#it already took me three days I don’t wanna risk this being a week long piece
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inkyminx · 3 months ago
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Eyyyyyyyyyyy
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Heres some trivia to help hall get to know these funny fellows better ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Tao Ling
Female ~ She / They, Bisexual
A Mystic Stone Monkey
Adopted by Sun Wukong
Can transform into three bodies (bird, tiger & butterfly)
Considers MK her baby brother
Is probably really into WWE and boxing
Doesn’t know how to show romantic affection
“When did you become the strong, supportive one?”  “Meat gives me strength.”
Probably shortened Wukong’s immortality during her childhood
Is surprisingly good at cooking
Loves going to plays and anything related to theatre
Will constantly send you memes
Her bracelet was a gift from Wukong as it resembles the circlet (kinda traumatizing and sad but yea)
Probably owns a few mecha figure sets
Wan Yue
Demiboy ~ He / They, Demisexual
2nd Generation Dragon Zodiac
Macaque’s first Disciple (later turned son)
Manipulates water (don’t put this man near a waterfall) & is somewhat stronger in moonlight
Enjoys stargazing as a hobby
Likes tea and often drinks it to ease his mind
No seriously he’ll be having tea time with Bing Ma and Sandy while Tao Ling and MK are wreaking havoc in the background
Considers YG either a menace to society or his cool younger brother
“How to use the internet”
Lost his eye due to an accident involving training with Macaque
Likes horror
Bing Ma
Male ~ He / Him, Pansexual
2nd Generation Horse Zodiac
Adopted & trained by Lady Bone Demon
Inherited LBD’s powers (which corrupts his zodiac blood a bit later)
Knows how to sew & likes making small plushies
Definitely goes to therapy once a week thanks to his childhood & powers
Likes hanging out with Sandy as his presence calms him down
Is incredibly flexible
An aspiring actor & most likely did ballet
A history buff and probably watches OSP
Is a good boi
Probably dyed his hair at one point to get rid of the streaks from LBD
Wakes up WAYYYY too early (4 AM. 5 if roommates are lucky)
Yin Ying (or YG)
Male ~ He / They, Bisexual
A Monkey/Antelope Hybrid
Macaque’s Second Disciple (turned son again)
Can manipulate shadows & electricity (but not by much)
“Yea I was raised then abandoned by two of the worst zodiacs for parenting WHAT OF IT?”
Knows how to ballroom dance
Can only be “tamed” by Wan, Macaque or Tao Ling
Would you believe me if I told you he was well behaved and a sweet kid with Macaque?
Think TWST Leona but more unhinged and maniacal laughter
Only shows affection to family and Tao Ling
Receiving affection + Soft voice = YG.exe has stopped working
Arson
Is one of the only two with a drivers license
Fa Yao
Non-Binary ~ They / Them, Aesexual
A Lemur
Might have weather abilities (more thunder & rain) & possesses medicinal magic
Close friends with Pigsy and Tang
Definitely owns a lot of witchcraft books
Collects scented things like perfumes and candles
:3
Raised MK alongside Pigsy and Tang
Had many near death experiences
“It’s a flesh wound it’s ok👌” Pigsy: YOUR ARMS WERE RIPPED OFF
Probably has a Facebook account
Spent nearly a decade in a mountain curled up in a ball
Didn’t have much human interaction before a town accident
Might have feelings for Wukong but boy they be hard to read
KG (or Keiji)
Genderfluid ~ He / They, Pansexual
A Deer/Fox Hybrid
Possesses fire & wind (he literally only uses his fire just for cooking and teleportation)
His tail resembles a deer when neutral or calm but turns more fox-like if angered or revealing his abilities
Has a sibling relationship with Mei, Red Son & MK
Seriously though- the amount of chaotic shenanigans the four of them get into is insane
Can’t hide his emotions for the life of him
Will cuddle you in his sleep
If you ever have a sleepover with him, your gonna wake to a buffet of homemade croissants, muffins and cream puffs for breakfast
Gives nicknames to almost everyone he knows
Latte art is a must
Lives in a constant state of “WTF”
Lived in Ninjago for a while (at least just before middle and high school)
Shared and stole clothes from Cole as they grew up together
Is considered the most “normal” of the group but it’s a low bar
Jing Yun
Transgender Male~ Any Pronoun, Gay
A Fox Spirit
Manipulates smoke/mist & invisibility (very ghost-like)
Definitely gives everyone mani pedis
Curls and swirls and twirls for days
Likes to annoy Zhu Bajie
Is lowkey touch starved (Reborn!SWK hug your man fgs)
Lives in & owns a forest with a clan of other fox spirits
Definitely a fashionista (they’d have fun with Hua)
Is a pescatarian and very much likes fruit smoothies
Will definitely have hundreds of albums full of baby pictures
Adores Fruity and treats them like their own baby
Is really flirtatious but shy with Reborn!SWK
Definitely the one people go to for wedding parties and dating advice as their actually really good at it
And how ‘bout a fun timelapse to reveal my suffering?
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annie-creates · 2 years ago
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Soft dean of evil
Pairing: Lady Lesso x anxiety reader (platonic)
Genre: fluff (kinda)
Words: 1500
Note: This is based on the idea @missvifdor posted. I took it as a personal challenge as I haven't written anxiety stuff before and I hope I didn't disappoint. Also y'all seem to like angst way more than fluff. XD
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The exams week was coming up. You had a small test here and there until now, but the determining exams were scheduled for the end of the semester. After two years at the school for evil, this year the classes were much harder and more advanced than what you were used to. You were confident in your knowledge before, but you didn’t know if it’s gonna be enough this year. You always wanted to perform well, being a perfectionist who didn’t wanna fail anything.
You started studying few weeks in advance, just in case. You wanted to make sure you don’t underestimate anything, not wanting to risk a fail in your third year of studies. You’d read your books before you went to sleep or in between classes, preferring them over hanging out with your friends and making mischief. They could wreak havoc without you while you’re going to go over your materials.
When it was only a week until the first exam, you devoted yourself to studying even more, sitting at your desk in the dorm for hours or seeking quiet places in the library, sometimes completely forgetting to come to dinner. You already had one fail from last year professor Manley gave you, you definitely weren’t risking another. You felt like your studying was going great, or at least fine. You knew most of your material, felt pretty confident in your memory and thought you were passing all your classes just fine.
You still wanted to learn more though to make sure you’re gonna give a great performance in the exams. Three days prior to the first one, you started having trouble sleeping. You could lay in bed for hours, restlessly rolling over with your thoughts going miles per hour. What if you’re not going to do well? So you opted to use those sleepless hours to study even more in the dim light of your bedside candle. It’s gonna be just a week, and then it’s over. You can manage to not sleep for a week if needed, right?
The first exam came before you even knew it, and you felt like you did kind of fine in Special talents, professor Sheeks didn’t seem particularly dazzled but she didn’t look like she’s gonna fail you either. Your second exam the next day tho was a test from Curses and death traps with Lady Lesso. That woman absolutely terrified you. Not only was she popular for being extra harsh and unforgiving on her students, she treated you all as if you were the mere plaque walking on Earth. But your overachieving ass was determined to prove her wrong. Nothing short of perfection was acceptable if you didn’t wanna end up in her doom room, and believe me you definitely didn’t.
Needless to say, you had no sleep the night before, rather burying yourself in the textbook. You felt like you didn’t know anything, even though you were going over the material for days, even weeks now. As the morning of the exam came you didn’t feel any better. In fact you felt much worse. Your thoughts couldn’t stay in one place and you felt a bit dizzy like throwing up. Your muscles started hurting but you convinced yourself it’s just from the long hours of sitting.
As you sat at your desk anxiously waiting for the questions, you silently thanked yourself for skipping breakfast cause it might as well end up on the floor now. You really tried to calm yourself and focus once you got the test, but no matter how hard you tried to keep steady your leg kept bouncing under the table successfully taking your concentration away. You scribbled a few answers, suddenly not being sure of anything, so you kept scratching and rewriting them. When you felt like you didn’t know you bit the end of your pen in thought, but you really couldn’t focus your mind on anything.
What felt like just five minutes to you turned out to be the whole hour when Lady Lesso asked for the tests back. You looked at your test freaked out that it was only halfway done, and that finished half probably wasn’t even right. It felt like tears were already stinging in your eyes as you set the paper on the stack on Lady Lesso’s desk and went back to get your things. All you wanted to do was crawl into bed and let the floor swallow you whole. You’re definitely gonna fail the test. And Lady Lesso will punish you and torture you in the school dungeons.
“Y/N?” startled you turned around in the door when the teacher called out to you.
“Um, yes?” you answered perplexedly, did she already know you’ll fail the class?
“Are you alright? You seam a little green.” Lesso wasn’t one to sugarcoat anything but when she saw how stressed one of her best students looked today, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of worry about you.
“Ugh, yeah, yeah, sure…” Not knowing what to say you just shrugged your shoulders.
“I noticed you weren’t quite concentrated on the test…” her words weren’t unusually cold but you felt like she must already know how bad you did on the test.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please don’t hurt me…” was all you were able to get out before your sobs overtook your body and you started shaking.
“Hey, it’s alright, come here.” Surprised she didn’t necessarily know what to do with your collapsed form but she took you by the shoulders and sat you on her desk so that you don’t pass out. “What’s going on?”
“It’s… I did so bad… and I don’t know anything… everyone is gonna fail me and you’re gonna torture me and turn me into some scary monster and I’ll never really live again and I’ll be miserable…” your rant went on and on, once you started voicing your insecurities out you couldn’t stop.
“Hey, shh shh, stop.” Lesso squeezed your shoulders to ground you and furrowed her brows seeing the awful bags under your eyes. “You’re not gonna fail, you’re my best student. It’s just anxiety talking…”
You put your hand on her forearm trying to steady yourself. “But I didn’t even finish the test…” you were confused why would she not let you fail.
“It’s alright, I’m confident in you. Or you can take a make up test, but look at you, when was the last time you slept?” you couldn’t really answer that so you just put your head down in shame. “Look at me when I’m talking to you. You’ll answer me when I ask something.” With a strong grip on your jaw she forced your head up to look into her eyes.
“A week…” you mumbled shamefully.
“What was that?” Lesso raised an eyebrow challenging you to try and not follow her orders.
“It’s about a week.” You exhaled while giving up the fight with your depressed feeling.
“Oh poor thing. Here’s what we’re going to do alright? We’re gonna get you something to eat from the dining hall and then tuck you neatly in bed. And you’re not gonna set a finger out from under the duvets until tomorrow. Understood?” her strong look was giving you no room for discussion.
“Okay.” Your sigh was enough for her to get you up and going, directing you into the dining hall.
After Lady Lesso made sure you had enough sweets and fruit to eat, she took you personally into your dorm making sure you follow what she told you. She wasn’t a stranger to anxiety herself, being just a naïve unaware reader when she first got into the school herself. But she learnt how to cope and she’s gonna help her students too. There was no way she was risking the future of evil failing the school because of neglected mental health.
“In you go.” She cooed you into bed, making sure you’re comfortable draping your duvet over you. After you were tucked in bed, she turned around to leave.
“Lady Lesso?” you asked in a small unsure voice.
“Yes?” Lesso turned back around to answer any request you might have.
“You really aren’t going to torture me?” maybe it was stupid to ask but you wanted to be sure.
“Did you break the school rules?” she encountered shaking her head with a small smile. “Of course I’m not going to torture you.”
“And Lady Lesso?” you called to her again when she was nearly at the door.
“Hm?” she was getting a little impatient with you, when did she go so soft to take such good care about her students anyway?
“Thank you… for taking care.” You smiled at her and finally sinked into your pillow.
“You’re welcome.” With that she left and closed the door behind her.
Maybe she went a bit soft in her days as the dean of evil, but as she overlooked your petite form, she couldn’t find it as such a bad thing.
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pinkteapotwriting · 3 years ago
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I’ve been thinking. I see a lot of dom!marauders or them being experienced. But what if it was the opposite? Like y/n is experienced and perhaps a dom, while the boys are virgins (or just had little experience)? it makes me all soft 🥺. Like Y/N could be their best friend/fifth marauder (whichever you choose), and they like ask her to be their first time and it’s all blushy for the boys (them being subs, a few tears of pain for them) go crazy! It’s been on my mind for weeks!
Marauders x Fem!reader
Warning : unprotected sex, cursing, Dom!reader, pretty chill I think, you know, for smut
Word count : 1830
Thanks for being so patient, I hope you like it cause it took me forever to do this. It's a bit heavy on the dialogue but oh well
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Surprise, surprise.
It was raining at Hogwarts. The Scottish countryside is taking on its usual demeanor of moisture in this season. Not that you minded, that just meant you got to spend the day with all of your favourite boys. You Sirius and James were giggling away in the corner while Remus was trying his best to ignore you all and read, but you figured you could peak his interest.
“Okay Pads, what’s your body count?”
“I’ve never killed anybody, but trust me Snivelus has come close.”
“No you dork, how many people have you slept with?”
“I’m not answering that!”
“I’m not gonna slut shame you Sirius.”
“He’s definitely not worried about being slut shamed Y/N” James snorted.
“Like you’re any better off than I am you prick.”
“Cut it out, there’s no need to call each other names. Are you both virgins then?”
“Well, yeah I guess.”
James was much more embarrassed than he needed to be.
“What about you Remmy, have you done anything at all?”
“Ask Sirius.”
“I already did ask Sirius!”
“Ask Sirius.”
“Oh my god why are you all so embarrassed there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just surprised is all. You guys are all really attractive and kind people so I never thought you’d be inexperienced and you’ve dated plenty of girls.”
Remus shut his book.
“Not that it’s any of your business Y/N but i’ve at least given or received a hand job or two before.”
“Why’d you tell me to ask Siri- ooooooooh.”
Sirius had his face in his palms.
“Can we change the subject please.”
James patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“It’s okay Pads. It’s not like the opportunity never arose, we were all just waiting for the right person.”
“Aw well I hope you find them soon, I care about you all so much and you deserve the world.”
Sirius was still groaning into his hands.
“She’s so fucking oblivious.”
Remus chuckled.
“Quite.”
Quite what? Confused definitely.
“I don’t understand.”
The room’s silence was overwhelming, until James took a deep breath and all eyes were drawn to him.
“Sirius and Remus obviously like each other and I’m not going to deny my attraction to either of them.”
“Then why don’t you-”
“It doesn’t feel complete. See we already found that someone, it’s you Y/N.”
“Really? You guys want me that way?”
James shrugged meekly.
“If you’ll have us.”
“I’ve always felt that way about you. I just never wanted to risk our friendship, but if you feel the same then I’d love to.”
Sirius’s head popped out.
“Right now?”
“Ha ha, no we don’t have to right now.”
“Well what are we waiting for, to get to know each other. I know James too well actually.”
You rolled your eyes and turned to probably the most level headed one, but Remus was giving you puppy eyes. You were so drawn to him you walked across the room and cupped his face with your right hand.
“What’s wrong honey?”
“Waited so long already, love. Don’t wanna wait any longer.”
“Jamie, do you want this too?”
“Yes please.”
“Such good manners baby, so I have everyone’s consent then?”
“Very much so.”
“Enthusiastic consent.”
“If you don’t do something I’m going to combust.”
You smirked at Sirius’s comment.
“You don’t get to combust until I say you do, understand?”
“Ooo scary.”
“So be it.”
You took hold of Remus’s hands and placed them on your hips.
“I know you’ll be a good boy for me Remus, won’t you?”
He swallowed thickly and nodded.
“I’ll be good for you Y/N.”
“I know you will Jamie. It’s Siri I’m worried about. Why don’t we show him what he’s missing out on? Lie back against the pillows for me, both of you.”
“What about me?”
“You can watch for now, learn how to follow their example.”
He huffed.
“Suit yourself.”
You knew your usual roles in the bedroom, so you were trying your best not to be too stern. But still, you needed to teach Sirius his place.
You lifted up the bottom of James' shirt and kissed his hip bone delicately. He got more and more ansty as you drifted your direction to the middle and down, and down, and down.
You very happily undid his belt and pulled off his pants. The state of his arousal was much more noticeable now.
“Can I suck your cock Jamie? Would you like that?”
“Yes please.”
“Good boy, Remmy can you spit on my hand please?”
You held your palm up to his mouth expectantly, but he seemed hesitant.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed sweetie, never for doing what I ask.”
He nodded and did what he was told and immediately you felt your clit throb. Having control over these three boys was certainly a power trip. Knowing you were the first person to make James tremble like this as you engulfed his cock expertly was definitely a turn on. As you bobbed up and down on James’ impressive cock, you rubbed the bulge in Remus’s trousers. The whines the two boys were making was truly music to your ears. You lifted with a pop.
“Alright Siri, are you ready to be good now?”
“Yes ma’am”
“Did you like what you were seeing?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Do you wanna try and make Remmy feel good?”
“I’ve never sucked-”
“I know, but I’m here to help you baby.”
You’ve never seen Sirius so nervous, so quiet.
“What I’m gonna get you to do first is what you do when you jerk Remmy off, Okay? Just spit on his cock and move your hand up and down alright?”
Remus shuddered as he watched Sirius in his submissive state.
“Good job Siri, look how happy you’re making Remmy. Now you can start by sucking the head, like this.”
James whimpered, and soon Remus was making the same noises. You placed your palm on Remus’s stomach to keep him from bucking his hips. Much to James disappointment you pulled away from him again.
“Okay Sirius, don’t forget to breathe through your nose and make sure you keep your teeth tucked behind your lips, there we go that’s it. Hollow your cheeks now too. How does that feel Remus?”
“F-feels good.”
“Yeah? Sirius is being such a good boy now. Is Siri gonna make you cum?
“Y-yes.”
You grabbed hold of Sirius’s curly locks and pushed him down farther, making him gag and tear up. The vibrations making Remus cum instantly. You pulled Sirius off once Remus started squirming at the uncomfortable feeling of overstimulation.
“Did you swallow? Show Remmy.”
Remus groaned when he saw Sirius stick out his tongue, and you did too.
“Y/N”
James' voice was raspy.
“Yes baby?”
“Wanna make you feel good, wanna fuck you.”
“Want me to Ride you Jamie?”
“Please.”
“Okay, but since this is your first time you might not last that long alright?”
“That’s okay, Sirius can take over after me.”
“Alright well you lie back and I’ll take care of you. Sirius, you wait like a good boy and I’ll help you out in a second. If you want you can get Remus to suck you off while you wait. Teach him like I taught you.”
You were suddenly aware of how you were still wearing all of your clothes so you hopped off the bed to quickly strip them off and you found yourself smirking at the expression of pure need and desire on James’ face.
You straddled his waist and pressed a kiss to his cheek before aligning his cock with your entrance. Inch by inch you and down on him as he clutched the sheets below him.
“This alright Jamie?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Perfect, can I move now?”
“Yes please.”
You raised your hips up, but before you could bring them back down James snapped his hips up to yours.
“James, fuck.”
But he didn’t seem to care, with one hand resting on your hip and one fondling your breast he kept his steady rhythm that was taking your breath away. Sirius and Remus were no longer enjoying their own pleasure, but enjoying the sight of yours. You reached down to rub your clit, but Sirius pulled your hand away and replaced it with his own.
“Like this Y/N?”
“Just like that baby, doing so good for me.”
Remus squeezed in between James and Sirius to suck on the tit that James wasn’t occupying.
“Boys- I’m gonna cum fuck-”
It’s funny how in public James could be such a little shit, but now all you saw was this wide eyed trembling figure that you got to take care of and fuck it sure was enticing especially when he said things like this.
“Please cum, wanna make you feel good Mommy please please please.”
“Fuck-”
As soon as you clenched around him as you hit your high James was spurting white hot cum into the depths of your pussy. Thank god for wizard contraceptives.
You didn’t really get to bask in the moment however, since Sirius was pulling you from James out of his own desperation. He had you lying on your back.
“I need you”
“I know I’ve kept you waiting for quite some time, go ahead love.”
Not that Sirius was significantly smaller than James, but he had an easier time going inside after you had come already. Your legs found their home wrapped around his waist as soon as he found his pace.
“Y/N, I don’t think I’m going to last long.”
“That’s okay love, this is about you. Be a good boy for me and cum whenever you need.”
“It’s kinda embarrassing though.”
You cupped his cheeks and pulled his lips to meet yours.
“No need to be embarrassed- Doing such a good job Siri your cock feels so good inside of me.”
He falls down to hold his weight on his forearms, moving even faster than before.
“M’close Y/N”
“Go on and cum baby, feels so good.”
He whimpered into your neck and you soothed him by stroking his hair. Eventually he did roll off from you, unfortunately.
“You guys never told me you were subs.”
“When I’m with Remus I’m a dom.”
“Makes sense, I’d quite like to see that actually.”
Remus cleared his throat.
“Does that mean we get to do this again cause I never actually got to-”
“Of course Remmy, it just kind of makes sense doesn’t it.”
Sirius chuckled.
“Yeah, I mean it didn’t take long for James to be calling you Mommy.”
“It’s kinda sweet though, has Remus ever called you Daddy?”
“Not yet, but I feel like we’re on the brink of something big here.”
Now Remus and James were looking at each other like maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
You personally did not have any complaints; Sirius however would probably have some when you reminded him he couldn’t dom you though.
He’d have to learn the hard way.
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@sunny-bunnny @quindolyn @midnightgremlin @weasleyposts @bluemoonyblurbs @emmaev @agalandhermarvelobsession
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sacredsorceress · 3 years ago
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Her Hand || Bucky Barnes
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pairing: 40’s!bucky barnes x rogers!reader
summary: after months of keeping your relationship a secret, your brother steve finds out and bucky has an important question to ask him
a/n: another addition to my bucky x rogers!reader collection because i simply could not get them off of my mind last week and i also love bucky and steve’s friendship with all my heart
word count: 2.5k
warnings: quick fight, none
masterlist || request || taglist
1941
You and Bucky had been seeing each other behind your brother’s back for months. You were shocked you both had gone on for so long without Steve finding out considering how neither of you could keep your hands off of each other. Whether it was sneaking kisses when your brother wasn’t looking or holding hands under tables- you needed each other like you needed air.
Despite the fact that Bucky was his best friend, you knew the moment your brother found out everything would change. Steve was nothing if not overprotective of you since the deaths of your parents and his own struggles growing up. He just wanted what was best for you and you knew that, but sometimes the lines were blurred on what that was- especially when it would come to dating... and dating Bucky no less.
So, not wanting to risk your brother’s rage and his friendship with Bucky, the two of you had been keeping your relationship a secret. You knew eventually you would have to tell him, but you both were in such romantic bliss that you told yourself that was a future problem.
You had first told yourself that ten months ago and the future was bound to catch up.
“Buck, you need to go.” You giggled against his lips before pressing yours against his once again. “He’s gonna wake up.”
“C’mon Y/n.” Bucky chuckled, gripping your waist tighter and pulling you closer to him. “He sleeps like a rock. Just let me in, hmm? Just for one night?”
“Shh!” You hushed him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “You’re not stepping into my room while my brother’s home without a ring on this finger, mister. You understand me Barnes?”
“Doll,” He groaned, throwing his head back which just made you laugh harder. “You know I’ve got a plan- you just gotta be patient, Y/n- trust me.”
Lacing your fingers into his hair, you laughed against his lips.
“Shush, James. You’re gonna wake him up!” You whispered. “You gotta head home.”
“If you insist. One more kiss?” He asked.
“One more.”
Pressing your lips against his, you couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, both of you laughing out of pure bliss. 
Pulling yourself away, you opened your eyes and turned your head to the side only to be met with the sight of your brother standing in the doorway of your apartment.
Eyes growing wide and heart thumping in your chest, you and Bucky jumped away from each other, you pushing him behind you.
“Steve, I can explain.” You pleaded, holding your hands out in front of you.
Watching as his hands balled into fists at his sides, you knew you weren’t going to be getting out of this one easily.
“You better have a damn good explanation.” He said, firmly.
“Steve, I-” Bucky attempted to speak up, moving from his spot behind you to be by your side.
“You can have every girl in this city, Buck, and you just have to go after my sister too?” Steve asked in disgust, cutting off his friend.
Glancing from your brother to his friend, catching a sadness you had never seen before in his eyes, you shook your head.
“Stevie it’s not like that-”
“It’s always like that, Y/n!” Your brother shouted, turning his attention back to you while pointing an accusing finger at Bucky. “You don’t know what he’s like! He takes out a different girl every day and I used to turn my head, but God damn it! My sister too?”
You and Bucky had always known that there wouldn’t be a necessarily positive reaction from your brother when you first told him, but standing in the midst of the situation now you both wished you could escape to seconds before.
A part of you felt so guilty you wished you had told him earlier.
Maybe his reaction wouldn’t have been so bad.
“Steve, I- I don’t do that anymore.” Bucky said, his voice faltering. “I know that I’ve done stuff like that in the past, but it’s over for me now. I care about your sister, Steve. I love her.”
Rather than relax at his friend’s confession of love, you watched as your brother took a deep, long, shaky breath.
“How long has this been going on?” He asked.
“Steve-” You attempted to ease him.
“I said ‘how long has this been going on!’” He shouted this time.
“Ten months.” Bucky confessed calmly from beside you.
It happened so quickly that you couldn’t stop it.
Rather than shout once again, seeing red, you watched as Steve threw himself at Bucky, shoving him to ground and climbing on top of him.
“Oh my God!” You shouted in shock, wrapping your arms around your brother’s torso to pull him off of your lover. “Steve, get off of him!”
Rather than let go, your brother pulled the collar of Bucky’s shirt, shoving him against the floor.
“Ten months!” Steve shouted. “You’ve been seeing my sister for ten fucking months and you didn’t say anything? She’s not something that you can just mess around with-”
Throwing a punch to his best friend’s face, Bucky cursing in pain but not moving to throw Steve off of him, you found the strength to tug Steve hard enough to pull him off, you both falling to the ground in the process.
“Shit!” Bucky cursed, holding his eye.
Glancing from your brother back to Bucky, you pushed yourself to your feet, making your way to Bucky’s side. You dropped to your knees and attempted to examine his wound before turning back to your brother.
“You know- this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.” You told your brother. “I mean, God, Steve you’re so overprotective of me. You get so mad when people think you can’t fight or handle yourself, but you do the same shit to me. I can handle myself! I’ve known Buck just as long as you and I know what he used to be like but it’s not like that anymore, Steve. I know what I’m doing. I’m with Bucky and you can either come to terms with that or... I don’t know... but I’m not leaving him.”
Noticing how your brother’s shoulders began to relax and his fists loosened at his sides, you turned back to Bucky, gently brushing your fingertips against the bruise forming around his eye.
“I should get you some ice.”
Rather than agreeing, Bucky shook his head adamantly.
“No. Leave it doll.” He groaned, moving his hands up to hold his eye once again. “I deserve it.”
Glancing back up at Steve you saw him sigh before reaching his hand out for Bucky to take. Glancing at you and then Steve’s hand, Bucky took it, Steve pulling him to his feet.
An awkward silence hanging between the three of you for a brief moment, Steve was the first to speak up.
“Y/n, can you leave us alone for a few minutes?” Your brother asked.
“I don’t know.” You shrugged standing up. “You gonna try to throw him over the fire escape?”
“Y/n, it’s okay.” Bucky said, pushing himself up to his elbows. “Head inside. I’ll be fine.”
Eyeing Bucky and then your brother, you sighed, shoving past Steve to reach the open door of you and your brother’s shared apartment.
“If I see another bruise on his face, Steve, I sweat to God I’ll kill you.”
And with that you shut the door.
Watching the door slam and his face, Steve sighed, moving to sit on the steps that led up to your apartment, Bucky following behind. 
Groaning as he slowly situated himself beside his friend, Bucky glanced at Steve and sighed.
“I’m sorry for not telling you.” Bucky said, staring out into the dark night in front of him. “I was just afraid of what would happen when you found out. You’re my best friend and I didn’t want you to get so pissed that you never wanted to talk to me again... or never let me talk to her again. I really love your sister though, Steve. This isn’t like the other ones.”
Steve knew without him even saying it that you were different from his past relationships. He had never seen his friend so sincere, so vulnerable. Ten months was far beyond the longest relationship Bucky had ever been in which lasted a total of three weeks. Ten months was a long while for anybody- especially his best friend.
“So uh... ten months huh?” Steve asked, glancing at his friend sat beside him. “That’s a... that’s a long time.”
“Yeah.” Bucky agreed, turning to face Steve. “That’s kinda why I’m glad you know now. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about... if you’re in a good mood anyway. I don’t want a matching shiner.”
Not being able to hold back his laugh, Steve chuckled, nodding his head.
“Go ahead, Buck.”
Although Bucky had run through this conversation since one month into your relationship, as he sat there now next to Steve, he didn’t know if he would actually be able to say it. He had gone through hundreds of different scenarios thousands of times, but choosing the right one in this important moment seemed almost impossible.
His mind drifting to you though, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t want to. In his mind he had already waited long enough.
“I just want to do this right, Steve.” He said, facing his friend, trying his best to sit still and stay calm. “You know, I’ve thought about how I have to do this my whole life- asking the dad and everything- but I don’t know if it’s better or worse that I have to ask my best friend.” Bucky chuckled. “I know your sister can handle herself and everything- she would say that it’s stupid that I’m even asking you and everything- but I love her and I just want to do this right because she’s it for me, pal.”
“What are you saying?” Steve asked.
“I wanna marry her, Steve.” Bucky said finally. “And I don’t want you to think this just came out of nowhere. I’ve known for a while. Ma gave me her ring ‘n everything and I’ve been ready for so long, but I couldn’t do it without telling you and asking you for her hand ‘n all.”
Staring at his friend, eyes growing wide, it hit Steve for the first time just how serious not only Bucky was, but your relationship. You were Steve’s little sister, adopted at an age that he had barely known life without you and Bucky was his best friend- a friendship forged so young that he couldn’t remember not having him by his side. It was hard for Steve to believe the words he was hearing out of Bucky’s mouth.
Not only were you and Bucky in love with each other, but he was ready to devote his life to you.
“Wow, Buck.” Steve exclaimed at a loss for words. “What happened to her being a ‘nosy punk’?”
Chuckling, Bucky shrugged.
“C’mon you know I always had a soft spot for her.” He said. “I don’t know... things changed. I’m sorry for not telling you, pal, I am. I was just scared of losing her ‘cause she’s the best damned thing that ever happened to me.”
Moving his hand to Steve’s shoulder, Bucky gripped it gently.
“I promise I’ll take care of her.” Bucky said sincerely. “As much as she’ll hate it- I’ll do everything I can to protect her. I know I don’t have much, but I’ll give her a good life, Steve. I’m with her until the end and then some. I’ll be haunting her ass as soon as I’m six feet under.”
Not being able to help the laugh that escaped his mouth, Steve chuckled, resting his hand on his friend’s shoulder in return.
“So you really love her?” Steve asked.
“Steve, I’m asking you to let me marry her.” He said. “Of course I love her.”
Removing his hand from his friend’s shoulder, Steve shook his head in disbelief.
“This is a lot to take in, Buck.”
And it was. 
You were his sister and as hard as it was, he would do whatever it took to protect you. He almost couldn't help but feel a part of his heart sink, feeling as though you didn’t need him anymore. But as he stared at his best friend and heard both yours and Bucky’s words replaying in his mind he couldn’t find it in himself to stand between either of the people he cared for most.
The longer Steve thought about it, the more relieved he was that his two favorite people had found their way to each other.
