his hand up to signal for you to stop talking. "Please."

You stop speaking. You spy a small tinge of pink on his cheeks and think he must feel as equally embarrassed as you do. But despite his discomfort, Joel's gaze is focused on you, commanding your attention.

"No," Joel answers with conviction. "I don't expect nothin' from you, just offered the charger to help you out, that's all."

"Okay," you reply meekly. "I just didn't know, so..."

Joel shakes his head dismissively. "'S okay. I know it might look that way, but I don't...do those kinda things."

"Okay." You whisper once more.

Joel sighs heavily and scrubs his hand over his face wearily. You are about to say something else, possibly to apologise for your curiousity, but are unable to stifle the yawn that forces its way out of your mouth. You hadn't realised how weary you were, and now it felt like sleepiness was beginning to settle into your bones. You weren't ready to leave Joel's company just yet but the walk home was going to be a struggle. You deicded that you had better leave while you were still awake enough to move your legs.

"Tired?" Joel murmers.

"Mm," you hum. "Guess I better get goin'. Thanks for the charger." You push yourself up from the floor and stretch your arms above your head, yawning once more.

"Where's your car?" Joel asks as he rises from the chair. You hear the joints in his knees cracking.

You chuckle sardonically. "Oh, you didn't see my red Ferrari parked outside the gas station?"

Joel shoots you an unimpressed look in response. "You ain't got a car? How you plan on gettin' home?"

"Same way I get anywhere," you say nonchalantly. "By walking." You unplug your phone from the charger and slip it into your handbag before pulling the strap onto your shoulder.

Joel reaches out to you and lightly touches your arm - it's a respectful gesture to gently command your attention, and it causes a tingle to dance up your spine.

"Let me drive ya home," he implores.

"I walk all the time, it's okay Joel." You assure him. Truthfully you wouldn't mind getting a ride home but he's been generous enough already and you feel uncomfortable at the prospect of receiving any more charity. You are not accustomed to accepting help from anyone; something that has become entrenched in your personality from the myriad of times you were left to fend for yourself, a part of your mentality born from self preservation.

"No ya ain't," Joel states definitively. "Ain't safe. I'll drive ya."

He doesn't wait for your reply, already having swiped the keys off the table striding to the door.

You acquisese with a little shrug. "Okay okay, wait up."

You sit in the front passenger seat of Joel's truck and glance curiously around the interior. The centre console is littered with some gum wrappers and silver coins. Apart from this and the tracks of dirt on the floor of the car, it is relatively clean. The faint smell of pine, leather and mint is pleasant as it wafts into your nostrils. You hear the rattle of a tool box somewhere in the back seat.

You tug the sleeve cuffs of your sweater over your hands and snuggle back into the car seat. It seems to cushion you in a way that makes you feel small and childlike; your mind conjures a nostaglic memory of you as a young child laying in your father's car at night, the enveloping blackness of the sky and the vibrations of the vehicle lulling you to sleep.

How you are able to curl into the seat is a stark contrast to the way Joel occupies the drivers side. His body fills his seat completely, thick thighs spread and knees touching the steering wheel. The width of his shoulders leave little room for his arm to rest without encroaching on your space, and the sleeve of his flannel is close to brushing against your arm. His hand practically engulfs the gear stick when he clutches it.

The radio plays some old fashioned country tune, low and crackling. You and Joel are silent during the ride and the only time you speak is to give him directions to the trailer park. There is some kind of tension in the air between you that you can't quite distinguish, and you wonder if Joel feels it the way you do. He seems a little unsettled - you notice his large mitt flex on the gear stick every so often and how his thumb taps almost nervously against the steering wheel as he grips it.

You brave a few glances in his direction out the corner of your eye. He stares ahead at the road and you are able to admire the attractive shape of his profile and his facial features. The fluffy salt and pepper crown of curls that sit atop his head, his aquiline nose, the plushness of his bottom lip below his moustache, the smattering of hair along his distinct jawline.

He's so handsome, you think. Especially for an older guy. How old is he, anyway? You hadn't asked him how old he was, but he hadn't asked for your age, either. It seemed a little awkward to ask now.

Joel clears his throat suddenly, startling you. You hurriedly tear your eyes off of him and stare at the road, hoping he hasn't noticed you watching him.

Joel drives past the Chalfont Diner and you turn your head to gaze at its broken neon sign flickering in the parking lot. The familiar sight signifies that you are almost home, and you feel a strange pang of disappointment in your stomach.

The entrance of the trailer park comes into view after another minute. Joel turns off the main road and drives down the dirt road that leads to the park. When he enters into the lot he slows right down, letting the truck roll as unobtrusively as possible as you direct him to your cousin's trailer.

Immediately you can see that there are no lights on inside the trailer and that your cousin's car is gone. You aren't sure where she is or when she will be home again.

Joel stops outside your home and parks the truck, but doesn't turn off the engine.

"This it?" He asks, peering through the front windshield to look at where you live. Although he makes no comments, you can't help but feel a little embarrassed that Joel is seeing where you live. What does he think of the peeling paint on the exterior of the place, the wire door hanging off its hinge, the milk crate of empty beer bottles haphazardly discarded on the partially dead lawn out the front?

He probably thinks I'm trash.

"Yep," you say unenthusiastically as you unbuckle your seat belt. "Thanks for the ride, Joel."

You aren't sure why you want to linger in his truck, why you feel a pull to stay with him just a bit longer. Are you really that lonely? You do your best to suppress the confusion inside your head and grab the handle to open the door of the truck. You give Joel a nod before getting out.

"Welcome," Joel nods back. "G'night."

You don't turn back to look at him as you trudge over to the trailer and up the couple of steps to the door. You don't turn back after opening the door and going inside, either, but you sense that Joel is waiting for you to safely enter before driving off.

The next few weeks pass by uneventfully. You and two of your friends hunt for different ways to earn some money - the three of you make a little cash by hand washing cars for a couple days, then the next week you peddle cartons of bootlegged cigarettes for your friend's uncle.

One of the girls, Lacey, tells you that the strip club where your cousin works is looking for waitresses. She suggests you both apply for a job there but you aren't sure you want to. Your other friend, Tiana, wants to be a hairdresser and has tried finding a job in town at the salons but has had no luck.

Life seems hopeless in this dead end piece of shit town. Your plan is to get work and save up as much money as you can and then leave and never come back. But judging by the way things are going that dream looks like it'll never come true.

When you aren't hanging out with your friends you sit on the steps of the trailer and write in your journal. It's a binded hardcovered notebook covered in a pattern of pretty galactic swirls of purple and silver. You have spent hours filling it with your innermost thoughts, your hopes and aspirations, aswell as poems and sketches you consider amateurish and at times silly. It's a piece of your heart on pages of paper, something precious and personal; journaling has been the only dependable companion you've ever had in your life.

Your cousin comes and goes, sometimes with a man you deduce is her new boyfriend. His name is Trent and he always wears a cap and a white wifebeater underneath a flannel shirt. He works at the steel mill just outside town. Whenever Trent is over he eyes you with smug lechery that makes you want to gag.

They are usually high or drunk when they return to the trailer and don't bother to restrain the sounds they make when they fuck. Now whenever you hear his truck rumble noisily outside you snatch up your handbag and escape to the streets in town.

Tonight is one of those nights. You scurry out the door and down the steps to escape before they even open their car doors. They don't seem to care though.

You leisurely walk along the back dirt roads into the cenrre of town, listening to music through a pair of old earphones that still manage to work. The twilight sky twinkles above you while you walk, and your path is beautifully illuminated by the round pale moon and the nearby streetlights. A slight breeze cools the bare skin of your legs. It is tranquil, soothing. You consider what you will do for the night. Maybe some of your friends will be out and about too and a group of you can get high under the bridge like you sometimes do together.

A sudden growling in your stomach makes you wince. You haven't eaten all day - you know if you get high when you're hungry you'll feel nauseous and want to vomit. Shit. Maybe you will try sell the last pack of bootleg smokes you have left so you can skim a bit of funds from the total and then treat yourself to something cheap from the gas station.

You head to the Bullhorn Bar where you know you'll have a good chance of finding a buyer to sell to. Unlike an establishment like the Gin Lounge, which mostly caters to business people and more self important members of society, the people at the Bullhorn Bar would be more inclined to purchase something off the street. The usual patrons are steel mill workers, rednecks and the occasional biker gang, and while the bar has a rough reputation you know it'll be easier to hawk something there than anywhere else in town.

You don't go inside but stay outside instead, casually leaning against the wall of the building by an adjacent alleyway. The muffled thump of the country music inside the bar reverberates through the brick wall behind you. It must be busy tonight, you muse.

You take out one of your own rollies from the pocket of your jacket and light it up. You smoke as you watch the occasional customer walk by to enter through the saloon style doors of the place. You wait a while before initiating conversation with anyone, patiently fishing for the right buyer.

Soon enough a man comes ambling along the sidewalk in a crumpled grey suit, his tie loose around his neck and his face flushed. He already looks half drunk. This should be easy.

"Hey," you greet him smoothly.

The man stops and looks at you blankly, his eyes bloodshot. "Evening."

"You smoke?" You smile a little, holding up your cigarette.

"Uh, sometimes," the man mumbles non-committally, unsure what you're getting at. "Why?"

"Well, I gotta brand new pack of smokes right here," you reach into your bag and pull out the box. "I don't need 'em. Wanna buy?"

The man shakes his head rapidly, making his jowls quiver. "Oh no, no, no thank you, young lady," he mutters, "none of that for me tonight."

"Come on, man," you soothe cunningly, "I gaurantee you haven't tried these before. They are smoother than those bullshit Malboros you probably smoke, and they are half the price. You can't say no to this deal."

The red faced man just continues shaking his head and raises his hands up in refusal, then quickly walks away from you towards the saloon doors.

"Oh, for fucks sake," you groan with annoyance. Oh well, that was only the first try. Plenty more to go. You pop your rollie back into your mouth and deposit the cigarette packet back in you bag.

"Those'll kill ya, you know." A deep voice speaks suddenly behind you.

You squeak, startled, and fling around. The voice belongs to Joel, ofcourse. He is standing tall infront of you with his arms crossed. He is so close that you can smell his scent from where you stand - a mixture of pine, mint and coffee. His hair is slicked back and he wears a green flannel shirt with a black t shirt underwear. You notice how his biceps strain the fabric covering them.

Joel looks down at you with the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes, and you notice how the tanned skin around them crinkles. "Forcin' strangers to buy some smokes?"

You shake your head a bit and snicker. "No," you say, "I'm just trying to make an honest living, thank you."

The corner of Joel's lips quirk into a tiny smile. "Sellin' bootleg cigarettes 's what you call an honest livin', huh?"

You grin sheepishly and give a shrug. "I'm working with what I got, man." You tap the ash at the end of your cigarette onto the sidewalk and take another puff. "What're you doing back here?"

Joel looks down at his boots and kicks at a pebble on the ground. "Finished work for the week and got some time to kill. Thought I'd drive through, see what's goin' on."

"In this town?" You scoff teasingly. "Not much to do here, Joel." You drop your rollie and crush the ember with the toe of your shoe.

Joel lifts his head and looks at you, the light from the streetlight overhead creating the illusion that his dark brown eyes are sparkling.

"You remembered my name?" He asks softly, sounding like he's both surprised and pleased at the fact you hadn't forgotten him.

You tilt your head and raise your eyebrows inquisitively. Ofcourse I remembered, you want to say. "Yeah," you reply simply instead. "Did you remember mine?"

Joel stares at you intently and nods, his jaw ticking once. He speaks your name then to prove himself, the rich timbre of his Southern accent sounding smooth and honeyed to your ears. You feel your cheeks blushing in response and you have to internally scold yourself for being so ridiculous.

"Yep, that's me," you murmur shyly, looking down at your shoes and fidgeting with your hands, unsure of what else to say.

After a few moments you hear Joel clear his throat and then you feel the heat of his large hand as he gently cups your elbow in his palm. "You wanna go get somethin' to eat? I'm starvin' and got no idea where to get a good steak around here."

You peer up and smile at him,  "Uh, sure," you whisper. "That would be nice."

[rainbowfey]

24 Comfort Food

@flufftober

Tanjirou stared at the three giant sweet potatoes and they stared back at him. If he had not known it better, he would have said they grinned at him maliciously, well aware of his uncertainty. Pensively, he scratched his head and asked himself whether he was up to the task. While he had indeed gotten even better at cooking than he had been before, the sheer mass of the sweet potatoes posed a formidable challenge. And this mess was purely due to his inability to say no. Had he had a bit more of a spine, the vendor at the market would not have been able to convince him to buy three sweet potatoes that were big enough to feed a whole family. And even worse, at a time where Nezuko, Zenitsu and Inosuke all were not near, leaving Tanjirou all alone with his potato fiends. And if one thing was for sure, then that he would not be able to eat this much sweet potato, no matter how much he loved it.

With a sigh, he leaned against the counter behind him, bringing some distance between himself and the sweet potatoes. Now that he had left the haze of the market behind, he did not even know what had gotten into him to make this kind of purchase. Tanjirou heaved another sigh and shook his head. Wasting the sweet potatoes was no option and thus, he might as well start on this right now. For a moment, he closed his eyes and tried to remember his favorite recipes including sweet potatoes but somehow, none of them called to him today.

Out of nowhere, the image of a bright grin and mesmerizing green eyes popped up in his mind and Tanjirou smiled to himself when he thought of what Inosuke would request. A while ago, they had talked about their favorite foods and the conversation had very quickly turned into a heated discussion whether tempura or roasted sweet potatoes were the superior food.

A wave of new energy surged through his body when an idea shot through Tanjirou’s mind. At the time, Inosuke and he had not been able to agree on what food was the better comfort food – but maybe, they did not have to choose. In the back of Tanjirou’s mind a faint memory stirred and after a moment of intense brooding, his face lit up.

“Satsumaimo tempura,” Tanjirou muttered and nodded to himself. That was indeed an intriguing idea. After all, he had not tried his hand on this dish before and since he had nothing else to do, he was up for the challenge.

And, he thought to himself with a soft smile, he could surprise Inosuke with it when he came back from his mission. If Tanjirou used this opportunity to practice, he would surely have gotten the hang of it when his time to shine came. And when he shot another look at the sweet potatoes, it almost seemed like they were smiling back at him.

With a grin, Tanjirou grabbed the apron Nezuko had gifted him for his last birthday and got to work. Luckily, he had gathered enough firewood over the past few days and it was even dry enough so that it did not take very long to lit a cooking fire. While the fire grew, happily crackling as it munched on the dry wood, Tanjirou turned to preparing the sweet potatoes and the tempura batter. He sat down next to the fireplace and grabbed the first sweet potato, surprised by how heavy it was. With calm, quick movements he peeled all three of them, his breathing flowing with the almost meditative movements. Then, he sliced the potatoes, careful not to cut himself. Somehow, he was very good at peeling potatoes but managed to slice right into his fingers whenever he tried to cut the potatoes afterwards. But this time, he and his fingers all came out of the battle unscathed and ready for the next step. While the potato slices sat in a water bath, he quickly prepared the tempura batter. Since tempura was the one comfort food Inosuke could not live without, Tanjirou had gotten pretty used to making it and thus, the batter was ready in no time. He set it aside and went on to the more complicated step.

It took a while until Tanjirou had set everything up and then it took another ten or fifteen minutes until the oil in the pot over the fire was hot enough to start frying the tempura. Entirely focused on his task, he dipped each potato slice into the batter and then started frying them in small batches. It took him two batches until he had finally figured out how long to fry the tempura for and when he had finally gotten the hang of it, they turned out golden and perfectly crisp.

A sudden bang jolted him from his thoughts and Tanjirou almost burned his hand as he accidentally reached for the tempura with his fingers, pulling his hand back just in time before it touched the sizzling oil. Startled, he looked up, trying to find the source of the banging sounds that now came closer.

“Gonpachiro, are you in here?” someone hollered through the hallway and Tanjirou’s heart stopped.

“I- Inosuke?” he murmured to himself, suppressing the urge to rub his eyes. He listened closely and when the house stayed silent, his heart sank. He had been mistaken, Inosuke was still on his mission and would not return for another day or two. And while Tanjirou did miss Zenitsu and especially Nezuko, he felt Inosuke’s absence almost physically. So much so that he apparently now started to daydream about him.

With a sigh, Tanjirou shook his head and turned his attention back on the tempura. He was almost done with the third batch and so far, these looked the most gorgeous. And when looking at them, he suddenly wished for Inosuke to be here, sitting next to him, eagerly awaiting to try Tanjirou’s newest creation. In that case, he would not even have to offer the tempura to the other villagers, hoping that they would take them, as Inosuke was perfectly capable of eating the whole mountain of them in some sitting.

“That smells amazing,” a voice said so close to his ear that Tanjirou screamed, flinching so violently that he toppled over, the ground approaching rapidly.

And just before he landed on the floor, a strong arm wrapped around him, breaking his fall. “Whoa,” Inosuke said when he pulled Tanjirou up and set him back on his feet. “What’s up with you, Kentaro?”

Tanjirou’s heart still hammered in his chest when he stared at an Inosuke that he definitely did not hallucinate. “Inosuke, you’re here!” he gasped. “But I thought … aren’t you supposed to be on a mission?”

Inosuke put his hands on his hips and Tanjirou knew from his pose that he was grinning at him from under his mask. “Those demons were weak,” he gloated. “Was no big deal, they didn’t put up a real fight.”

Tanjirou eyed him skeptically, noticing several scratches and claw marks on Inosuke’s arms and chest. “Not much of a fight, huh?” Tanjirou muttered. “I can tell.”

Inosuke nodded emphatically, taking no notice of Tanjirou’s sarcasm. Instead, he lifted the boar’s head off his own and set it aside on the counter, sniffing the air curiously. “What’s that?” he asked and pointed at the tempura that Tanjirou had completely forgotten about.

Tanjirou whirled around and cursed to himself when he realized that he had left the tempura in the oil for too long. He quickly took them out of the oil but the damage had already been done and his shoulders sank down when he stared at the tempura that had been perfectly golden and crisp and now looked more like soggy brown dumplings. “They’re supposed to be Satsumaimo tempura,” he said with a sigh. “But I screwed this batch up.”

Inosuke tilted his head and stared at the sad batch before his eyes lit up. “Did you say tempura?” he asked excitedly, reaching for one of them.

 Tanjirou quickly grabbed his wrist. “Inosuke, don’t,” he said hastily. “Those are overcooked, you shouldn’t eat them.” Inosuke stared down at his wrist before he shrugged and grabbed one of the tempura with his other hand. “Nonsense,” he said and chomped down on the dark brown tempura.

Tanjirou flinched when he heard the wet sound it made and his eyes went wide as saucers. “Inosuke, they’re hot! You’re going to burn your mouth!”

Tanjirou’s heart stopped when Inosuke started trembling violently, grasping his throat – only to turn around and grin at Tanjirou with his mouth full of tempura. “Gotcha,” he said and elegantly dodged Tanjirou’s fist when he tried to punch his shoulder. “It’s not even that hot, Monjiro, don’t be a drag.”

“Inosuke, I just took them out of hot oil,” Tanjirou protested. To no avail, as Inosuke stuffed another piece into his mouth and chewed with a content expression on his face.

“Bit slimy,” Inosuke said with his mouth full before he swallowed. “What’s the purple mush in there?”

Tanjirou shot him an indignant look and quickly pulled the plate away before Inosuke could grab another piece of tempura. “Inosuke, out of my kitchen,” he said and gestured towards the door. “You’re throwing me off. Go and set the table, will you? And when you’re done, I’ll show you what those tempura are actually supposed to taste like.”

Inosuke pulled a face at him and danced out of the kitchen, grabbing two plates and some chopsticks on his way out. And when he had finally left, Tanjirou heaved a sigh of relief and turned back to the oil. His hands still trembled when he carefully prepared the next batch. Inosuke had something about him that made Tanjirou’s heart flutter and his legs give in and both were not necessarily helpful when handling sizzling hot oil. But then again, he would not have it any other way, he thought and smiled when he heard Inosuke humming to himself while preparing the table.

A while later, Tanjirou set down a plate with perfectly golden, crisp tempura in front of Inosuke and smiled at him proudly. “They turned out great,” he said excitedly. “I hope you’ll like them.”

Inosuke licked his lips and reached for the first piece when he suddenly stopped mid-movement and looked up at Tanjirou. His green eyes narrowed when he eyed him pensively. Tanjirou’s skin started to tingle and he nervously returned the look. “Everything alright?” he asked when the silence went on for too long.

“You’re small,” Inosuke said slowly, still staring at Tanjirou who looked back at him helplessly, wondering what Inosuke was on about. “You do eat a lot, but not this much.”

Tanjirou shrugged, captivated by Inosuke’s gaze. He shifted on his seat nervously and asked himself what on earth could be important enough to stop Inosuke from immediately devouring his favorite food. “True,” he said eventually and Inosuke nodded as if he had just confirmed an intriguing theory.

Inosuke leaned closer, completely ignoring the tempura, his gaze fixed on Tanjirou. “Nobody’s here and you didn’t know I’d return so soon,” he said in a tone that made Tanjirou fear the worst. “So … why did you cook so much food?”

Tanjirou stared at him, awaiting the grand reveal. But when Inosuke sat back, he slowly realized that this had been Inosuke’s question all along. And when he thought about his reason for it, his cheeks started to blush. “I, uh, had a lot of sweet potatoes,” he said weakly.

Inosuke raised an eyebrow. “And you had to cook them all at once and all in the same way?”

“Uh, no,” Tanjirou replied before he could think it through and he winced when Inosuke grinned triumphantly.

“Well, then why did you do that, Tontaro?” Inosuke asked inquisitively, his tone allowing no further excuses.

Tanjirou sighed and looked down at the golden tempura that still steamed on their plate. While he was slightly unnerved by Inosuke’s behavior, he could not come up with a different explanation and so, he plucked up his courage. “I … I wanted to see whether I’d get the hang of this dish before you return,” he said quietly, looking at the ground. “And then I wanted to surprise you with perfect Satsumaimo tempura.”

For a moment, Inosuke stayed silent. Then, he asked, “And why this kind of tempura?”

Tanjirou shrugged helplessly. “Sweet potatoes are my comfort food and you love tempura, so I thought this would be the perfect dish for us to eat together.”

“You’re soft as cotton,” Inosuke said quietly and Tanjirou looked up in surprise. Inosuke’s cheeks turned red and he quickly bellowed, “Sometimes I ask myself how you even survive out there.”

Tanjirou stared at him for a moment, his thoughts turned into small cotton clouds, as he asked himself whether this weird statement had been a compliment in disguise. And when he saw the blush on Inosuke’s cheeks, a smile formed on his face. “Thanks, Inosuke,” he said and grinned to himself when Inosuke quickly averted his gaze and stared at the tempura.

“Then let’s see whether your cooking is any good,” Inosuke said a little too loud to sound nonchalant and grabbed one of the golden tempura.

And while watching Inosuke devouring the tempura, his face lighting up at the taste, Tanjirou silently thanked the vendor for selling him three monstrous sweet potatoes.

[eddiemunsonssparklyeyes]

Hey! Could you do a fic where eddie and reader are having sex and Wayne walks in

Hi! Thanks for the request. I really enjoyed writing this. I hope you like it 😊

Sweating, moaning, writhing pleasure. Indescrible, euphoric bliss. The kind of pure ecstasy that blocks out everything that isn't his skin on your skin, his lips on your neck. The kind that leaves you unaware of your surroundings. That was mistake number two.

Mistake number one was not waiting the ten minutes it takes Wayne to get to work.  As soon as you heard the tires of his car crunching the gravel in the driveway, you and Eddie were desperately peeling clothes off of each other. The relationship was new and you were fucking like rabbits any time you had the chance. It was after one of these times that Eddie had invited you over to his place today to have lunch with him and Wayne.

"I think I want to introduce you to my uncle." He had said, stroking your hair as you were pressed against his bare chest in a post-sex haze. You sat up.

"Really?" You were surprised. Eddie kept his home life close to his chest and you tried not to pry.

"Yeah. I think he'd really like you. I mean, why wouldn't he? I really like you."

You rolled over so your face was in the crook of his neck and began planting soft kisses.

