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callsign-rogueone · 4 months ago

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assessments

Aaric Graycastle x reader part two of Aaric and Sunny's story words: 1.7k 🏷: set during Iron Flame but no real spoilers. canon-typical sparring. very vague mentions of injury (a bruise and a bandage.) more of Sunny's backstory perhaps.. I promise these titles will start getting more creative after this. this one's technically a double meaning -- assessment day for Emeterrio's class, and our bbs slowly starting to figure each other out.

You consider yourself excellent at reading people, a skill you’d honed in your years of working in a tavern in Calldyr city. It made long shifts more bearable, and earned you better tips — you knew exactly how to talk to each kind of person who walked in, what to do and say to make them like you, to think you were just like them.

All you need to do is look at someone for a minute, watch them and listen to them speak, and you can gather everything you need to know about them -- where they’re from, and what their deal is.

It didn’t take long for you to figure out your entire squad.

Rhiannon, the squad leader, is the responsible, motherly one, but she’s still fierce, and has something to prove. She wants your squad to be the best it can be, and has her sights set on being a wingleader next year.

Ridoc is the class clown who is almost never serious, but cares for his friends deeply and won’t hesitate to fight for them. He’s smarter than he lets on, and a good fighter, even though he’s smaller than some of the other guys — which isn’t saying much, because they’re all giant — but maybe you could learn a thing or two from watching him.

Sawyer, Rhiannon’s second in command and Ridoc’s best friend, who balances him out with logic and restraint, but is definitely still frequently dragged into his shenanigans — though he takes his role seriously, feeling the need to prove himself to the world.

Violet, the daughter of two generals, who was expected to follow in their footsteps despite her medical condition, incredibly smart and observant, and not to be underestimated despite her small stature.

Sloane, who was forced to be here because of the Treaty of Aretia, as her parents were accused of treason, holds a grudge against Violet for her unclear role in the death of her brother, but seems to respect Imogen enough not to kill the girl.

Imogen, the unaffected cool-girl, was also forced to be here, but she seems to have taken it in stride. She’s clearly not afraid of anything — not to stand out, with her pastel pink hair, nor to provoke anyone, being a skilled fighter both with words and hand-to-hand.

Nadine fits into a similar category with her dark purple hair and her unrestrained laughter. She seems less serious than the others, not at all worried, but it remains unclear if that’s because she’s overconfident or underestimating the challenges that second year will bring her.

…. and then there’s Aaric. You find yourself watching him for confirmation of what you’re supposed to be doing, but also out of sheer curiosity, because you just can’t figure him out. He doesn’t fit in any box you’d sorted the others into. He’s quiet, but not because he’s shy like Sawyer. Serious, but not the rigid soldier that Dain is. There’s just something about him that you just can’t put a name to, some quality you can’t quite describe.

He doesn’t look tired at breakfast, so he’d probably heeded the wingleader’s advice to sleep early — and he must not have stayed awake all night worrying about being killed.

You’d tossed and turned, but you’d been comforted by the theoretical safety of your top bunk, a good five feet above anyone, in a corner where you can see the whole room, and your two knives — one under your pillow, one clutched in your hand like a child would a stuffed animal.

You wear one on each hip now, tucked into the belt loops of your pants. You should really get one of those leather rigs that the second-years have to hold them in a better position. They look much more secure, and more comfortable. Maybe you can invest your last bit of coin in a card game and make enough to buy one in town. Or maybe they’re issued to everyone later in the year — most of the older cadets have something similar.

You’d been one of the first ones awake, re-wrapping your bandage and changing clothes quietly, brushing your teeth before everyone else woke up and wanted to use the bathroom.

You learn these things quickly when you live with half a dozen other girls.

Sloane had been slower to get ready, but you’d waited for her, lingering by your bunk and giving her a nervous half-smile — silently asking if she wanted to walk together. She’d agreed, falling into step beside you out to the morning formation.

It’s easy to spot where you’re supposed to be — look for the pink, purple, and silver heads.

Imogen looks relieved to see Sloane in one piece — then she turns to you, looking unamused. “What are you so happy about?” she asks, raising a dark eyebrow.

You know they won’t really understand, but you tell them anyway. “I woke up this morning in a bed of my own, looking at a roof over my head, with clothes on my back that I didn’t have to steal.”

Both of them soften, realizing just how differently you’d grown up. Their childhoods and teenage years may not have been the happiest, but they were safe, and didn’t have to worry about where their next meal would come from or where they’d sleep that night.

Aaric hadn’t realized that the service could be an escape for some people, rather than a death sentence or an act of patriotism or a moral obligation. Whatever you’d faced in the city had outweighed the possibility of dying in battle — despite being incredibly underprepared, you’re the one of the three of them that wants to be there the most.

He has several questions, none of which he can ask without giving away his little ruse — and it’s been less than twenty-four hours since you’d all crossed the parapet. But still, he wonders about you. What’s your story? Where had you lived in Calldyr City? How many miles from the castle? Had your paths ever crossed?

For a moment, anger roils through him. He’s aware of the disparities within his father’s kingdom, the way the other half — the other nine tenths, more like — lives, but to hear you speak of it so candidly… it’s clear you’ve never known anything other than struggling to make ends meet.

Just another item on the laundry list of issues that your dear king is so content to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, as if he is at fault for your situation, as if he had been the one to deal you those cards — but is he not implicated in your suffering? He’s certainly complicit, passive, letting it happen.

Not that his father would listen to him if he asked him to do anything about it.

You give him a reassuring smile — you know from experience that talking about your life tends to make people uncomfortable. “Don’t be. I feel richer than the king.”

That makes him feel worse, actually.

-----------------------------------------------------------

“Bell, and Hannigan,” the professor calls, already looking and sounding bored. If everyone in the quadrant has to do one this week, that must be at least two hundred. You wonder how many have already occurred, and how many more he has to go.

And what are they going to do with this information? Rank you somehow, for sure. Maybe they’ll split you into groups based on skill level? No, they probably aren’t that nice. Everyone has made it sound like it’s kill-or-be-killed here, literally. They probably aren’t offering any remedial courses.

You recognize the other first-year girl. She was one of the few who were up and moving before the wake-up call.

You give a nervous smile as you step onto the mat. She doesn’t return it. Either she doesn’t remember you, or she doesn’t want to acknowledge that her bed is less than fifteen feet away from yours.

Maybe this place is just like Calldyr city. The school may as well be a city of its own, with its size and population, and the way nobody here seems to care about each other, or be friendly at all — friendliness and trust would get you robbed in the nicer parts of the city, or maybe even killed in the “bad parts”, but you’d survived there your whole life.

You’ll have to do the cold-and-distant thing, you suppose. It would be nice to have friends, a group of people you can trust like Violet does, but you’ve done everything for yourself for years. You can keep doing that.

She isn’t too much bigger than you, but she looks like she knows what she’s doing, and that she’s confident she’ll win. She should be — you haven’t had anyone to practice with, lest it give away your plans. All you know is what you’ve seen from watching the drunks in the slums swing at each other, and they’re not very good examples.

She lunges quickly, but you slip aside with ease.

You duck a would-be punch to the jaw, attempting to kick her legs out from underneath her, but her boots are planted to the floor — it only irritates her and probably bruises her left shin.

No time to feel bad about it; she’s pushing forward again. She’s determined, you’ll give her that.

It becomes clear that your duck-and-dodge strategy is effective in keeping yourself unscathed, but it won’t win you this fight.

You attempt a punch like hers, unsuccessfully; she catches your wrist and uses it to leverage you to the floor, where she presses you into the mat, wrenching one arm behind your back and using her weight to keep you down. You struggle for a moment before realizing she has you pinned too well. “I yield.”

“Hannigan wins,” Emeterrio announces monotonously, writing it down.

She lets go, but doesn’t offer you an apology nor help you up. Cold and distant it is, then — with everybody but your squad, who are supposedly not allowed to hurt you.

You’re three steps away from falling back into your place beside Sloane when you hear a crack and a scream.

Then all hell breaks loose in your corner of the gym.

#Aaric and Sunny #aaric graycastle #Cam Tauri #aaric graycastle x reader #fourth wing #fourth wing x reader

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soulessjourney · 10 months ago

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Mother and Father Are Fighting Again

Paring: Astarion x fem!DurgTavReader

Word count: 1.5k

Summary: Tav and Gale clash over the role of the party's leader.

Warnings: Some language, Humor, Tav and Gale Bickering

A/N: 100% how I envisioned the party selecting thier leader going. This guy is a little short but I do hope you enjoy it!

Your small yet growing group sits around the fire, their gazes occasionally landing on each other and often resting on you. There you are, half asleep, your hair tangled and messy on one side of your head. They had woken you up because the thought of having no official leader plagued Astarion’s thoughts at night, to the point where he couldn't meditate properly. Rubbing your hands over your face, Shadowheart picks at her nails before speaking up.

“I think Tav would be a good fit; I mean, she is the one who got us all together in the first place,” she says, earning a hum of agreement from everyone but Gale.

Letting out a yawn, you bring your hands up to rub at your eyes, and Gale points at you. “I disagree; she can barely keep her eyes open. We need a leader who can be alert just in case someone decides to raid our camp. She sleeps like a log; I mean, look how long it took us to wake her this morning.” Your eyes slowly trail over to Gale before falling into a tired glare.

“I’m sorry that it was hard to wake me. It’s not like we fought an entire goblin camp yesterday while you sat there and nagged me about having the Tiefling's celebration here last night,” you snap, brushing the stray hairs from your face. “Besides, I didn’t ask to be included in the nominations; they all just decided to include me. I don’t even want to be the leader of the group,” you say, throwing your arms in the air.

Gale goes to say something before Karlach speaks up. “Well, think about it, soldier. Whenever we speak to others, they immediately begin talking to you. You walk with confidence; they already think that you’re our leader. You defuse situations and persuade people just like a leader does,” she says, causing Gale to let out a groan.

Nodding along with her words, you can see where she is coming from. Those in Emerald Grove talked to you and only you as your party stood behind you waiting for something to happen. When you dealt with Auntie Ethel, she specifically dealt with you and only you. “You’re right; maybe I will consider running for the position. I mean, if people already think that I lead our group, why not?”

Gale shoots up, resting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “No, you just said you don’t want to lead our group; you don’t get to backtrack now. That’s not fair at all. Besides, my case still stands; you’re not fit to be a leader, especially if we can’t even wake you. You’ve also made some questionable choices. For example, who just decides they want to take on an entire camp for a cuddly bear?”

Crossing your arms, you lean back against the log and against Shadowheart's leg. “I’m allowed to change my mind, especially when someone makes a valid point. And I didn’t decide to raid the goblin camp just because Halsin is a cute little bear,” you gush, before your smile drops. “I did it because allying ourselves with most of Emerald Grove was in our best interest, and the best way to do that was to take down their leaders and then wipe the rest of them out. Besides, most of it was done for us when I chose to poison their drinks,” you shrug, a smug smile spreading across your face as Shadowheart pats your shoulder in agreement.

Gale lets out a scoff as he racks his mind for anything else to hold against you. His eyes widen before a sly smile spreads across his face. “Maybe if you and Astarion weren’t sneaking around so much, you’d actually be able to sleep.” So, he had heard you sneak off last night. Heads slowly turn to look at Astarion, who raises his hand, his eyes widening slightly.

“In my defense, oh who am I kidding, I won’t hide the fact that our night together was just as enjoyable as watching you get drunk and cry over Mystra.” Astarion shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest.

Karlach lets out a laugh, and you turn to face her with a confused look. “Sorry, soldier, you just looked so horrified when Gale pointed out your nighttime escapades. Don’t worry; we’re all quite aware that you and Fangs fancy each other. You’re not that secretive. Just do tell Shadowheart and me the details later.” She shrugs, earning a groan from you as you hide your face in your hands while Shadowheart lets out a hearty laugh.

Gale clears his throat, grabbing everyone’s attention and giving you a break from the girls trying to fish for any details they could force out of you. “Are we just ignoring the elephant in the room here? That elephant being I’m the most qualified to lead our little group of... you.” You raise a brow, your hands moving to fix and straighten your hair out.

“Alright, Gale, since you’re being so moody, do I need to go find a boot for you to chew on so you don’t explode on us?” You press, “Besides, they’re our friends, and they all have names, so I suggest you start learning them. Some leader you want to be.” You grumble, looking away. The bickering between you and Gale goes on for some time as the heads of your friends move to watch whoever is talking.

You weren’t sure who got tired and broke first, but Lae’zel speaks up. “Why don’t we just vote? Each person can cast two votes, and we go from there. It can make figuring out the leader easier and just as fair.” Lae’zel wasn’t one for many words, but when she brought up ideas, they sure as hell were amazing. If only you could get her to actually pitch in on attack plans more often. “Those who want to run can’t vote, just so we know you’re not casting votes for yourself.” She says, grabbing a journal from her tent. Ripping out the paper, she sets them down on the makeshift desk made out of a rock a few feet away. Setting out the quill and ink, she turns and nods. “Cast your votes and then place them into the helmet on the table.” She says, watching as the other camp members stand up and walk over to the table.

Looking at Gale, he keeps his eyes trained on you, and you let your eyes narrow in his direction. “What do you want, lizard brain?” You snap, shifting your body away, and you look over your shoulder, your eyes narrowing even more.

“I have a lizard brain? Have you not looked in the mirror recently? Actually no, lizards are extremely intelligent creatures. Now, a good insult is that you look like a lizard.” He quips, sending you a triumphant smile.

Before you could respond, Shadowheart sighs and sits between the both of you. “If you two don’t stop arguing, I’ll have Astarion tie you both up and leave you here as we move on.” She grumbles, only to earn a laugh from Astarion.

“I would too! I mean, Darling, you would just as delectable tied up for me, begging me to let you go.” He hums, only to earn a horrified gag from Gale, and your expression to match his. Astarion was many things, but a shameless flirt with zero filter was one of them. Sure, you were attracted to him, given your many outings into the woods together at night, but sometimes you reevaluate just as to what about him drew you in with half the things he manages to say.

Lae'zel settles back onto the ground, arranging the scraps of paper before her. Counting them, she lifts her gaze, eyes shifting between you and Gale. "Tav wins the votes," she declares, casually tossing the helmet aside. Gale glances around at everyone, beginning to complain, alleging that you had charmed them in an attempt to secure the votes.

Karlach sends Gale a pitying smile. "Sorry, Gale. It's nothing against you. Tav just appears to have our best interests in mind and is a natural leader. Not that you're not a leader, but it just feels right to follow in her footsteps," Karlach says gently. Gale nods in understanding, then looks at you.

"I apologize for being childish, Tav. That was extremely wrong of me, and I shouldn't have done that. You deserve the role as much as anyone else here. I will follow your command and trust you to lead us in the right path," he states, bowing his head. His words and actions bring a smile to your face.

"Thank you, Gale, and I apologize as well. I promise to be the best leader I can be. Your input matters to me; I can't make decisions without you guys. But I do promise one thing: I will get these tadpoles out of our heads and save every single one of you. You're my family, and you all deserve saving." You notice Astarion looking at you, pride and admiration filling his eyes. There's something about that gaze that brings a blush to your cheeks. It's a look you'd kill to see over and over again.

Astarion uncrosses his arms, smiling gently at both you and Gale. "I'm glad you both kissed and made up. It's extremely odd to watch our mother and father fight again," he remarks, earning a confused look from you and Gale as the others laugh. Clearly, you both missed a chapter in this adventure.

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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 1 year ago

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Hi! Can I request Yandere Byakuya with a gender neutral reader(if you do those) who is the ultimate delinquent and they are very aggressive and hot headed, stubborn and just overall not a pushover at all. They care but they will absolutely beat the absolute shit out of someone?