“You promise you’ll take good care of her?” Steve asked, glancing at his friend in the dark night, only the light shining through the window of the apartment highlighting his face.
“I promise, pal.”
Staring straight ahead of him, Steve finally nodded.
“You have my blessing- or whatever it is- to ask her.” Steve said, giving his permission. “It’s her decision, but I’m not gonna stand in your way, Buck. Just don’t forget about your brother-in-law, alright?”
Not being able to help the complete and utter joy he was feeling from the pieces finally coming together in his life, Bucky shook his head, laughing.
“God, ‘brother-in-law’.” Bucky repeated. “This is really happening, huh?”
“I guess so.” Steve smiled, standing to his feet. “Now go plan that proposal and everything. You’ve convinced me, now you just gotta convince her.”
Only chuckling in response, still sitting on his spot on the step, Bucky fiddled with his fingers, basking in the relief of the weight he had been under finally being lifted off of his chest.
Moving towards the door of his apartment, Steve glanced over his shoulder at his best friend.
“Hey Buck?” He called.
“Yeah?”
“For uh...” Steve said, clearing his throat. “For what it’s worth... I’m glad it’s you.”
Not giving him an opportunity to reply, Bucky listened as the door shut behind Steve, leaving Bucky on the steps of your fire escape alone with his thoughts.
Slipping his hand into his pocket Bucky pulled out the ring his mother had given him two months before, twisting it around in his fingers. It took everything in his power at that moment to not knock on the door of your apartment and propose to you right then and there. Instead, he closed his eyes, feeling the cool metal against his skin, planning just the right way to convince his best girl to spend the rest of her life with a lovesick fool like him.
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babyboibucky · 4 years ago
Text
Obvious
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Summary: You and Bucky are more than friends but less than lovers.
Word Count: 1,700
Warnings: slight angst??? mention of injury???
A/N: Inspired by Ariana Grande’s “obvious” because I fucking love that song lmfao. Let me know if anyone wants to be included in my Bucky Barnes tag list! Will do separate tag lists for everything Bucky and Babysitting Bucky. Feedback is highly appreciated!
MAIN MASTERLIST
---
You and Bucky weren’t lovers, no. But you were definitely not just friends either.
There were kisses early in the morning, while both of you were cuddled in bed basking in the warmth of the sunlight spilling through the thin curtains; soft and subtle touches in the afternoon as the two of you navigated through the kitchen in an attempt to bake together. Slow touches late at night, cold metal fingers grazing you in just the right places that made you feel like on fire. And the exchange of whispers in the wee hours of night after coming down from the high of exploring each other’s bodies, uttered so softly, words meant only for each other to hear.
More than friends indeed, less than lovers? Maybe. Maybe not. Does it matter though? Because even without the words of affirmation, you loved Bucky and was sure that he loved you just as much.
Besides, you were obviously head over heels for the soldier. Not that you were denying or hiding it, in fact, you felt like you showed it a tad bit too much.
“Leaving so soon, soldier?” You’d asked with a pout as you watched Bucky leave your side on the bed.
“Duty calls.” He told you as he began to dress up.
Noticing your frown, he chuckled and approached you on the bed, bending down to press a kiss on your forehead.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He reassured you, smoothening out the crease on your forehead with his thumb.
“But I wanna cook you dinner.” You told him.
The thought of you and Bucky spending a domesticated evening together always elated you. You loved daydreaming about it, about sharing a life with your super soldier. Him coming home after a mission and you making sure to take good care of him. Maybe run him a bath while you prepared dinner. Silly, it seemed but you couldn’t help imagining all the possibilities with Bucky. Letting him sleep in on Sundays while you go on a jog, only to come back home with pancakes and bacons waiting for you in the kitchen. And Bucky of course, fresh out of bed with his hair sticking up in different directions.
Being with an Avenger of course, made it difficult to experience all these things. Sometimes you’d wake up alone but Bucky always made sure to leave you a little note.
I’ll be back soon, beautiful.
His notes found a home in one of your drawers. There were plenty and although these notes symbolized his absence on most days, they also meant promises. Promises to make it up for the lost time, promises that were never broken nor forgotten.
Dinner dates were often postponed, sleepovers a rare occurrence— spending time together in general, wasn’t as easy as it was for other couples out there.
But that’s okay. Because you’d always wait for Bucky. You’d wait for him to come home and even if it’d take him three days, one week, two months or even a year, you’d still wait and welcome him with hugs and kisses and affectionate whispers.
Sometimes you wondered whether Bucky knew how much you loved him.
Disagreements were of course, unavoidable even between you and Bucky. Oftentimes, the arguments would stem from his carelessness and selfless decisions during missions. Your super soldier, always so giving and generous and kind. You couldn’t care less about what others thought of him and his days under the influence of monsters. The moment you knew you loved Bucky, you had already accepted him. And that included his demons and dark days too.
To you, Bucky had always been kind and put others first before himself. Sometimes a little too much that you couldn’t help but feel hurt that he didn’t seem to care how you’d feel if ever he wouldn’t make it home.
If Sam hadn’t called you that night, you wouldn’t have known about the serious injury inflicted on Bucky while on a mission.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked as soon as you barged into the medical bay, ignoring the nurse who immediately scrambled out of the room.
Bucky laid in bed, bruised and wrecked and unable to respond upon seeing you seething with anger for the first time ever.
“Were you even planning to tell me in the first place?” You scoffed.
They needed to infiltrate another Hydra base. Raid the base, get all possible information and blow it up to ashes. But then Bucky found a secret basement at the very last minute, young women and men were kept— future Winter Soldiers. The serum hadn’t been injected into their systems yet, they were merely poor teenagers in captivity. Bucky knew he couldn’t let these young people suffer the same fate as him. With barely a minute left before the bomb was set to explode, Bucky did his best to save everyone in that basement.
Never mind the Falcon’s orders to abort his mission, never mind the back-up they had called for to help them out. Bucky knew the choices he had: walk away unscathed knowing that the back-up wouldn’t arrive in time to save the children, or stay behind and do his best to make sure that no one will become another toy for Hydra to play with.
Even if it meant risking his life, even if it meant leaving you back home unaware of his fate.
“They needed me. I couldn’t just leave them behind.” Bucky explained.
“And you didn’t think I needed you too?” You asked, eyes rimmed with tears.
God, you knew you were selfish for feeling hurt but you couldn’t help it. Did it not cross Bucky’s mind that if he had died, you’d be left behind too? Did you not cross his mind during that time?
“Look, I understand what the superhero life is all about. And I know that it’s fucking selfish of me to say this but...Bucky, I need you too. As much as the world does.”
It was a conversation that you and Bucky had many times now. But with how your love grew for him with each passing second, the thought of losing him, it had become too much for you to suppress.
Waking up without his little notes of reassurance that he’d be back soon, no more cold fingers tracing against the smooth expanse of your skin and having to sleep knowing that the next day, Bucky wouldn’t be there anymore— just the mere thought of losing him broke your heart.
“I can’t...” you breathed out, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, Buck.” You admitted with a shaky sigh as your tears continued to fall.
Bucky wanted to get up and pull you to an embrace, but he was too injured to do so. How we wanted to kiss your tears away, all he could do was extend a hand towards you, inviting you to come closer and touch him.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled. “I should have told you, I’m sorry. C’mere.”
Despite your anger, you didn’t think twice and immediately went to hold Bucky’s hand, squeezing it tightly as if you were trying to make sure that he was fine and real and that you didn’t lose him.
“Please stop being so reckless. With how much I love you, it drives me crazy whenever you come home all wounded and bloody and now—“
“You love me?”
Bucky had asked the question as if he couldn’t believe that yes, you do love him. Sam really wasn’t kidding when he said how dense Bucky was.
“Is it not obvious?” You asked, wiping away your tears.
“I mean yeah but...I just didn’t want to assume that you do because we never really talked about it.” He explained, rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb.
His metal fingers, although cold and hard against your skin, had always been your favorite. They were gentle when they needed to be, or at least whenever Bucky touched you. They were cold and made you shiver but always in a good way.
“Bucky, I’ve talked about wanting a future with you. You still didn’t think that that was love?” There was a hint of playfulness in your tone despite your deadpan expression.
Oh no, what if you interpreted everything the wrong way?
“Do you not...oh my god, Bucky am I the only one in love?” You asked, panicked.
“Oh god, no.” Bucky immediately clarified as he pulled you to sit down on the bed beside him.
“I love you. So much. Please don’t think otherwise.” He said, cupping your face and wiping away the remnants of your tears.
A smile followed by a quick peck on the lips. Bucky moved and gave you enough space to lay down beside him on the hospital bed. Suddenly, everything felt right. Not that it wasn’t before but with the both of you finally uttering those words, it felt different.
The perfect kind of different.
You laid your head against Bucky’s chest and listened to his heartbeat as his hand rubbed comforting circles on your back. You can’t imagine a life without being this close to him, your super soldier.
“I thought of you, you know.” His chest rumbled as he spoke.
You lifted your head up to look at him in confusion. He smiled at you lovingly, “During the mission. Every mission I go to actually, I thought of you.”
Bucky thought about how you always waited for his return no matter how long he took. He imagined what you’d be doing when he’d come back, would you still be asleep? Perhaps you’d be in the shower, singing. Bucky thought about how he’d kiss you as soon as he comes home, how he’d make you feel how much he missed you and your scent, how your smooth skin felt against his.
Every single time, Bucky thought about coming home to you. It was his motivation to stay alive no matter what. He knew you needed him as much as the world does.
Because he needed you just the same.
More than friends, indeed. Less than lovers? No, you and Bucky were more than that.
You were each other’s worlds.
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unholytrinitytrio · 4 years ago
Text
ASKING THEM TO PULL OUT
Pairing: Hawks x Reader, Dabi x Reader, Shigaraki x Reader
Warnings: Unprotected sex, Manipulation, Overstimulation, Degradation kink Breeding kink, Non con, Basically anything to do with cum
Word count:
HAWKS: KEIGO TAKAMI
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Seeing you cry out of pleasure is doing wonders to his ego but seeing you oozing HIS cum would be the deal breaker. Problem is you won’t give him what he wants.
So in particular night where he was sure you were extra putty in his hands, he asked again if he could cum inside of you and when you denied again, despite his hard work, here comes the constant whining with a side of manipulation.
“Please just once, Let me do it” Hawks begged pulling out of you and just continued to pleasure you by just rubbing your nerve in lazy, slow manner, despite your constant whining to continue whatever he was doing before.
“Don’t wanna” you replied, pouting at him.
“If you love me, you’ll let me do it right?” Keigo now stopped his movement any pleasurable friction you felt before. He smiled in adoration back at you making you feel guilty of not letting do it just once. But you know it’s risky.
“Keigo you know that today’s my ovulation date right? I said it to you it’s still risky, still with pills and all” you frowned looking anywhere but him, afraid that his look of adoration would sway your previous decision.
“Then I’ll wear a condom, that good for you?”
“I thought you said you hated wearing one? That’s why we got the pills right?”
“I do hate it but for you I’ll do anything” he said charming you with his smile.
“O-ok then, but remember I have to see you wear one”
And that you did, you watched him put one although you can see a flash of regret cross his face that one time.
Continuing with where you left off, relaxed that you weren’t at risk of being knocked up you let him continue. Until he stopped for quite a time to reposition your legs, he said, until you felt him pressed himself on top of you, body tightly knitted in mating press position.
Entering you again you groaned at the sudden change in sensation of his dick. A sudden increase in temperature and heightened sensation of his veins rubbing inside you. And then it struck you, with nervousness increasing every time he thrusts right back in but not wanting to come off doubting him. You tapped his shoulders three times to garner his attention.
Still not relenting his thrust although he slowed down a bit in consideration of you he tilted his shoulder in a show of curiosity.
“You ARE still wearing a condom right?” you asked him a bit anxiously
‘Please say yes, please say yes’ you chanted back and forth
With a grin he looked back at you, you smiled back skittishly, hoping that you were indeed right.
“Maybe if you said 'I love you, cum inside me' I won’t breed you”
‘Bree-?!’
Like being doused with cold water you started pushing your self away from him, although it proved to no avail with his added weight on top of you effectively holding you back.
“Fuck, ‘m close” you heard him mutter before feeling him speed up his thrust
“I- I love you!” you yelped out hurriedly the first time.
“I love you too” he responded hips continuing it’s brutal pace.
“I love you, I love you, I love you, Keigo, Inside please! Cum please!” you chanted loudly, not caring who heard you right now, panic already setting in, feeling his dick twitch more with each passing minute.
“I know....I love you too” he grunted his response back, eagerly capturing your lips.
And then he stilled still. That’s when you felt ropes of thick hot cum spilling inside you. Crying with hiccups you felt your body slackened from the realization of what happened.
With a grin of a cat that got the canary, he stayed inside you hugging you tightly telling you that he’s excited to see you with his little one around your arms.
DABI: TOUYA TODOROKI
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This man thrives on seeing his darling cry
“No more....No more please...” you heaved out already wrung out of orgasm, your thighs already straining from being held for too long
Oh you want him to stop? Best believe he’ll pull out slowly wanting to see you sigh in relieve, face plastered with dried up tears and drool, thinking that he’ll spare you today. And when he sees you start to relax he’ll thrust right back inside you enjoying your choked intake of air, and eyes brimming with fresh set of tears.
“I thought- I thought. You said- You sai-” you said shakily with his every thrust holding tightly on his shoulders for support. While still simultaneously trying to push yourself away from his onslaught of hip bruising thrust.
“I thought-I thought” he mocked you in a high pitched voice, repositioning his hold on your on his waist to fold you further until you felt your knees bucking on your shoulder.
“Yeah, you thought wrong. You had your fun. Best return the favor” he grunted smiling maniacally in response of seeing the look of betrayal from you.
With a high pitched yelp, your back arching to rub against him. He felt your walls contract and some warm fluid being squirted against his abdomen and pelvis. Not relenting his thrust rather opting to reposition himself in order to fasten his pace he growled loudly, pulling your hair to the side to expose your neck more to him he bit hard hard concealing his moan.
You almost went in and out of consciousness, not caring that Dabi’s using you as rag doll, until you heard him groaned about cumming inside you.
Like a cold water splashed on you, you jolted awake from the realization that this asshole would definitely shoot his load inside you.Thrashing weakly despite the soreness of your muscle, you actively tried pushing him off.
“Just not inside. Please, I’m begging you” you cried again, not caring that you sounded rather pathetically.
Wrong move, your crying, pleading face was the last push he needed.
He suddenly stayed still, face buried on your neck until you felt warm thick liquid spreading inside you, some of it escaping from his plugged dick inside you to form small puddles of your mixed cum.
Realizing the situation Dabi, put you through another set of fresh tears ran down your eyes. With a groan he carefully pulled him self out looking down where your bodies just connected to see small droplets escaping your entrance.
With a low whistle he scooped the droplets of cum escaping out of you with his thumb before plugging it back inside you, making you twitch pitifully at over stimulation.
“Now say thank you”
Looking back at him with bewildered look, you denied his demand.
“Do it or I’ll blow another load inside, you know I still have weeks worth inside me” he said holding at his rapidly hardening cock.
Sniffing you said “Thank...you...”
“That’s my crybaby” Dabi chuckled pinching your nose in between the knuckles of his fore and middle finger.
TOMURA SHIGARAKI: TENKO SHIMURA
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Being his girlfriend you were already used to being wrung dry, especially now that the has a larger group of men to control and an increase responsibility to attend to.
It doesn’t hurt though if he could still relax from time to time. That’s where you come in, his dainty little girlfriend ready to be used as his personal outlet in more ways than one.
And when I say personal it means EXCLUSIVELY ONLY HIS. His old rag tag of gang knew that, of course they had to acknowledge it whether they like it or not. With the sound of constant skin slapping whenever the both of you occupy a random empty room, how could the not take a hint.
Although Dabi, enjoys riling up his ego maniac leader once in a while, trying to see how far he can go without the risk of being dusted.
Today of all days Dabu had to prank your lover into believing that you'll leave him for crusty ankles over there. And so it's now your job to sate his jealousy with his love language. Mainly physical contact which evetually leads to sex. So here you are now jumping his dick with every once of energy you had left.
He does have quite the vigor for someone who doesn't do physical activities on daily basis.
"To-tomura my knees hurt already let's switch" you said panting above him, he grunted in annoyance agaisnt his suckling of your breast.
Pushing you off of him he positioned himself behind you one hand carefully grabbung your hips the other on your breast pinching ang pulling it before finally re entering you with a groan.
Now that he think about it you never let him do whatever he wants. It was always 'Tomura don't do this or tomura I don't like that'
Stopping dead with his thrust you whinned needy below him asking what's up with him.
"I want to cum inside"
Alarmed at the sudden proclamation of his you tried looking back at him.
"No! Shigaraki you ca-?!" and with you felt your head shoved back into the bed muffling whatever complaints you had left.
Tomura figured he liked that. Having his way with you, no nagging, no begging, no nothing.
Grinning he started pistoning into you without a care in the world. Squirming around you tried reaching back at him successfully clawing at one of his thighs to signal he's already suffocating you by restraining your head with his palm.
You would have had lost consciousness if it weren't for the fact that he pulled your hair back to his direction grinding his hips at your backside.
Whinning in pain you tried jerking his hands off of your head but he Shigaraki took it as a sign that you want him to do it again. And so with every sharp thrust he'll tug your head further from side to side.
Feeling a migraine coming from his sudden on slaught of head jerking you just wished he'll cum faster. If it weren't for the fact that this asshole wants to shoot his load inside you.
Reaching around you he started to toy your bundle of nerves trying to stimulate your entrance to further constrict his member which proved successful, making you loose strength in your upper limb.
Face planted on the bed sheets, your lover held unto your hips tighter, his thrusts becoming sloppier by the minute until he stopped completely for a minute or two and then you felt the warm gush entering inside you.
With a groan, hoping to get yourself cleaned up, you tried crawling yourself away from him disgusted by his cum dripping out of his member still lodged inside of you.
That is until he pulled you back again to him re sheathing his flaccid dick inside, successfully pushing back his remaining cum inside you making you shudder in disgust, and horror at what he is trying to imply.
With a grinning face he said the next of his many demands.
"I want to see how much of my load you can handle"
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sugamamacustard · 4 years ago
Text
Let me help you
Pairing:  Alpha! Toru Oikawa x Omega! Reader, Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi x Omega! Reader
Genre: Angst, fluff, Hurt/comfort.
Request: Because I like a bit of hurt/comfort, and I love the idea of an omega depression, I'm curious on how alpha third years on Aoba Johsai (so like Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Mattsun) would do in response to their omega being in an omega depression.
Summary: Because of unseen circumstances, you drop, and you drop hard. How does your alpha help you/redeem himself?
Author’s Note:  Oikawa’s got really long, so I didn’t include Mattsun or Makki. If you wanna request a part 2 I’ll get on it right away!
Requests: Open!
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Toru Oikawa
➵ Truth be told, it was kind of his fault. 
➵Right after you both bonded, he immediately seemed to drop any redeeming qualities he had while courting you.
➵He skipped out on dates, stayed later and later at practice, gave the mile to his fangirls.
➵And while you could get over that, the worse thing you realized was when you went to cheer him on at one of his games. 
➵His bond mark was covered with a scent gland bandage and when Iwaizumi noticed it (He knew of your bonding), he sent a worried glance your way.
➵He could practically see the heartbreak from his place on the court. 
➵What was worse was that you didn’t make a scene. 
➵You stood, turned and left. That was it. 
➵ Oikawa was busy doing his pre-game whatever to notice, making the situation even worse.  
➵Iwaizumi wanted to follow you but the whistle of the ref called him back. 
➵ You didn’t want Iwaizumi to follow you anyway. 
➵You felt numb. So, so numb. 
➵Like anything you previously felt-- any longing, or wishing for your alpha-- reduced to a numb buzz that kept your body moving. 
➵You felt like you were on Autopilot. 
➵Toru made it fairly obvious that he wanted your bond mark on display, so why weren’t the same standards held to him? It wasn’t against the rules of volleyball-- several alphas had theirs out on proud display with their omega cheering in the stands. 
➵Was it you?
➵God, you felt so empty. Like your will to live was dripping away. 
➵You felt your omega lay down, whining as they tried to figure out what was wrong. Where did you go wrong? 
➵You barely felt the soft fleece of your blankets as you settled into your nest for who knows how long. 
___
 Toru was lost. You were in the stands during warm-up last game, but was gone by half-time. Okay, fine. Maybe you had to pee. But then you didn’t show up at all after that.  While at the time it took a back burner-- because we all know how Oikawa plays-- it was now front and center. His alpha was on edge and snapped on him twice already, sending sharp throbs of pain to his temples. It had been three days since Toru had seen you, his mate, so Toru could tell that was a big reason for his frustration. But Toru didn’t know why you had been gone for three days. 
If you were sick, why didn’t you text him? Were you injured? Toru didn’t know.  His neck burnt with anticipation at the thought of you in any peril. 
Where were you?
 Shoving his way past a few fangirls, Toru made his way into the gym, racking his brain for any sort of hint. Vacation maybe and you just forgot to tell him?
 “Iwa-chan! I need your-” Toru paused, huffing when Iwaizumi roughly shoved past him. His alpha was on guard immediately, making Toru growl loudly.   “What’s you issue, Iwa? Blue-balled or something?” 
The laugh that left Iwaizumi made even him, the head alpha, shiver. “My issue? What’s yours?! You absolutely destroyed your relationship last game and ask me for help?! What the hell is wrong with you, Oikawa?!”  
Oikawa swallowed. There was no nickname. No sense of friendship in his words. They were straight malice, laced with acidic venom meant to hurt him. 
When Oikawa didn’t immediately answer, Iwaizumi continued. “You make them wear their bond mark for all the world to see, but cover yours up? What in the actual fuck is wrong with you?! How in the hell you got someone like them to glance your way for more than a second is beyond me, let alone bond you; but when you do, you fucking destroy them. You’re a failure of an alpha, Toru Oikawa.” 
Truth be told, Oikawa thought that him covering up his bond mark would save you from trouble. The less people who knew about him being mated the less people to harass you. But he was your alpha. He was supposed to make sure that didn’t happen anyway.  Fuck, Iwa was right. He was a failure. This became evident as more and more things came hurdling back at him.  He didn’t even grab his duffel before he was, quite literally, sprinting out of the gym. He didn’t care who he pushed over. He didn’t care who he snapped at. He didn’t care. He only care about one person and one person alone. 
___
You whined as hunger continued gnawing at your gut. You wanted to eat, really, but you just didn’t have the energy. You didn’t have the will. 
You still felt so numb and didn’t know where to go from here. At this point, it was clear you were in the midst of an Omega Depression, and to be fair-- that scared you. You wanted to spend the evening in your nest, restart and reboot, before talking to your alpha about it the next day. You truly didn’t mean to drop. 
But here you were. The aspect of ...starvation scared you. The aspect of no closure for yourself scared you. Death scared you. But you couldn’t fight yourself to fix it. Couldn’t bring yourself to even lift your head or stay awake for more than an hour. 
The door to your room slammed open, but you didn’t look up. It was probably your guardian coming in to try and get you to eat again. But you wouldn’t. 
Your heart dropped when the smell of burnt plastic invaded your sense. 
“No- no, no, no, no no- Please god no-” Oikawa felt his heart shatter at the sight of you. You looked like you had both feet dangling in the grave, hanging on by a loose root you grabbed onto in a last ditch effort. 
He continued repeating no while running his hands through his hair, already crying before he even set foot in your room.  When he did dare step closer, that was all it took before he was running to you, pulling you in close despite your whines of protest.  His grip on you was bruising, but he couldn’t risk letting you slip. Not again. 
“Please- please don’t leave me.” He sobbed into your shoulder, your own eyes stinging (Dehydration keeping tears from falling).  “I- I can fix this- I can fix us. Fuck- Please Y/N. Please omega, let me help you. Let me make this right!”
Though you didn’t say anything, the grip on his jacket told him all he needed to know. And though it would be a long road to recovery, you and him would conquer it. 
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➵ Completely contrary to Oikawa, your drop wasn’t anyone’s fault.
➵Maybe the school systems, if there was blame to be put. 
➵So much had gone on in such a short period. 
➵You and your alpha, along with his team, had been bombarded with practice and paperwork in preparation for the upcoming tournament. 
➵But just because volleyball picked, doesn’t mean school drops off.
➵ You had essay after essay due, Unit exams which would soon fall into Final exams.
➵You and Hajime had barely even seen each other all week.
➵You both still sent each other good morning and good night texts, and if you see each other in the hallway you’ll give each other a quick peck. 
➵Honestly, it was obvious everyone was on edge. 
➵Teachers didn’t care though, they just kept piling on more, and more, and more work.
➵ And volleyball just kept getting closer and closer.
➵You stumbled into the gym with a chirp, trying to sort through the multitude of papers in your arms. 
➵Your back was aching and your arms were strained, but you couldn’t drop them. That would be a disaster. 
➵ The coach sent you a raised brow, offering a hand to help. You waved him off, sitting on the bench with a grunt.
➵Everyone was already sweaty and panting, practice in full swing. 
➵God, everyone looked so tired already. 
➵You could feel the waves of exhaustion.
➵ As they were just in deep in your bones as they were in theirs. 
___
“Did you finish filling out the registry forms?”
You looked up to the coach, nodding slowly before riffling through your papers and pulling out the ones you were looking for. You handed them to the beta, quickly going back to your notes once more. 
You noted the stumbled steps and slowed reflexes, but simply made it a point to emphasize rest with the boys. Maybe a day with no practice would do them more good then practice. 
Hajime was doing well, as usual, somehow keeping his head and energy high. You know he hasn’t gotten much rest either, and you felt for your alpha. Honestly, you just wanted one day with just you and your alpha, where you both could sleep the day away and come back good as new. 
That just sounded glorious. 
“You wouldn’t mind filling out the ref sheets either, would you?” The beta smirked, already handing you the sheets. He knew you had a tough time saying no to people older and/or bigger than you; and had you doing several things that most mangers would never touch.
It was tiring.
You reluctantly took the sheets, already starting on them. The notes you were working on were yanking from under you, the coach reading over them. 
He scoffed at your note of possibly skipping a practice. “Are you serious?” 
“I’m sorry?”
“Take a break?! These boys are on the brink of a skillful breakthrough, and you want to stop them?!” 
You closed in on yourself at the yells, trying to focus on the ref sheets. He continued yelling and berating you for the notes you made. You could feel the teams stares on you, but you also knew they wanted you to learn to stand up for yourself. They had been giving you a few minutes to try and collect yourself and if nothing happened they would step in. 
It only took seconds for you to finally break down, sobbing into your hands as the coach’s yelling reached a breaking point. The team took very time to act then and there. 
Oikawa and Kyoutani were snapping and growling, pushing him back and away from you while Hajime slid onto his knees in front of you, pulling you to his chest and kissing your bond mark. He rocked you side to side, purring and letting you cry. 
You sobbed and sobbed while the coach tried backtracking, but it was too late. The pack was on defense. One of them was in danger and they were going to make sure they all were safe. 
___
You don’t remember falling asleep, but when you wake up, your in Hajime’s arms, which are wrapped tight around your waist. 
Oikawa was on the other side of you, head on Hajime’s thigh, Makki and Mattsun were cuddling together a little to the left of you. Kyoutani was closest to you (He had a soft spot for you, almost like you were another older sister to him). You ran a hand through his hair for a moment before taking a deep breath in and out. The rest of the team was scattered in the puppy pile around you, and the gym was dark. 
In fact, everything was dark. There were chairs propped up by the door, just in case you supposed, and there were jackets littered everywhere. Your heart fluttered at the thought. 
Hajime’s arms subconsciously tightened around you, luring you back into sleep.
You, your alpha, and your pack.
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tarosin · 3 years ago
Text
the great adventures of y/n and ranboo
this is an extra part to the great adventures series
summary: part two to the angst imagine (the not so great adventures of y/n tommy tubbo jack and ranboo) it’s a happier ‘ending’ please read what is written in bold
this is an “alternative ending” around 15 years into the future this doesn’t mean this is actually how the series is going to end im writing it now and including it as part of series as their friendship is already established i can confirm y/n and the group are going to have a happy ending when the series eventually comes to an end this also does not mean the series is anywhere near the end i plan on continuing the series as vlogs come out, i feel the need to confirm this now love between y/n and ranboo in this imagine is completely platonic
it had been about a month since you last streamed whereas ranboo continued to stream a few days after the fallout as he wanted to make sure you were going to be okay. even though ranboo knew this huge fallout would eventually happen, it still hurt him, especially since he knew there was no way to prevent it, the four of you in the same house mixed with the stress of being some of the most-watched content creators made living rather difficult. it was like walking on eggshells as you didn’t want to interrupt someone's stream, then there was the additional stress of obsessive fans finding out where the four of you lived, you still remember that day very vividly. you were sat in between tubbo and ranboo watching the office whilst Tommy was in an interview when you received a message from your mod.
Chris: hey y/n I received this message earlier I don’t want to scare you, but maybe get the locks changed. someone sent a message claiming this is your address *image of message from ‘fan’*
it didn’t take long for tubbo and ranboo to receive a message from their mods saying the same thing
“holy shit...”
“chances are Tommy has the message too. we shall go check around the house when Tommy is done with the interview.”
luckily no one ever showed up to the house, but the fact some people were so obsessed to the point they found your address was enough to put everyone in the house on edge. and now it was just you and ranboo in the house. you didn’t feel safe as even though ranboo promised to not let anything happen, you didn’t wanna risk it.
“we should move. there’s no point in having such a big house for two people, what are we going to use the extra space for heh? hide and seek with people who have our address. no thank you. I say we move leave this mess behind and start completely over, hell I’d feel safer in the us and that’s saying something”
ranboo agreed the house didn’t have the happiest memories attached to it anymore, it hurt walking past the hallway as it would bring back the memory of him crying into the crook of y/ns neck whilst tubbo left the house.
“let’s do it, I’ll do an early stream then we can look for houses. go take a shower. I’ll stay close to the door so you’re safe, then you can stay in my room whilst I stream, you can join me if you would like.”
“you’re being very protective all of a sudden...let me guess you got the message from our mods announcing the obsessive fans are at it again?”
“go take a shower.”
“no.”
ranboo ended up picking you up, carried you to the bathroom and turned the shower on before putting you on your feet.
“quick shower I’ll see you later.”
and with that he left the room shutting the door behind him, 30 minutes later you got changed and followed ranboo to his room ready to join him whilst he streams
“hey boo, can I join you? I kinda wanna get into streaming again.”
“I'm so glad you asked, I was going to do a face cam stream, if that’s okay?”
“of course.”
you grabbed his mask and glasses whilst he locked the door so you were both safe. “here you go.”
“thank you.”
the pair of you started the stream and it was honestly going well, you were having so much fun you forgot about all the negative things currently going on, you began to understand why ranboo continued streaming as for those 2-4 hours of streaming it felt as though everything was back to normal. 3 hours later the two of you ended stream and Twitter went crazy. tweets ranged from fans talking about how ranboo was streaming with you, how Tommy was in chat, and how tubbo was modding as people who mentioned anything about their address being leaked were banned by tubbo. the one thing that caught ranboos eye was fan art and a picture of you both from the stream captioned ‘they’re platonic soulmates your honour’ ranboo went as far to like, retweet and comment on it.
ranaltboo: glad you liked the stream it was great having y/n back, think I might make them play tattletail next stream
definitelynoty/n: isn’t that the Furby game that terrified you in 2021? bring it on boo!