"I really like you. And I would love to meet your uncle."

So, you went over to his trailer and had lunch with them before Wayne had to leave for work. And Eddie was right; you and Wayne got along great. You sensed that he would be a fan of anyone showing kindness or affection toward his nephew. You laughed together and conversation flowed easily between the three of you. You could understand why Eddie was so fond of his uncle.

"Well, I best be off. You kids have fun." Wayne asserted as he stood from the table, giving you a friendly nod.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Eddie gave you a mischievous grin and asked, "Now what kind of fun should we get up to?"

He was on top of you in a moment. You gave in willingly to his advances, and in your heat of passion decided the kitchen was just as good a place as any for your chosen activities. That's how you both ended up naked with you pinned against the counter, panting and moaning beneath Eddie's taut frame. That's why you didn't hear the car pulling back in the driveway. That's why you didn't notice Wayne opening the door and saying with a chuckle and a shake of his head, "Forgot my wallet."

You did hear what he said next, though.

"Jesus!" And then the front door slamming shut again.

You and Eddie jumped and began scrambling to redress yourself from the pile of clothes on the kitchen floor.

"Are you decent?" Wayne called from the porch.

The two of you looked each other over quickly and exchanged nods of affirmation that all the discarded articles of clothing had made it back to their proper places.

"Yeah!" Eddie called back.

You collapsed on the couch and buried your face in your hands, too mortified to look at Wayne. Eddie shifted nervously from foot to foot, unsure of what his uncle would say. Wayne simply walked over to the counter and picked up his wallet. He eyed Eddie intently and Eddie looked away, unable to hold his gaze.

"You know..." Wayne began, "I know I told you two to have fun, but maybe we should set some ground rules."

You crossed your arms over your head and hid your face in your lap, "Oh, God." You mumbled, the heat in your cheeks spreading to your entire body in your embarrassment.

"Number one, you've got a bedroom. Please use it. I cook on this counter," He complained, "Number two..." He walked over to a drawer and rummaged around in the back of it before pulling something out and tossing it at Eddie, hitting him square in the face, "Number two is don't be stupid. If you don't want to raise a baby, I suggest you use that."

Eddie bent down to pick up what he now realized was a condom. His mouth hung agape as he stared at his uncle. He didn't even know that there were condoms in that drawer, which must mean...

"What? You don't think your old Uncle Wayne gets some action every now and then?" He confirmed Eddie's horrified suspicions and continued, "I at least have the decency to wait until I know you won't be around."

"I-I'm sorry." Eddie stammered, the first thing either of you had said.

"It's alright, just... Jesus, boy, just be careful." He pointed at you, "She's a nice girl. Don't put her in a tough spot. Don't put yourself in one either. Okay?"

"Okay." Eddie agreed.

"Now, I'm going to work. Please, I beg of you, make sure I'm actually gone before the clothes come off."

"Noted."

He grabbed the door handle, but stopped, turning to face his nephew, "And, Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"Disinfect that counter."

"Yes, sir."

[ellohcee]

@jaspvid-week day 1 Guidance/Counselor/Luck

I am home~

Under the cut is the scene this is based off of

They’re making bread today. Or David is, and Jasper wants to help, so an impromptu bread-making lesson it is. They’ve added all the ingredients together and mixed it into a gooey mess and now he thinks they’re about to embark on the really messy part. The fun part.

David clears some space on the counter and sets out a large wooden cutting board. He instructs Jasper to sprinkle the surface with some flour before and he picks up the bowl and carefully turns the dough out, helping the last strings of the sticky mixture release from the container while Jasper watches on curiously. It looks gross and squishy and he’s kind of really excited to touch it. But he also doesn’t want to mess up David’s bread. But he wants to touch it.

“Alrighty!” David announces, bringing him out of his musings so he can pay attention. “There’s a certain way to knead the dough, I can show you first, instead of just telling you if that’s okay,” David offers.

Jasper turns to look at him, a big, silly grin on his face as the classic pops up in his head without a second’s pause. “Are we gonna do that scene from Ghost??” he asks in delight.

David snorts on a laugh at the suggestion, a blush dusting his cheeks both at Jasper’s excitement and the idea of the scene he wants to reenact. “I suppose we could,” he relents, earning a happy sound from his boyfriend. “Okay,” he says, clearing his throat as he walks up behind Jasper, wrapping his arms around him. “First of all,” he says in a very important tone, leaning in to plant a kiss on Jasper’s cheek, making the shorter man scrunch up in his arms with a snicker. “You’re so very cute,” David teases softly.

“Shut up, you’re way cuter,” Jasper snorts, turning his head to smack a real kiss to David’s lips, starting to turn entirely in his arms, seeking more of that contact-

“Did you actually want to learn, or are you trying to con a make-out session from me?” David chastises playfully, smiling at him.

“Okay okay, I’ll be good, teach me!” Jasper insists hurriedly, grinning as he turns back towards the counter with hands at the ready.

“Alright,” David says cheerfully, leaning in close against Jasper’s back and positioning their arms. “The dough will be sticky to start out with, don’t worry, that’s what the scraper and the extra flour is for,” he instructs, turning Jasper’s hands palm up and rubbing some flour onto each one from the measuring cup. “First, we’re going to flatten it out, use the heels of your palms and your body weight to push it out away from you,” he says, guiding the man’s hands to push the dough out in even directions.

The dough stretches out under Jasper’s touch, and it feels just as weird and sticky as he imagined. David continues, picking up the bench scraper and handing it to Jasper.

“Then we’re going to pull it up, use the scraper to help get it off the board, perfect, and fold it in half. It’s not too sticky, so let’s hold off on any extra flour, too much will throw off the balance of the dough. Now we’re going to repeat what you did before, push out the dough away from you. Perfect. Once it’s spread out, you’re going to do the fold again and give it a quarter turn.”

Jasper stares down at the dough as David guides his hands, feeling a hazy sort of comfort as they work together, that voice in his ear soothing and patient. David’s warm presence against his back, arms framing his, hands guiding. They knead the dough together, folding and turning and scraping, repeating the process. The whole thing puts Jasper into a comfortable haze, focusing on the repetitive task and David’s hands on his.

It’s nice, he likes doing things like this with David. The man is always delighted to teach him something when he asks and he loves the look on David’s face when given an opportunity to do so. He loves listening to him talk about his hobbies, loves the way he lights up when he’s invited to share these things with Jasper.

He smiles to himself. The whole thing is probably very similar when David invites Jasper to ramble on about his own topics of choice, video games or space or the beach, that warm smile David gets while watching and listening to him, how he’ll let Jasper go on forever with obvious delight.

“You’re so good at this stuff Davey, you’re really amazing,” he says after some silence, glancing at the ginger from the corner of his eye.

David goes a little red, his happy smile widening and crinkling the corners of his eyes in the way Jasper loves so much. God he’s cute. “Thank you, I’m glad you think so,” he says, turning to give Jasper another quick peck on the cheek.

David lets out a pleased sigh after that, leaning over his shoulder to look at the dough and clicking his tongue. “Well, I think it’s ready! Feel how it’s not so sticky anymore, it’s smooth and it’s keeping together?”

Jasper hums and picks up the dough ball, tossing it in his hands briefly. He gets the sudden urge to toss it into the air like a pizza dough, but he fights it down. Not today. “Ahyuh, what’s next chef?”

“Now we let it rise, so let’s get a clean bowl,” David says, moving away to a cabinet as Jasper feels the distinct loss of his warmth, making him pout as he holds the dough aloft. He eyes the creation, thinking he might need a second lesson on bread making, maybe a third…

...Possibly more.

[persephone-plasmids]

Trying

A Danse and Nora fic

[Part 1]

[Read on AO3]

Danse woke up before the sun, his chest heavy with the memories of the night before. Nora had kissed him. But she’d also been drunk, so it hadn’t counted.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from reliving the moment in his mind over and over again. He’d hardly slept as he wondered what was worse: Nora remembering the kiss and regretting it, or forgetting about it and the two of them never addressing it again. He wasn’t sure what he could even hope for if she did remember. She’d never reciprocate his feelings. And he couldn’t fault her for that. He was a Synth. An abomination.

Danse scowled up at the ceiling before rolling out of bed, pulling his boots on, and leaving the partially destroyed house in Sanctuary where he now stayed. The settlement had turned into a place for all of Nora’s strays to reside; himself included.

Fog hung heavily in the early morning air as Danse began his normal jog around the perimeter of the settlement. He’d run up the rocky hills to make sure no Raiders had taken up residence overnight then splash through the river a few times to cool himself down before making the jog up the hill to the entrance of Vault 111.

Today, the sight of the large metal vault entrance only made his stomach turn. It reminded him of his interaction with Nora the day before. She’d been grieving the loss of her husband. She’d gotten drunk. And she’d kissed him.

Had he taken advantage of her compromised state? He tried to assure himself that he hadn’t. He’d pushed her away. He’d been the one to stop things before they went further. But he also couldn’t deny that he’d kissed her back. That he’d enjoyed kissing her back. And he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t spent the entire rest of the evening replaying the kiss in extreme detail, imagining what it could have been like if it had gone further.

Danse shook his head, ashamed at his own thoughts as he jogged back down the hill to Sanctuary.

The sun was beginning to melt away the heavy fog and by the time Danse had showered and donned his Brotherhood jumpsuit for the day, the haze was nothing but a distant memory.

There’s no avoiding it forever. I’ve got to go check on Nora, Danse thought to himself as he exited his home and stepped out into the streets of Sanctuary. Settlers were just starting to make their way to their assigned tasks for the day. Some held rifles to guard the perimeter while others grabbed gardening tools. Danse rolled his eyes as Hancock stumbled through the streets with a dazed smile on his face.

“Just getting in, Hancock?” Danse asked, the disapproval heavy in his voice.

“It’s my duty as mayor of Goodneighbor to check on my citizens every now and then,” Hancock replied, the lazy smile still on his scarred features.

“Funny how it’s only the patrons in The Third Rail you seem to check on,” Danse answered.

He hadn’t intended on harassing the Ghoul today. In all honesty, he was trying to be better. Mostly for Nora’s sake, but also because of his own revelation that he wasn’t as purely human as he’d always thought. Danse hated being a hypocrite. But purging his deeply ingrained prejudices from his mind was proving much more difficult than he wanted to admit.

“It’s not my fault I know how to have a good time, Danse,” Hancock said. “If you ever want to loosen the leash Maxson put on you, you’re welcome to join us.”

Danse shook his head at the Ghoul but didn’t respond. He knew he wouldn’t have anything kind to say. Instead, he made his way to Nora’s house, ignoring the stinging reminder from Hancock that he was no longer a member of the Brotherhood.

Standing in front of the door to Nora’s home, Danse squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and knocked. His body told him he needed to leave immediately, because whether or not she remembered the kiss, this interaction would be painful. Seeing her would remind him just how incredible it felt to kiss her… and that he couldn’t do it again. But he didn’t run. He stayed right where he was.

His heart hammered in his chest as the door knob turned, but it wasn’t Nora who greeted him. Instead, Deacon stood in the doorway wearing Nora’s old flowery apron over his usual T-shirt and jeans, raising his ginger eyebrows behind his sunglasses.

“Morning sunshine,” the spy said with a grin.

“Deacon?” Danse asked, his confusion slowly turning to anger as it always seemed to. He needed to work on that. “What are you doing in Nora’s house this early?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, soldier?” Deacon asked. “But a gentleman never kisses and tells.”

Danse set his jaw firmly as he stared at the man in front of him. He was already calculating how much physical damage it would do if he punched Deacon right then and there. The spy would live. But Nora would never forgive Danse. So he refrained.

“Oh man, I can see all those little Brotherhood cogs turning in your brain. It would be adorable if it wasn’t so sad,” Deacon said with a laugh. “At ease, soldier. I was totally kidding. Just wanted to get a rise out of you. I didn’t realize it would be quite so effective.”

Danse could hear the laughter in Deacon’s voice, but it was muted by the sound of his own blood rushing through his body.

He definitely needed to work on his anger management skills.

“Where is Nora?” Danse asked simply, refusing to acknowledge just how close he’d been to getting into a physical altercation with Deacon.

Danse was usually close to getting into a fight with Deacon, but the idea that the spy had slept with Nora was definitely the thing that would have pushed him over the edge… had it been true.

“I feel like out of the two of us, you’re the one who should know she headed over to the Prydwyn before dawn,” Deacon answered, turning around and heading back into Nora’s kitchen without another look in Danse’s direction.

The Paladin followed the spy and perched on one of the barstools at the counter.

Deacon, still wearing the flowery apron, was stirring mirelurk eggs in a frying pan.

“Nora went to the Prydwyn?” Danse asked, his mind trying to play catch up. “Why?”

“Personally, I don’t think she needs to keep things friendly with the Brotherhood of Bigots anymore now that The Institute is destroyed, but she said something about an open line of communication between the factions and blah, blah, blah.” Deacon shook his head. “Maxson said he wanted to meet with her about something or other. Probably wants to start a fun petition forbidding Ghouls from speaking or something.”

“Maxson asked for her?” Danse repeated. This gave him pause.

There was a time when Danse had worshipped Maxson. He’d thought the man could do no wrong. That was, of course, until Maxson had wanted him killed for being a Synth. Danse could understand the difficult position Maxson had been placed in, but after their years of friendship, he still had a hard time with just how quickly the Elder had turned on him.

He also saw the way Maxson looked at Nora when Danse had still been allowed aboard the Prydwyn. The Elder was young and Nora was beautiful. It only made sense that he’d look at her the way he did. But Danse didn’t like it, even though he was fairly certain the only reason he was still alive was because Nora had been the one to convince Maxson to spare him. Danse wasn’t sure anyone else could have swayed the Elder the way she did.

“Do I sense a love triangle? Because you know I love some juicy gossip,” Deacon said, grinning over at the Paladin and plopping some eggs onto a plate for him.

“That’s inappropriate, civilian,” Danse said, staring at the eggs in front of him and wondering why on earth Deacon would ever make him food. They hated each other.

“Hate to break it to you, tin can, but you’re a civilian now too,” Deacon said, taking a seat beside Danse with his own plate of eggs.

“You and I are not the same,” Danse emphasized, taking a bite out of the eggs. They were surprisingly good.

“You’re completely right,” Deacon agreed, though Danse could tell from his tone that he wasn’t going to like what came next. “I’ve been able to let go of my bigoted ways, while you still look at Hancock and Valentine like they’re Mirelurk scat on your boot.”

“That’s…” Danse began, but he didn’t know what to really say. Deacon wasn’t wrong. Danse wasn’t doing a great job of changing his deeply ingrained beliefs.

“Admitting you have a problem is the first step, champ,” Deacon said, with a soft pat on Danse’s shoulder.

It would have been a kind gesture, if the spy hadn’t immediately snorted from trying to hold back his laughter.

“I’m… trying,” Danse managed to say, even if it felt like injecting a Stimpack directly into his temple to utter the words.

Deacon glanced over at Danse for a moment, but it was hard for the Paladin to read his expression behind the sunglasses. He had to remind himself that this was probably the reason the spy always wore them.

“A good first step would be to actually spend some time with the people you hate,” Deacon offered, being surprisingly helpful. “You might find that you actually have some fun with Hancock. Plus, you and Valentine are a bit more alike than you might think. He’s a giant stick in the mud too.”

Danse huffed under his breath and simply said, “Noted,” before taking another bite of eggs.

The two men chewed in silence for a moment before the front door opened and Nora strode in wearing the all-black Brotherhood of Steel jumpsuit reserved for high-ranking officials.

Danse’s eyes involuntarily roamed over just how perfectly the jumpsuit fit her curves, though he immediately hated himself for the very visceral reaction the image gave him.

“Deacon Marie Jones! What are you doing in my apron?” Nora asked dramatically, walking up behind the spy and wrapping her arms around him in a familiar embrace.

This did nothing to lessen Danse’s animosity towards the spy.

“Your middle name is Marie?” Danse asked.

“I just make up names for him,” Nora replied. “Since he won’t tell anyone his real name.”

Deacon leaned backward into Nora’s embrace as she held him tightly before finally releasing him. Danse hated how casual their physical contact was. She wasn’t like that with the Paladin.

“I thought we agreed the apron looks better on me,” Deacon said.

“Everything looks better on you, Deacon,” Nora agreed with a laugh, walking over to the frying pan and scooping a few eggs for herself. “I bet even this ridiculous black jumpsuit would look better on you.”

Danse refrained from pointing out how false that statement was.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone look so good in a jumpsuit before.

“Give yourself some credit, Charmer,” Deacon said, his voice as smooth as ever. “There are only so many people who can pull off a dog collar.”

“It’s not a dog collar,” Danse mumbled, finding himself irrationally annoyed by the comment.

Nora’s lips quirked up into a grin as she set her plate down and walked over to Danse. The Paladin swiveled in his barstool to face her but he didn’t anticipate just how close she’d get to him. Nora walked right up to Danse, positioning herself between his knees as she grinned down at him.

Danse swallowed hard as his dark eyes met hers. She took one finger and hooked it under the metal ring at the neck of Danse’s Brotherhood uniform and gave it a soft tug. She didn’t manage to pull him closer from his sitting position, but it did cause her to take another step closer to him, now standing squarely between his thighs.

“What exactly would you call it then, Paladin?” Nora asked, raising a challenging eyebrow at him.

Danse felt like his heart might actually beat out of his chest as he stared up at her. She still had a firm grasp on the clasp at his neck and he worried she’d be able to visibly see the nervous way he swallowed.

“It’s… It’s an attachment for the Power Armor,” he managed to choke out.

He hated that Deacon was here to witness just how easily Nora could set him off balance.

“I guess your big brown puppy dog eyes just make the term ‘dog collar’ feel more fitting,” Nora answered with a smirk.

He could feel the heat of her hips against his thighs but tried with every fiber of his being to ignore it. Their close proximity was only making it more difficult for him to focus.

Thankfully, Nora released her grasp on the metal ring and stepped back around the counter to retrieve her eggs. “Thanks for the breakfast, Deeks,” Nora said casually, as if she hadn’t just upended Danse’s entire world.

“Just paying off my debt to society,” Deacon said, finishing his own plate off and rinsing it in the sink. “I should have never suggested that game of strip poker.”

Danse’s eyes widened at this comment but Nora just shook her head with a laugh.

“He bet me that I couldn’t convince a Diamond City guard to give me their uniform.”

“I didn’t take into account that she wouldn’t use stealth to get what she wanted,” Deacon said with a scowl. “I still think it’s cheating if you use your feminine wiles.”

“You’re just mad that you have to make me breakfast every Tuesday for a month,” Nora said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Deacon shook his head and grinned. “Well I’m off to go start some rumors around Diamond City that Piper is actually a Ghoul. Wish me luck.”

“You’ll need it,” Nora replied before the spy disappeared, leaving her and Danse alone.

Danse took a deep breath, wondering if he wanted to come right out and ask Nora if she remembered what had happened the night before, or if it would be better to just ignore it.

He decided on the coward’s way out.

“What did Maxson want?” Danse asked, trying to sound uninterested.

“Ugh, that man,” Nora began, exasperation heavy in her voice. “He wanted to try to convince me to pledge my exclusive loyalty to the Brotherhood again. But I told him, for the millionth time, I’m not going to abandon The Railroad or The Minutemen. There’s no reason we can’t all play nice.”

“I’m sure he loved that,” Danse answered, a genuine smile now playing on his lips.

“He threw a bit of a tantrum,” Nora agreed. “Luckily no one was around to see it. He had me meet him in his private quarters this time.”

Danse raised an eyebrow, still trying to pretend like he wasn’t incredibly interested in this particular point. “Oh?”

“I think he thought it might intimidate me if we were alone,” Nora laughed. “He poured me a drink, stood in front of his Brotherhood of Steel flag, and tried to look super intimidating.”

“And?”

“And it didn’t work,” Nora said, giving Danse one of the smiles that made her eyes crinkle in the corners while his heart melted into a puddle inside of him. “My affection isn’t that easily swayed.”

“Of course,” Danse responded simply.

He could feel Nora’s eyes on him as he looked back down at his now empty plate. He was running out of reasons to be in her kitchen but he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

“How are you feeling?” Danse began cautiously. “Do you have a headache from that bourbon last night?”

That was casual, right? That was something a totally normal friend would say whether or not they’d kissed the night before… wasn’t it?

“I had a bit of a headache this morning,” Nora began. She was pushing the eggs around on her plate with her fork but not taking a bite. Her eyes were no longer on Danse; now she seemed laser focused on the food in front of her. “I told you I wasn’t that drunk.”

Danse’s cheeks instantly flushed at her words.

She remembered.

She remembered and she really was lucid enough to know that she was kissing him.

What did that mean? Did he ask her about it? Did he ask if she regretted it or did he even dare to hope that she actually somehow felt something for him other than friendship or fondness?

“You can hold your liquor well,” was all the Paladin said, also staring intently at his own plate.

If anyone had walked by the scene in the kitchen, they’d think the two were Synths whose recall codes had been read to them.

The silence between them pressed on for a few moments before Nora softly cleared her throat.

“Listen, Danse… I’m sorry about what happened. You were totally right that I wasn’t thinking straight and… I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

Danse felt his entire chest tighten at her words.

She regretted it. She wished it hadn’t happened. He’d made her uncomfortable.

And now that he knew she remembered everything, he felt even worse for kissing her back. What could she possibly think of him now? That he was just like the rest of the Wastelanders; ready to take advantage of an inebriated woman at the drop of a hat?

What did he say to make this better?

“I’m… I shouldn’t have… engaged,” he said quietly. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but Danse had never been good with things like emotions. Synth or not, talking about his feelings wasn’t something he ever thought he’d be comfortable with.

Danse dared a glance up at Nora who was still looking down at her plate. She was frowning with something like disappointment in her eyes.

“I should probably get changed out of this jumpsuit,” she said after another moment of awkward silence. “Preston has a place nearby that he wants me to check out to set up a possible settlement.”

“Of course,” Danse responded, a bit too quickly. “I’ve got some work to do on my power armor.”

Nora nodded as Danse stood up and made his way towards the door.

Before he touched the handle, he heard Nora’s voice, soft and hesitant.

“Would you… want to come with me?”

[thebluenoteblog]

Send me a Sign

Summary: Every time Colton comes into the coffee shop you work in, he has something to look forward to.

Player: Colton Parayko

Word Count: 1000

Authors note: This is inspired by a prompt I saw today (creativepromptsforwriting) and instantly laughed at for like five minutes. I think It’s funny, but who knows if it actually is. You can decide that.

Colton was all about supporting small businesses, and that was how he found himself in a little family owned coffee shop on Main Street one cold October morning. The bell above the door twinkled when he opened it. You were the first thing he noticed when he crossed the threshold into the small lobby full of people. Standing behind the counter looking exhausted and a little frazzled. You were beautiful, even in the store uniform with a dirty apron tied around your waist and messy hair.

He joined the line, eyes focused on you as you rang up order after order until finally it was his turn. When he stepped up to the counter, you froze for half a second, taking him in. He was tall, handsome with a kind face. He smiled at you as he placed his order and you barely registered what you were ringing up. The shop had mostly cleared out, so you turned to make his drink. 

A few minutes later Colton was walking out of the shop with his coffee in hand. It wasn’t until he got to his car that he looked at the name written on the side. Collten. Not the correct spelling, but surely a correct one. He’d met guys with his name spelled that way before.

It was a week before he made it back to the little shop and by some miracle you were working again. The same worn uniform, the same dirty apron, the same frazzled movements as you struggled to take orders and make drinks for all the people who frequented the shop. 

When your eyes landed on him, he swore that he saw something break through the haze of exhaustion. Again, you took his order. Again, you made his drink and again, he didn’t look at the name written on the side of his cup until he made it to his car. When he did, he snorted. He had been expecting another Collten. However, written on the side of the cup in neat black lettering was Colltinn.

He was so amused by the spelling of his name on the last cup that he made his way back to the shop again the next day, hoping that you were there again. The bell chimed as he crossed the threshold and he was surprised to see you again. This time your hair was styled differently and you were wearing makeup. Not a lot of it, but enough that you noticed. This time, he was determined to know something about you, so after he ordered, as you made his drink he asked, “Is it always this busy?”