Yandere Byakuya Togami x Ultimate Delinquent Reader

He’s not inherently fond of you

You’re supposed attitude, your dress, and your ultimate title

all point to a character he does not know or is fond of

The absolute opposite of an Ultimate Affluent Progeny

No money, no prospects, nothing to your name but your reputation for delinquency

And after all that you couldn’t even become the ultimate highschool level gang leader

That role was manly taken

It's his mistake for taking you for a complete idiot

Losing his cool during the trial as you reveal his trickery and outside intentions with the investigation

“What?! Did you think I was an absolute dolt?!”

He also doesn’t expect how quickly you put him in a headlock as you spit in his ear

“Don’t. Ever. Include me in your crackpot ideas again, got it?!”

“F-f-fine…b-but I can’t help you if you look like an idiot-"

You tighten your hold

Having Sakura and the majority of the group forcing you to let go

It's a strong-standing rivalry between you two

That everyone’s aware of

Even Genocider Syo expects this

But as many know supposed hate can be just as close as love

And in Byakuya’s case, it's quite an extreme example of that:

Dear fiendish enemy of Mine,

You will be pleased to know that I wish to accept an apology from you.

I will be in the library, waiting.

–The Ultimate Affluent Progeny, Togami Byakuya

That’s what it said. The letter slipped under your doorway in the heat of the night or the morning you typically slept in on. You scoffed crumpling the letter before tossing it into your trashcan; just to spite him you debated leaving your room at all. You were all for keeping everyone alive and whatnot but the meetings were early and you were never one for following rules anyway. As much as you hated being grouped up with the rich boy you weren’t going to go out of your way to be some other hero type; that’s what Makoto was for. With ease, you settled into your bed drifting into another deep sleep. You’d eat later.

When you awoke, you had no indicator for any time passing. With an audible growl from your stomach, you tiredly sat up, finally setting yourself on a mission to feed yourself. Considering Monokuma hadn’t woken you up obnoxiously you figured nobody had died yet. That was good. Best case scenario it was ‘nighttime’ and you could feast without anyone bothering you. Pushing the handle down you only gave it a nudge with your hip.

“D-did I forget to lock it?”

You tried the handle again to find the door was still unmovable. Getting irritated quickly you went to kick the door open only for the door to stay in place with the weight of something on the other side.

“But why would there be something against the door?”

You tried again but to no avail spiraling you into a fit of anger. Turning from the door in a huff you began to take your anger out on the few pieces of furniture. Kicking over the table, throwing out the drawers of the cabinet; you were about to slam off the objects resting on the bolted shelf. Stopping when you see a familiar letter next to a lunch box.

Dear idiot of Mine,

I knew you wouldn’t follow such a simple command and that’s what I counted on!

Now who’s the victim of their own laziness?! Since you are so inclined to laze about it makes you a difficult target in the killing game. Nonetheless, I can not have your reckless discretion decide both our fates thus I am making the executive decision to keep you caged.

“Caged!? That brat who does he think he is!?”

See like a dog you have a master. I would have included you in this decision if I was sure you were competent enough to understand it. But you are not and I am tired of trying to change that.

Therefore be pleased you are going to be taking a back seat to this game and if you’re lucky enough Monokums will let you watch as I win this game.

Eat dear idiot. And if you can muster the brain power read. You might be interested in rotting your life away but I am not. The exact opposite actually, I fully intend to have you tamed when I am through with this game.

Enjoy your suspension (Y/n), Togami Byakuya

Throwing the letter out of sight you reached into the duffle to find a few full thermoses, multiple bottles of water, some books, and some canned foods. Resisting the urge to throw its contents all around the room you instead picked up the letter again rereading the words as you tried to make sense of your predicament.

“S-suspended!?”

‘Was that even possible in a killing school game.’

Whether or not it was as the Ultimate Affluent Progeny: Togami Byakuya said so. And it would be your fate until the game officially ended.

#yandere danganronpa #yandere danganronpa x reader #yandere togami byakuya #yandere togami #yandere byakuya togami #yandere x reader #yandere x you #lovelyyandereaddictionpoint #yanderexrea #yandere #yanderes #yandere danganronpa trigger happy havoc

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l0vergirlwrites · 1 year ago

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our moments ; rick grimes

warnings: mentions of weapons, blood, death, swearing, some angst & a sweet slow burn

a few moments with rick throughout the time you’ve known each other that aided your slow burn:

1. early prison days

since you were new the group, it was hard fitting into their little family when you stumbled across them with tyrese & sasha after carl led you through the prison’s catacombs. despite your previous group leaving, going off somewhere else to call home, you stayed because your gut told you to.

you followed their orders & stayed clear of the group to focus on your daily tasks to prove that you’re person of your word until you were allowed to sleep in the same cell block as the rest of them.

one night when you decided to stay up & count the food rations in the main area, you didn’t expect someone to join you.

with a small gaslit lamp, a notebook & half a broken pencil, you were busy looking back & forth between the canned food & your paper until the metal door of the cell block creaked quietly. springing your head up, your body slightly relaxed when you saw the group’s leader begin to approach you.

“what are you doing?” rick asked you, bouncing judith up & down in his arms to calm her fussing.

taking a seat across from you at the circular metal table, you tucked your hair behind your ears & looked back at him. “just some food inventory,” you said looking around at the cans & bags of grain still left from the group’s last run.

“glenn mentioned that maggie & him were planning to do a run tomorrow, so i thought an updated inventory list would be helpful” your kind explanation made rick give you a tiny smile in approval.

“that’s nice of ya to do, thanks” he said while looking back between you & his daughter. the grip she had on his thumb made your heart swell. it was nice to see something full of love in a world where death crept everywhere.

“could i ask you something?”.

humming in response, rick lowered judith to his chest & focused on you.

“why have you kept me around?” the question lingered in the air.

scratching his chin, rick looked back at you & tilted his head a little, almost like he was analyzing you.

“you’ve proven yourself,” rick started. “you’ve shown your loyalty, you’ve gotten along with everyone & followed through with orders… & you’re pretty good with a gun & bow” he listed off a few reasons, seeing you grow a shy smile on your face.

it felt nice to know he approved you.

“the things you do—like staying up to do something that’ll help others tomorrow—is the kind of thing we need more of… sets a good example, shows you’re worth it” his voice grew more sincere as he spoke.

this was the first time you both have had a one-on-one conversation. it was nice.

“i was unsure about you…” he noted, your eyes flashing with worry for a moment.

“—but you’ve proven me wrong so far… keep doing that” giving you an encouraging boost of morale, he rose from his seat once he noticed judith getting sleepy, heading towards the metal door to leave you to it.

“thank you rick,” you called out softly, making him pause his movements. “really, thank you”

“you’re welcome… goodnight” he said looking back at you.

the gaze you both held ignited a small warm feeling. you both felt it, but ignored it.

“goodnight” you waved him off, sighing contently before getting back to your ration notes.

2. post prison

after the prison fell, you wound up alone & fearful in the woods. with the few items you had in your emergency bag, you were able to survive for a few days by sleeping in the high trees, tying your body to large branches so you wouldn’t fall.

but you were tired, going hungry, & your injuries were going to get worse if you didn’t find more medical supplies soon.

it was hard for you to get proper sleep when the friendships you’ve made with rick & the group keep you up at night. did they make it out? are any of them hurt? are they alone too?

the questions were endless.

but instead of wallowing, you knew you had to keep going. by using the tracking tricks daryl had taught you a few times when going on runs, you were hopefully making progress in tracking a decently fresh pair of boots that led to an abandoned neighborhood. you weren’t able to tell if they belonged to anyone you knew, but your gut was telling you to follow them.

the neighborhood was silent, alike many other ghost towns you’ve came across since the world fell apart, but it gave you a hopeful feeling as you pushed yourself to search the houses for anything, or anyone. old books, tvs, clothes, dead bodies, children’s toys—all covered by layers of dust, dried blood, flies & debris.

it took you a few houses to find a decently stacked medical kit, which you used to clean a few of your shallow cuts on your arms & cheek from getting bark burn. you also found a few canned goods which gave you some hope, but there was no sign that anyone from the prison had even been in the area yet.

when you reached the middle area of houses along the street, you heard a muffled sound of something falling, intriguing you to look further. slowly making your way up a set of porch steps, knife out & ready to use. you quietly scanned the front windows to see if anything was near the front of the house.

you expected walkers. you didn’t expect rick & carl.

as soon as you saw them, you felt immediate relief wash over you, overwhelming you to the point where you had tears welling in your eyes. so you knocked on the door & waited.

rustling. silence. mumbling. creaking.

the door opened cautiously, & behind it you saw a beaten up rick grimes looking at you with a smile. before either of you could say anything, carl was already rushing into your arms & holding you in a tight embrace, causing you to laugh as a few tears rolled down your cheeks.

“hi—“

“—how did you find us?!” carl asked into your shoulder.

“i tracked. gut feeling” you sniffled as you held him tighter, your eyes melting into rick’s as his smile grew.

the way he looked at you spoke more than words could.

his blue eyes flashed “i missed you”

& yours flashed back “i missed you too”

after carl let you go & pulled you inside, locking the door, you & rick stood in front of each other for a moment, soft smiles present on your faces.

you were the first to initiate the hug.

“i’m glad you’re okay” you mumbled into his torn shirt, holding him tighter when you felt rick’s arms go around your shoulders.

“right back at ya” he whispered to you, leaning his head on-top of yours until you pulled away, getting a good look at him.

rick was beaten to a pulp with dirt & dried blood on his clothes & skin, along with a partial black eye near his swollen cheek.

“you look—“

“rough” carl says, causing you to turn to him & laugh.

turning back to rick, you pointed to your worn out backpack. “got some stuff to fix that” you smiled, following carl into the kitchen where you told him to sit so you could check him for injuries.

rick followed behind shortly, ghosting in the doorway as he looked at you bearing your own set of injuries, rushing your medical kit items out while carl updated you on what happened since the fall.

the way you treated carl with such care made rick feel that small warm feeling again. his gut was trying to telling him something. but he hasn’t pieced it together yet. & somehow, neither have you.

3. pre-terminus

“if you fall, i get the last kit-kat!”

“oh you’re so on!”

the train tracks to terminus, a so-called safe haven, were longer than anticipated. the journey was bound to take a couple days. but so far with you, rick & carl, it’s been pleasant.

you tried to keep carl entertained by balancing on the train tracks as rick stayed a head of you both, laughing at the childish energy emitting from your game.

“what’re you guys doing?” rick asked with a smile on his face, walking backwards now as he looked between you & carl with looks of concentration on your faces.

“winning” you replied, hearing carl scoff beside you as a rebuttal.

rick shook his head at both of you, turning around to keep his eyes out for any threats until he heard someone’s feet clash against the gravel.

“oh shit—“

“haha i win!”

turning his heard around again, rick saw you on the gravel with a playful pout on your face while carl was lifting his arms up in victory.

“fair is fair” you said while handing carl the kit-kat bar, smiling softly when you saw how happy he was to have it.

“we can share—“

“carl, you don’t have to—“

“fair is fair! take your half y/n”

taking a half of the kit-kat bar, you thanked the boy & looked towards rick, seeing him motion you to come forward.

once you were beside him, he called carl to come in front so he could keep an eye on him, then he went back to looking at you.

“thank you” rick said, nodding his head towards carl.

“you don’t have to thank me” you nudged his elbow with yours.

as rick looked ahead at his son still balancing on the train tracks, he sighed.

you & carl being friends is not a strange concept—the whole group, including rick, knew the small friendship. you got him comic books with michonne, & he made you origami figures in return. you looked out for him, & he looked out for you.

“you being here… i think it’s helping him cope with… ” you knew who was referring to… it was judith.

“rick,” placing a hand on his shoulder, you squeezed the material of his jacket. “i-i—“

“it’s okay,” he assured, tight lipped smile on his face as he relished your presence.

“i don’t think you should give up on her yet” you told him slowly, seeing him furrow his brows.

“why?” he asked quietly, trying to find any hope within himself to believe that his daughter is still out there, safe from harm.

“gut feeling” you said simply, seeing rick look he wasn’t sure if he should believe you.

“you always go with your gut?” he asked again, looking at you with an unreadable look on his face.

nodding your head, you told him yes. “its what made me stay at the prison… made me find you & carl, so yeah—i go with my gut”

“i might do the same then”

his words made you smile as you gave his shoulder one last squeeze, dropping your hand back into your coat pocket.

the rest of the walk was quiet, besides carl’s random questions you encouraged him to ask so he’d keep himself busy. rick often chimed in too, the three of you walking side by side until the forest welcomed you again.

the warm feeling came back again. it was growing stronger than before. but still, neither of you knew what it meant.

4. post-terminus

terminus was a huge lie. a total shit show. & it left the group feeling worse than the fall of the prison. you had found a small church to crash at, courtesy of gabriel, a priest that none of you could seem to trust much, but you needed shelter.

the group, along with a few new members named abraham, eugene & rosita, all gathered around the alter area under a few candles & ate from some of gabriel’s rations, everyone talking & catching up. it was nice to be reunited with the group of people you’ve come to love, even though not all of them survived.

you sat next to maggie, directly in front of rick, & watched him play with judith as he relished his reunion with his daughter. it made your heart swell with happiness to know your gut feeling was right, that judith was safe with tyrese & carol after all.

she’s been making grabby hands towards you & maggie for a while now, causing rick to laugh before nudging your foot with his.

“ya wanna hold her?” he asked, seeing you nod your head carefully as you scooted closer to rick, hands shaking slightly due to nerves because you’ve never held her before.

everyone continued their conversations, but maggie & glenn stared at you two with knowing looks on their faces because they saw something you & rick haven’t noticed yet.

once you were seated beside rick, your back against the wood of the altar, he slowly passed judith over to you & she immediately grabbed your hair, gently pulling on the strands as you held her in your lap. you talked to her in a hushed voice, smiling as you heard her giggle & point towards rick a few times.

“she likes ya” rick drawled, both of you smiling brightly as judith babbled on.

“y/n,” you looked to rick as he talked, your eyes shining in the amber coloured candle light—it made him feel the warm feeling again.

“yeah?” you questioned when he went silent again, wondering what questions were swirling around in his head.

his brows furrowed again, not in a confused way, but in a concerned one. “you okay?”

his voice was quiet, making it clear he wanted to have a somewhat private moment with you. you weren’t too sure what to say—you haven’t been fine since the world fell apart, hell—no has been. but since you’ve become a member of his group & built friendships with them, you felt good.

“it’s like a double sided coin,” you tried to explain, finding it hard to say your feelings with words.

“i hurt, i mourn, i’m exhausted… i feel far from okay in so many aspects i guess. but, i know i really am okay because the group’s here, you’re here…” the little admission made you let out a carefree smile, one which rick quickly returned & that warm feeling came back again like a magnet, pushing you too closer.

“as long as everyone is okay, then so am i”

your answer ignited a feeling in rick he hasn’t felt in a long time. it almost felt like lo—

“thank you for saving me earlier. that terminus guy was so close to—”

“hey,” he nudged you. “i got you, no need to thank me” rick assured, his tone sounding far from platonic but you brushed past it.

“right back at you” your chest started to getheavy the more you looked at him, making you feel nervous & warm.

comfortable silence took over the two of you until carl took judith from your lap, bringing you back into the groups’ conversations. you were surrounded by friends, but one of the them seemed to have the potential of being more than that.

5. early alexandria

alexandria was too good to be true. children could play outside with no hassle, the homes were more than luxurious, & the place wasn’t crawling with walkers in the walls. there was running water, soap, makeup, clothes, lots of food, & mattresses that weren’t filled with holes or mold.

it was paradise. but it felt almost like a trick.

after the lengthy interview process with deanna & all the orders on weapons, plus townspeople introductions, everyone was finding their own groove on how to adjust.

the first night felt like a shock to the system for everyone, especially due all the time the group spent on the road, having access to luxuries felt too weird. as the group eventually fell asleep, you stayed awake, staring at the ceiling until you couldn’t bear it.

getting up from your sleeping bag & carefully tiptoeing upstairs, you decided to explore the house for a while to escape your troubles. you went through the bedrooms, testing the lights, poking the mattresses & you eventually sat down on one to really test if it was real.