Twitter went crazy over this interaction, you had finally come back to social media after months of being inactive, and it looked like you were here to stay. a month later you and ranboo moved out of the house and sold it to your aunt and her wife and their three adopted children, you explained the situation and even changed the locks for them all before they moved in.
“Please do tell us if anyone shows up who shouldn’t be. we changed the locks as you were aware- oh hello little one.”
you noticed one of their children decided to cling onto your leg
“I like your hair it’s colourful!”
“Indeed it is.”
“WOAH A GIANT!”
the little girl let go of your leg and ran to ranboo asking to be picked up, unsure of what to do he looked towards you. however, you were too busy laughing about the fact he was compared to a giant.
“I'm so sorry uh if you want to pick her up you can, you don’t have to.”
“pick me up, tall man... I want to be taller!”
ranboo ended up standing next to you with an arm around your waist whilst the child sat on his shoulders happily playing with his hair.
“ranboo do not drop that child.”
“I didn't- I didn't plan on it y/n.”
eventually, it was time to leave and the child reluctantly let go of ranboo.
“bye-bye!! hope to see you soon!”
soon enough you were at a smaller house, far away from the old house, leaving behind the negative feelings. it could only get better, a week later the pair of you had settled into the new house, it finally felt like home. you and ranboo were now streaming full time again, safe to say the two of you were thriving and closer than ever.
“so I’m thinking if I hit the sub-goal today I’ll let chat pick what colour I dye my hair.”
“make it higher, and I’ll let you cut my hair.”
“Are you being serious? oh my god!”
a few minutes later you took to Twitter to announce you were going live.
y/n: kidnapping children in the sims with ranboo psst check the subgoal.
within 20 minutes you had hit the sub-goal, chat ended up picking another random neon colour for your hair.
“right hair dye and the cutting stream will be this weekend, now let’s go back to kidnapping.”
tubbo, tommy, and jack felt awful for what happened and went back to the house where you used to live, hoping to see you there so they could apologise, tubbo knocked on the door only to be met by a young child.
“my sister watches you on twitch!”
“oh that’s lovely.. are y/n and ranboo here?”
an older woman came to the door.
“oh no, I’m sorry dear they both moved out, but they left this box and said to give it to you if you returned.”
“do you know where they moved to?”
“I'm sorry dear, I'm not allowed to tell you that information for safety reasons.”
“I understand, thanks anyway.”
they ended up going back to jacks where the three of them had been staying.
“We should open the box.”
tubbo opened the box and emptied the items onto the floor, inside was the rocks y/n handed tubbo from every trip, photos of the group, a necklace y/n had gifted to Tommy a day before the argument, and a hat y/n had taken from jack during a trip to a zoo.
“what the fuck!”
“holy shit!”
“they really kept all these in hopes we would come back?”
“and now we’re too late.”
it was now the weekend you and ranboo were ready to stream, you stood leaning on ranboo who was significantly smaller than you as you lowered the chair he sat on.
“starting stream...now.”
after the starting soon intro played, you explained what was happening to any new viewers or people who didn’t watch the stream.
“so I’m about to become Edward Scissorhands...I love that film can we watch it later?”
“yeah mhm sure!”
you didn’t know this but your ex best friends were watching and ever so often would show up in the chat.
“so boo, what are we doing with your hair today?”
“just a trim please darling?”
“This is y/ns hairdressers you get what I’m capable of!”
you ended up doing a pretty good job of cutting ranboos hair, even he was impressed.
“I didn’t doubt you for a minute!”
“mhm sure thing please don’t mess up my hair tall one!”
soon enough you had the dye on. 45 minutes later you left to wash it off, leaving ranboo to entertain stream,
“chat I think I missed some of their hair it’s okay, I own scissors, I’ll just cut it.. speaking of they did a great job, didn't they? I honestly expected them to mess up.”
a few minutes later you joined ranboo again and spent the next few hours talking with chat. tubbo, tommy, and jack stayed the entire time. they loved the fact you and ranboo were able to stay close after what happened, Tommy noticed you were still wearing the necklace he got you many years ago and spammed them chat with him tubbo and jack
Tommy: THEYRE WEARING THE NECKLACE!!
jack: so what? they clearly don’t wanna talk to us.
tubbo: shut up listen to them.
“chat why are we spamming platonic soulmates?”
“they’ve been saying it all over Twitter, look on trending y/n.”
you started to blush slightly at all the amazing artwork soon enough the stream came to an end, after saying goodbye the pair of you sat together going through fan art. unfortunately the one that caught your eye was this one twitter post where the artist had created a drawing of a piece of paper with you, ranboo, tommy, tubbo, and jack, however the paper was ripped separating you and ranboo from the others, captioned ‘it was never meant to be’ this clearly upset ranboo as he took off his mask and glasses placing them on the desk before going straight to his bed.
“boo…are you okay?”
“Are you tired of me? are you going to leave next?”
“what? no of course not! I could never get tired of you, why do you ask?”
“everyone else has left..i thought they cared about us, i knew it would happen eventually and i couldn’t stop it, i’m sorry, y/n, please don’t hate me.”
you sat on the edge of the bed looking down at the floor,
“come here.”
you watched him roll over to face you.
“you know there’s no one else who I'd rather spend the rest of my life with, right…if i hated you i wouldn’t have moved house with you. it’s not your job to fix everything and make everything better, you’re a streamer for christ sake not a therapist.”
“i guess so.. can we watch that thing you were on about for ages.”
“edward scissorhands? “
“mhm!”
you could tell he wanted to be distracted, so you agreed and put the film on, towards the end you began to get upset due to how overwhelming everything was.
“Why are you crying?”
“poor Edward.”
“come here.”
ranboo pulled you into a hug you laid there crying into his chest, he knew that wasn’t the reason you were crying, but he wasn’t about to make you tell him, luckily it didn’t take long for you to stop crying as ranboo quickly distracted you.
“ranboo..”
“yeah y/n?”
“I feel bad i didnt realise how much pressure was on you whilst everyone was arguing.”
“Hey, it’s okay, is that what’s upsetting you?”
“mhm.”
“don’t blame yourself, i’d do it all over again to keep you safe and happy..then again i didn’t do a good job on keeping you happy.”
“you did..you were always there for me even when i gave up on social media, you shared your room with me after i started receiving creepy messages from that obsessed fan, hell you even went on adventures with me even though it was clear you hadn’t been sleeping, just so we could spend time together and forget about what was happening. you mean a lot to me boo.”
“i love you.”
“i love you too bud, I’m tired.”
“go to sleep, it’s been a long day.”
“okay.”
“you just staying there?”
“yes.”
“oh, oh okay, goodnight.”
about a year later the two of you were still thriving, ranboo got you a promise ring a few months earlier.
“heh what’s this for?”
“as your best friend i promise to stay by your side and keep you safe and make sure that you’re happy, in other words you're stuck with me till the end of time.”
“boo…i really don’t know what to say.. thank you so much!”
“you don’t have to say anything!”
you ended up going out to buy him a promise ring when he started the stream and decided to take your cousins with you now that they were a little older. ranboo was doing a facecam stream when the door slammed open revealing you covering your three younger cousins ranboo not realising you were hiding them from the camera, instinctively stood up covering the camera
“ranboooooo!”
“yes you three and y/n ,what do you need?”
“we would like to watch a film!”
“Okay, i’ll go put one on, y/n will you entertain chat?”
“sure thing boo boy!”
once they left you sat fixing your hair forgetting you were wearing the ring chat noticed this and went crazy, so did Tommys group with tubbo and jack.
tubbo: that’s a ring, right??
jack: yeah looks like it.
Tommy: holy shit I always thought if anyone was gonna get married it would be tubbo and y/n, they were inseparable.
tubbo: hilarious.
jack: it could just be a ring, no one mentioned marriage tommy!
Tommy: we should congratulate them.
jack: at least let them explain fucking hell.
soon enough ranboo came back into the room,
“sorry one of them found it hilarious to steal my glasses...”
“they’re little shits i swear to god but i love them.”
you both noticed chat going crazy and both looked at each other before laughing.
“i'm sorry, i can’t take you serious in the mask and glasses!”
“i can’t take you serious with neon hair, but here we are!”
“rude!”
you and ranboo quickly put an end to the rumours,
“no we’re not engaged or married, it is a promise ring. no they’re not our children, they’re y/ns cousins they just spend a lot of time here..chat stop calling me and y/n parents and comparing us to phil that’s not..that’s not how it works okay!”
“parent arc!”
“y/n, don’t encourage them!”
“it’s a little bit funny!”
soon enough the bit came to an end and eventually ranboo ended the stream.
“hey boo look what i got you”
you handed him a little black box, inside was a ring similar to yours
“i promise to always stick around and be here for you”
“oh my god”
ranboo tackled you into a hug thanking you several times for his rings. you and ranboo were living your best life meanwhile jack, tommy, and tubbo were stuck dealing with the guilt of what happened, but they’re weren’t giving up that easy. they wanted you both back, that’s when you received a notification, tommyinnit has sent you a message request: hey y/n can we talk..please?
taglist
@dumb-chaotic-bi-energy @uselesssapphickitten @l0ver0fj0y @etheriaaly @xx-smiley-xx @hawarun @kylobensgirl @cawcaw-pretty-thing @reverse-iak @renleicrashed @augustine-is-joy @c1loudee
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folkloreguk · 4 years ago
Text
Moving Antics (M)
A/N: This was requested a while ago and I hope you will enjoy it! I always welcome feedback of any kind! Have a good day x
genre: smut, optional bias (m) x reader (f), oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, overstimulation (a tiny bit), dom!bias, very lowkey roleplaying??, reader wears a maid outfit (not in a degrading way)
words: ~ 5.4 k
tag list: @mochi-ficz (let me know if you wanna be tagged when I post new fics!)
People had told you over and over. Moving is a stressful, exhausting process. It would take a while for you to settle in. Until everything had found its perfect place, weeks could pass. At least that’s what everybody said. What they all failed to understand, though, was that being in love could make the most tiring experience fun. Was it stressful? Sometimes. Exhausting? Why don’t you ask yourself that, when you fell into bed like a walking corpse at night? But all it took was a glimpse at your boyfriend as he carried inside the box that said ‘anniversary gifts’ and it was all worth it. You were confident in one thing at least. In the settling in department you were both ranking foremost.
You had lived in the apartment for only a week, and you couldn’t have been more all-over-each-other. Somehow there seemed to be an unspoken challenge you had both taken on. Maybe you two could set a record for most surfaces in a flat someone could have sex on. Or perhaps you should have started marking the rooms and spaces you hadn’t been able to add to your list yet. There wouldn’t have been many left. At the moment, there was only one downside to being so head-over-heels in love. A lot of the boxes in the apartment had been left unattended, as if you only waited long enough, the things would start flying out of the cartons and miraculously sort themselves out while you could stay there, in bed with your lover between your legs.
But this wasn’t Hogwarts and you weren’t some magician. And so one rainy Saturday noon you decided it would be thatday. The day you finally put away all the things that were still in the boxes. Not that the day had been successful so far. It was 12 pm and you were in bed. The shower was running in the bathroom next door, and you wondered how you would convince your boyfriend and yourself that getting things done would be a worthwhile pastime. Telling yourself you would come up with a tactic with your eyes closed, you tricked yourself into daydreaming for a little while longer, cuddled in the blankets that still smelled like him.
When you heard footsteps approach, your mind snapped back to reality. He strut through the door like a nude model, searching for some clothes to wear. His smirk when he saw you eye him was prominent and made your stomach flip. It took every last will of yours to not ask him to come back into bed with you, forget all your earlier plans and live like you were the last people on earth.
“Do you want breakfast?” he asked, finishing his outfit by pulling a shirt over his head. “I’ll make you some.”
You hummed, starry-eyed at his perfection. “Thank you,” you said. Quickly, he kissed your forehead and then walked off, presumably in the direction of the kitchen. Twenty minutes later, at the kitchen table, you finally brought up your wonderful idea.
“I think we really should unpack some more stuff today,” you said, “Don’t you think?”
“You’re right,” he said, “We’ve really been procrastinating.”
“You can say that again,” you laughed.
“Although I wouldn’t describe our scientific research of the last few days as completely pointless.”
“Our what?” you asked. You were getting up to put away the plates of your late breakfast.
“Us testing which room of the house is the most fun to have sex in,” he stated, matter of fact. “I vote for the bathroom.”
“You just love the mirrors,” you grinned, and he mirrored it.
“I do,” he said. His arms snuck around your waist from behind. “Almost as much as I love you.”
“I love you too, babe,” you said, “You know, there’s one room we haven’t tried yet.”
“The office,” he said. You turned your head and you kissed him deeply. In agreement you hummed, your arms wrapping around him. He pulled you closer, hands ghosting over the back of your thighs and up to your hips. You felt like jumping onto the counter and having him there, again, just like you had done it two days ago. But then you remembered you had other projects for the day. If you gave in to him now, you’d end up back in bed for the rest of the day, probably. Guilt was already setting in at the mere thought.
“Wait,” you pulled away and said, “We have things to get done.”
His nod was dilatory but then he seemed to recall his own determination from around two minutes ago. You wished you could have motivated him otherwise, but you were already struggling to spur on yourself to be productive. Then, you suddenly remembered something. Your eyes must have widened in surprise because he furrowed his brows at you.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Stay here,” you announced, “I’ll make sure we get through with this today.”
And you were off to your bedroom. You pulled the box out from the far back of your closet. Memories flashed your mind, of when you and your boyfriend had been watching a show together. One of the characters had been wearing a provocative maid outfit, and you still thought about the way he had grinned at it, or how he had said he found it cute, which you believed translated to sexy, but he had been a little shy back then.
Long story short you bought one. And what better occasion to put it to use than now? You went all out, stockings and heels as well as your attempt at fixing your hair quickly, which you knew didn’t really matter, since you would want it out of the way if you were really going to be emptying boxes. You strut down the hall, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. The black and white costume just about covered your ass, and on your chest was a cutout in the shape of a cat’s head. The ruffles of the material bounced as you walked, excited to see your boyfriend’s reaction.
“Close your eyes!” you shouted. “No cheating!”
“I never cheat,” he said. You rolled your eyes, remembering his video game antics from the past.
“Before you say anything…this is supposed to be a motivation for us to empty the boxes. If we do that, we can have our reward,” you said.
“What reward?” he asked, eyes still shut.
“Open your eyes and you’ll know,” you said. Oh, how dearly you whished you could have captured his face on camera.
“Babe…,” he said. Then his mouth just stayed agape, as he ogled at you shamelessly. Just because he could. Because he was just thatlucky to have you.
“Do you like it?” you asked.
“Yes. Of course I do,” he said. His tone was emotionless because he was way too busy sorting out his own thoughts in his head. “But do you really think this is a good idea? How am I supposed to focus on anything but you?”
“We’ll figure it out,” you said. “Don’t you want to feel accomplished at the end of it all? If we don’t start working now, we’ll just end up feeling guilty. Again. Come on, let’s do this.”
“Alright,” he said. “Let me have one kiss.”
You laughed and granted him that one wish. His lips lingered on yours for a while. You knew he didn’t want to pull away. Neither did you. But at last, he had enough control to remove himself from you. It was the office that still needed the most work to be done. Cardboard boxes were piled on top of each other, labelled with some sort of theme or room of belonging on the outside. When you looked his way, he was only eyeing your legs. But then you grabbed the closest box to you and handed it to your boyfriend, and he snapped out of his trance.
Believe it or not, there were up- and downsides to the maid costume in this situation. The pros included feeling unnecessarily sexy whilst doing an unbelievably humane task, not getting too warm since you were already wearing little clothing and having your boyfriend virtually drooling over your appearance. The downsides were mostly reduced to one word: heels. Climbing a ladder and balancing three boxes on top of each other in your arms was an arduous task to begin with. Now add the possibility of twisting your ankle on the top step of a ladder and crashing to the floor, probably breaking your back or worse. You really couldn’t endanger the prospect of the fun you were planning on having later by taking that risk.
That’s why you chose to abandon the heels somewhere on the floor about half an hour into the process. And you came to the conclusion that finally getting over and done with what you had been procrastinating for the last week wasn’t all that bad. You were a whirlwind, running from room to room to make sure everything had its place. At some point he had turned some music on, and it was making everything even better. After all this time, you finally had your own place to decorate however you desired. As you admired how nicely things were coming together, you hummed to yourself quietly.
You weren’t sure whether he was having as much fun as you were. Especially not when you walked past him in the doorframe, carrying four pillows. Your ass – maybe not all that accidentally – brushed against his front as you entered the room. Innocence and feigned ignorance were on your face but you noticed exactly the way his eyes dwelled on you for a little longer until he got back to work.
But everything you could do he could do just as well. Fifteen minutes later, you were occupied with stacking books onto a shelf. Wanting them to stand in a very specific order turned out to be more time-consuming than you had anticipated. You heard his steps behind you, assuming he was going to walk past you. Suddenly his lips brushed against your exposed neck.
“Remember this song?” he asked. You hadn’t been focused on the music for a while now, but of course you remembered. “Remember when I fucked you to the beat of this? Because I do.”
“Babe,” you said. There was a little part in your brain that had the glorious idea of him having you right there, against the bookshelf. You wouldn’t even need to remove your clothes. With him, it took nothing but a few magic words and you felt like giving him all of you. No. It’s not time for that yet. Your rationality vanquished that little avid thought and pushed it away, back into your unconscious where it had come from. It wasn’t gone yet, only not so urgent anymore.
“You’re right,” he said. “We’ll save that for later. Just wanted to remind you of how much of a good time we can have.”
You only shook your head and grinned as he walked off, pretending to be blissfully unbothered. What goes around, comes around, after all. And you deserved that for pushing up against him earlier. It took a minute and you got back to sorting your book titles. Time passed surprisingly fast when you were being productive. Box after box emptied itself, almost as if your wish for magic powers had become reality. But it was just two people, who were so excited about their reward that they forgot to even take a proper break in between the chaos. And soon you were down to the last cardboard box. It was full of decorations you didn’t need for the current season.
Just a few more climbs up and down the ladder to the very top of the closet and you were done. He stood next to the ladder, handing you the things so you didn’t have to go all the way down each time.
“Last one,” he said, giving you a box with holiday lights. Successfully, you placed it in its new spot. When you finally made eye contact with him, he was already staring at you like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at. To be fair, from where he stood, there wasn’t much left up to his imagination. With your stockings on display, his eyes could probably go all the way up to your garter belt.
“Is this angle too revealing?” you asked.
“Absolutely,” he said, making you laugh. Smirking, he took your hand as you stepped off the ladder. You stumbled into his body as you grinned at each other. You both had the same thing on your mind, without a doubt. It was like a little inside joke you had made up just now, making you flirt through looks and small touches. His hand rubbed the small of your back as he bent to your ear.
“My pretty maid, haven’t you worked enough for the day?” he asked. “All that teasing you did today must have been soexhausting.”
You nodded overly seriously, as if riling up your horny boyfriend was physically tiring work. “I hope I did a good job. Did I?”
“No one else could have done it better,” he said. “Now let me treat you, baby.”
You hummed with your mouth already too close to his to say anything. Then your lips finally crashed onto his. It was a little ridiculous how much you missed his touch after only hours of being without it. People had told you you’d get tired of being with each other all the time. But it had been years and you still wished you could have cuffed his wrist to yours because you loved him just that much.
Your tongues fought playfully as you pushed him against the closet front. Small noises came from both of your mouths, quietly agreeing that this was what you had been waiting for – more or less patiently. Your hands became busy with the buttons of his flannel. When you came across his bare skin underneath instead of a shirt, you smiled into the kiss. Every layer less to remove meant you were one step closer to what you wanted.
“We’ve never done it in here,” you muttered against his hungry lips. “That table looks nice, doesn’t it?”
He grinned. Your hands had already messed up his hair, but nothing came close to his dark eyes in moments like these. His look never failed to make your heart skip a beat while you wondered how you had ended up with the most handsome guy in the world.
“Will you think of us, if you ever sit there and work in the future?” he asked, leading you over to the office table. He dropped his flannel on the ground on the way.
“I always think about us,” you said. “But you can make sure this one stays especially prominent in my memory.”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do,” he said, and kissed you again. Your ass was backed against the edge of the table and one of his legs pushed between your thighs. It made you whimper quietly in anticipation. He touched the little part on your thighs that was bare, playing with your garters. With your eyes closed, his tongue on yours and his hands being so close but so far from where you needed him, your head spun with dizziness. He was like a drug, like alcohol dripping straight from his lips and the more you kissed him, the less control you had over yourself. His attention gave you loose lips and the impulse to be risky, all whilst feeling so high up in the clouds you weren’t sure you’d ever find your way back down. You hissed when he pressed his fingers against your underwear.
“You’ll keep the dress on,” he said. “Will you?”
“Of course,” you obliged. “If that’s what you want.”
“Good girl,” he said, and he pulled aside your panties to slide his finger over the slickness that had formed between your thighs. As if on command, your hips moved closer to his hand as you whimpered at the too gentle friction. All afternoon you had been thinking of his hands on you. When you had watched him peel away the tape from the boxes, when he was taking your hand to help you down from the ladder and when he had run his fingers through his hair absentmindedly – all you could think about was how much you wanted those hands to grab your hips and for him to have his way with you.
“Take these off,” he ordered. His stern but gentle voice turned your insides into mush. It made you behave almost like a robot, no ifs ands or buts. When you usually liked to tease him, you knew not to test your limits when he spoke in this tone. Your underwear dropped to the floor and you kicked it a few meters away. Again, his hands ghosted under your dress and found your center. You felt like your knees would buckle from the way he rubbed small circles on your clit. Moaning quietly, you wrapped your arms around his neck for support, leaning your forehead against his chest for a moment. You let out small huffs and whimpers against his skin and nuzzled especially close to him when he touched that one special spot for a few seconds.
“Look at me.” He watched intently as your eyelids fluttered like your eyes were going to roll to the back of your head. You tried your best.
“Put your hands on the table by your sides,” he said. You hummed in disapproval but didn’t dare say so. After all, he could have also told you to put them on your back. And holding on to a wooden edge was still better than not holding on to anything, when you felt like a child standing on its feet for the first time. When he hooked his free hand under your thigh, lifting up your leg a little, your grip on the table tightened. You swore under your breath when he plunged two of his fingers into you. He curled them, pushing hard against your sweet spot and you curled your back in response.
All day you had gone without any sort of attention, when your head had been so full of things you knew you could do with him. The most release you had gotten – which was basically no release at all – was from pushing your legs together tightly when the dirty thoughts had become too much for your brain to handle. You knew it was your own fault for setting yourself up with this challenge. But now with your chest heaving and your head feeling like a tsunami of emotions was raging inside of it, you didn’t regret it as much as you thought you would two hours ago. Maybe you should play this waiting game more often, instead of jumping onto each other any chance you got.
“You look so hot like this,” he said. At the sound of his voice your eyes opened. Those eyes. While they usually held loyalty and playfulness, they now only spoke of authority. He used his thumb to rub your clit whilst his fingers were still inside of you, making you feel like floating. You were his favorite sight, by far. Above all times he watched you, from waking up in the morning to falling asleep in his arms at night, right now was the most mesmerizing. Your parted lips were the entrance to heaven and the glow in your teary, desperate eyes was putting the evening sun to shame.
“I’m so close,” you moaned. Your chest was alternating between short puffs and not breathing at all. Maybe your brain was too focused on the bliss you were chasing to care about breathing for now. You couldn’t blame yourself.
“Don’t make a mess, baby,” he said.
“No, I won’t,” you said. “Can I touch you when I come, please?”
You gave him your most entreating eyes, knowing that even though he liked telling you what to do in the bedroom, not even the strictest boyfriend was immune to your puppy eyes. You suspected that if he had declined, you might have held on to him anyways. Too overpowering was the clamor inside your head that was telling you to be close to him.
“Only when you’re coming,” he said. “Not a second earlier.”
You nodded obediently as your eyes shut again. Good thing you were mere moments away from just that. His fingers moved quickly, now that he knew how close you were to your high. It robbed your breath all at once. And it did the job, after a short while. You whined and arched your back, your hands flinging around his shoulders. Your little noises came out muffled against his skin as you closed your legs around his hand. He barely moved his fingers anymore, but kept the pressure on your most sensitive spots, making sure you could relish in every last second of your orgasm. Only after a while your grip on him loosened, and you realized how your nails had been digging into his skin.
“Sorry,” you said, rubbing over the moon-shaped marks on his shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, baby,” he said. When he removed his hand, you shuddered one last time, but missed his touch already. His magic was always working on you. Even when he had just made you come, the mere sight of the bulge in his pants, ready to spring free, made you want to pull him right into your body again.
“You came so fast today,” he said. Softly, he kissed you, but you noticed the hint of hunger that he must had been feeling as you were coming down from your high.
“That’s what you do to me,” you admitted. “Do you think you’re the only one who felt tortured all day long? It was driving me crazy, too.”
“You seemed to have a lot of fun, messing with my head,” he said, smirking.
“You’ll find that it was worth it, after this,” you said. He raised his eyebrows in question. You were already stepping forward, dropping to your knees in front of him. Like a child on Christmas morning, his eyes lit up at the sight of you.
“Aren’t you the prettiest maid?” he asked, the question obviously rhetorical. To him, you were the prettiest person in the whole universe. You tugged on his pants and pulled them down, along with his underwear. Your mouth watered at the sight of his member, hard and red from all the waiting he’d had to endure. The way he looked at you from above made you feel small, but he stroked your hair out of your face gently and you knew this was exactly where you wanted to be right now, and any other day.
“Hands behind your back,” he said. You smiled and did as he said, holding your right wrist with your left hand on your back. He caught on to your reaction right away.
“You don’t even mind, right?” he said. You were already sitting straight, mouth open, your tongue protruding slightly. “You like it when I make it more difficult for you, don’t you?”
You only nodded and hummed a small yes, then he placed the tip of his dick on your tongue. At first, you only closed your mouth around it, not taking more of him. Your tongue licked over the swollen tip almost shyly. He groaned as he watched you test the waters. After all, he was the one who could control what you did to him. For now, however, he seemed to leave you your freedom to do what you felt like. You pressed your tongue flat against the underside of his cock, licking over the tip ever so slowly. Then, you sunk your mouth further onto his length, taking as much as you could. It was so quiet you only noticed his uneven breathing as he eyed you from above.
“Shit, you’re so good for me,” he said. “Now stop with the teasing, will you? You know what happens if you don’t.”
You knew exactly. And so you shifted from your slow movements to quicker ones. You made sure to keep your tongue on him, especially when you moved your head away, swirling it around the tip now and then. His moans were music to your ears and only motivated you further. You had always loved his voice, when you sang to the song on the car radio or hummed his latest favorite song under the shower. But nothing compared to the way his voice sounded when you sucked him off. He seemed to be the most unrestrained then, not caring who heard him because he was way to obsessed with you sitting by his feet. The way he looked at you then made your stomach turn in pleasure. He didn’t even need to say anything or touch you. His overseeing eyes alone made you want him more than anything else.
His fingers in your hair curled, pushing your head further down on him. You focused on not gagging, your eyes closing. Tears brimmed behind your eyelids, but you were determined not to let them fall. Instead, you opened your lips a little wider and stuck your tongue out to make it easier for him to use your mouth however he desired.
“That’s a good girl,” he said, sighing in relief. You were awaiting treatment a lot rougher than the one he gave you, though. He thrusted into your mouth rather slowly, giving you enough of a break to remember to breathe. When you looked up at him with your sweetest eyes possible, his expression was a mix of strain and pleasure. You suspected he was trying not to overdo it just yet.
“Baby…can I fuck you or is that too much for you?” he asked. You perked up at his request. When you started humming around his length, he pulled away to let you speak.
“Please,” you said. “Fuck me. On the table.”
“Alright, my baby’s making the rules now, is she?” he said. “Come here.”
“I thought that’s where you wanted me to remember you, wasn’t it?” you asked, getting up.
“You’re right,” he said. You sat down on the edge of the office table with your legs parted for him to stand between them. Just once he kissed you. You wanted him to hurry, so you linked your heels behind his back, pulling him closer.
“Take me like a good girl.” He ran his cock over your slick folds, and he groaned when he felt your warmth on him. In response you nodded willingly, unable to wait a second more for him. Luckily, he didn’t plan on dragging out the anticipation any longer. With ease he slid into you, finding a familiar rhythm right away. As if you hadn’t just come ten minutes ago, you whimpered pathetically at the satisfaction. You leaned your weight onto your hands behind you, watching his cock enter you over and over. There was no limit to how many times you could have him inside of you. Every time it felt the same. Like he was completing you, all whilst simultaneously ruining you. His thrusts were sharp and as you raised your legs and changed the angle slightly, your eyes rolled back for a moment.
“Harder,” you asked, even though you were already overwhelmed.
“You want more?” he asked. You hummed a yes and nodded quickly. His grip on your waist tightened as he pulled you closer to the edge of the table. He didn’t disappoint. He never did. Swiftly, he pushed your legs further open and pounded into you, making your body shake every time his hips slapped against yours. It drove you borderline mad. A part of your brain urged you to praise him, to let him know what he was doing to you. But then, those unspoken words between you were inconsequential. You didn’t need to tell him how good he was. He could read it in every part of your body. He saw it in the arch of your back, in your curled toes and in your lip that was captured between your teeth. He heard it in the way you moaned and said his name like he was your savior.
Plus, you would tell him all about it afterward. But that wasn’t what your mind was focused on momentarily. It was the way he hit your sweet spot every time and you could barely breathe normally amidst your whimpers. You hadn’t even introduced yourself to all your neighbors yet, but they most certainly had taken notice of your arrival in the new apartment.
“Can you use your hands for me?” he asked. “Show me touching yourself, baby.”
His words and the look of dominance in his eyes was all it took, and without second thought your hands went to your center. You sucked in a breath at the added pleasure. It was almost too much at first, but then you let it all in. Like a wave was crashing over you, your eyes closed, and you hummed from the intensity.
“That’s it. Make yourself come again,” he said. “You can do it again.”
“Yes,” you said, almost breathed with the weakest voice. Your body had other things to focus on at that moment, letting your vocal chords do whatever they felt like. You clenched your walls around him and the knot in your stomach tightened with every little circle you drew on your clit. His usually tender eyes were everything but that as he watched you revel in the pleasure.
“So fucking hot,” he groaned. You tried hard to uphold eye-contact through fluttering eyelids and furrowed brows. “Good girl, keep going. Tell me when you’re coming.”
You hummed a yes as one of his hands cupped the side of your neck, the other remaining on your hips so he could push your body against his own with every thrust. After all this time of being with him you knew what it meant when his moans became higher pitched and he seemed to not realize his mean grip on your skin – not that you minded. You loved seeing the marks he left on you, especially when you had nowhere to be the next days. It always made him hungry, when he saw the dark spots on your skin, like a fading memory of what you had done.
A curse fell from his perfect lips and his thrusts turned sloppy as he came inside of you. His face, all twisted in bliss and from exhaustion, was all you needed.
“Stay inside of me. Just for a little while, please,” you plead, fingers on your clit rubbing at the quickest speed you could muster. “I’ll come if you stay.”
“I’m right here,” he said, slowing his actions until he was just filling you up, but now moving anymore. “It’s okay. Come for me.”