You nodded, “We have the best coffee in town. We’re always packed. I thank god every day that we don’t have a drive thru.”

He was about to respond, but you set his drink down on the counter and turned to take the order of a balding middle aged man wearing a uniquely patterned tie. Colton picked up his cup and made his way out of the packed lobby and onto the street. 

He didn’t make it to his car before he checked the name, he was too curious. He stopped under the orange awning and spun his cup around.

Colltyynn. He turned to look through the window, to see if you were watching him, or maybe just to get one more look at you. Instead he was face to face with the balding man in the ugly tie. The man grumbled something under his breath as he walked around Colton and by the time he could see through the window, the crowd was too big to see the counter.

The next two times he came to the shop, you weren’t there. He was beginning to worry that you had quit before he could get your phone number or even your name. Then one rainy afternoon, he was struck with the idea of coffee and he couldn’t stop himself from stopping in on the way to the rink. It was a random time of day that not many people were out looking for coffee, and when he walked through the door, bell chiming, he spotted you standing behind the counter wiping down an espresso machine. 

You turned when you heard the bell and dropped the rag into a tub under the counter. “Back again?” You asked.

Colton nodded, “You weren’t here the last two times. I was starting to worry that I might not get the chance to see how many ways you can incorrectly spell my name.”

You smiled, head tilted, hand on your hip. “The opportunities are endless.” You took a step closer, leaning against the counter. “I was on vacation.”

“Where did you go?” He asked.

“No where,” you said. “Just caught up on school work.”

“What are you studying?” He found himself asking, as he leaned against the counter, matching your stance.

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” You asked him and he found himself flushing. 

Before he could respond the bell above the door rang again and a group of teenagers walked in. The smile dropped off your face for half a second, then it was back and you were turning to the register, “So what can I make for you?”

It wasn’t until he was outside that he looked down at his cup. In the same neat black scrawl, Colltyyinn.

Underneath that, a phone number.

[barnesand]

the scent of old stories [ i ]

Summary: You haven’t found your thing here in Brooklyn, but you hope that you’ve found it within the bookstore that happens to be on your work commute. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader AU: *chants* bookshop au, bookshop au, bookshop au. Warnings: No warnings for now! Author’s note: I’ve been down, and I just wanted to write something that made me happy. I don’t know if this is technically fluff, but it’s the start of something new and Alpine is in it. Word Count: 2,551 Words (I'm a damn monster) chapter two can be found here: x 

You’ve stumbled upon it during your early morning commute; it was a blur in your periphery the first time, your thoughts steadfast on the sweltering heat of your coffee cup, and it wasn’t until you successfully attuned yourself to your new schedule that you stole a proper glance at it. It was wedged between a coffee shop and insurance agency—two stories at least with gold flourishes and filigree painted at the edges of the window. Through that window you saw the aisles and stacks of books, all old and you gave yourself that short perusal to imagine the alluring scent of old stories. It was during that time that you decided you would take your day off to go inside; you had to.

You haven’t mastered the ability to resist a bookstore, especially one with old books in desperate need of a new bookshelf. Luckily, you had a couple of spots that have yet to be filled. And the Second Hand seemed to be the perfect place to lose a couple of hours scouring the stacks looking for some new companions.

Quick to remember the time that it closed, you tried your best to ignore the glee that settled into the pit of your stomach. How long have you lived in Brooklyn? Not long, and truthfully, you haven’t quite found the thing that made you love it. There were small things that you enjoyed, but you still managed to miss your hometown. You missed your favorite hangouts, the secrets about your home that only you knew. You didn’t have those things in Brooklyn, yet. All you knew was your job, and the streets you took to get there. Perhaps, the Second Hand could be your thing? There would be a seat that you always sat in, and an aisle that you visited so often you memorized all the books that were in it. You could be on a first-name basis with the employees and visit so often that you’d memorize their coffee orders.

Yes, you needed a place to cement your adoration for your new home.

Your day off finally came and dressed in your coziest turtleneck and jeans you followed your familiar work commute until you reached the Second Hand. There was something about the sing-song chime of the bell above a door that made you realize you were going to have a good time. And, just as you suspected, the scent of old stories filled your lungs. You weren’t a big fan of bookstores that looked clean and meticulously organized. You preferred a certain level of chaos—and the Second Hand provided that slight chaos. There were certain aisles thinner than most, due to an overflow of old books that have yet to find a place on the shelves. You could hear the soft mewl of a cat most likely prowling through the stacks above on the second store, and the small piles of books seemed to be on every step of the staircase. You made no effort to hide the elated smile that slid across your features. You clutched tightly to your coffee, making your way towards the staircase.

Indeed, that phantom cat you heard before—snow white and thick around the middle—was lurking on the second story. It leaned against the railing, eyes closed, and you could hear them purring from where you stood at the top. You made a note to ask the shop-keep (wherever they may be), if they had a name and if it was the kind of cat that welcomed a stranger petting them.

Despite being clear signs for each section, you instead made the decision to walk up and down each aisle without a single inclination of what you were looking for. Your fingers lingered over the spines, searching for the ones with the deepest lines. You preferred the ones that made you worry—the ones in which you knew you would have to restore the spines to a certain extent. Because, to you, that meant that it was someone’s favorite. It made you curious, made you wonder what about the story made someone read it over and over and over until the spine was only being held together by sheer faith.

The white cat began to follow you around, weaving between your legs when you stood still. You had to stifle a giggle once or twice when you moved and nearly stumbled over the cat—that was your mistake, you should have known the direction in which the cat was going—when they moved one way and you went the other. By the time you reached the top of the staircase again, prepared to make your descent to the stacks below, you’ve culminated several books.

You meandered halfway down the stairs before looking up, expecting the cat to follow. You tried to hide the pout, not wanting the cat to think you enjoyed your time together or anything.

You reached the bottom step, already scrutinizing over the selection you’ve made so far. Honestly, you should’ve come into the bookstore with at least a budget in mind. Knowing that you didn’t set a hard spending limit was your biggest trouble. Your second was that you hadn’t even looked down the aisles on the first floor, which meant that your stack would get heavier.

You stood on the last step, already looking at the spines—maybe you didn’t need another copy of Anna Karenina. You weren’t much of a Western fanatic, but the premise of it intrigued you and that felt like a good enough reason to keep it. No… no, you’d need a second opinion about it. You looked up to find the front counter mostly abandoned. Somewhere in the stacks you’d probably find an employee (or, if anything else, another customer). Moving towards the counter, you aimed to set your stack of books on the edge of it so that you could retrieve them later.

From the opposite end of the room, you heard a commotion through a cracked door. You stilled, waiting for the person to emerge.

And—fuck. You didn’t expect the person that emerged to look so good. Truthfully, you didn’t quite know which part of him you enjoyed looking at the most. Was it how he nearly filled the doorway with this wide shoulders? Was it how crystalline, even from where you stood, his blue eyes were? No—no, it had to be the stubbled that dusted his sharp jaw, and that dark coif of hair that made your fingertips tingle at the very idea of running through fingers through it? It could be the way his teeth caught his bottom lip for just a second, his brows furrowing apologetically at the sound from earlier, before his mouth curled into a smile.

All the above. That was your answer—all of it.

“Hi,” he said.

“Anna Karenina,” you blurted. You didn’t want to think about the shade of red you suddenly turned, or how dry your throat suddenly became. You sputtered; words unintelligible before you slammed your hand on your stack of books. “I, uh—hi!”

“Hi,” he echoed, only that time it was followed by a short laugh.

He moved toward the counter, and you quickly made note of how tight his shirt was around his shoulders—you also noticed the name of the store embroidered on the pocket of it—and you cleared your throat. He settled behind the counter, that smile of his still fastened onto his face. He was so… pretty, it almost started to hurt. He sat on a stool, placing his elbows onto the countertop and leaning in.

You cleared your throat again, remembering why you placed your books on the counter in the first place. “I’m trying to decide if I need another copy of Anna Karenina. You know I, uh, made the poor choice of going shopping while hungry.”

You sighed. You swore you weren’t always a dork—in fact, you’d like to think of yourself as the female Casanova if you put your mind to it. But there was something about the tilt of his head when he looked at you, the way his smile shifted into a smirk. He reached for the books you’d chosen, and you marveled at the size of his hands with a big gulp. He could see it—you just knew he could see how flustered you were.

“I think my first question to ask is how many times have you read your current copy? I mean, if you’ve only read it once, then what are the odds of you reading this one?” He went through the stack one-by-one, eyeing the spine before nodding to himself. You wish you knew what he was thinking. “I’m also inclined to say, you know, all of them.”

“That’s not a good sign for my back account.”

He looked at you, then, and you felt a pang—not in your heart, but in your gut. The kind of pang that caused chill to climb your spine and told that, oh, you want this man to do awful things to you. Which wasn’t something you felt often. He pressed a hand on top of your stack of books once he was finished and you tried not to think about the size of it. His blue eyes stared you down, and you watched as that smirk of his turned impish almost.

“I think I have a discount code here somewhere,” he mused, reaching into a drawer with his other arm.

You noticed it then, sleek black metal with gold embellishments. The sophistication of the design enamored you, and you couldn’t quite peel your eyes away from the way it moved—which was no different than how you couldn’t peel your eyes away from every single part of him. You swallowed, blinking away the haze before returning your attention back to the conversation.

“I would be eternally grateful,” you answered him.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” he started to make casual conversation while he filtered through some papers. He paused to look at you, and his blue eyes looked just a little brighter when he did. “I’m Bucky.”

“Reader,” you greeted him. “And, yeah, I haven’t been in here until today. I’m new to town, so—”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Where ya from?”

You told Bucky where you’d come from, how you moved to Brooklyn for work shortly after grad school. For a moment, you started to wonder if he was taking his time looking for that discount, but each time he asked you more about your time in Brooklyn so far, and precisely what your job entailed, you didn’t mind him procrastinating.

“I mean,” you continued. “I’ve done the tourist-y stuff. The bridge. Coney Island. I just haven’t found the little local things that make it feel like home to me. It’s why I dropped in.”

You felt like you should keep that bit to yourself—like you were giving him way too much. For all you knew, he could have been making small talk for the sake of getting a sale. He probably didn’t want to know about your anxieties about living in a new city. But when Bucky looked at you, and listened, you thought you could spill everything. And it made that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach grow hotter. He finally found what he was looking for, and your smile sank for a moment. The conversation would be over—you could, of course, return. But that meant making another dent in your bank account, and you couldn’t risk hemorrhaging funs all for the sake of looking at his crystalline blue eyes.

“This’ll take about twenty percent off your purchase today, but,” he lifted himself from the stool, leaning in. He tilted his head, in a sort of look at me way and you did precisely that. “I will give you Anna Karenina.”

“Ooh,” you enjoyed the sound of that. “But your boss—”

“I am the boss. And I’m giving this to you on one condition.” He drew in a deep breath, releasing it with a smirk. “Next time you come in; I’d like to give you an incredibly detailed list of things to do. I mean—every hole in the wall joint I can think of. And you gotta do ‘em.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Every single one?”

“Every single one.”

“I don’t think I have that kind of time—”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to find time. Because it’ll be a long damn list, Reader.”

He winked at you, and you nearly melted. As he started to ring up your purchase, slipping that new copy of Tolstoy into your bag, you’d reached the deepest shade of red. Again, sometimes you could be a Casanova. You could be flirty back—but you really couldn’t find it in you. All you could muster was the personality of a smitten girl and that was what Bucky would be receiving until you found your other self. He was inviting you to come back—he was practically bribing you to come back. Yes, it was because he was a local and wanted to provide you with the hidden secrets of Brooklyn, but he wanted you to come back so he could say it.

You blinked. “How would you know I did each one on your list? Bucky, I could tell you I did everything. Are you gonna quiz me? Should I take notes?” You raised your eyebrows, leaning against the counter.

You felt the white cat again, their purr vibrating softly against your jean-covered calf. You looked down with a small smile, knowing that the cat couldn’t resist you. When you looked up you found Bucky peering over the counter down at the cat.

“That’s Alpine,” he told you, and you were glad in that moment because you were so close to giving Alpine another name. “And—I guess… I guess I’d have to be there to make sure. For certain ones specifically—I’ll arrange it from solo to co-op missions just in case.”

“I-I, yeah.” You sputtered along, grinning from ear-to-ear almost. “You might.”

You don’t remember much about the transaction—but you quickly shoved your card and the receipt into your purse before you were tempted to look at the price. When Bucky handed the bag of books to you, his pointer finger brushed against your knuckles and your knees nearly buckled. You sighed.

“Thank you, Bucky,” you said, nervously. “For the discount. And for the free book.”

He flashed another smile. “You’re welcome, Reader. Don’t forget the deal.”

“I will not.” Because you were sure he just asked you out—you were certain that he had. You wished he were asking you out. You’d understand if he meant in an utterly innocent way; he wanted you to enjoy Brooklyn the way he did, and you were okay with that. But, God, you wanted it to be because he wanted to ask you out.

The chime of the bell announced your exit, and you took your time strolling past the window. You were so glad that the Second Hand had been in your periphery that day. You were gleeful at the fact that, somehow, you’d found a place to love in Brooklyn.

Bucky and the Second Hand—and Alpine—had become your thing.

[keilemlucent]

lavender latte: i

(T (for now!))

hawks | takami keigo x reader

chapter 2   ||   chapter 3 ||  chapter 4

ao3

word count: ~3k

You serve Hawks a lavender, oat milk latte. Not only is he hooked on your drinks, but he's also hooked on you as well.

a fluffy multi-chaptered piece i’ll release when i’m feeling it :’^) enjoy y’all. coffee shop au hell

||||||||||||||||||

You and Keigo met each other on the coldest, snowiest day of the year.

The temperature was near glacial. The air stung and bit like hell, wind kicking and spitting powdery snow as it fell in sheets from the grey sky.

The weather, horribly, prevented two of your coworkers from working the morning shift at the tea shop. Half of the trains were shut down across the city in addition to power outages. But, your cheap ass owner forced you to open. Alone. In a blizzard.

You were fairly certain that you wouldn’t be getting many customers.

Opening at the tea shop on a normal day was a hellish amount of work. As you unlocked the door and walked into your humble establishment of employment, you grimaced at the thought of all of the work you were to do.

After disrobing from your thick winter jacket, scarf, and mittens and throwing on your apron, it was time to begin. You made yourself a simple, oat milk latte and then started to get to work setting up for the day. 

It was hardly dawn. 

  Keigo was on early morning patrol. It wasn’t his favorite shift, oh, hardly, but he did enjoy watching the sunrise. And, while his wings were powerful, the snowstorm did force him to fly much lower in the grey haze of the day than he normally would. Stepping out of his apartment around just before 5:30 AM, Keigo almost moaned in anguish at the cold. He was infinitely glad he had worn a thermal bodysuit under his uniform.

His quirk afforded him much in terms of battle prowess, in addition to a few avian mutations. Most notably at that moment was his difficulty conserving heat. As Keigo stood on his balcony, frowning at the can of coffee in his hand, he made the prompt decision to fly to his area of patrol and grab a hot drink. The thought of downing something cold made his stomach turn.

Gracefully, Keigo turned and flew, letting himself be carried across town. The area he was patrolling was relatively quiet, mostly small businesses and lower-middle-class apartments. As he touched down, shivering and sleepy, he padded through the empty streets with his wings folded to his back.

  The wind was wild, wiping between buildings, making snowdrifts that blocked some of the doors of shops nearby. Part of you cursed, shaking your head. You desperately wanted to be warm, curled in bed with your cats, and watching cartoons.

You set up the shop, moving chairs and turning on machines. Though you were a tea shop, you sold more coffee than any sort. On a normal, fully-staffed day, you’d be in the back, crafting tea blends. But, that day was, in fact, a very abnormal day and it was about to get weirder.

  Keigo meandered around the streets, strangely at genuine ease. There were no civilians and very few stores open allowing him to walk freely, albeit coldly. Part of him wondered if he would even find a coffee shop.

But lo and behold, he did. 

Keigo opened the door, a cute bell ringing. The shop was themed warmly with yellow-toned wood counters and furnishings. There was a smattering of local art on the walls and jewel-toned accents. All in all, it was a cozy reprieve from the icy nature of outside. Keigo relished the heat.

It seemed only one person was working, you. 

  When you heard the bell sounding at the entrance of a customer, you piped up from behind the counter, “Just one sec!”

A kind laugh, “Take your time.”

You were struggling to reach a tea blend. It was high on the many shelves behind the counter. You clamored on top of the counter, rising on your knees to try and reach it. Your hands stretched to grip it with an arch of your back. You grinned in victory as you managed to grab it. You pulled back, miscalculating in your pride—

And then you were losing balance.

And then you were falling.

(How fucking cliche).

You would’ve hit the floor if it wasn’t for some unknown force, pushing you back onto the counter, steadying you. The sensation, new, perked you up, causing you to let out a high noise of surprise. You turned, your eyes going wide.

Several beautiful, scarlet feathers caught your fall.

Your eyes flickered up to your patron savior.

  Number two hero, Hawks, smiling at you and giving you a bit of cheshire grin, stifling a laugh.

You slowly descended from the counter, turning to face him at the register, “Well, I really have to say thank you. I nearly ate shit there.”

“All in a day's work,” Hawks winked at you. You beamed easily. Local heroes came and drank at the shop fairly regularly, but never anyone particularly famous, let alone the top ten. Never the incredibly stunning, wind-whipped bachelor hero that was Hawks.

“What can I get for you today?” You asked, going for a notepad.

Hawks eyes scanned the menu behind you. He hummed, pretty, amber eyes settling back on you, “Surprise me.”

Your eyes widened, but you nodded. You couldn’t stop smiling.

“Alright, let me ask a few questions, just to make your drink the best it can.” You told him. “First off, hot or iced?”

“Oh, definitely hot,” Hawks almost wiggled a feathered eyebrow at you and you couldn’t help rolling your eyes. 

“Okay, how much caffeine? Any allergies?” You asked, scribbling an idea down on the notepad. “Milk preference?”

“As much as you can legally supply me with, no preferred milk, and no allergies. Though, I do like things sweet,” Hawks was removing his gloves as he spoke. “Go crazy, give me the best thing you got, angel. Something that gives me the warm and fuzzies.”

Oh, that was a move. 

Hawks was notoriously (in the media) shamelessly flirtatious with fans and other heroes. It was always painted as something that was in good fun, never sexual, and just part of his brand. This was just common knowledge, but god you never expected it to be directed at you with a cute pet name.

  “On it,” You smiled back at him, face hot. You smoothed yourself down before beginning to craft his drink. 

It wasn’t often that you worked the front counter, and there was a good reason for it. Most of the time, you got too into making drinks, customizing them frivolously (often due to your quirk). Though you were skilled, it took a lot of time that people didn’t have for a coffee run.

But, on the day of a momentous snowstorm, you and Hawks had all the time in the world.

  Keigo was a bit stunned by you.  

You were cute, one. 

You were wearing a soft-looking turtleneck sweater, and high-waisted, wide-leg pants. They were fashionable but obviously aged. But it worked. A cute, embroidered apron was tied over you snuggly around your waist. It was adorned with buttons and pins, brightly colored.

 You spoke so frankly to him. You didn’t gawk at him for even a second, even when his feathers propped you up from falling. You blushed at his pet name but didn’t seem any more fazed than a bit of embarrassment. He liked it. It felt normal.

Keigo rested his hands on the counter, watching you flit about behind the counter. 

“I gotta ask, why are you open in this blizzard??” Keigo tilted his head as your gaze flickered to him. You were still smiling, just a bit, even hard at work. 

  You snorted, “Cheap boss who won’t close, and my coworkers are stranded without the trains running. I live close by and work hourly, so I might as well come in, ya’ know?”

Hawks laughed, something warm and full, so juxtaposed to the storm of flurries outside. 

It was odd, talking to the number two fucking hero so casually, but it felt good. There was a sense of awe and idleness, but it dimmed. There were no flashy heroics, just one person wanting a drink and the other making it.

Your quirk activated on its own as you stared at the syrups. Your quirk’s tell was so small and normal, no one ever caught it. A heavy dilation of the eyes was not something most people were tuned into. Yet there you were, submerged in sensation. Touch, sight, smell, taste, even sound, all blending together. They elicited something deeper in you, creating something abstract you could make tangible.

To make a feeling into a physical reality was a gift, but it came with drawbacks of course.

You poured a few syrups into the bottom of the cup, carefully selecting them.

“I can’t imagine how cold it is up in the sky,” You mused to yourself just before steaming some oat milk. 

“Oh, you have no idea, ” Hawks lamented to you with a groan. “I feel like I’m gonna lose a few toes whenever I work in this weather.”

“Just toes? I’d be worried about a whole foot,” You grinned back at him as you poured more things into the cup, stirring every few moments. 

The feeling in your mind was so tangible to you, and you could perfectly translate it to reality. Something warm, to beat away the frost of the world beyond the tea shop. 

You sprinkled the top with a few dashes of cinnamon, setting it on the counter in front of him. 

  Keigo looked down at the drink you made him, raising an eyebrow. He went to take a sip, but you stopped him, “I’d give that a few minutes if you don’t want to burn your tongue, tailfeathers.”

  Hawks nearly fucking squawked as he set down the drink, giving you a look of false anger, “ Tailfeathers? That’s not a kind name to call me. I don’t even have those.”

Keigo huffed, pouting at you. 

  “You call me, a stranger barista, angel, I call you tailfeathers. Easy trade.” You shrugged at him, tapping into the register system. “I’m not charging you until you try it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to upcharge if I don’t like it?” Hawks continued to pout, jokingly so, pulling out a wad of bills that was undoubtedly much more than any drink would cost. 

Your eyes widened, leaving you sputtering, “Oh, never— it’s on the house if it bangs as much as I think it will.”

Hawks laughed, out loud, bending back a bit. You watched his pretty red wings shudder and reflect the warm light of the coffee house. Keigo collected himself, over-dramatically straightening himself. 

You watched with anticipation as he took his sip.

  Keigo was a man of poor taste. Sure, dropping an unholy amount of money on frivolities was one of his small pleasures, after so much of the ascetic bullshit that the Commission put him through, it only seemed fair. But, caffeine was a necessity with his fucked up schedule and he’d be damned waiting in a line or making it at home. Canned coffee was saccharine and speedy and that’s all he fucking wanted. 

But, when the first drops of that stupid oat milk latte hit his tongue, Keigo was beyond enamored. 

Yeah, he wanted coffee to feel warm in this storm, but he didn’t expect to feel warm. With just one gulp, he could feel the heat, like the flames of a steady hearth, drift around his body. 

He brought the cup down from his lips, looking at you with awe. 

You had the smuggest grin spread across your face, arms crossed over your chest.

“Thoughts?” God, you were so cheeky. He loved it. You were so subtly bold.

“This,” Keigo took another greedy swig, wiping his mouth on the back of his ungloved hand, “is the best coffee I’ve ever had in my damn life.”

Your smile just got wider. 

“Glad I could meet your tastes, tailfeathers. No charge,” You gave him a cheeky little wink. You swore you saw his face get redder, but you dismissed it a moment later.

“Oh no, nu-uh,” Keigo pushed the bills towards you. “Take it as a tip then. Seriously. How did you make this?”

You stared down at the bills and Hawks’s hand. His hands weren’t particularly large, but they were scarred plenty. Veins and bone were accented by the dryness of his skin. 

You looked back up at him, still not taking the money, “Can you keep a secret? It’s a big one, especially considering you’re a hero.”

Hawks tilted his head, “If you say you used your quirk to mess with this drink, I don’t know if I’m legally able to keep it a secret.”

“Nah, nah. I didn’t ‘mess with your drink’,” You shook your head, nodding down to it. “Do you know what synesthesia is?”

(He did, surely. But he just wanted to listen to you talk more.)

“Enlighten me?” Hawks ask, stooping to rest his elbows on the counter, chin cradled in his hands.

  For being a man who could kill you in a split second, Hawks was remarkably cute. You understood his sex appeal long before he entered the shop. His hair looked unnaturally fluffy, wind-ruffled, and honey blonde. His eyes had a few cute bird-like markings ringing the sweet, amber irises. He had a delicate but defined jaw. 

He raised a sculpted, feathered eyebrow at you. 