& it was.

the cushiony feel of the mattress felt like heaven against your body, making you lay down fully to really enjoy it. just as you sighed with comfort, you heard the door creak open, causing you to spring up & almost fall off the bed.

“it’s just me” rick said slowly, closing the door when you breathed out of relief.

“sorry, you scared me for a sec” with your hand clutching your heart, you brushed your messy hair behind your ears, like you always do, & patted the spot next to for rick to sit.

“what’re you doing up here?” he asked once he sat on the mattress, leaning his right arm back so he could turn his body towards you.

shrugging your shoulders, you played with the hem on the clean shirt deanna gifted you, “felt like exploring the place a bit”

giving you a tired smile, rick nodded his head, “not because you can’t sleep?”

“haha, no… definitely not” you replied sarcastically, hearing rick chuckle at your words.

rick thought you looked beautiful in this moment, seeing you in a new light. your skin was free from any debris & dirt, your hair was freshly washed & smelt like vanilla, you wore clothes that didn’t have any rips or thousands of patches—you looked more beautiful than he thought you could.

you thought rick looked nice all cleaned up, freshly shaven skin with no stubble in sight, his hair clean & not sticking down onto his forehead, plus his hands were finally dirt & blood free for once. rick looked nice, especially because you’ve never seen him like this before.

“i don’t know how long it’ll take for me to get used to you not having a beard” you said to break the silence, inviting soft laughs to break through you both as rick rubbed over his face again.

“god—i don’t even know if i’m used to it” he groaned with a smile, making your stomach flip in circles.

before you knew it, the space between you both was slowly dissipating; you didn’t realize your knee was touching his.

“you look nice though,” you complimented, eyes focused on the details of his face in the dark. “never seen you like this before… very handsome” rick hummed at your words, eyes raking over your face again before making eye contact.

“you look nice too… real pretty…” he trailed on. rick wasn’t sure what else to say to hide the fact he was at his breaking point. the magnet was pulling him closer, & he couldn’t turn away from it anymore.

you were hoping the lack of bright light helped to mask the way your cheeks were burning hot.

“do you think we can make this place work?” rick asked suddenly, switching the topic to something serious.

nodding your head almost immediately, your hand went onto of his. “i think so. you’ve led us through hell & back—“

shaking his head to make you pause, rick lifted his hand from yours only to grasp it, giving it a small squeeze. “no, not me—us… we… you & me— do you think we can make this place work… together?”

the reframing of his question made you wonder if your heart skipped a few beats.

you stared at him, eyes flashing “do you mean it?”

his flashed back with ease “i do”

looking towards your hand in his, your knee against his knee, the proximity between you two—

“yeah,” you finally answered. “i know we can make this work”

smiling until your ears hurt, you felt rick gave your hand another squeeze as your eyes glossed over, eyes not leaving his blue ones.

same old rick. same old feeling. that’s what it meant all this time.

“gut feeling?” he whispered. this felt right.

“yeah, gut feeling” you whispered back.

he couldn’t handle it any longer, neither could you. so he pulled you closer with his hand on your cheek & kissed you, slow & loving with no rush of what the next day will bring. there is so much pain in the world, but not in this room—not with him in this very moment as everything finally set into place.

rick taught you that home isn’t necessarily a place, it can be a person. & luckily for you both, home is wherever you both are, as long as it’s together.

#andrew lincoln fluff #andrew lincoln #rick grimes twd #rick grimes imagine #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes fanfic #andrew lincoln imagine #the walking dead #twd fanfiction #celebrities #rick grimes x y/n #rick grimes oneshot #rick grimes fluff #rick grimes

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sweetbunpura · 1 month ago

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No. 1: RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK (Word count: 857)

Search Party | Panic Attack | "If only we could hold on.” (Icysami x Renegaderr, Strangers.)

“What do you mean you can’t find her?”

Crowley sweats as he’s met with the various glares of the dorm leaders. He had called to give them all important information, which turned out to be the fact that Yuu was missing.

“Y-you see.” Crowley clears his throat. “After a talk with our dear prefect, she left my office and disappeared. I have no idea what could’ve caused it.”

Leona’s eyes take in the office, Crowley hadn’t had much of a chance to clean up given that there were things thrown all over his office in what looked to the beastman to be in a fit of anger. A chair was missing and judging by the splintered wood and hole in the wall, Leona could piece together what happened.

“It’s unlike Yuu to do something as dangerous as this.” Riddle spoke. “What did you tell her, Headmage?”

“I was just handing her the weekly allowance I allotted her with.” The fae speaks as he nervously clicks his metal finger accessories together. “It was-”

“Listen.” Leona interrupted him as all of their attention turned to him. “Stop dancing around the subject and tell these guys what you’ve been doing to Herbivore.”

“W-Why, Mr. Kingscholar, I have no idea-”

He let out a low growl. “I ain’t got time for you to be pussyfooting around the issue of starving her right now.” Leona turned on his heel and marched out of the room just as it exploded to demands to tell them the truth.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, his ears were pinned to his head and his tail lashed angrily behind him. Leona already knew for a fact that Yuu wouldn’t have stayed anywhere in NRC if she ran... but he had a clue as to where she might be going. Wordlessly, he started on the path towards the front gate, where he opened it and departed from the school grounds. The woods surrounding the base of the school were massive, birds and other animals fled upon seeing a very angry lion making tracks through everything.

“She wouldn’t be in the woods, even if she does love nature...” Leona grumbled as he flicked a piece of foliage off his tail. “Too many places to hide and she ain’t one to turn tail.” He paused as he heard the sound of a river flowing nearby. “By the water maybe...”

Leona followed the river to where it led out of the dense thicket and sloped down to a medium sized lake nearby. He stood at the top of the slope, his eyes scanning the ground until they locked onto someone sitting at the edge of the water. Quietly, he approached them and lowered himself to sit down next to them.

“This is fucking bullshit.” Yuu speaks as she glares at the water. “He cuts the money every time someone new joins Ramshackle. He did it with Rollo and then he did it again with Fellow and Gidel.”

“What excuse did he give?”

“He said they had money to pay and thus I didn’t need a full check anymore.” Yuu’s hands dig into the grass and she tears out clumps of them. “Rokudenashi Tori.”

Leona glanced over at her as she started muttering in her native language, his eyes shifted to her bloody knuckles that had splinters in them. The beastman gently took her hand and started to pry the slivers out.

“Don’t do this to your hands.”

She viscously tugged her hand back. “Fuck off.”

“Can’t do that.” He pulled her hand back and continued. “You’re too proud of what you can do and you’re letting someone tell you what you can’t.”

“Leona, I don’t have any money to feed Grim, or Rollo, or Fellow and Gidel.” Her voice is soft. “Anytime I ask him for anything, he skirts around the subject. And then I’m supposed to help everyone out with their problems, I don’t have time to myself. I can’t say no, or he holds Ramshackle over me, reminding me of the fact that he so “graciously” let me stay.”

Yuu starts sobbing. “I’m so tired, I want to go home, I don’t want to be his worker ant anymore. I want to rest for once and not worry if part of Ramshackle is going to break while I sleep. That I won’t have to be called on to fix another one of Grim or Ace’s mistakes. I’m tired of spending a majority of my money on a bottomless pit of cat who only way of thanking me is getting into more fucking trouble!”

She suddenly stands up. “Overblot after overblot, scar after scar. When is it going to be e-fucking-nough? Is this going to be the rest of my life here at this shitty excuse of a school?! Cause if this is what I was handed, then take it the fuck back!”

Leona gets up and silently watches her, Yuu digs her hands into her hair and sobs out. His heart tightens as he wraps her in a tight hug, they both fall to their knees as Yuu clutches onto Leona’s vest and sobs into his shoulder.

#Whumptober 2024 #no.1 #twisted wonderland #Yuu homura #leona kingscholar

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clarisse0o · 4 months ago

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Camp Wiegman - Part 3

Lucy Bronze x Ona Batlle

Alternate Universe : Military School

Words : 6k

Masterlist

———————————————————————

Wednesday, October 7; 6:00 AM - Ona and Alexia's Room.

Once again, that damn alarm clock that sounds like a firehouse siren. It never stops. I wonder how I missed it yesterday! I must have been really tired not to hear it. I press my pillow against my ears, which can't take this shrill, repetitive noise anymore. I only release the pressure once it stops. I need to make the effort to get up today if I want to avoid Bronze' wrath a second time. She exhausted me so much yesterday that I slept straight through the imposed curfew. It's been a long time since I had a full night's sleep. I grimace, letting out a groan as I sit up. Damn it!

"Sore muscles?" Alexia mocks, already up.

"More than a little, damn it."

"You'll get used to it, don't worry!"

"I've been hearing that since I got here."

"Because it's true. Hurry up if you don't want even more sore muscles. We only have fifteen minutes to get ready before inspection," she tells me.

"Fifteen minutes?!" I repeat. "Are you kidding me?"

"If only," she laughs.

I think I've never gotten up so fast, realizing my lateness as I see Alexia already freshly dressed and made up. I'm a dead girl if I'm not ready on time. Bronze threatened to make me endure worse than yesterday if that happened, and I'm not sure I can survive it. I rush to the bathroom with the right uniform. Turns out I got sent back from my first class for wearing the "sports uniform." Alexia had warned me, but exhaustion had taken over. As a result, I had to come back to my room to return to class in the proper attire. An awful outfit, by the way. It's composed of my combat boots, black pants, a khaki t-shirt, and my infamous military jacket. I put it all on before doing my makeup and fixing my hair. I now have two little minutes left to make my bed. I almost run to it to finish before her arrival. Alexia is already ready at the foot of her bed while I wrestle with my duvet. I panic, realizing the mess I'm in. I get all mixed up and can't remember the right steps.

"How do you manage to be so quick? Damn it! I can't make this damn bed again!"

I throw the duvet on the floor in a fit of anger. My bed looked like a mess anyway, so showing her my work or this pile is the same.

"Is there a problem, Batlle?"

I jump at the sound of her voice. That's it, I'm screwed. I turn around as slowly as possible to see her behind me. I feel intimidated by her stance, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. Alexia is holding back laughter behind her. I admit if it didn't concern me, I'd find this situation somewhat amusing. But since it does concern me, it's immediately less funny.

"Look at me when I talk to you!"

My eyes automatically return to her. Her sharp tone leaves no choice but to listen. She then turns to Alexia, who immediately stops giggling.

"No problem, Bronze," I reply, emphasizing her name. "Been fishing for information, Batlle?" "So it seems... Isn't Engen supposed to inspect the rooms in the morning?"

I cast my eyes on my informant, none other than Alexia. She doesn't dare move since Bronze looked at her. She's as straight as a rod with her hands clasped behind her back. It's like we're facing our section leader in the army... Almost the case.

"Stop looking at her, you're talking to me!" "Then answer me." "I'm personally in charge of this room while you adapt." "How lucky," I said sarcastically. "You said it," she smiles. "You can go, Putellas."

Alexia thanks her in a barely audible voice and flees the room, abandoning me with the tyrant. Thanks for the support! I fix my gaze on Bronze once the door closes at her request. As much as I want to stand up to her... It's a different story when she's in front of me. She seems cold and confident. It's no wonder everyone is afraid of her. However, I still plan to devise an attack plan against her. I just need to wait for the right moment and regain my strength.

"Well, now that your distraction is outside, will you answer me seriously?" "Why is she allowed to leave and not me?" "Don't dodge my question. You know perfectly well why you're staying here." "I don't want to miss breakfast again!"

"I gave you a pain au chocolat without being obliged, as far as I know. Now, tell me what your problem is. We'll see if you have time to get there."

She annoys me with her insistence on having things her way. She didn't earn her nickname for nothing! I'm no longer used to taking orders. I wait to see if she gives up without an answer, but she remains very patient. I comply, stepping aside to show her the disastrous state of my bed.

"I tried to remake it, but I can't do it anymore," I admitted. "You did it in front of me yesterday."

I relax when I realize she's not angry. She's just trying to understand what's going on. Maybe I'll avoid punishment if I stay honest.

"So, will you explain?"

"I just told you," I growled. "I'm not used to making my bed like this! You can't expect me to get it right overnight! Plus, I panicked because of your damn pressure!"

I realize what I just let slip when I see the little smile forming on her face. Damn it! I didn't want her to know something like that. She now knows she already has an influence over me.

"Alright, let's make a deal."

"I fear the worst," I mumbled.

"Hey, I'm doing this for you, just to be clear."

"Yeah, yeah..." I said unconvincingly.

"I'm willing to show you how to make your bed again so you know how to do it in the future, and you can have your breakfast. In return, we'll meet tonight after your classes."

"For what reason?"

"Do you really think you'll get away with nothing? I warned you that you'd be punished if you weren't ready on time today."

"I'm not gaining much in your proposal!" "You gain my help and your breakfast. That's a lot from me."

In the end, I won't escape this punishment... I weigh the pros and cons, even though the answer should be obvious since, in any case, she won't let me leave without making my bed and receiving my punishment.

"Alright, fine. I'll go with your proposal." "Good. I'll show you this time. Watch carefully and then do it yourself, okay?" "Okay..." "Come closer and observe carefully."

I move forward as she shakes out my duvet, letting it fall onto my bed. Like yesterday, she starts at the corners at the foot of the bed. She takes her time to show me each fold again, making sure I'm following. Once that's done, she smooths the duvet upwards before tucking it neatly under the pillow. She then tucks the excess sides under the mattress, which doesn’t seem to weigh much. I observe the flawless result. She must be well-trained to do it so quickly and perfectly.

"Got it?" "I think so..."

"No, you need to be sure. If you tell me you got it and tomorrow you’re not ready on time, I won’t want to hear any excuses when I punish you."

"You're such a pain," I mutter. "Excuse me?!" "Can I try again before giving you my answer?" "If you want."

I move to undo the bed, but her arm stops me.

"Don’t ever say something like that again. The fact that you even dare to address me informally is too much. Don’t push it too far, or you’ll regret it bitterly. Are we clear?"

"Yeah..." "Yes," she corrects me. "Repeat." "Yes," I growl. "Good," she says, lowering her arm. "Now try again."

I undo the bed in one go, then start from where she began. I try to replicate what she just showed me, starting with one corner, then the other. It's the hardest part. Once done, I smooth it upwards and tuck it under the pillow. I was about to tuck one side, but her voice stops me.

"Pull the duvet more, there are still wrinkles."

"Like this?" I ask, following her instructions.

"A bit more. Don’t hold back. The duvet is too caught at the foot of the bed to come out."

I follow her advice and pull harder. I let go of the duvet once it’s nicely stretched, without any wrinkles.

"Good, now tuck the sides under the mattress."

I do as instructed, starting with my side, then the other. I smile at the result, better than yesterday. I glance at my supervisor on the other side.

"It’s not so hard, is it?"

"No..."

"Do you feel confident you can do it, or do you need another try?"

"I think I'm good."

"Sure? I don’t want to hear any complaints if you’re late because of this tomorrow."

"Yes, I’m sure. I’ll face the consequences."

"Alright, you can go then. We’ll meet after your classes. What time do you finish?"

"Four o'clock, I think."

"Where’s your schedule?"

I point to my desk where it’s pinned to the wall. I don’t know my hours yet, so I keep it in plain sight. She approaches to look at it closely.

"Four o'clock, that's right. See you later." "See you later, Commander."