Just having him there, stretching out your walls and making you feel so close to him was all you really needed. And his words of affirmation sent you over the edge in no time. It was a toe-curling, mind-bending surge that overcame you at your release. Stars danced delightfully behind your closed eyelids while you tried to process all of it. He gripped your hand that was touching your clit and pressed it down, urging you to go on for a little while longer. You whined in sensitivity, feeling like your legs would give in, even though you were already sitting down. For just another while, he dragged out your orgasm as you struggled to control your overwhelmed senses. He distracted you by bending forward and letting his lips graze yours.
“You did so good,” he said. “My pretty maid.”
You whimpered and then sighed when he finally lifted your hand away from between your legs. Only then you could scrape together some words.
“We both did good today,” you grinned. “And I mean not only the last half hour.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Tomorrow we could tackle those last boxes in the kitchen. What do you think?”
“Can the maid outfit make another appearance?” you asked.
“I was hoping it might,” he said, kissing you softly. Your tired limbs and mind welcomed his gentleness as your hands went to his hair. You could already guess how the next day would go, then. But truth be told, you didn’t mind it one bit.
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jekde04 · 3 years ago
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One-shot for Gruvia Day/Greige Day/Gruvia Family Day 2021
Summary: Coming home from a mission is always better when there's someone waiting for you.
Word Count: 2,483 words
You may also read it on FanFiction.net and AO3! Check out my master list for other Gruvia fics.
Tag List: @shampooneko @fbflame94 @juviaafullbuster @unvalley @gruviaftw11​ (Wanna be tagged, lemme know)
“Mommy, we’re back!”
Looking for her blue head of hair had become second nature to him, so he quickly spotted her among their friends as she stood up to gather the running Greige into her arms. He followed right after, though a lot calmer.
“I finished my mission with Daddy!” the four-year-old boy with dark blue hair exclaimed as he reached his mom, still a little breathless from running. “I made big blocks of ice for the party, and Daddy crushed them to make snow cones for everyone!”
Greige prattled on excitedly, demonstrating each point with his hands and arms and making Juvia smile. Arriving at her side, Gray put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and kissed her temple. She embraced him back, giving him a quick squeeze before letting go and turning back to their son.
Gray chuckled. It seemed like ages ago when Juvia would welcome him with a half-hug, half-tackle to the ground while shouting, “Gray-samaaaaa!” Now, all her attention was on their son.
“That’s great, darling,” Juvia told Greige as they all sat side by side, with both of her boys on either side of her. “You didn’t get hurt, did you?”
Gray rolled his eyes. It was so like Juvia to get worried over a simple mission of making ice sculptures and snow cones for kids at a birthday party, even though she was the one to spot it on the job board.
At first, she got really excited as she saw it as an opportunity for family bonding. But with her six-month pregnant belly, Gray wouldn’t risk it even if it was just an easy and harmless mission.
It ended up being a father and son bonding with his little ice mage apprentice.
“Relax, Juvia. As if I would let something happen to our son,” Gray answered after taking a gulp of the ice-cold water waiting for him at the table. Mira passed by and set a hot bowl of udon in front of him, giving him a light pat on the back.
“Of course you won’t, Gray-sama,” his wife answered with a smile. “But Juvia will always worry for you two. It’s just the way it is.”
She turned to Greige and held his elbow to pull him closer but was surprised when he yelped in pain.
“Greige-kun? What’s the matter? Where does it hurt?” Juvia asked in a concerned voice, trying to look for any bruise or cut on his son’s well-covered body.
Gray also turned to look at him with worry. “Did you get injured, buddy?”
“N-nothing. I’m okay, Mom,” Greige answered, squirming from Juvia’s fussing and a bit embarrassed about his outburst.
“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, young man,” Juvia said in her stern mommy voice that meant business. She rarely used it to both Gray and Greige, so both of them knew better than to defy her in any way when she was in one of her moods.
And being pregnant, those mood swings escalated tenfold.
Greige let Juvia remove his outer coat, allowing her to quickly spot the source of the problem: a scratch on his elbow. It wasn’t that deep or big, but it definitely should be cleaned, or else it would get infected.
Suddenly, Juvia snapped her head towards her husband and glared at him with her fierce blue eyes.
“Gray-sama! You said you won’t let anything happen to our son!”
Gray gulped and scratched the back of his head. All they did was make snow cones, how the hell did Greige get that?!
“Juvia, I swear, I didn’t let him out of my sight! I don’t even know where he got that,” he answered as he moved to Greige’s other side, examining the wound. “Besides, it’s just a small scratch. It’s no big deal.”
He immediately regretted his words the moment they came out of his mouth. He felt goosebumps prickling his skin as Juvia’s glare intensified.
Really, this woman means the world to him, but she could be scarier than Erza sometimes.
But before he could appease his wife, Greige said in a small voice, “This was from yesterday.”
Juvia turned to their son. “Yesterday? What happened? And why didn’t you say anything about it?”
With his head bowed, Greige mumbled something he couldn’t hear. Gray was about to ask him to speak louder when he saw him chance a glance at the pink-haired girl just three tables away from them...
And blush.
Holy Mavis.
He knew that look. He used to steal glances at Juvia with that look.
But his son was just four years old!
“What did you say, Greige?” Juvia’s voice broke through his thoughts (and internal panic), and he tried his best to focus on his son’s answer instead of his pink cheeks.
“I-I... scraped my elbow while Nasha and I were trying to hide from Aunt Lucy,” Greige answered, and Gray swore his son’s cheeks flushed some more.
Okay, he and Greige need to have a long talk when they get home. He was just four, but who knows what ideas and thoughts were running through his head now? Better nip it in the bud while it was still early.
And maybe he would tell Juvia tonight, but he had to be really careful because it might trigger the waterworks. And God knew how extremely sensitive she was, especially now that she was pregnant. Just last week, they ran out of milk, and she bawled her eyes out over it.
“Next time, be more careful, darling,” Juvia said, seemingly oblivious to what just happened and already arms-deep into her first aid kit.
Juvia had always been like that whenever he returned from a mission. She would have a first aid kit by her side and a glass of cold water and a serving of whatever the meal of the day was already ordered for him. At home, there would always be a feast.
He had to thank her failproof Gray-sama radar for always getting the timing of his arrival right.
She started dabbing alcohol on Greige’s wound while blowing at the spot to ease the pain. Greige flinched a little, but he put on a brave face while his mom cleaned his wound, his eyes traveling now and then to the nearby table where his bubbly friend was busy playing with her mom’s keys, unaware of his stolen glances.
That talk was definitely happening the moment they get home.
“All done!” Juvia exclaimed, lightly patting the band-aid she placed over the abrasion. “Now, for the finishing touches.”
She puckered her lips and lowered it to Greige’s elbow to kiss the boo-boo away, as she always did whenever her son injured himself. But just when her lips were a mere inch away, Greige saw Nasha looking at him with her big brown eyes, causing him to push his mom’s lips away from him.
“Ahh, stop it, Mom! I’m a big boy now!” Greige blurted, crimson cheeks and all.
Lisanna, who was delivering some drinks to a nearby table, smiled widely and ruffled Greige’s hair. "Aww, you are so cute, Greige-kun!" This made the boy even redder.
Surprised, Juvia locked eyes with Gray, and he tilted his head towards the table where his rival’s family was staying. She saw Nasha looking at Greige, and she looked at her husband and raised one of her eyebrows.
“Okay, Mommy understands,” she told Greige as she smiled at him and smoothed the band-aid on his elbow. “But promise me one thing, darling.”
Greige looked up at her and waited.
“Promise me that even though you’re a young man now, you won’t give Mommy a grandchild yet, okay? Mommy’s too young for that.”
Greige just continued looking at her, brows furrowed in confusion. Gray, on the other hand, almost choked on his udon and shouted, “Juvia!” at his giggling wife.
“Really, I can give Mommy a grandchild? How?” their son asked, excitement twinkling in his eyes.
Gray took a gulp of cold water before turning to his son. “Alright, that’s enough. Greige, don’t listen to your mom. And Juvia, stop putting ideas into your son’s head!”
Juvia covered her mouth with her hands. “Juvia’s sorry, Gray-sama. Juvia just thinks it’s so cute that Greige-kun already has a --”
“Greige?”
A little girl’s voice interrupted them, and they all turned to look at Nasha, who had quietly made her way to their table. Gray stole a glance at his son and saw him giving the girl the tiniest of smiles.
Just like the smile he used to give Juvia when he was still fighting his growing feelings for her.
All of a sudden, the innocent-looking girl jumped on Greige and locked his head under her arm, a mischievous smile on her lips. “Aunt Juvia, Uncle Gray, can Greige and I get some ice cream?”
“Ow! Let go!” Greige exclaimed, suddenly finding himself in a headlock with a giggling Nasha. He escaped her grip and glared at her while his mom answered, “Of course, sweetie. Just don’t go far and don’t take too long.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Nasha excitedly answered, dragging a sulking Greige after her. “Come on, weirdo. Let’s get some ice cream!”
“But I just ate a snow cone!”
“Whatever, you’re coming with me!”
Gray followed the two kids with his eyes, watching them hold hands as they made their way to their Aunt Mirajane.
That was his son, alright. Before long, he would be all grown up and meeting Nashas from different worlds and seeing snow dolls of Nasha and having enemies conjure up fantasies of him and Nasha in a perfect, happy world and --
“Relax, Gray-sama,” he heard his wife say, bringing him back to Earthland. “It will be a long time before all your thoughts would come true.”
His wife’s Gray-sama radar probably got an upgrade as it apparently developed mindreading powers now. And since when did his mind start running off to fantasy world? After all these years, Juvia’s powerful imagination must have rubbed off on him somehow.
Gray stretched his sore muscles and popped the joints in his neck. “Don’t joke about grandkids again. It’s scary.” He placed his hand at his wife’s round belly. “‘Sides, we’re not yet done having kids.”
Juvia looked at him, the most beautiful smile gracing her face. “Juvia knows. Now, get naked.”
“N-now?” Gray stammered, surprised at his wife’s sudden request. Sure, he would love to try having more kids, but --
“-- so Juvia could examine you thoroughly for any wounds. And change your bandages,” she continued, eyes feigning innocence. But he could see a small smile tugging at her lips, satisfied with the little joke she pulled.
Gray rolled his eyes and took off his shirt. He let Juvia’s light fingers explore his body and carefully remove the old gauze wrapped around his broad chest. “It’s almost healed already,” he remarked.
Juvia just continued applying antiseptic on his injury, not looking up at Gray. His wound was by no means fresh, but it was a deep gash he got from one of his missions with Team Natsu. He threw himself in front of a kid to protect her from one of the bandits, which earned him a cut over his breastbone. Good thing Wendy was with them; it could have been fatal if she didn’t treat it right away.
“Still not totally healed. Gray-sama should keep the bandages clean to avoid infection.” She looked up at him and added, “And Gray-sama should be extra careful now that our family is growing.”
Despite her steady tone, he could see her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. He remembered the first time she saw his injury and how she tried to muffle her sobs so that Greige wouldn’t think something was wrong.
Gray wiped the tears that escaped her eyes and kissed her forehead tenderly. “I will. And no matter what, I will always come back home to you.”
Juvia nodded and gave him a small smile. She wrapped fresh bandages around his chest in silence.
“All done now, Gray-sama.” She patted her handiwork and started putting all the stuff back inside the first aid kit. When she was done, she stood up and was about to return the kit to Mira when Gray thought aloud, “How come she does it for Greige but not for me?”
Juvia turned to look at him. “Are you saying something, Gray-sama?”
Gray looked at her sheepishly while scratching his cheek. “Ah, nothing.”
“Juvia’s sure she heard something about doing it for Greige but not for you. What is it?”
Gray’s cheeks turned pink. “Well, it’s just that...” He puckered his lips towards her.
“Eh?” Juvia asked incredulously. “Juvia’s not sure she understands what Gray-sama’s talking about.”
Gray sighed and picked up his shirt. “Forget it. It’s silly.”
Juvia sat beside him again, thinking aloud to herself. “Hmm. What does Juvia do with Greige that she doesn’t do with Gray-sama?” After a few moments, her face lit up. “Aha! Does Gray-sama want Juvia to kiss his boo-boos too?”
Gray’s face flushed some more, but he couldn’t help the smirk from crawling on his face. “Well, you used to do it, right? I’m just curious how come you don’t do it anymore.”
It was now Juvia’s turn to blush. She put her hand over her mouth and said, “Is Juvia hearing this right? Gray-sama wants Juvia to kiss his body right in the middle of the guild?”
Realizing what she was saying, Gray suddenly burst out, “What? No! I was just asking!”
But it was too late. Juvia’s lips were already pressed onto a scar by his collarbone.
“Does this still hurt, Gray-sama?” She then moved lower to his chest where the bandage started, and kissed it softly. “How about here, hmm?”
Gray froze as Juvia’s lips traveled even lower, now kissing his hard abs covered by his bandages. He clenched his fist as he could feel something else hardening.
“Is Gray-sama feeling better now?” Juvia asked in a sultry voice, looking up at him with those beguiling eyes, a tiny smirk on her luscious lips as if challenging him.
Oh, she was definitely teasing him.
But why did she have to look this sexy?
Around them, he could hear some of their guildmates snickering and hollering.
“Get a room!”
“They’re being lovey-dovey again.”
“Give your wife what she wants, Gray!”
He was flustered alright, but he only knew of one way to turn the tables on his wife.
He grabbed her shoulders and straightened her so that they were at eye level with each other.
“You missed a spot right here,” he said, pointing to his lips. But before she could react, he angled his head and kissed her full on the mouth.
That will teach her, he thought.
Amid all the teasing, gagging noises, and catcalls, a little boy eating his ice cream a few tables away yelled, “Eww, Daddy and Mommy are being gross again!”
***
Happy Gruvia Family Day, loves! 😘
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poisonedapples · 3 years ago
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Patton’s Home for Traumatized Kids - Chapter 2
Craft Projects and Failed Bonding
Chapter Summary: Roman plots against Patton in a way he thinks is threatening.
Previous Chapter Story Masterlist
Chapter Warnings: Panic, anxiety, implied past abuse, food mentions, and anxiety over being watched by cameras.
Word Count: 4,533
Taglist: @shade-romeo, @grayson-22
Notes: Thanks to cornybird on Ao3 for helping me beta this one!
“Virgil, wake up, it’s time for breakfast!”
Roman cracked open his eyes to stare at the door. His security bar was still under the doorknob, and it sounded like Patton walked away to knock on the next kid's door, so Roman slowly lifted himself out of Virgil’s bed once the coast was clear. He hadn’t been asleep for the last two hours, so there was no point to continue lying down and risk Patton trying to get into the room to wake him up. So Roman rubbed his tired eyes to undo the security bar and put it in his backpack.
Though, speaking of his backpack…he had no idea where to put it. It wasn’t safe in Virgil’s room, but Virgil was still sleeping in Roman’s bedroom. He could take it downstairs with him, but that’s a strange thing to do during breakfast, and he didn’t want that to be the conversation opener of the day. Especially if they asked him what was inside. They weren’t allowed to know that.
Eventually, Roman settled on hiding the backpack underneath Virgil’s bed. It wasn’t the best hiding spot, but it’d work until Roman could come back and take it. He opened the door and headed downstairs, praying that he wouldn’t be the first kid to arrive.
The prayer wasn’t enough, because Roman looked around the kitchen and only saw Patton at the stove. Patton looked over at him and seemed confused, trying to hide it behind a chipper smile. “Morning, kiddo! How’d you get dressed so fast? I only knocked on your door a second ago!”
Don’t let him find out you weren’t in your room. “Oh, these are my pajamas, I haven’t gotten dressed yet. And I was already awake, so I just came right downstairs.”
Patton looked Roman up and down, and Roman shivered. “…Do you not have real pajamas, kiddo?”
“No. I like sweatpants better.”
Patton didn’t seem pleased, but he didn’t question it further. Roman sat down at the table and anxiously drummed his fingers while he waited. Eventually, Logan came downstairs fully dressed with his hair brushed, and Virgil followed not long after. His hair was a mess, and his pajamas were twisted like he just fell out of bed and rolled down the stairs to make it in time. 
Patton took one look at him and almost gasped. “Virgil, did you sleep last night? You look…a bit rough, to put it lightly.”
Virgil grunted. “I had to clean.”
Patton sighed. “Kiddo, save cleaning for the morning, okay?”
Virgil shrugged, groggily making his way to the coffee machine to try and steal some Patton already made for himself. “Virgil,” Patton chastised, “No coffee. You can go back to sleep after breakfast if you want, but you’re too young for coffee.”
Logan raised his hand. “May I have some?”
“No.”
“Darn.”
“What kinda drink do you want, Roman?” Patton asked. “And don’t say coffee.”
Coffee sounded really nice, actually, but there was no use arguing. “I’ll take milk, then.”
Patton finished emptying the contents of his pan onto some plates before grabbing three cups from the cupboard and filling them up. Two had milk while one had orange juice, and he passed them to each seat at the table. He then passed everybody their plates, with scrambled eggs and a bagel with cream cheese. Roman took his fork and tasted a bite of the eggs.
Holy fuck, Roman hadn’t had something that tasty since his grandma last cooked for him. The eggs were so soft and cheesy, and Roman could barely contain his excitement for it. He put as many eggs as he could fit onto his fork and stuffed it all in his mouth.
Patton laughed when he noticed Roman’s reaction. “Taste good, kiddo?”
Roman hummed, and Patton smiled. “Good! I learned how to make them from my roommate in college, and I haven’t looked back since!”
Roman hoped that roommate taught him how to make a lot more things then, because this was heavenly. He’d finished his entire plate of eggs so fast it was concerning, forgetting all ability to savor his food. Maybe Roman could find the recipe and steal it when Patton wasn’t looking.
Until then, Roman moved on to eating his bagel while everyone else wasn’t even close to finishing breakfast. He guessed that was a good thing. If he finished before everyone else, he could run to Virgil’s room and grab his backpack without anyone noticing. Roman chewed faster at the possibility.
Once again, the table went very silent as everyone ate and Roman tried to make a swift escape. Patton was the one to break the silence this time. “So, Roman,” he said, “How about you and I go to the store today?”
Roman froze. “…Why?”
“I’m sure there’s some stuff you need. School starts again in two days, so we need to get you some school supplies, and maybe we can get some stuff to decorate your room with too!”
“Wait, school starts in two days? I thought it started in two weeks!”
Patton seemed apologetic. “In this district, the first day is this Wednesday. Usually I’d let you stay at home a little longer to get comfortable before school, but I think it’d be easier for you to start the first day when you have the chance. Besides, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you home alone for another week.”
You should leave me here alone, Roman thought. He was a little disappointed he had to go to school sooner than usual, but school was also the best excuse to leave home early and come back late. If he could get involved again in theater, he could hide out and blame his late return times on rehearsals. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
Patton interrupted Roman’s internal scheming. “Do you know what kinda supplies you might need, kiddo?”
Roman twirled his cup in his hand and watched the milk spin. “Binders, pencils, folders, notebooks…I only have a backpack, really.”
“We definitely need to stop by the store then! And while we’re there, we can look at all the bedroom stuff too!”
Everything in Roman made him want to decline, to tell Patton to buy him whatever and he’ll make do with what he has. His heart started to pound again, his hand gripping hard on his cup and thinking about his escape options. Then it dawned on him.
They would be going to a store. A store, full of cashiers and moms with kids and plenty of parents who might also need school supplies. If there was anywhere he could be safe while alone with Patton, it was there. And maybe if he agreed, Patton would leave him alone for a while…
“…We can go.” Roman said. Patton’s grin widened and his eyes lit up.
“Great! So, just get ready once you finish breakfast, and we can head out! Logan, you’ll be in charge while Virgil takes a nap.”
Logan nodded, and Virgil almost fell asleep on top of his plate.
Eventually, everyone finished breakfast and put their dishes away, Virgil dragging himself back upstairs and falling into bed without even closing his door. Roman carefully entered his bedroom, darting his eyes between where he hid his backpack and where Virgil was lying.
“What.” Virgil snapped, mumbling it into his pillow. Roman stopped in his tracks.
“I only need to grab my bag, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Fuggin’ take it.” Virgil snapped.
Roman grabbed his backpack and scurried out of there, closing the door behind him. It uneased Roman to try to sleep with the door open, so he assumed someone as secluded as Virgil might be the same. It was a little way to show his gratitude for last night.
Roman walked back to his own bedroom after grabbing his backpack. However, once Roman opened the door, he finally understood what Virgil meant by “cleaning”.
The mess Roman made last night was completely gone. The bed was made, the hangers were placed back in the closet, the lightbulb was back in the lamp and the nightstand had been set back up. It was almost like last night was a bad dream that never happened, Roman’s only evidence that it had being the fact that he woke up in Virgil’s room that morning. He looked around the room again to process the change, when he noticed a piece of paper on the nightstand.
Roman picked up the piece of paper and unraveled it.
There’s no cameras in here, I checked. I also fixed your mental breakdown for you. You owe me one.
Virgil
Roman looked around the room, holding the paper tight to his chest as he examined every corner. There wasn’t a single camera in here? Not one? No, no that wasn’t possible. The camera was around here somewhere. Roman knew it.
He looked around again, three times, looking under objects and in the closet, feeling the pit in his stomach grow when all his searches came back futile. He knew it was here somewhere, and he refused to let Patton win. Roman would find it.
He’d just…have to find some other place to sleep until then.
Roman shook his head as a way to erase his thoughts. He could worry about the camera later, but for now, he needed to please Patton’s attempt at getting to know him and get out of this cursed room. Roman still wrapped a blanket around himself as he got dressed, not quite able to shake his anxiety long enough to not take precautions. He changed from his pajamas to a red shirt and baggy jeans, and ran out to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Camera or not, he’d have to find a way to pay Virgil back.
***
“Roman, what’s your favorite color?”
Roman snapped out of his distant stare to look at Patton. He was looking at a display of school binders, pausing for a moment to glance at Roman and wait for an answer. The stare was so much for Roman to process that he took a step back. “Uh…red.”
“Perfect! They’ve got lots of reds!” Patton grabbed a red binder before stopping himself with a thinking expression on his face. “Though, wait, let me check the supplies website…I don’t wanna get a wrong size, or only get one when you need multiple…”
Roman went back to staring at the floor under him. He shouldn’t have agreed to this. It seemed like a great idea at first, but now Roman was here holding himself tight and trying not to cry, feeling the exhaustion set in while his anxiety made him restless. He wanted to go home and sleep, but there was nowhere to sleep. Nowhere to hide.
He’d have to search the house for hiding spots later.
“So,” Patton eventually said, “It doesn’t say exactly, so I’ll just grab a zipper binder and one two inch just in case. If you need more, I can always stop by again and buy some. What’s your second favorite color?”
Roman swallowed to fight back the tears. “Purple.”
Patton smiled. “That’s Virgil’s favorite color! So, one red zipper binder and a purple two inch. So let’s look at the pencil cases now!” Patton caught a glimpse of Roman’s pale face and his smile dropped. “…Are you okay, kiddo?”
Roman nodded. He didn’t trust himself to talk, but it seemed like Patton didn’t trust his answer. He took a step toward Roman, and Roman took two steps back. Patton frowned. “Are you sure?”
Roman nodded again. Patton ran a hand through his hair and looked around the store. Please, let’s just get this over with already.
Patton’s head stopped as his eye caught sight of a specific aisle, and he smiled in Roman’s direction. “Say, kiddo, how about you go check out the fish? I’ll be over here getting the boring stuff if you need me!”
Roman glanced at Patton’s eyes. They were soft and forgiving, but all Roman could feel when looking at them was fear. He took this as his moment, spinning around on his heel and almost sprinting toward the fish aisle. Anywhere was better than being near Patton.
Roman looked at the walls of fish tanks with fish of all kinds of colors, watching them swim around as the filter’s bubbles reached the roof. There were some that were swimming around each other, and others that stopped in place for long periods of time. Roman held himself and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
It was more peaceful away from Patton, at least. Roman felt a little less sick and his hands weren’t shaking as badly, focusing on the fish to calm himself down. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it worked. That’s all Roman could really ask for.
He watched the fish swim around and read their species facts for a while, until he couldn’t feel tears in his eyes anymore and the nausea was tamed. Roman walked through the aisle to look at the fish tank decorations and other pet toys. He picked up a chew toy for a dog and squeaked it, awkwardly messing with the toys and trying to keep Patton in his peripheral vision. It felt odd to be standing around in a pet aisle with no plans of buying anything.
Well, Roman thought, Patton never told me I had to stay in this aisle. It was only a suggestion. I could move on to another part of the store.
Roman looked at where Patton was one more time so he could remember his spot. It seemed like he was checking the supply list on his phone and thinking hard about colored pencils, and Roman hoped he would be occupied with that for a while more. He walked out of the aisle and looked above him for ideas on where he should go next.
Bathroom, no. The bakery would be wonderful if I could buy a donut myself. Clothes, baby items, plants…wait! Roman’s eyes lit up as he read another one of the signs. Hardware!
Roman always loved searching through hardware. He was a craft person at heart, and the aisles always gave him ideas for new things to try and make. Besides, Patton told him they were going to look for decorations for his room, maybe he could get inspiration there!
Roman entered the hardware aisle and began to look around. Because this wasn’t a hardware store there wasn’t much, mostly small items like door hinges and hook sets. There was also a doorknob you could only open with a code that Roman wanted, but there was no way Patton would let him install that. But maybe he could find something else to make his room safer.
Roman passed some other items, including some lightbulbs and a security camera displaying the screen that made Roman shiver when he passed by, but eventually Roman saw it. Ideas swarmed in his head and a big grin bloomed onto his face. It was perfect!
“There you are, kiddo!” Roman jumped at the sound of Patton approaching, looking up to see him with a basket full of school supplies. Patton smiled to hide the worry in his eyes. “I noticed you left the other aisle and I didn’t know where to find you.”
Roman gripped harder onto the box he was holding. “Sorry, I got bored…but I found something I want for my room!”
“You did? What is it, kiddo?”
Roman held up the box to Patton. Patton raised an eyebrow at him. “…Curtain rods?”
“Yes! Sounds strange, I know, but I was thinking that I could make my own canopy bed with them! We could get some curtains and I could hang them up around the bed, and I could decorate the curtains to look beautiful! Please?”
Patton rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t know, kiddo…it sounds like a cool project! But you’d have to install them into the roof, and I’m not very good with a drill!”
“I can do it!” Roman begged, “I’ve installed lots of home stuff before, and I’m really good with tools! And if I mess up I promise I’ll fix any holes, or I’ll do some babysitting jobs to pay back anything that’s broken, just…please? Can I try?”
Patton seemed conflicted. He saw the desperate look in Roman’s eyes and sighed. “…You can try, kiddo. Just…don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work, okay?”
“I won’t be! Promise!” Roman grabbed three boxes of the largest curtain rods they had and tried to hold them under his arms. “Now, I just need some red curtains, and maybe some glittery star stickers, or some other craft supplies! And a hot glue gun, you can make beautiful raindrop decorations out of hot glue!”
Patton seemed like his head was spinning. “I’ll go get an actual cart for this, kiddo.”
And then, the hunt for supplies was on. Patton got a cart for Roman to pile the curtain rods on the bottom, failing to keep up with him as he ran from aisle to aisle searching for supplies for his ideas. All the curtains were too transparent for Roman’s liking, so he instead settled for a pack of red, flat sheets meant for a queen bed and a small pack of sewing supplies. Patton mentioned he had a glue gun at home, so Roman skipped that section of the crafts aisle and instead focused on some birthday decorations with crowns and stars as well as some stickers. The more Roman’s vision came into action, the more excited and bouncy he got.
With the opaque curtains, Roman thought, it doesn’t matter if he has a camera in my room or not. He won’t be able to see me sleep. And how cute, he won’t realize his mistake in letting me do this until it’s too late.
Roman was jumping on his heels at the thought. I’m a genius.
The checkout was long and the car ride was full of anticipation, but once Patton pulled into the driveway of the house, Roman opened the trunk and ran inside with all his items in tow. He didn’t even say hello as he ran past Virgil and Logan on the couch to head upstairs.
“Kiddo, do you want to organize supplies too?” Patton yelled once he entered the house.
“I will later!” Roman answered. He had work to do.
The first step was an experiment of patience. Roman took out all the flat sheets and folded them at the top, sewing the fold with a needle and red thread to make its own custom loop for the curtain rod. It was annoying and tedious, but necessary. Also a test on Roman’s skill of how fast he could hand sew.
He was almost done with the last sheet when a knock came to his door. “Who is it?” Roman asked.
“It’s lunch time, kiddo,” Patton answered, “I called you down a while ago. How about you take a break for some food?”
No. There was no time for breaks. Roman needed this to be done by tonight so he could finally get some sleep. “In a minute.”
“Roman, it’s been a while already. A little break won’t hurt.”
“I will in a minute!” It was a lie, but Roman had the door locked, so there was nothing Patton could do about it. Roman finished his final seam, so now it was onto installing the rods.
Roman was measuring where to put the hooks on the roof when another knock came to the door. Roman groaned like a spoiled brat. “I’m coming!”
“Roman, can you open the door?”
Roman froze. He just yelled at Patton, pushed his luck, now he had to open the door. Roman dropped the screw he was holding as his hands shaked. Shit, shit! “…Why?”
“I’ve got your lunch for you.”
Roman felt his throat close, but ignoring Patton would only make the situation worse. Roman dropped his hook and screws to open the door.
Patton was on the other side, smiling softly with a burrito on a plate and a glass of juice in his hands. “I had to reheat it, but maybe you can eat while you’re working.”
Roman dug his nails into his palm before taking the plate. “Thank you.”
“Can I come in?”
No. No, you can’t. You never can, ever. “…Sure.”
Roman scurried away from Patton to sit on his bed, drinking some of the juice and looking at what’s inside the burrito. Black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, onions, and green peppers. Roman took a bite and tried to calm himself by focusing on the taste.
“You like it?”
Roman nodded. “Never had this before.”
“It’s a black bean burrito. I found the recipe a few years ago, and I make them pretty often. Especially for growing kiddos.” Patton sat on the floor next to the mess Roman had laid out. “What are you doing now for your canopy bed?”
“I was gonna screw in the curtain hooks to the roof. I’ve just been sewing the sheets for now, which is the hardest part. I might have to sew them again though, since the sheets are so big I might have to cut them. Especially since I want to do two curtains on each end to make it look pretty.”
“Sounds cool! Do you need any help?”
Roman seemed to be thinking. Maybe if I satisfy him, he won’t be angry. “Do you know how to sew?”
“I know how to repair tears. That’s it.”
Roman took another bite of his burrito and jumped off the bed, picking up one of the sheets to examine the size. He jumped on his bed and held it up to the roof, seeing how far it would stretch. The sheet was much longer than his bed, so it would be perfect. “Take the sheets, measure them, and cut them in half right down the middle. Then I can show you how to do a catch stitch to hem the seam. That will save me some time.”
“You’re very good at hand stuff!” Patton complimented. A shiver went up Roman’s spine.
“…Yes.”
From then on, the environment was very tense. The only sound between either of them was the  drill going through the roof and the sound of scissors cutting. When Patton finished cutting, Roman showed him how to hem the seam, but it was quiet again after that. Roman kept his distance and made sure his front was always facing Patton just in case.
“I hope you don’t mind if this is a very messy sewing job, kiddo.” Patton joked.
Roman shrugged. “You won’t be able to see it anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Are you gonna decorate the sheets once you’ve hung them up?”
“Yes, it’s easier that way. And I can plan it out.”
“Any reason why you chose crowns and stars?”
Roman paused long enough to drill another hook into the roof before setting the drill down to grab another hook. “I like crowns. And stars.”