(He’d caught you staring).

You cleared your throat, laughing it off easily (though you were mentally kicking yourself), “Synesthesia, broadly, is like senses overlapping in your brain. Like... The common example is seeing colors when you hear a month of the year.”

“Now, what does this have to do with my lovely drink?” Hawks batted his eyelashes at you. You could tell he was definitely flirting with you, but you brushed it off the best you could. 

He’s a hot guy you made coffee for. Happens all the time. 

“Well, you had me a little bit, I did use my quirk, but it doesn’t mess with your drink physically at all. Not even close,” You laugh. “My quirk allows me to conceptualize abstract ideas into tangible ideas.”

“That really makes it sound like you used your quirk to make my drink,” Keigo watched your eyes dilate as he spoke.

You blinked, and they went back to normal.

“No, no. It’s like for your drink,” Both of your eyes looked towards the steaming cup. “I took your request for ‘warm and fuzzies’ to heart.”

Keigo blinked at you. 

Your pupils expanded again, “I figured ‘ you know, this guy has to fly around in the cold all day, right? Probably is freezing and far away from home ’— and there was my inspiration.

“I used my quirk to conceptualize... the idea of being warm and safe into a tangible concept. A nice, easy coffee drink. Four shots of espresso, oat milk, homemade lavender honey syrup, two of my own, specially made tea extracts, and a bit of cinnamon for good measure.”

Hawks blinked at you, “Your quirk gives you the... blueprints, to turn ideas, literal feelings, into reality and these blueprints just work?” 

You nodded and shrugged, “Most of the time. The less I’m focused on it, the more likely it is that the feeling won’t be able to manifest. I just get more exact with my construction with the fewer stimuli.”

“Drawback?” Hawks quirked an eyebrow, already having a good idea as to it.

You gestured lazily to the empty coffee shop, “I get overstimulated easily, quirk activated or not. Makes a lot of shit hard, but I like my quirk. I mean, it’s nothing like having a crazy strong pair of wings, but it services me well.”

“Did you really ‘manifest’ ‘warm and fuzzies’ into a drink, or did you make it a bit deeper than that?” Keigo sipped again, relishing how it warmed him all over once more. The taste that was dancing over his palette seemed a little more complex than what they were saying. 

“To be frank and to have a bit of an ego, yeah, I went for my go-to feeling when making drinks for myself,” You averted your eyes from him. “A good drink should feel like you’re getting hugged from the inside out, you know? Comforted. It’s hard enough to get that tangibly without a quirk. I just try to help where I can.”

  Keigo blinked at you.

You had turned suddenly, shy, eyes anxiously darting and a hand tugging at the sleeve of your sweater. A cute flush was spreading over your cheekbones when you finally looked at him again, “Kinda corny, right?”

Despite the fact that Keigo’s heart was fucking pounding, he shook his head, voice steady and sure, “Nah, I think it’s cool. You’re doing a lot more than just making coffee for folks.”

Your face got even redder as you rubbed the back of your head,

“I usually work in the back, so I don’t tend to make a lot of coffee for people. I make the tea blends that we sell. I don’t always use my quirk, but sometimes I do.”

Keigo watched you nervously pull at your apron, giving him an oddly desperate deadpan, “Please don’t turn me in.”

That made Keigo bust out laughing again. 

You couldn’t help but stare at him in shock, and then join him. You covered your mouth at first, but finally, just let yourself laugh with him. All it seemed like that there was in the world was you, Keigo, the lavender latte, and the snowdrifts outside.

  Hawks’s pager beeped, almost instantly pulling him from his laughing fit. He glanced at it, giving a dull grimace, “Duty calls, it seems.”

“You’d think villains would take snow days?” You told him as he re-gloved his hands. 

“It would really make my job easier,” He chuckled. Hawks pushed the forgotten money on the counter. “That’s all for you, ya hear me? Keep it or I will actually turn you in.”

Oh, you were feeling bold. 

Before Hawks could pull his hand away, you placed your own on his, stopping his movement.

“Only,” You somehow, one-handed, managed to pull a bit of receipt paper from its machine. Still one-handed you grabbed a pen and scribbled onto the paper. You pushed it towards Keigo. “If you take this very conveniently small piece of paper that totally doesn’t have my name and number on it. Just in case you’d like another lavender latte like that.”

  Oh, Keigo was floored.

He had rapid fucking fans. They were feral. He’d had fans drop their entire life stories on him, gush to him, stalk him— one time, a fan dropped to their knees and licked his boots. And he’d certainly received many phone numbers in his day, so many, but never like this. 

This felt a little different.

“Well, I was gonna say, I might need some contact to know when you work next. Just so I can grab one of your lovely drinks,” Hawks winked at you, all smitten.  He walked backwards towards the door, still meeting your eyes

“Feel free to.” You were just as starry-eyed as he was. “I have a lot to show you!”

And with that, Hawks whisked himself out of the door, fast as ever.

And you both simmered, full of intangible feelings. 

[mdawritings]

Wanna Be Yours: Ch. 13

II.II

Masterlist

Warnings: None

Song(s): “Mr. Perfectly Fine” by Taylor Swift

You find yourself having more sleepless nights than ever before. Every time you close your eyes you’re facing the terrifying horrors your brain has managed to conjure up. The sounds of people screaming for help as debris rains down around you. You’re fighting against the arms of two firemen. Someone has to help them!

Your alarm is still hours away from ringing, yet you glance at the time every few minutes, every minute dragging along like it’s an hour. Your eyes are glued to your ceiling fan, watching as it swings back and forth slightly with each rotation of the blades.

After your first case with the BAU, things have started to slow down. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have cases every single day of the week. Most of your days of work are summarized by piles and piles of paperwork. The team seems to be perpetually behind on every case report. The team tries to write up a general profile for every case that requests the BAU assistance that you can’t help with in person. In addition, Strauss loves to load the whole team with special talking events and lecture series. There’s hardly a day where everyone is in the office at the same time and when you are, you’re all soon called away on a case.

You haven’t been called away on a case since your first with the team. You actually don’t mind doing paperwork most of the day. The main reason is that it gives you an easy way to stay away from Hotch. You’ve jokingly struck up a deal that for every one of your files that Reid walks up to Hotch’s office for you, you’ll buy him a coffee. So far you owe him nearly two weeks of coffee.

Hotch is not completely oblivious. He’s caught on to your little game and so far, he’s been kind enough to give you some distance. He’s stopped pressuring you to talk to him. Maybe he finally sensed the raw emotion of your voice the other day in his office.

You resign yourself to the fact that you’re not going to fall back to sleep before your alarm rings. You pull the sheets off of you, kicking your feet off to the side, wrapping your arms around your body tightly as a shiver runs through you. The temperature in Virginia is dropping rapidly as winter takes over. You love when it’s cold. You love the way the cold, blustery air bites at your skin and makes you tingly. It’s a nice reminder that you’re alive. After everything you’ve been through, you’re still standing. You can still feel something. You can feel the cold.

You go through the motions of your morning routine, taking a shower to wake yourself up, brushing your teeth, pulling on some slacks and a nice blouse. You turn on some music while you get ready but even your favorite songs can’t seem to pull your head out from the haze you are living in recently. Your body is working on autopilot because before you know it, you’ve finished your makeup. It’s not even 6 AM.

You pop half of a bagel into the toaster, make a cup of coffee in your thermos, and then cover the bagel with cream cheese and honey. You look around your half-empty apartment, taking your time to eat your small breakfast.

Today is just going to be one of those particularly difficult and painful days. You can sense it. Your body feels lit up with nerves. Eating your breakfast is difficult, just the taste of the food making you sick to your stomach.

Your thoughts bounce between two topics: your past in the FBI and your past with Aaron Hotchner. It’s hard to believe that the Aaron Hotchner you see every day is the same Aaron Hotchner you once knew. You glance at the time, if you don’t leave soon you‘ll miss the train and be stuck at home for another hour. You rush out the door, walking to the train station. You settle into a seat, pulling your headphones on, hoping to drown out the rattling and humming of the train. You reach down to dig through your bag for your thermos of coffee. Shit.

The thermos is sitting on your counter. You can practically see it in your mind, right there on the edge of the counter. It’s almost become a joke at this point the horrible quality coffee of the BAU. You and Reid have a running joke about starting up a collection fund for better quality coffee, at least for your BAU floor. Nearly every team member brings their own coffee, settling for the shitty stuff in the conference room or on the jet in place of their second or third cup that day.

You get off the train, tempted to call Reid to bring you coffee, but according to your deal, you’re supposed to be the one doing that for him. You let out a tired sigh, calling a car to drive you to the office, wincing at the cost of your morning commute. You really need to get a car.

The parking lot is almost completely empty. You swipe your ID at the door. The night guard hasn’t switched out for the morning guard yet. You recognize him from some of the late nights you’ve had within your first week of work and give a small smile and nod. Your heart thumps into your throat every time you step onto the elevator in this building. All this in an attempt to avoid being alone with Hotch.

You reach forward to press floor six, when a voice calls out, footsteps moving rapidly towards the elevator, “Hold the elevator please!” You see a black briefcase swing up between the closing doors as you lunge for the door hold button. “Thank you—” There’s a slight hesitation in Hotch’s voice as he pauses and looks over you. “Agent.” He steps into the elevator. You make room for him, putting as much space between the two of you as possible.

You attempt your best, most polite, professional smile and nod, “Good morning, Sir.” You rock back and forth on your toes. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him open his mouth to say something before closing it again. There’s a long pause.

Should you say something? A normal employee would ask their boss how they are and make small talk. But this isn’t really the most normal boss/employee relationship. It seems frivolous to make small talk with someone who has seen the most intimate parts of you.

“You’re here early again,” Hotch finally speaks up. The elevator’s cool blue fluorescent lighting somehow emphasizes just how warm those brown eyes of his are. Those intimate parts of you that you keep shrouded from the naked eye, every single weakness you have shoved down, seem to be on full display in the way that he looks at you.

“I was already up. Thought I’d come in and get some work done,” The only way to keep the profiler in him at bay is to tell him some version of the truth. It’s true. You were already awake. You did decide it would just be better to come in and get started on work. However, you know that the exhaustion in your face is something you can’t hide away from his analytical eyes. There’s something in his expression that you can’t quite place as he gazes back at you. It’s a cross between disbelief and pity.

Pity. That’s definitely something you don’t want. Especially not from him. But maybe it’s not pity? Concern?

“I work out in the mornings,” Now you’re just fully lying, “I finished early and thought why not come in.”

“Y/N-” His voice lowers in volume as if someone’s listening to your conversation. He says your name like it’s a swear word. Like the name is some secret, forbidden phrase that he shouldn’t be saying, especially not at work. The elevator doors ring and they open to the BAU floor. Thankfully, there’s a worker from the night crew waiting to get on, interrupting whatever Hotch planned to say, and you’re quick to step off, moving around the man.

Hotch knows better than to follow after you to continue the conversation. There’s no one else in the offices yet, but the elevator is like neutral territory. A space separate from the job. Some sort of limbo between personal and professional. If the elevator is neutral, the BAU floor is the war front.

The situation is comical. You speed away from him, but he has to walk right past you to get to his office. What you don’t expect is the small coffee cup that he places on your desk before continuing right up to his office.

You remember him holding a tray of coffees in the elevator. Did he always intend to give you one of them? Is this attempt at a truce?

You remove the lid from the cup. The steam erupts wildly, just the smell of the coffee alone enough to already start perking you up. Once the initial small burst of heat clears, you stare down into the cup, expecting to see completely black coffee, the way that Hotch takes his. To your surprise, it's a light caramel color and you can smell a slight sweetness. You take a long sip. It’s perfect. You haven’t changed the way you take your coffee. He remembers your order. Is that supposed to mean something?

You realize you’ve been staring into your coffee for too long once you see Morgan and Garcia step off the elevator, his arm casually thrown around her shoulders. You can’t hear their conversation, but she says something, vibrantly gesturing with her hands, as Morgan lets out a laugh, flashing those perfect teeth of his. He gives Garcia’s arm a reassuring squeeze. She turns and scurries off to her little lair while Morgan turns towards the bullpen, digging around for a file in his bag.

“You’re always here early, new girl,” Morgan teases with a playful smack of the file to your head as he walks past.

“I have a name, Morgan,” You roll your eyes, attempting to fix your hair.

“What can I say? I’m a big fan of nicknames,” He grins and starts to walk towards the stairs.

“Wait! Can you take this file up to Hotch?” You hold out the papers from your desk. You give him your best, most innocent, pleading eyes. Usually, that works pretty well to get Reid to do things for you. Flirting really trips Reid up. The problem with Morgan is that he doesn’t get flustered or uncomfortable like Reid, he plays into your flirtations. You get along much better with Morgan now that he’s had about a week to warm up to you.

He still doesn’t trust you and you can tell that he questions your skills. So occasionally, you’ll indulge him. You’ll ask him for advice on something you’re working on. You’ll ask him to check your work before you hand it in to Hotch. You want him to know you respect him.

You don’t trust easily and neither does he, a quality that you have both noticed in each other. Morgan doesn’t push you to indulge him with your past. The other team members haven’t pushed you necessarily, but they seem to dance around the topic of your dismissal. Morgan avoids the topic entirely. You get the feeling that you and Morgan are way more similar than it would appear on the surface.

“Pretty boy gets free coffee, what do I get?” He stops and walks back closer to you.

“What do you want?” You smirk and lean forward placing your chin in the palm of your hand.

Morgan pauses and thinks for a second, “You come out with the team for drinks sometime, first round on you.”

You roll your eyes, “Fine. Deal.” You hold out the files and he takes them with a smile.

“I would’ve done it just to be nice, you know,” He laughs and walks up to knock on Hotch’s door. “Just wanted to see what I could get out of the new girl.” He opens the door, disappearing into the office. Emily finally arrives for the day, Reid trailing close behind her.

“All I’m saying is there are so many scientific fallacies built into the Jurassic Park franchise that it's totally reasonable to watch the films as comedies. I mean mixing Jurassic DNA with any other species just produces new species, not the same exact dinosaurs from the Jurassic period.” Reid rambles on and Emily just shoots you a look.

“This is why I don’t offer to carpool anymore,” She taunts and smiles at you.

“Not even me?” You smile, giving Reid a playful kick under the desks as he sits down.

“Are you going to annoy me about the minuscule details of every great award-winning movie?” She raises a brow, unpacking her belongings, setting a large cup of steaming coffee down.

“Well, I don’t know shit about science,” You shake your head, “I might complain about different book to screen adaptations and the number of details lost and the symbolism lost in the transfer of the work to the screen.”

“It’s moments like these that make me hate that the rest of the team has their own offices,” Prentiss sighs, already reaching for her headphones. You’re not really supposed to listen to music while working, but she breaks that rule all the time. She argues it helps her focus, but you really think it helps distract her from the horrors on the page. In the past week, you’ve learned that Emily Prentiss is great at compartmentalizing.

She’s easily able to push aside personal for professional, however, that comes at a great mental cost for her. She reminds you a little bit of Hotch in that way. She pushes the personal feelings down so deep that it’s hard for her to retrieve them when she needs to, so she’s wary of how detached she gets. But being emotionally detached from the work is the only way to avoid pain. So she listens to music.

Only two case reports later, the day is almost over. The days of sleep deprivation are finally taking a toll on your work ethic. Your brain is in a haze. You thought the two servings of caffeine would help clear your mind, but instead, they’ve just heightened your anxiety, making you more on edge than you already were. It doesn’t help that every few minutes your eyes drift up to the blinds of Hotch’s office, looking up at him while he focuses down on his work.

How can he be so… okay? He pretends as if your presence isn’t immensely distracting. Maybe it isn’t for him. Whatever he felt for you all those years ago was never love, you know that. Maybe he liked the ego boost of the way you worshipped him, hanging on to every last word out of his mouth. Maybe he just liked your body. He broke your heart, yet he sits in his office like everything is perfect.

“Today’s cases?” Reid stands next to your desk, a large stack of files in his arms already.

“How do you get those done so fast?” You shake your head at him and hand him your two, very slim, files.

“Eidetic memory, high-speed reading, genius-level IQ,” Emily pipes up without looking at the two of you. “Any of those options is a good explanation.”

“Thank you, Spence. I am forever in your debt,” You tease him as he gives a cute little tight-lipped smile, rushing up the stairs to hand in the work from the day.

As if on cue, Garcia, Morgan, and JJ step into the bullpen, their bags slung over their shoulders and Rossi comes down from the catwalk to meet the three.

“So how about that drink now?” Morgan once again has an arm wrapped around Garcia who then glances between the two of you.

“Yes! The newbie has to join us for drinks!” She smiles wildly, “Oh I just know you’re going to be so much fun. Plus, I have so much I want to interrogate you about.” It’s a light-hearted joke, a turn of phrase, but you know that Garcia probably vetted you within minutes of your time at the BAU. Penelope Garcia has the biggest heart of anyone you’ve ever met. She has so much love and joy for her family, this team, but you also know that she will do anything to keep her family safe. She’s not a violent person, but you know that if she had to die to protect this stand-in family, she would.

You glance among the faces of your new team, each more hopeful and excited than the last. They’ve all been immensely welcoming, despite their individual reservations about you. “I guess I could be down for a drink or two.” You start packing your bag. You hear Hotch’s office door open.

“Pretty boy, you down for drinks? Y/L/N is buying the first round!” Morgan calls up to Reid. You smile up at him, but it quickly drops when you see him.

Reid’s eyes flit to yours and there’s an apologetic look on his face, “Y/N, Hotch wants to talk to you.” The team exchanges a series of looks, your face getting warm as soon as you can feel all eyes on you.

You wave at them dismissively, “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up if I have time,” You force a smile, pulling your bag onto your shoulder, practically dragging yourself up the stairs. As you pass Reid, he gives your hand a small touch. It’s small, but it means the world to you. You know how weird Reid is about contact and germs. He hugs or touches the team because he trusts them. He feels a sense of family with them. It’s only been a week, yet you and Reid have shared countless passionate conversations about books.

He gives you recommendations and you rush to buy them. You indulge his rambling rants. Sometimes you ride the train together. He gets off much later than you on the train, taking it all the way to DC, but he makes the ride seem like seconds, not minutes. You love to see what people are passionate about and Spencer Reid is passionate about everything. He loves to learn, a feeling you relate to heavily.

You knock on the hardwood door, the nameplate seeming to stare back at you, taunting you. It isn’t new that a door with Aaron Hotchner’s name on it haunts you, but this one is different. It holds so much more potential. Just a little strip of metal adhered to the dark wood. Yet it holds your past life with him and about a million different possible future ones both with and without him.

You hear a deep ‘come in’ through the door and push it open to see Hotch hunched over, focused on the work on his desk, the same way he’s looked all day through his blinds. “Please, sit,” He reaches for a pen and your eyes go to the form on his desk.

You smooth out your pants as you take the seat across from him. “You wanted to see me?”

“Interesting system you’ve worked out with Morgan and Reid.” If you weren’t looking directly at him you would swear he was smiling through the comment, but instead, you're faced with those emotionless eyes of his.

“I’m sorry,” You stumble over your words a little. Did he call you up here to reprimand you for not walking your own work up to his office? “It’s just a little silly thing I was doing. It’s childish I’ll—”

“That’s not why I needed to see you,” He cuts you off, waving his hand. He leans forward, one arm resting on the armrest of his chair, the other hand holding his pen. He rubs his fingers together with the pen in his hand.

Needed to see you. He didn’t mean those words that way, but your brain takes them and runs with them, forcing you to need a second to breathe. As always, Hotch sucks the oxygen out of your lungs, leaving you breathless, scrambling for some sense of sanity.

“Strauss suggested—” He pauses and corrects himself, “Well, Strauss requested an evaluation of you after your first week on the job and I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

“Right now?” You question him and he gives a slight nod in response.

“I know you’ve been through a lot and Strauss wants to make sure you’re really ready for this job.”

“I am. I was gone for a year. I don’t need more time off. I need to get back to work and back to feeling useful.” You answer decisively. It’s that simple. He has your psych evaluations and your therapists notes. So does Strauss. What more do they want from you?

You can tell he takes note of your exact word choice, eyes narrowing as you say ‘useful.’He jots something down on the pad in front of him, “You’ve gotten great work done these past few days. You’re an excellent agent and you have a real skill for profiling.”

“Thank you, Sir,” You play off the compliment, but truthfully, it terrifies you how much you feel joy coursing through you at the praise. His approval still means everything you. You can’t and won’t be dependent upon him. “The rest of the team definitely has a lot more experience though.”

“Is that why you ask Reid questions that you know the answer to? Or ask Morgan to look over your work even though you’ve already checked it over twice and know that it’s perfect?” You meet his gaze reluctantly and this time there is a small upturn to his lips at the corners.

You’re rendered speechless temporarily. Fair enough. Just as much as you’ve been profiling and analyzing him, he;’s been observant. He’s paying attention to your behavior. That is his job after all. “Excuse me?”

“You want everyone here to like you. You want to prove yourself to everyone, to me. You don’t need to do that.” The look in his eyes makes your heart pound aggressively against your ribcage so wildly that you’re convinced he can see your chest moving with each thud. He’s saying he’s noticed the signs of sleep deprivation. That’s what the coffee was about. That’s why he’s called you in for this evaluation. “I think you’ve been through something traumatic. Now, I don’t know exactly what you’ve been through, I understand that the details of your removal from your original post have been made confidential but I think this job takes a lot from you.” He scoffs a little and shakes his head, “No actually, this job will take everything from you. It’ll eat you alive, but you need to find a way not to let it.”

You’re sure that the state of both of you is enough to scare off anyone from wanting to join the BAU. Both of you are poster children for sleep deprivation. You’re working yourself overtime to prove yourself to the team while distracting your mind from the past. And Hotch? It’s clear he works himself overtime to make up for something. You haven’t quite figured out what yet, but he’s trying to make up for a past mistake. He’s trying to be the best that he can in his position. What did the job take from him that’s left him a shell of himself?

“Is there a question in there, sir?” You try to play off the instinct to snap at him.

“Do you have someone to talk to?” There’s that confusing look on his face again. The one that makes you feel like you’re being pitied, “You don’t have to talk to me, I mean, of course, you can talk to me, but you need to talk to someone. Do you have someone?”

You nod, “I can always call my therapist if I need her. And if I need someone, I’ll find someone. No need to worry, Sir.”

“Hotch,” He corrects. Your answer doesn’t satisfy him. “I’ve seen a pattern before, with agents that come back from trauma. They’re desperate for acceptance and approval, yet they have trouble trusting their coworkers. This team can’t function without trust. So do you?”

“Do I what?” You’re clenching your toes in your shoes, in order to hide the anger that the question fuels inside you. With every question, this feels more like an interrogation.

“Trust your fellow agents? Trust this team? Trust me?” He waves his hand around like it’s the simplest question he could ask you as if he hasn’t given you a million different reasons to be distrustful.

“I think trust is a fickle thing. Easy to lose, nearly impossible to gain back when lost. In addition, it takes time to build trust.” Your hands fidget a little at your sides and his eyes dart down to notice the behavior. “I don’t expect any of the other agents to trust me right away but I don’t plan on giving them any reason not to. I hope they’re just as understanding with me as I am with them.”

With the two of you, it’s never been about what is said, but always what goes unsaid, and this conversation, so much seems to be going unsaid.

“This team only works because we value cooperation and we respect one another,” He nods and looks back at the form in front of him, “I’ll be sure to tell Strauss how well you’re fitting in.” As he continues to talk, you gather up your things. “I’m impressed by how much you’ve accomplished these past few years in the bureau.”

“Thank you, Sir.” There’s so much more you want to say to him. There’s so much you want to ask. You want to yell and scream and curse him out, but you also want to throw it all in his face. How much you achieved without his help. You’re almost out the door but you can’t seem to bite your tongue any longer. When you look back at him, he’s standing, collecting his things, “How are you so… so okay?”

“I’m sorry?” His brows furrow into confusion.

“I can’t breathe around you. I can’t think straight. I can’t get my work done,” You let out, your voice tired and weak as you let the truth out, “I go home and I can’t get you off my mind. How are you just so professional and composed as if I’m just like any other employee? Did I really mean so little to you? Did I delude myself that much?”