I give her my best sarcastic smile before leaving my room. I hate the idea of another punishment tonight. It’s not like my lateness was my fault. I just couldn’t make that damn bed! I dread what she has in store for me. I hope it’s not more laps around the field. Apparently, that’s her specialty according to Leah. Well, at least I get my breakfast. I arrive at the buffet, greeting the staff as I serve myself. I’m the last one, but I'm glad to find my precious hot chocolate and morning pastry. I turn towards the room once done. I smile, spotting my roommate and her friends at their table. I quickly join them.

"Oooh, here’s the survivor!" Alba mocks as I arrive.

"Hey," I say, sitting down.

"You've already made a splash since yesterday!" Pina informs me.

"Everyone’s talking about you!" Patri adds. "You’re building quite a reputation!"

"Really? Why?" I ask before taking a bite of my pastry.

"They say you have the guts to stand up to Bronze," Lotte says. "Is it true you address her informally?"

"Maybe," I answer vaguely. "I don’t see what’s so special about it." "We see it very clearly," Alexia mocks. "Did you get away with nothing this morning?" "I have to meet her after my classes." "That smells like punishment!" comments Alba. "It is. She told me." "And you’re not bothered?" "Why would I be? I plan to prepare something much worse for her." "You've got balls," Alexia comments.

I know they think I’m crazy, but I’m not changing my mind. I finish my meal, continuing to chat since we have time. Then we head slowly towards the classroom buildings, with little motivation on my part. I met my first teachers yesterday. They’re all old fogies who aren’t even fifty yet. I’m curious about today's teachers since I was bored to death yesterday. I was on the verge of falling asleep, but Alexia kept me awake by mentioning the words "expulsion" and "Bronze." It seems that behavior like that leads to expulsions, like being late. I wasn’t going to tempt fate after spending my morning with Bronze. Knowing her a bit better, I doubt she’d let something like that slide. She doesn’t seem like someone who appreciates such behavior. Instead, I tried to follow the lesson as best I could. It was difficult, not having been in a classroom for two years. Today, it’s the same. I take my place next to Alexia with a long sigh. I have a feeling today will be as long as yesterday given the new teacher in front of me.

Wednesday, October 7; 4:10 PM - Ona and Alexia's Room.

I was wrong this morning. My day ended up going faster than expected. Maybe because I haven’t seen my supervisor since this morning. It put me in a good mood. At least, as much as I can be here. Adjusting is difficult. There's not much difference from a military camp. It’s likely there’s more

freedom there. I’m happy Alexia is here to brighten my days. She reminds me of my best friend from Barcelona. She’s just as energetic. I'm lucky to have her in my class, even if she’s too serious for my taste. I managed to make her laugh several times today. We got remarks, but nothing alarming enough to stop us. I'm still relieved it’s over. I’m supposed to meet Bronze, but I didn’t get any instructions on where to meet. So I followed Alexia to our room where she wants to finish her homework before joining her friends in the common room. I plan to do the same if Bronze doesn’t show up. She’ll have to find me if she wants to see me. I’m not chasing after her! I have a tiny hope she’s forgotten, but I doubt it. In the meantime, I chat with Ale about our day on the way back. She tells me a story about Patri and Claudia during their chemistry class last year. Apparently, they did an experiment that almost set the school on fire, leading to a summons and a big punishment. I can’t stop laughing with Alexia, who has a knack for making stories funny. She did the same at lunch, and it’s rare for me to laugh so sincerely over so little. My laughter stops abruptly when we open our room door. Damn... My last hopes evaporate seeing Bronze waiting for me, holding my sports uniform.

"It’s about time. Go change," she orders.

I find myself holding my uniform without even having entered my room. Her determination scares me for what’s next. Alexia passes by her, greeting her and making herself small. She confessed to me that she’s afraid of her for some reason and respects her greatly. I understand, but that doesn’t mean I’ll react the same way.

"Please... Not laps again, please! I did everything you asked! It’s not my fault I couldn’t do it." "Already begging, Ona? I thought you were braver than that."

I narrow my eyes at her jab. Not only is she provoking me, but she’s also implying I’m already giving in. I’d make her eat her smug smile if I could! So she’d understand it’s not the case.

"No, I just have a lot of sore muscles because of you," I retort.

- That mean that your body needed it. Now go change.

- Damn it, you’re annoying, I grumbled. Promise me you won’t make me do any sports first.

- Change your tone with me. I haven’t planned any sports, but I might add some to my list if you keep being cheeky. Maybe you’ll understand what it’s like when I really annoy you.

- Fine, I was just joking, I rolled my eyes.

- Do I need to drag you by force to make you listen? she threatened me. I sighed as I walked into the bathroom. I envied Alexia, who was sitting on her bed doing her homework. Her encouraging smile was the last thing I saw before closing the door without locking it, as per Bronze’s orders. I tried to hurry, but the muscle soreness made things difficult, especially with my pants. I was curious to find out what I was going to do if I wasn’t running. When I opened the door again, Bronze was waiting with her arms crossed and her foot tapping nervously on the floor.

- Let’s go. Bronze went ahead while I said goodbye to Alexia, who wished me good luck. I followed her through the corridors, putting my hands in my pockets to annoy her a bit.

- So, Bronze, what’s the plan for today? I asked when I caught up with her.

- Stop being cheeky, I won’t repeat myself. You weren’t so smart-mouthed yesterday, on the field.

- Me? Cheeky? I laughed. Nonsense!

- Start by taking your hands out of your pockets.

- That’s nothing bad!

- Batlle ! she snapped. When I tell you something, you obey. I took them out, afraid she would follow through on her previous threats. In other circumstances, I wouldn’t have done it, but now I wasn’t sure I could handle another sports session with my aching thighs. At least I had managed to annoy her as I wanted. We entered the gym, making me fear the worst... I hoped she kept her word and that I wouldn’t do any sports. I forced myself to keep up with her quick pace. It was my first time here. Wiegman hadn’t given me a tour, and I hadn’t had any sports yet. She walked down several corridors of the new building before opening one of the many doors in a hallway. She stepped aside to let me enter first. I walked in cautiously, too disturbed by the room. It was a locker room, so what? My supervisor pushed me in the back to make me go faster. It was a new room with benches and hooks lining the right wall. I stopped in the middle, where there was an open frame facing the benches. Damn... I understood our presence here when I saw the state of the communal showers. They were corroded by lime due to extensive use. Bronze had placed cleaning supplies on the floor. I had no more doubts about my punishment tonight.

- Is this a joke? I blurted out.

- No sports. Isn’t that what you wanted?

- Maybe, but not this! I’m not a fucking maid !

- Too bad, you’ll have to improvise then.

- Stop messing with me! Is there really nothing else?

- No, there isn’t. You’re not in a position to negotiate with me, so accept your punishment.

- Because I will be someday?

- Start by accepting your punishments and changing your behavior, then we’ll talk about it. She had a cold-bloodedness that impressed me. I gave up, realizing that I was indeed not the one in control of the situation right now.

- Okay, I resigned. Will you leave me alone?

- No. I’ll be supervising you to ensure you do your work, but first, we’ll have a talk.

- About what? I asked, intrigued.

- Yesterday, you told me you didn’t know the rules, so I’ll explain the most important ones to make it clear. That way, you’ll be warned and won’t have any excuses.

- Oh, yeah. At least I’ll know why I’m being punished.

- Good, take a seat.

I sat on the bench she pointed to and noticed a whiteboard with bullet points on it that I hadn’t seen before. The writing, which I guessed was hers, was very neat. I was ready to pay attention to the rules. I planned to follow them while scheming my revenge and getting out of this place. The fewer rules I broke, the less she’d be on my back. It would take some effort to comply, based on what I could already see on the board.

- First, wake-up is at six o’clock, she began, pointing to the first bullet point. You should know that by now.

- Hard to miss the alarm anyway.

- Inspection is fifteen minutes later, she continued, ignoring my remark. You must be ready by then, in uniform, and with your bed made perfectly.

- Is it a disaster if I’m not wearing makeup when you come?

- No. You’ll have access to your room after your meal. The purpose of the inspection is to see if you’re in uniform and if your room is tidy.

- Okay, I sighed.

- A problem?

- No... I was just wondering why wake-up is so early.

- Simply to prevent you from being too tired in class.

- No, actually! I countered. By getting up so early, we’re definitely more tired. She shook her head. It was the first time I appreciated her smile and our conversation. It wasn’t an order or a dispute for once. I almost forgot her cold and unbearable personality.

- You don’t understand anything.

- No, indeed, I frowned.

- Let’s move on to the third rule before the explanations, shall we? I nodded, curious to hear her arguments. For me, six o’clock was not a time to get up. It was way too early, especially after the year I just lived. I had my own schedule.

- So, curfew is at ten o’clock, but Alexia must have already told you that.

- Yeah.

- An instructor can enter the room at any time from that hour to check that you’re asleep.

- And what if we can’t sleep that early? That was my case the first night.

- Is that why you didn’t get up the first day?

- Yeah, I fell asleep around one in the morning.

- I see. You’ll soon get into the rhythm, don’t worry. What were your usual sleep hours before coming here?

- Well... I thought. I’d say four o’clock until noon most of the time. She raised an eyebrow at my honesty. She probably didn’t expect that. Understandable. She must have thought I was in school, but that wasn’t the case. I did nothing with my days, so I had my own schedule.

- You didn’t have classes?

- No. I stopped studying after high school.

- How come you’re in the final year then?

- No idea, I shrugged. I’m where they told me to go.

- Hmm, she replied skeptically. Let’s get back to the main subject. Wiegman kept her word about the file. She didn’t seem to know the reasons for my presence, given how intrigued she was. However, she didn’t ask any questions. I wouldn’t have answered anyway. This school isn’t going to change me. If my mother thinks so, she’s an idiot.

- As for my explanation, the curfew ensures eight hours of sleep until six o’clock and prevents you from staying up at impossible hours at night.

- What difference does it make? We could just wake up later in the morning, and it would be the same.

- No, it’s not the same. By taking away an hour at night, we restrict your use of electronic devices. You’re more likely to use them at night than in the morning. Besides, you have more time to eat and be together instead of communicating with the outside world.

- Everything we do at night, we can do in the morning too, I retorted.

- I assure you, you can’t. Even if that’s the case, it allows you to be fully awake for your classes. You have no excuse for being tired. Explained this way, the schedule seemed great, but I remained skeptical. It’s true that I was more awake in class this morning compared to my high school memories. The problem is, it’s useless if I have teachers who put me to sleep right after. I kept this response to myself, not wanting to get scolded for saying such a thing.

- Still, six o’clock is way too early.

- You’ll get used to it. You’ll see, in a week, your previous schedule will be a thing of the past, and you’ll be back on track. Can I continue now?

- Hmm.

- Okay, then, no electronic devices outside the rooms, whether it’s a phone, Mac, or any other device, she listed. You should already know this since I haven’t had to reprimand you in two days. Am I wrong?

- I know, yes. Why is it forbidden?

She raised an eyebrow at my question. My participation must have surprised her, or maybe it was just my questions. We were only at the fourth point, and I hadn’t remained silent on any of them. I’m naturally curious. I like to know the why and how.

- Each student is here for specific reasons... Excessive drug use, family problems, or simply

behavioral issues, for example. -

I felt concerned about all the points she just mentioned. It was impressive. Had she already figured me out? It’s very likely, but I don’t see how.

- The problems are the same for all students?

- Mostly what I just mentioned. Why?

- No reason... So, why no devices?

- The purpose of being here is to solve your problems while continuing your studies. Can you understand that?

- Hmm.

- With this rule, we simply forbid all means of communication during the day. The goal is for you to focus on yourself and only yourself, without external pressure. This rule was more understandable than the previous one. I could have responded that I didn’t want help, but I refrained. We would enter a debate that I would surely lose. I simply nodded.

- If I see you with something like that, I won’t hesitate to confiscate it for an indefinite period. Agreed?

- Yeah... So, we’re allowed to use them in the room?

- Yes, of course. This will be a rule to follow. I’m not risking losing my phone. It would mean cutting off communication with Joan and my best friend. "Next rule," she continues. "Show respect to educators," she reads from the board. "By educators, I mean the teachers, instructors, and the rest of the staff. Just because I'm in charge of you doesn’t mean you should disrespect my colleagues." I nod, not knowing what else to say. I'm not going to ask for the reasons behind this rule. "And no lateness will be tolerated. Be on time in the morning, when I give you an appointment, or even in class. Teachers have been instructed not to let you in if you're late. You’ll be sent straight to me."

"And I imagine I’ll have a hard time?"

"You'll find out soon enough if it happens. Also, I want you to behave in class. Don’t be cheeky, don’t fall asleep, and avoid excessive chatting. Try to show interest and participate."

"That’s going to be hard..."

"I'm serious, Ona. I'll be aware of your behavior in class and I’ll step in if it gets out of hand. I'm going to make sure you get through this year."

"Good luck with that."

"At least avoid getting expelled. You’d seriously piss me off if that happens and that won't be good for you."

"OK." She looks at the board one last time, making sure she's covered all the points.

"Well, I’ve said what I needed to say. Outside of class, you have free rein. The only exception is when I ask you to be with me. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, I guess. Wake-up, check-in, curfew, no lateness or disrespect," I summarize. "Perfect. Now, I believe you have a task waiting for you."

She points her thumb at the communal showers. I sigh heavily, having forgotten about that detail amidst everything else.

"Does every sanction mean a punishment?" I ask.

"Exactly. This morning you were late and you talked back to me," she states. "You can try anything behind my back, nothing will escape me."

Leah has taught me a lot about her, including this detail, which doesn’t surprise me. I pick up the sponge lying on the floor with tongs. In the end, I'd rather have yesterday’s punishment. This one is pure humiliation. Especially since Bronze sits on the bench, right in front of the showers to have a perfect view.

"She’s not going to eat you," she comments. "Come on, start, I don’t plan on staying here all night." "You really have no pity." "I’m not here to have pity, Ona."

She takes a book from the bench, which she had probably prepared, and starts reading. I pick up the gloves from the floor since I’m not even allowed to use a mop for cleaning. I put them on and dip the sponge in the soapy water. I start with the stalls, where the lime scale is clearly visible on the matte black glass. I try as best as I can to scrub the top of the first stall with my small stature. I have to jump to reach it. I grumble mentally to avoid giving my supervisor the satisfaction of hearing me complain aloud. I manage to finish two stalls in half an hour. It’s far from perfect, but I want to finish the other eight and the floor as quickly as possible. I’m already exhausted. I take a break to relieve my thighs, which are already aching. Not to mention my arms, given the intensity I’m putting into it. I glance at Bronze, who remains absorbed in her book.

"Stop daydreaming, Ona."

How does she manage to see me without looking up? I sigh and get back to work. If someone had told me one day I’d be on all fours scrubbing the floor of a communal shower, I’d have laughed in their face. I hate Bronze for making me go through this.

"You know, if you followed the rules, I wouldn’t punish you." "Sorry, but rules and I aren’t very good friends," I grumble. "Then you only have yourself to blame for your punishments." "And you too since you’re the one inflicting them on me."

"I’m just doing my job," she replies, closing her book. "Let me tell you something. The less effort you make to follow the rules, the more I’ll be on your back. We can continue like this until the end of the year if necessary."

"What?!"

I straighten up on my knees at this news. I wipe my forehead with my arm, which is dripping with sweat from scrubbing so hard.

"What do you mean, until the end of the year? I was told this was only temporary until I adapted!"

"Not exactly. I’ll be your supervisor until your behavior changes. Given the hothead you are, we’re far from that."

"What a joke!" I spit bitterly, getting back to work. "You’re right, I’m not going to change. I don’t even plan on staying here."

"And where do you plan on going?" she asks, curious.

"Far from this crappy school, far from this town, and especially far from people who won’t leave me alone!"

"That’s going to be complicated. You’re not going anywhere with me." "We’ll see about that. I’m not following your rules, Bronze. I’m not like all those other students."

"You’re not going anywhere. I’ll make sure to help you whether you want it or not. After this experience, I guarantee you won’t be that little daddy’s princess who can do whatever she wants anymore."