“Logan loves stars.” Patton really hated silence, apparently. “I don’t know if the other kiddos showed you their rooms, but Logan’s is covered in space stuff. It was really fun to do, actually! Though, I made Logan paint the stars onto his own wall because he kept talking about how it should be accurate constellations, and I don’t know anything about stuff like that.”
“I’ve only seen Virgil’s room.”
“Oh, well, if Logan ever invites you in, know that he did lots of work for his constellation wall!”
Roman hummed and drilled the last hook into the roof. He took a curtain rod and placed it on the two hooks near the foot of his bed. “How many of the sheets have you finished?”
“Oh, I’m still on the first one. I’m learning though!”
Roman jumped off the bed to sit on the floor next to Patton, grabbing his own needle and thread to begin hemming the seam. Once he started sewing, Patton watched him with wide eyes. “You’re doing that very fast, kiddo!”
Roman shrugged. “I’ve done it a lot.”
“What do you usually sew for?”
“Clothes. To fix rips, mostly. My mom also taught me when I was younger.”
Patton seemed taken aback by his explanation. “Did…did you enjoy that time with your mom?”
“I enjoyed all my time with her.” Roman paused. “Well. Most times.”
Patton swallowed. “Most times?”
“Her and I were really close, if that’s what you're asking.” Roman’s hands sped up as he sewed. “She would take me to movies and theaters, and she taught me how to bake as good as her.”
Patton’s voice grew serious. “Well…I’m sorry for your loss, kiddo.”
“She’s not dead.”
“I’m still sorry you lost her.” Patton shook his head and focused more intently on his sewing. “But you said you can bake?”
Roman nodded. “I bake a lot, especially cake. I know how to make red velvet cake from scratch and it is lovely.”
“We should make some tomorrow, then!”
Roman tensed. “Maybe.”
Roman finished off the hem of his side and moved to cut another sheet, hemming both of their sides once he did so. The rest of the time was quiet, with Roman purposely refusing to spark conversation and Patton processing the little information Roman gave him. By the time Patton finished one end and half of another, Roman had finished all the rest and took Patton’s to quickly finish off. Roman laid them all across the floor and opened the packs of crafts he got.
“Well, kiddo, I gotta see about making dinner now.” Patton eventually said, “Tell me how the end project turns out, ‘kay?”
Roman nodded. Finally, he’s leaving. “Close the door when you leave.”
Patton smiled and closed the door on his way out. Roman focused entirely on decorating his new curtains, placing glittery stars and plastic crowns and using the hot glue gun to make crystals draping down the curtains. He repeated a similar pattern for each one, eventually hanging two on each side of the bed so they could open and close down the middle. Once the final project was finished, and the floor of his room was scattered in materials, Roman smiled wide in awe.
“Yes! I did it! I did it!” Roman jumped up and down from excitement, flopping onto his bed and closing the curtains from every side. The curtains were a bit too long and dragged too much along the floor, but he could fix that another day. For now, he’d been at it for hours, and his bed was finally a safe space.
Roman buried his face into his pillow, feeling himself relax as the exhaustion of a whole day with no sleep and debilitating anxiety finally caught up to him. He groggily checked for any cameras on the roof, but that was the only place he had to check for a camera that could see him. He was safe.
 Roman crawled under the comforter and closed his eyes. It wasn’t more than five minutes of lying there before he fell asleep, curling into himself and relaxing. Finally, he slept peacefully.
 Finally.
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marauderundercover · 3 years ago
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Taking Chances Ch. 14: Back to Basics (De-Aged)
AO3
Prev
The constant attention after her temporary death was a little stifling. Adrien was good about not overwhelming her. He’d seen her take bad hits before and he knew (from personal experience) that the cure would bring the two of them back to normal. No, despite being there in person as she died, Adrien was not drowning her in attention. She was thankful.
Her family, despite her constant reassurances however, did not get the memo. That she was okay. That she would be okay. Now and in future attacks. No, instead they constantly blew up her phone. ESPECIALLY during akuma attacks. Which was one of the only times she didn’t even have her phone on her. But whatever. One good thing did come from her temporary death though. She was talking to her dad. Like, actually talking. The bonding kind of talking. He wouldn’t talk to her about hero stuff (though she imagined he also wanted to forget about her “death” seeing as it was the third time he’d seen the dead body of one of his children). No, instead they got to know each other. She asked about Bridgette, which led to her finding out about his fiance- Selina Kyle. Marinette was really looking forward to meeting her, hopefully next time she took a portal to Gotham.
They also talked about Marinette’s designs- Uncle Jagged, MDC, how the company started, where she wanted to go with the company. Most of their conversations stayed at the surface level of getting to know you, but they were definitely getting closer. Though, she thought that if he’d just talked to her about hero work already (or took her on another patrol), their bonding would happen more naturally. Less like twenty questions. Her brothers, though…
Her brothers were constantly asking questions about how she was, how she felt, if she was safe, if she was sure they couldn’t convince her to leave Paris. It was a lot. But still nice. Nice to know that they cared so much, even if her death was only temporary (as she’d tried to remind them a million times).
The whole “dying painfully and then being resurrected after the battle” thing also led to her and Adrien making a lot of plans. Different ideas and things to do in case of certain akumas, types of attacks, deaths, just a LOT of contingency plans. She’d filled Alfred in on some of the plans, since several involved that half of her family or running to Gotham. But she didn’t tell her brothers. Or her dad. No need to worry or stress them out more than they already were. So she moved on. For several weeks. An entire month passed without Hawkmoth using a nightmare inducing akuma. It was nice. --- Adrien Agreste was not having a good day. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault though. Well, okay that’s a lie. It was definitely his fault. He’d thought after his crazy declaration in Gotham, asking Mari out would be easy. Simple. It was not. All the times he’d said she was “just a friend” were definitely coming back to haunt him. Every single time he tried to ask her out, something happened. An akuma attack. Marinette fell. Emergency photoshoot. Mari dropped all of her stuff and was almost late to class. Lila got someone to confront Marinette about something. He suddenly had an extra fencing lesson with Kagami.
But no more. No. Even though today hasn’t exactly gone as planned (overslept, late for photoshoot which made him extra late for school, got permission to eat at school but forgot to bring his food and then Mari left lunch instead of staying because her brother called so he didn’t even get to see her, forgot his science homework- yeah, bad day) it would be better. Because now he’s walking over to Mari’s and he’s going to ask her out if it’s the last- The shrill blaring of the akuma alarm breaks him out of his thoughts. Really? Now? Groaning, he darts into an alley.
“I blame you.” He deadpans to Plagg, glaring at the kwami’s maniacal laughter.
“Sure kid, sure. You know Pigtails is crazy ‘bout you. Doesn’t mean anything that you can’t ask her out.” He says once his laughter dies down.
“I hope you’re right.” Adrien mumbles. “Plagg, claws out!” He smirks as he’s transformed, feeling a lightness he hasn’t felt all day. He immediately uses his staff to launch himself onto the roof, taking in his surroundings. No crazy weather. No giant stone monster or baby. Nothing flying around. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. Frowning, he retracts his staff to call Ladybug. It rings, but she doesn’t answer.
“Hey Bugaboo. Where should we meet? I don’t see anything unusual. Call me back.” He hands up and decides his best bet is to patrol around, keep an eye out for anything unusual. Just as he starts to think that maybe it was a false alarm, a red blob flies at him. He blinks.
“Chat! Follow me!” Tikki directs, whirling around and zooming away. Adrien’s heart sinks. Please let her be okay. I can’t watch her die again. Please. The words go on a cycle in his head as he runs behind Tikki, too worried to ask. He frowns when she dips down into an alley where someone- not Mari- is waiting.
“What’s going on?” He asks, completely confused.
“The akuma was able to get to Marinette before she could transform.” Tikki explains and Adrien frowns.
“Marinette? Are you- that’s Marinette?” He asks in bewilderment. The girl standing in front of him couldn’t be older than three.
“Unfortunately. The akuma can de-age people.” Tikki says with a sigh.
“Oh gosh, okay. Hi, I’m Chat Noir!” Adrien says, squatting down so that he’s eye level. He extends a hand, smiling at the girl.
“Kitty!” She giggles, throwing her arms around him.
“Oh, uh, hi.” He says, putting his arms around her and picking her up. He turns to Tikki.
“So is this one of those “take her to Mr. Wayne until the fight is over because she can’t be Ladybug right now” situations? Or a “hide her until this is all over” situation? We had  a lot of plans. De-aging was not one of them.” Adrien asks.
“Take her to Mr. Wayne. This akuma is sneaky and we can’t risk Marinette revealing her identity.” Tikki says.
“What?” Adrien asks. How could a baby Mari reveal her identity?
“Adri, wanna cookie please.” Mari says with a pout. His jaw drops and she giggles, patting his face. “Silly kitty!”
“She still knows?” He asks, his voice jumping an octave as he panics. How much did she know? Did she still know everything about the other kwami and the other heroes and- oh god, her dad is Batman. Oh this could be bad. Very bad.
“Okay, nevermind that, where are the glasses? I’ve got to get her out of here before someone hears her tell everyone’s secrets.” Adrien says, suddenly understanding the entire situation.
“Here go!” Mari says, pulling glasses out of her purse. Adrien takes them with a forced smile and merges Plagg and Kaalki. Though the akuma didn’t appear to be deadly, it was going to be a long battle for just one person. Especially since this akuma was actually good at hiding. He makes the portal and steps through, scoffing at the immediate defensive stances from her brothers.
“I’ve been here before.” He reminds them, letting his transformation fall.
“Who’s the kid?” Jason asks, going back to his breakfast when he deems Adrien not a threat. Adrien grimaces.
“So, yeah about that...um, Plagg will explain.” He says, slipping the ring onto Mari’s finger and taking the earrings. Time to get out of this mess. --- Bruce blinks as Adrien leaves as quickly as he came, no explanation. Only a ring of light. He glances at the little girl and frowns. Based on pictures he’d seen, he’d guess the girl was Marinette. But his daughter was a teenager. Which meant this little girl couldn’t be Marinette. But then who-
“Daddy!” She squeals, finally looking at him with her bright eyes. She runs up to him and raises her arms. He blinks, unsure of what she wants. She huffs. “Up.” She demands. He picks her up, eyebrows furrowed as she squeezes him tightly.
“Marinette?” He asks, still confused. A loud cackling draws his attention to the tiny floating black cat at the other end of the table. Of course.
“Pigtails is gonna freak about this later.” He says with a snort.
“And you are?” Bruce asks, wary of the creature. It was definitely not hostile, Adrien did leave it here. But he was still uncertain of its intentions.
“Plagg. The black ca kwami. Akuma back in Paris hit her and you all are her safe house. If she’s unable to fight as Ladybug, someone is supposed to bring her here. The kid or her, if she can still use a Miraculous.” Plagg explains, glancing around. “Say, you got any cheese?” He adds, and just like that, the kwami is off-supposedly to find cheese in the kitchen.
“So- how does she know you if she’s this little? She’s gotta be like, three.” Dick asks with a frown. “You just met.”
“Cause I’m Batman!” Marinette says, mimicking his voice. Jason snorts.
“Sure Pixie, and I’m Ladybug.” He says, reaching over and ruffling her hair.
“No, I am!” She pouts, crossing her arms. “You can’t be, you’re Red Hood.” She adds. Tim- who had been silently sipping coffee- spits over the entire table.
“Good job Drake. Now breakfast is ruined for everyone.” Damian sneers.
“She knows! But she’s tiny! She shouldn’t-” Tim rants.
“It’s magic, Drake.” Damian says, cutting him off. “I am unsure of what you expect. Now, since breakfast is ruined, I will be taking Titus on a walk.” He adds, standing up and starting to leave. Bruce is barely able to stop Marinette from falling as she leaps from his lap and rushes to Damian.
“Can I come?” She asks with a wide smile. Damian hesitates, glancing at him. Bruce shrugs. “Can I come, please?” Marinette adds, sticking out her lip in a pout.
“Tt. I suppose you can come with.” He says with pursed lips. Marinette squeals, grabbing Damian’s hand and tugging him along. The sound of a camera shutter makes Bruce whirl around to see- of course. Dick had his phone out and was taking picture after picture, a wide smile on his face as the two walked away, Marinette babbling on about how cool superheroes are as they walk.
“Who would’ve thought we’d be able to get pictures of baby Mari with us!” He says cheerfully, looking down at his phone. Bruce stills. He could have pictures with one of his kids, as a baby. He glances over at Tim, trying to figure out a way to ask that wouldn’t be too weird. Was the request too weird?
“Don’t worry, B. Already on it.” Tim says, shaking his phone. “Got several pictures of your little hug situation.” He adds. Bruce nods. Still…
“Everyone in the parlor in five minutes. Make sure Alfred comes too. I’ll go get Damian and Marinette.” Bruce says, standing from the table.
“For what?” Jason asks, visually bristling at the orders. Though their relationship was getting better, it was still rocky. And it likely would be for years.
“A family picture.” Bruce says simply. They’d have to take another when Marinette is herself, but he wasn’t about to miss this opportunity. --- Damian Wayne was many things. A former member of the League of Assassins. The current, (and in his unbiased opinion, best) Robin, an animal lover, a brother and a son. He also enjoyed drawing, occasionally painting too. What he was not, was a babysitter. He did not enjoy small children. They often cried for no reason, talked too much and smelled odd. His sister, luckily, did not smell odd. Nor had she cried. She was, however, babbling incoherently. And smiling. Nonstop. It was odd, but not awful. Looking down at the small girl, he was suddenly struck with the awful memory of her death. Of the sword that- no. She was fine. She may be a toddler now, but she was still fine.
“And then, Chat was a bad guy.” She says as he tunes back into her words. He frowns. That’s odd.
“What do you mean?” He asks, sure he misheard her.
“Chat! His suit turned bad and the moon went boom!” She exclaims, gesturing with her hands to mimic an explosion. Why was there no footage of this?
“That sounds like a very bad dream.” He leads, certain that it was just one of her fears. He knew Marinette struggled with anxiety and doubted herself as a hero. Surely that’s all she was referring to. She shakes her head.
“Nu-uh. Not a dream.” She denies, frowning. He starts to ask for clarification, to try and help, when she squeals and runs forward, wrapping her tiny arms around Titus. Damian sighs. It was useless to attempt to have an actual discussion with her right now anyway. Perhaps later they could revisit the topic.
“Careful, Titus.” Damian says, slightly concerned for how the large dog would react to Marinette. He had never really been around small children before, and while he was nice, some dogs just disliked children. Not that Damian blamed them. Instead of knocking her down or growling at her though, Titus nuzzles into her. Gently pushing her along as they walk around the gardens. Damian feels his lip quirk up in a smile. Pulling his phone out, he takes a quick picture, certain Marinette would like to see it later. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Father walking towards them swiftly.
“Father.” He acknowledges.
“Damian. We’re going to take some pictures together before she turns back.” Father says, glancing at Marinette who was giggling against Titus. She turns and notices the two talking, her smile growing even wider.
“Daddy!” She cheers, running forward and jumping into Father’s arms. Damian quirks an eyebrow at the uncharacteristically large smile on his father’s face. It was odd, but he also knew that his father regretted losing so much time with both him and Marinette. The others it was to be expected, but to not even have that time with his own blood children….
“Did you have fun with Damian, sweetheart?” He asks, and Damian blinks at the surprisingly soft tone. Very odd. He suddenly couldn’t wait for Marinette to turn back. He did not care for the sudden changes in his father.
“Yup! Dami showed me the flowers and the trees and Titus is so silly!” She rambles, nearly whacking Father in the face as she gestures wildly. Damian barely holds back a snort as he watches them.
“I’m so glad you had fun. Can we go inside now, there’s some things we want to do before you go back to Paris.” He explains. Marinette frowns, a pout replacing her large smile.
“I don’t wanna.” She whines, and Damian is shocked to see tears. Actual tears.
“Why don’t you want to go home?” Father asks, and the look on his face makes it obvious. He’s thrown.
“Tired.” She says, laying her head on Father’s shoulder. “Akumas are bad.” She adds.
“We’re going to help Marinette. You won’t be alone anymore. You and Chat Noir will both have help. We’ll figure this out.” Father assures her, holding her.
“Perhaps we could continue this conversation later, Father. You wanted to take pictures and there is no guarantee how long she will be...young.” Damian points out, making a mental note to also bring up the ‘Chat was bad’ scenario later.
“Er, yes. Let’s go. Come on honey, it’s okay. You’re still here.” Father says, turning and walking towards the house, quietly reassuring Marinette until she starts smiling again. While seeing his older sister younger than him was entertaining, Damian much preferred older Marinette. She had a better handle on her emotions. And though he would never admit it to her face, was also much more bearable in conversation. --- Jason was not fond of family pictures. Hell, he wasn’t fond of most things that involved family bonding. He’d been around more since they discovered Marinette, but that was mostly to make sure that Bruce didn’t fuck it up too badly. The kid was the most emotionally available one he had. She could do more than brood. And Jason was not about to let Bruce mess that up by being an asshole. So, sure, he’d been around more. But that didn’t mean he had to be in a family picture.
“I don’t wanna.” He argues, glaring at Dick who was trying to get him to come stand next to him. Dick, Alfred and Replacement were all coming up with poses will B got Demon Spawn and Pixie to come back inside. Jason wanted no part of any of it.
“Master Jason, this is a unique opportunity.” Alfred chastises. Jason rolls his eyes.
“I’ll join when he finds another kid.” He mumbles, trying not to sound too bitter. He wasn’t mad at Marinette, not at all. But being Bruce Wayne’s kid was a fucking recipe for disaster. Three of them had died (and come back). All of them were a vigilante or hero of some sort. None of them had a normal life. So as nice as it could be, being a kid of the Bruce Wayne, it was also a bit of a curse.
“Jay!” Marinette squeals, practically throwing herself from Bruce’s arms as they walk into the room. Jason lunges forward, catching her.
“Shit, Pix, you just about fell.” He swears, eyes wide as she giggles uncontrollably.
“Language.” Dick calls. Jason narrows his eyes, about to argue, when Marinette shifts in his arms. Oh yeah. She’s kind of tiny right now. Probably shouldn’t say anything too bad.
“Daddy says we’re gonna take pictures!” She says, grinning widely. Jason winces. Damnit Bruce.
“Really? Well, I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.” He says, preparing to put her down so that he can dip out.
“We have to get a picture of just the kids too! Daddy says we’ll take more another day, but we gotta hurry.” She rambles, struggling in his arms to be let down. He sets her down, taken aback by how strong she is as she grabs his hand and tugs him behind the couch. Standing right next to Dick. Of fucking course.
“Pix, I don’t-” He tries to say.
“Nope. Picture time!” She cheers, running back to Bruce. Jason shakes his head. Of fucking course the Pixie was gonna get him to do some stupid shit he didn’t want to do. Of course. --- Alfred glances at the new pictures on the wall as he walks down to the kitchen. It had been a few days since Miss Marinette had left. A few days since he was able to see a genuine smile on Master Bruce’s face. The family had managed to get dozens of pictures and videos on that day, including a picture with himself, Master Bruce and the children. Glancing at the picture of just the children, all laughing and cuddled up on the couch, Alfred smiles. It was nice to have these pictures, pictures with genuine joy on his family’s face. Even if it happened because of a villain attack.
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Tag list: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo @ritacrow-blog @deathssilentapproach-blog @kittenmywaythrulife @nerd-nowandforever @tazanna-blythe @jaybird-and-co @jumpingjoy82 @imarivers8 @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks
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dukethomas · 3 years ago
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Summary: Duke’s parents recover and come home. Written for Duke Week 2021 Day Six: Family Bonding.
I was going to write something angstier for this prompt, but it actually turned into just the comfort part of hurt/comfort. Sometimes I need a good cry about something good happening to characters I love.
Also read it here on AO3!
-
His parents were back.
His parents were back, and Duke could cry and cry and cry forever. He sobbed into his mom’s shoulder for who knows how long when he saw them. His mom pat his back—he was taller than her now—and murmured to him, “It’s okay, baby bird. We’re here.”
The use of the nickname he hadn’t heard since he was in elementary school made him sob harder.
His mom and his dad were, were okay, their mouths weren’t contorted into unnatural grins and they didn’t carry that gleam of hatred and they said they were so sorry and they loved him so much and wow, hadn’t he grown up so much—he turned out to be the spitting image of his mother, didn’t he think?
Duke didn’t think he’d ever stop crying.
“I missed you,” he blubbered. “I missed you every day, I swear, I tried so hard to find a cure or something—”
His dad smiled at him, softly, tears in the corners of his eyes. “And you did. We’re right here, Duke. You brought us back.”
He had to call Jay to pick them up, because his parents no longer had licenses and Duke didn’t trust his hands to not shake in the full force of his joy.
-
In the days that followed, Duke didn’t go out as the Signal. How could he? This all felt like a fever dream; he’d been wanting this for so long. If he didn’t spend every waking moment with his parents, he feared they could revert back to what they were, and it would be a dream after all.
Jay took a few days off of work, and Duke called in sick for a few days at school. The Thomas family glowed with genuine grins, because they were whole. They spent the time catching his mom and dad up on what they missed, and having fun playing games or going out the rest of the time. To his dad’s chagrin, Duke had gotten much better at chess, but no one could beat his mom at Monopoly.
Then life came crashing down around them. Jay had to go to work, Duke had to go back to school, and his parents needed to begin a new chapter of their lives. Unbeknownst to Jay and his parents, Duke skipped his first day back at school to chase down a string of thefts he’d read about in the news.
He could never stay away from Signal for long. Gotham needed him, needed all the help it could get.
It wasn’t a difficult case, by any means. Mad Hatter was about as subtle as a barge. Still, Duke embraced the thrill of hunting them down, as the trail of clues led him right towards a newly opened costume store, Wonderland Haberdashery.
Again. Subtle as a barge.
“What are we waiting for?” a man dressed as a giant white rabbit complained.
The dormouse next to him shushed him loudly. She hissed, “The boss’ signal.”
Duke took that as his cue. He launched into action, running forward with a well-timed punch to the rabbit’s face. “You’ve got one right here.” (Those jokes never got old.)
He let himself loose, using all of his training as well as his own metahuman power to demolish his way through the storybook-themed goons. He couldn’t fight the grin on his face; he was having too much fun. His heart reached a thunderous frenzy in his ears and he loved every second of it. These guys couldn’t touch him.
When the time came to knock out Jervis Tetch himself, Duke obliged with glee. He’d just finished tying him to the wall when his phone buzzed with a notification.
It was three, school was over, and he should be heading home. His parents should be home.
His parents were home. It still felt surreal.
He ran into Jay’s apartment and kicked off his shoes faster than he ever had when doing a superheroic change of clothes.
“Hey Mom! Hey Dad! I’m home!” he called. When he heard no response, a chill went down his spine, and he rushed to the living room. There, his parents sat on the couch, fixated on the TV. The news channel was on, talking about an altercation at—oh.
It was talking about him.
“That’s you,” his mom said without turning back to look at him.
A wad of bile as large as a stone formed in his throat. He knew Bruce probably had contingencies for if anyone guessed his identity. Deny it, prove that he was in school, get a shapeshifter to pose as Signal in the same room as him. But he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Yeah.” He couldn’t, he wouldn’t lie to his parents. “Are you upset?”
He’d imagined this scenario many times. What would his parents say about his vigilantism? He was risking his life every time he was out there, and no parent would want that, but he was helping Gotham. He was helping Gotham’s people, just like they had taught him to do.
“Let me take a look at you,” his mom told him, beckoning him towards the couch. Duke listened, sitting in between his mom and dad. His mom cupped his face with her rough hands, and he leaned into the touch. “It’s dangerous,” she murmured; Duke squeezed his eyes shut.
A firm arm reached around his shoulders, holding him tight. His dad. “But you’re happy,” he said.
Duke nodded, his chin trembling.
They dwelled in a moment’s pause, until he was being hugged from both sides. Duke opened his eyes to see his parents with faint smiles. “We couldn’t be there for you,” said his mom, “but you found yourself.”
“I did,” Duke whispered, crying for the millionth time this week. “I did.”
“We’re so, so unbelievably proud of the person you’ve grown up to be, baby bird. We just wish… we just wish we could have been here to see it happen.”
-
His parents laid down some ground rules. No more skipping school unless he had all his assignments done and he had straight A’s. He had to be home for dinner, and after sundown he was off his shift. He could join night shift with the other Bats only twice a week in a limited capacity, and he had to go to sleep before midnight on school nights. And he would tell Jay his secret.
That had been the hardest one. Duke could barely get the words out, suddenly filled with shame for not telling Jay earlier.
But as it turned out, Jay already suspected it. “I’m no genius, but you’re disappearing constantly. I can never find you. Wayne takes you out of Gotham all the time. That’s not just an internship, Duke.” His jaw hardened. “But don’t think that I’m going to be the cool cousin now and let you break any of those new rules your parents set. Safety first.”
Duke rolled his eyes and hugged him. “Love you, man.”
“Love you too, rascal.”
He had to let Bruce know. He’d been keeping in touch with Bruce throughout all of this, but sparingly. He got the vibe that Bruce was keeping his distance out of respect for him and his parents.
Well, no more of that. Duke shot off a text to Bruce to let him know he was coming, then pocketed his phone. “Hey, Mom? Dad? You wanna ride with me on my motorcycle to Wayne Manor?”
He wouldn’t have actually done it (it was too big of an identity risk), but it was worth it to see his parents’ briefly stunned looks before his dad started chasing him with a noogie at the ready.
Jay drove them all to Wayne Manor. His mom and dad walked out of the car tentatively, scrutinizing their surroundings. Duke fidgeted with his shirt, wondering what they thought. For all intents and purposes, this was his home, if only for a little over a year.
Duke rang the doorbell, ready to greet Alfred, but it was Bruce who opened the door for once. The way he held himself struck Duke. It wasn’t extravagant and flighty like Brucie, nor grim and tense like Batman. Duke’s family were some of the very few to see Bruce Wayne as he really was, without a persona.
“You took Duke in while we were… unavailable,” his mom said before Bruce could say hello.
“Yes,” replied Bruce calmly, wearing something on his face Duke didn’t often see. Vulnerability. Anxiety .
His dad held out his hand. “Doug Thomas. Thank you. Thank you for taking care of our boy.”
“It was a pleasure.” Bruce shook Duke’s dad’s hand. “Duke was a delight to mentor and guide. I’m glad he has you both back.”
Duke grinned. “He says I’m a delight but he didn’t think so every time I snuck out of the Manor to track down a lead.”
“You were supposed to be on bed rest.”
“And I rested, in a bed, after I solved the case! I do it every night when I sleep—that’s working overtime on bed rest, Bruce.”
“And you won’t be pulling any of that with us, young man,” his mom told him in a stern tone.
Duke quickly made his eyes as wide, pleading, and innocent as possible. He would never, he was about to say, when Bruce told them to come in.
“A better man than I expected him to be,” his dad said once Bruce had moved far enough he wouldn't hear. His mom hummed in agreement. “And Duke, you felt safe with him?”
Duke snorted. “Define safe.”
“Smartass,” Jay muttered, behind the three of them. He’d been through the tour already. He had a begrudging respect for Bruce, but he wasn’t impressed.
“And who taught me to do that, ever since I was a little kid?”
Duke yelped as he dodged a smack from Jay. “I’m fragile, don’t hurt me!”
“You’re not fragile,” said the amused voice coming from down the hall. Cass, here because Duke asked her to be. Because he wanted his family to meet his family.
“Oh! Mom, Dad, Jay, this is Cass.” He dragged them over to meet her. “She’s like… she’s my sister.”
Cass nodded, observing Duke’s family. “Good to meet you.”
At his parents’ confused glance, he told them, “When you were gone, I made new friends, but I also found new family. Cass isn’t your daughter or Jay’s cousin, but she’s my sister.” In his chest, he felt a weight alleviate, one he hadn’t even been aware of. “Wait until you meet Damian. Remember how I always wanted a baby brother when I was a kid, but you guys kept telling me that I was enough of a handful?”
As he kept introducing his parents to the family he made, he felt a warmth grow within him, tickling his ribs, infecting his lungs. It was like he couldn’t do anything but beam from ear to ear, now that he had almost everyone important in his life gathered together. (He would introduce them to Izzy, Riko, and the rest of the Robins soon.)
His family had been shattered, but Duke had picked up the pieces and created something new. And it could never be the way it was, but that was okay. Duke was happy with his family the way it was now.
His parents were home; all his family was home. Duke couldn’t be happier.
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tundrainafrica · 3 years ago
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Title: How many colors can you see in the dark?
Summary:
"Darkness wasn’t pitch black. Darkness wasn’t nothing. It was a slew of shadows, lines and glimmers. It was a dark blue, a light blue in places and if she searched for it, a subtle shade of green.
Eyes were just constantly looking for something to see."
After the war, Hange and Levi start living together and Hangs notices something might be a little off about Levi.
Link: AO3
Note:
I know this is two weeks late but...happy birthday Shaila! Based on the prompt you sent ;)
Levi had always approached housemaking like it was a delicate art, a dance to master
Or maybe it was something he had mastered already.
Despite his small stature and his generally aloof demeanor, he navigated the kitchen with silent confidence, running his hands over each task quickly, efficiently and more notably, elegantly.
Elegant enough to catch Hange’s busy eyes for at least a few minutes a day.
Turning something as mundane as managing a house into an art was an admirable skill that Hange learned over the years, could never be replicated without the natural proclivity. And as long as it was Levi was involved, Hange seemed to be completely capable of giving her full attention.
And before she even realized it herself, she had mastered the subtle art of just observing.
She mastered it so well that when inconsistencies started to appear, Hange spotted them almost immediately.
There was a plate that Levi had settled on the counter with a louder than usual clatter and that was enough to ring alarm bells inside her. Then when the angry clatters, the awkward rhythm as Levi reorganized utensils became commonplace, Hange found herself watching every move more closely then listening even when she had know idea what she was searching for in the first place.
She surreptitiously kept her guard up, she followed his movements. She snuck glances when she was sure Levi wasn’t looking. Over time, acts as mundane as turning on the stove had Hange looking up, ears perked up, interest piqued.
Maybe she was just a little nervous that Levi might burn himself.
Levi knew the stove from the back of his hand, he knew everything inside and out from the vacuum cleaners, to the dishwashers, to the mops. She had never needed to be nervous before.
But the clicking of the stove as he turned the knob was just a tad slow. The plates continued to clatter instead of settling softly on the counter.
And when Hange observed the way he set the table, she couldn’t help but notice, the spoon was just a little closer to the plate than the spoon.
Something, a fastidious Levi would have never allowed.
It could have been the long observations, or just the broken dish that had started it all. It could have been Levi’s careful movements or Hange’s penchant for overthinking. For a while, she had even blamed herself for being overly zealous about how the house should be run.
Then understanding came out of nowhere one morning, as an abrupt yet taut curse from just a few feet away.
Fuck.
Hange’s reaction was almost immediate. “Levi? You okay?”
He wasn’t okay. Hange had stood up instinctively at the sound, her eyes following Levi’s hands. The latter had dropped the peeler onto the kitchen counter with a louder clack than usual.
“Let me take a look,” Hange said. Her pace quickened as she made more sense of the situation.
Out of instinct, Levi held his hand close to him, another clumsy mistake, considering the red streaks that pooled out of that tiny knick that started to leak into the white shirt underneath. “Fucking hell,” Levi let out another curse, that time as a hushed whisper. He pulled away even before Hange could get close.
“Let me take a look,” Hange repeated, that time more firmly. Instinctively her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed.