Hotch pauses and clears his throat. He closes himself off to you by looking at his work, as if the answer he’s looking for is in one of those files, “That was… was a long time ago and I think it’s just best we focus on our responsibilities here as agents, rather than indulge the past.”

“Unbelievable,” You scoff, “It’s sad that you haven’t changed. You are still so opposed to letting yourself feel anything. I can barely get up each morning and bring myself into work to face you, but glad to know you’re doing great.” You wait a moment to see if he has anything to say, but he keeps that stern emotionless veil over his face. “Good night, Sir.” Just like a week ago, you’re almost out the door. Almost free.

“I’ve never stopped thinking about you,” Hotch calls out. You freeze.

“Bullshit,” You breathe out clenching your fists at your side, trying to take another step away from him.

“You were important to me. I cared about you.” He hesitates, like he’s weighing his next words, choosing them carefully, “You’re still important to me. I still care about you, now that you’re a member of the team.”

“Bull. Shit.” You grit out, take a few steps closer, forgetting how much taller he is than you, but you’re determined to stand your ground. “How many were there?”

“Excuse me?”

“How many other girls? How many before me?” You shake your head. You’re not sure that you even want the answer. It’s a question that’s stuck with you ever since that day outside of his office so many years ago. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even bother saving you the heartbreak. He welcomed that girl into his office the same way he did to you without thinking twice.

“I–” He’s at a loss for words, pushing his focus down to the papers on his desk, trailing a finger over the edge of the wood, actively avoiding the question.

“It’s not a difficult question, Hotch,” You’re firm with him. Despite his position of authority over you, as he was before, you’re no longer intimidated by the repercussions of speaking out. You have too much dirt on him. Too many things you could throw in his face at this point. He can’t fire you for speaking your mind. You know he won’t. He can’t threaten your career. If he fires you, he has to explain himself to Strauss. What is he going to say? He can’t explain your history together.

“I don’t remember,” He stumbles over his words, “Three... no four. Definitely four.”

You pause. There’s still one question that has weighed on your mind every day for the past eight years, “And after me?” It’s a question you definitely don’t want the answer to, knowing that in all honesty, the answer doesn’t really matter. It won’t change much. You’ve considered every answer to the question. Every alternative hurts. If he did sleep with that student after you, it solidifies your unimportance in his life. If he didn’t, why would he hurt you the way he did?

It’s a question Hotch clearly never thought you’d actually ask. He finally meets your eye contact, “None.”

You scoff, “You’re a liar.”

“I couldn’t... go through with it with anyone else. I just saw you everywhere in that office. Everywhere I looked. I couldn’t erase the traces of you.” He shakes his head, “And I wanted to go through with it.” That stings, “Because I wanted to forget you. Get you out of my mind and I couldn’t.”

You gnaw at your bottom lip, “Clearly you were able to move on pretty easily,” You gesture to the pictures of the blonde women and the little boy on the bookshelf behind him.

That’s when he completely shuts down. Any sense of humanity you were starting to see in him slowly slips away from you. He’s back to that stonewall of a unit chief. You’ve hit a nerve. “That is not a topic up for discussion.”

“How old is your son? Five? Six?” You cross your arms against your chest, “Don’t act like I was important to you if it was that easy for you to move on. It’s funny, you seem to have everyone around here fooled into thinking you’re some morally just, decent man. I wonder if she knows the truth about you.”

Now you’ve really hit a nerve. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing about, Agent.” He gathers up the papers on his desk, shoving them into a file. “You’re dismissed. Evaluation is over.”

“Good night,” You pause, “Sir.” you snatch up your bag from the floor. Was that even a real evaluation? Or just an excuse to force you to finally sit down and talk to him? He was prying for personal answers. Do you have someone? Do you? Trust me? What he really meant was, Are you seeing someone? Are you still mad at me? Do you hate me? You made sure he didn’t get those answers. The answers being no and you don’t know. You feel like you don’t even know him. He barely even looks like the man you found yourself hopelessly falling for.

You text Reid that you’re just too tired to meet the team for drinks. Calling a car to take you to the train station.

Hotch has somehow managed to become a completely different person, yet still maintains some similarities to the person he was before. You still think of the same words to describe him, but for entirely different reasons.

He’s firm and stern. Now, in this position, he’s big on following protocol. Following the rules is what has to be done. Following rules and respecting the chain of authority is essential to keeping everyone safe. Before, he didn’t care about rules, but he had high standards of performance.

He’s cold. Before, he was cold to distance you from him. Now he’s cold as if letting someone in might break him. Like you might warm him from the inside out and he might not be able to withstand the heat. Letting someone in might lead to a complete meltdown.

Despite the icy exterior he puts on, you see small glimpses of warmth and care. Care for his team, especially. He’s patient with Garcia. He indulges her quirks. He’s firm with Reid because if not he gets sidetracked pretty quickly. But he’s also gentle with him. He doesn’t cut him off or guide him back on track in a rude manner. He knows when the job is overwhelming for JJ. She fields so many cases, being forced to decide which people most need the help. Every single day this week, you’ve seen them both hunched over his desk pouring over yet another armful of files. He reassures her that they’ve made the right decisions.

So you don’t know if you hate him. You don’t know him. That’s the problem.

By the time you get to your apartment, both the mental and physical exhaustion have finally caught up to you. You open your mailbox, pulling out the mail that’s been accumulating over the past few days. You sort through it quickly, most junk mail and bills. You get to the top of the stairs and unlock your door pushing through and you see a small envelope at the bottom of the handful. There’s no return address, just your name scrawled across the front in almost illegible handwriting.

You furrow your brows, dropping your bags by the door, kicking off your shoes, and walking into your kitchen as you tear at the envelope. As you do, a small square photograph falls out. You reach in for the other small slip of paper. Your heart sinks and you feel a sick sense growing in the pit of your stomach.

On the small paper, in the same scrawl as the front of the envelope: I’m still out there.

You bend down for the photograph that fell. It’s a picture of Hotch, his suit jacket blowing open slightly in the wind. He has his phone in his clutches, pressing it up to his ear. He’s got his briefcase under one arm and a tray of coffee in that hand. You look a little closer and notice the pattern on the tie he’s wearing in the photo… the photo was taken today. You flip over the photo, to see a second and final note.

This is between you and me. Break any of my rules, tell anyone about this, and he dies.

Chapter 14: II.III →

Tag list: @wanniiieeee​ @art-and-thoughts​

[sugarmaplewings-fics]

Disclosed

Pairing: Bakugou x reader x Kirishima

Warnings: Like, two sex jokes? Nothing that crazy. Once again, gay, bi and poly as fuck. Oh and language too.

Author’s note:

So uh, I guess this ends the saga of Little Secret. I’m still doing Kiribaku fics, but I guess I just had a bit of a theme going here in this trilogy. I tried to focus more on Eijirou in this one since he kind of got pushed to the side a bit in the other two stories. Little Secret had more of y/n’s omniscience, while Big Secret was more Bakugou driven (big brain hehe).

You can probably ignore the ending of this since it’s really really cheesy and it was the only thing I could think of at the time I wrote it (I think this is another one of my fics that I finished at 3 am or something).

Anyhow, I’d say this is my favorite part of the trilogy in some ways! It’s super soft and fluffy, and I really like how I wrote it out. I seriously hope you enjoy it!

I love you guys!

-Sugar

☆*･゜ﾟ･**･゜ﾟ･*☆.☆*･゜ﾟ･**･゜ﾟ･*☆

As much as Kirishima loved being a hero, honestly, he loved his days off more.

He watched from in front of the counter as you amicably bickered with Bakugou, bustling around the kitchen still in your respective pajamas.

"I'm just saying we could have something other than cinnamon rolls for breakfast," the blond man pouted, tailing you as you walked from the fridge to the oven.

"It'll be fun," you said. "Geez, we don't have to keep up with that hero diet you set up every day. It's our day off, let me have my sugar and carbs."

Bakugou began to grumble something about the amount of chemicals that were probably in the pre-made pastry dough, but you paid him no heed. The little cheerful beeping tones of the oven sounded through the room as you set the temperature.

"How long is that going to take?" Kirishima asked.

"Like half an hour," you said. "Need a snack 'til then? We need to eat these oranges before they go bad."

"Sure, I'll take one." You tossed the orange fruit to him, which he caught easily and began to peel.

"You want one, 'Tsuki?"

Bakugou grumbled a "Fine" and you handed him his, taking a third for yourself.

Normally, you may have been able to wait until the sweet pastry rolls were done, but instead you'd spent the last two hours very slowly waking up and cuddling in bed.

As per usual, Katsuki had woken up first, letting his eyes adjust to the warm tones the room had taken on with the rising of the sun. He remembered today was his day off, and a final bout of tension left his shoulders. His back had previously been pressed against Eijirou's, but now he decided to turn himself over to face him. Peeking through scarcely opened lids, Bakugou glimpsed your form on the other side of Kirishima, scarcely visible as you snuggled into his chest. Bakugou allowed himself something he only saved in silent, private moments like this: a smile. Just a small one, barely even lifting the side of his mouth. But he couldn't help it. The sight of his perfect boyfriend and girlfriend fast asleep in each others' arms brought him such an overwhelming feeling of compersion, he simply couldn't help himself.

Bakugou draped an arm over Kirishima's side, rubbing at your forearm with gentle strokes of his fingers. You hummed in your sleep, pushing yourself even closer into the red-haired man holding you. The blond breathed in Eijirou's heavy, musky scent, letting it flood his nose and instill a sense of unparalleled calm over himself.

The shifting motions on either side of him caused Eijirou to begin to blink his own eyes open, shedding the foggy haze of sleep from his mind. Dreams from his previous night's rest danced and fleeted at the edges of his memory, before they were ultimately discarded and lost to the unrelenting abyss that is abandoned remembrance. He felt warm. Warm, and comfortable, and happy, and perfect.

Eijirou noticed the steady movement of the arm placed over him, signaling that Bakugou was awake. You, on the other hand, slept on; eyes lightly closed, lips parted with breath, gently clasping the front of his shirt. Kirishima slowly pressed a kiss to your forehead, followed by another and then another.

His soft lips combined with the soothing motions of Katsuki's hand finally brought you smoothly out of your slumber, groaning a bit in your consciousness.

"You two awake yet?" Bakugou's voice sounded from over Kirishima's broad shoulders. It was a little gruffer than usual from sleep and it made you smile.

"Yeah," Kirishima answered for you, meeting your (E/C) orbs with his own.

You pulled your arm from under Bakugou's hand, moving it until your fingers were able to intertwine and lock with his over Eijirou's side. He felt safe under your loving union, tying yourselves together over him so the three of you became one unit.

That was how your morning had started. For a long time, the three of you laid there, chatting in low tones as you and Katsuki snuggled into either side of Eijirou, who later turned to lie on his back to tuck each of you under an arm. The experience was nothing other than peaceful, the three of you content to simply lay in each others' presence.

Ever since that one fateful afternoon nearly two years ago, your lives could scarcely have improved more. Inviting Bakugou into your relationship was the best decision you'd made, and now here you were. The three of you had graduated from UA and begun your lives as heroes; Eijirou still worked as an indispensable sidekick under Fatgum, while Bakugou was still in the process of getting a hero agency of his own off the ground. But today was a day you had settled on to spend completely together, and it was all going just wonderfully.

Somehow, the idea had gotten into your head that you'd make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, so once you and your boyfriends eventually crawled out of bed, you set about fulfilling the urge.

Kirishima popped another orange slice into his mouth, watching you absentmindedly as you pulled out everything you would need. Which, to say, wasn't much, seeing as you were simply baking them from a can. As you pulled out the pan and cooking spray, Eijirou's red eyes flicked over to Bakugou, who had removed the cardboard tube from the fridge again. The redhead fought back a smirk as he watched his shared boyfriend scowl at the ingredients, thinking back to his almost monthly 'your body is a temple and you should treat it as such' lectures he'd give the two of you.

You caught sight of him as well, striding towards him and plucking the container from his hands. Bakugou started grumbling again, turning and exiting the kitchen to presumably go get dressed or something.

Kirishima took the opportunity to come up behind you as you popped the cardboard cylinder open, letting the preformed dough puff up as it met the air. His arm wrapped loosely around your waist as he bent a little to place his head on your shoulder. "Need help with anything?" he asked.

"No, thanks," you said, taking the unbaked rolls and filling your pre-sprayed pan.

He hummed and straightened, moving so he could lean against the counter. He noticed your orange next to him, partially peeled and abandoned. Taking one of the remaining slices from his own, he held it out towards you. "Hey, babe."

You turned and caught sight of it, smiling as you took the little slice between your teeth. You pulled it into your mouth as he pushed from his end, and you began to chew. "Mmm, that one's good."

Eijirou grinned back in agreement and ate the last slice. He reached for your abandoned one, working his nails beneath the pliable peel. "So what made you buy cinnamon rolls? Other than the fact that they're delicious, that is."

"Cold nostalgia," you said, tweaking the dough in the filled pan so it looked right. "I saw them at the store and thought to myself, 'Hey, I remember eating those. I could totally make them myself. Tasty.' Also I thought you might like them. We can all share." You picked up the pan in one hand and carried it to the oven, checking that it was the right temperature and sliding them in.

"I'm not sure about Katsuki," Eijirou said, picking some of the white fibers off another orange slice. "He didn't seem too thrilled."

"Meh," you said, fingers tapping out twenty-seven minutes on the oven timer, bringing more happy beeps to your ears. "If he doesn't eat any of them, there's just more for us, I guess. But you know how he is. You think he'll crack in front of us or wait until we leave?"

Eijirou smiled as you walked back to him, running your hands up his sides affectionately as you grinned up at him. "I'll bet one of us will find him having one in the middle of the night," he wagered.

"You're on," you giggled, swiping another orange slice from him.

"Hey! I would have given you some if you had asked, you know."

"Oops." You slid the slice slowly into your mouth, keeping your eyes on his own. A burst of sweet citric juice filled your mouth as you bit down, and you shut your eyes for a second just to fully enjoy it.

The sensation of a finger poking at your nose caused your lids to flutter open. Your eyes crossed to look at the offending digit, rolling back up and focusing on Eijirou's face.

"Bep," he said, the note accompanying his action.

You booped his nose in unhostile revenge, beginning to giggle as a mini-war began. Eijirou used the pad of his pointer finger to jab lightly at your face, making a new sound effect with each one. You had the advantage since both of your hands were free; tapping both your index fingers on his torso, face, and shoulders.

"Boop."

"Beep."

"Bap."

Bakugou shuffled back into the kitchen and watched your cheerful assaults on one another, both his cheeks and his heart warming at the sound of your giggles. "What the hell are you two doing?"

"Being in love," Eijirou said, proceeding to poke at your cheek. "Get over here, Katsu."

Bakugou just tched and wandered over to the oven to look at the baking rolls. "Dumbasses."

"Better hurry up, 'Tsuki," you said, stepping closer to Eijirou. "Or else you're going to miss out on the kisses."

"Oooooh-," Kirishima drew out for a second before your lips met his. He reciprocated, noting how you both shared the same orange-citrus taste. Out of curiosity, he peeked his eyes open to meet Bakugou's.

The blond man scowled, finally stomping over to you. "Fine. But I'm going in the middle." He wedged himself between you two.

"Yay!" Your arms wound around his slim waist, resting just above his hips. Your lips attached themselves to the base of Bakugou's neck, while Kirishima smooched at his mouth. It was quiet and sweet for a moment, each partaking in another's lips until you were satisfied, swapping positions when necessary.

You separated from Bakugou, running your thumb over his cheekbone for a moment as you looked into his eyes. He'd gotten better about asking for and receiving affection over the years you'd been dating, but it still brought warmth crashing through your system every time.

"Eiji Baby?" you asked, keeping your eyes on Bakugou.

"Yeah?"

"How much time is left on the oven?"

Kirishima glanced up at the glowing digits. "Eighteen minutes."

You hummed. "I'll get started on the icing for my rolls."

"Our rolls," Eijirou corrected, grinning at your over-the-shoulder eye roll you gave him as you made your way to the pantry to grab some powdered sugar.

Bakugou had the same reaction as you, tsking under his breath and moving to lean against the counter next to Kirishima. His position wasn't held long however, since you soon returned with your bag of sugar and the carton of milk, shooing them away so you could use the space. You pulled down a bowl and poured in some sugar and milk, beginning to mix it into a thick liquid with a spoon.

"Need a taste tester?" Kirishima asked hopefully.

"Eiji, this is pure sugar."

He glanced back at the ingredients. "Yeah."

There was something undeniably satisfying about watching the powder mix with the milk, going from fine and crumbly and turning into a sweet liquid mixture to later be drizzled over your pastries.

Maybe it was the motions of your hand as you manipulated the spoon. Maybe it was the ambiance of the room, surrounded by the two men you loved and planned to spend the rest of your life with. Either way, the song that had quietly been thrumming at the back of your mind wandered to the front, and the next thing you knew, you were humming.

Bakugou and Kirishima looked up at the sound of your voice, small smiles spreading their lips. Eijirou recognized the tune you were quietly singing to yourself, quickly adding his voice to your own. Your cheeks heated when you met his eyes, yet you continued to hum along with him. For a moment, you were both content with hitting the notes (or at least, trying to in some people's cases) wordlessly. But then you came upon the chorus, and it was as though you simultaneously reached a shared agreement that it should be belted out properly.

"S'GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOUUUU! THERE'S NOTHING THAT A HUNDRED MEN OR MORE COULD EVER DO! I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICAAAA—"

Bakugou watched you with an expression of general disgust and confusion. This was an act, of course, for the most part. He could never quite get used to the spontaneous concerts you both would occasionally throw, singing whatever obnoxious song that came to your minds. You probably only had one brain cell between you two, and it was a tossup of who got it for the day. But there was something about it that made his heart stir and his neck prickle. Maybe it was the absolute glow about Kirishima as he threw back his head to belt out lyrics. Maybe it was the way you had taken the spoon out of the icing bowl, singing at it as if it were a microphone. Bakugou would die before he ever joined in, but he never objected to watching.

The moment the song finished, you started on another. Kirishima turned to you as a new idea struck you. You lifted your hands to a sort of air guitar, playing a bit of the intro to the song in your head before beginning to sing again:

"We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I~"

Kirishima smiled, liking the way you thought. He admired your sense of humor and how well you went along with goofing off with him. The redhead let you sing the first verse, dancing around the kitchen space from him to Bakugou, looking at each of them as you sang some of the lyrics and wiggling your eyebrows.

It wasn't long before Eijirou jumped in again, joining you as you sang to Katsuki. "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and, desert you~"

Eijirou took your spoon as you rocked out on your personal invisible guitar, going to town on chords that didn't exist.

Bakugou fought down the butterflies swarming in his stomach at the sight of you two having fun. You would lean against him and grin up into his face from one side, while Kirishima draped an arm over his shoulders and passionately sang into your spoon. Katsuki noticed that some of the icing had dripped down onto his hand, but the redhead seemed to not have noticed.

You paused to giggle at Kirishima, who started taking the song as seriously as he could. His eyes were squeezed shut, fist curled into a ball as he drew out some of the lyrics as though it were so much more than an old-timey memed love song. You let your voice fade as he did his own thing, only offering it as further back up vocals. Eventually, he reached the final reiteration of the chorus, and let himself riff on the final lines as a finisher. When he was done, he opened his eyes, finding that he had even kneeled down on the floor a little in his passion. He stood and grinned, and you enthusiastically applauded his performance.

"That was for you, babes!" he said, pointing at his small audience of two.

Bakugou scoffed, but you could hear how it was a little choked from how cute he had found it. The liar. Both you and Eijirou could see how his cheeks had changed a few shades darker right in front of you.

Kirishima strolled confidently back up to you, swooping each of you into an arm and kissing Katsuki full on the lips without warning. Bakugou's eyes widened at the contact, cheeks burning even more than before. Eijirou pulled back with a satisfying smack of his lips, diving in to give you the same treatment. As per usual, you were more receptive to the kiss, more than happy to throw your arms around his neck and partake in his lips.

"Enjoy the song, there?" you teased once you pulled back, tracing your fingers under his jawline.

"Hell yeah!" Eijirou flashed those perfect sharp little teeth of his in yet another heart-stopping grin. Did he have any idea what that smile did to both Bakugou and you? He had to know it turned your hearts to pure hot chocolate, right?

"Got a song rec, Bakubabe?" you asked, turning to your blond boyfriend. "You mustn't be excluded from our concert on this fine morning."

Katsuki rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Doesn't matter anyway because your shit rolls are almost done."

You glanced at the oven timer, which was, in fact, counting down the seconds until it went off. "Ha ha ha! My children!"

You slid out of Eijirou's hold to grab your oven mitt out of its drawer. The oven went off with a drawn-out beep the moment you stepped up to it, cracking the door open and taking a peek inside. A wonderful smell hit you in the face along with a gust of hot air, and the sight of six perfectly golden cinnamon rolls greeted you.

"Look at them!" you said as you pulled them out with your mitted hand. You turned off the oven and canceled the timer before walking back to the counter to let the pan cool.

"Can I ice them?" Eijirou asked, coming up behind you to get a good look.

"Not yet. They have to cool first."

"Aww, man."

You pulled out a new spoon to use for frosting, since the previous one had been breathed all over. Next you began to clear off the counter, picking up any pieces of orange peel abandoned from breakfast.

Kirishima leaned against the counter again, taking a deep breath of the cinnamon roll smell that had flooded the kitchen. "I love it when you bake, (Y/N)," he said. "It's so much fun. The kitchen smells great, everything always tastes great—"

"Always?" you asked skeptically with a smirk.

"I guess there was that one time," he admitted. "That was—that was probably not a very good idea."

"If it weren't for me," Bakugou cut in, "you would have burned the whole house down."

"An artist must experiment with her craft." You flipped your hair a bit, turning back to your kitchen maintenance. There wasn't much to do. Between both yours and Bakugou's preference for a neat house, your counters usually stayed pretty clear.

Eijirou glanced at the bowl of icing, dipping the tip of his finger into the white mixture. "You know what this looks like?"

"No," you and Bakugou said at the same time firmly, understanding what he meant immediately.

"Shot down," Eijirou said. "You're right, that wasn't that good."

You putzed for another minute, finally hovering your hand over the cooling pan. "That should be good enough."

You had Eijirou harden the tips of his fingers to hold the pan as you began moving the rolls out onto a plate. He started humming again as you drove the spatula under the baked goods.

"Seriously?" Bakugou asked, having inched closer to watch. "Again with the singing?"

"I've got a song in my manly, chivalrous heart," Kirishima said, turning to grin at him. "Can't help it. I'm in the zone."

"I'm liking this zone," you said. "It's fun."

You pushed the icing bowl to Eijirou and took out another spoon for yourself, dipping it in and allowing the sugary liquid to drizzle over the golden brown confections. Kirishima did the same on his own, still humming the tune of Be A Man from Mulan and nodding his head to the individual notes. You danced along with him, moving your hips to his favorite Disney song.

Kirishima's eyes wandered down to your swaying movements. You really did wear those shorts nicely.

You jumped at the sensation of a large hand gently grabbing at your butt. Turning, you saw Eijirou's slight smile on his lips. "Eiji?"

"What?"

"Didn't you get enough last night?"

Kirishima shrugged, finally removing his hand. "Can't a man admire his woman's perfect body?"

You rolled your eyes, tapping the sugar-coated spoon to his nose.

He blinked at the cold sticky sensation, going cross-eyed in an attempt to look at the drop of icing. "Yeah, I probably deserved that."

You smirked and rolled your eyes as you went back to icing your cinnamon rolls, watching Eijirou out of the corner of your eye. He was trying to figure out if his tongue was long enough to lick it off the tip of his nose, but so far, of course, he was having difficulties.

"Idiot," Bakugou said, taking Kirishima's chin and turning his face to his. He captured the sweet white droplet between his lips and swiped his tongue over it.

Kirishima's eyes widened at the gesture. "Katsuki?"

"What?" Bakugou shot him a teasing grin. "You had something on your face."

You chuckled at the two of them, tearing off a roll from the bunch. Eijirou noticed your action and took one for himself, cheeks a little pinker than usual. Bakugou watched as you both bit down.

Eijirou bounced a little on his toes as he chewed the sweet bread. "So good!"