"Damn it, you don’t even know me!" I yell, throwing my sponge at her face. "I don’t want your damn help, so leave me alone! It’s precisely people like you I want to get away from!"

I can’t control my anger after she touched the one point she shouldn’t have. Her eyes remain closed from the impact of the sponge. I’ll probably pay for this, but I don’t care. It was the last straw, the one thing not to say. If she wanted to affect me, she succeeded! She slowly opens her eyes.

"Pick it up." "I’m not your dog, damn it!"

I throw the gloves next to the bucket and leave the room to avoid confrontation. She can go to hell with her damn rules! She chases me down the hall, calling my name, but I keep going. I surprisingly find the exit without getting lost. I barely have time to accelerate and touch the handle before I’m pinned against the door roughly. She blocks all my movements with her body and pins my wrists on either side of my head. I struggle with rage, but she perfectly channels my strength.

"Let go of me!" "No. Stop fighting back," she says calmly.

I keep moving as much as I can under her grip, which I hate. She has no right to touch me; I don’t want her to! Yet she tightens her hold to completely stop my movements. I press my forehead against the door, closing my eyes to calm down. I must not have a panic attack here. Once I’ve calmed down, she grabs my arm and drags me back to the locker room. She pushes me inside and locks the door.

"Get back to work. We’ll leave here when I decide," she says, resuming her place.

I don’t understand how she can stay so calm while I’m a volcano on the brink of eruption. If I wasn’t sure before, I now know I hate this girl.

Wednesday, October 7th; 8:05 PM - Ona and Alexia's Room

I slam the door of my room without holding back. I'm relieved to find it empty. We're two hours away from curfew. Alexia must be in the common room with the others. If it's like yesterday, I have about an hour before she returns. I'm feeling really down since my interaction with Bronze. I didn't even go to eat, even though she allowed me to. I just needed to be alone. She drained me physically and mentally. I'm dirty and wet from crawling on the floor. It took me four hours to clean everything. Bronze stopped me at some point. The result was far from perfect, but she seemed satisfied that I finished. Now, I plan to decompress under hot water and get to bed. I find a pj set consisting of a t-shirt and shorts, and then I lock myself in the bathroom. Once my shower is finished, I slip under the covers. I'm exhausted and on edge. I think it's the right time to call my best friend. I've left her without news since my arrival. It was hard to reach her because I was never alone since I got here. Not to mention there's a one-hour time difference with Barcelona. I really need to talk to her right now. I miss her more than I thought. I take my phone from the nightstand and dial her number.

"Hello?" "Hey, Mapi."

"Oh my God, it's about time!" she says on the other end. "I thought they took your phone or something," she quickly replies.

"Sorry for not calling sooner," I chuckle. "Are you okay? Your voice sounds strange."

I'm so emotional and exhausted that I can't hold back the tears running down my cheeks against my will. It had to come out when I was on the phone with the person who knows me best.

"Yes, yes...," I say, wiping my cheeks. "Let's just say my mom really outdid herself this time."

"That bad? You don't like Manchester ? It's supposed to be a beautiful city." "Believe me, there's nothing to envy. It's been raining all the time so far."

"Well, it's definitely not Barcelona ! Come on, tell Auntie Mapi everything. You don't sound well. Is your new school nice?"

"It's a military school, Maps. Well, it's a private school with instructor supervision."

« Ouch, your mom really went all out this time... How did she get you in there? Isn't it supposed to be restricted?"

"The principal is a friend of my mom's," I sigh. "It's hell!"

I pour out the start of my new life to relieve myself. Mapi is like a sister to me. She regularly comes to my house and knows my mom well, who is also her doctor. I know she appreciates her, unlike me, but she always listens attentively when I criticize her, like now. She will always be there for me, and I'll never be grateful enough for everything she does for me. She's pulled me out of the water more than once when I was drowning.

"I have a little soldier on my back. You can't imagine the horror!" "A little soldier?" she laughs. "What's that all about?"

"A supervisor or something until I adapt. I have the worst instructor in the camp, apparently. A real viper! In two days, she's already managed to punish me twice!"

"The great Batlle punished? I would've loved to see that!" she giggles. "Is she at least good- looking?"

Mapi's question doesn't surprise me. From the moment we met, she declared loudly that she was a lesbian. She loves women... I mean she LOVES woman. We met in our first year of high school. She joined my class in the middle of the year and sat next to me. We hit it off immediately, and she quickly started flirting with me. I brushed her off, but I quickly grew attached to her unique personality. Within two months, she had turned all my convictions upside down. She was touchy and insistent. She made me doubt my sexuality. I ended up giving her a chance. It took her two months to become my first and only girlfriend for two years. It was my longest relationship. Today, we're best friends with a very close bond. She's the only one I truly trust. She's my only confidante, and I'm sure she won't judge me. That's why I'm not afraid to tell her what I think at this moment, even though I hate to admit it out loud.

"Brown hair, green eyes, taller than me. She's young and quite charming. I’d say she's twenty-five. She's pretty sexy in her uniform, but her personality ruins everything."

"Wow... She's totally your type!" she teases. "Did you hear the rest? She's a real tyrant! She's making my life impossible, damn it." "Have you thought about a counter-attack?" "Of course, she's going to regret it!" I say, making her laugh.

As I expected, our conversation turns to revenge ideas. Mapi has a wild imagination for this kind of thing. When we've covered everything, we switch to the latest gossip I've missed in Spain. Our call

ends a quarter of an hour later since it's late for her, and she has class tomorrow. I was lucky to reach her so late. Our conversation did me good. She managed to take my mind off things, as I hoped. I put my phone away and decide not to wait for curfew to fall asleep. I turn off all the lights and settle comfortably in my bed so that the door is behind me, to avoid being disturbed by Ale's arrival later. It doesn't take long for me to fall into a deep sleep.

#woso #lucy bronze #woso community #barca femeni #ona batlle #woso soccer #lionesses #sefutbol fem #leah williamson #alexia putellas #mapi leon #ona x lucy #ona batlle x lucy bronze

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kneelingshadowsalome · 2 years ago

Text

Scorpio Curse (König x F!OC)

Part 2/3 of Valkyrie

(Part 1 here)

Summary: König gets an order to make a female SpecGru sniper talk, but König doesn't want to hurt women.

Category: Smut 🔞, angst, fluff

Tags & warnings: Explicit mature content +18 audiences only, strangers to lovers (slight enemies to lovers), dubious consent, threats of rape, virgin!König, size kink, size difference, p in v, multiple orgasms, cunnilingus, squirting, hugs and cuddles, super fluffy ending. König will be named in later chapters.

Part 2: Mostly König who is in desperate need of a hug (don't worry, he will get it soon enough :*)

A/N: KorTac and SpecGru are rivaling military contractors, Conor is König's superior (and a huge villain), and I just wanted to write angsty smut featuring our favourite Austrian boi.

"You should've come to me, König."

He was still here.

No one had told him to leave his stuff and sign the papers and get the fuck out.

He had been called to see the team leader, though.

Immediately.

"It's true that we don't do that shit. Especially with the SpecGru, not after everything that already went through."

He told his side of the story, and apparently, the command agreed that Conor had made a mistake.

"Your superior officer slipped, but that doesn't mean you have the right to do whatever the fuck you deem more appropriate."

The leader's cheeks were red, and his voice traveled from peaceful, tired account to a booming loud yell.

"To tell you the truth, König, you're good at what you do. But pull this kind of shit again, and the KorTac will ensure you lose your rifle for good. They'll make sure you'll get spat in the face in every fucking PMC on this fucking planet, you hear me?"

He was surprised he didn't catch spit flying right now.

"Sir."

"Now go fix that goddamn fence."

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

König, former weapons sergeant of the Jagdkommando and current operator of the special forces known as KorTac, felt like a fresh recruit when he turned heel and marched from the office. He thought about asking whether the surveillance tape would be destroyed or if it was already but sensed that this was not the best moment to ask questions. The leader's tired voice followed him as he walked away with cold sweat tingling down his back.

"Jesus. Where did you even get those bolt cutters.."

He worked half a day to get it right. Repairing the fence was easy, but fixing it so that it wasn't a weak spot in the area's defense was not. He had kneeled down in this exact same spot less than 24 hours ago, with a tense, silent cargo thrown on his back in a fireman's carry.

He had yanked the door to the surveillance room open to let the men know they could get a coffee break while he watched the prisoner — only to find that there was no one there. He had been played twice the fool, and she had paid the price. He wasn't man enough to tell her it had been all in vain when he went to get her.

He certainly wasn't going to tell her that he would still do it all again.

She stayed mute the whole journey to the fence, remained quiet even when he placed her gently on the ground and showed her the hole he had made on the chain link fence for her to crawl through.

"There you go, little Walküre."

She stared at his work for a while, sniffed, then looked up at him.

"You think you can fit through that?" He asked, although he had made sure the hole was big enough for even him to go through.

"Yeah…" she uttered her first words since forever before reaching for her road to freedom. Realizing she was still tied, she pivoted back.

"My hands.." she started, but he was already kneeling on the ground with his combat knife pulled out. With utter care, he cut her loose. She caught him after it was done, and he glanced at those tiny fingers that barely reached to close around his wrists.

"Thank you."

He raised his stare, and her eyes bored into his as she ensured her words had sunk in. Then she turned, dived for the hole… but turned back again.

"König."

He had enough time to discover that the naked pain in her eyes was of the exact same kind as the agony spreading in his heart before she leaped to him, threw her arms around him — and suddenly, he was home.

"Don't get yourself killed." Her voice was a muffled sob that hit his skin through the mask as she pressed her face against his neck and squeezed him with a surprising amount of strength. Dumbfounded, he raised his arms but wasn't sure if she would welcome the touch. He didn't want her to think he would seize her just when she had been offered a way out.

"Promise that you won't get killed."

He knew that he would probably get maimed for this. At the very least, he would lose his contract. But he hadn't even thought about it when he made that hole and carried her here.

She released him and pulled back. Her eyes were pure attention, a time-halting awareness that seized him without warning. It didn't matter that he was loaded with gear, that he had a helmet and a mask on. She could see him. All of him. And she smiled.

Then she reached for his mask.

He did nothing to stop her as she grabbed the hood and started to lift it. His vision went black with the ascending cloth for the longest second…

And then he could see again — see her wide eyes roam his face. The silence was pierced by a few raindrops, the first of an impending heavy rain. They landed on his helmet and on his arm guards, specked on her cheeks as they fell from the heavy clouds above them.

"Wow," she breathed, with parted lips and eyes that sparkled.

She grabbed his helmet through the cloth and pushed both the hood and the piece of metal away. The bundle landed somewhere next to him with a soft clunk a second before her lips pressed against his.

Rain fell, and with it, the paint from around his eyes — all the black he had surrounded himself with ran down his cheeks and neck, all the way under the collar of his shirt and over his heart that thumped like a maniac. They were in a warm August shower together, and she pulled him by his neck, threatened to swallow him, and he could do nothing but melt and surrender and answer with the same gentle hunger.

Her fingers swept across his chin; they caressed his temples, brushed his scalp, and tugged at his hair, not hindered by the fact that there wasn't much to grab hold of in the classic military undercut. They slid down his neck, grabbed his tactical vest, and pulled him deeper into the kiss. She sucked his lip, kissed the raindrops away, and he was hard as a rock even in the pants that were soaked and cool.

When she relented, all too soon, he would've given everything to freeze time and stay there. Under that hail, kneeled in that mud — with her, forever.

"I can't go through that fence unless you promise me," she panted in his mouth, and every single fiber in his body told him not to promise anything. He wanted to grab her instead, take her back, tuck her somewhere safe, and keep her as his own.

"Ok," he whispered.

A gush of hot air landed on his face as she gave a short laugh.

"Ok what?" She smiled against his mouth, her teeth colliding with his lips.

"I… promise."

"'Atta boy," he felt the words before he heard them, and she kissed him once more, and he could've drowned in that kiss. In those words.

"I'll never forget this," she said, lips wet with all that rain, eyes blinking through the drops that slithered down her face and got caught in her lashes.

I'll never forget you.

"No problem."

"No problem…? God. Could you get any more charming?"

She thought he was charming…

"Just one more thing, hero."

She bit her lip, looked down on the soaked grass, then up at him, and smiled.

“What’s with the hood? I really don’t get it. You look super nice.” She winked an eye at him. And then she turned and crawled through that hole and vanished into the darkness.

He was left alone in the descending rain, and there he had remained ever since.

He was convinced he still had her scent on him. He never washed that shirt he had been wearing the day he lifted her in his lap. He tried to catch her from it, and for a few days, he thought he actually did. But then that scent became only a memory.

Nevertheless, it followed him everywhere. No one knew that he was encompassed by it. That he was shrouded with her as he walked the base or rose on the plane.

Days passed by, and he still felt her lips on his own. Her taste in his mouth. Felt her legs around him, her soft walls surrounding him.

He replayed the frenzied vision over and over again in his head to remind himself that he had truly been inside her. That he had made her produce all those sounds. Made her clench around him and smell like honeydew and summers by the lake. He realized that he had started to truly live only after he had opened the door to that bleak room full of her. And then his life froze like a movie that was pressed on an eternal pause as he saw the soles of her boots push against the muddy ground to get her through that fence and away from him.

Three weeks passed — three weeks without her.

He did his job, went on missions, and executed orders to the letter.

But mostly, he was in his thoughts.

Mostly, he thought of her.

He thought of her when he had a rifle in his hand during ops. He thought of her during briefings, when he did deadlifts, racked a barbell after bench press, or sparred with training knives.

He thought of her in showers, in the mess hall, and most of all, in bed at night when he stroked himself to a release that eased his sleep.

He had never been so virile, not even as a teen. His libido was off the roof as the only thing he could think about was how he could get to jerk himself off in the shower stall or in his bunk after the day was done. Thoughts of her were his reward, the only thing that seemed to sustain him.

She was the most radiant thing in his life: everything else had faded away, turned to gray and black. Monotone, lifeless, empty. The pain faded for a while every time he came into his fist. Then it hit him with an even more crippling force as he realized that she wasn't real; she wasn't here.

Still, he fantasized what it would be like to hold her after, how they would drift off to sleep together. He envisioned her skin, her scent, her hair. The top of her head against his chin, her little hands around his neck, her laugh, all of it.

Sometimes when he had a hard day, he fantasized how her body would press softly against his back, and she would slide an arm around him, and it would disappear beneath his shirt. Her palm would come and rest right where his heart was, and she would just hold him.

On the worst days, he cried. He thought of the bullies and what they would say and how they would laugh if they saw him now, curled up in the soiled sheets with a cock in his hand, falling asleep on a tear-soaked pillow.

After a few months, he started to dissolve.

He got reckless on the field — jumped out of the helo before it had even landed properly, was all sloppy with his cover, wasted bullets, and revealed his position for the sake of getting up close and personal, for having the satisfaction of killing his opponents with a knife or with his bare hands.

People complained. Hutch complained, Fender complained — even Zero complained.

Some said it was just good old König, that he didn't care. Medics said he had a guardian angel with him when he never got hit, got barely even scratched when at the same time, some of the best operators were severely injured.

And some saw right through it.

"He fell in love with that sniper bitch. That's what's wrong with 'im," Conor had said.

He had nearly attacked the man for what he said — what he had called her. His angel.

But he knew that's what Conor wanted: to taunt him into making a mistake that would result in his dismissal from the force. Would probably destroy his chances to continue a career anywhere in the military. And then he would quickly find himself in civilian life, where he had never quite fit into.

"Promise me you won't get killed."

He had promised her to stay alive, and he couldn't disappoint her. So it became a prayer. Every night he made an offering to her, so she would keep him safe. No bullet could touch him. He knew that somehow she could feel his longing, the love he had for her. She would protect her like the war maiden that she was. And even if he caught that bullet, he knew it would only take him to heaven. She had already carried him there.