Somehow, that combination of everything had been enough to have Levi just a little more obedient.
He didn’t pull away further. But he didn’t make it any easier either.
It was Hange who carefully unwrapped his fingers, exposing the raw skin underneath. She ran her hand over it as gently as she could, but still not gentle enough to prevent a soft, hesitant and begrudging whimper.
“I’ll get the bandages,” Hange turned towards the cupboard, pulling out the materials one by one.
The process of bandaging was slow and the air between the two remained unbearably silent. Hange had more than enough thinking space to notice it then, when it was right at her fingertips.
Levi’s hands have always been rough, they have always been crusty to the touch. But something seemed a little different about the scrapes, the raw red that seemed to climb up his wrists, settling in his palms.
Levi had always been careful, he’d never been clumsy, let alone accident prone.
But his hands seemed to tell a different story. Hange ran her hands over his palms as she worked, ignoring the winces, the way he tensed up at each slight touch.
Then she started to ignore the passage of time, only painfully aware of the questions, then the ardent curiosity that seemed to manifest as some heavy weight in the silent kitchen.
She had to let it out somehow, or risk having that weight crush her.
Are you okay? Even if she did ask that, would Levi ever respond with a straight answer? Her own experience with him said no.
She took a deep breath. “Levi…” Hange started, hands running through the bruising once again. “Did you fall somewhere?”
***
Levi never answered that question. And any attempt at pushing and prodding after that, came up empty.
He was quiet, and it turned out, keeping mum could have been as much of his talent as being careful. He could ignore Hange if he tried and he would mumble something to himself, and walk away.
He always found a way to feign or at the most even force himself into a state of deep concentration, enough to even convince Hange to leave her questions for another day.
Hange was never one to stay quiet forever. And the universe was only tempting Hange to push the issue.
Suddenly everything was a catalyst.
The broken plate was the first catalyst. Then accidents seemed to pop up more frequently, an awkward clatter worse than an awkward clatter or a broken rhythmThere were rhythm. There were broken platess, a bleeding cutss and crushed fruits. Strange accidents had become a common sight.
I’m fine. Levi had said the first time she asked.
Hange gave it a week. One week became two weeks when Levi insisted that he was fine.
Two weeks became three when Levi insisted he was just tired.
One month in, Hange’s own habits of observation have graduated to levels of almost accurate predictions.
Hange didn’t notice it for herself immediately. In fact, she noticed it in slow motion, in the way she tensed up as she started to make sense of her observations.
They were in the moment Levi’s eyes twitched, the split second long blink, and the way his hand hovered over the plate, the way his hands gripped for something so tightly Hange could have sworn he had to have been gripping something.
Something a little more tangible than air.
Hange didn’t have to squint or furrow her brows to see that nothing had been between his two finger tips. Yet, for a second, Levi still held the air in between them like it was a lifeline.
When Hange looked up, narrowing her eyes at Levi’s, she noted the flash of confusion. As quickly as he pulled back, it melted away to something more subtle.
That dumbfounded expression didn’t fall away for any longer. It stayed long enough for Hange to see everything about the way Levi had blinked rapidly for a few seconds longer, the awkward way he stepped back then the way he gripped the counter as he bent down to grab the plate.
He didn’t go quickly for the broken plate, he started to feel the ground and Hange was sure she could have been much quicker. She rushed next to him.
Levi had a headstart but despite that, Hange was moving alarmingly faster. “Levi… I’ll handle this,” Hange said, noting the awkward and aimless movements of his hands.
Levi didn’t even protest but something inside Hange had wished he did. He pulled back, reached above him for some support from the counter.
When Hange focused on the obvious signs, she was quick to conclud, Levi had never been that slow.
He had never approached cleaning with such painful hesitation.
The first time, Hange did stomach it but she never really was the type to sit back and observe. She always observed but after observing, Hange would act in the most logical, calculated manner.
“We’re going to the doctor.” Hange brought it up out over an uncharacteristic silence.
“No.”
That brusque response had Hange jumping in her seat. When Hange thought about it for a second longer, after ‘I’m fines,” and “I’m just tired,” a firm ‘no’ seemed almost ominous.
Levi wasn’t making things any better with the rash way at which he stood up, then teetered, his eyes hovering wildly over the table. He blinked hard, then he widened his eyes in some look of confusion or surprise.
When Hange bent over to look into it, he looked away. “I’m fine.”
“You know I can help with the laundry right? Or cooking.”
“Why do you wanna help so suddenly? Don’t you have work to do?”
“I do,” Hange admitted. “But even if you’ve always wanted to do it yourself... I thought I wanna help with house chores more.”
“That’s new,” Levi glanced at her accusingly.
Glanced. That’s what it should have been
Hange squinted, then her eyes scanned over his expression while aiming to recall every other moment he had made eye contact before.
Levi wasn’t glancing. His eyes could have been staring at nothing. Either that, or he could have been staring at something which Hange couldn’t see.
There was a blunt grey in his sharp blue eyes and before Hange even felt the damp tension in the room, the way it weighed on her lips, forced her jaw back, she took one deep breath. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? Doing everything on your own?”
“I’ve always done everything on my own,” Levi said. He pulled his chair back then walked slowly away.
He didn't finish his breakfast that day.
***
It was like a switch just turned on inside Hange.
The stronger the indignance, the more motivated Hange became. Soon, even the small things back home were pulling out the researcher from inside her.
Despite her chaotic personality, Hange always seemed to put some systematic process into something as complex as solving a problem and subsequently, getting into the bottom of someone as stoic as Levi Ackerman.
Define the problem.
Levi was just a little too clumsy.
Form a hypothesis.
That part was a little more complex. With a little more observation, a little more analysis, she noticed the small details.
The small details weren’t in Levi, in fact they were in the little changes in his surroundings. The spices and the groceries have always been arranged neatly but when Hange observed Levi’s movements, she noticed, he liked to hover his hand over everything before allowing it to land, on top of one cap, then he would grip the one right next to it.
The salt shaker was just a little smaller than the pepper shaker just an inch away. When Levi was done with the salt he put it in its usual spot.
In the exact same place.
Levi was meticulous. He always did it that way. But there was something unsettling about the way he gripped it hard before letting go, before hovering his hand over the jar right next to it.
“Here,” Levi said, dropping the plate gently on the counter.
Scrambled eggs with salt.
“Thank you,” Hange said as she pulled it towards herself. Most days, she had a book next to her, or a few documents to review before she left for the office. That day in particular, the documents were just for show. She watched carefully as he cleaned up, as he positioned the bowl right next to the plates, and when he set it, he let his hand hover, he let it gently fly over the other utensils.
As if he was memorizing where everything was.
But Hange couldn’t be too sure. She needed to experiment.
There was only one window to move and that was when Levi was in the shower.
So Hange called the office, mentioning something to Armin about being late, and about an urgent health concern.
She never called days off so Armin didn’t pry.
She opened the salt shaker and poured the contents into a bowl. She opened the pepper shaker and poured the contents inside. A few hand motions later, the salt was where it wasn’t supposed to be and the pepper wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Then Hange lined them up. She could never be too sure if that was the exact sample place but it was worth a try.
The next morning, the experiment turned out to be very much worth it when Hange was served an omelette sprinkled with a little too much of something else on top.
“Levi, I asked for salt in the omelette right?”
“You always ask for salt,” Levi answered matter-of-factly as he picked at his own breakfast. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing… I just thought you put in a little too much.” Hange made a loud show of pushing the plate in front of him and it looked like Levi had been ready to make a show of something too.
He narrowed his eyes on the plate then nodded. “Sorry, I’ll put less salt next time,” he muttered, only proving himself what Hange already suspected.
“It’s fine, put as much salt as you want,” Hange didn’t even notice herself, not until she pulled the plate back towards her that her voice had deadened to smatterings of sound. She sliced the omellete into smaller places, mixing the black pepper with the gooey yellow just underneath then wondering for a second how Levi managed to so cleanly crack the eggs even when he could barely tell the difference between white and black.
The only way to ever find out is to ask. But there were more pressing things to ask at that moment.
Levi, are you blind? If Hange just went with her first instinct, maybe that’s what she would have asked.
This is pepper. That had been her second choice but with such a fragile moment right between them, that was no time for proving her own conjecture correct.
She went for an in between, a curious in between and she decided, it was up to Levi to take it for what he sees the question to be. “Levi? How much can you see right now?”
“I can see just fine,” Levi answered, once again straightforward and firm.
At that moment, he met her gaze with blank eyes, or at least, he attempted to meet her gaze. The moment Hange avoided his eyes, he didn’t follow.
She started to make sense of everything at once.
The strong denial, the lack of confusion, her omelette with a little too much pepper instead of salt and one strong inference later, Hange started on a new endeavor--- convincing Levi to see a doctor.
***
The disease wasn’t anything new and Hange was confident, she could have pronounced it and memorized it if she had put her heart into studying it.
As Levi put it, there were more pressing things to study than the sudden onset of failing eyesight. The doctors at least had been nice enough to put a prognosis on it.
The rules were simple, old people usually got it, Levi had just been terribly unlucky he experienced it decades earlier. It wasn’t common but it wasn’t unheard of either, even in the small island of Eldia. If Hange requested the documentation from Marley, if she made a quick visit to Marley, maybe she would have figured it out for herself.
Levi had shot down that idea though before Hange could have entertained it any further.
Even in the silence, in the bedroom, at two in the morning, even when Hange had so carefully padded towards the desk, Levi had seemed to have sensed it.
His voice rough, his eyes half open, he spoke up seemingly from out of nowhere. “No need.”
Whatever had hinted him to it seemed to have work, maybe even if it was just Hange’s own tense demeanor which she couldn’t so easily brush away.
In fact, Hange had been thinking about it. She had a half written letter for a leave to go to Marley. She had papers on whatever the doctors had even documented about the failing eyesight of elders, all scattered across the table.
But fading eyesight of elders was something not many people endeavored to cure. Levi's case was just too rare, and there were no other studies which made it worth white.
It was as if Levi had known that too.. “Hange, go back to sleep.”
He had chosen a convenient moment to say it. That exact moment where Hange had ran her eyes over the last few paragraphs of one of the files from the library.
No known cure.
“I’m reading something.” Hange disturbed the papers enough to release some loud rustle in the room.
“You wanna read it to me?” Levi asked. That was the first time he had ever asked her to read anything to him.
To Hange’s surprised, it sent some painful pang through her chest that seemed to settle in her stomach.
Suddenly, she was in no mood to read again.
“Actually, you’re right. I think this can wait until morning.”
***
Hange’s work in the office started to die down just a bit, and suddenly her mind was everywhere.
She allowed herself to ponder what the hell Levi was busying himself with while she was away. Did he get bored? More importantly, was he safe?
And a few times she did call home, only to get some form of ‘go back to work’ in a more and more annoyed tone with every call. The few times she stopped herself from calling, she busied herself with something else.
Piles and piles of paperwork, some of them were actual work and some of them were something that Hange would have classified as personal, hidden amongst a small pile of papers slightly obscured by the one Jean had left a while back.
Luckily, no one really asked Hange to clean up. No one among her subordinates seemed to have even made sense of the pile of paperwork and that was one thing Hange took advantage of.
After one call with Levi, where the latter had put down the phone a little too roughly, Hange quickly went through one of the letters she had written only that morning, to another doctor she had heard about through her network.
The few doctors in Eldia had deemed it incurable but Hange still managed to grip on to whatever hope came with a second opinion. The few researchers that had come back bore bad news but Hange was unfazed, there were still many other doctors, some in Marley, some in the Middle East, some in Hizuru.
Others had come back with nothing but affirmation that whatever research that had reached Eldia were the latest.
But Hange wasn’t giving up just yet. There were a few more she hadn’t sent yet.
She bent over, chin leaning on one hand. She knew the best way to write a letter and if she just let loose, she was confident she could make it sound as professional as the many other letters she had written before.
Somehow, the nth letter was harder. Somehow, writing that same letter when she had received too many rejections already was harder.
Was it worth it to still try? Hange took a deep breath, pressed the pen to paper and wrote out the first few words. It was like a script, when Hange gave into self discipline and to the mechanisms that kept working the past few years, she found it was easy enough to stay productive and efficient.
Doctor Wilken,
I hope you’re doing well.
My name is Hange Zoe from Paradis. I’m writing to you to inquire about a case…
Hange had gone halfway through, before the door to her office creaked open. The sound echoed, breaking whatever trance she didn’t even know she had been in and Hange jumped her seat.
“Did I scare you?” Armin asked, another wad of documents held close to his chest.
Hange eyed the documents and instinctively patted the empty space to the side of her desk. “Leave it on my desk.”
“This can wait until tomorrow.” Armin dropped the documents on the side and looked up at her expectantly.
“If it’s urgent, I could get started tonight,” Hange offered.
“The grocery closes at seven,” Armin volunteered.
At that point, she had been painfully aware that a lot may have changed about her work habits. How long had she been writing letters back and forth. More importantly, how long had she been frequenting the grocery on the way home?
Since the doctors had given her Levi’s diagnosis? Hell, maybe even before that.
“You notice I’ve been going to the market more often?” Hange said.
“Connie noticed it first. Then Mikasa,” Armin explained. He put his hands up in defense. “We weren’t stalking you or anything, but we used to see Levi in the market more… and when we started seeing you there, we got curious.”
Hange forced a smile. “I just thought I should pull my weight at home. I think I’ve been spending too much time working. Not too much time helping out.”
“Levi isn’t the type to get lonely though and I’m sure he does enjoy cleaning,” Armin said.
“He sure does,” Hange said. She kept whatever tone to herself, instead feigning some preoccupation as she shuffled mindlessly through the papers. “Still, we’re living together and taking care of the house is a team job.”
Armin nodded. “You know, you don’t have to work overtime anymore. Jean, Mikasa and I… The queen… Connie… we can handle most of the work. You should spend more time at home--- I don’t even think you ever got rest as commander.”
Hange sighed. “I’m gonna have to think about that. There is a lot I feel like I haven’t done yet. Gimme some time to think about that.”
“If you need anything else, just let me know,” Armin said. He bowed lightly and walked quietly out the room, leaving Hange to ponder that offer.
There were things she hadn’t done. There was a lot of work she still had to deal with but she didn't need the time to consider them.
It was an easy decision to make.
Soon enough Hange had stopped working overtime and she had started to spend a little more time cracking open books and reports from each doctor and writing letters in between.
Surprisingly, she didn’t feel at all guilty about shortening work hours.
***
The door of their home opened up to the living room and just behind it was the kitchen.
By evening Hange would find Levi either working at the kitchen, sitting at the dining table or lounging by the sofa.
On the rare days that he wasn’t, he could be in the laundry room.
That was her first thought.
There was something about the eerie silence though that had Hange walking ahead more quickly.
“Levi?” she called out.
There was no reply. The beating of her heart only turned wilder. Hange dropped her bag by the sofa and raced towards the laundry room, just beyond that, was the bedroom.
She didn’t have to go any further though. Levi was slumped on the wall of the living room. A pile of clothes lay toppled over and scattered on the floor right next to him.
“Hange…” It wasn’t a question. Maybe more of a statement. But to Hange it had just been a lifeless name and the blank expression on Levi’s face wasn’t helping it either.
“Hey, I’m here.” Hange bent over and started to pick up the clothes, resting them on one hand.
“Did they get dirty?” Levi pulled at one of the sweaters then held it close to himself.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll put them back in the closet.”
“No, but I need to know, do I need to wash them again.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not as much of a clean freak as you are,” Hange folded the clothes once again and piled them all in. Levi had done his part but Hange couldn’t help but note, in the span of her folding ten, Levi had only folded two.
His was still neater and most likely, if Hange hadn’t caught him, if that accident--- whatever that had been--- that left him slumped on the wall, didn’t happen. He still would have managed to fold everything.
She carried the laundry basket with one arm and lumbered over to their bedroom. Listening closely, she made out the hesitant and clumsy steps of her partner right behind.
“Levi, what happened?” she asked.
“I fell over, the basket fell over, I hit my head on the wall.” He kept his voice soft, his answers straightforward.
“I’ll get some ice. Just lay in bed,” Hange ordered.
That accident must have hurt. For once, Levi was completely obedient, not even attempting to reorganize the clothes on the basket and putting it inside the closet. He didn’t even answer, or crane his neck when Hange entered the room.
She dropped the ice pack on his outstretched palm, guiding his fingers to the top, where it was easiest to hold. “In the morning, if it still hurts, you have to tell me. We’re going to have to take you to the doctor.”
Levi had experienced worse. Explosions, man eating monsters and war. Regardless, just a strong smack to the right part of the head was enough to kill. Hange had worked long enough with army medics to know.
He gripped the ice pack only lightly and once again, Hange was tempted to run her fingers over his and grip his hands guiding them over it. It wasn’t a physical issue. Levi was still strong, she was sure of that.
Still, Levi was stronger than that, he always had been. Hell, he was dubbed humanity’s strongest for a reason.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
“No. I’m not,” Levi admitted.
“We should see a doctor tomorrow then?”
Levi turned to his side, his front to the window. “It’s not that. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“But something else hurts right? Something you can’t explain?” Hange suggested.
Levi didn’t respond after that and Hange didn’t prod further. She started to reorganize the clothes one on top of the other, noting then how Levi had managed to fold them neatly into piles.
Hers and his, divided like they’ve always been. Staring for longer than usual, not having to consider the day in front or any other things, she started to note that there was a slight difference.
There were small stains on the white, some white on the red and just colors where she didn’t remember having them been before. “Levi, maybe we should get two hampers, a light and a dark one? So you don’t mix them up?” Hange suggested.
Silence.
Hange turned back to the hamper, the clothes still untouched, clumsily folded on top of one another. She brought it back to the bed and held Levi’s left hand towards her.
“You want me to teach you how to tell the lights from the darks?” Hange asked.
Levi had been holding the ice pack to his head for the past few seconds and he turned to Hange, eyes half open.
“Sit up.” She pulled lightly at Levi and it turned out, she didn’t have to pull for long. That order was enough to get him to a sitting position.
“I’ll teach you the lights from the darks,” Hange said. She pulled out one of Levi’s sweaters, a pure white with a few colored spots from washings. “This one is your white sweater…” She started. She guided Levi’s fingers through it, pressing his fingers closer on the areas where the threads bunched together, making up some intricate design.
As she guided his fingers through, as she felt his fingers pinch at it, she started to notice it herself. The seams, the hems, the collar, they all gave the sweater a unique character, and the color was starting to seem almost negligible.
“I can still tell the whites from the darks,” Levi said.
“How much can you see?”
Levi nodded and gave her a wry smile, the first in a long time. “Just enough to pick up some colors.”
“I think you may have mixed some of the lights and darks together. ,” Hange said.
Levi seemed deep in thought for a second. “It’s dim in the laundry room. When it’s darker, I can’t see as much, maybe that’s it,” he explained. He pinched at the hems as he spoke, running his hand quickly over it, as if trying to distract himself. “I just have to do better at figuring it out.”
“But now...” Hange said. “If you can’t tell the whites from the darks…”
“I can. It’s just harder to tell at times.” Levi hummed. “Let me try to explain it… When in a room, I don’t see anything. But in a well lit room, like now…” He paused for a second longer.
Hange was starting to get impatient. “Like now?”
Levi fell back on the bed and stared up ahead at the ceiling. “Hange, tell me, how many colors can you see in the dark?”
***
She did the laundry again that night, particularly for the more dirtied bundle.
In the dim laundry room, she closed her eyes for a moment, just for long enough to understand it herself. Her eyes would naturally search for light and in the darkness, they still seem to find it.Yet, Hange was sure that that was the closest thing she could get to total darkness.
Once she finished, she retired to the bedroom, turned on the lights of the room once again. Unlike before, it did nothing to wake Levi or even have him stirring, half asleep. His own condition had actually made him a better sleeper over time.
Hange put whatever dried up clothes back in the closet and just to answer the burning question for herself, she didn’t turn off the lights. She fell back on the bed, just like Levi had done hours ago. She closed her eyes tightly and the lights above stayed within range for just a second longer and the longer Hange made sense of herself, the clearer it started to become.
Darkness wasn’t pitch black. Darkness wasn’t nothing. It was a slew of shadows, lines and glimmers. It was a dark blue, a light blue in places and if she searched for it, a subtle shade of green.
Eyes were just constantly looking for something to see.
How many colors can you see in the dark? The darkness was endless and Hange was sure, if she looked hard enough, she may even see every shade in the spectrum.
That should be the same for Levi right? Hange thought to herself. She turned to a sleeping Levi, tracing the lines under his eyes, the tense jaw and when she stared for a little too long, she was cruelly reminded, the difference was right there.
She could open her eyes when she grew tired from searching for colors. Levi couldn’t.
An attempt at an awkward apology, Hange turned towards Levi, pulled herself closer, pressed her forehead on his, found rhythm in his breathing, picked out the moment the rhythm broke. Then there was a light brush on her cheeks, light yet ticklish enough for Hange to just ponder for a second how long Levi’s eyelashes really were.
She let out that laugh that tickled at her throat and she pressed her lips against his.
“You can stop now. I’m awake,” Levi’s lips pulled up into a smile. “Why are you laughing?”
“Nothing,” Hange answered almost instinctively.
“You never laugh at nothing.”
Hange sighed then she turned on her back. “I was just thinking about something.”
“About…”
“You know, there are things the eyes can’t see right? But are still very much there?” As soon as it came out of her mouth, all to a dead response, Hange realized, it wasn’t funny at all.
It had never been funny. It was just a glimmer of hope and she just hadn’t felt a glimmer of hope in a while.
***
There were colors in total darkness. There were colors the eyes couldn’t see but they were colors that the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin had no problems making.
Getting Levi acquainted with them was a daunting task.
It took weeks to get Levi familar with the hems of each sweater, the collars of his shirts and the areas were seams split wide enough to make a noticeable dent just between his fingers.
Soon enough, Hange realized, Levi didn’t need the dent, or he didn’t need the areas were the strings awkwardly bunched up together. Sometimes the areas were the threads lined up perfectly were enough of a hint.
How Levi could have figured it out, Hange could never tell but progress was still progress.
The work at the kitchen continued, the cleaning continued and most days, Hange could pretend it was just like before. If she avoided looking closely at how Levi’s hands hovered lightly over surfaces, how he pressed his hand against the wall before he made a turn, she could pretend he was just slightly clumsier than usual.
And most days it did work. Levi was always improving, getting used to whatever view he had every morning. Sometimes, she could even pretend he wasn’t struggling at all.
A ripple in whatever progress they set for themselves came as a knock on the door and a surprise visit.
It was a lazy Saturday morning, Hange was lounging on the couch, Levi was preparing lunch when they first knocked on the door.
“Is this a bad time?” Armin asked.
It wasn’t and Hange didn’t think it ever would be. The cadets always had a special place in her heart. She didn’t need too much to reassure Armin. She let the wide smile play at her lips, she then let her head cock to the side.
“You wanna stay for lunch?” Hange asked. She turned to Levi who was looking up at them too, his eyes wide with surprise.
“We can make a little more,” Levi volunteered.
Armin shook his head. “No thank you. Mikasa and I will be visiting Eren’s grava after this. We just wanted to drop some things over.” He dropped the plastic bag on the coffee table and turned to Levi. “It’s been a while. We don’t see you go out as much anymore.”
“Hange offered to help with groceries so there’s no need to,” Levi explained, his expression completely deadpan, enough of a reminder for Hange that they never did tell anyone about.
“I noticed you’ve been sending a lot of mail… to doctors I think? And I saw you’ve been reading a lot of medical books so when these were sent over to the office, I thought you’d want them as soon as possible. They arrived at the office this morning.”
“From where?”
“It was sent with a letter apparently, from the medical society of Marley,” Armin explained.
“Yeah, I requested that.” Hange settled on the sofa and ran her hands through the package. The medical society of Marley was one of the most technologically advanced yet somehow, had been the most difficult to contact.
She unwrapped the packaging to find books. A quick look at the cover and Hange found they were case studies. She ran her eyes over the cover, then quickly through the pages. She took a deep breath.
Nothing at all about a cure, yet many pages about management, symptoms and cases. Then she ran her hand over the letter. She ripped the envelope open and unfolded the letter with one flick.
Hange had always been a quick reader but she only needed one second to realize, she didn’t need to read the rest of the letter.
Her eyes had only been searching for one word, cure.
No cure. That was the only answer she found..
“You okay?” MIkasa asked. Suddenly, she was right next to Hange.
Hange only needed to feel the hand on her shoulder and to see the surprised look on MIkasa’s face to accept it as truth. She was trembling, she was shaken. And for just a moment, Hange was feeling hopeless.
“I’m fine. Just a bit disappointed with the research I was doing.” “If I may ask… what research?” Armin asked hesitantly.
Hange managed a shrug and an almost uninvested expression. “Something about being able to see colors in the dark.”
And it looked like that had been enough. Mikasa and Armin didn’t prod more deeply than that.
Apparently, the disease would progress. Maybe over months, maybe over years but eventually, the subject would become completely blind.
The literature called him a subject but the word subject had always felt cold and calculating. Hange didn’t like the word patient either. He was Levi and he would always be Levi.
Tired of the negativity, the coldness, Hange put away the books, somewhere where even Levi wouldn’t find it to somewhere even she would need a chair to reach.
To hell with it, she wouldn’t be missing it for a long time. She was in a new stage of the process, the grieving process, the denial process, the acceptance process, one of those.
Either way, one thing was sure, it still fucking hurt like a bitch. And in her own way, she knew she had to find a way to shake it off. She opened the door then before leaving she let out a final greeting. “Just going out for a bit!” She said loud enough that Levi should hear.
And she slammed the door behind her. To clear her head, Hange went out to the streets and made the calming journey around the block.
They lived in a quiet residential area within what used to be walled Sinna, conducive for walks any time of the day. And Hange had learned over the years, keeping to some steady rhythm when she walked, keeping her breaths relaxed, she could easily take back whatever control she had lost.
Hange then tried another trick.
The end of the block led down to a downward slope and right in front of her was blue sky, framed by buildings on both sides. Out of instinct, or maybe just out of a burning curiosity Hange hadn’t tapped into yet, she closed her eyes.
Blue. Her view behind closed eyes was a light blond for just a split second.
Light blue but it never turned a dark blue. Then she started to search for contours between the light and the dark, then shapes, some of the perfectly geometric, other almost incomprehensible blobs.
Then Hange took a deep breath. The early autumn air around her seemed to tickle at her nostrils, the rustle of the leaves seemed to brush at her ears. Her lips were dry and they tasted a little bit like metal.
“Excuse me.” Of all things, it had been a passerby just behind her who had pulled her out of her trance.
“Sorry about that,” Hange responded almost instinctively. She moved to the side of the sidewalk, stood by and watched.
And having just fallen out of the last trance, suddenly Hange was finding anything to focus on. “What’s that big bag?” Hange asked, biting her lip soon after. Who the hell asks that out of nowhere?
“It’s a guitar,” the stranger asked matter-of-factly. If she had been at least a little offended by Hange, she didn’t show it.
In fact, the conversation seemed to flow a little more easily after that. It turned out there was a shop only a few minutes away, long enough for that instrument to draw Hange in.
She was out for an hour longer than she had expected. That one hour though was long enough to pick out a guitar, pick out some easy sheet music and guidebooks.
Hange came home late that evening but with two hands full with impulse purchases, brimming with newfound excitement.
***
Even in the deepest blackness, there were colors that shone clearly.
You just have to look for it. Hange whispered to herself, an attempt at self motivation.
One bout of serendipity and Hange found a new way to pass the time, that same time she had used up messaging every researcher and eye doctor in the international network.
In the evenings, she was reading tabs and sometimes, she was trying out the different chords, allowing her fingers to slowly get used to the soft nylon of the guitar, and the riffs which were unnatural to the touch.
One week into it, she was making music but admittedly, she was a little sloppy. A day or so after that, Hange decided to pick the sound for herself when she closed her eyes.
When she graduated from awkwardly pressing riffs and hearing unnecessary splats as she strummed, she opened up the lyrics.
And she only had to sing it once to feel the almost consoling burn in her throat, the rush in her cheeks and just her chest full, brimming with some cross between excitement and relief.
Eyes closed, hands moving, she seemed to see more colors, some colors she swore she had never seen before.
“Hey, can you sing that song?”
“Which song?”
“The one you sing on the balcony.”
Hange let out that wry smile. She looked away in instinct as she felt the blood rush up her cheeks, only reminded a second later, Levi wouldn’t have seen it. “You can hear it? I could have sworn I closed the door.”
“I still heard you, perfectly clear,” Levi retorted.
Hange cocked her head to the side, suddenly feeling like a five year old stealing from a cookie jar. Then she wondered, why the hell she had been hiding it in the first place. In her decades of managing squads and armies, somehow, she wondered how she made a mistake out of a stupid yet simple decision.
“I wanted it to be perfect before I let you listen,” Hange admitted. “But now that I think about it, maybe you would have enjoyed the process… of me learning?”
“I wouldn’t know if you don’t let me listen.”
Levi rarely made eye contact with Hange those days. There was no reason too when there was nothing to connect with. At that moment, he seemed to have deliberately met her gaze with his own unseeing one, an expectant look on his face.
Even before Levi had voiced the request, Hange was sure, she could never say no. She padded to one end of the room, taking the guitar hanging that sat on one of the shelves, and pulled it close to her.
“It’s an easy song,” Hange warned.
“Music is still music,” Levi said. “Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sing.”
Hange played the opening chords, slowing down just a bit as she felt the bed shake, then a warm body pressed on her back. Levi had lain on the bed, pressed his forehead to her back, or that was the quickest guess she could make as she concentrated on coordinating her still very amateur fingers.
The opening chorus passed peacefully. To Hange, that was enough of an achievement.
“What’s the song?” Levi asked.
“Ir’s called ‘You are my sunshine.’ There was someone who met me at the music store and she recommended that since it’s easy to learn. Is it too mushy for you?” Hange asked, stifling a nervous laugh.
“It sounds just fine to me,” Levi said.
Hange saw that as a cue to continue. She strummed again, opening with a few chords then the first verse.
Even laying on the bed, seemingly unmoving, Hange seemed to sense investment, attentiveness from Levi. Maybe Levi was just waiting for his own chance to speak.
“Please don’t take my sunshine away,” Levi let it out as a whisper but Hange couldn’t help but pick out the remnants of a melody that seemed to die at his throat.
“Maybe if we sing that line enough times, it might just work.” A shoddy attempt to lighten the mood. It was only after the second verse did Hange realize how depressing the song actually had been. She turned to Levi, an apologetic smile on her face.
“I still see the sun you know,” Levi said. When you open the windows in the morning, or the curtains, I still see the white, sometimes I see yellow. When the sun rises, I still know that it’s morning.” Levi was surprisingly talkative or Hange suspected, there was something about how she was carrying herself that Levi could have sensed from his place in bed.
Hange pushed the guitar right under the bed, and lay in bed next to him. “You told me before, you still see other colors. But it still hurts right?”
“It does,” Levi admitted.
“Then you don’t have to pretend it doesn’t. What I wanna do is I wanna try to enjoy whatever is still there,” Hange reached her hand just a little to her left, close enough to just grip at his fingertips. “But i won’t be able to help, if you don’t tell me what you want to work on.”
Levi hummed for a second. “Work on your guitar skills.”
“I don’t need that reminder. What else?”
“Just help around the house more I guess…” Levi’s voice lacked fervor and Hange wasn’t at all convinced.