You smiled and nodded in agreement. "Mhm!"

Bakugou looked from you to Kirishima, then to the plate of warm rolls.

"Sure you don't want one, Katsuki?" you asked. "They're pretty good."

The blond sighed, finally grabbing a roll for himself. "It's too late to be cooking breakfast now."

"He cracked!" you said, turning your gaze to Kirishima.

"Did not." Bakugou aggressively took a large bite out of his cinnamon roll.

"You said you weren't going to have any." You cocked your head at him, taking another bite of your own.

"Did I?" Bakugou smirked at you and licked a bit of frosting off his lip.

You thought back for a moment. Maybe he hadn't. He'd certainly acted like it though. 

"Well, do you like it?" you prodded.

"Sure." Bakugou shrugged and examined the cross-section of his roll. "Probably would have been better if you'd actually made it yourself."

You folded your arms. "Too much work. I wanted a cinnamon roll and they had them in the store. Simple as throwing them in the oven."

"But the preservatives," he argued.

"But my lacking baking skills. Besides, now I'll live forever."

"Hah? That's not how that works, dumbass."

"Well, I think they're perfect." Eijirou cut in. He put an arm around you and Katsuki and pulled you into either side of him. "You've got the spice—" he kissed Katsuki on his cheek, "—and you've got the sugar." He kissed your cheek.

"What the fuck, Shitty Hair."

"I'm not always sugar," you half-heartedly protested, snorting a little at his cheesiness and ignoring Bakugou.

Eijirou paused for a second, considering. "Yeah, okay. But . . . my metaphor."

"Your metaphor is stupid."

You swatted at Katsuki. "Oh, shut up. What are you in this situation, Eiji?"

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Hmm . . . maybe you tie us together," you said, beginning to run your fingertips over his forearm. "Roll us up tight in your arms."

Both Kirishima and Bakugou blinked at you for a moment, cheeks dusted a shade darker than normal.

"So we're a cinnamon roll?" Kirishima asked.

"Ye—"

"I AM NOT A CINNAMON ROLL!" Katsuki shuffled against Eijirou's arm without really trying to get away.

"I think you are," you said. "What do you say, Eiji? He's an adorable smol bean—"

"No."

"—too precious for this world—"

"NO."

"—protecc at all costs—"

Bakugou threw the remaining third of his cinnamon roll at you, and it bounced off your head onto the floor.

"HEY—!"

He slipped out of Kirishima's arm for real this time, making an advance towards you. You ducked out of the redhead's hold too, running off to the living room.

"I PUT MY HEART AND SOUL INTO THOSE ROLLS, KATSUKI!" you called behind you.

"Sure."

"JUST ADMIT YOU'RE MY PRECIOUS BABY CINNAMON ROLL."

"Never!"

Eijirou listened to the sounds of his partners chasing each other through the house. Finishing off his morning treat, he smiled, thinking about how lucky he was to have the two of you. You no longer hid anything from each other, and everything was laid out in the open. Your futures were bright, and Kirishima knew in his heart that you'd forever be happy as long as you were together. From now on, your feelings would remain disclosed.

☆*･゜ﾟ･**･゜ﾟ･*☆.☆*･゜ﾟ･**･゜ﾟ･*☆

[Big Secret]

[Little Secret]

Taglist: @loxbbg @runrabbitrun3 @basicaegyo @iiminibattlehero @katsugay @nabo39 @pyrofanatic @sendhelpimstupid @sokkasangel @xoxopam4

[awhitehead17]

100 ways to say I love you - TimKon edition:

Number 48: “I’ll do it for you.” 

Enjoy! :D

The slamming of the mug startles Kon out of his sleepy haze. He jerks upright, narrowly avoiding not throwing his coffee everywhere, and looks around wildly for the cause of the noise. He’s still in the process of waking up so his mind is taking a little bit longer to comprehend everything that’s going on.

Once his mind has caught up he realises that he’s watching Tim storm up and down the kitchen, yelling into his phone, while he’s half dressed in a work suit and how there is coffee spilled over the kitchen countertop which is now dripping onto the floor.

Tim is livid. He’s yelling a large variety of curse words into the phone’s speaker, certainly giving the receiver an ear full as his free arm flies around all over the place while he yells. Kon wonders what’s caused his boyfriend to become so worked up at seven in the morning.

Knowing there isn’t anything he can do he stays quietly sat at the island and drinks his coffee as he watches Tim pace the kitchen. It’s a good thing they don’t have neighbours because they would’ve most definitely woken up by now considering how loud Tim’s shouting. He’s going to wait until Tim has finished on the phone and has calmed down a bit before approaching him about what’s going on. Kon’s also going to wait until he’s stopped pacing before clearing up the spilled drink, he doesn’t want to get in Tim’s way and get trampled in the process.

“The next time I see you, I swear to god, I will decapitate you and then proceed to present your head on a silver platter with an apple shoved in your jaw.”

Kon’s eyes widen and he stares at his boyfriend in shock. What kind of threat was that? With how venomous Tim’s tone is Kon’s pretty sure it’s not a threat but a promise. Now he really feels sorry for the guy on the other end of the phone.

Trying to remove that explicit image from his mind he focuses back on Tim in time to see him hang up and slam his phone down on the kitchen counter. Dead silence fills the kitchen and the atmosphere becomes thick and heavy. Kon’s not entirely sure how he should break the tension in the room without getting snapped at by his boyfriend. Tim on the other hand stands in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, his head hanging towards his chest as he takes long deep breathes clearly trying to calm himself down.

Thankfully it isn’t Kon who breaks the ice because Tim turns around and faces him, he sends him an apologetic look as he drops his hands down by his side. “Sorry about that and for the mess, I’ll clean it up in a moment. It’s not even eight o’clock and I’m already done with today.”

Kon makes a face. “That was heavy. What poor soul has a silver platter with their name on it?”

Tim waves a hand dismissing the question. “Just some incompetent moron, don’t worry about it.”

Kon raises an eyebrow, he’s still curious but is also now slightly amused at the whole situation. Pretty much anyone under the sun could come under that category. “You know, you sound Damian saying that. That threat also sounds like something Jason would say.”

Tim pauses. After a moment he sends him a horrified look. “Oh my god, I’m turning into my brothers. I’ve been spending too much time with them.”

“I’m pretty sure violent tendencies run throughout your family Tim, it was only a matter of time before you got corrupted too.” Kon snorts. At least Tim seems to have calmed down now, while Kon is curious to what the whole thing was about he knows better than to bring it up and start Tim off again.

His boyfriend takes a deep breath and shakes his head with a little huff of laughter at the idea of it. Unfortunately the tranquillity of the moment doesn’t last long as it’s broken by the shrill of Tim’s phone ringing. It’s probably more incompetent morons, especially people Tim doesn’t want to be dealing with if the resigned sigh is anything to go by.  

Tim glares at the phone, not making a move to pick it up, long enough for it to stop ringing. The two of them don’t get a chance to enjoy the silence it brings as the device immediately starts ringing again, clearly whoever is trying to get hold of Tim is determined.

This time before Tim could do anything, Kon jumps up from his seat, moves around the island and stands in front of his boyfriend. He reaches out and puts his hand on top of Tim’s phone to stop him from picking up the device. When Tim pulls back and shoots Kon a look, Kon meets his gaze head on.

“Ignore this for now,” he tells him gently but firmly, “whoever it is can wait. Why don’t you go and finish getting yourself ready and then deal with it once you’re at the office. It’s seven in morning, I’m sure they can last an hour without you.”

Tim looks like he wants to protest. He bites his lower lip and stares at the phone under Kon’s hand with narrowed eyes but otherwise doesn’t move. Kon takes initiative and reaches out with his other to press it against Tim’s shoulder, gently nudging him backwards away from the counter.

“Go. It’s not going anywhere.”

Tim shakes his head and sighs in defeat. He takes a step back but instead of heading for the door he moves towards the kitchen sink. Grabbing a cloth he says, “Okay but first I’m going to clean that mess up.”

Rolling his eyes, Kon follows Tim to the sink and plucks the cloth out of his hands. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it for you. Now go and sort yourself out.”

His boyfriend stares at him incredulously like he couldn’t believe how pushy Kon is being that morning. Kon stares back, giving him a look that tells him he isn’t putting up with any bullshit.

After a moment Tim chuckles lowly, shaking his head as he does. Before Kon could question him on what’s funny Tim suddenly turns to face him with a mischievous look on his face that has him pausing.

Tim nonchalantly leans back against the sink, turning his body invitingly to Kon. “Before I go and get ready there’s something I really have to do first.”

Feeling exasperated, Kon huffs. “What? What could you possibly need to do right now?”

“This…”

Suddenly Tim’s lips are covering Kon’s own. Without any warning Tim had grabbed the front of Kon’s t-shirt and yanked him forward and started to kiss him. Kon let out a noise of surprise but relaxes into the kiss, letting Tim swallow any noise he makes. His eyes flutter close and he automatically tilts his head to accommodate Tim’s, allowing their bodies to press closer together and their lips to move more freely against each other’s.

A noise gets caught in the back of Kon’s throat as Tim takes his bottom lip between his own. After a second Tim lets his lip go and repeats the motion with Kon’s top lip. Just as Kon begins to reciprocate Tim pulls away which has him chasing Tim’s lips, searching for more because he wasn’t ready for it to end.

Tim grants him his desires because seconds later their lips clash again, this time with more passion and insistence than before. Tim requests entrance to his mouth and Kon willingly opens up for him. He lets Tim control the kiss as he gets lost in all the sensations that is his boyfriend.

An unknown amount of time later they separate and each take a breath as they calm down. Kon pulls away from Tim to get a good look at his face, which is now slightly flushed with slightly swollen lips. “So that was something.”

Tim hums in response.

“If that’s your way of ignoring calls then I can’t say I’m exactly against it…”

“I wanted to kiss you so I did.” Tim tells him like it’s the simplest thing in the world. And doesn’t that just make Kon’s heart beat a million times faster than before.

Kon leans in close, giving Tim’s waist a squeeze with his hands. “Well why don’t we continue that later on? Once you’re finished in the office you can come back here, turn that damn phone off and then you’ll be nothing but mine the whole night.”

Tim closes his eyes and grins. When he opens his eyes again Kon could see the lust in them as he stares back. “Sounds perfect. Now I have an entirely different reason why I want this day to be done with already.”

Kon snorts and presses a chaste kiss to Tim’s lips before moving away from him. “Now go and finish getting ready. You don’t want to be late.”

“Yes sir.” Tim mocks and finally exits the kitchen, leaving behind a very smitten Kon at the sink.

[tryingmyves]

Sober

DENKI KAMINARI x Y/N

part two

A/N: A fic inspired by Wish You Were Sober by Conan Gray (I swear they put crack in this song). You’ve been in love with Denki Kaminari for as long as you can remember and he only seems to think of you as more than a friend when he’s inebriated. Simple, right?

sorry this chapter got a bit long but things are getting ~spicy~

c/w: alcohol mention, smut (soon)

chapter 1

[FOUR MONTHS AGO]

Technically, classes wouldn’t start for three more days, so you weren’t quite a college student. But you and Kaminari came to the city early because the lease on his apartment was starting and you needed to meet someone from Craig’s List about the car you plan to buy. To be honest, the car was what you expected: a piece of shit. But it would get you to your part time job and back to campus, so what more could you ask for? You couldn’t move into your dorm until tomorrow, but Kaminari said you could stay with him for the night. His roommate Kirishima hadn't moved in yet, so he had extra space.

Aside from the brief meeting with the stranger you bought your car from, you and Kaminari spent the day hauling cheap furniture up four flights of stairs into his apartment. Both of you were utterly exhausted. You were both covered in the grime of your own sweat; countless trips up and down the stairs had left your legs burning and heavy. When you agreed to help Kaminari move in you didn’t expect that he'd have so much shit, or that his apartment would be on the top floor of a building with no elevator. But at the current juncture you were too fatigued to complain. The two of you are laying on your backs, sprawled out on the cold wooden floor of the living room, unpacked boxes surrounding you.

“I feel disgusting,” you complain, raising your head slightly off the ground and unsticking the mat of sweaty hair from the back of your neck. You push it upwards so it fans out above your head.

“Yeah, you smell kind of disgusting too,” Kaminari replies with a laugh that becomes a cough when your arm swings down to connect with his stomach.

“I think you mean, “gee Y/N, thanks so much for helping me move into my apartment! I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Kaminari raises himself up on his elbows, still recovering from your blow. “Hey - I have your thank you, it’s just in one of these boxes. Alcohol tends to be the universal thank you for helping a friend move - plus I don’t have wifi until tomorrow, so tonight we’re getting drunk and celebrating as college students!” he smiles.

You let out a sigh, “Well I hope you have ice. Find my thank you gift - I’m going to go break in your shower,” you say rising from the floor, “but not because you said I smell. Only because I want to!”

Kaminari laughs as you make your way to the bathroom, pulling himself off the floor as well to start rooting through the cardboard boxes full of his belongings. You lock the bathroom door behind you and spend a few moments deciphering how to use the unfamiliar shower. You start the water, a bit cooler than usual, still feeling balmy from all of today’s physical activity. After moving all of Denki’s belongings into the apartment you didn’t remember to grab anything of your own, so you would be using his toiletries to wash up. You throw a thin towel on the back of the toilet before stepping into the refreshing stream of water. The water cascades down your face, snaking down the curves of your body before disappearing down the drain. A sigh escapes your lips, thankful for a small moment of relaxation after a long day. You get to work washing your hair and scrubbing the day's sweat off of yourself, wrapped in the scent of cedarwood and lemon, something you’ve long associated with Kaminari. After roughly fifteen minutes you feel sufficiently clean and turn off the shower, stepping out to towel yourself off.

Not wanting to put your dirty clothes back on, you sneak out of the bathroom with your towel wrapped around you and down the hall to Kaminari’s room. You snatch a t-shirt and pair of sweats out of an opened box and creep back to the bathroom to get dressed and brush out your hair. You pull the over-sized shirt on, relishing the traces of Denki’s cologne that linger on the fabric and step into the sweats. You rake a comb through your wet tresses before re-emerging from the bathroom. You find Kaminari in his kitchen, haphazardly unpacking a box of cutlery with a mixed drink in his hand.

“Did you break into my thank you present without me, Denki?”

He turns at the sound of your voice, “Well maybe if you hadn’t taken so long -” He stops, registering you’re now in his clothes instead of your own. “Hah, nice threads,” he laughs.

You grab the hem of the shirt, holding it out from you a bit as if you're presenting it. “Yeah, well my shower wasn’t going to do much good if I got back into my sweaty clothes, so I helped myself.”

“Seems to be a recurring theme tonight. I don’t mind, you look cuter in it than I do anyway,” he winks at you. “Now,” he slides a second cup across the counter towards you, “thanks for helping me move in. Let’s get drunk!”`

You smile as you place the cup to your lips for a drink, your mind buzzing even without the alcohol. You’ve been friends with Denki long enough to know that he is always flirting, even if he doesn’t mean anything by it. Usually you just brush off his comments or turn the tables with a line of your own, hoping to get him flustered. But lately you haven’t been able to ignore the flutters in your chest at his words. The pair of you have been friends since middle school and you’ve grown accustomed to people assuming you’re more than that. But in reality, things between you and Denki have always been platonic, despite the incessant flirting. However, you want there to be more. His golden eyes draw you into him and he can so effortlessly make you laugh. For you, home isn’t a static location but wherever Denki happens to be.

“Woah Y/N, I didn’t mean you had to chug it!”

Denki’s comment snaps you out of your thoughts and you realize you’ve drunk nearly half of your drink while lost in silent longing. You lower the cup, “Well you have a headstart on me!” you reason, not wanting to tell Denki he’s the reason you got lost in your cups.

“Fair enough, but head start or not, I’m drinking you under the table tonight,” he challenges. “Let’s play some Mario Kart! I set up the switch while you were in the shower.”

“Fine, but if you’re wanting to get drunk we’re playing Beer-i-o Kart.”

Kaminari huffs, “well, obviously.” He grabs a bottle of whiskey in addition to his own cup and heads to the couch, you following close behind.

The rules of the game are simple: you win if you’re the first person to cross the finish line but you have to finish your drink before the end of the race. Even in the world of Mario Kart, drinking and driving is a no go, so there’s a few different options on how to play. You can either chug your drink at the start, put your controller down mid race to slam your drink, or stop just before the finish line on lap three to empty your cup. You can also drink while you’re put back on the track if you somehow manage to drive off the course. Both you and Denki are highly competitive, and while he might think he has the monopoly on video games, your skills rival his.

Unsurprisingly, Denki picks the Lightning Cup as it’s both a nod to his quirk and he’s a sadist who actually enjoys rainbow road. He beats you handily in the first two races, able to finish his drink slightly quicker than you, but you manage to win the Grumble Volcano race. He hits pause before the final race can start so he can mix two more drinks. You laugh as he nearly drops his own cup, his cheeks pink from all the liquor.

“Oh shut it, Y/N, or you can make your own drink.”

“Aw, don’t be bitter just because you lost that one Denki!” you tease.

He hands your now full cup back to you, “Yeah well this next one’s all mine. You’re going down!”

You just stick your tongue out in response and ready yourself for the last race. Once you’ve both situated yourself, Denki unpauses the game and the countdown begins. He immediately starts chugging his drink but you peel out from the starting line. You know you’ll fall off the map several times, so you might as well use that time effectively by drinking then. Denki finishes the freshly poured drink in under 30 seconds and is already in hot pursuit. He manages to pass you on the first lap and despite the multiple red shells you send his way, you can’t catch up. You’re not sure if it’s your competitive nature or the copious amounts of alcohol that influence your next move, but you shift from your seat on the couch and plant yourself directly in Denki's lap, blocking his view of the screen and making him drive off the road.

“Y/N, you cheater!!” Denki squirms beneath you, trying to dislodge you from your new position.

You laugh, “We never said this was against the rules!”

You zip past his character as he’s being lowered back onto the track, a triumphant hah! announcing you’ve overtaken him.

“Well in that case, neither is this!” Denki’s hands grip at your sides, his fingers poking at all your most ticklish spots. You shriek in surprise and jump from his lap, desperate to get away from the sudden assault. You land on the couch, laying on your back, but Denki doesn’t relent. He crawls between your legs and bares over you with a wicked grin on his face before bringing his hands to your sides once more.

Now you’re squirming beneath him, a breathless ball of laughter, your game forgotten in the background. When Denki finally stops tickling you his face is no more than a foot from your own. Your better judgement goes out the window, forced out by the haze of your laughter and half a bottle of alcohol. You wrap an arm around the back of Denki’s neck and pull his lips to yours. You can feel the smile on his face as he opens his mouth, tracing at your lips with the tip of his tongue. You part your lips, allowing him inside. His lips are soft and you're not sure whether or not he activated his quirk but you’re feeling sparks.

He separates from you, nipping at your bottom lip as he does. His forehead resting on your own he whispers, “I’ve always wondered what that would be like. It’s better than I thought.”

The low hush in his voice makes your breath catch. “What else have you wondered about?”

“Well if kissing you is this good, I can only wonder what you’re like in bed.”

You press your lips to his again, “one way to find out,” you say through the kiss.

At that, Kaminari grabs your thighs and stands from the couch, hoisting you to his waist. He carries you down the hallway towards his bedroom, kissing you the whole way. As you cross the threshold of his room he separates from you, “say less.”

[cptnbvcks]

Honestly ANY goofy prompt with Javier

dripping (javier peña x reader)

words: 5.5k

prompt: goofy — with food

summary: javi brings you something to take the edge off during one of colombia’s heatwaves

warnings: smut smut smut, sticky situations (literally)

a/n: this was too long for any kind of drabble and i hate myself for it and this was significantly prompted by my childish urge for snow cones mid-february. this is also half unedited filth lmao sorry

You always thought that Miami was hot during the summer, but Colombian summers felt like the devil himself had turned on the fucking broiler and left the entire goddamn city of Bogota to roast.

Every window of your apartment was pushed open, beckoning any hopeful gust of damp breeze to uselessly relieve the drowning humidity that was swelling within the cramped one bedroom home. If you could have stuck your head through the burglar-proof bars and hung half your body out onto the street, that’s probably how Javier would have found you when he slid the spare key into your front door and let himself in. 

Instead, Javi found you half-sprawled on the living room floor, dressed in nothing but a pair of cotton shorts and a thin tank top with your legs stretched out languidly across the cool tile. A half melted cup of ice lingered in a pool of condensation as you sat in front of a struggling electric fan while also clutching another hand-held woven fan that you had obtained as a wedding favour from some distant older cousin on your mother’s side of the family. 

You only opened one eye to peer up at him as he entered your field of view. 

Javi chuckled at the sight.

“News says the heatwave’s not supposed to let up until Monday,” Javi informed with a playful tease to his voice, as you closed your eyes to groan pathetically, “But, I brought something that might take the edge off.” 

When you opened your eyes again, Javi was lowering himself to a squat infront you. Your eyes drifted from his amused eyes to his out stretched hands, both of which held a small styrofoam cup filled to the brim with a sad looking dome of syrup covered and half-melted shaved ice.

“Snow cones?” You snort humorously, a smile quickly spreading across your face at the sweet gesture. You grabbed the cone doused in red syrup, swapping the cup from one hand to the other as you noticed the mess the melted ice was making around its container. Javi’s hands were covered in it. “I haven’t had these for years. Are they from—?”

“The vendor across from Maria’s, yeah. You should have seen the line of kids. I’ve seen smaller mobs at election campaigns,” he said, lifting his messy hand to his mouth to mindlessly clean off the sticky syrup residue. He let himself fall back heavily on the floor across from you, his back propped up by the island cabinets and legs splayed on either side of yours, “I was on my way over and I saw that he was out today — thought of you.” 

Your eyes followed his motion of his tongue, dragging thoughtless motions over the webbing of his fingers as he drew back to speak. A bead of sweat marked its way across the side of your temple, its path mimicked by the trickling ice running over the cup’s rim and collecting around your overheated hand. You blink back to attention as his throw-away words drag your heat-weighted brain to attention. 

A smile as lazy as the heat teased at your mouth as you brought the cup to your mouth, using your lips and tongue to scoop into the side of the dwindling dome of shaved ice. You hum around the treat, eyes glistening mischievously as you watched him sip at the edge of his cup. “You thinking about me, Javi?”

“Don’t let it get to your head,” he grunted back, his brow furrowed with small focus as he looked from the snow cone to you. His eyes lowered to your mouth when you purposefully ran a pink-dyed tongue over your lips. 

You hummed an affirmation under your breath as you tapped your bare foot into the inner portion of his thigh to watch him jump at the contact. Javier circled his free hand around your ankle, squeezing in small warning to behave. 

A drop of watery syrup hit the top of your foot as the calloused pad of his thumb rubbed a broad circle against your skin. 

“Mmm, too late.”

There’s a moment of silence that passes between the two of you, eyes locked on one another from across the narrow space between the kitchen counter and the island. Javier’s fingers stroke mindless patterns around the prominent bone of your ankle as you watch him manoeuvre around the snow cone, quietly noticing the way his baby blue shirt clung damply to his chest in spite of the first few buttons being undone. 

Your eyes follow a small bead of sweat across the tendons of his neck, watching as it soaked into the collar of his shirt. 

The snow cones didn’t stand a chance in this heat. 

“You’re dripping,” Javier pointed out, the drag of his voice drawing your thoughts sluggishly back to attention. You raise a brow as he lifts his half-melted cup, raising a finger around it to point at your chest. 

Tipping your chin, you notice the raspberry syrup stains that sprawled in messy drips over the front of your camisole. You laugh, because you know where your attention had been, and it hadn’t been on the cup of melting ice and liquid sugar.

“Oops.” 

The word drops coyly from your lips, molasses thick and just as sweet. 

Javier’s fingers twitch on your foot and his eyes don’t move any higher than the swell of your breasts, or the sheer top that no longer escapes his attention. 

Your eyes are on him again when you tilt the styrofoam just a little more.

Another drop of syrup and ice falls. This time, it lands on skin. 

Javier grips you beneath your shin and inhales lowly as your nipples visibly harden at the cold trail the spill leaves behind on its path down your cleavage. It’s icy cold even at its melting point but it does nothing to quell the wet heat that clings to your skin.