Six months without her, and people started to fear him.

His teammates looked at him with dread as he geared up for missions with the secret knowledge that he was practically immortal. The team leader said he resembled a machine, and he took it as a compliment. Even Lieutenant kept his mouth shut and looked at him with something akin to respect.

But he got even more time off when he wanted the exact opposite. He was pretty sure that there was a note in his file now. Right after the screaming red words released a prisoner without the requisite order from a superior officer. A comment that said he was behaving wrong, that he was unstable or something. They offered him cognitive therapy, sleeping pills, meditation groups, ice baths, even acupuncture. He turned it all down, knowing that it was no use.

And so they sent him home more and more often.

It was even worse there. He never wanted the leaves, but KorTac was firm in their protocol. Contract soldiers needed time off duty to prevent "substantial impairment concerning the operator's ability to work." Even if he wanted to, he couldn't stay in the barracks and get every mission he could get his hands on.

He sat in his apartment, slept late, went for a swim, went to the gym, and came back to sit and sleep. He thought of her when he walked the streets with a hole in his chest, a hole as deep as the Mariana Trench. He saw her in all the women of the same height and weight as her. At some point, he realized he had never paid so much attention to women as he did now.

"Go get a pint and a girl, König. Just get it out of your head."

Zero meant well, but he could've punched him too for saying that.

He didn't want a girl; he wanted her.

Pint sounded good, though. He had visited the nearest pub only a few times before, but the place had only reminded him that he was not home and that pubs were different from bierstubes. But right now, he didn't want to go back to that cold, dark flat to stare at the ceiling and wait till sleep would come.

He pushed the door open and stomped his feet on the mat even though it didn't rain outside. He walked further into the dimly lit hall and saw that early evening wasn't the busiest time in this place: more than half of the tables were empty.

And then he looked for the counter and saw her.

His Kriegsmädchen was there.

His Walküre was here.

She was here and looked just the way he remembered her — no, even more luminous. Glowing.

Perhaps he had finally lost it. But he kept looking, blinking, and saw her fingertips curl around a glass, saw the hair she had tied into a high ponytail, the smile that spread across her face just before she laughed.

The angelic sound went straight between his legs and stabbed a hole in his gut, and he was bleeding — months and months of pain, right there in the hallway of a quiet pub.

She was alive and safe, laughing, and so lovely that his hands started to tremble just as they had when his bullies approached him back in school. It was odd because she was everything but. He took a step, heart thumping and palms sweating, like he was approaching an enemy he knew he had to finish with his bare hands.

He walked to the counter in the eye of a storm, and she evaded his gaze and tried to act like she didn't even notice that some man was striding toward her.

Did men approach her often?

Of course they did. And she tried to look like an immovable stone, a prey that wouldn't draw attention.

"Walküre?"

And only then did she turn her gaze, eyes filled with both fear and hope.

Her mouth opened, and she drew a sharp breath, shoulders tense. He had to fight tooth and nail to not grab her and press her against that counter or kiss her, devour her while he carried her off out that door...

"... Valkyrie?" Her friend repeated sarcastically, with a birth of a laugh on her lips, staring at him like he was a circus attraction. He didn't spare even a glance her way.

Couldn't, because he was mesmerized by the most soothing gaze in the world.

"Hi," she breathed, voice almost breaking.

His eyes went straight to her lips as she said it, the sound far too similar in his mind to the breaths that had escaped her in that dull, grey room.

She cleared her throat and swallowed.

"Kate, this is… Siegfried. A friend from my old job."

He knew he should move, look to the side, and say hello. Act normal. But he couldn't move, couldn't even blink.

She pursed her lips and looked down at her drink, at her friend, and then back up at him.

"Nice to meet you," her friend spoke, and he finally managed to turn his eyes toward her and nod slowly.

“You must be the battering ram.” She took a sip of her drink with a flash of eyebrows.

He heard a sharp inhale from beside him and only wanted to ignore everything and everyone else in the room except for the one who gasped like that.

“You know, the one they send to charge through doors?”

“Done that too.”

The friend called Kate's eyes widened from the stare he knew made most people uncomfortable.

"What are you doing here?"

His angel spoke, and he turned. She was looking even more beautiful with flushed cheeks. It was strange to see her like this: sitting gracefully on that bar stool, wearing jeans and a bit of mascara. She wasn't covered in dirt and sleepless nights and fear, and he realized that he never wanted to see her like that again. He wanted her safe and sound, and happy; even if she had come on this earth to fight, just like he, even if she was deadly with a rifle. Even if she was a more able-bodied sniper than he ever could be.

"To get a lager."

"No, I mean," she laughed, sending warmth between his legs, "Why are you here, here?"

After a blink or two, he realized she meant the town.

"I'm on leave. I live here."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Kate, um. Would you… Would you mind if we catch up a bit?"

He saw from the corner of his eye that the woman looked him up and down, and then a smile started to creep up her face.

"You know what June, I think I'm gonna head home. You two catch up for as long as you need and I'll see ya later, ok?"

Her name was June.

Like midsummer fests and seagulls and Radler.

Honey and raindrops…

"I'll go grab a table," he declared, thinking how odd that sounded, thinking whether his English was somehow off. As if he was going to physically grab a table and raise it in the air...

Kate chuckled behind his back as he turned and headed for a darker, more private corner.

"Jesus Christ, June… I knew you did some special commando shit, but that guy is -"

"Will you keep your voice down?"

"I mean… If you catch up all night, I doubt you'll be able to walk tomorrow."

"Kate…! "

The rest of the exchange of words faded as he reached the table and adjusted the chairs to be able to sit down.

Then he noticed that he was still wearing his jacket and got up to take it off. He saw her coming with her drink in hand, and she flashed a smile at him as he threw the leather bomber across the chair next to him.

"Nice jacket."

He looked down at the dark brown leather, worn and looking mostly what people called vintage or something.

"You gonna go get that beer, sweetie?"

Sweetie.

"Ja," he nodded, turned, and marched back to the counter.

He ordered a beer, then asked what the lady over there was having.

"I think she, ah… ordered a mojito." The bartender extended his neck to the side to glance at their table. "Yeah, that's a mojito."

"One of those as well."

The man gave him a look that distinctly said You really think you're gonna get some of that? He didn't know what it was in his aura that told people he was a loser. Or a menace. And he didn't know which of those looks made the pain worse. But all of it faded instantly as she greeted him with a shy smile when he returned to the table with the drinks.

"Oh, you shouldn't have… I haven't even finished this one." She raised those lovely eyes at him, smiling, smiling… "Thank you, König."

Her fingertips brushed his as he gave it to her, the glass sweating with tiny cold drops of condensed water. She had pale pink, almost nude nail polish that made her nails look shiny and pure, her hands even more delicate. She watched as he scoured through the chairs to take a seat, pick a coaster and place his own glass on the table.

"A big one."

She then turned those playful faerie eyes on him, and he was suddenly grateful that he had picked the loose, black cargo pants to wear today… and that he was sitting.

"This is considered a small beer where I come from."

"I'm sure it is," she chuckled. The tight, white t-shirt she wore reminded him of the first time he had seen her, even though it was not one of those heavy cotton, military shirts. He grabbed the beer to do something, anything, and raised it to his lips, almost pouring the liquid all over him when he took a sip. She watched him gulp and smiled even wider. He was half hard at that point and had to spread his legs to accommodate and conceal what was happening in his pants and under the table.

"What about you, Walküre? What are you doing here?"

"I'm helping a friend -uh, Kate. She had an awful breakup."

He nodded and kept picking up his beer, drinking a small sip and trying to hit the center of the coaster as he set the glass back down.

"You're not with SpecGru anymore?"

"I signed off one week after… After. You know."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, even though he wasn't sorry at all. At least, not for the fact that she was out of harm's way.

"Nah, don't be. It was for the best. I'm able to sleep at night and everything."

She had trouble sleeping? Maybe that's why she looked even more radiant than before. She had slept well.

"I was worried about you."

"Really?" she tilted her head to the side, and her eyes started to shine even brighter.

"... that you might not find your way home."

"I'm a big girl. Trained with the Green Berets and everything.. But it warms my heart to hear that. I worried about you, too."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Sure, I mean… I was afraid you'd get into some trouble because of me."

Someone laughed at the next table, but the unexpected sound reached him through a comfortable haze; like he was sitting underwater. The battlefield wasn't nearly as distressing an environment as this peaceful pub - or any other place he rarely visited. But this time, with her, it was not too bad. His senses were blown wide, but he wasn't afraid.

"Also ja… They did yell at me."

"That's horrible. I could never yell at you."

He felt himself nearly choke on the beer, tried to breathe through his nose, and forced the liquid down with an audible gulp.

"You kept your promise," she said in a low voice, her smile fading slightly. Her eyes locked with his, and he basked in the warmth.

"Natürlich."

I prayed for you every single night, Kriegsmädchen.

She gave him a small, sad smile and looked down, swirling her ice-filled glass.

"You know I…" she started, took a breath, then another. "I've missed you, König."

He squeezed the tall glass before realizing that it might actually break at some point.

"I've missed you too, Walküre."

He looked at his beer, still halfway full, and then at the completely untouched drink he had brought her.

"You want to go to my place?"

Part 3:

#könig fanfiction #könig mw2 #könig call of duty #call of duty #könig imagine #my fics #könig x oc #könig #könig x female oc

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fairyniceyeah · 16 days ago

Text

💎🍒 You’re (our) Headliner

Title from Headliner (SEVENTEEN)

Summary: Seungcheol starts throwing up on a trip with only members of the maknae line to help him. It’s strange to be on the other side for once.

CW: emeto

Sickie: S.Coups/Seungcheol Caretakers: Minghao + Seungkwan + Dino/Chan

Seungcheol winced when the lights of the car driving behind him blinded him again. It was the middle of the night and, yet, somehow the only car driving behind them had awfully adjusted lights that were making the leader’s eyes water and his head pound.

They had been given a rare free week and most members had gone home to their families. Since Joshua, Jun and Minghao hadn’t been able to fly back to America and China respectively, Wonwoo’s dad had invited Joshua along and Jun had left with Jeonghan. Minghao and Seungcheol, the latter living together with his brother after all, had originally decided to stay at the dorms with Dino as his appa was at a poorly timed dance competition and his eomma had traveled with him. Then Seungkwan had invited them all along to his family and, well, only a few days later they had found themselves in an airplane to the beautiful Jeju-do.

It was nighttime when they arrived, the only spontaneous flight that had enough seating space left for the members and managers. They had said goodbye to the managers at the airport and taken off with a rental car. Seungkwan’s parents had originally intended to pick them up at the airport but with so many members and luggage it would have been too tight of a fit. So the rental it was. Dino and Seungkwan had fallen asleep nearly immediately after settling into the backseat, the maknae asleep on his hyung’s shoulder and Seungkwan leaning on the young dancer across the middle seat. Minghao had fallen asleep only a few minutes later in the passenger seat, leaving Seungcheol awake alone.

Their schedules had been busy and it was no wonder that the maknae line members had drifted off so quickly. In all honesty, Seungcheol was even a bit glad about it. He was a bit bored, sure, but they deserved their sleep.

Yet he couldn’t help but wish for a distraction. He had felt a bit off, suspiciously tired and lethargic in the plane already, but he had not been able to turn down the position of driver when he saw the exhaustion in his members’ faces.

Now, however, it was much worse. The slight feeling of unwellness had morphed into nausea that left his mouth salivating to an alarming degree, his stomach cramping under his hand, the headache pulsing with every stab of light and a general feeling of overwhelming sickness. To top it off, what was supposed to be a short hour drive was nearly doubled in time due to a blocked road.

Worst, next to the nausea, however was the shakiness that had taken over all of Seungcheol’s body and left him barely able to concentrate on the road. So their travel was even more slowed down by Seungcheol not feeling comfortable driving as fast as he was allowed. Honestly, he probably shouldn’t even be driving, seeing how awful he felt.

The car behind them seemed to have enough of Seungcheol’s slow driving and overtook them easily. Watching the lights speed past, Seungcheol felt a bit dizzy.

💎

He sighed, swallowed. Activated the blinker and pulled over at the side of the road into a small space by the empty island road. He took a deep breath and stepped outside of the car, careful to close the door as silently as possible so as not to wake them. The night air wasn’t cold, the opposite even. Humid and hot. A shudder ran through Seungcheol’s body and he had to swallow again against the wetness in his mouth.

He knew he couldn’t keep driving. He was too distracted by feeling awful, too tired. It wasn’t safe. His pride did not stand above the safety of his members. As he turned around to the car again he watched the younger members sleep, all of them looking terribly young. Seungcheol couldn’t help but wish that anybody from the hyung line had come with them instead.

It wasn't like Seungcheol didn’t trust the younger members with his problems. He did. He would trust them with his life without any moment of doubt.

But they were still his kids. Yes, they had all grown together, grown up together and they weren't the baby-faced kids in his care anymore. They were successful adults of their own right with their own agenda and dreams.

Yet, he could still see traces of these babies in the green room in them.

Whenever Minghao would get too quiet, Seungcheol saw the terrified young boy from China who didn't speak their language and cried himself to sleep every night.

Every time Seungkwan was warm in his affections, he saw the young kid who went to him for hugs every night and who would hold a member's hand at every opportunity.

Dino complaining about his hyungs was just a facade for the kid who was so young and tiny and adored by all of them.

But they had all grown up now.

Minghao was now so confident in his Korean and he was happy to tease the members whenever he could. He considered the dorms home now.

Seungkwan was still touchy but that was just the way he showed his love for all of them, showed that he would always stay by their side no matter what.

Dino was their maknae but he was older now than Seungcheol had been when they had debuted and he showed them every day how grateful he was that he had met them when he was so young.

So yes, Seungcheol trusted them with everything.

But he was also their leader. Their hyung. Their mat-hyung. The one they looked up to for help.

Not the one who needed help.

Right now, though, he did. If not for his sake but for theirs.

💎

Feeling slightly unsteady, his legs shaking like a newborn deer’s, Seungcheol stepped around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. Only hesitating a second, he reached in to shake Minghao’s shoulder gently. The younger woke up instantly, blearily blinking up at Seungcheol.

“Hyung, what…?”, he asked, voice dripping with tiredness but a frown building on his face. “Is everything alright?”

Seungcheol shushed him, gesturing at him to get out of the car. No need to wake more maknaes for his sake. Minghao pulled himself out of the car with more grace than somebody who had just been asleep should ever possess, coming to stand in front of the leader. Seungcheol closed the door gently, leaned against it and ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“Myungho-yah, would you mind driving the rest of the way?”, he asked, not daring to look at the younger member.

Still he could imagine the flicker of confusion and worry on Minghao’s face. “Sure, I can keep driving”, Minghao said quickly, “but, hyung? Why? Are you alright?”

Seungcheol sighed, shrugged. “I don’t feel that great”, he admitted reluctantly, “I thought it was probably safer if somebody else drove.” Even leaning against the car door was exhausting, causing him to sweat and tremble.

“Do you have a fever?”, Minghao asked, instantly reaching out to Seungcheol’s forehead with his palm before the leader could duck away. “You’re not warm but you’re really clammy.”

“I’m just a bit nauseous”, Seungcheol said hesitantly. “I don’t know. I felt a bit off earlier but now I’m kinda shaky too and I can’t concentrate.”

“Okay, yeah, it’s probably best if you rest, hyung”, Minghao agreed, worry written all over his face which was only illuminated by the moon. “Do you feel like you might need to throw up?”

“Maybe”, Seungcheol said quietly, surprising himself with the quick admission. He wasn’t sure if this was just a fluke, maybe caused by exhaustion and lack of sleep, or if he was truly sick.