“You can think harder than that,” Hange responded firmly.
Levi didn’t respond immediately. And maybe the silence between them had worked to rack Levi’s brain. His answer was unexpected, simple but it seemed to make sense. “I want you to describe things to me.”
“Things?”
“How our house looks like, how the outside looks like every season, how you look like.” Levi answered. “One day,I’m going to forget how everything looks like, the colors, the trees, our house.... What if I told you, I’m scared of forgetting how you look like?”
It was easy enough to give. “I’m still here. I’ll look in the mirror and I’ll tell you how I look like,” Hange said. She stood up, walked towards the mirror next to her desk, making out whatever she could under the dim moonlight. “Big nose, always chapped lips, messy brown hair, small eyes.”
“Did you know, your eyes are bigger without your glasses.”
Instinctively, Hange pulled out her glasses, only to be greeted by whatever blur she had become in the mirror. “I can’t see it now.” But she was a quick thinker. Hange pressed her fingers to her good eye, tracing her eyelids then her bags underneath.
It took a little more than a few seconds to thread through them carefully and she could never tell if they really were big without comparing them to anyone else.
It wasn’t about what she saw though, it was about what Levi wanted to see.
She walked back to the bed, holding Levi’s hand between her finger and she pressed his good hand to her eyelids. “Will this let you remember?” She only had to guide his hands through her eyelids before he took the reigns. His hands travelled lightly over her lashes, then to the bags underneath, resting heavily and long enough for Hange to feel the pressure to her bones.
The hands fell to her large nose, then as if falling over a cliff, they fell almost quickly over her lips. Suddenly, Hange was self conscious of how dry they were.
“You should lick your lips more,” Levi whispered.
Hange couldn’t even find the right moment to let her tongue out and lick them. Levi’s fingers stayed for a second longer on her lips, heavily enough that it was difficult to even mouth words in between.
Still, she attempted. “Have your lips always been dry?” She pressed her own fingers to his lips,
“You’ve kissed them before right?”
She saw that as some cue to draw nearer and maybe it was. Levi didn’t turn away or pull away. Instead, he did his part and their lips locked.
Levi’s lips weren’t dry. And Hange wondered how many times they had kissed, how many times they had even touched lips yet it had never been so much as even a passing thought.
Eyes closed, she felt it, she tasted it then she relished the in betweens. In complete darkness, there were still colors to expereince, colors to see. It was just a matter of finding it.
Levi’s hands fell forward, landing on her neck, then down to the collar of her shirt.
She didn’t want it to end there. Hange held his hand just an inch away from her, before guiding it down towards the buttons of her polo and Levi got the message.
He held both hands a hairs breadth away from the buttons of her shirt, then pressed at them slowly one by one. Despite not having any visual aids, he still had close to perfect coordination.
He then pulled at her undergarments, delicately and slowly and Hange did her part. She pulled at his own sweater, flinging it to the side of the room before falling next to him on the bed.
“Do you want me to describe anything for you?” Hange offered.
It was late at night, the room was dim save for the moonlight, there wouldn’t be much to talk about beyond their bodies half naked right next to each other. Still, if Levi asked, it would have been worth a try.
“No. I’ll figure it out for myself,” Levi said. Once again, his hands were pressed on her face, this time tracing her cheeks. They sat for a second on the cheeks just below her eyes, before falling onto her chin.
Somehow, by just the movements of his fingers, Hange could pick out a little of what he could have been seeing. Levi didn’t have to see it for her to feel it.
He had pressed his fingers over the apple on her cheeks then right down to the dimples underneath and even in the darkness, the circular movements seemed to goad whatever smile out of Hange.
“Are you done?” Hange asked, keeping her voice light, keeping the laugh in them very much apparent.
“How long will you give me?”
“Take as long as you need,” Hange said, The last thing she would have wanted would be for Levi to forget.
“How much will you let me do?”
“We’ll do what you want.”
Levi smirked. “You’re pretty generous tonight.”
“I have one condition.”
Levi raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“After this… after everything we do tonight, I want you to tell me about it. Tell me about everything you see in the dark.”
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Going Back Home
Summary: Claire never thought she would be back in the town she grew up in. But after her fiancé broke off their engagement, leaving her 5 months pregnant and alone she found herself calling Frankie Morales in the middle of the night, one of her childhood friends who insisted that she booked the next flight out. Trying to fix her life with a little help from her friends she would find out soon that going back would be the best decision she ever made.
Pairing: Frankie Morales x Claire Beck
wordcount: 3.1k
Warnings: more or less unplanned pregnancy, break up, mentions of sexual encounters
A/N: I am a weak weak person so here it is, a chaptered fic. I will try to update this weekly, but no promises. Rating will go up later. I'm attempting slow burn. Let's see how slow lol Let me know what you think. Reblogs are, as always, appreciated 💙
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Even Though most of her happiest memories were connected with this town, the town she spent most of her life in, Claire never thought she actually would be back here. And certainly not pregnant and all by herself.
It wasn’t that she had been unhappy here. Claire just always wanted something… bigger. Something more. Something exciting. After her parents died and most of her friends moved away, there was nothing holding her back. Well, that wasn’t true. Frankie and Santiago were there. But only when they weren’t overseas or god knows where, which left her with her dream of being a journalist in a small town where she had no chance to ever make it.
She still remembered Santi’s face when she announced that it was her turn to leave just before they were about to be gone for months again. She had gotten a job in New York and thought for days about what to do until she took the job. That was eight years ago and they hadn’t seen each other in person since then.
Yet when she called Frankie three days ago in tears, it was like no time had passed. She wanted to call Santiago first, but she knew him. If she had told him what happened to her he would have gotten into his car and gotten to her, no matter if it took 3 straight days. No, she had called Frankie. He had listened to her for hours until he made her promise to book the next flight out.
When the fuck did her life become such a shit show?
Only a week ago, she had the dream job, was engaged and 5 months pregnant.
Claire was happy. Until her fiance came back from a work trip and suddenly announced that he wanted nothing to do with the child and moved out within days, leaving her on her own. Not even his phone number was working and she wasn’t gonna show up at his work. She wasn’t that desperate. She should have seen it coming. John never planned to have kids. But when Clarie found out that she was pregnant he had already asked her to marry him and maybe he was too proud to end the engagement back then. Thinking back maybe this was the reason he stayed. Because a part of him wanted to spend his life with her. They didn’t fight. He just moved out, told her that he would take care financially of her and the child, but that he didn’t want to be a father.
The first days she was just numb. Trying to wrap her mind around the fact that the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with, left her while she was pregnant with a child they didn’t plan but that she loved without a doubt. That was what kept her going. Her little bean. Claire would do anything to protect her little girl.
The guys to this day called her bean. She found herself thinking more of them since John left. Even without seeing them in the last years, they still stayed in contact. Not a week went by where she didn’t receive a letter. They had a group chat that was only used when they were at home and the bachelor was on. Cause fuck did they all hate that show but they watched it anyways.
Claire was okay with the whole suddenly being on her own thing, until she felt her baby move for the first time and turned in her bed to wake her fiance, finding the side empty and cold. For one tiny moment, she had forgotten that she was alone in a city where she had only a couple of friends who were his friends rather than hers. She had always had a hard time finding friends. That probably wouldn’t change.
Sucking her bottom lip in, she rested one hand on her belly as she waited for her luggage to arrive. She slept almost through the entire flight. Claire had gotten rid of the last eight years of her life in the last 48 hours. She wanted to start fresh. She needed a fresh start. Even if she had no idea how to deal with all of this on her own.
A woman next to her helped her get her suitcases on the cart, noticing that Claire was on her own. Pushing the cart through security she saw Frankie as soon as the door opened and next to him Ben, Will and Santiago who all smiled at her, while she felt the first tears escaping her eyes.
She had met Ben and Will only a couple times, they were living an hour away, but they became part of the group immediately. Once upon a time her childhood best friend, Leah, was in that group too. Claire hadn’t thought of Leah in a long time. She had died in a car accident almost 12 years ago.
Arms pulled her in a warm embrace and even after years of not seeing each other for such a long time, she still noticed Frankie’s scent.
“We got you,” he whispered, kissing her hair. She sobbed once before she was pulled into Santi’s arms.
“Look at you,” he smiled before he looked down at her belly.
“And look at you?” he smiled and leaned down.
“Hello, this is your favorite Uncle speaking,” he winked, bending down to speak directly to her belly, making her chuckle.
“Oh please, we all know I’m gonna be the favorite, hey bean,” Will hugged her.
“Don’t listen to them baby girl, we know they're all gonna spoil you rotten,” she grinned, letting Ben kiss her cheek.
“So you’re staying?” Frankie asked and you nodded.
“I already called some realtors. I wanna get this over as quickly as possible. Already sold everything back in New York,” Claire said, looking at the two men who formed most of her teenage years.
“Okay. Let’s get you out of this airport first. You okay to stay with Frankie? He has the biggest house,” Santiago asked, pushing the cart as you slowly walked towards the exit with Ben’s arm around her shoulder.
“Uh… I don’t wanna impose. I could just take a room…”
“Fuck no. Stay at my place. It’s my Pa’s old ranch. I’m renovating it.”
“What? No way!” she said surprised but Frankie only nodded.
“Yeah after Liz and South America I needed something to keep me busy. Also needed more space for Elena,” he explained. A small smile sneaked to Claire’s face.
“I still can’t believe you’re a dad Frankie.”
“Can’t believe you gonna be a mom. Fuck we’re really adults now, huh?” he winked and Claire sighed.
“Certainly didn’t plan it that way. Or planned it at all,” she said sadly before she shook her head as if to get rid of the sad thoughts clouding her mind.
“I meant it, Claire. We got you. We are bored most times anyways.”
“Hey speak for yourself, Fish. I got a business,” Santi said.
“Yeah. Yeah. Me too. But after work you’re either drunk or after some pussy so?” Ben grinned, making her chuckle.
“So still no ladies in your life, boys?” Claire asked as they reached what definitely was Frankie’s truck. It had his company name on it. “Morales gardening”
“Nope. But now that you’re here we could finally….” Will started only for Claire to look away in disgust, making them all laugh.
“You ready to become a Daddy, Will?” she asked, her hands both on her belly.
“Uhm… of course?” he answered and she chuckled.
“That’s what I thought,” she patted his cheek.
“Come on. Let’s get you to bed. You must be exhausted,” Frankie said and opened the door for her.
“We’ll see you tomorrow for the BBQ,” they all waved. She waved back, letting Frankie help her inside before he closed the door behind her and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“BBQ?” she asked.
“Can’t blame the folks from wanting to welcome you, bean,” he winked.
“What folks?”
“Ya know. Folks. You gonna see,” he looked at Claire. He felt better now that she was here. Frankie had missed her these last years, the couple of calls throughout hadn’t nearly been enough. And when she called two days ago in tears… He would have gotten the chopper and flown over but he couldn’t risk it. He had to be on good behaviour to be able to keep seeing his daughter.
“I missed you, Francisco,” she whispered.
“Missed you too, Bean.”
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The sun was already setting when Frankie drove down a familiar path. Claire had spent countless days on this ranch when she was younger.
“How is your Dad doing?” she asked softly and Frankie sighed as he killed the engine in front of the house.
“I fucking hate that I can’t take care of him on my own, but he’s hanging in there.”
“I’d like to visit him if you’re okay with that,” she reached over squeezing his hand and he looked at her with a small smile.
“I bet he would love that.”
“And I’m sure he would have wanted it this way, Francisco. You know your dad. He wouldn’t have wanted you to drop everything for him. Don’t be too hard on yourself,” she said quietly.
“Damn I really missed you Bean,” he shook his head.
“Missed you too,” she let her head fall against his shoulder.
Claire didn’t really have eyes for the house, all she wanted was to go to sleep.
“I finished the guest room this morning for you,” Frankie said, setting one of her suitcases down as he opened the door.
“Please tell me you didn’t work overnight to finish this,” she sighed looking at him. He was rubbing the back of his head, pulling the cap he was always wearing down and avoiding her eyes.
Knowingly she shook her head, but couldn’t help the smile sneaking to her face.
“I won’t say it. But please don’t touch the walls, they might still be wet,” he said and she chuckled.
“Okay. Bathroom is over there. The shower isn’t working yet but you’re welcome to use mine. Will is coming over to take a look and make this one work. Other than that if you need anything just ask. Until you found a place this is your home.”
“You really didn’t have to do this, Frankie,” she said quietly, feeling overwhelmed by all of this. So many things had changed in such a short amount of time for her and she only now seemed to realize that she was indeed about to be a single mom.
“I wanted to. You’re… You don’t deserve to be treated like this. So let us help you, okay?” he said softly and she nodded but avoided his eyes.
“Okay. Go to sleep. My room is down the hallway if you need anything,” he stepped closer, kissing her forehead and for one tiny moment, she felt like the 15 year old teenager again who was crushing on Frankie Morales.
“Good night, Francisco,” she smiled.
“Good night, bean,” he whispered before he turned around and closed the door behind him.
Claire looked around, in awe of the room, the bed looking so inviting to her. Sighing she walked over to the window, knowing she would be able to see the whole property during the day. Crossing her arms in front of her she closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of nature that she had no idea she had missed living in the city for all these years. She felt a fluttering in her belly, her hand wandering down to feel a kick.
“We’ll be happy here, I promise,” she vowed, rubbing over her belly.
She didn’t want to disturb Frankie, even though she could hear the TV running so she just washed herself at the sink before she put her Pajamas on and sat down on the bed. She would unpack tomorrow. For now she had to sleep.
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The sun wasn’t even up when Claire woke up. She turned in bed, propping herself up so she could look out the window and watch the sunrise. She had to make a plan. A plan that included finding a house, a doctor and help. Though help would be her smallest problem. She already looked at houses in the area and it didn’t look good. If she had more time she would buy the house just down this road, but there was no way the house would be ready before her due date. She would ask Santi for help. He had a lot of connections through his business. Though Frankie too. Claire knew that he had a little gardening company since he lost his pilot’s license. He never really talked about it, but then again, they didn’t talk that much. She knew that he had some problems with drugs in the past, but that he has been clean for almost two years and was doing better. She also knew that there was a lot more to this story then he had told her. Maybe they would have time to talk. To really talk. Groaning to herself, her quiet and peaceful morning was interrupted by her bladder. Time to start the day.
For a minute she wondered if she could risk sneaking into Frankie’s room to take a shower when she heard music playing. Grabbing her bathrobe and toiletries she opened the door and walked down. Now being really awake she had time to take in the house. It seemed like there still was a lot to do. The walls were still unpainted, the floors still old, though she could see he already started with the floor the closer she got to the kitchen.
Frankie was sitting at the kitchen island, a cup of coffee in front of him as the radio quietly played in the background. He had a serious case of bed hair and she smiled to herself. He hadn’t noticed her yet and she found herself thinking back to all the times she had thought that maybe there was something more in between them than friendship. And maybe there was at one point a long time ago. But that was before he joined the military. She might be selfish for it, but she couldn’t be in a relationship where her partner was gone all the time. She needed someone to be there. Even Though there had been times in the past she had found herself asking if maybe she should have risked it.
Instead she had slept with Santiago.
Yeah, that was a big fuck up. Well it was also a pretty good fuck but it was just once and they definitely were better off as friends. She still didn’t know if Frankie knew. Not that she had to explain herself. Frankie always knew what effect he had on the women around him, and he sure as hell took advantage of it. And now she felt nothing more than love for him. As a friend, nothing more.
“Good Morning,” she said quietly and Frankie turned his head, yawning at her.
Chuckling she walked over taking in the kitchen, setting her toiletries down.
“You weren’t kidding when you say you were still renovating,” she sat down next to him. He got up from his seat walking over to fix her a mug of tea.
“Still hooked on Strawberry tea, I hope?” he asked and she nodded, surprised that he remembered.
“Yeah. Though the kitchen and living room are supposed to be finished by the end of next week. So sorry for the noise in the next couple days,” he walked over and set down the mug of tea in front of her.
“Hey it’s your house. I’m just thankful you let me stay.”
“Of course. Couldn’t let you stay in the dumpster motel in this town,” he winked. She took a sip of the tea and it was perfect.
“So what are you planning for today?” he asked.
“I probably should start looking into houses. I’m kind of on a timetable here,” she rested one hand on her belly and Frankie followed her movement.
“Yeah. I think Pope already called someone for some houses. It’s not looking good.”
“Yeah I thought so. Everything I found on the internet was in really bad shape,” she sighed.
“It’s gonna work out. And if you don’t find something, you’re welcome to stay. The place is big enough,” he shrugged and Claire laughed quietly.
“Yeah I bet you can’t wait to live with a hormonal pregnant woman and then with a newborn,” she joked.
“I lived with Pope. Nothing can be worse and…”
“And?” she asked.
“I already lived with a hormonal pregnant woman. It’s not that bad,” he shrugged with a small smile. She looked at him with a small smile on her face.
“You say that now. Wait till I’m craving your mug cake at 3am now that I’m living with you,” she joked. Frankie laughed.
“Wow I haven’t had one of those in at least 10 years.”
“Well then it’s about time.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, looking at Claire. She looked more relaxed today, like she had a good night��s sleep and he was thankful he put in an overnight to finish the guest room for her. She deserved to relax. When she told him that she not only was pregnant but dumped by her fiance Frankie was furious, yet at the same time he already decided that he would take care of her and help her with everything she needed. It was the least he could do.
Even though they grew apart in the last years, she still was one of his best friends.
“Okay. I’m gonna go take a shower. I got to drive out to check on a project. You gonna be okay here for a while?” Frankie asked. Claire nodded, grabbing her mug of tea.
“Just tell me when you’re going out so I can take a shower,” she said.
“Thank you, Frankie,” she whispered when she stopped next to him and softly kissed his cheek, before she walked down the hallway. Frankie looked after her with a soft smile before he got up to get ready to head out.
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shyficwriter · 3 years ago
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You're Not Broken, Ya Hear Me?
Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Yondu x Reader, guest starring Peter and other Ravagers
Summary: Based off a prompt from my friend @giulscomix where Reader is coming up on a rite of passage involving having her first sexual experience and is very nervous because she doesn't wish to partake, because she's just not interested in sex at all. (i.e: Reader is Ace or Demi) She opens up to Yondu about it after he finds her hidden away and crying about it and he helps her with her problem, making her realize she isn't broken. Inspired by and using lines from this scene in Netflix's Sex Education series.
Author’s Note: Fic is SFW. Sex is talked about (obviously), but no sexual scenes occur. This also takes place in an AU where Yondu never broke the code (yet still has Peter, make that make sense lol) and therefore was never exiled from the other Ravager clans. Also, this is a long one, probably should have broken it into chapters, but here we go lol
Word Count: 10,189
The nervousness inside you grew with every passing day. You were almost seventeen- you should be happy about this! Not filled with dread about what turning that particular year would mean. You glanced at the calendar from your bed. Only three days left.
There was a rite of passage that every young man had taken before you, and would take long after you. They all whooted for joy when their time came, but you couldn't find the enthusiasm to do so, although you did your best to fake it. And as the day grew closer, the more you had to fake it.
Maybe it was because you were the only female Ravager on Yondu's team? Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe you were just... broken? Why couldn't you just be excited about this like everyone else? That thought made your chest ache as you pulled on your boots.
You didn't want to do it, this stupid rite of passage. No, it wasn't exactly like you'd be forced into a room until you "did the deed," However, you knew to refuse would be to cement your reputation as a lame prude who wouldn't know fun if it crawled up her ass. But still, you really didn't want to.
After all, who would want their first time to just be some random fuck for the sole purpose of "Becoming a man/woman" and an "official part of the crew."? Yes, you wanted more than anything to be accepted, like Peter or the others, but you wanted your first time to be with someone you loved and cared for. Now, this isn't to say that you weren't currently a respected member of the crew, but things were just... different. You knew things would change if the others knew you didn't want to go through with it. You'd be less "one of the guys" and more "the chick with the stick up her butt." You didn't want that.
You stood and took a deep breath, readying your facade before leaving your quarters to make your way down to breakfast.
As always, there were many other Ravagers also making their way from the crew quarters down to the mess hall. And, just how it had started happening the closer it got to that dreaded date, you'd encounter someone looking to congratulate you with a clap on the back, saying things like, "Ayy! How many days is it now? Bet ya can't wait, huh?" or more often, high-fives and fist bumps as your crew mates cheered you on for your upcoming "big day."
You took it all in stride, just like every other day. Big smiles, return the high-five, maybe throw in some finger guns, toss in an affirmative and that you "couldn't wait."
But each time you died just a bit inside. How long could you put on this charade? You knew you wouldn't be able to go through with it. What was going to happen then? What would the rest of the crew say when they found out? Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal for so long, when other guys came of age it was usually forgotten by the others after a few days. However, you were going to come of age the very day of the next scheduled shore leave, which was going to happen in just a few days, and for some reason this just bred excitement among your peers and they wouldn't drop it.
You tried to put these thoughts out of your head as you entered the Mess Hall and got your breakfast.
Today you got to eat in relative peace, the attention being taken up by the story Narblik was telling about his last job on an icy planet and how he hadn't been sure he'd make it back when the blizzard hit. It was when you got up to turn in your tray and leave when a few other's started back up again.
Scrote whooped when he saw you stand, crying out a "Get 'em!" at you and someone else shouted back that you were "Gonna be a man!" until someone shouted back at them "She's a girl!" earning an apology and a correction that you were "Gonna be a woman!" that earned some laughter from the others. You knew the laughter wasn't directed at you, they weren't insulting your looks. Some species on the ship just had a hard time getting genders right because the concept of gender just wasn't a thing on their homeworlds.
You passed Horuz and a young green man named Rahi who high-fived you with an "Ayyy!" as was becoming the custom greeting for anyone wanting to congratulate you on it being almost your big day. You returned the greeting. He had just turned 17 three days before along with another young man he often ran around with, and you heard him talking with some others (There were about 5 or 6 of you all either about to turn the big 17 or who recently had since the last shore leave 3 months ago. It was an abnormally large amount of young people coming of age this time around, which you suspected was further reason why some were making such a bigger deal about this upcoming shore leave.) about being excited for shore leave, as that's when they'd be able to 'become men,' aka, would be able to find a whore to screw. Younger crew often had more of the cleaning jobs aboard the Eclector, and unless assigned with an older crew mate, didn't get to go on many away missions where they could try and woo a willing partner, and even then, Yondu liked quick turnarounds on jobs so there wasn't a whole lot off "goof off" time without being reprimanded. There was no real rule about screwing crew mates either, but most avoided it just in case things got weird after. Easier to just bang someone random on shore leave and then get back to work. No muss no fuss.
Horuz teasingly asked if you had any studs picked out yet and you just laughed and said "Ha, one of these lot? You're joking!" as you put your tray away.
You heard Yondu playfully scold the two from a couple tables over, telling them, "Oh, leave the poor girl alone, yer embarrassin' her!" as he laughed. Horuz just shouted back, "Aw now, I didn't even get to tell her about Oblo here's first time!" This was met with Oblo, who was sitting nearby, choking out a "Hey!" and punching Horuz in the arm.
Kraglin laughed now, "I think she's already heard that one! Let's not ruin anyone's meal now."
You shivered. You had heard the story before. It involved a broken member and many stitches. You weren't looking forward to hearing it again. "I'm out!" you say, looking for a way out of this conversation. "Got work to do." With that you turned and started to leave the mess hall.
"That's what I like to hear!" Yondu laughed from behind you. "Some of you lazy gits should start acting like her, don't wanna work unless yer told to." He knew you were just escaping having to hear the story again, but he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to razz up some of his crew.
You finally make your way out of the mess hall and allow your grin to fall. You run a hand over your face, making your way toward the laundry where you had been assigned to repair one of the machines. You were grateful it was both early in the week as well as early in the day as you entered the room. Most of the crew waited until they were completely out of clean clothes to do their washings, which typically resulted in most of the crew crowding the laundry at the end of the week, so you were sure to have at least an hour or three alone to yourself.
You made your way to the back left-hand corner of the room towards the broken machine. It should be an easy fix, the complaint was that it wasn't draining properly, so you figured it was just a clogged drain hose.
Upon opening up the machine you found you were right. it was just a clog. You retrieved a plumbing snake from a nearby supplies trunk and got to work fishing it out. Unfortunately this menial task gave you enough time to dwell on your problems rather than engaging your brain enough to force them into the back of your mind.
You kept thinking the word "broken" over and over. You couldn't get it out of your head how you couldn't bring yourself to just be excited over something everyone else seemed to love.
Your chest tightened. "Broken.. Loser..." Why couldn't you get over it? Why didn't you have these feelings like all the others?
You latched onto the clog and worked to pull it out. "
Broken..." Why was this so hard? "Broken... Stupid... Wrong..." What was wrong with you? "Stupid... Broken..." Why couldn't you just be like everyone else?!
With that last thought you pulled the clog out with an audible "Pop!" that almost made you fly backwards. You looked at it in disgust and dropped it into the nearby trashcan before re-attaching the hose and sliding down to the floor. No one was going to show up to the laundry this early, might as well take advantage of this time to wallow in your own misery.
That's what you told yourself at least. In truth you could feel tears burning your eyes and didn't want anyone to see you cry. Better to let it happen alone than risk another crew mate seeing you and thinking you were weak.
What you didn't know was that Yondu was also well aware of his Ravager crew's laundry habits, and took advantage of the empty communal laundry room at the beginning of the week to wash his own laundry undisturbed. He made his way down after breakfast, actually having forgotten he had assigned you to fix one of the machines, and was therefore quite surprised to walk in on you sat in the corner crying.
"What d'we have here?" he asked, more puzzled than anything. He never once seen you cry, which now that he thought about it was rather surprising. He saw grown men cry at least twice a week, most of them Peter, but still. He tried to cover up any concern with humor. "Did Halfnut leave his dirty drawers in the machine again? Smell's bad enough to make anyone cry."
You had been startled when he first walked in and you were currently trying to quickly straighten yourself up. "Nothing. Sorry Captain." you said, not looking him in the eye as you bent down to pick up the plumbing snake. "Nearly done here." you say, unable to hide a sniffle.
Yondu plopped his laundry basket on one of the long steel tables running up the middle of the room and sighed, turning to walk towards the door.
You look up in surprise as you heard the lock engage.
He looked at you, arms crossed, and said, "Ya really think I'm gonna buy that? Yer not leaving here until ya spill it. Now what's wrong? Somebody bein' mean to ya? Yer feminine-ly cycle -or whatever it's called- hurtin' ya again?"
You blushed and gave him a sharp look before placing the plumbing snake back where you found it.
Yondu rolled his eyes as he moved his basket over to a machine and tossed his clothes in. "Fine, be that way. But I meant what I said. Ya ain't leavin' til we sort it out. Might as well talk or it's gonna get mighty borin' in here." He turned on the machine and hoisted himself up to sit on the table, patting the space beside him.
You begrudgingly approach, not meeting his eyes, and lifted yourself up to sit down on the table.
"Now what's wrong?" he said again.
You fix your gaze on your lap and sigh. "You're just gonna make fun of me." You say sadly.
Yondu smirks. "Maybe. Still wanna hear it though." Upon seeing your face fall further he elbowed you and said, "I'm jus' kiddin'! What's the long face?"
Your eyes remain down and you quietly say, "I... don't wanna do it."
Yondu raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"I don't wanna do it." you repeat.
"Ya dun wanna do... what?" he asks in confusion. He at first assumed maybe you didn't want to do your assigned morning task of fixing the machine, but it seemed like you had already finished it, so he had no idea what you could possibly mean to even begin to be angry for any disobeyed orders. Also, he doubted he found you crying over something as silly as not wanting to fix a washing machine.
"It," you say, "You know, IT." you make a crude gesture with your fingers, forming a circle in one hand with your thumb and index finger and inserting the index finger of your other hand in and out of it, to hopefully get the point across.
Yondu's eyes widen a bit. "Oh!" he says in surprise, before continuing in confusion, "I don't get it? Ya seemed just as excited as could be a bit ago?"
"I've been faking it. Don't want the others to make fun of me."
"Come now! They won't ma-"
He's cut off by you giving him another sharp look. He looks forward again and nods, sighing, "Yeah, yer right. They will."
The two of you were quiet for a couple moments before Yondu awkwardly broke the silence. "Ya mind if I ask why? Like are ya scared or somethin'?" he looks at you with a raised eyebrow, slight concern painting his features.
He remembered his first time. As a battle-slave he didn't exactly see much action; the Kree weren't exactly fond of the idea of their battle-slaves reproducing or having any fun; and by the time Stakar freed him he was in his twenties. It was shortly after when with some other young Ravagers that the subject came up and he admitted he had never done it, only for his mates to excitedly cheer that they were taking him with them on shore leave so he could "become a man." He had been nervous, though he never expressed it out loud, not wanting to appear weak. He knew they meant well, but screwing a random whore just to fit-in and say he had wasn't something he had exactly been looking forward to, however peer pressure had encouraged him to go through with it. It wasn't too bad, he realized, but even knowing that he himself had come to enjoy the act, he always remembered the knot in his stomach leading up to his first time, and hearing you say that you might be scared of doing it made a similar knot form, only higher in his chest and feeling more like... pity? No, that wasn't quite it. Empathy? Yes, that was probably more accurate. Damn sentiment.
"It's not anything like that... it's just... I don't feel anything like that. I'm not even sure I'd know what that feeling is. It's just not there. I'm not scared, or even disgusted, I just feel... nothing."
"I'm not sure I follow..." Yondu said honestly. He supposed you feeling nothing was better than you being scared, but he still didn't quite understand.
"Ok, like, imagine you're surrounded by a feast, with everything you could ever want to eat, but you're not hungry. That's how I feel. I just don't want any of it," you said. Your voice cracked as you continued, "...and it's just so frustrating. Everyone else gets to be normal, while I just don't feel... anything. I don't want to do it-with anyone. When I think about it I feel nothing- it's like I'm broken." You covered your mouth, still not meeting Yondu's gaze as you tried to hold back frustrated tears.
Hearing you say that you thought you were broken tore at Yondu's heart. He wrapped an arm around you tightly and said in a firm voice, "Ya listen here. Yer not broken. I don't wanna hear that again. Look here."
You reluctantly do as he asks.
"Yer not broken," he said again, his face stern. "Sex doesn't make a person whole, so how could ya ever be broken, girl?"
You inhaled sharply as fresh tears pricked at your eyes. You hadn't realized until then that that was exactly what you needed to hear. You quickly wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his chest to hide your tears.
Taken aback at he sudden gesture, Yondu patted you on the back comfortingly and returned the hug. Good thing he locked the door. He doubted that any of his crew would be bothered to wash their clothes this early, but still, it would halt the possibility of new rumors that he was "going soft on the Terrans." He honestly wasn't sure he'd sleep tonight if he had to scold you for crying to save face with his crew right now.
You pulled back almost as soon as you went in, straightening up and quickly wiping your eyes.
"Feel better?"
You nodded.
Yondu sighed, "What to do now..." he said thoughtfully. "Ya know, I never actually liked this whole 'rite of passage' thing, to be fully honest. Crew just gets too wound up. Yer not the first to have reservations 'bout it. Handful of lads have come to me over the years, confiding that they were nervous, but scared of being bullied by the rest of the crew if they didn't go through with it. I suspect there might have been more, but were too scared of lookin' weak to tell their captain. I guess I can understand that."
Surprised by this honesty, you asked, "What did they do?"
"Faked it. They'd go on shore leave, pay a whore to put on a good loud show, yelling and banging on the walls 'n stuff, then lap up the congratulations of the rest of the crew for 'becoming a man.'"