“Mala,” Javier breathes, the word dragging through the haze of the room. Bad.

You tap your foot against his thigh again, but this time you twist the appendage out of his grip with a quick roll and hook your leg over his thigh. Javier’s eyes don’t miss the not-so-subtle parting of your thighs as you scoot forward, both legs spreading and coming to a bend on either side of his hips until you sat squarely between his thighs. Your head tilted forward, tempting to bridge the small gap that existed between your faces.

 At this distance you could see the speckling of sweat that peppered the length of his neck. You licked your lips and suppressed the urge to taste his skin. 

Not yet.

There was pleasure in the denial, in the oppressing swelter. So you told yourself — not yet. 

“Yeah?” You purred, watching the way he worked his jaw in small resistance. 

Javier could feel the warmth radiating from you — sauna hot and hotter still in that sinful space between your clothed cunt and his crotch. Trying not to smirk, you purposefully shift onto your knees, straddling him as you set one hand on his shoulder as stretch your torso up and set your cup onto the counter behind him. The movement centring your tits right up to his face, close enough that you feel his breaths fan out warmly across your sternum. 

“Maybe I’m just trying to cool down, Javi. You gonna blame a girl for trying not to overheat in this weather?” 

“Is this your idea of cooling down? Putting your tits in my face?” Javi asked, the words hushed as he followed the impulse to lean forward, his mouth opening and his tongue pressing a searing swipe along the remnant trail of syrup. 

Sweet and salty and so fucking soft when he drags his free hand up along the back of your thigh, squeezing for the sake of feeling the plush give of your flesh in his sticky hands. He goes for the straps of the camisole next, his manners non-existent when he yanks the thin strap down your arm and digs his fingers into the neckline of the stretchy polyester to expose your left breast to the humid air. 

You laughed at his impatience, one hand dropping to cup the back of his head and card through the damp strands that clung to the base of his neck. 

“Something like it,” you say, the words sighing on the edge of your laughter as you hold his head to your chest, a soft noise muffling itself behind your lips as he sucks a raspberry hued bruise into the top of your breast. 

His mouth is cold and it sends a deep shudder along the valley of your spine that clenches vice-tight between your thighs. You know that you could get off on this alone, with his mouth bruising your breasts in red and blue patches — hell, he’s made you do it before (much to your own surprise). 

“You taste so good, baby,” he murmurs, his teeth catching flesh and pulling a weak noise from your throat as he circles his free hand around your lower back, pressing your thighs harder into his torso while you remain poised taller on your knees. You don’t miss the way he sneaks a finger against the crotch of your shorts when he grabs your thigh from behind. “Come here.” 

You grunt a response as you sink your hips back down into his lap before he can finish his path to your nipple. The edge of the styrofoam cup bumps your thigh as Javier mindlessly grabs for your waist, having forgotten the melted treat entirely from the minute you parted your legs to taunt him. 

The cup tilts in his distracted grip, allowing the remainder of the dwindling ice hill to slosh out and land with a wet splat on your bare thigh. The shock of the temperature earns a startled shout that makes Javier laugh deep in his chest. 

“Javi!” 

“You’re making a mess, mina,” Javier taunts, mouth against your throat and a chiding pique to his voice that almost sounded like tutting. The spill runs berry pink streams over the flesh of your thigh, rivulets of its melt curving a slow descent to your inner thigh. 

“I’m making a mess?”

“Yes.” 

He punctuates the syllable with a soft growl as you begin to lean away from his prying mouth, forcing his lips to chase you as you arch out of his reach. You allow him the distraction of the chase, stealing the now half-empty cup from his hand before he eagerly uses his new found freedom to grip at your thigh. 

His hands smears across the mess he made, spreading it across your skin when he reaches for your half-exposed breasts to finish tearing down the other side of your shirt.

Javier cups his hands under your breasts, pressing into your ribcage as he squeezes them together and watches in rapture as they fall back into place. Your breath comes shaky when he drags his palm across your hardened nipple, the syrup slick on your skin and dying your flesh in streaks of sweet magenta. 

It’s cold and your skin burns and you’re thinking it has something more to do with the DEA agent fondling your tits and less so with the swimming heat that’s swirling through the apartment.

Javier brings his mouth to your nipple, tongue pressing flat and teeth scraping achingly over the swollen flesh as your hips instinctively roll into his. He groans into your chest when you repeat the motion, arching into his mouth as your fingers press into the back of his head to hold him tight. 

You can feel the sweat beading at the nape of his neck, the slickness of his skin that makes you wonder just how messy things can really get. 

“Javi,” you moan softly, your shoulders hunching slightly as a high note leaves your throat when he begins sucking another hard bruise into the side of your breast, just beneath your nipple, “Javi.” 

Javier doesn’t pull back until he knows your skin has bloomed the same shade of crimson as the syrup, the kind that turns violet in the hours after. Your exhale is already wrecked when he releases his grip on your left breast, guiding his clean fingers to the cusp of your shoulder and throat. 

Your skin is sweat and syrup and he uses his other hand to paint you to his liking. 

The next noise you make is the soft grunt of a constricted moan when he squeezes gently. It’s brief, but lingers long enough to make you rut your aching core against him like a bitch so far in heat that not even the melted ice running down your leg could sequester.

The air is heavy with more than humidity and every gulp feels like sucking down water, growing worse yet when Javier’s fingers move to the back of your neck, gripping tight into the muscle there. 

Your cheeks burn with flustered anticipation when he cups your jaw with his other palm, sticky fingers spreading a layer of coloured sugar over your cheeks and chin. His thumb coats your bottom lip with it, skin tugging at that tacky stick of drying sugar.

“Open your mouth, baby.” 

Your eyes are half lidded, heavy with the weight of your own desire, as you look down at the man. It’s not his order that gets your submission; it’s the demanding press of his thumb between slackened lips that jerks your mouth into motion. 

Javier watches as you tilt your head as best as you could, your neck and head held securely between both of his hands. Your jaw works with each suck as you taste the artificial raspberry flavour of his thumb. 

Javier helps you along, pressing his thumb into your tongue as you drag it over the sensitive pad of his calloused fingers. The act earns a tight squeeze to the back of your neck as he softly mumbles to himself more so than to you, “That’s it, mina. So good for me, aren’t you?” 

Tipping your chin in a weak nod, you pin him with those achingly soft eyes with blow out irises and droopy lids that makes his cock twitch between all the layers of clothes. His thumb disappears from your mouth and leaves you gasping for air. 

You grind into his jeans again and hear yourself moan his name. Fuck, at this point you weren’t even sure anymore if that dampness between your legs was from the melted snow cone. 

“I thought you were cooling down,” Javi smirks, the words rough and dragging slow on his tongue like his thoughts were moving just as sluggishly as everything did in this weather. He manipulates your head in his grasp, tilting your head down as he drags his spit-dampened thumb over the heel of your chin. 

“I am,” you hum, your body undulating slowly over the hard ridge pressing incessantly from within his jeans. Your fingers grip at the cup that you had forgotten was still sitting in your strained grasp, the styrofoam punctured in spots from your nails digging into the sides. Your lips curl with a mischievous smirk. “Spilling that snow cone all over me really helped.” 

You take him by surprise when you press your palm to his chest and shove him backwards, the movement demanding of his obedience and his shoulders hit the cabinet with a wooden clatter and a spare grunt. 

His eyes are starved and the way his lips pout on the remnants of his kisses make you want to sink further down and press your lips to his until you forget where your breaths become his.

Javier stares up at you as your index finger dips into the deep part of his button down, pulling until the button gives.

Slowly, you lower your head to ghost your sticky lips against his, your exhale warm over his chin. Your eyes watch as his flutter closed, his head tilting to slot his lips against yours with only the small hesitation to prolong the moment. His fingers twitch against the back of your neck and jaw, domineering but tenderly supportive as he kisses your berry lips until he tastes the salt of sweat that had gathered on your upper lip.

Javier doesn’t see when you pull his shirt away from his chest by the crook of your finger — doesn’t see when you tip the cup into the space and let the coldness of it jerk him out of his moments reverie. 

“Jesus Christ!” He hisses, jerking back as his hands release your head to pull his soaked shirt away from his skin. 

You laugh, loud enough that the sound might have floated through the open windows and down into the streets below. 

“See? Cooled you right down.” 

The laughter doesn’t linger long before he’s pushing you down onto the tiles, the temperature change that slaps against your lower back makes you arch uncomfortably as your thighs spread around his hips. 

Javier cages you in, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that’s more tongue and teeth and frantic urgency. Your lips part on the heel of a grin and he takes the opportunity to drag his tongue against the roof of your mouth. 

The humour turns foggy in your thoughts when his fingers tangle into the roots of your hair. 

“I’ll get you back for that,” Javi speaks against your chin and you shiver at the damning sound of his belt unbuckling. That’s your cue to set your hands into the part of his shirt and pull until the buttons pop free, shoving the ruined article over his shoulders as he leans up to aid its removal.

“You promise, Javi?” You purr back, dragging your nails over his stained and sticky chest and drawing a lazy circle over his left nipple with your index finger.

He shudders and grabs your wrist, his fingers circling easy around the thin bird-like bones when he pulls your hand to his sternum in a silent demand to touch him. His eyes are dark and set heavy when he pins you with a look that makes you painfully aware of the profound empty yearning growing between your thighs.

You let your eyes follow your fingertips down the expanse of his chest when he leans back on his knees to tug his belt out of its loops. His eyes wander — over your heaving, food-colouring stained breasts to the way your thighs part eagerly over his thighs. They hang loose enough that he can see the blush of your cunt through one of the leg holes. 

Javier growls deep in his chest at the sight. 

Mindlessly, his hand trails through the remnants of the spill he had made on your thigh and carries the mess up into the open leg of your cotton shorts. 

Your head falls back into the tile and your body coils achingly tight when he flattens his fingers across your pelvis and draws the coarse pad of his thumb over the seam of your pussy. Your knee jerks against his hip, your fist clenches in the hem of his jeans, and the noise that bubbles from your lips is just as heavy as the mid-heatwave air. 

“F-fuck, Javi, baby—” you whimper, lower lip quivering when he presses his thumb past your slick folds to find that little bundle of nerve endings that make your back arch high and your thighs threaten to snap closed. His fingers are coarse against your flesh and you pull hard on his jeans when he presses quick, purposeful circles into your clit just to watch you squeal eager nonsense beneath him.

“Right there, baby?” Javier tilts his chin and watches as you shiver in spite of the swelter, your muscles quickly losing their coordination when he drags your clit with a single rough sweep of his thumb. Your thigh jumps, threatening to shut tight in instinctive resistance, but he presses a broad palm over your inner thigh and holds you open. 

The noise you make, just like your laughter, reaches the taxi-lined streets below.

“Ye–yes— Javi, Javi! Please, baby!” 

Javier swears he might have cum right fucking there if you called his name like that again.

You sob into the humid apartment, gasping down a lungful of wet air when Javier pulls his hand out of the leg of your shorts. Your thoughts lag behind your reaction as he hooks his hands beneath your thighs, pushing them to your torso before hooking his fingers into the damp fabric, guiding it over your thighs and calves. He does not touch the camisole still wrapped around your hips when he lets your thighs limply fall open around him again.

You swear the room gets a few degrees hotter without your clothes on, and even more so when you catch the way his eyes fall to your exposed cunt, surely just as glistening and damp as the rest of your fucking body. 

“Please, Javi,” your voice is smaller now as your fingers find themselves back at the fly of his jeans, pulling until the button pops open. The sound of his zipper lowering and the soft drag of your voice is enough to get Javier just where you need him. You feel as much when you raise your shoulders to lower your hand into his jeans, biting back the teasing smirk at his convenient lack of underwear. Batting your eyes as innocently as you can, you draw him from the constraint of his pants to circle dainty fingers over the base of his cock. 

There’s a heaviness in his eyes as he stays on his knees between your thighs, watching your honey-warm eyes droop with lust when his hand wraps around yours, tightening your grip with a soft exhale. You begin to guide him, cock first, towards your core. 

For once, Javier’s speechless, swallowing thick in the heady air as he lets you guide him.

“Please, fuck me, Javi.” 

The laze breaks when you whimper his name like that, desperate and shameless, sweetly polite while saying the most impolite things. 

His fingers dig divots into the flesh of your thighs as he spreads you further, squeezing your palm beneath his, trapping it there as he drags the smooth head of his cock through your folds. 

He doesn’t catch the way your eyes flutter when strokes himself against your clit, but he feels the way your ankles squeeze against his thighs when he draws back, angles proper, and stretches you open on his length.

“Fuck, baby,” Javier curses and your refuse yourself the pleasure of shutting your eyes just so you can look up at the way his head lowers, the tips of his hair hanging heavy and damp into his forehead while his brow furrows deeply at the sight of your hand beneath his as your pussy clenches tight and eager around the first few inches of him. 

Even this wet, the stretch aches deep in your body with a small pinch of pain that you’ve grown to savour every time he comes home and loses himself between your thighs. 

“I’ll never get tired of this pussy,” he growls, hearing the soft effortful noises that swim through the air between your parted lips when he circles his arm beneath one bent knee and uses the leverage to yank you forward, forcing you to take him completely, “Never, mina. Never.” 

His head lifts then, catching the way your eyes wrench shut, the way your mouth purses together at the sharp strain and full pleasure that hits you too deep to completely fathom. 

Your coy one-liners die a brief death before resurrecting again the moment your hand, previously wrapped around his cock, to your aching clit.

“You— better not,” you grunt, the words jerking out of your throat in uneven gasps as Javier rocks his hips into yours with determinedly shallow thrusts, working you open. He pushes your thigh further into your chest and you swear the air leaves your lungs when he hits that familiar spot that knocks the vocabulary straight out of your head.

Your walls squeeze around him and the heat he feels inside of you is blinding; fevered from the inside out and it brings sweat beading across his forehead when he slumps his body down against yours to bury his face against your shoulder. You whine, high and loud, when he pins your knee against your chest, trapping your fingers between his pelvis and yours when he circles his hips and grinds deep. 

It’s sweaty and sticky and your skin clings to his when your tits push into his chest. Your free hand curves up the muscles of his back, feeling the way his shoulder blades shift under the press of your fingers when he sets his forearm on the ground beside your head and lays into you. Your nerves light white-hot and you squeeze him with every fucking muscle in your pelvic floor with each press of his hips that sends your fingers harder against your clit.

“Tightest little— thing I’ve ever fucked, sweetheart,” Javier groans, his mouth at your ear and his fist clenching around the spill of hair beneath your head, his words jagged and rasping with every steady thrust. His nose brushes against the patch of skin between your ear and jaw, his lips trailing down to the beating pulse of your throat and sucking another hard bruise right there.

You moan like a whore for him, his words coiling something deep and fucking feral in the pit of your stomach. You think you’re babbling, something along the lines of harder, Javi, please, please. 

“Christ, baby, you’re a fucking mess.” 

The closeness burns you up, even more so when he draws his hips back, dragging heavily through your soaked walls. You try to chase his movement, aching and squeezing around nothing until he’s inside of you again with a thrust so hard it tears the cry from your lips and sends your back skidding sweatily against the kitchen tile. 

Javier tightens his grip around the underside of your thigh, and it hurts but you can’t process anything but the way he’s rutting into you like he means to fuck you straight through the floor and into your downstairs neighbour’s apartment. 

Your eyes feel damp and you can’t tell if its tears or sweat or a little of both, much less if it’s your sweat or his.

“I’m close,” Javier’s voice echoes somewhere in the haze, gravelly and tight as every syllable vibrates across his chest, “Do you want me to—?” 

“No!” A particularly solid thrust jerks the word abruptly from your chest and Javier almost laughs when you drop your hand from the back of his shoulder to the base of his hip, squeezing hard to urge him forward, “No, please, Javi. Cum inside, fuck— cum inside me.” 

The demand falls to unintelligible cries as his fingers sink beneath your head, pulling your head from the floor as he fucks into you with little regard for the heat or the sweat or the layer of sticky sweet syrup that’s only getting stickier with each thrust of his body into yours. 

You bury your head into his shoulder and cling to him as tight as you can, your fingers working quick circles over your clit until your muscles strain and shake before everything uncoils, slick and hot and all at once like someone just pulled the proverbial fucking rug out from under your body. 

You gasp for air but the humidity of the apartment renders you breathless, even with a lung full of oxygen. 

The reaction is far too familiar to Javier. He’s fucked you enough times to memorize the way you hold onto him when you cum — like your arms were made for nothing more than squeezing him into your body while you sob his name over and over until your throat goes dry and hoarse. Just like you’re doing now. 

Javier tightens his grip in your hair as your cries hit their peak and your nails bite into the valley of his spine, your body going taught as you cum hard enough that he swears you manage to take him a few inches deeper into your fluttering cunt. He curses deep from his chest and swears he’s hit the limit of you when you gasp and threaten to instinctively draw your hips back and away from the pressure.

His hips stutter hard as your cunt gushes warm around him, muscles spasming rhythmically despite the stretch of him filling you to your limits. You choke on his name and your final gasp when he stiffens in your arms, his cock jerking into you once, twice — and then he groans something sinful and raw into the flesh of your shoulder that he has caught between his teeth. 

You feel the warmth of him when he cums inside of you, the sensation drawing your addled attention to the weight of him nestled deep at home in your body. 

Javier doesn’t move, only letting his forehead drop heavily against your shoulder as he kisses the marks his teeth had left in your glistening skin. 

Slowly, your hand manages its way out from between your bodies, fingers slick with your own cum when you reach for his jaw and force his face from your shoulder to press your lips shakily against his. 

He relaxes his grip on your compressed thigh, moving his hand to rest against the forgivingly cool tile as you let your leg slump boneless and open against his hip.

“Javi,” you sigh as he exhales softly against your mouth, the kiss stirring him just enough that he manages to push past his own overstimulation to give a lazy thrust. Your thigh trembles when he kisses you again, his tongue tasting that raspberry flavour still lingering in your mouth. He nudges his damp forehead against yours when he draws away to kiss your cheek, then your eyelid. 

He laughs when his lips meet your forehead, tasting the sweat of your skin and the radiating heat of you on his lips. Javier lowers his lips to kiss you between your brows when a sudden booming brap brap brap makes the both of you jump in each other’s arms and jerk your heads towards the front hallway door.

Javier’s response was immediate, trained and instinctual, covering you while also recoiling one hand to where he usually kept his gun in the belt of his jeans — only to realize his pants were around his knees and his gun had been safely discarded on the hallway table. 

“Oye!” A muffled voice, elderly and warbling, shouted from the other end of the front door. You felt Javier’s body slacken against yours, his brow furrowing as the woman rapped on the door again, “Mantenga sus ventanas cerradas, por el amor de Dios. Podemos escucharte desde el porche. ¿No sabes que hay niños aquí afuera?” 

Javier’s brow furrowed as the neighbour rapped on the door four more times, the sound clearly coming from a cane and not from her fist. 

You laughed, breathless as you raised your voice, “Lo siento, Miss Rosa!” you giggle out, sliding your fingers into Javier’s hair as he shakes his head with an amused look in his eyes. Your voice lowers as the woman’s muttering fades into the distance, “Lo siento.”  

Javier shakes his head as you card your fingers through his sweaty locks, pulling his head down to press your lips to his chin and the corner of his mouth.

“You’re pissing your neighbours off again,” he murmurs.

“You’re pissing them off, Javi—” you hum out, but his only response is to press himself into you again, watching the way your lips still part in a small gasp despite having already softened inside of you, “—because every time you come here, this always happens.”

He laughs and the sound is easy and you know that his walls are lowered, though never completely down. 

“What do you say we piss off Miss Rosa a little more, hm, mina?” 

“Javi,” you warn, but his lips are already pressing slow trail of kisses down the cusp of your throat and over your chest. You hiss softly as he draws out of your pussy, leaving you suddenly with the distinct overflow of his cum when your walls squeeze achingly around nothing. 

A sharp yelp of surprise bursts from your lips when the man grabs your sides and pushes you further up the kitchen tile, your hand flying up over your head to prevent the crown of your skull from colliding with the cabinets behind you, “Javi!”

He takes advantage of the new found space to lower his face to the apex of your thighs, drawing one hand under your leg as he presses a kiss to the side of your knee. Your cheeks redden when you catch him lowering his gaze to your pussy, all soft and pink and terribly fucked out. 

You swallow roughly when he presses his mouth further down your thigh, pausing at the patch of dried syrup. His fingers grip your flesh, holding your leg still as he drags his tongue over your skin, closing his lips around your skin and sucking an easy bruise right there. He doesn’t stop until he pulls a moan from your chest. Only then does he press another kiss to your thigh, inching lower and lower.

This time, your voice is low, tinted with laughter and flustered when you press your hands to his shoulders and half-heartedly push, “Javi, don’t—”

“Keep saying my name like that and I’ll fuck you right here until we both get heatstroke,” Javi warns, the amusement in his voice clear as he looks up at you to ensure his permission to continue despite your half-hearted protests.

He lowers his head again. This time, his gaze doesn’t deviate from your face until your eyes slowly slip closed, your brow furrowing as a bead of sweat slithers its way down the side of your temple.

You whimper. 

“Javi.”

—

Tag List

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[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Star Wars Wednesday

(Part 1: In which, instead of dueling Luke at Cloud City, Vader actually uses his head for two seconds and decides to talk instead.)

Padme, something wonderful has happened.

Darth Vader stood frozen at the top of the stairs, transfixed by the sight of the small figure making his way into the carbon freeze chamber. Against all his doubts, all his fears, the boy had found him. His son. Their son. 

The orange glow of the chamber’s inner workings blended annoyingly with the lenses of his mask, obscuring much of the boy’s expression. But oh, he could feel it, even from his place on the high ground. The boy -- Luke, his Luke! -- was afraid. But more than he was afraid, he was angry. His aggressive intentions hovered above him, hissing into the air with sharp notes. And the Force responded eagerly to the measure, ready to move in harmony as soon as Luke gave the word.

“The Force is with you, young Skywalker,” Vader said by way of greeting. Look how you’ve grown was not appropriate for the moment, nor was At last, I have found you. But how he had grown! This was a far cry from the desperate teenager who had attacked him on Cymoon-1. Someone -- someone -- had taught him new skills. But even with this new training- 

“But you are not a Jedi yet.”

Do not begin a fight you cannot hope to win, my son.

Do not risk yourself needlessly.

[[MORE]]

Luke hid his fear admirably. He stifled it. Shunted it away to his survival instincts and continued his approach. The closer he got to the stairs, the more clearly Vader could see him. Surely it was not his imagination? No, Luke had grown since the last time they had been face to face. He had lost some of the softness in his face, and his shoulders were certainly broader than they had been on Cymoon. And now here he stood, caught between boyhood and manhood -- and caught between two Orders that had been fighting for his family’s loyalty for longer than he’d been alive.

When the boy ignited his lightsaber -- My old lightsaber -- and raised it into a basic stance, Vader was sorely tempted to respond in kind. It was so different from their first encounter! Luke knew more of the blade now. He could see it in his eyes. How he longed to test his son’s skill! No matter of life and death, no stakes, merely a spar for the simple pleasure of sparring with his son.

But he had no time. 

“Put it away, son.” Darth Vader folded his hands behind his back and took one step to the side. “It is not worth the possibility of injuring you.”

Anger flared, jagged and staccato from the boy. “Don’t,” he hissed between his teeth, “Call me son.”

Ah, my son, my betrayed, innocent son. You have been far too trusting. 

“Very well. Luke, then.” Vader shifted to stand one step below, putting him closer to Luke’s level. “Put away your weapon. I mean you no harm.”

A harsh sound escaped Luke. Scoff and snarl and nearly a sob all at once. “No harm?” he repeated incredulously, “Do you really think I’m going to fall for that? After what you did to my friends?”

Ah, so very like his father. And his mother. His loyalty to those who had earned his trust eclipsed even common sense at times. But then, he had counted on that. Vader had the presence of mind to be grateful that he had not allowed the Princess to be harmed. That might have threatened his chances. If the girl was truly as protective of Luke as she seemed, then having her aboard the Executor alongside Luke would ensure their cooperation.