Minghao’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. “I don’t think we have medicine or anything. Seungkwannie has a plastic bag from the duty-free shop earlier I think, though. Do you want me to ask him just in case?”

The rapper shook his head, throwing a glance at the still peacefully sleeping maknaes. He could already feel traces of the humiliation he would feel if they were woken up for him, to give him a puke bag. “No, let them rest. They deserve it.”

“You deserve care too, hyung”, Minghao said quietly, taking one of Seungcheol’s hands in his and squeezed. Seungcheol ducked his head, giving Minghao what could probably be classified as a self-deprecating smile. The young dancer was sweet like this and Seungcheol knew that Minghao tended to look out for him, sometimes treated him like he was the dongsaeng. Right now it felt really good, leaving his chest with a warm feeling despite the rest of his body feeling miserable. He didn’t know what to say in response to that but Minghao seemed to sense this and continued his questions.

“Do you need anything before we continue? Do you feel ready to continue?”

Seungcheol nodded. “The sooner we are there the better. I just wanna sleep.”

“Okay, let’s get you back in the car”, Minghao said, squeezing Seungcheol’s hand again before helping him step away from the car door and opening it. He didn’t let go of Seungcheol until the rapper was safely seated in the passenger seat and even buckled the seatbelt for him. He brushed back Seungcheol’s hair from his forehead and whispered: “Tell me if we need to pull over or if you need anything, alright, hyung?”

Seungcheol nodded. Minghao gently closed the door, rounded the car and adjusted the driver’s seat and the mirrors to his needs. As he started the motor a sleepy voice from the back asked: “Are we there yet?”

“No, we just switched drivers, Dino-yah”, Minghao whispered, “go back to sleep.”

💎

Seungcheol dozed off too, only a few minutes into the drive. Minghao was taking care to drive smoothly and carefully, which Seungcheol appreciated a lot.

Still, as he woke up, his stomach churned angrily and a bad-tasting hiccough jerked him to full alertness. The car was still driving down empty, dark streets in the middle of nothingness and everything was quiet, except for Seungkwan snoring a bit.

Minghao eyed him from the side and asked a bit hurriedly: “Hyung, are you going to…?”

A gag tore up Seungcheol’s throat, echoing loudly in the silence, and he slapped his hands to his mouth.

“Pull over”, he demanded breathlessly before pressing his mouth shut against whatever was trying to rise in his throat.

Minghao didn’t need to be told twice, actually not even once. He hadn’t even waited for Seungcheol to finish the two words before the car slowed down and came to a stop by the side of the road.

Seungcheol ripped open the door, nearly falling as he tried to exit the car in his haste, foot tangled up in the lowered footwell. He managed to stumble a few steps away from the car when his mouth filled with sour bile and he had to double over. A spray of clear liquid, mostly water he had drunk during the flight - back then already not hungry - came back up as he retched.

Bracing himself on his knees, Seungcheol fought against the nausea with short, stuttered breaths. Yet, he lost his fight when he jumped in surprise when a hand landed on the small of his back.

“It’s okay, let it out, hyung.” Minghao.

Seungcheol had no choice over it, completely at the mercy of his body. It was humiliating, standing on the side of the road of their most beautiful island, spewing up his guts while his dongsaeng patted his back. At least, it didn’t last long.

No matter how nauseous he was and no matter how sudden the vomiting had been, it was really only a few mouthfuls of sick coming up before everything turned into dry-heaving. Minghao patiently rubbed his back, whispering muted reassurances.

It took a few minutes of empty gagging and not being sure if the next wave would bring up more stomach contents or not before Seungcheol was able to straighten up and stumble away from the puddle. Minghao held his upper arm in a gentle grasp, steadying him.

“Do you feel a bit better now?”, he asked gently.

Seungcheol shrugged. He was still unbearably nauseous and even if his stomach seemingly wasn’t about to reject its contents again, he didn’t feel very safe about moving or standing or breathing or existing in general. His mouth tasted awful and he was trembling all over.

“Wash out your mouth”, Minghao encouraged, holding out Seungcheol’s bottle of water that the leader had forgotten in the door of the driver's side and the younger must have picked up.

Thankful for the opportunity, Seungcheol swished the water around his mouth and spat it onto the grass behind himself. Then he lifted the bottle to his lips with a shaking hand and took a small sip. The water soothed his throat but it sat heavily in his cramping stomach, not quite settled. He winced, pressing his hand to his aching abdomen.

“I think I need to sit down”, Seungcheol mumbled, feeling his strength quickly reclining. His shaking knees were barely able to keep supporting his weight and his whole body felt heavy with fatigue.

“I’ve got you, hyung, it’s alright”, Minghao said, wrapping his arm around Seungcheol’s waist and leading him the few steps back to the car. As soon as the door was open, Seungcheol sank down sideways into the passenger seat, wrapping his arms around himself and pressing his knees to his chest.

He didn’t even have the strength to care anymore that his maknaes were literally sleeping behind him, while he was so sick. He never really liked to show weakness in front of them but that was the last thing on his mind at the moment. He just wanted to not feel sick. And maybe a hug.

Minghao knelt down in front of him, a hand on Seungcheol’s knee to steady himself. He didn’t seem to care at all that he was in the danger zone should Seungcheol be unable to control his stomach again.

“Aish, hyung, what are we gonna do with you?”, Minghao mumbled, reaching up with his free hand to stroke back Seungcheol’s hair. “Do you think we can go on? Or do you want me to find a doctor or hospital? We’re probably halfway between Jeju City and Seogwipo though.”

Seungcheol shook his head. He didn’t want to go to a hospital - he didn’t think he was sick enough for that. Honestly he just wanted to lie down and sleep. “Let me breathe for a bit and then we can go on”, he suggested, a deep exhale following.

Minghao nodded and just stayed crouched down by Seungcheol’s feet, a silent support.

💎

Silence didn’t hold that long though.

“Hyungs?”, Seungkwan whispered from the backseat, seemingly woken up by the lack of rocking car movement as well as their voices. “Is everything alright? Is Coups-hyung alright?”

Minghao and Seungcheol both turned to find the young vocalist sitting upright, blinking at them in worry. He must have moved Dino from his shoulder as the maknae was now slumped against the window, undisturbed. The way they were sitting was probably incriminating Seungcheol already but still he found himself unhappy when Minghao announced: “Cheollie-hyung is sick. He threw up a bit just now.”

Seungcheol was about to ask him why on earth he would share the secret like that but he saw the concern and fear in Minghao’s face and understood. The dancer didn’t want to be alone in his knowledge of their sick hyung and needed help, no matter how unhappy Seungcheol was with that. But if he was honest himself, he probably had no chance of hiding it from Seungkwan and Dino anyways.

Seungkwan, to his credit, looked worried, yes, but he didn’t fall into the excessive nagging or worry he might have with other members. His lips just turned into a pout and there was genuine concern written all over his face.

“I’m sorry you’re feeling so sick, hyung”, he said honestly, “is there anything I can do to help?”

“Actually, do you still have the bag from duty-free?”, Minghao asked, “I think it’s best if we get to your home as quickly as possible so hyung can lie down and sleep this off.”

“Oh, yeah, hold on”, Seungkwan said and ducked down to rummage through his backpack.

The commotion must have woken Dino from his slumber too, because he woke the moment Seungkwan pulled the plastic bag from the depths of his belongings with a triumphant smile and handed it through the gap between passenger seat and door to Minghao. Seungcheol had his back to Dino but he internally groaned when he heard the maknae’s words. Another member pulled from rest because of him.

“Huh? Wha’s go’n on?”, the maknae asked sleepily.

“Cheollie-hyung is sick”, Seungkwan explained while Minghao inspected the bag for any damages. “We stopped because he wasn’t feeling well.”

That woke up Dino for real. “Upset stomach?”, he questioned, watching Minghao’s moves.

Seungcheol sighed and pressed his head into his palms. The multitude of concern was a bit overstimulating if he was honest. If it had been Jeonghan and Joshua he may have reacted differently but right now it felt like too much.

A soft hand on his cheek, a thumb stroking up and down, pulled him from the precarious state of mind he was in. He let his head mold into the soft touch, reveling in the comfort it brought.

“We got you, hyung. Don’t be embarrassed”, Seungkwan said gently and Seungcheol opened his eyes to find that the vocalist was leaning forward on his seat and it was his hand that was soothing him. “We know you’re not feeling well. We know you’re exhausted. Let us take care of you for once, hm?”

Too tired to put up a fight and not sure if he was willing to, Seungcheol nodded and sighed.

“Let’s get to Kwannie-hyung’s home as quickly as possible”, Dino echoed Minghao’s earlier words. “You should sleep.”

Seungcheol nodded again, feeling his head and eyes grow heavy.

“Do you want to switch seats to be in the back?”, Minghao questioned, his touch still tender against Seungcheol’s legs. “In case you feel really sick again it might be nice to have somebody with you, huh?”

Seungcheol found himself drowsily agreeing and a few minutes later he was settled in the back next to Dino, the plastic bag spread open on his lap for quick access. Minghao had taken up the role of the driver again and Seungkwan was speaking quietly on his phone.

Exhausted, Seungcheol let his eyes fall shut.

💎

Yet no matter how exhausted Seungcheol was, the nausea was more demanding. He just couldn’t fall asleep in his queasy state. Everytime he thought he was about to nod off, a sour burning in his esophagus woke him up again, making him need to swallow against the reflux. It didn’t even necessarily feel like he was about to throw up but it certainly was burning his throat.

He tried to rest against Dino’s shoulder, the maknae more than willing to switch roles for once but it was just too uncomfortable to lean across the empty middle seat and then down to Dino’s shoulder. Their height difference was not helping at all. Seungcheol sighed and just decided to rest against the window but the vibration of that hurt his head. So that also was not an option.

Finally Dino seemed to have enough of Seungcheol’s fidgeting and restlessness and announced: “Hao-hyung, be careful. I’m going to move to the middle seat.”

Without waiting for a reply he unbuckled himself, scooted over to Seungcheol and buckled himself in again. “Rest, hyung”, he mumbled, guiding Seungcheol’s head to his shoulder where he even placed a rolled up hoodie for maximum comfort.

Seungcheol slumped against him, feeling like he could cry in relief when the position was finally comfortable.

💎

Yet it was only about fifteen minutes later when they encountered a new problem. The road they were taking was starting to wind itself into narrow turns and a steep incline. Seungcheol normally was not a member who got motion sick but for the first time in his life he understood how Jeonghan, Jun and Vernon must feel. He could practically feel his stomach slosh around, every twist of the street making whatever was left in his stomach move upwards. He groaned, placing one hand against his stomach and the other gripped the bag tighter. Then he opened his eyes, remembering how Jeonghan said it helped him to actually see where they were moving.

“Are you feeling worse, hyung?”, Dino asked nervously, noticing the shift and the tension in Seungcheol’s shoulders. Seungcheol nodded, swallowing harshly.

At the youngest words Seungkwan turned around in the passenger seat, mustering him, and Minghao glanced at him through the mirror before apologizing: “I’m sorry, hyung. I’m driving as smoothly as I can.”

“It’s not … it’s not your fault, Myungho-yah”, Seungcheol pressed out, half-way through the sentence needing to stop to press the back of his hand against his mouth to stifle a burp.

“Focus on driving”, Seungkwan said and added bitterly, “I don’t remember if there is any place where we can pull over safely on this road stretch.”

While the two discussed the possibilities of stopping, Dino removed the pullover-pillow from his shoulder and placed his hand on Seungcheol’s thigh in a gesture of sympathy. “If you need to be sick, just let it happen. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Seungcheol didn’t think he even had the strength to fight the nausea. Another sharp twist made another burp rise in his throat and he barely had the time to lift the bag to his lips before sour vomit filled his mouth.

He stared in horror down at the brownish, chunky liquid at the bottom of the white bag, the smell taunting him. As he retched again, all conversation died out and the only sound filling the car was his gagging and more throw up splashing into the puddle in the bag.

Dino helplessly patted his back as Seungcheol continued to throw up, feeling awfully self-conscious. His only saving grace was that it was mostly dark, so while his dongsaengs had to listen to him puke at least they didn’t have to see.

The nausea wouldn’t relent. The atmosphere was awfully tense as they all were too startled and overwhelmed to do much more than listen to Seungcheol occasionally vomiting up another wave of barely digested food and bile. The leader swore he hadn’t even eaten as much food as he was throwing up.

“I’m so sorry”, Minghao finally broke the silence as he had to brake for another turn, “there is just no place to safely pull over.”

“It’s not your fault.” Seungcheol coughed, spitting out excessive bile.

His stomach still ached and cramped but it felt painfully empty now and the nausea while still present was fading and unproductive. Taking the risk, Seungcheol lifted his head away from the bag, closing it with one hand, and took a deep breath.

“I have another bag here”, Dino said, “hang on.”

He turned away to rummage around in his own backpack. Seungcheol didn’t want to watch him, still a bit embarrassed, and he also didn’t want to keep staring at the full bag in his hands, so he lifted his head only to find Seungkwa turned around in his seat, gently smiling at him.

“You can give me the bag”, the vocalist said softly, reaching out. Seungcheol stared at him, a bit dumb-founded. Sure, he didn't know what he was going to do with the puke-bag but he wasn’t going to hand it over to one of the maknaes. Sure, he had definitely held full puke-bags for his dongsaengs before, a certain road trip with a very nauseous Jeonghan came to mind, but he wasn’t going to subject Seungkwan to that.

But the vocalist seemed to read his mind. He smiled brightly at his leader and placed his hand over Seungcheol’s where he held onto the plastic. “I don’t mind, hyung. We just want you to be comfortable. I’ll put it in my footwell, it’s no issue.”

Stunned, Seungcheol let Dino and Seungkwan take the bag from his grip and watched as Seungkwan skillfully tied a knot at the top, placing it down in his footwell as he had said he would. Silently Dino slipped a fresh bag into Seungcheol’s hands, squeezing his wrist for a moment.

“Relax, leader-nim”, the maknae said gently, “we got you.”

💎

The rest of the drive passed without any more vomiting thankfully and Seungcheol even managed to fall asleep. That, however, meant that he was awfully drowsy when Seungkwan gently shook him awake.

“We’re here, Cheollie-hyung”, he whispered, brushing Seungcheol’s hair from his face. “You just need to get inside, we’ll handle the rest. You can continue sleeping soon, hm?”

Seungcheol stumbled behind him, half-asleep, and relying on Minghao’s and Seungkwan’s grips on his hands for any sort of navigation. He had his eyes mostly closed, just open enough to not fall on the stairs. Somebody pulled the blankets away from the bed and Seungcheol let himself sink onto the soft mattress. A hand brushed against his forehead and a voice he wasn’t quite able to place in his sleepy state said: “Sleep well, Seungcheol-yah. There’s a bucket beside the bed if you need it and Minghao-yah will sleep on the other side of the room.”

Seungcheol nodded against the pillow and closed his eyes again.

💎

He hovered between wakefulness and sleep. His brain was cloudy, floaty, not really alert. It was a weird feeling, knowing he was awake though the state he was in felt more like sleep. Then he turned to his side and bile burned in his throat. Oh.

Seungcheol opened his eyes to darkness, finding himself in a bed. Honestly, he had barely had any recollection of getting there. He blinked and in the low light of the moon shining in from the window he realized he was turned towards the room. A silhouette was asleep on a mattress on the ground. They had arrived at Seungkwan’s home.

His stomach, though hopefully empty, still was angry with him. The nausea was not as overwhelming as it had been before, tamed by the previous bouts of sickness, but it wasn’t dull enough to completely ignore it. Seungcheol pushed himself into a sitting position at the side of the bed, his dangling feet hitting plastic. Grateful for the foresight, Seungcheol pulled the bucket to his lap, hugging it with one arm. He was so tired. He didn’t want to be sick. He truly just wanted a hug.