You were further surprised that any of the the crew would have been that open with their captain to admit faking it. "Really?" you ask. "They told you about it after?"
"Who d'ya think told 'em to do it?" Yondu said, huffing a laugh out his nose.
That makes you smile, though you aren't quite sure why. After a moment of thought you say, "If you don't like the whole thing, why don't you stop it?"
Yondu sighed. "I don't think I could if I tried. It's widespread over all 100 Ravager factions. Doubt it do well to tell one faction they couldn't participate. Enough of them look forward to it they'd probably riot." Yondu laughed sardonically. "Not that I haven't thought about trying to steer the culture around it in a different direction. I can tell some of my older crew have the same thoughts, even if they won't admit it."
"How do you know if they never said?" you asked.
"The way they keep passing off horror stories as funny tales to the younger crew. Or did ya miss the story about how Vorker-"
"Nope! Heard it!" you cut him off suddenly. "I remember! I don't need to hear it again, please!" You held up your hands almost as if defending yourself from hearing it again, eyes wide. You most definitely did not need to hear a retelling of the time Vorker caught something very nasty off a girl he met on a job and the details that came with it. There were some rumors that it was how he really lost his eye, but you weren't sure of the truth behind those claims.
Yondu chuckled, patting you on the back. His expression changed when he said. "That's prob'ly what ya should do."
You raised an eyebrow at him.
"Fake it, I mean." he clarified. "Ya should wait til ya want to do it, with someone ya want, if that should ever happen. Not just go through with it to fulfill some dumbass rite of passage." He stared off into the space in front of him. "I can't really see another way to go 'bout it." he admitted. "If I called out for a change among the crew now they'd no doubt see the connection, think I was going soft 'cause yer the only girl here, and then it'd blowback on you. I ain't gonna let that happen." He gave you a look that you understood without him having to explain further. He actually cared about you, in a way similar to how he cared for Peter. He didn't want to see you hurt or bullied over something stupid like this.
You nodded in understanding, returning your gaze to the floor.
"Next shore leave is in a few days. I'll take care of it." Yondu said, his words surprising you.
"What?"
"Consider it a gift." he said, lightly punching you in the arm as he said, "Don't say I never gave ya anythin'."
"I don't understand?" you say, lightly laughing in confusion.
Yondu dramatically rolled his eyes and said, "Guess I gotta spell it out fer ya... I'll arrange for a "fake visit" from a nice whore-bot for ya. It actually costs more for them to fake it, if ya can believe it."
You stared at him, speechless. "I- thank you?" you finally say, blushing. You give him another quick hug.
"Ya, don't get used to it." he replied in his usual gruff fashion when you released him, but you knew better. The old softie.
Just then the machine buzzed, alerting that Yondu's clothes were finished washing. He stood from the table to switch them into a nearby dryer. Once done he turned back to face you. "Well, ya probably got other duties ya need to get to. Better get on 'em."
You smiled, giving him a mock-reluctant, "Yeah," before following him to the door.
You weren't expecting what happened next.
Yondu opened the door and exited, you following out behind. The hallway was no longer empty, and you heard the same young man from earlier, Rahi, call out from a group of two other Ravagers, "Ow Ow! Looks like she finally lost it to the Captain!"
No doubt he thought he was being funny, but he really, really, shouldn't have done that.
Yondu's whistle pierced the air, his arrow quickly finding its way to rest against Rahi's throat. "Ya wanna try that again?" Yondu growled.
Rahi couldn't find any words, just babbled out incoherent nonsense as he nearly shit his pants. The other two Ravagers in the group weren't laughing, just cowering with their friend afraid they'd be next once Yondu finished with him. Other crew mates standing within the hall also stopped to stare in stunned silence.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't run my arrow through ya for speakin' to yer captain like that? Even worse offense for implying I'd screw around with a child." Yondu's eyes were dark and full of rage. Even you were a bit frightened, enough to almost let the child comment slide, and you weren't even the target.
"Dude! He's so old! Ew!" you shout over to the terrified young Ravager, hoping to help the situation by making it clear that nothing like that was ever going to be a thing. And, if you were to be honest, slight payback for Yondu calling you a child.
Yondu whipped his head around to you, and you caught a momentary expression of "You little shit!" before he said, "And don't ya forget it!"
He turned back to Rahi. "I'm waiting." he said, still glowering and crossing his arms expectantly.
Rahi was still busy freaking out. It looked like he was about to cry. He eventually managed to squeak out a, "I'm sorry!" among his pleas for Yondu not to kill him.
Yondu called back his arrow. "That's what I thought. For yer smart mouth you and the other two there are gonna wash the outside of the Eclector, and yer all gonna keep at it until the whole ship's clean." With a smug smile he added. "Guess yer all gonna miss out on shore leave."
This obviously didn't go over well with Rahi's friends, who were now glaring and smacking him at the back of his green head. The next shore leave after the upcoming one wouldn't happen for another 3 months.
"Ya heard me. Git going. And yer still all responsible fer yer other duties too." Yondu added.
The three young men begrudgingly started making their way past when Yondu stopped them again with an, "Ah, Ah, Ah." making them turn back, dreading what else he might have to add.
"I think ya better apologize to this young lady too, for thinking she'd want her first time to be with someone so old." He looked at you pointedly as he said this and you squinted back at him, a nervous giggle escaping your throat as you rubbed the back of your head. Shouldn't have spoke up and called your captain old, now he was going to have to make an example of you as well for mouthing off. "Yer gonna be cleaning out the brig for that one, missy." he said, loud enough for everyone else to hear. Had to make it look good, after all.
Rahi muttered out an apology before scurrying away with his now very irritated mates, but not before Yondu cried out after him with a, "I'm startin' to think some of ya are gettin' a lil' too wound up about this lil' rite of passage among ya young-ins. It'd sure be a shame if you were the reason I decided to put an end to it." He said this with a thick veil of warning. It was a threat, and one you hadn't expected to hear after the conversation you just had with him.
It was clear that no one else in hallway had expected to hear this from their captain either. Looks of shock were exchanged among the Ravagers in the hallway. Rahi and his buddies' eyes all widened in shock when his words finally sunk in and their scurry turned into a sprint to get away before they could make things even worse. That comment Rahi made had apparently pissed the captain off bad.
"What the rest of ya staring at?" Yondu said, startling the rest of the hallway dwelling crew into motion. "I know ya'll got shit to do, get on it!" He looked at you and cocked his head as if to say "Get moving." and you obeyed, making your way toward the brig to complete your extra cleaning duties.
Yondu did his best to hide a smirk as he made his way down to his quarters. He knew rumors would start spreading like wildfire about Rahi nearly causing Yondu to put an end to the rite of passage after that display. It was bound to piss more than a few of the younger crew off. He didn't care much for the lazy shit anyway, so it was better the crew think he was the reason for any upcoming changes rather than you, and if it succeeded in helping him end the whole culture around that particular thing, even better. They really did get too wound up about it.
***
The morning of shore leave came and you were nervous as hell. Yondu had pulled you aside the night before to let you know he had taken care of what he promised, and described the whore-bot he paid to help you fake it so you would know which one to accept. Still, even knowing it was taken care of you couldn't help the growing pit of nervousness in your stomach, though you did your best to hide it.
Since clearly the Eclector couldn't dock on the planet, being about a mile and a half long and all, Ravagers on shore leave would pool together on M-ships for the journey to and back, kind of like a funny buddy-system.
As per usual, you pooled in a ship with Yondu, Kraglin, and Peter along with Tullk, Oblo, and Horuz. Yondu and Kraglin sat up front to pilot, Tullk, Oblo and Horuz filled in the middle, while you and Peter got put in the back, as always.
While the older men laughed and carried on in front of you, you felt Peter nudge you in the arm. You looked over to see him looking at you with a raised eyebrow. "You ok?" he asked, having noticed how you were unusually quiet and fidgety.
"Yeah, I'm great." you lied, "Never better."
Peter rolled his eyes with a knowing smile. "Don't give me that. Are ya nervous?" he asked, obviously knowing full well what everyone expected you'd be doing on this shore leave. "You can tell me. I won't tell anyone."
You gave him a look, saying, "No!" before coming clean with a, "Fine. A little." as you turned your gaze down into your lap to fidget with your watch some more.
"It'll be ok," he assured, "I was a little nervous my first time, too," he admitted. Peter was a few years older than you at 20, and it was hard for you to picture him having been nervous about it, seeing as he now seemed to be trying to work his way through every cute girl in the galaxy.
"Really?" you asked, eyeing him skeptically.
"Yeah. I mean, I was still super excited, but I was a little nervous too. Those horror stories the older guys tell us really get to you."
You giggled with him, remembering what Yondu had told you the other day.
Peter continued, "But anyway, you're gonna be fine. But I did want to give you this." He pulled something out of his jacket pocket and handed it to you. It was a condom.
"Peter!" you whisper-shouted, blushing.
"Hey, if you're gonna do it, I wanna know you're being smart about it. Always use protection. Even with the Love-bots. Can't ever be too careful." He held his hand out more insistently.
You blushed harder and accepted the gift, even though you knew you wouldn't be needing it. "Thanks."
"Come on now, don't get all frowny on me. I'm just looking out for you." Peter teased, aiming a few pokes at your ribs, knowing it always got a good giggle or two out of you.
It worked. Giggles escaped your throat as you twisted in your seat and swatted at his hand, "Quit it!" you squeaked, but his mission was accomplished anyway, you were smiling now.
"There we go!" he teased, grinning at you.
"Shush!" you replied, sticking your tongue out at your friend and laughing when he flicked you in the arm for it. Soon enough the two of you were in a slap battle. You weren't really fighting, and neither of you struck with the intent to hurt (well, not much anyway) it was just how the two of you played sometimes. This carried on until you heard Yondu announce that you all had made it to your destination, and then the nervousness started to creep back into your belly.
Peter and you were the last off the ship. Yondu and the other men headed off, leaving the two of you to your own devices with calls to behave yourselves, but "not too much" *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
You almost wished he had stuck around longer, but you knew he had already done his part. It would look weird if he stuck around to hold your hand, so to speak. You look to Peter, wanting to stall just a bit longer. "So, ya hungry?"
"Figured you'd want to get right to business," he teased. He knew you were probably stalling, but decided to go along with it anyway rather than abandon you straight away. You had been here before, but he knew this time was different. This time there was a pressure to do something new, and you had already admitted you were nervous about it.
"Uh, can't do it on an empty stomach," you say, forcing a smile.
He ruffled your hair. "Good point. I'm starving." He suggested you two grab some fries at the nearby bar inside the brothel (the whole place was the brothel, let's be honest) and you followed him.
When you both had finished you tried to think of something else to stall, maybe play some pool? However, you never got the chance, for a whore-bot with green hair and looking to be around your age came over to your table to greet you. It was the one Yondu told you to look for, and it asked if it could "show you a good time." You looked nervously at Peter who shot you a thumbs up while trying not to laugh. You glanced back at the bot and tentatively nodded, which Peter took as a sign to high-tail it out of there, leaving you alone. The bot asked for your ID, as you knew it would, and part of you wished you "forgot" it back on the ship, knowing that the bots were programed to refuse service to anyone under the age of 17 and required ID of younger-looking patrons to prove it.
After scanning your ID, the bot took you by the hand and flirtatiously led you across the room to a set of stairs. You began to hear some cheers as you ascended the stairs behind the bot and you were blushing too hard to even attempt to ham it up for their benefit.
Once in the room the bot turned to you. "I understand this isn't meant to be an ordinary engagement. Mr. Udonta left instructions to only perform counterfeit coitus, correct?"
You blushed and nodded, taken aback by the professionalism of the sex-bot, before wondering if you were being rude by assuming otherwise.
"Have you done this before?"
You shook your head, still blushing.
"It's alright. There's plenty of time to figure it out. I've been booked for three hours."
You sputtered. "Excuse me?!" you cried, trying not to be too loud. "Three-? What are we supp-"
The bot gave a laugh and held up its hand. "Do not worry, Miss. I was paid extra to deliver that joke. Mr. Udonta felt it would be very funny. I've only actually been booked for an hour, the standard amount of time."
You let a sigh of relief. You still felt that an hour was going to drag on, but at least it wasn't flarkin' three. "So, what do we do?"
The bot took your hand again and led you to the large bed in the center of the room. "Lie down here." You looked at the bot nervously and it clarified. "The noises will be more realistic if both our weights are on the bed."
You did as the bot instructed and it climbed over you. "I understand this may be awkward, but I'll ask that you trust the process. I will do this," the bot began to rhythmically rock its body back and forth, each rock ending in its hands hitting the headboard and making it knock into the wall behind it. "and then you can start making moaning sounds, you can repeat after me." The bot then started moan, encouraging you with a gesture of its hand when you were too busy blushing to follow the lead. You did your best to mimic the sounds. "We shall continue like this for 10 minutes, and then rest." the bot instructed, ushering you again with more hand gestures when you paused to give it a puzzled look.
After several minutes the bot prompted you to get louder, and then louder again still a few moments after. You realized it was coaching you to simulate you approaching the climax and you got nervous again, not knowing what to do when "that moment" was meant to happen. The bot read your face and told you to relax, just follow it's lead as it thumped against the wall faster and it moaned louder.
You followed its lead until it told you to make a last few loud "Oh's!" and then it began to slow its thumping before coming to a stop.
Whoops and laughter could be heard from the bar outside the door shortly after, and you blushed harder as the bot crawled off of you. "We will now have a few minutes of rest before beginning another simulation."
You sat up. "So we'll just keep repeating like this until the time's up?" you asked.
"Not quite," answered the bot. "We'll change things up a bit, different positions, different sounds, helps to keep it interesting."
"This seems like a lot of work?" you say.
"Yes, well we're paid to put on a show here. Might as well ensure it's convincing," the bot answered with a shrug and a smile.
You winced as you realized you could hear similar noises you had just faked coming from the rooms next to yours and then more whooping and cheering once they, too, stopped. "The walls are kinda thin in here, huh?" you say awkwardly.
The bot smiled sympathetically, "It seems that way, but not really. Only the louder noises make it out. Normal conversation levels are typically left unheard from outside the rooms, so you're clear to speak freely if that was a concern."
"Good to know," you say. You honestly had been a little concerned about that. "So, do we just sit around then?"
"I could give you a massage, if you'd like."
"That... actually sounds really nice. Sure, thank you." You accept the offer, realizing you could use a little stress reliever. "What's your name, by the way?" you ask, feeling a bit guilty for not having asked the bot's name before then and wondering if you should feel silly about that or not.
"You may call me Finn," the bot answered, not seeming fazed in the slightest. "Would you prefer to remove your clothes or leave them on?" The bot- Finn- motioned for you to turn around to give it access to your back.
"Um, clothes on, please?" you say, reaching for your zipper. "But I'll take off my jacket."
"Alright." The bot said, it's tone not caring in the slightest, and you supposed it very likely didn't care one way or another. It went straight to work, starting slow by gathering your hair and pulling it back and up almost as if it were going to tie your hair in a ponytail, but instead of securing an elastic it just repeated this motion a few more times. It was actually very relaxing, and it made you wish you had someone around to play with your hair more often.
With a final gentle tug the bot moved one hand to your forehead while the other worked at the back of your neck, kneading where the nape of your neck met your skull, making you close your eyes and sigh deeply.
To your delight the bot then threaded its fingers through your hair, scratching gently at your scalp. A soft hum escapes you as you stopped yourself from leaning into to touch out of shyness, and you almost let out a whine when the scratching stopped. However, you were soon soothed by the bot beginning to knead into your neck and shoulders.
You had just barely stopped yourself from moaning once when the bot then pressed into another spot that made it impossible to not make a sound, though you tried. Finn speaks up. "Let yourself relax fully," the bot encouraged. "It's alright to allow yourself to be noisy here, may even work to your benefit under the circumstances."
You giggled slightly and blushed. Finn was right, after all. If there were any time to just let go and relax it would technically be here and now. Before you could think much further Finn had dragged the knuckles of each thumb up each side of your spine with just the right amount of pressure to coax a genuine moan out of you, surprising you as it happened. You had never really realized before just how much stress your work as a Ravager took out on your back. You began to wonder if these Love-bots were also designed to be professional masseuses, because Finn seemed to know exactly what they were doing, and it was amazing.
Finn ended the massage a bit later by working back up your back and working their fingertips back into your hair for a last bit scalp massage.
You were almost disappointed when it ended, but when it was over you turned to look at the Love-bot. "Thank you, that was really nice." you say.
"Anytime." Finn smiled. "We still have twenty minutes left, shall we begin another simulation?"
You sighed. "I suppose. He paid for an hour, might as well act like I'm using it." You smiled, not feeling quite as bitter about the situation anymore after the massage. Finn really did have magic fingers. Or state of the art massage programing. Probably the latter.
"Indeed." Finn answered. "After all, there are no refunds."
You let out a slight chuckle at the bot's bluntness. "Alright, so what now?"
The next simulation involved you both standing on the edge of the bed with the wall to hold your balance as you bounced slightly up and down to make the bed squeak. The bot encouraged your to make similar noises as before, but to also throw out some curses, like, "Oh! Fuck!" It even did the same, occasionally calling out a "Yes! Right there! Oh, yes!" that made you raise an eyebrow. You had to fight from giggling the whole time at the situation. It was pretty funny after all. You were both jumping on the bed like children.
When that simulation had finished you sat down on the bed and looked at Finn. "Do you guys... er...-bots?... feel anything?" you asked, referring to the language the bot had used earlier. "Or are you just supposed to say stuff like that as an act?"
"We don't have nerve endings, and therefore we don't really 'feel things' like you might, but there are certain sensors that can be activated during a session with a client and prompt a correct response. However, as this session is only a simulation, I suppose you can call my dialogue 'acting.'"
You half-grinned when the realization of the bot's words hit you. "Are you saying... you're like a 'sexy' arcade game?" you say, trying not to giggle, before becoming suddenly afraid that might have been offensive. "I mean- obviously you're not a toy- I mean- I didn't mean to offend you."
The bot chuckled. "There's no need to worry. There are certain similarities, one could see how you might draw that conclusion."
You blushed again and attempted to change the subject. "So... what are we going to do with the last simulation?"
"You have a couple options. We can simulate against the door, or we can simulate bending over the bed. We could also simulate oral, but the noises you made during the massage more or less already worked in its favor."
You blushed at that. You already knew the door was out of the question, as you had an admittedly irrational fear that it might pop open as you were faking the deed. "We can try over the bed."
"Very well. This one will require less movement of you, you may remain seated there." Finn said as they stood up and moved to stand with their legs between your own. "This one may also be a bit awkward," the bot warned, "as it requires thrusting into the bed on my part. Ready?"
You nodded hesitantly and the bot began a steady rhythm of motion against the bed, making it creak.
The bot was right. This was more awkward, and you were grateful when it was finally over with about five minutes to spare.
You stood from bed and grabbed your jacket. "Thanks. This wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be." you said truthfully. In fact, you really almost thought you'd come back if for no other reason than to get another back rub.
"You still have five more minutes, is there anything else I can do for you today?"
You smiled shyly and said, "Well, I won't argue if you play with my hair again..."
***
You were of course greeted with congratulatory cheers and high-fives when you exited the room along with the other few crew mates who had recently come of age... and had still been allowed to attend shore leave that is. R.I.P Rahi and his friends. (They hadn't died, but you can bet they were probably really regretting pissing Yondu off.)
A few fellow Ravagers bought you some congratulatory drinks and the rest of the night seemed to fly by.
Eventually you caught back up with Peter and shortly after that Yondu announced it was time to head back, which of course received some disappointed grumbling among the crew. However, nobody argued, knowing it might cost them their next shore leave if they got "fussy like toddlers" as Yondu would say.
You and Peter got back to the ship to find Tullk and Oblo already there waiting. Horuz showed up just after and sighed to see Yondu and Kraglin weren't there yet. Yondu and Kraglin were the only ones with keys to Yondu's M-ship, so you all had to stand outside and converse among yourselves as he took his sweet time getting there.
He was probably just paying the Sneeper woman who owned the place and would be there any minute, but 'any minute' still felt like forever when it was cold.
Eventually he and Kraglin did show up and unlock the ship so you could all get in.
Once inside the ship and mostly everyone had strapped in Kraglin called back to you from the co-pilots seat with tipsy laughter in his voice. "So d'ya have fun? Feel any different? Any horror stories to add to the list?" He looked teasingly at Oblo and Oblo flipped him the bird.
Yondu swatted at him, saying, "Aw, leave the girl alone," but there was also laughter in his scolding, so he wasn't that serious.
You answered anyway. "Ya. Had a blast, Kraglin. Smooth sailing. Just a little sleepy."
This made the other men chuckle, though you weren't entirely sure why, although you could guess.
Yondu piped up. "If she falls asleep Quill's gotta carry her in."
Peter scoffed with a laugh. "Why do I gotta?" he said, before turning to you to add. "You better not fall asleep then."
"Well if you fall asleep I ain't carrying you in! Probably break my back if I tried. You can just stay sleeping in the ship." you laughed back.
"Why you little!" Peter cried out with a grin, aiming to poke you in the ribs, but you dodged him, returning a swat of your own to his arm. And, like on the way over, the two of you were engrossed in another slap battle. The others just let you two carry on, busy with their own conversations and laughing amongst themselves.
Eventually you and Peter did tire yourselves out and Yondu chuckled to the other men when after docking the ship he noticed you had both fallen asleep, curled up in your respective seats. Oblo snapped a picture, cooing, "Aw look! Ain't that precious!"
"Send that to me." Yondu said with a grin. "Might blow it up, hang it in the Mess Hall." This earned a laugh from the others. He looked at Tullk with a grin before exiting the ship. "Ya better wake 'em. I'm sure as hell not carryin' them to bed."
***
The next morning Yondu was alone in his quarters when he decided to call up Stakar.
After a few rings Stakar's face comes up on the screen, and the two men give a Ravager salute in greeting before Stakar asks what's brought Yondu to call him.
"I wanna talk to ya about that whole coming of age and having sex thing."
Stakar raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"
"Younger crew just get too wound up about it. It ain't healthy." Yondu responded.
Stakar still looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Ya know what I mean." Yondu said firmly. "They get all wound up like it's the most important thing in the world, and it's because everyone makes a big old deal outta something silly like that."
"It hasn't been a problem before?" Stakar said thoughtfully. "What's changed? It's that Terran girl isn't it? Of course. She just came of age." Stakar shook his head. "I don't care what you say, you're soft on her and Peter. You can't get attached and let them influence your judgement like that, Yondu."
"No, it ain't like that," Yondu said, trying to cover his ass and continuing before Stakar can interrupt him. "It's got nothin' to do with them. I just can't have my crew bullying their mates just cause they don't wanna fuck yet or lettin' the whole thing get to their heads makin' them all disrespectful-like. Almost had to keel-haul a few boys who suddenly thought they were big enough to start disrespecting their captain over it."
Stakar looked at him suspiciously. "No, we can't have that... What do you propose then? It's not like we can stop them. You tell young people they can't do something, they're only gonna do it more."
"I know that- Look. I'm not sayin' we do away with it entirely. I could care less what they do on shore-leave. But we can maybe make them realize it's not such a big damn deal. Ya know, slow-like. Maybe they'd stop getting so wound-up about it." Yondu said, quickly adding, "If they're less focused on that maybe they'd work harder."
Stakar thought for a bit. Yondu was right, he thought. He had noticed the younger crowd getting a bit wound up about it, and sometimes they did let the excitement get ahead of their duties... "Maybe you're right," he conceded. "If it's affecting their jobs maybe we should try and change the culture around it... I'll talk with some of the other captains and get back to you."
Yondu grinned and nodded. "All I ask."
***
You felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. It was the day after shore-leave and no one had brought up how you "Became a woman" at all. It was as if the previous week's excitement had been completely forgotten, and you couldn't be happier.
You did notice in the following days that Rahi seemed to be getting a bit of flack. He hadn't been particularly well liked before, always trying to push his duties off on other crew mates or blaming others for things he had broken, but now he was practically a pariah. Even his buddies didn't seem to want much to do with him, though that could be because they were still mad that they had been dragged under into his punishment despite not having done anything to deserve it other than be with him at the time.
You almost felt bad for him until Peter explained that along with the 'written' rule that Ravagers don't deal in kids; harming or forming inappropriate relationships with children and teens (i.e: having sexual relations with younger crew) was also a HUGE no-no. Even worse if the offender is someone high-ranking. Rahi, though he just thought he was being funny, had more or less unwittingly falsely accused Yondu of breaking that part of the code with the joke he made, hence why Yondu had been so offended and pissed. Peter was honestly surprised Yondu had let him live after that.
He also added that no one wants to be around someone who thinks it's funny to make those particular jokes. Real accusations of that nature are taken very seriously among Ravager Clans, so if someone is found to just be flippantly saying crap like that, the general feel is that it makes it harder for real victims to be heard, so the crew will tend to shun the offender to make it clear that behavior isn't acceptable. And well, if the offender didn't learn their lesson pretty quick and get back into the good graces of their captain and crew, they'd quickly find themselves to be cannon fodder.
Even Ravagers know there's a line between raunchy and unacceptable.
There may have also been the matter that when Yondu had said "I'm startin' to think some of ya are gettin' a lil' too wound up about this lil' rite of passage among ya young-ins. It'd sure be a shame if you were the reason I decided to put an end to it." much of the crew, after the rumor had gotten twisted up a bit via game of telephone, had taken it to mean that Rahi had almost gotten shore-leave taken away from everyone- forever. And well, that just didn't sit right with a lot of folks. It was a final nail in the coffin, if you will.
However, what you didn't know was about Yondu's conversation with Stakar.
Stakar did go talk to the other captains, and more than a few did finally admit similar instances among their younger ranks after having heard through the grapevines about a giant stink a lad called Rahi had caused on Udonta's ship. They admitted to instances of bullying, pressure, and disrespect occurring and directly related to the particular rite of passage and collectively agreed with Yondu that a change surrounding the culture could be beneficial, much to Yondu's surprise, and also his relief.
He never did tell you about his conversation with Stakar, though he was sure you may start to suspect if everything went well and things started changing regarding that particular aspect of life. As long as no one else had to feel like he saw you feeling that night in the laundry, he'd be happy.
You had come to his quarters the day after the visit to Contraxia, knocking almost as soon as he had hung up with Stakar. You had wanted to thank him him for helping you, both with the advice and with the Love-Bot. You told him how you felt so much better after having that talk with him, and how you no longer felt broken.
He'd never say, because screw sentiment, but it warmed his heart to know he helped you realize there was nothing wrong with you, that you had never been damaged. You two parted with a hug and he let you know to not be afraid if you needed to come to him about stuff like that in the future, just not to make a habit of telling the others lest they accuse him of going soft.
You were his little girl, something else he never intended to say out loud, because again, screw sentiment. He felt a responsibility for your well-being, even if you could be a little shit like Peter sometimes.
Ah, fuck sentiment. He knew you two were his kids, and he was damn proud.
***
About a week after shore leave you and Peter happened across Yondu outside the Mess Hall doors as you were heading in for supper.
"Hey, look! It's Terran One and Terran two!" Yondu said, oddly loudly.
"Um, hi?" You gave him an odd look. "What's up?"
"Now why would ya think somethin's up? Can't a captain greet his crew outside the Mess Hall before dinner?"
'Something's definitely up.' you thought, sharing a glance with Peter who was clearly thinking the same thing. "Are we in trouble? Did we do something?" Peter chuckled nervously. He didn't know about you, but he had maybe definitely rigged a supply closet in the control room with some firecrackers, and he wasn't sure if some poor soul (probably Kraglin) had already fell victim to it, meaning he was about to be in hot water.
You were also grinning nervously. You didn't know about Peter's firecrackers, but you had also maybe definitely hidden some poppers under the cushion of Yondu's desk chair that morning when he was busy on the other side of the ship, but you weren't going to just turn yourself in without more information, now were you?
"I dunno, you tell me." Yondu said, smirking. "Are you in trouble? Ya'll got a guilty conscience?"
You and Peter shared a nervous glance. You both knew you both were most definitely guilty of something, however you two had a code. Never turn yourself in, and never turn your buddy in. You looked back at Yondu, suppressing a nervous giggle. "No? I don't think so?"
Kraglin then came outside the Mess Hall doors to stand with Yondu. Kraglin had a big shit eating grin on his face, almost as if he were trying not to laugh when he saw you and Peter there.
Yondu threw him a glance which Kraglin returned with a nod. You noticed this and you exchanged another look with Peter. Something was definitely up. This felt like a trap.
"Well, what're ya waiting for? Get in there and grab some supper!" Yondu ordered, grinning strangely. He opened the door for you- oh shit something was absolutely up here.
You and Peter eyed him suspiciously but obeyed, entering the Mess hall without a word.
Once inside you noticed the rest of the crew inside were all oddly quiet, all staring at the two of you with grins and some suppressing giggles behind their hands. You heard the doors shut behind you and turned to see Yondu and Kraglin standing in front of them, both donning the biggest shit eating grins of all time.
"Cap'n has a surprise for you guys, d'ya- do ya like it?" Kraglin asked, trying to suppress his own giggles.
You heard Peter exclaim a, "Oh hell no!" and you turned to see what had caught his attention, noticing the crew had finally broke out into loud raucous laughter around you.
Hanging high on the wall about 10 feet to the right of the Mess Hall entrance doors was a humongous blown up photo of you and Peter. It was the photo you guys didn't know Oblo had snapped when you returned from Contraxia. It showed the two of you each curled up asleep in your respective seats of Yondu's M-ship. Peter was sucking his thumb. You were cuddling one of Yondu's softer dash toys.
You both paled as you stared up at the giant poster hung high on the wall. Hung conveniently high enough that neither of you would be able to reach it to rip it down, although Peter made a few good attempts.
Your eyes narrowed at your captain as he approached you, his laughter matching that of the crew. He pulled you towards him and ruffled your hair as he asked. "What's the matter? Ya don't like yer surprise?"
You glared up at him as Peter was now climbing up on a chair in a vain attempt to reach and pull the photo down. "This so means war, blue man!"
"Don't pick fights ya can't win, pipsqueak." Yondu laughed. "Consider this payback for those poppers in my chair, and ya can tell Peter this is for those firecrackers in the supply closet."
You sighed and punched him in the arm, but he only laughed and pulled you in close to ruffle your hair again, "Oh lighten up! Ya don't really expect me to just let my kids have all the fun, huh?"
You jerked your head towards him with a surprised expression, and it seemed it was only then he realized what he had said. Grateful that no one else would have heard it over his noisy crew he attempted to backtrack. "Uh, don't read too much into it." he said, clapping you on the back and announcing to Kraglin that he was going to grab some food. Kraglin, who was busy laughing at Peter, who had seemingly given up his attempts to rip down the photo in favor of walking dejectedly back over to you, nodded and joined his Captain in obtaining some supper.
Peter and you turned to face the photo again, the laughter from the crew still not having died down. Peter spoke first. "This means war, right?"
"Definitely. I had already set up a dye pack in Yondu's shower earlier. He'll be a weird shade of purple by morning," you affirmed with a grin.
"Nice. We gotta get one on Kraglin too."
"Absolutely," you reply. "After supper?"
"Yeah. After supper." Peter agreed.
The two of you made your way to get your supper, ignoring the laughs and teases of the other Ravagers along the way and discussing further options of getting Yondu and Kraglin back for this.
He may be like a father to you two, but that didn't mean he'd get off easy.
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