“The methods I resorted to were...unpleasant,” he said with a conciliatory tilt of his head. “But I could find no other way to draw you to me.”

Unintended, a note of humor colored his words. “You have become quite the accomplished escape artist, young one!”

Luke’s hands shook, almost unnoticeable. He was unsettled by this strangely peaceful Lord of the Sith. There was a soft haze of confusion just beginning to overshadow his conviction, and the anger was dulling to wariness. Perfect.

“You...you hurt them!” Luke spat. His eyes widened a moment later. Horror swirled in them, chased by disgust. “You hurt them because of me?!” 

Vader took another step down. “I have no specific grievance against those you keep company with.”

“But you do with me,” the boy finished for him. He gritted his teeth. “So they were what, collateral damage?” He raised his blade again. “Someday, you’re not going to be able to treat people like things anymore, Vader. Someday, somebody’s going to put an end to you.”

Ah, look at him. Look at him, Padme. He sounds just like you. 

“Hm. And I assume that you mean today to be that day?” Vader turned. “If that is so, then why have you not attacked me yet?”

Luke swiveled quickly to keep up, and nearly lost his footing. “I’m not stupid. You’re trying to distract me.”

“The jakreb learns to listen before it runs,” Vader quoted, amused.

Startled to hear Huttese coming from someone like Darth Vader, Luke jolted noticeably. “The dragon who moves too soon is a dragon who starves,” he countered. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I highly doubt that you do.”

Rat-a-tat-tat Luke’s rising temper shook the cables and rattled against the ceiling like a drumbeat.

“You want me to drop my guard, so you can kill me. Just like you did to Ben!” he accused.

He turned his blade to a more horizontal guard and stepped up to the high ground. 

A wise move, if an unnecessary one.

“Luke.” Vader shook his head and continued to descend the staircase. “Obi-wan allowed himself to be killed. What his motives could have been, I do not know. He told himself and everyone around him such pretty lies that I am no longer certain that even he knew what his motivations were. But I assure you that whatever he did, he did so deliberately.”

It only took a few seconds for Luke to follow him. “To give us time to escape. So we could destroy your Death Star! Worked out pretty well, Vader.”

Keep following, little one. Don’t stop. 

“Indeed?” Vader turned his helmet as if glancing over his shoulder at Luke, and stepped off the edge of the platform. He landed with a heavy thud, and waited until Luke had scrambled to the edge to look for him before stepping into one of the maintenance tunnels.

“That is a topic for speculation, I believe. But for all the times your “Ben” betrayed me, it is fitting that in his final moments he unwittingly revealed you to me. Returning what he stole all those years ago.”

Confusion. Rage. Fear.

Vader smiled beneath his mask and continued down the maintenance tunnel. He did not wait for Luke. The boy would come of his own accord, or not at all. This was too important for him to ignore. 

He reached out, taking greater care than he ever had before, and brushed against his son’s mind. Can you hear me, little one? I am calling you, as I have been calling for you for so long…

He stopped, frozen mid-step. A tiny light, soft as birdsong, had touched his thoughts for just an instant. Instinctive. Unconscious. The reflexive curl of an infant’s fingers around an adult’s.

Luke knew.

Perhaps he didn’t know that he knew yet, but the truth was there, buried in his heart.

It was the same clumsy touch, feather-light and unrestrained, that he used to sense as he lay beside Padme each night, projecting love and peace and calm to their unborn baby. 

Padme, something wonderful has happened.

He remembers. 

[archonanqi]

fragile as dust / 8 - the eleventh

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ch 8 | the eleventh

The rest of the day you spend running your fingers across the rows and rows of bound leather, taking inventory of all the words and knowledge and stories that were now at your fingertips — scurrying between the library and your room, arms full of books that caught your eye. 

Zhongli watched you from his seat in the living room each time you passed, offering comments on various books that you had picked out. He seemed especially amused each time you ran past with a book regaling a legend of the Lord of Geo, though you couldn’t think of a reason why. By the time the sun had set, every surface of your room had been touched by a book or two. 

You couldn’t wait to get started, already knew which ones you wanted to read first — there was one that promised the thrilling tale of Rex Lapis’ fight against the Beast of Nian that you were itching to devour. But before anything else, there was something you had to do, something you’d been planning as soon as you’d seen the “The Fine Art of Liyue Cuisine” title on the bookshelves. 

Zhongli had been kind — beyond that, really — about your situation, but you hadn’t forgotten that you were meant to be here for his convenience. You had done nothing but cause him trouble so far, and it was your duty to make up for the expenses you’d cost him. 

(Though really, and though you would never admit it, you couldn’t deny that on some very faint level, you wanted to hear praise, your name, anything come out in that rich, deep voice of his.)

So the next time Zhongli took his walk at Yujing Terrace, you reluctantly and politely declined his invitation. Minutes after his departure, you snuck out of the door, running as fast as you could towards the northern harbor. The recipe for the pen’cai stew had called for fish, but, as you grabbed handfuls of squid from the nearest unattended stall, you decided that seafood would have to do. Seafood was something that refined nobles like Zhongli ate, after all.

The tentacles felt disgusting in your pocket the entire way home, but it was fine. You could bear it for Zhongli. You couldn’t wait to imagine his surprise and delight.

Still, how odd that of all the ingredients, seafood was the only one you couldn’t find in Zhongli’s well-stocked refrigerator! 

When you got home, you breathed a sigh of relief that Zhongli had not come home yet; you didn’t know what you would have said if he had caught you with a pocket full of squid. After changing, you cracked the recipe book open, staring at it. You’d chosen this recipe because its description had stated “ no refinement is needed for this dish ”, but still, some of these terms flew right over your head. What the fuck was a “julienne”?

Zhongli had used the stove several times, mostly to heat up leftovers from the abysmal amount of food he frequently bought, and it hadn’t seemed too hard at all for him. You would learn, just as you always did. 

---

By the time Zhongli returned home, smoke was still billowing from the windows. 

---

It was all a bit of a haze for you. The oil had started producing bright sparks (in your defense, how were you supposed to make sense of “ Heat Oil Until Hot ”??), and you knew enough about cooking at least to know that that wasn’t good. 

You also thought you knew enough about cooking to know that embers had to be put out by water. The resulting bang had sent you rolling to the floor, and when you’d gotten back up, the curtains by the stove were ablaze

When Zhongli found you, you were frozen in fear — you had backup plans for if the food burnt, but this… this went a little past that. 

From behind you, you heard a loud whoosh, felt the force of the earth knock into you. The room became enveloped briefly in a golden glow, and as you watched, the fire faded into embers, then smoke. A single glowing, red gem clattered to the ground, before dissipating with a loud hiss.

“H-how?” Was the first word out of your lips. 

“When Geo reacts with—“ Zhongli shook his head, cutting his explanation short for the first time you’d heard, “never mind that. Are you alright? Can you move?”

You let him lead you outside, numbly, silently. Finally, out in the fresh morning air, he peered down at you. You searched his face for anger, but found only mild curiosity. “Now,” Zhongli said, sitting on the grass by your side, ”would you like to tell me what happened in there?”

The weight of what you’d done hit you like an angry boar. Treacherous tears gathering behind your eyes, you whispered “I’m so sorry,” barely able to get the apologies out fast enough. “I— I thought I would surprise you with breakfast, but— but the oil and the water...“ You trailed off when he raised his hand to cover his mouth — out of anger? No, there was a smile on his face. A smile!

“My my,” he mused, the smallest of smiles playing on his face. “Truly, you are a child of Liyue. Always trying new things, rushing in headstrong.” Zhongli shook his head wistfully. “It reminds me of myself, many years ago.”

“You?” You asked in disbelief, feeling your eyes widen. You hadn’t once seen him with so much a button out of place on his intricate coat; weren’t convinced he hadn’t come out of the womb drinking pu’er tea and writing poetry. “ You’ve set things on fire before, Mr. Zhongli?”

“More times than I can count,” his smile widened, and you felt like you had learned a secret of the Gods themselves. “But as I learned, so must you: you can always ask for help, Hansi.”

Suddenly, it didn’t feel like he was talking about cooking anymore. As always, his words were so slow, so deliberate that you scoured them for a hidden meaning. If you didn’t know better, you would be deathly sure that he knew of your difficulties with the Vision. And right now, sitting on the grass next to you after you had almost burned down his home, Zhongli had never felt more approachable. Maybe you could tell him, after all.

Starting a fire was one thing , you chided yourself. Lying about possessing the power of one of the Seven Archons is another.

“I will keep that in mind, Mr. Zhongli.” You said, instead, bowing your head a little. “Thank you for… not being mad.”

“It is I who should be thanking you for your thoughtfulness. And what is it that you were trying to cook for me, my dear?”

You almost jumped at that, feeling warm color blossoming within your cheeks. He probably called everyone that — he was so traditional, after all. “Seafood stew, Mr. Zhongli.” 

Finally, to your utter confusion, Zhongli’s smile bloomed into a rich laugh. “Then I’m very sorry I missed it,” he chuckled. “Are culinary skills something you would like to learn, Hansi?” 

“Yes,” you said, frustration and indignance culminating into determination. There wasn’t one thing you hadn’t been able to learn when you’d put your heart to it — reading, stealing, surviving. Well, except... “Please, teach me.”

“You deserve a far better teacher than I,” Zhongli said, standing up and dusting his coat off, before offering you his hand. “Let’s pay Wanmin Restaurant a visit, shall we?” Then, wrinkling his nose, “though perhaps... After we rid the house of any more fire hazards.”

---

At the counter of Wanmin Restaurant was a man you had never seen before, though his resemblance to Xiangling was striking. He perked up immediately upon seeing you and Zhongli approach.

“Mr. Zhongli!” He waved frantically. “Thank you for the medicine! My knee feels better already.”

“I’m glad, Chef Mao. I’ve heard that Bubu Pharmacy’s herbal cures are nothing short of divine miracles,” Zhongli said. “Though I hear from Xiangling that you’ve been gathering herbs near Jueyun Karst? You must know that it is extremely dangerous for humans to enter.”

“Of course, of course!” Chef Mao laughed good-naturedly. “You don’t have to warn me twice. I make sure to give that place a good berth —  I don’t have enough lives to go around meeting any Adepti. Now, what brings you here today? Xiangling or I will cook anything you’re in the mood for.”

Zhongli shook his head gently. “I’ll have to take you up on that offer some other time. Today, I was hoping to ask Xiangling for some culinary tutelage. This young lady here is looking to learn how to cook.”

“Oh!” Chef Mao peered at you, as though he had just noticed you. Of course, it hadn’t helped that you were trying to hide behind Zhongli the whole time. He turned around and yelled into the kitchen, “XIANGLING! COME HERE, MR. ZHONGLI AND HIS—“ 

A pause, as he glanced between you and Zhongli, trying to ascertain your relationship.

“Friend,” Zhongli supplied. You hated that your heart skipped a beat.

“—FRIEND ARE HERE TO SEE YOU!”

Almost immediately, Xiangling’s head popped out from behind the window, waving and beaming dazzlingly. As Zhongli explained the situation to her, you once again wondered where she was storing her endless cheer. Perhaps in her hairbuns. 

“I hope that it is not too much trouble,” Zhongli concluded, crossing his arms over his chest and stepping aside. You wanted to scream at the thought that he knew you’d been trying to hide behind him.

“Nonsense!” Chef Mao slapped his hands together, and you were beginning to see where Xiangling got her enthusiasm from. “If not for you getting Wanmin Restaurant this spot on Chihu Rock, why, Rex Lapis would never have found us and written such flattering poetry about our food. Then where would we be? No favor is too big for you, my friend, let alone something so trivial as this.” 

You glanced up at Zhongli, but his expression did not change. Just exactly how much influence did Zhongli have over the city? 

Just who was he? 

“Would Miss Hansi want to work as my apprentice for a few weeks?” Xiangling asked, thoughtfully. “With the winter coming up soon, we’re going to need a lot of ingredients, so I could use an extra hand. We can’t pay very much, maybe 1,000 Mora a week, but I’ll keep you nice and full, I promise!”

A thousand Mora — that was more than you had ever had at once in your life. You jumped to say yes, but stopped yourself just in time. It wasn’t up to you. For all Zhongli’s benevolence, what nobleman would want a servant (is that what you even were?) that they'd paid for gone all day? 

You looked to Zhongli for his answer. And when he only waited patiently, you prompted, “may I accept this offer, Mr. Zhongli?”

“You are free to do as you please, Hansi.” Zhongli said, and the surprise didn’t sting as much as it used to. “I think it would be a great opportunity.”

You had never been more sure of the following “yes!” that you almost shouted at Xiangling.

Chef Mao laughed. “We’ll see how much of that enthusiasm you can keep when Xiangling starts working you to the bone!” He waved at Zhongli. “Xiangling and I will show her around the restaurant. You should get back to your work, Mr. Zhongli — you must be a very busy man.”

Zhongli raised a brow, but did not comment further. “Will you be able to find your way back home, Hansi?”

After getting your affirmation, Zhongli nodded and walked away. You would have watched him leave, if you could, studying every detail on the back of his coat — but Xiangling grabbed your hand.

“Come on!” She was almost vibrating from excitement, and you couldn’t help but match her grin with your own. “There’s SO much I need to show you!”

---

By the time Xiangling released you from your duties for the day (and you had learned more words than you thought existed), the city had grown dark.

It had been so exciting, the prospect of having a real, actual job that you didn’t have much else on your mind. And so your first mistake, you realized too late, was trying to find the same shortcuts that Zhongli had used to get home. The alleyways at night were strangers to you  — and there was good reason for it.

You thought it was your imagination at first, but it became more apparent with every crawling second: there was another pair of footsteps that echoed each of your own. You quickened your pace, noticing the echo match yours almost perfectly. As you turned down deeper between the buildings, you forced your foot to stop halfway to the ground.

The echoing footstep clacked against the cobblestone. 

There was a flurry of movement behind you, your pursuer realizing that their cover had been blown. The figure lunged at you, and you ducked at the last second— you were used to bigger men throwing their bodies at you, had long since learned how to use their weight against them. With all your strength, you aimed a kick at the man’s groin—

Only for him to catch your ankle with one of his gloved hands, yanking you off your feet, and throwing you against the wall. The impact knocks all the air from your lungs. You scrambled to get back to your feet, coughing. Instinctively, you reached for your chest, where your Vision once was. It wasn’t there. Of course. And even if it was, what good would it be?

“Feisty,” the man remarked, leaning in to peer at you. In the dim moonlight, you could see a strange red mask hanging his cheek, stark against his auburn hair. At his hip, a Vision glowed royal blue, with a frame that you had never seen before. “What on Teyvat has Zhongli gotten himself into?”

---

“Who are you?” You snapped. The man kept his careful distance from you, but you were sure that he would be able to catch you in seconds if you ran. The way he had moved to meet your blow was practiced, skilled, even. It seemed that you had misjudged his intentions — he was not some drunken man seeking pleasure. “Are you from Bawang ?”

“Ba—what?” The man shook his head, clutching his heart in a dramatic show of dismay. “I’m hurt. Didn’t Mr. Zhongli not tell you about me? Not even a passing mention?”

Eyeing him carefully, you racked your brains. Was he a friend of Zhongli’s? Surely no associate of Zhongli would corner you in an alley at night and push you over... Right? You were realizing how little (absolutely nothing, to be exact), you knew about Zhongli’s life. 

 “Was the ‘who are you?’ not enough of a clue?”

The man grinned wickedly in the night, eyes glinting at your mockery. “What a tongue you have on you. Didn’t know that was Zhongli’s type.” He offered his hand to you. “I’m Tartaglia, codename Childe. Pleased to meet you.”

You stared at his hand like you would a can of live worms. “The one from the Fatui.”

The message received, he let his hand fall back to his side. “So he has talked about me. And here I was, thinking that he saw me as just a puppet.” He mused. You had no clue what he was talking about, but it was immediately clear that the man was dangerous. 

“Are you here to collect his debt? I don’t have any money.” 

“Debt?” Tartaglia laughed. “No, there’s no debt . Mr. Zhongli has unlimited access to the Northland Bank’s funds. Yeah,” he clarified, mistaking your shock for confusion. “Turns out, you need to read the fine print when it comes to making deals with the guy.”

“Then what do you want from me?” 

“Oh, come now,” he raised his palms in a placating manner, “don’t be so harsh. I’m only here to investigate. Zhongli has been buying enough food for a small army, and while it’s not entirely unusual of him, he also made a large payment to a certain company... that let’s just say even the Fatui won’t touch with a six-foot pole.” Tartaglia swept his glance over you from head to toe. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

You stayed silent, wishing to the Archons that looks could kill.

“I don’t know why he… acquired you, but believe me, he’s always got some kind of plan going on in that head of his.” Tartaglia sighed. “Anyway, where’s your Vision? 

You stiffened. “Vision?” You scoffed. The false disbelief came easily, naturally. “You think the Archons would give someone so pathetic a Vision?” 

“You can cut the crap. I saw the way you reached for it there. I’ve seen that look way too many times. Vision-holders who get too dependent, who think that having one makes them invincible.” Tartaglia’s lip curled. “A Vision wouldn’t have saved you from me, girlie. But someone as weak as you should at least be carrying it around.”

Every moment of the day, you thought of it, of how all your problems would be solved if — when — you mastered the power of the Archons. The thought that it wouldn’t, that knowing how to use a Vision wouldn’t make you invincible to the world, was devastating.

Before you, Tartaglia’s eyes were the color of the ocean during monsoon seasons, deep, roiling, devastating. You couldn’t seem to bring yourself to lie again, so you lowered your head.

“That’s what I thought. What element?”

“Geo,” you said quietly. The only thing you could do here was keep him talking, long enough until you could find a chance to escape. From what you could tell, he didn’t seem to be on too-friendly terms with Zhongli. Perhaps he wouldn’t tell him, after all. 

“Of course.” He nodded, as though there was no other answer.

“What do you mean, of course?” 

“ What I mean is —“ Tartaglia peered at you, raising a single brow. “Hmm. What does Zhongli think of your Vision?”

You bit your lip to stop from responding. This was dangerous territory. As the seconds dragged on in silence, you watched a glimmer of glee creep into Tartaglia’s eyes. “Oh! Oh my Archon. You haven’t told him!” The Fatui Harbinger threw back his head and laughed with abandon. “Oh, that’s great! This is beautiful!”

You waited a good half minute for Tartaglia to finally wipe all the tears from his cheeks. “Are you done?” You’d been slowly edging towards the exit of the alley, keeping your eyes trained on the Fatui. As long as you could get to Wanmin Restaurant you would be safe... but no. You couldn’t drag Xiangling and Chef Mao into this. You still didn’t understand half the things Tartaglia had said, but you knew that the Fatui’s attention wasn’t something you wanted, no matter who you were.

“Yes, yes,” Tartaglia huffed, fanning himself dramatically.

“What’s so funny?”

“My contract ,” he almost spat the word, “mandates that I stay silent about that one, sorry.  But don’t worry, I’ll keep your little secret. I’d love to see the look on your face when... Anyway. I’m here to give you an offer.”

“Next time, try offering over lunch or something,” you didn’t know where you found the courage to snap, “instead of in an alley.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Tartaglia threw his hands up, somewhat apologetically. “It’s been so hard to catch you alone.” Had he been watching you and Zhongli? You grimaced. “But anyway. How would you like… all the Mora you could ever need? Anything you want to buy, eat or wear, yours, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. 

“…And what do you want from me?”

“Information,” he replied, “about Zhongli. How to fight him, really, but also anything else he—“ 

At this point, you were beginning to feel inclined to believe that the man was simply missing half his marbles. Finally feeling like you had put enough distance between him and yourself, you turned and ran — for a whole two seconds, when a strong force yanked you backwards. 

“Hey now, hasn’t Mr. Zhongli taught you anything about manners?” He tutted as you flailed in his grip, “I wasn’t done talking— whoa!”

He ducked, barely avoiding a projectile that whizzed past his cheek, so close that you could hear it whistle through the air. You peer at where it landed, firmly embedded into the brick wall. 

It was a golden spear that glowed dimly in the light. Its design was immaculate, intricate, beautiful , you thought numbly, as you watched it fade before your eyes. 

“Well then,” Tartaglia said tightly, “never mind  her manners. It’s not like you to get so worked up, Mr. Zhongli.”

You snapped your head towards the entrance of the alleyway. You’d recognize the silhouette anywhere, but in that moment, with the same spear gripped in his hand and his features edged silver under the moonlight, eyes glowing a ravenous gold, Zhongli looked particularly divine.

“If I were worked up , Childe, I would not have missed,” Zhongli said, twirling the spear once before setting the pole against the cobblestone. The way he moved -- natural, relaxed, as though the polearm seemed like an extension of his body. There was no anger in his voice, but you felt a slight tremor in the ground under your feet and, despite your situation, a jolt of excitement at the thought of seeing Zhongli fight, seeing a Geo Vision in use. 

“Oho?” Childe let go of your sleeve, crouching down low as glowing blue energy gathered in his hands. “Sure sounds like you’re asking for a fight. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this!” 

Zhongli regarded him coolly for a moment. “Look around you. Is this really where you want to fight me, Childe?” He raised his head, and you and Tartaglia followed his gaze to a window. Behind the glass, you could make out a young girl’s face as she stared wide-eyed down at the scene below. 

To your surprise, the Fatui paused. You hadn’t marked him down as the type to worry about collateral damage. Finally, he shifted back into a more relaxed stance, waving his fingers clean of Hydro. “You know me a little too well, Mr. Zhongli,” he smiled, all hostility seemingly forgotten. You may have misjudged his empathy, but you certainly hadn’t imagined his unhinged nature. 

“What business do you have with Hansi?” Zhongli asked.

“That’s our little secret. Well, I’ll leave you two to… whatever it is you do.” He winked. “Remember, you still owe me a dinner sometime, Mr. Zhongli.”

“Certainly,” Zhongli said, lowering his hand and letting his spear disintegrate from between his fingers. “Though I must warn you, it will be the Northland Bank bearing the bill.” 

“Of course.” Childe chuckled one more time, as though he remembered something funny. “See you around, Hansi.”

---

On the way home, Zhongli was uncharacteristically quiet. As you entered the warmth of his — of your home, you tried to break the silence. “Thank you for saving me, Mr. Zhongli.”

Zhongli stayed quiet for a short while more, staring at you so intently it stung. “Forgive my silence,” he finally said. “When I couldn’t find you at Wanmin, I thought that you had been hurt or… that you had run away.”

Astonished, you didn’t really know what to say. Running away was a thought that had crossed your mind, but each time, the cons far outweighed the pros. You were more than familiar with what awaited you on the streets of Liyue. “I am not so stupid to be ignorant of what would happen to me if I did” There was a pregnant pause. “And besides, I have had no reason to, Mr. Zhongli. You have been more than kind to me.”

Zhongli smiled. Was it just your imagination, or were his meltingly gorgeous smiles coming more and more often? Trying not to let your thoughts wander, you blurted the first thing that came to mind. “That spear was beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It has served me well.”

“Do you really know how to use it?” There had been no weaponry in the house that you’d seen, but you believed him wholeheartedly.

“I am somewhat versed in its usage, yes.” 

“How long did it take you to learn how to fight?” You wondered, sincerely. 

“I have always known how to fight, for as long as I can remember.” Suddenly, his weathered hands made sense. With your notions of him growing up as a sheltered, rich noble shattered, you had never been more curious of his past. Had he been part of the Millelith? “Though, I have since come to learn that it was never true strength. Why do you ask, Hansi?”

You hesitated, nervously glancing away. Way to dig yourself a hole. “Just wondering.”

“Hansi, I gave you my word to keep you safe, to the best of my abilities. However, I fear that there may be times when I may not be by your side, such as tonight.” Zhongli seemed to think deeply about his next words. “Remember that if you want to learn how to fight, you just need to ask.” 

Tell him , a voice in your mind screamed. Tell him about the damned Vision.

As tempting as it was, you were indeed more than familiar with what awaited you on the streets of Liyue. You would not risk, even remotely, your position in Zhongli’s household.

“Thank you, Mr. Zhongli,” you mustered the warmest smile you could, as you stood up to retreat to your room. “I will keep that in mind.”

“That’s all I ask,” Zhongli exhaled deeply. “Good night.”

“Good night.”