“Myungho-yah”, he whispered, even in the darkness recognizing his calm dongsaeng. But maybe he was wrong? The figure didn’t stir unlike Minghao would at the slightest sound. Maybe they didn’t want to place him in a room with his sick hyung so he could get some sleep?

But Seungcheol distinctly remembered then that Chan and Seungkwan had wanted to pair up and the figure was too tall for both maknaes. He supposed that with the exhaustion of schedules and Minghao having to drive unfamiliar roads at night he was finally fully knocked out.

Realizing he was not about to immediately throw up, Seungcheol decided to try to make it to the bathroom in hopes that he wouldn’t disturb Minghao - or anybody else for that matter - then. He cradled the bucket to his chest, not keen on accidentally puking on Seungkwan’s parents’ floor, and stumbled to the door.

The hallway was dark, only illuminated from low light spilling in from an open door - the bathroom. Maybe the light was on to avoid nighttime accidents or maybe it was there for his sake. No matter what Seungcheol was immensely glad for the beacon, after all it had been years since he had last been here, and he didn’t remember which door led where.

He closed the bathroom door behind himself but didn’t lock it. Then he sank down onto the floor between the tub and the toilet. Exhaustion hit him like a truck and only the faint rolling of his stomach kept him awake. He pushed the bucket away now that he was close to the toilet and buried his face in his knees.

This wasn’t how he had imagined the vacation going. Throwing up in the car with his maknae-line members was bad, sitting nauseous and shivery in Seungkwan’s parents’ bathroom in the middle of the night was arguably worse.

He was so tempted to call his own eomma or maybe even Jeonghan but he hadn’t brought his phone with him. Walking back to the room and then to the bathroom again was not in his cards. He would just have to endure. That didn’t mean that the tears didn’t burn in his eyes.

💎

It was only a few minutes later that the nausea reached a new peak and Seungcheol forced himself to kneel in front of the toilet, lifting the lid and staring into the water below. His breathing hitched, a sharp hiccough hurting his chest and then the water turned murky and he had thrown up again. His whole body was shaking and all that was keeping him upright was the arm he had placed on the toilet seat to rest his head on.

Waiting it out was awful. His stomach was contracting and cramping but only every few minutes a mouthful of sour-tasting and even worse smelling bile came up without any warning. For all he knew every time could have been the last and, yet, it kept coming up. He wondered idly how there was even something left in his stomach.

He didn’t know how long he had sat there, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew, when he heard the door open behind him. He didn’t have the capability to turn around to see who had come to check on him. Maybe Minghao had woken after all.

But as soon as the person spoke, Seungcheol felt a shiver run through his body. It wasn’t any of his members. It was Seungkwan’s eomma. “Oh, Seungcheol-yah”, she said, her voice soft and caring, “how long have you been in here?”

He shrugged and then jumped when she placed a warm hand on his sweat-soaked back. “You’re really sick, huh? Do you feel ready to get back to bed?”

“I’m sorry, eomonim”, Seungcheol rasped, feeling awful that he was ruining her sleep and her bathroom, “I didn’t mean to block your bathroom. I wouldn’t have come on the trip if I had known I was sick.”

“Silly boy”, she replied, “it’s alright. My husband and I are just as worried about you as the boys are. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

Seungcheol didn’t know what to reply. He didn’t have a close relationship with her, not as much as other members had. He just felt young and tired and scared.

“Come on, let’s lean back a bit. That hunched position can’t be good for your posture”, she encouraged, unfazed by his silence. She patted his shoulder and gently helped him straighten up, then move backwards. Seungcheol didn’t know how it happened but suddenly he was curled up on the floor, his head in her lap and her arm wrapped around him as far as she could with his much bigger stature. It was as bewildering as it was comforting.

“Eomonim”, he protested tiredly, just on principle. He was too tired and it was too comfy for him to actually try to remove himself from the half-hug. Nevertheless, it was bad enough he had brought sickness into her house, this way she was likely to get sick too. Or thrown up on.

He must have spoken the last parts aloud too, because she shushed him and replied: “Seungcheol-yah, you have been taking care of my baby for the past decade. Let me do something for you in return. Just rest, kiddo.”

If she saw the tears flow down his face she didn’t comment on it. Seungkwan must have gotten his unending kindness from somewhere.

💎

The next time Seungcheol woke up it was to aching abs but a relievingly neutral stomach. He didn’t remember getting back to bed after falling asleep in the bathroom but now he was in bed with the sun shining in between the blinds.

A look at his phone had him realize that it was already past noon and that he had various unread messages.

Seungkwan’s eomma (05:54): Sleep well, sweetheart! Seungkwannie (09:14): Morning, hyung! I hope you feel better. Eomma said you were really sick during the night again. Please take your time to rest <3 Hannie (09:28): Hao texted that you are sick :( I hope you feel better soon, ddaddu! Text me if you need to Dino-baby (09:35): Rest well, hyung! Take all the time you need! Myungho (09:56): You should have woken me 2night, hyungie. Love you, rest please! Seungkwannie (11:58): You’re still asleep, you really must be exhausted ): feel free to go back to sleep if you’re still tired when you wake up. We’ll be downstairs if you want some company tho <3

Seungcheol groaned and stretched. Going back to sleep sounded heavenly and he was very tempted to take up Seungkwan’s offer of sleeping the day away. But it was lonely in the room; he assumed it must be one of Seungkwan’s sisters’ rooms turned into a guest room.

He pushed himself up into a standing position. He still felt shaky and out of sorts and he knew he likely wouldn’t really be up to doing anything that day, all his energy depleted. But he wanted company.

He gripped the railing of the stairs tightly and slowly made his way down into the hallway where he assumed he would find a way to a living room. And indeed, as he rounded the corner behind the stairs he was greeted by an open doorway and the sight of Seungkwan and Dino playing cards with Seungkwan’s appa while Minghao was in deep conversation with Seungkwan’s eomma.

From his position, Seungkwan was the first to spot Seungcheol and he excitedly waved at the older, beckoning him in.

“Hyung, how are you feeling?”, he asked worriedly, causing all of the other room’s occupants to turn to Seungcheol. He flushed under the weight of the combined gazes but cautiously crossed the threshold.

“Better”, he said, “not quite back to normal but much better.”

The two younger members cheered and Minghao grinned brightly. “Come sit, hyung.”

Not even five minutes later, Seungcheol found himself dozing off on Minghao’s lap again.

Masterlist links: Fairy's Full Masterlist Fairy's Masterlist - SEVENTEEN

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 5 months ago

Text

Interesting. Very Interesting. 🤔

"Get your news from people who have a track record of telling the truth, people who do so at significant personal cost like whistleblowers."-Bill Ackman, Democrat Billionaire Hedgefund Manager

"Billionaire hedge fund manager and longtime Democratic Party donor Bill Ackman has blasted the Democrat party and fake news mainstream media outlets for lying and misleading the country about Joe Biden’s health and mental acuity. The White House, mainstream media, and even Biden’s personal physician have continually defended the Biden, insisting he is in good health and fit to serve. DEI White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lashed out at conservative media outlets for circulating what she described as “cheap fake videos” of Joe Biden looking old, feeble, and senile. Joe Biden and Barack Obama appeared on stage together earlier this month at a fundraiser in Los Angeles, California. After the fundraiser wrapped up, Obama had to grab Joe Biden’s hand to lead him off stage. Biden was frozen. Barack Obama treated Biden like a nursing home patient and walked him off stage. Earlier this year, during a routine physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Biden joked about his health status. When asked about his physical examination and what his doctors had to say, he responded, “They think I look too young,” adding that “Everything’s great” regarding his health. Dr. Kevin O’Connor, responsible for evaluating the 81-year-old President, concluded that despite any perceived physical struggles, Biden is “fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.” Notably, the examination did NOT include a cognitive assessment test. The White House was probably scared of the results, knowing they would doom Biden’s re-election bid for good. However, big-time lefty and longtime Democratic donor Bill Ackman, who previously said he was open to voting for Trump, has publicly blasted the Democratic party and mainstream media for misleading the country about Joe Biden’s mental acuity and health."

@BillAckman

As much as last night was an indictment of the Democratic Party for misleading party members and the country about the mental acuity and health of the president, the media deserve far more derision and scorn. I and others were repeatedly criticized by the media for questioning the competency of the president. Among other false accusations, I was accused of spreading misleading videos which clearly showed Biden’s deterioration.

Do you remember the heavily excerpted and edited @POTUS Biden @60Minutes interview where the interviewer covered for the president by saying he was ‘very tired?’ @60Minutes knew. The @nytimes knew. @CNN knew. @MSNBC knew. Left wing media have had total and complete access to the president, his staff, and his administration. They all knew, but they told you otherwise. They outright lied to you. When Robert Hur, the special counsel who deposed the president, said that the president was not fit to stand trial and therefore chose not to bring charges, the media described him as a tool of the Republican Party and character assassinated him. When the @WSJ recently published a several-thousand-word, carefully researched, front page piece on the president’s mental and physical health, it was described by left wing media as outright propaganda. Now consider who has been feeding you propaganda. A favored technique of some of the most evil leaders in history was to mislead the people by constantly repeating the Big Lie. The Big Lie is so audacious that people accept it as truth because it is repeated so often that how can it be that something so important and material could be an outright falsehood? In this case the Big Lie was our president’s fitness for office, let alone a second term. A media organization is not supposed to be a branch of the Democratic Party. The media have a profound obligation to tell the truth to the American people, particularly about something as critical for the country as the president’s mental and physical health. People very close to me, my closest family and friends, trusted the media on Biden until the @CNN commentators finally owned up to the truth about Biden last night. For months I have been accused by many friends and family of being misled by an @X -based ‘right wing echo chamber.’ The sad reality is that one of our most important institutions, the so-called ‘Fourth Estate,’ fourth only after the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners, has destroyed any remaining credibility it has. Consider how your perception of @POTUS Biden and @realDonaldTrump has been manipulated. The media can no longer save itself. A suggestion. Rely on empirical data as much as possible. Listen to what someone actually said, rather than a headline summary or article about what someone said. Get your news from people who have a track record of telling the truth, people who do so at significant personal cost like whistleblowers. I follow broad constituencies on @X on multiple issues. That has led me closer to the truth. Citizen journalism has been a much more accurate representation of reality. Thank you @elonmusk for saving this platform. It gives us a fighting chance to save our democracy.

youtube

#bill ackman #free speech #citizen journalists #deep state #fake news #propaganda #biden's broken brain #elon musk #twitter #free trump #Hunter's laptop #Hillary's emails #dementia joe #joe biden

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127luvr · 1 year ago

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Hey, could you do (if u feel up to it) a platonic NCT Dream x male reader where he feels he doesn't fit into the group (only added in 2019)

Thanks

Best Friend 𓇼 ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ 𓇼

Nct Dream x Male Reader

It was early 2019 when the company announced you were to be added to Nct Dream. The exact date slips your mind more than you would care to admit. Mostly due to the fact that everything seemed too rushed—from Mark’s graduation—to your sudden addition—to the release of the first album as Dream without Mark Lee.

You were never sure if the decision to add you to the group was something the company had planned beforehand or something they came up with on the spot—you were too scared to ask. Nevertheless, fans had the same questions. They were split—half saying that this scheme the company had planned to replace Mark wasn’t going to work—while the other half were defending you. Busy making sure your name wasn’t dragged through the mud just because of the shady planning behind the scenes. None of it was your fault—the graduation system was always something that was on the table for the unit.

Knowing this information and understanding it didn’t stop you from feeling guilty.

Your late addition was awkward at first—having never been in the group when Mark was in it shifted the dynamic. You didn’t have to get used to Jeno being the leader, you were introduced when he was the leader. And although they never consciously made the effort to make you feel excluded, the feeling was still there. It was clear that they were still grieving the loss of their friend in their group—and suddenly here you were. Preparing for their first album without Mark.

After the success of We Boom, you went from being Mark’s replacement to just (Y/s/n). Fans saw you as a proper member now—and while there were still some skeptics, they acknowledged you and your talents. There were no malicious intentions towards you but something still didn’t feel right.

Following Reload, you were tired. It had been over a year since you had been added to the group but the feeling of being a disposable member was still overwhelmingly present. You felt like you were watching the members from afar, as if you were still a trainee admiring them from a screen. So close but never quite close enough to reach out to. There was no point in bringing up your concerns with them—scared of how they’d react to it, considering they have been friends long before you were a part of the company. If one of the members disliked you—it was more than probable that the rest would follow.

When the news broke out that the company was abolishing the graduation system, the group was overjoyed. Of course, you were excited too. You got to experience Mark Lee in the same group that you were in. But as the time quickly came to pass, his addition back into the group made you feel worse. He was everything you envied. Perfect at dancing—at singing—at rapping—at communicating. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

Luckily this came at a time where a full album was being promoted—no one would be able to analyze your interactions with your unit if you were busy in others.

“You’ve been avoiding us.” Sooner or later—you would have had to face your members. You had hoped it would be later. Maybe never, as you would have rather spent your time watching videos on the internet on yourself—how you didn’t fit into the group as a whole—let alone your set unit. But it’s come now, in the form of leader Mark in all his glory. “I know I haven’t been back for long, (Y/n). I know that this has been our first comeback as an eight member group, but something’s off.”

It’s after a live video. The eight of you are sitting in the living room of the large dorms. Jeno, Jaemin, Mark and Jisung all share a couch while Chenle sits on the floor. You share the couch opposite to them with Haechan and Renjun, sitting as far as you could get with your ankles crossed. It’s an uncomfortable silence that follows Mark’s words, all eyes on you while you played with the frayed ends of your sweatshirt.

“(Y/n). We are all a part of this group. Regardless of how long everyone’s known each other, you are a part of this family too.”

“I’ve been waiting so long to hear that.” There are collective gasps that come from around the room. It catches you off guard when you make eye contact with an angry Jaemin. His hard eyes paired with his long eyelashes intimidate you.

“(Y/n), I know you’re entitled to how you feel and this has been such a drastic change for you, but we have been trying with you for over a year. We have gone out of our way to make sure you didn’t feel left out.” You hate how well he’s able to articulate himself even under stress, his words falling on your ears heavily as he continues. “I do want to apologize on behalf of everyone for not noticing how hard you were struggling, we should’ve pieced it together. You never came to us with problems but we also never established that you could. We’re sorry for never giving you verbal communication but you can’t say we didn’t try. We are not a group who has to really say things out loud so we understand each other but you didn’t know that.”

You let yourself inch closer to the members next to you. There was no point in trying to make yourself smaller when the attention was still centered on you. It’s an odd sensation—to think back on the interactions you’ve had with individual members.

They were always there for you—whether it was a simple affirmation from Jeno or an invite to hot pot from either Renjun and Haechan. To them it was small acts to try and ease you into the group—it was sharing water outside of the recording booth in between sessions. It was sharing jackets and pushing their leftovers towards you if they didn’t want anymore.

“Jaemin… Haechan, Renjun, Jeno, Jisung, Chenle,” you make eye contact with each member as you call out their names, trying to express how you felt through your eyes, “Mark. I was too in my own head—thinking about how you guys didn’t like me or want me here that all of the effort you put into making me feel wanted and welcome was ignored.” You couldn’t hold eye contact with Mark anymore, too embarrassed to acknowledge his nod of encouragement.

“We also should apologize.” Jeno’s voice startles you. Even if he was across the room, his voice carried so far it sounded as if he were sitting right next to you. “We should’ve done a better job of noticing that you were struggling.”

“I think if we keep going like this we’ll never stop passing the blame around.” You can’t help but smile at Jisung’s comment, mouthing a small thank you towards Jeno as he elbowedJisung’s side.

“Jisung’s right for once!”

The group erupts in laughter, the scene causing you to chuckle through teary eyes.

“Here’s to new beginnings, guys. We’re a family.” Mark’s eyes never stray from you and for the first time in over a year, you believe those words.

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